A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories

"But how can I go and leave you alone in a hotel?" he said.

"My dear, I am going to bed," she replied, which was unanswerable. And after many attempts to know more, and many requests to be allowed to go to his father, Horace at last yielded, dressed, and went off to the early dinner which precedes a play. He had brought his dress clothes with him, though there had been so little time for feasting, confident that even a few days in London must bring pleasure of some kind. And already the utterly absurd suggestion that his father and mother could have had a deadly quarrel began to lose its power in his mind. It was impossible. His mother was worn out, and had been irritable; and his father, especially when he had a touch of gout, was, as Horace well knew, irritable also. To-morrow all that would have blown away, and they would both be ashamed of themselves. Thus he consoled himself as he went out; and as the youth never had known what family strife or misfortune meant, and in his heart felt anything of the kind to be impossible, it did not take much to drive that incomprehensible spectre away.

Mrs Lycett-Landon was at length left alone to deal with it by herself. What was she to do? She had a fire lighted in the blank room, though it was the height of summer, for agitation and misery had made her cold, and sat over it trembling, and trying to collect her thoughts. Oh, if it could be but possible to do nothing, to say no word to any one, to forget the episode of this morning altogether! "If I had not known," she said to herself, "it would have done me no harm." This modern Eleanor, who had fallen so innocently into Rosamond's bower, had no thought of vengeance in her heart. She had no wish to kill or injure the unhappy girl who had come between her and her husband. What good would that do? Were Rosamond made an end of in a moment, how would it change the fact? What could ever alter that? The ancients did not take this view of the subject. They took it for granted that when the intruder was removed life went on again in the same lines, and that nothing was irremediable. But to Mrs Lycett-Landon life could never go on again. It had all come to a humiliating close; confusion had taken the place of order, and all that had been, as well as all that was to be, had grown suddenly impossible. Had she not stopped herself with an effort, her troubled mind would have begun again that painful refrain which had filled her mind in the morning, which was perhaps better than the chaos which now reigned there. So far as he was concerned she could still wonder and question, but for herself everything was shattered. She could neither identify what was past nor face what was to come. Everything surged wildly about her, and she found no footing. What was to be done? These words intensify all the miseries of life – they make death more terrible, since it so often means the destruction of all settled life for the living, as well as the end of mortal troubles for the dead – they have to be asked at moments when the answer is impossible. This woman could find no reply as she sat miserable over her fire. She was not suffering the tortures of jealousy, nor driven frantic with the thought that all the tenderness which ever was hers was transferred to another. Perhaps her sober age delivered her from such reflections; they found no place at all in the tumult of her thoughts; the questions involved to her were wholly different: what she was to do; how she was to satisfy her children without shaming their youth and her own mature purity of matronhood which had protected them from any suggestion of such evil? How they were ever to be silenced and contented without overthrowing for ever in their minds their father and the respect they owed him? This was the treble problem which was before her – by degrees the all-absorbing one which banished every other from her thoughts. What could she say to Horace and Milly? How were they to be kept from this shame? Had they been both boys or both girls, it seemed to their mother that the question would have been less terrible; but boy and girl, young man and young woman, how were they ever to be told? How were they to be deceived and not told? Their mother's powers gave way and all her strength in face of this question. How was she to do it? How was she to refrain from doing it? That pretext of a quarrel, how was it to be kept up? and in what other way – in what other way, oh heaven! was she to explain to them that their father and she could meet under the same roof no more? She covered her face with her hands, and wept in the anguish of helplessness and incapacity; then dried her eyes, and tried again to plan what she could do. Oh that she had the wings of a dove, that she might flee away and be at rest! – but whither could she flee? She thought of pretending some sudden loss of money, some failure of fortune, and rushing away with the children to America, to Australia, to the end of the world; but if she did so, what then? Would it become less necessary, more easy to explain? Alas! no; nothing could change that horrible necessity. The best thing of all, she said to herself, if she were equal to it, would be to return home, to live there as long as it was possible, with her heart shut up, holding her peace, saying nothing – as long as it was possible! – until circumstances should force upon her the explanation which would have to be made. Let it be put off for weeks, for months, even for years, it would have to be made at last.

