"Good-bye, Mrs. Romaine."
"Good-bye, Mr. Brooke."
So they took leave of each other; and Rosalind went to bed with a bad headache, while Caspar Brooke returned home to find fault with his daughter Lesley.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE WIFE OF FRANCIS TRENT.
Far away from the eminently respectable quarter of London, adorned by the habitation of families like the Brookes, the Kenyons, and the Romaines, you may find an unsavory district in Whitechapel which is known as Truefit Row. It is a street of tall and mean-looking houses, which seem to be toppling to their fall; and the pavement is strewn with garbage which is seldom cleared away. Many of the windows of the houses are broken; many of the doors hang ajar, for the floors are let out in flats, and there is a common stair for at least five and twenty families. It is a dreary-looking place, and the dwellers therein look as dreary as their own abode.
In one of these houses Mr. Francis Trent had found a resting-place for the sole of his foot. It was not a fashionable lodging, not even a particularly clean one; but he had come down in the world, and did not very much care where he lived, so long as he had plenty to drink, and a little money in his pockets. But these commodities were not as plentiful as he wanted them to be. Therefore he pa.s.sed a good deal of his time in a state of chronic brooding and discontent.
He had one room on the third storey. The woodwork of this apartment was so engrained with grime that scarcely any amount of washing would have made it look clean; but it had certainly been washed within a comparatively recent date. The wall paper, which had peeled off in certain places, had also been repaired by a careful hand; and the curtains which shaded the unbroken window were almost spotlessly clean.
By several other indications it was quite plain that a woman"s hand had lately been busy in the room; and compared with many other rooms in the same building, it was quite a palace of cleanliness and comfort.
But Francis Trent did not think so. He sat over his small and smouldering fire one dark November afternoon, and shivered, partly from cold and partly from disgust. He had no coals left, and no money wherewith to buy them: a few sticks and some c.o.ke and cinders were the materials out of which he was trying to make a fire, and naturally the result was not very inspiriting. The kettle, which was standing on the dull embers, showed not the slightest inclination to "sing." Francis Trent, outstretched on a basket-chair (the only comfortable article of furniture that the room contained), gave the fire an occasional stir with his foot, and bestowed upon it a deal of invective.
"It will be out directly," he said at last, sitting up and looking dismally about him; "and it"s nearly five o"clock. She said she would be here at four. Ugh! how cold it is! If she doesn"t come in five minutes I shall go to the Spotted Dog. There"s always a fire there, thank goodness, and they"ll stand me a gla.s.s of something hot, I daresay."
He rose and walked about the room by way of relieving the monotony of existence, and causing his blood to circulate a little faster. But this mode of activity did not long please him, and he threw himself back in his chair at last, and uttered an exclamation of disgust.
"Confound it! I shall go out," he said to himself.
But just at that moment a hand fumbled at the latch. He called out "Come in," an unnecessary call, because the door was half open before he spoke, and a woman entered the room, shutting the door behind her.
She was slight, trim, not very tall: she had a pale face and dark eyes, dark, glossy hair, and delicate features. If Lesley had been there, she would have recognized in this woman the ladies" maid who called herself Mary Kingston. But in this part of the world she was known as Mrs.
Trent.
Francis did not give her a warm welcome, and yet his weak, worn face lighted up a little at the sight of her. "I thought you were never coming," he said, grumblingly, and his eyes fell greedily to the basket that she carried on her arm. "What have you got there?"
"Just a few little things for your tea," said Mary, depositing the basket on the table. "And, oh--what a wretched fire! Have you no coals?"
"Neither coals nor food nor drink," he answered, sullenly, "nor money in my pocket either."
The woman stood and looked at him. "You had two pounds the day before yesterday," she said.
"Billiards," he answered, laconically. But he turned away so as not to see her face.
She gave a short, sharp exclamation. "You promised to be careful!"
"The luck was against me," he said. "I thought I should win, but my hand"s taken to shaking so much that I couldn"t play. I don"t see why you should blame me--I"ve precious few amus.e.m.e.nts."
