A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"Do you know him?"

"No, not to my knowledge – seems to know me though!"

"Where can I find you if necessary?"

"Mother Mandarin's."

"Still at that loathsome place? Do go to a decent hotel!"

"I am at one, thank you; but Mother M.'s will be sufficient address for you. I shan't come here again. Good-bye."

In the drawing-room the Major, looking out of the window and twisting his moustache, was indulging in a brown study.

"I've met that man before, or I'm a Dutchman," he mumbled. "'Tisn't a face I should be likely to forget – that red hair and moustache, and those shifty, ferrety eyes; and that scar on the forehead too – that fixes it. Where the deuce was it? Strange I can't place the man for the moment."

His soliloquy was interrupted by the return of Miriam. He did not think it necessary to make any mention to her of what was in his mind. She took her seat beside him and settled down for a chat. It was the first time he had been to see her since her marriage. But he felt in nowise embarrassed, and the pleasure he had always taken in her society came back strongly upon him. It had not taken him many months of married life to discover that he had drawn blank in the matrimonial lottery. And he wondered whether she had been more fortunate. He rather fancied not. He was well aware that he had been caught on the rebound by Mistress Hilda – in fact, that he had let himself go, caring but little with what result. As lord of the manor it was in every way more convenient that he should be married, and although he was by no manner of means a selfish man, his own convenience counted for a good deal with the Major. He had always been accustomed to take life easily. The Manor House and everything with it had come to him most unexpectedly, and more or less it had forced him into matrimony. Since he could not have the wife of his choice, the next best thing he thought was to be the man of his wife's choice. And there was no denying that Hilda was an attractive and in many respects an engaging little lady. So it came to pass.

But with her – Miriam – it had been different. She had married Gerald in preference to himself. To her lot had fallen that which every woman craves – the ability to marry the man of her choice. Yet surely those were lines of care and trouble upon her beautiful face! She did not look happy.

"Now I really think I ought to scold you, Major," she said, "for having kept yourself away so long. Do you know this is the first time you have called upon us since – since we came here? However, now you are here you will stop to luncheon. Gerald will be in directly. He will be so glad to see you and have a chat."

"I don't know so much about that, Mrs. Arkel. You must not misunderstand what I am going to say, but in a manner I took some responsibility in introducing Gerald to his firm. It was not, therefore, very pleasant for me to hear complaints of him when I called there the other day. I had intended dropping in to see you alone one day during the week, but something turned up to prevent me. You know, this sort of thing won't do. Can't you put it to him pretty strongly? You are the only person I know who ever had any influence with him; and they gave me to understand pretty clearly that if it went on Mr. Gerald would have to go."

"My dear Major, I have tried; if you only knew how I have tried. But he is getting beyond me altogether again. I can do nothing with him lately."

"Is he really drinking hard?"

"What he takes would, as he says himself, be nothing to some men. But the least drop makes him like a lunatic. You know what an excitable brain he has."

"I know; I know. I am more than sorry for you, for if you cannot hold him, no one can. What a big mistake it all is. If only – " He checked himself and looked at her, and saw the tears were in her eyes. That was too much for him. "At all events, you know whatever happens I will never see you in any trouble. We are always friends. More than that we might have been if you had – "

She stopped him. "My husband and I are one, and must stand or fall together, Major. I took his life on my shoulders of my own free will. You are more than good; but – " she broke off, and withdrew her hand which he had taken in his. "But come, tell me about Dicky. How is he? – a tremendous boy, I hope. When will you bring him?"

"I shall not bring him at all," replied the Major a trifle resentfully. "Hilda hopes to come with him if it is quite convenient to you to-morrow afternoon."

"Hilda! – well, I shall be delighted to see her, of course. I didn't think for one moment she would care to come – " She stopped suddenly, for the Major had risen abruptly to his feet. "Good gracious, Major, whatever is the matter?"

"I beg your pardon," he said, looking a trifle abashed, "but the fact is – I – I have just remembered where I saw that man. My mind has been running upon him ever since he left the room."

"Man? – what man?"

"Your friend Mr. Maxwell – that is, I hope he is not your friend, Mrs. Arkel, because I feel it is my duty to tell you he is a thorough-paced scoundrel!"

"Major – why, what do you know of him?"

"This, for one thing – he deserted from my regiment six years ago. It will be my duty now to have the scamp arrested."