Thus she sat pondering, turning over everything, considering and rejecting a thousand plans; and then, after all, acted upon a sudden impulse, a sudden rising in her of intolerable loneliness and insufficiency. She felt as if her brain were giving way, her mind becoming blank, before this terrible emergency, which must be decided upon at once. Horace was safe for a few hours, separated from all danger, but how to meet his anxious face in the light of another day his mother did not know. She sprang up from her seat, and reached towards the table, on which there were pens and ink, and wrote a telegram quickly, eagerly, without pausing to think. The young ones were in the habit of laughing at old Fareham. She herself had joined in the laugh before now, and allowed that he was methodical and tedious and tiresome. He was all these, and yet he was an old friend, the oldest friend she had, one who had known her father, who had seen her married, who had guided her husband's first steps in the way of business. He was the only person to whom she could say anything. And he was a merciful old man: when troubles arose – when clerks went wrong or debtors failed – Mr Fareham's opinion was always on the side of mercy. This was one of the reasons why they called him an old fogey in the office; always – always he had been merciful. And it was this now which came into her mind. She wrote her telegram hastily, and sent it off at once, lest she should repent, directing it not to the office, where it might be opened by some other hand than his, but to his house. "Come to me directly if you can. I have great need of your advice and help. Tell no one," was what she said. She liked, like all women, to get the full good of the permitted space.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXPEDIENTS

His mother was in bed and asleep when Horace returned from his play – or at least so he thought. He opened her door and found the room dark, and said, "Are you asleep, mamma?" and got no answer, which he thought rather strange, as she was such a light sleeper. But, to be sure, last night had been so disturbed, she had not slept at all, and the day had been fatiguing and exciting. No doubt she was very tired. He retired on tiptoe, making, as was natural, far more noise than when he had come in without any precaution at all. But she made no sign; he did not wake her, where she lay, very still, with her eyes closed in the dark, holding her very breath that he might not suspect. Horace had enjoyed his evening. The play had been amusing, the dinner good. Dick Fareham, indeed, had asked a few questions.

"I suppose you found the governor all right?" he said.

"I didn't," said Horace; "the mother did."

"And he's all right, I hope?"

"I can't tell you," said Horace, shortly; "I said I hadn't seen him."

The conversation had ended thus for the moment, but young Fareham was too curious to leave it so. He asked Horace when he was coming to the London office. "I know I'm only a warming-pan," he said, "keeping the place warm for you. I suppose that will be settled while you are here."

"I don't know anything about it," said Horace. "We heard you were all at sixes and sevens in the office."

"I at sixes and sevens!"

"Oh, I don't mean to be disagreeable. We heard so," said Horace, "and that the governor had his hands full."

"I'd like to know who told you that," said the young man. "I'd like to punch his head, whoever said it. In the first place, it is not true, and your father is not the man to put such a story about."

Now Horace had not been told this as the reason of his father's absence, but had found it out, as members of a family find out what has been talked of in the house, the persons in the secret falling off their guard as time goes on. He was angry at the resentment with which he was met, but a little at a loss for a reply.

"Perhaps you think I have put it about?" he said, indignant. "It has not been put about at all, but we heard it somehow. That was why my father – "

"I think I can see how it was – I think I can understand," said young Fareham. "That was what called your father up to London. By Jove!"

And after that he was not so pleasant a companion for the rest of the evening. But the play was amusing, and Horace partially forgot this contretemps. When he found his mother's room shut up and quiet, he went to his own without any burden on his mind. He was not so anxious about "the governor" as perhaps Milly in his place might have been. It was highly unpleasant that the mother and he should have quarrelled, and quite incomprehensible. But Horace went to bed philosophically, and the trouble in his mind was not enough to keep him from sleep.

