This Man's Wife

Bayle hesitated a moment, and then mastered his dislike. “Come,” he said to Hallam, “there must be no whisper of this trouble in the town. I will walk down with you to your house.”

“As my gaoler?” said Hallam with a sneer.

“As another proof of what I am ready to sacrifice to save you,” said Bayle. He walked with him as far as his door.

“Stop a moment,” said Hallam in a whisper. “You will do this for me, Bayle?”

“I have told you I would,” replied the curate coldly. “And at once?”

“At once.”

“You will have to bring me the money. No, you must go up to town with me, and we can redeem the papers. It will be better so.”

“As you will,” said Bayle. “I have told you that I will help you, will put myself at your service. I will let you know when I can be ready. Rest assured I shall waste no time in removing as much of this shadow as I can from above their heads.”

He met Hallam’s eyes as he spoke, just as the latter had been furtively Measuring, as it were, his height and strength, and then they parted.

End of Volume One.

Volume Two – Chapter Nine.

A Few Words on Love

“What has papa been doing in the lumber-room, mamma?” asked Julia that same evening.

“Examining some of the old furniture there, my dear,” said Millicent, looking up with a smile. “I think he is going to have it turned into a play-room for you.”

“Oh!” said Julia indifferently; and she turned her thoughtful little face away, while her mother rose with the careworn look that so often sat there, giving place to the happy, maternal smile that came whenever she was alone with her child.

“Why, Julie darling, you seem so quiet and dull to-night. Your little head is hot. You are not unwell, dear?”

She knelt down beside the child, and drew the soft little head to her shoulder, and laid her cheek to the burning forehead.

“That is nice,” said the child, with a sigh of content. “Oh! mamma, it does do me so much good. My head doesn’t ache now.”

“And did it ache before?”

“Yes, a little,” said the child thoughtfully, and turning up her face, she kissed the sweet countenance that was by her side again and again. “I do love you so, mamma.”

“Why of course you do, my dear.”

“I don’t think I love papa.”

“Julie!” cried Millicent, starting from her as if she had been stung. “Oh I my child, my child,” she continued, with passionate energy, “if you only knew how that hurts me. My darling, you do – you do love him more than you love me.”

Julia shook her head and gazed back full in her mother’s eyes, as Millicent held her back at arm’s length, and then caught her to her breast, sobbing wildly.

“I do try to love him, mamma,” said the child, speaking quickly, in a half-frightened tone; “but when I put my arms round his neck and kiss him he pushes me away. I don’t think he loves me; he seems so cross with me. But if it makes you cry, I’m going to try and love him ever so much. There.”

She kissed her mother with all a child’s effusion, and nestled close to her.

“He does love you, my darling,” said Millicent, holding the child tightly to her, “as dearly as he loves me, and I’m going to tell you why papa looks so serious sometimes. It is because he has so many business cares and troubles.”

“But why does papa have so many business cares and troubles?” said the child, throwing back her head, and beginning to toy with her mother’s hair.

“Because he has to think about making money, and saving, so as to render us independent, my darling. It is because he loves us both that he works so hard and is so serious.”

“I wish he would not,” said the child. “I wish he would love me ever so instead, like Mr Bayle does. Mamma, why has not Mr Bayle been here to-day?”

“I don’t know, my child; he has been away perhaps.”

“But he did walk to the door with papa, and then did not come in.”

“Maybe he is busy, my dear.”

“Oh! I do wish people would not be busy,” said the child pettishly, “it makes them so disagreeable. Thibs is always being busy, and then oh! she is so cross.”

“Why, Julie, you want people always to be laughing and playing with you.”

“No, no, mamma, I like to work sometimes – with Mr Bayle and learn, and so I do like the lessons I learn with you. You never look cross at me, and Mr Bayle never does.”

“But, my darling, the world could not go on if people were never serious. Why, the sun does not always shine: there are clouds over it sometimes.”

“But it’s always shining behind the clouds, Mr Bayle says.”

“And so is papa’s love for his darling shining behind the clouds – the serious looks that come upon his face,” cried Millicent. “There, you must remember that.”

“Yes,” said the child, nodding, and drawing two clusters of curls away from her mother’s face to look up at it laughingly and then kiss her again and again. “Oh! how pretty you are, mamma! I never saw any one with a face like yours.”

