Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

Here Geoffrey ensconced himself for several evenings after his return, immersed in his books until long after Jack had knocked out his last pipe and turned in. His manner of taking his holidays had been an episode which was forgotten now if anything arose to divert him, something for him to smile at, but powerless to distract his attention from a good article in the Nineteenth Century.

But he did not visit Margaret for three or four days after his return. When he saw her again, all his better nature came to the fore. He delighted again in the quiet worship he felt for her now that he could see more clearly the beauties of temperate life. "Now," he said, as he stretched himself in his arm-chair one night, after having visited Margaret earlier in the evening, "now, I will soon get married. With Margaret, goodness will not only be practicable, but, I can imagine, even enjoyable." Then, after a while, his mind recurred to his holidays, which seemed to have been a long time ago. He yawned over the subject, and thought it was time to go to bed. "Heigh-ho! I have exhausted the devil and all his works now. He has got nothing more to offer me that I care to accept. Now I have done with risks and worries. If I can only get my money affairs straightened out I'll get married in September. Federal stock is bound to rise, with the new changes in the bank, and then I'll be all right. I'll just let Lewis have my horse and trap. He'll give me more than I paid for them. The seven hundred will wipe out a few things, and then if I can turn myself round again, I'll get married at once."

For several days after this he saw Margaret; and the more he saw of her the more he really longed for the life that seemed best. He was tired of plot and counterplot. As one whose intellect was generally a discerning one, when not clouded by exciting vagaries, he had had, all his life, the idea of enjoying goodness for itself – at some time or other. And entering Margaret's presence seemed like going to a pure spring fountain from which he came away refreshed. She had the quick brain that could skim off the best of his thought and whip it up and present it in a changed and perhaps more pleasing form. Even the look of her hands, the way she held up cut flowers, and delighted in their faintest odors (to him quite imperceptible) showed how much keener and more refined her sensibilities were than his own and made him marvel to find that in some respects she lived in a world wherein it was a physical impossibility for him to enter. As the days wore on in which he daily saw her, he found himself making little sacrifices for her sake, and even practicing a trifle of self-denial. He did things that he knew would please her, and afterward he felt all the healthy glow and ability for virtue which are the essences that gracious deeds distill. "Doing these things makes me better," he said. "This moral happiness is a thing to be worked up. I can not cultivate goodness in the abstract. I must have something tangible – something to understand; and if good deeds pay me back in this sort of way I may yet become, partly through my deeds, what she would wish me to be."

Full of all this, while ruminating late one night, he took it into his head to put it into verse, and he rather liked the simple lines.

TO MARGARETIMy Love! I would Love's true disciple be,That, 'neath the king of teachers' gracious art,Refined sense and thought might be to meThe stepping-stones to lead me to thy heart;That thine own realm of peace I too might share.Where Nature's smallest things show much designTo teach kind thoughts for all that breathe; and where,As music's laws compel by rule divine,Naught but obeying good gives joy and rest;Where thou can'st note the immaterial scentOf thought and thing, which we gross men at bestCan hardly know, with senses often lentTo heavy joys that leave us but to longFor that unknown which makes thyself a song.IIFrom gracious deeds exhale the perfumes rareOf active rest, glad care, and hopeful trustThe soul snuffs these, well pleased, and seems to share,For once, a joy in concord with the dust.Thus simple deeds, through Love, make known th' unknown —That immaterial most substantial gainWhich makes of earth a heaven all its own.And claims from spirit-land no sweeter reign.So, while I learn in thine own atmosphereTo live, guard thou with patience all my ways,For chance compels when weakness rules, and fearOf self brings blackest night unto my days;E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn,And darkness breaks before the blushing morn.

He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language – whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more likely, the song that perfect love sings in the heart has no possible language, but is part of 'the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world,' and to which we have all been trying to put words, in religions and poems.