Young Fareham, on his side, wrote an indignant letter to his uncle, demanding to know if his mind too had been poisoned by false reports. The young man was very angry. He was being made the scapegoat; he was the excuse for old Landon's absence, who had not been near the office for months, and he called upon his own particular patron to vindicate him. Had his private morals been attacked he might have borne it; but to talk of the office as at sixes and sevens! this was more than he could bear.

Next morning, before anybody else was awake, an early housemaid stole into Mrs Lycett-Landon's room, and told her that a gentleman had arrived who wanted to see her. The poor lady had slept a little towards the morning, and was waked by this message. She thought it must be her husband, and after a moment of dolorous hesitation got up hastily and dressed herself, and went to the sitting-room, which was still in the disorder of last night, and looking, if that were possible, still more wretched, raw, and unhomelike than in its usual trim. She found, with a great shock and sense of discouragement, old Mr Fareham, pale after his night's journey, with all the wrinkles about his eyes more pronounced, and the slight tremor in his head more visible than ever. He came forward to meet her, holding out both his hands.

"What can I do for you?" he said. "What has happened? I came off, you see, by the first train."

"Oh, Mr Fareham, I never expected this! You must have thought me mad. I think, indeed, I must have been off my head a little last night. I telegraphed, did I? – I scarcely knew what I was doing – "

"You have not found him, then?"

She covered her face with her hands. To meet the old man's eyes in the light of day and tell her story was impossible. Why had not she gone away, buried herself somewhere, and never said a word?

"I have seen Mr Landon, Mr Fareham; he is not – ill: but Horace knows nothing," she said, hastily.

"My dear lady, if I am to do anything for you I must know."

"I don't think there is anything to be done. We have had a – serious disagreement; but Horace knows nothing," she repeated again. He looked at her, and she could not bear his eyes. "I am very sorry to have given you so much trouble – "

"The trouble is nothing," he said. "I have known you almost all your life. It would be strange if I could not take a little trouble. I think I know what you mean. You were distracted last night, and sent for me. But now in the calm of the morning things do not look so bad, and you think you have been too hasty. I can understand that, if that is what you mean."

She could not bear his eye. She sank down in the chair where she had sat last night and talked to Horace. In the calm of the morning! It was only now, when she felt that she had begun to live again, that all her problems came back to her, full awake, and fell upon her like harpies. Things do not look so bad! There passed through her mind a despairing question, whether she had strength to persuade him that this was so, and that there really was nothing to appeal to him about.

"My dear lady," he said again, "you must be frank with me. Is it a false alarm, and nothing for me to do? If so, not another word; I will forget that you ever sent for me. But if there is something more – "

How much was going through her mind, and how many scenes were rising before her eyes as he spoke! There appeared to her a vision of duty terrible to perform; of going home, putting on a face of calm, speaking of papa as usual to the children, living her life as usual, keeping her secret: and then of the universal questions that would arise, Where was he? what had become of him? why did he never return? Or she seemed to see herself going away, making some pretext of health, of education, she could not tell what, carrying her children, astonished, half unwilling, full of questions which she could not answer, away with her into the unknown. These visions rolled upward before her eyes surrounded with mists and confusion, out of which they appeared and reappeared. When her old friend stopped speaking her imagination stopped too, and she came to a pause. And then the impossibility of all these efforts came over her and overwhelmed her – the mists, the clouds, the chaos of helplessness and confusion in which there was no standing-ground, nor anything to grasp at, swallowing her up. She did not know how long she sat silent while the old man stood and looked at her. Then she burst forth all at once, —

"I cannot tell the children! How is it possible? Horace and Milly, they are grown up; they will want to know. How can I tell them? I want you to help me to keep it from them – to think of something. I would rather die than tell them," she said, starting up wringing her hands.

"My dear lady! my dear lady! – "

"Mr Fareham, Robert – has married – again!"

The old man gave a loud cry – almost a shriek – of surprise and horror. "You don't know what you are saying," he said.