“Silence, little nonsense talker,” cried Millicent, with her face all happy smiles and the old look of her unmarried life coming back as she returned the child’s caresses.

“I never did,” continued Julia, tracing the outlines of the countenance that bent over her, with one rosy finger. “Grandma’s is very, very nice, and I like grandpa’s face, but it is very rough. Mamma!”

“Well, my darling.”

“Does papa love you very, very much?”

“Very, very much, my darling,” said her mother proudly.

“And do you love him very, very much?”

“Heaven only knows how dearly,” said Millicent in a deep, low voice that came from her heart.

“But does papa know too?”

“Why, of course, my darling.”

“I wish he would not say such cross things to you sometimes.”

“Yes, we both wish he had not so much trouble. Why, what a little babbler it is to-night! Have you any more questions to ask before we go up and fetch papa down and play to him?”

“Don’t go yet,” cried the child. “I like to talk to you this way, it’s so nice. I say, mamma, do people get married because they love one another?”

“Hush, hush! what next?” said Millicent smiling, as she laid her hand upon the child’s lips. “Of course, of course.”

Julie caught the hand in hers, kissed it, and held it fast.

“Why does not Mr Bayle love some one?”

A curious, fixed look came over Millicent’s face, and she gazed down at her babbling child in a half-frightened way.

“He will some day,” she said at last.

“No, he won’t,” said the child, shaking her head and looking very wise.

“Why, what nonsense is this, Julie?”

“I asked him one day when we were sitting out in the woods, and he looked at me almost like papa does, and then he jumped up and laughed, and called me a little chatterer, and made me run till I was out of breath. But I asked him, though.”

“You asked him?”

“Yes; I asked him if he would marry a beautiful lady some day, as beautiful as you are, and he took me in his arms and kissed me, and said that he never should, because he had got a little girl to love – he meant me. And oh! here’s papa: let’s tell him. No, I don’t think I will. I don’t think he likes Mr Bayle.”

Millicent rose from her knees as Hallam entered the room, looking haggard and frowning. He glanced from one to the other, and then caught sight of himself in the glass, and saw that there was a patch as of lime or mortar upon his coat.

He brushed it off quickly, being always scrupulously particular about his clothes, and then came towards them.

“Send that child away,” he said harshly. “I want to be quiet.”

Millicent bent down smiling over the child and kissed her.

“Go to Thisbe now, my darling,” she whispered; “but say good-night first to papa, and then you will not have to come to him again. Perhaps he may be out.”

The child’s face became grave with a gravity beyond its years. It was the mother’s young face repeated, with Hallam’s dark hair and eyes.

She advanced to him, timidly putting out her hand, and bending forward with that sweetly innocent look of a child ready so trustingly to give itself into your arms as it asks for a caress.

“Good-night, papa dear,” she cried in her little silvery voice.

“Good-night, Julie, good-night,” he said abruptly; and he just patted her head, and was turning away, when he caught sight of the disappointed, troubled look coming over her countenance, paused half wonderingly, and then bent down and extended his hands to her.

There was a quick hysteric cry, a passionate sob or two, and the child bounded into his arms, flung her arms round his neck, and kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his eyes again and again, in a quick, excited manner.

Hallam’s countenance wore a look of half-contemptuous doubt for a moment, as he glanced at his wife, and then the good that was in him mastered the ill. His face flushed, a spasm twitched it, and clasping his child to his breast, he held her there for a few moments, then kissed her tenderly, and set her down, her hair tumbled, her eyes wet, but her sweet countenance irradiated with joy, as, clasping her hands, she cried out:

“Papa loves – he loves me, he loves me! I am so happy now.”

Then half mad with childish joy, she turned, kissed her hands to both, and bounded out of the room.

Volume Two – Chapter Ten.

Husband and Wife

There was a momentary silence, and then as the door closed, Millicent laid her hands upon her husband’s shoulders, and gazed tenderly in his face.

“Robert, my own!” she whispered.

No more; her eyes bespoke the mother’s joy at this breaking down of the ice between father and daughter. Then a look of surprise and pain came into those loving eyes, for Hallam repulsed her rudely.

“It is your doing, yours, and that cursed parson’s work. The child has been taught to hate me. Curse him! He has been my enemy from the very first.”