"No; no – don't do that. I beg of you – I implore you; don't do that!"

"Why, Mrs. Arkel, who – what is this man to you?"

She shook her head, and buried her face in her hands.

"I must tell you; yes, I must tell you," she moaned. "Don't have him arrested, Major, for he is my brother – my unhappy brother!"

CHAPTER III.

MRS. PARSLEY'S PROTÉGÉ

It was with unfeigned amazement that Major Dundas heard Miriam's revelation. He recalled now the man's military career, and he marvelled at her relationship with him only the more as he did so. She would have confided in him further he knew, but at that moment her husband's key grated in the lock, and it was all the distraught woman could do to compose herself.

"Not a word about him to Gerald," she whispered hurriedly. "I can trust you – he knows nothing. I will tell you everything later on." How much later on it was to be Miriam little thought then.

For two years she had enjoyed comparative immunity from trouble – trouble, that is of the kind with which she had for so long been beset. But, heralded by this reappearance of Jabez, there was to come upon her a long list of disasters, following so close one upon the other, that in comparison Jabez and his misdeeds dwindled into insignificance.

"Hullo, Dundas; is it you in the flesh?" said Gerald, shaking the Major by the hand. "How are you? – all right, I hope. And your wife?" Before the Major could answer he had seen Miriam's face in the light. "Why, hullo, old girl, what's up? you've been crying!"

The Major felt a trifle embarrassed, and Miriam flushed as her husband glanced suspiciously from one to the other of them.

"Yes, Gerald, I have been crying about poor little Dicky. Major Dundas seems to fear he will go into a decline. I was so fond of the dear little child. I can't bear to think of his being ill."

"'Gad, you take it to heart a good deal more than his mother does, I'll bet. What's wrong with him, Major?"

"Oh, the child's constitutionally weak. I'm going to take him to Briggs to-morrow – got the greatest faith in Briggs. If he can't put him right none of 'em can. After he's seen him, I'll bring the boy along – in fact, I dropped in to ask your wife if she would be at home. The little chap's dying to see her again."

Advisedly the Major made no mention of Hilda's coming. He knew that if he did so, the office would most certainly not see Gerald all day. And from what he had heard, there had been quite enough of that kind of thing with Mr. Gerald already.

At luncheon they fell to talking of Lesser Thorpe and its shining lights.

"And how is Julia – amiable as ever?" asked Arkel.

"Yes, if anything, rather more so," replied Dundas smiling. "She has, of course, been horribly badly treated according to her own account. It's an extraordinary thing how Julia always is badly treated, and more extraordinary how she not only manages to survive, but actually fattens on it!"

"Jove! I wish I had one half as good a time," grumbled Gerald. "She gets her three hundred a year without doing a hand's turn for it. I've got to slave like a nigger for mine."

"'A judgment on you' says Julia, 'for all your wickedness.'"

"Wickedness? – well, upon my soul, I like that. She's evidently lost none of her feline and back-biting propensities. I wish everyone had done as little in the way of wickedness, as she calls it, as I have – what do you say, Miriam?"

"Well, Gerald; I agree it is not quite the word I should use to describe your shortcomings. Wickedness implies deliberation. No, I don't think your worst enemy could call you deliberately wicked."

"Enemy? I haven't got any, my dear – your husband is the most popular of men."

Miriam made no reply.

"Tell me, Major," she said, "how is Mrs. Parsley? I haven't heard from her for ages. She and I used to be such good friends – she was always kind to me."

"Another old cat," interpolated Gerald.

"Oh, she's much the same," replied the Major; "meddlesome and well-meaning and good-hearted as ever. She's always most happy, you know, when she's got some philanthropic scheme in hand. Her last fad is really funny. She's got hold of a young street Arab, and has taken him in tow. Her idea is, I believe, to educate him and then send him amuck amongst his fellow-Arabs, in the hope that he may exude the Gospel – sort of spreading by contagion idea, you know."

"Lord, that's just like her. Where did she get hold of the urchin?"

"Well, they say she found him begging in the village. Little devil ought to be in a reformatory. I gave him some weeding to do round my place to oblige her, of course, but I couldn't stand the sight of him – preferred the weeds, so I sent him off. But he seems to have got round the old lady properly; and what's more, he's pocketing a good deal of her money, unless I'm very much mistaken. Oh, he's a sharp young beggar!"