"That sounds as if I were dead," she said, calmed by the revelation, with a faint smile. "Oh yes, I know very well what I am saying. He is married – as if I were dead – as if I had never existed. I went to see him, and I saw – her!"

Old Fareham caught her hands in his; he led her to her seat again, and put her in it, uttering all the time sounds that were half soothing, half blaspheming. He stood by her, patting her on the shoulder, his old eyebrows contracted, his lips quivering under their heavy grey moustache. He was more agitated now than she was. The telling of her secret seemed to have delivered her soul. When he had recovered himself he asked a hundred questions, to all which she answered calmly enough. The room, with its look of disorder – the litter of last night, the fresh morning sunshine streaming in disregarded, emphasising the squalor of the ashes in the grate – surrounded with a fitting background the strange discussion between these two – the old man fatigued with his night journey, the woman pale as a ghost, with eyes incapable of sleep. She told him everything, forestalling his half-said protest that it must be another Lycett-Landon with the fact of her personal encounter with her husband, forgetting nothing. The facts of the case had by this time paled of their first importance to her eyes, while they were everything to his. They no longer agitated her; while that which convulsed her very soul seemed to him of but little importance. "I cannot tell the children. How am I to tell the children?" He became weary of this refrain.

"We can think of the children later. In the meantime, this other is the important question. He has brought himself within the range of the law; you can punish him."

"Punish him?" she said, with a strange smile – "punish him?"

"Yes; you may forgive if you please, but I can't forgive. He deserves to be punished, and he shall be punished – and the woman – "

"He said she was as innocent – as I am."

"He said! he is a famous authority. One knows what kind of creature – "

"I have seen her," said Queen Eleanor, with a sigh, "poor child. He said nothing but the truth; she is not in fault. She is the one who is most injured. I would save her if I could."

"Save her! You would let this sweet establishment go on," he said, with fine sarcasm, "and not disturb them?"

"Yes," she said. "It may be wrong, but I think I would if I could."

"You are mad!" cried the old man. "You have lost all your good sense, and your feeling too. What, your own husband! you would let him go on living in sin – happy – "

She stopped him with a curious kind of authority – a look before which he paused in spite of himself.

"Happy!" she said; "I suppose so; at fifty, after living honestly all these years!"

He stopped and shook his grey head. "I have known such a thing before. It seems as if they must break out – as if common life and duty became insupportable. I have known such a case once before."

She cried out eagerly, "Who was it?" then stopped with a half-smile. "What does it matter to me who it was? The only thing that matters now is the children. What is to be done about the children? I cannot tell them; nor can you, nor any one. Mr Fareham, let him alone; let him be – happy, as you call it – if he can. But the children – what am I to say to the children?" She rose up again, and began to walk about the room, unable to keep still. "Horace, who is a man, and Milly. If they were little things it would not matter; they would not understand."

"And is it possible," said old Fareham, looking at her almost sourly, "that this is the only thing you can think of? – not your own wrongs, nor his abominable behaviour, nor – "

She paused a little, standing by the table. "Oh, you do wrong," she said, "you do wrong! A woman has her pride. If his duty has become – insupportable; it was you who used the word – and life insupportable, do you think a woman like me would hold him to it? Oh, you do wrong! I have put that away. But the children – I cannot put them away! And he was a good father, a kind father. Think of something. If only they might never find out!"

Here her voice gave way, and she could say no more.

"Horace will have to know," he said, shaking his head.

"Why? You could tell him there was some difficulty between us, something that could not be got over. That we were both in the wrong, as people always are in a quarrel. And no doubt I must have been in the wrong, or – or Robert would never have gone so far – so far astray. No doubt I have been wrong; you must have seen it – you with your experience – and yet you never said a word. Why didn't you tell me? – you might have done it so easily. Why didn't you say, 'You make life too hum-drum, too commonplace for him. He wants variety and change?' I would have taken it very well from you. I am not a woman who will not take advice. Why did you never tell me? I could have made so many changes if I had known."