"In twenty thousand years from now," he said, smiling, "archæologists will be fighting over a discussion as to whether, in these early days, any superstition still existed. Just before they come to blows over the matter my sonnets will be found, produced, and deciphered, and there will be rejoicing on one side to have it proved that at a certain time Anno Domini (an era supposed to refer to one Abraham or Buddha) man still claimed that a local god existed called 'Margaret,' who was evidently worshiped with fervor.

"But certainly," he added, as he read the sonnet for the third time, "their mistake will not be such a palpable one as that about the Song of Solomon."

CHAPTER XX

Never but once to meet on earth again!She heard me as I fled – her eager toneSank on my heart, and almost wove a chainAround my will to link it with her own,So that my stern resolve was almost gone."I can not reach thee! whither dost thou fly?My steps are faint. Come back, thou dearest one!Return, ah me! return!" – The wind passed byOn which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.Shelley, The Revolt of Islam.

After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything from hara-kari to marrying somebody else.

At this time Geoffrey received a note one morning, addressed in Nina's handwriting. He turned pale as he tore it open:

"Dear Mr. Hampstead: I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five o'clock?

"Yours sincerely,

"Mossbank, Tuesday.

"Nina Lindon."

There was nothing very exciting on the face of this line, nothing to create wrath. Yet Geoffrey tore it into shreds as if it had struck him a blow and was dangerous.

When he was shown into the drawing-room at Mossbank that afternoon, he was stepping forward with courteous demeanor and a faint "company smile" on his face, ready to look placidly and innocently upon any people who might be calling at the time. He passed noiselessly over the thick carpets toward the place where Nina was sitting, seeing quickly that there was nobody else in the room, but aware that the servant was probably at the door.

"How-de-do, Miss Lindon?" he said aloud, for the benefit of the inquisitive. "So you have come back to Toronto at last?"

"Yes," said Nina, also with an engaging smile. "And how have you been since I saw you last?" There was a charming inflection in her "company voice" as she said these words. Then, raising her tone a little, she said "Howard."

The servant outside the door took several steps in a circle on the tesselated pavement of the hall to intimate that he approached from afar and then appeared.

"Shut the door, please, Howard," said Nina softly. The man obliterated himself.

As soon as they were alone the heavenly sweetness of the caller and the called upon vanished. Geoffrey's face became grave and his eyes penetrating. He went toward her and took her hand in an effort to be kind, while he looked at her searchingly with a pale face. Nina looked weary and anxious. Neither of them spoke for a while. As Geoffrey regarded her, she turned to him beseechingly with both anxiety and affection in her expression. What he interpreted from the unhappiness of her visage was more than sufficient to disturb his equanimity. He got up and walked silently and quickly twice backward and forward. During this moment his mind apparently made itself up on some point finally, for, as he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, the tension of his face gave place to something more like nonchalance and kindness.

"You have something to tell me?" he said, in tones that endeavored to be kind.

Nina's face – sad, sorrowful, and tearful – bent itself low that she might hide it from his sight. "Yes," she managed to say at last, almost inaudibly.

Geoffrey endeavored to assist her. "Don't say any more," said he. "Bad news, I suppose?"

"The very worst," cried Nina, starting up, her eyes dilating wildly and despairingly with a sudden accession of fear.

"Hush, hush!" said Geoffrey, laying his hand soothingly and kindly on her arm. "You must not give way like that. You must control yourself. We have both of us too much at stake to tell our story to every one who likes to listen. Come and let us sit down and talk things over sensibly."

She gave him a quick look, half reproach, as if to say, "It is easy for you to be calm." But she sat down beside him, holding his coat-sleeve with both hands – hardly knowing what she did.

Hampstead leaned back, crossed his long legs in front of him, and counted the eyelet holes in his boot. Then he took her hand, in order to appear kind and to deal with the matter in an off-hand way.