“Robert – husband! Oh, take back those words!” cried Millicent, throwing herself upon his breast. “You cannot mean it. You know I love you too well for that. How could you say it!”

She clung to him for a few moments, gazing wildly in his face, and then she seemed to read it plainly.

“No, no, don’t speak,” she cried tenderly. “I can see it all. You are in some great trouble, dear, or you would not have spoken like that. Robert, husband, I am your own wife; I have never pressed you for your confidence in all these money troubles you have borne; but now that something very grave has happened, let me share the load.”

She pressed him back gently to a chair, and, overcome by her earnest love, he yielded and sank back slowly into the seat. The next instant she was at his knees, holding his hands to her throbbing breast.

“No, I don’t mean what I said,” he muttered, with some show of tenderness; and a loving smile dawned upon Millicent’s careworn face.

“Don’t speak of that,” she said. “It was only born of the trouble you are in. Let me help you, dear; let me share your sorrow with you. If only with my sympathy there may be some comfort.”

He did not answer, but sat gazing straight before him.

“Tell me, dear. Is it some money trouble? Some speculation has failed?”

He nodded.

“Then why not set all those ambitious thoughts aside, dear husband?” she said, nestling to him. “Give up everything, and let us begin again. With the love of my husband and my child, what have I to wish for? Robert, we love you so dearly. You, and not the money you can make, are all the world to us.”

He looked at her suspiciously, for there was not room in his narrow mind for full faith in so much devotion. It was more than he could understand, but his manner was softer than it had been of late, as he said:

“You do not understand such things.”

“Then teach me,” she said smiling. “I will be so apt a pupil. I shall be working to free my husband from the toils and troubles in which he is ensnared.”

He shook his head.

“What, still keeping me out of your heart, Rob!” she whispered, with her eyes beaming love and devotion. Then, half-playfully and with a tremor in her voice, “Robert, my own brave lion amongst men, refuse the aid of the weak mouse who would gnaw the net?”

“Pish, you talk like a child,” he cried contemptuously. “Net, indeed!” and in his insensate rage, he piled his hatred upon the man who had stepped in to save him. “But for that cursed fellow, Bayle, this would not have happened.”

“Robert, darling, you mistake him. You do not know his heart. How true he is! If he has gone against you in some business matter, it is because he is conscientious and believes you wrong.”

“And you side with him, and believe too?”

“I?” she cried proudly. “You are my husband, and whatever may be your trouble, I stand with you against the world.”

“Brave girl!” he cried warmly; “now you speak like a true woman. I will trust you, and you shall help me. I did not think you had it in you, Milly. That’s better.”

“Then you will trust me?”

“Yes,” he said, raising one hand to his face, and beginning nervously to bite his nails. “I will trust you; perhaps you can help me out of this cursed trap.”

“Yes, I will,” she cried. “I feel that I can. Oh, Robert, let it be always thus in the future. Treat me as your partner, your inferior in brain and power, but still your helpmate. I will toil so hard to make myself worthy of my husband. Now tell me everything. Stop! I know,” she cried; “it is something connected with the visits of that Mr Crellock, that man you helped in his difficulties years ago.”

“I helped? Who told you that?”

She smiled.

“Ah! these things are so talked of. Mrs Pinet told Miss Heathery, and she came and told me. I felt so proud of you, dear, for your unselfish behaviour towards this man. Do you suppose I forget his coming on our wedding-day, and how troubled you were till you had sent him away by the coach?”

“You said nothing?”

“Said nothing? Was I ever one to pry into my husband’s business matters? I said to myself that I would wait till he thought me old enough in years, clever enough in wisdom, to be trusted. And now, after this long probation, you will trust me, love?”

He nodded.

“And your troubles shall grow less by being shared. Now tell me I am right about it. Your worry is due to this Mr Crellock?”

“Yes,” he said in a low voice.

“I knew it,” she cried. “You have always been troubled when he came down, and when you went up to town. I knew as well as if you had told me that you had seen him when you went up. There was always the same harassed, careworn look in your eyes; and Robert, darling, if you had known how it has made me suffer, you would have come to me for consolation, if not for help.”

“Ah! yes, perhaps.”