He took her hand again, with a great pity, and almost remorse, in his old face. "It is too early," he said, "to do anything. Tell me where I shall find him, and go back to your room and try to rest. Say you are too tired to see the boy, if that is all you are thinking of; and go to bed – go to bed, and try and get a little sleep. I have a great deal of experience, as you say. Leave it to me. I will see him, and then we will talk it over, and think what is best to be done."

"You will see – him? What will you say to him, Mr Fareham? Why should you see him? Is not the chapter closed so far as he is concerned?"

"Closed? He will come home when he is tired of – the other establishment – is that what you mean him to do?"

She blushed like a girl, growing crimson to her hair. "Oh yes," she said, "I know you have a great deal of experience; but, perhaps, here you do not understand. That – that would not be necessary. He is not a man who would – Mr Fareham, you don't suppose I wish him any harm?"

"You are a great deal too good – too merciful."

"I am not merciful; it is all ended. Don't you know, since yesterday the world has come to an end. Life has become impossible – impossible! that is all about it. I am not angry; it is too serious for that. I would not harm him for the world. God help him! I don't know how he can live, any more than I know how I can live. It is – no word will express what it is. But he will not come back. He is not that kind of man."

"Do you think if you had not seen him yesterday, if he did not know that you had found him out – do you think," said old Fareham, deliberately, "that he would not have come back?"

She looked at him for an instant, and then hid her face in her hands.

"I have no doubt on the subject," said the old man, triumphantly. "But when a man has put himself within the reach of the law he is powerless, and we have him in our hands."

CHAPTER IX.

THE REVELATION

She woke suddenly with the sense that somebody was by her, and found Horace seated by her bed. She had fallen asleep in the brightness of the morning, overcome with fatigue, and also partly calmed by having confided her secret to another: even when it is painful, when it is indiscreet, it is always a relief. The bosom is no longer bursting with that which it is beyond its power to contain. She woke suddenly with that sense of some one looking at her which breaks the deepest sleep. She was still in her dressing-gown, lying upon her bed. "Horace!" she said, springing up.

"I am so glad you have had a sleep. Don't jump up like that; you look so tired, mother, so worn out."

"Not now, my dear; I feel quite fresh now. Did you enjoy your evening?"

"What does it matter about my evening?" he said, almost sternly. "Mother, do you know that old Fareham came up by the night train?"

"Yes, Horace," she said, turning her head away.

"You knew? Do you think you are treating me fairly – I that am more interested than any one? What is the matter? The business has gone wrong. Do you mean to say that my father —my father – ?"

Poor Horace's voice faltered. That it should be his father was the extraordinary thing, as it always is full of mystery to us how misfortune, much less shame, should affect us individually. He looked at his mother with a look which was imperative and almost commanding, not perplexed and imploring, as it had been before. Mr Fareham's arrival had thrown light, as Horace thought, on the mystery – light which to him, as a young man destined to be a merchant prince, and to convey to the world higher ideas of commerce altogether, was more dreadful than anything else could have been. He thought he saw it all; and that as no one would be so deeply affected as he, his mother had been weakly trying to hide it from him. Horace felt that his spirit would rise with disaster, and that he was capable of raising the house again and all its concerns from the ground.

And for a moment she caught at this new idea. To her own feminine mind disaster to the business was as nothing in comparison with what had happened. If others could make him believe this, it would be a way out of the worse revelation. This was how she contemplated the matter. She said, "It was I who sent for Mr Fareham. He is a very old friend, and his interests are all bound up with ours."

"Then that is what it is. He has been speculating. Oh, how could you conceal such a thing from me? How could you keep me in the dark? Mother, I don't mean to be unkind, but this is nothing to you in comparison with what it is to me. You don't care for a man's credit," said Horace, rising and striding about the room, "or the reputation of the firm, or anything of real importance, in comparison with his health or his comfort or some personal matter. His health – of what consequence is that in comparison? Mother, mother, I shall find it hard to forgive you if you have let our credit be put in danger without warning me."