"As Thackeray says, Nina, 'truly, friend, life is strewn with orange-peel.' Now and then we get a bad tumble; but we always get up again. And I don't think that we ought to allow ourselves to be counted among those weak creatures who most complain of the strength of a temptation that takes at least a year to work up. After all, there is no denying Rochefoucauld's wisdom when he said: 'C'est une espèce de bonheur de connaitre jusques à quel point on doit être malheureux.' I have been in a good many worries one way or another, and I always got out of them. We will get out of this one all right, so cheer up and take heart."

"I don't see how," said Nina, turning her head away and feeling a sudden hope. What was he going to say? Then she recollected that she had lavished a small income on a dress especially for this interview. Perhaps if he had an idea worth the hearing the dress might help it out. She arose, as if absently, and walked to the side window and rested her elbows against the sash in front of her. The attitude was graceful. As she turned half over her shoulder to look back at him she could hardly have appeared to better advantage. Her dress was really magnificent, and it fitted a form that was ideal. In spite of his late resolutions, Geoffrey was affected by the cunningly devised snare. A quick thought came through his head, which he banished about as quickly as it came.

"Well, of course, there is only one thing to be done," said he decisively, in a tone which told her that so far she had failed.

"What is that, dear Geoffrey? Do tell me, for I am very, very miserable. And say it kindly, Geoffrey. Don't be too hard with me now."

As she said this she swept toward him. She sank down beside him and kissed him, and looked up into his face. Again the thought came to him. Here were riches. Here was a woman whose beauty was talked about in every city in Canada, who could be his pride, who cared for him despairingly. If he wished, this mansion and wealth could be his. The delicate perfumes about her seemed to steal into his brain and affect his thought.

An hour ago his resolves for himself had appeared so unchangeable that they seemed of themselves to prop him up. And now he found himself trying, with a brain that refused to assist him, to prop up his resolutions, trying to remember what their best merits had been. One glimmer of an idea was left in him – a purpose to preserve his fealty to Margaret, and he thought that, if he could only get away for a moment to think quietly, he might remember what the best points of his resolutions had been. The perfumes, the beauty, the wealth, the liking he felt for her, the duty he owed to her, and perhaps her concentration upon what she desired – all conspired against him. But, with this part of an idea left to him, he succeeded in being able slightly to turn his head away.

When she asked him again what was to be done there was an unreal decisiveness in his voice as he said:

"Of course, the only thing to be done is for you to immediately marry Jack."

She sprang from him as if he had stabbed her. She was furious with disappointment.

"I will never marry Jack! What a dishonorable thing to propose!"

The idea of dishonor to Jack seemed, for the first time, quite an argument. When the ethics of a matter can be utilized they suddenly seem cogent.

"Very well," said Geoffrey, shrugging his shoulders and rising as if to go away. "My idea was 'any port in a storm' – a poor idea, perhaps, and certainly, as you say, entirely dishonorable, but still feasible. Of course, if you have made up your mind not to marry him, we may as well consider the interview as ended. I'm afraid I have nothing more to suggest."

He did not intend to go away, but he held out his hand as if about to say good-by. She stood half turned away trying to think. The idea of his leaving her to her trouble dazed her. She was terrified to realize that she would be without help.

"Oh, how cruel you are!"

She almost groaned as she spoke. She was in despair. She put her hands to her head hopelessly, her eyes dilated with trouble.

"Don't go yet, Geoffrey." Then she tried to nerve herself for what she had to say. After a pause: "Geoffrey, I can say things to you now, that I could never have said before. I must speak to you fully before you go. I must leave no stone unturned. There is no one to help me, so I must look after myself in what must be said. I went away with you, Geoffrey, because I loved you." She bit her lips to stay her tears and stopped to regain a desperate fortitude. "I cared for you so much that being with you seemed right – nay more, sacred. Oh, it drags me to the dust to speak in this way! But I must. Does not my ruin give me a right to speak? The question of a girl's reticence must be put away. I am forced to do the best I can for myself. And now I say, will you stand by me?" Her head drooped and her hands hung down by her side with shame at the position she forced herself to take when she added: "Will you do me justice, Geoffrey? Will you marry me?"