“Now go on,” she said firmly, and rising from her place by his knees, she took a chair and drew it near him.

“There,” she said smiling; “you shall see how business-like I will be.”

He sat with his brow knit for a few minutes, and then drew a long breath.

“You are right,” he said. “Stephen Crellock is mixed up with it. You shall know all. And mind this, whatever people may say – ”

“Whatever people may say!” she exclaimed contemptuously.

“I am innocent; my hands are clean.”

“As if I needed telling that,” she said with a proud smile. “Now I am waiting, tell me all.”

“Oh, there is little to tell,” he said quickly. “That fellow Crellock, by his plausible baits, has led me into all kinds of speculations.”

“I thought so,” she said to herself.

“I failed in one, and then he tempted me to try another to cover my loss; and so it went on and on, till – ”

“Till what?” she said with her eyes dilating; and a chill feeling of horror which startled her began to creep to her heart.

“Till the losses were so great that large sums of money were necessary, and – ”

“Robert!”

“Don’t look at me in that way, Milly,” he said, with a half-laugh, “you are not going to begin by distrusting me?”

“No, no,” she panted.

“Well, till large sums were necessary, and the scoundrel literally forced me to raise money from the bank.”

She felt the evil increasing; but she forced it away with the warm glow of her love.

“I’ve been worried to death,” he continued, “to put these things straight, and it is this that has kept me so poor.”

“Yes, I see,” she cried. “Oh, Robert, how you must have suffered!”

“Ah! Yes! I have,” he said; “but never mind that. Well, I was getting things straight as fast as I could; and all would now have been right again had not Bayle and his miserable jackal, Thickens, scented out the trouble, and they have seized me by the throat.”

“But, Robert, why not clear yourself? Why not go to Sir Gordon? He would help you.”

“Sir Gordon does not like me. But there, I have a few days to turn myself round in, and then all will come right; but if – ”

He stopped, and looked rather curiously.

“Yes?” she said, laying her hand in his.

“If my enemies should triumph. If Bayle – ”

“If Mr Bayle – ”

“Silence!” he said. “I have told you that this man is my cruel enemy. He has never forgiven me for robbing him of you.”

“You did not rob him,” she said tenderly. “But are you not mistaken in Mr Bayle?”

“You are, in your sweet womanly innocency and trustfulness. I tell you he is my enemy, and trying to hound me down.”

“Let me speak to him.”

“I forbid it,” he cried fiercely. “Choose your part. Are you with me or the men whom I know to be my enemies? Will you stand by me whatever happens?”

“You know,” she said, with a trustful smile in her eyes.

“That’s my brave wife,” he said. “This is better. If my enemies do get the better of me – if, for Crellock’s faults, charges are brought against me – if I am by necessity forced to yield, and think it better to go right away from here for a time – suddenly – will you come?”

“And leave my mother and father?”

“Are not a husband’s claims stronger? Tell me, will you go with me?”

“To the world’s end, Robert,” she cried, rising and throwing her arms about his neck. “I am glad that this trouble has come.”

“Glad?”

“Yes, for it has taught you at last the strength of your wife’s love.”

He drew her to his heart, and kissed her, and there she clung for a time.

“Now listen,” he said, putting her from him. “We must be business-like.”

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“The old people must not have the least suspicion that we have any idea of leaving.”

“Might I not bid them good-bye?”

“No. That is, if we left. We may not have to go. If we do, it must be suddenly.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You must wait.”

Just then the door opened, and Thisbe appeared.

“There’s a gentleman to see you, sir – that Mr Crellock.”

“Show him in my study, and I’ll come.”

Thisbe disappeared, and Millicent laid her hand upon her husband’s arm.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly. “I know how to deal with him now. Only trust me, and all shall be well.”

“I do trust you,” said Millicent, and she sat there with a face like marble, listening to her husband’s step across the hall, and then sat patiently for hours, during which time the bell had been rung for the spirit stand and hot water, while the fumes of tobacco stole into the room.

At last there were voices and steps in the hall; the front door was opened and closed, and as Millicent Hallam awoke to the fact that she had not been up to see her child since she went to bed, and that it was nearly midnight, Hallam entered the room, looking more cheerful, and crossing to her he took her in his arms.