"But you don't mean to say she trusts him with money?" asked Miriam. It was not like Mrs. Parsley, as she remembered her, to do that.

"Oh, I suppose the whole affair's a mere trifle. I only mentioned it to show how wrong-headed she is. This sort of indiscriminate charity does such a lot of harm."

"She's as obstinate as a mule," put in Gerald. He hated the vicar's wife, she having snubbed him somewhat severely on one or two occasions. Indeed, it was only to the fact of her having married Gerald that Miriam could put down Mrs. Parsley's neglect of her since she had been in London.

"And what is this precious brat's name?" he asked.

Dundas looked puzzled.

"Upon my word, I don't believe he had a proper name in the first instance. Anyway, if he had, the vicar suppressed it. You know how cracked he is on Hebrew symbolism. Well, I suppose he saw a good chance here of indulging in it, so what do you think he christened the chap? Gideon Anab! Upon my soul he did! Gideon Anab! for a gutter whelp like that!"

"Construe, Major."

"Well, I believe it means 'one who breaks asunder' – so the old man says. I told him to look out for himself, or the chap might try and live up to it. No, by the way, that's the meaning of 'Gideon' only. Anab means thick, round. Well, he is thick and round now – thanks to plenty to eat and nothing to do. Of course the whole thing is perfectly crazy."

Miriam was becoming very nervous. An idea had flashed across her mind which she could in no way get rid of.

"But surely, Major," she said, "the boy had some sort of name when Mrs. Parsley came across him?"

"Yes, I believe he had. Shorty or Snorty, or something like that. However, that's nowhere now. Gideon Anab he is, and Gideon Anab I suppose he will – My dear Mrs. Arkel, are you ill?"

Miriam, her worst suspicions confirmed, had turned deathly pale. It was Shorty then – Shorty at Lesser Thorpe – with Mrs. Parsley. Fate was indeed relentless. He was an iniquitous young scoundrel she knew, and cunning beyond words. And he knew the whole of that black page of her life in London. She wondered had he betrayed her to Mrs. Parsley. Perhaps that was the reason she had not come to see her. She pulled herself together, and put as brave a face on it as she could.

"It is nothing, Major, thank you. The room is a little close, I think. I have been feeling out of sorts all the morning. I think, if you don't mind, I'll go and lie down for a bit."

Gerald glanced sharply at her, and then at Dundas. Like most weak natures he was an easy prey to suspicion. It came strongly upon him now. His wife was much agitated – there was no doubt about that. But the Major seemed perfectly calm and self-possessed. He rose and opened the door for Miriam, and expressed his wish that she would soon be better. Then he returned to the table.

Gerald had it in his mind to remark upon the strangeness of his wife's behaviour. He felt convinced that the Major had something to do with it. And he would not have hesitated to tell him so but for the very weighty reason that he had every intention of getting a cheque out of him before he returned to the country.

"Is your wife with you in town?" he asked.

"Yes, she is with me," replied the Major finitely.

"Are you in rooms?"

"We are at the Soudan Hotel in Guelph Street."

"Ah, it's well to be you. You couldn't do much better than the Soudan. I know it – one of the best tables in town. What the deuce did Providence give me a palate for without the means to satisfy it?"

"Gerald, you've no business to talk like that – it's paltry, not to say the worst of bad form."

"Oh, it's all very well for you from your eminence of five thousand a year; but I tell you what it is, John, I was treated beastly badly by the old man. He always gave me to understand I was to be his heir."

"Well; and he acted up to his promise. It was not his fault that his will was stolen. In that will he did make you his heir."

"If you believe that, you ought to allow me anyhow a thousand a year."

"I don't agree that I ought to allow you anything, strictly speaking. But I certainly would do so if you were a different sort of man. Unfortunately you are not; and to allow you an independent income would simply be to encourage you to drink, and degrade yourself and your unhappy wife."

"It would be nothing of the kind. I won't allow you to speak to me like that, John – even to salve your own conscience. And let me tell you straight, if the day ever comes when that will turns up, I'll have my rights – every penny of them. So you know."