Hampstead was about to speak, but she knew at once that she had asked too much, and she continued more quickly and more despairingly: "Nay, I won't ask so much. I only ask you to take me away. I am distracted. I don't know what to do. I will do anything. I will be your slave. You need not marry me – only take me away and hide me – somewhere – anywhere – for God's sake, Geoffrey, from my shame – from my disgrace."

She was on her knees before him as she said these last words. If our pleasure-loving acquaintance could have changed places with a galley-slave at that moment he would have done so gladly.

The first thing he did was to endeavor to quiet the wildness of her despair. To be surprised by any person with her on her knees before him in an agony of tears would be a circumstance difficult to explain away.

As soon as he began to talk, it seemed to him a most dastardly thing to sacrifice Margaret's life now to conceal his own wrong-doing. In the light of this idea, Nina's wealth and beauty suddenly became tawdry. Margaret's nobility and happiness suddenly seemed worth dying for. They must not be wrecked in a moment of weakness. As if dispassionately, he laid before Nina the history of their acquaintance, and also his 'other obligations.' Really, it placed him in a very awkward, not to say absurd, position. He wished to do what was right, but did not see his way at all clear. The only way was to efface himself entirely, and consider only what was due to others. Before the world he was engaged to Margaret, and had been so all along. She had his word that he would marry her. If it were only "his word" that had to be broken, that might be done. But was the happiness of Margaret's life to be cast aside? Which, of the two, was the more innocent – which, of the two, had the better right or duty to bear the brunt of the disaster?

The way he effaced his own personality in this discourse was almost picturesque. Justice blindfold, with impartial scales in her hand, was nothing to him.

Nina said no word from beginning to end. All she heard in the discourse was something to show her more and more that what she wished must be given up. It was something to know that at least she had tried every means in her power to move him – feeling that she had a helpless woman's right to do so. And as the deep, kindly tones went on they calmed her and gradually compelled her tacitly and wearily to accept his suggestion, while his ingenuity showed her the sinuous path that lay before her.

At the same time, in spite of all his arguments and her own resolutions, she could not clearly see why she should be the one to suffer instead of Margaret. Margaret had so much more strength of character to assist her. The ability to bear up under sorrow and trouble was a virtue she was ready to acknowledge to be weaker in herself than in others. The confession of this weakness, through self-pity, seemed half a virtue, even though only made to insist upon compensations.

The next day, Jack called by appointment.

"I thought I would just send for you, Jack," said Nina, looking half angry and half smiling. "I felt as if I wanted to give trouble to somebody, and I thought you were the most available person."

"Go ahead, then, old lady. I can stand it. There is nothing a fellow may not become accustomed to."

Jack seated himself in one of Nina's new easy-chairs which yielded to his weight so luxuriously that he thought he would like to get one like it. He felt the softness of the long arms of the chair, and then, regaining his feet, turned it round.

"That's a nice chair, Nina. How much did it put the old man back?"

Nina looked at him inquiringly.

"Cost – you know. How much did it spoil the old man?"

"How do I know? He bought it in New York with a lot of things. Do you suppose I keep an inventory of prices to assist me in conversation?"

"I wish you did. I'd like to get one. But I don't know. When we get married you can hand it out the back gate to me, you know, and then we'll be one chair ahead – and a good one, too."

"I do wish you would leave off referring to getting married," said Nina. And then, "By the way, that is what I wanted to speak to you about – "

Jack smiled. "Be careful," he said. "Don't set me a bad example by referring to the subject yourself."

"Well, I will, for a change. I have been making up my mind to end this way of dragging on existence. This sort of neither-one-thing-nor-the-other has got to end. It wearies me. I am not half as strong as I was. I went away to pick up, and now I am no better."

"And how do you propose to end it?" Jack was surprised at the decision in her voice.

"I propose to break it off all together," said she firmly.

"Of course," said Jack, "there is no other alternative for you but marriage."

Nina was startled at first by these words. But he had only spoken them casually.