She did not answer, but began to take the parcels, one by one, from her basket, and place them on the table. Her own hands shook a little as she did so. Francis turned again to watch her operations. She took out some tea, bread, b.u.t.ter, eggs, and bacon. There was a bottle of brandy and a bundle of cigars. Francis Trent"s eyes glistened at the sight. He stole closer to his wife, and put his arm around her.
"You"re a good soul, Mary. You"ll forgive me, won"t you? Upon my honor, I never meant to lose the money."
"I have to work hard enough for it," she said dryly.
"I know you have! It"s a shame--a d----d shame! If I had my way, you should be dressed in satin, and sit all day with your hands before you, and ride in your own carriage--you know you should!"
"I don"t know that I should particularly care about that kind of life,"
said Mary, still coldly, but with a perceptible softening of her eye and relaxation of the stiff upper lip. "I would rather live on a farm in the country, and do farm-work. It"s healthier, yes, and it"s happier--to my thinking."
"So it is; and that"s the life we"ll lead by and by, when Oliver pays us what he has promised," said Francis, eagerly. "We will have some land of our own, and get far away from the temptation of the city. Then you will see what a different fellow I"ll be, Mary. You shan"t have reason to complain of me then."
"Well, I hope so, Francis," she said, but not too hopefully. Perhaps she noticed that his hand and eye both strayed, as if involuntarily, towards the bottle of spirits on the table. And at that moment, the last flicker of light from the fire went out.
"Have you no candles?" she asked, abruptly.
"Not one."
"I"ll go out and fetch them, and some coal too. Sit down quietly, and wait. I won"t be long. And as I haven"t a corkscrew, I"ll take the bottle with me, and get it opened downstairs."
Francis dared not object, but his wife"s course of action made him sulky. He did not see why she should not have left him the bottle during her absence: he could have broken its neck on the fender. But he knew very well that she could not trust him to drink only in moderation if he were left alone with the bottle; and, like a wise woman, she therefore took it with her.
She was back again in a few minutes, bringing with her fuel and lights.
Francis was lying in his bed, his face turned sullenly to the wall. Mary poured a little brandy into a gla.s.s, and brought it to him to drink.
"You will feel better when you have had that," she said, "and you shall have some more in your tea if you want it. Now, I"m going to light up the fire."
So well did she perform her task that in a very short time the flames were leaping up the chimney, the shadows dancing cheerfully over the ceiling, the kettle hissing and puffing on the fire. The sight and sound drew Francis once more from his bed to the basket chair, where he sat and lazily watched his wife as she cut bread, made tea, fried bacon and eggs, with the ease and celerity of a woman to whom domestic offices are familiar. When at last the tea-table was arranged, he drew up his chair to it with a sigh of positive pleasure.
"How homelike and comfortable it looks: Why don"t you always stay with me, Mary, and keep me straight?"
"You want so much keeping straight, Francis," she said, but a slight smile flickered about the comers of her lips.
It was characteristic of the pair that he allowed her to wait on him, hand and foot: he let her cut the bread, pour out the tea, carry his plate backwards and forwards, and pour the brandy into his cup, without a word of remonstrance. Only when he had been well supplied and was not likely to want anything more just then, did he say to her----
"Sit down, Mary, and get yourself a cup of tea."
Mary did not seem to resent the condescending nature of this invitation.
She thanked him simply, and sat down; pouring out for herself the dregs of the tea, and eating a piece of dry bread with it. Francis had the grace to remonstrate with her on the poverty of her fare.
"It doesn"t matter what I eat now," she said. "I have the best of everything where I"m living, and I don"t feel hungry."
"I hope you"re comfortable where you are," said Mr. Trent, politely.
"Yes, I"m very comfortable, thank you, Francis. Though," said Mrs.
Trent, deliberately, "I think I should be more comfortable if I wasn"t in a house where Mr. Oliver visited."
"Oliver! Do you mean my brother Oliver? Why do you call him _Mr._ Oliver? It is so absurd to keep up these cla.s.s-distinctions."
"So I think," said Mary, "but when other people keep them up it"s not much use for me to be the first to cast them over board. Your brother Oliver comes to the house where I"m living much oftener than I think he ought."