"In such circumstances I would not attempt to deprive you of them. You would be dead within the year – or locked up. Look here, Gerald, you know I'm not a man to mince my words. When you married Miriam Crane, you married a woman in a thousand. What have you been to her? Have you made her a decent husband? For a time, I grant, you kept pretty straight, and did your work well, but now you are drifting back to your old tricks as fast as you jolly well can. Only the other day, when I was in the city and dropped in to see Crichton at the office, he was complaining to me about you – "

"It's like his damned impudence," retorted Gerald at white heat. "For two pins I'd chuck him and his beastly office, and clear out."

"And live on your wits, I suppose, or on your wife. You're quite capable of it."

Things were not going to Gerald's liking at all. The cheque he had promised himself was vanishing rapidly. So he made no retort to the Major's last remark, and submitted with the best grace he could muster, to the lecture that warrior did not hesitate to administer to him. Then, having promised and vowed everything that was demanded of him in the future, he made so bold as to ask for a trifle of fifty pounds, and was straightway refused.

The Major had been subject to discipline all his life, and was not one to relax it, more especially in the case of such a man as his cousin. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was a precept upon which he had always laid the greatest stress. Gerald had been spared – and spoiled.

From the bottom of his heart he pitied Miriam. "How awfully things have gone askew," he said to himself, as he spun east in a quick-going hansom. What would he not give to be in that young rascal's shoes – yes, even without the Manor House and its five thousand a year.

By the time he reached the Soudan Hotel he was getting horribly sentimental. But he looked with confidence to his wife to dispel all weakness of that sort. Where Hilda was, he knew, sentiment could not be.

He dismissed his cab, and inquired if his wife was at home. He was somewhat surprised to hear that she was not. He presumed she must have gone to pay a call. But the porter informed him that a boy was waiting to see him – a boy, who it appeared, had called already once or twice during the week when he had been out. He had not the least idea who it could be, the genus puer being one in nowise affected by the Major. However, he would seem to be a youth of no little pertinacity, so he gave orders for him to be shown in.

A few moments later the lad appeared – a short, squat, leering creature, somewhere in his teens, and clothed in a tweed suit of aggressively severe design. There was upon his face an expression of extreme sanctimony, which was horribly repellent to the Major. He recognised him at once as Gideon Anab, alias Shorty.

"Well, what is it?" he asked sharply. "What can I do for you, lad?"

"I ain't arter you're doin' nuffin' fur me, sir; but I ken do a 'eap fur you!"

"What the deuce do you mean, you – ?"

Shorty glanced at the door to make sure that it was fast closed. Then he shifted nervously from one leg to the other, and finally his facial muscles began to describe what he evidently intended for a smile. It was a very weird achievement, and for the moment quite disturbed the Major.

"Well, I ken put yer on a lay as you'll be glad to get a 'old of, Mister Major!"

"Go on, explain yourself – out with it, or I'll out with you; quick! if you've anything to say."

"Guess I 'ave, if I'm treated proper. P'r'aps yer don't know as I was down at that there village when the old 'un was scragged that time? Well, I wos, guvnor, and wot's more, I wus round 'bout the 'ouse on that night, 'cos it wos Chris'mus time, and I wos bloomin' 'ungry, and yer see there's of'en times some pickin's to be 'ad about big 'ouses at them times – "

"Go on, go on!" urged the Major, getting excited. "You know who did it?"

"No I don't, guvnor; but I know who cobbed that there will!"

The Major sat back in his chair. This was not what he had expected. In a flash he saw his position.

"Who was it?" he demanded harshly of the boy.

"No yer don't, sir, yer not goin' to git it that way. It's worth summat, my little bit o' noos!"

"You young devil you! here take this." He took from his pocket a five-pound note and held it out The boy clutched at it eagerly. Then he leaned forward and whispered hoarsely in the Major's ear a name, the mention of which secured for him as thorough a shaking as he had ever experienced in his eventful life.

"You young liar!" cried the enraged soldier; "say that again, and I'll break every bone in your wretched body!"

"S'elp me, it's true, guvnor," gasped Shorty when he could get his breath, "I seed 'er grab it!"

CHAPTER IV.