"Certainly. A break off or marriage are the only alternatives. Going on like this is what I will not stand any longer."

Jack was shaking in his shoes for fear this was the last of him. He controlled his anxiety, though, and shutting his eyes, he leaned back, supinely, as if he knew that what he said did not matter much. She would do as she liked – no question about that!

"I have, I think, at some previous time," said he, from the recesses of the chair where he was calmly judicial with his eyes shut, "advocated the desirability of marriage. I think I have mentioned the subject before. Of course, this is only an opinion, and not entitled, perhaps, to a great deal of weight."

Nina for the first time in her life was annoyed that Jack was not sufficiently ardent. The unfortunate young man had had cold water thrown over him too many times. He was getting wise. To-day he was keeping out of range. Nina had been decidedly eccentric lately and might give him his congé at any moment. She was evidently in a queer mood still, and, to-day, Jack would give her no chance to gird at him.

This well-trained care on his part bid fair to make things awkward. She saw that it had become necessary to draw him out, and with this object in view she asked carelessly, as if she had been absent-minded and had not heard him:

"What did you say then, Jack?"

"I was merely hinting, delicately, as an outsider might, that, of the two important alternatives, marriage seems to offer you a greater scope for breaking up the ennui of a single life that a mere change from one form of single life to another."

Jack did not see the bait she was holding out. He would not rise to it. Really, it was maddening to have to lead Jack on. He had been "trained down too fine."

"Well, for my part," she said laughingly, with her cheek laid against the soft plush of the sofa, "I don't seem to care now which of the alternatives is adopted."

Jack remained quiet when he heard this. Then he said coolly: "If I were not a wise man, that speech of yours would unduly excite me. But you said you wanted some one to annoy, and I won't give you a chance. If I took the advantage of the possibilities in your words we would certainly have a row. No, old lady, you are setting a trap for me, in order that you may scold afterward. You like having a row with me, but you can't have one to-day. 'Burnt child' – you know."

What could be more provoking than this. Nina, in spite of her troubles, saw the absurdity of her position, and laughed into the plush. But her patience was at an end. She sat upright again and said vehemently:

"Jack Cresswell, you are a born fool!"

He looked up himself, then, from the chair. There was an expression in Nina's face that he had not seen for a long time – a consenting and kind look in her eyes. He got up, slowly, without any haste, still doubtful of the situation; and as he came toward her his breath grew shorter. "I believe I am a fool, but I could not believe what I wished. Is it true, Nina, that you will take me at last?"

"Listen! Come and sit down, boy, and behave yourself."

Jack obeyed mechanically.

She turned around to face him, while she commanded his obedience and gave her directions with finger upraised, as if she were teaching a dog to sit up.

"To-morrow you will call upon my father at his office and ask his consent to our immediate marriage."

"Tell me to do something hard, Nina. I feel rather cooped up, just now. I could spring over that chandelier. I don't mind tackling the old man – that's nothing. Haven't you got some lions' dens that want looking after?"

"You'll feel tired enough when you come out of father's den, I'll warrant."

"I dare say. What if he refuses?"

"Jack," said Nina, "I am an heiress. I dictate to every man but my father. I have always had my own way, and always mean to have it. So, beware! But I don't care, now, whether he refuses or not. I have come to the conclusion that it was this long engagement that worried me, and I am going to end it in short order. I am getting as thin as a scarecrow. My bones are coming through my dress." Nina felt the top of one superbly rounded arm and declared she could feel her collar-bone coming through in that improbable place. "No, I don't care whether he refuses or not. I am going to marry you, Jack, before the end of the week."

Next day Jack found himself not quite so brave as he thought he would be on entering Mr. Joseph Lindon's office. He was ushered into a rather shabby little room, which the millionaire thought was quite good enough for him. He took a pride in its shabbiness. Joseph Lindon, he said, did not have to impress people with brass and Brussels. There was more solid monetary credit in his threadbare carpet than in all the plate glass and gilt of any other establishment in the city.