“Things are looking brighter,” he said. “We have only to wait. Now, mind this – don’t ask questions – it is better that I should not go to the bank for a few days. I am unwell.”

Millicent looked at him hard. Certainly his eyes were sunken, and for answer, as she told herself that he must have suffered much, she bowed her head.

Volume Two – Chapter Eleven.

Getting Near the Edge

“Quite out of the question,” said James Thickens.

“But what is there to fear?”

“I don’t know that there is anything to fear,” said Thickens dryly. “What I know is this, and I’ve thought it over. You are not going up to town with him, but by yourself, to get this money – if you still mean it.”

“I still mean it! There, go on.”

“Well, you will go up, and sign what you have to sign, get this money in notes, and bring it down yourself.”

“But Hallam will think it so strange – that I mistrust him.”

“Of course he will. So you do; so do I. And after thinking this matter over, I am going to have that money deposited here, and I’m going to redeem the bonds and deeds myself, getting all information from Hallam.”

“But this will be a hard and rather public proceeding.”

“I don’t know about hard, and as to public, no one will know about it but we three, for old Gemp will not smell it out. He is down with the effects of a bad seizure, and not likely to leave his bed for days.”

“But, Thickens – ”

“Mr Bayle, I am more of a business man than you, so trust me. You are making sacrifice enough, and are not called upon to study the feelings of one of the greatest scoundrels – ”

“Oh! hush! hush!”

“I say it again, sir – one of the greatest scoundrels that ever drew breath.”

Bayle frowned, and drew his own hard.

“I don’t know,” he said, “that I shall care to carry this money – so large a sum.”

“Nonsense, sir, a packet of notes in a pocket-book. These things are comparative. When I was a boy I can remember thinking ninepence a large amount; now I stand on a market day shovelling out gold and fingering over greasy notes and cheques, till I don’t seem to know what a large sum is. You take my advice, go and get it without saying a word to Hallam; and I tell you what it is, sir, if it wasn’t for poor Mrs Hallam and that poor child, I should be off my bargain, and go to Sir Gordon at once.”

“I will go and get the money without Hallam, Thickens; but as I undertook to go with him, I shall write and tell him I have gone.”

“Very well, sir, very well. As you please,” said Thickens; “I should not: but you are a clergyman, and more particular about such things than I am.”

Bayle smiled, and shook hands, leaving Thickens looking after him intently as he walked down the street.

“He wouldn’t dare!” said Thickens to himself thoughtfully. “He would not dare. I wish he had not been going to tell him, though. Humph! dropping in to see poor old Gemp because he has had a fit.”

He paused till he had seen Bayle enter the old man’s house, and then went on muttering to himself.

“I never could understand why Gemp was made; he never seems to have been of the least use in the world, though, for the matter of that, idlers don’t seem much good. Hah! If Gemp knew what I know, there’d be a crowd round the bank in half-an-hour, and they’d have Hallam’s house turned inside out in another quarter. I don’t like his telling Hallam about his going,” he mused. “It’s a large sum of money, though I made light of it, and the mail’s safe enough. We’ve about got by the old highwayman days, but I wish he hadn’t told him, all the same.”

Meanwhile the curate had turned in at Gemp’s to see how the old fellow was getting on.

“Nicedly, sir, very nicedly,” said the woman in charge; “he’ve had a beautiful sleep, and Doctor Luttrell says he be coming round to his senses fast.”

Poor old Gemp did not look as if he had been progressing nicely, but he seemed to recognise his visitor, and appeared to understand a few of his words.

But not many, for the old man kept putting his hand to his head and looking at the door, gazing wistfully through the window, and then heaving a heavy sigh.

“Oh, don’t you take no notice o’ that, sir,” said the woman; “that be only his way. He’s been used to trotting about so much that he feels it a deal when he is laid up, poor old gentleman; he keeps talking about his money, too, sir. Ah, sir, it be strange how old folks do talk about their bit o’ money when they’re getting anigh the time when they won’t want any of it more.”

And so on till the curate rose and left the cottage.

That night he was on his way to London, after sending a line to Hallam to say that upon second thoughts he had considered it better to go up to town alone.

Three days passed with nothing more exciting than a few inquiries after Hallam’s health, the most assiduous inquirer being Miss Heathery, who called again on the third evening.