DICKY'S DISCOVERY

The name whispered by the unhappy Shorty into the Major's ear was that of Mrs. Dacre Darrow – or, to use his peculiar phonetic variation of it – "Mrs. Darrer." As has been related its effect upon the Major was immediate, and fraught with, to Shorty, very tangible consequences. The sound of his cousin's name in the boy's mouth had upset his equanimity altogether for the moment. But the expenditure of his indignation physically, upon that very ample frame, soon brought the Major into a calmer state of mind, and resulted eventually in recourse to less forcible methods on his part. He came to the conclusion that for a time at least verbal tactics might prove of vastly more advantage to himself. So he released the boy, and submitted him instead to the fire of cross-examination. And from the look of relief on Shorty's face, he was quick to appreciate the change.

Not for one moment did the Major believe there was any truth in the accusation brought against his cousin. He had no high opinion of her, to be sure, but he felt quite certain that she would never stoop to an act of this kind. Besides, even granting that her sense of moral rectitude were sufficiently flexible to allow of such a lapse on her part, he failed to see what motive she could have had. She must be aware that even to suppress the existence of this will would be to put herself within reach of the law.

But Shorty held firmly to his story of that night. Seeing a light in the library he had gone on to the terrace, and the blind being up, he had been able to see into the room without himself being seen.

"And you say Mr. Barton was alive then?" queried the Major.

"Oh, the ole cove wer' alive right enough then – I seed 'im go out o' the room an' leave a long paper – that wer' the will – on the table."

"And how, pray, do you come to know a will when you see one?"

"I didn't know wot it was then, but a'rterwards Mrs. Parsley, she told me as 'ow a will 'ad been nabbed, an' it didn't take me long to twig as 'ow it must ha' been that paper wot I saw Mrs. Darrer bone. She slipped into the room jest as the ole cove 'ad gone out – then 'er eye catches the paper on the table, an' she gives a kind o' jump, an' begins a-readin' of it. An' lorksy, didn't she look mad when she'd read a bit! Then she slips it somewhere in the stern of 'er, an' clears out. I thought then as 'ow it were about time I cleared out too, so I hooked it down the steps, and back through the medder that way."

"What time was this?"

"Oh, arter supper – leastways I s'pose it wer' supper. I'd seen yer all eatin' an' drinkin' 'bout 'alf a hour before, an' it dudn't make me feel no better, I kin tell yer!"

Dundas reflected. It was just possible the boy was speaking truth. He remembered how Barton had shut himself up in the library while he and the other men had had their smoke in the dining-room. It was quite possible that Julia should have dropped into the room just as he had described. But what could there be in the will to cause her to purloin it? – a revocation of the clause relating to her income? Surely not. He continued to question Shorty.

"Did the old gentleman enter the room again after that?"

"Well, as I tell yer, I cleared out, sir. I never thought no more about it till I 'eard as 'ow a will had been prigged, and as 'ow you 'ad got the tin wot t'other cove ought to 'ave 'ad. Then o' course I seed 'ow it was, so I thought I'd just come 'ere an' – "

"Do a little blackmailing, eh?"

"No, sir, only I thought as 'ow 'twould be worth a tip to 'ave yer mind made easy like. 'Tain't much of a tip though as yer've parted with – strikes me I'd do better to go now to t'other cove, an' see what 'e's got to say!"

"Look here, you young blackguard, not another penny do you get from me, do you understand? And I'll take very good care that Mrs. Parsley knows the sort of scamp you are. Now clear out of this!" thundered the Major, bringing down his cane on the table, "or I'll give you as sweet a hiding as you ever had in your life."

At this Gideon Anab made a hasty exit. He had no fancy for any further chastisement at the hands of the irate Major. After all a fiver with a whole skin was better than nothing with a damaged one, and he had a very shrewd idea that that was how it would be with him if he remained. So he left the Major to reflect on his position.

It was not a pleasant one which ever way he looked at it. On the one hand he was liable at any moment to lose everything by the production of the lost will; on the other he was placed in the position of compounding a felony, or at least of retaining and enjoying what he knew was not his to enjoy. If he took what he held to be the only right course open to him the result would be very far reaching. For himself he did not care so much, although he was in nowise insensible to the difference between some five hundred – which was the amount of his private means – and five thousand a year. But he really did not like to think what the effect would be upon Hilda, when that young lady was called upon to give up all that she had schemed for – he knew well by this time that she had schemed for it. And upon Miriam too this reversal of fortune would fall hardly, since it would mean the speedy and inevitable degradation of her husband. As he turned all this over in his mind, he was sorely tempted for her sake and for his wife's to leave things as they were.