She made no reply. With drooping head and downcast eyes she waited for his decision. He accepted his responsibility.
"I must not, and dare not, think of the hardship of my own position," he said; "I owe it to you to speak without reference to the future that may be in store for me. No man can be worthy of the sacrifice which your generous forgetfulness of yourself is willing to make. I respect you; I admire you; I thank you with my whole heart. Leave me to my fate, Mrs.
Callender--and let me go."
He rose. She stopped him by a gesture.
"A young woman," she answered, "would shrink from saying--what I, as an old woman, mean to say now. I refuse to leave you to your fate. I ask you to prove that you respect me, admire me, and thank me with your whole heart. Take one day to think--and let me hear the result. You promise me this?"
He promised. "Now go," she said.
Next morning Ernest received a letter from Mrs. Callender. She wrote to him as follows:
"There are some considerations which I ought to have mentioned yesterday evening, before you left my house.
"I ought to have reminded you--if you consent to reconsider your decision--that the circ.u.mstances do not require you to pledge yourself to me absolutely.
"At my age, I can with perfect propriety a.s.sure you that I regard our marriage simply and solely as a formality which we must fulfill, if I am to carry out my intention of standing between you and ruin.
"Therefore--if the missing ship appears in time, the only reason for the marriage is at an end. We shall be as good friends as ever; without the enc.u.mbrance of a formal tie to bind us.
"In the other event, I should ask you to submit to certain restrictions, which, remembering my position, you will understand and excuse.
"We are to live together, it is unnecessary to say, as mother and son. The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private, and you are so to arrange our affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives, if we stay in our own country, in a manner which would be unendurable to a woman like me.
"As to our future lives, I have the most perfect confidence in you, and I should leave you in the same position of independence which you occupy now. When you wish for my company you will always be welcome. At other times you are your own master. I live on my side of the house, and you live on yours; and I am to be allowed my hours of solitude every day in the pursuit of musical occupations, which have been happily a.s.sociated with all my past life, and which I trust confidently to your indulgence.
"A last word, to remind you of what you may be too kind to think of yourself.
"At my age, you cannot, in the course of nature, be troubled by the society of a grateful old woman for many years. You are young enough to look forward to another marriage, which shall be something more than a mere form. Even if you meet with the happy woman in my lifetime, honestly tell me of it, and I promise to tell her that she has only to wait.
"In the meantime, don"t think, because I write composedly, that I write heartlessly. You pleased and interested me when I first saw you at the public meeting. I don"t think I could have proposed what you call this sacrifice of myself to a man who had personally repelled me, though I have felt my debt of grat.i.tude as sincerely as ever. Whether your ship is safe or whether your ship is lost, old Mary Callender likes you, and owns it without false shame.
"Let me have your answer this evening, either personally or by letter, whichever you like best."
Mrs. Callender received a written answer long before the evening.
It said much in few words:
"A man impenetrable to kindness might be able to resist your letter.
I am not that man. Your great heart has conquered me."
The few formalities which precede marriage by special license were observed by Ernest. While the destiny of their future lives was still in suspense, an unacknowledged feeling of embarra.s.sment on either side kept Ernest and Mrs. Callender apart. Every day brought the lady her report of the state of affairs in the City, written always in the same words: "No news of the ship."
On the day before the ship-owner"s liabilities became due the terms of the report from the City remained unchanged, and the special license was put to its contemplated use. Mrs. Callender"s lawyer and Mrs. Callender"s maid were the only persons trusted with the secret. Leaving the chief clerk in charge of the business, with every pecuniary demand on his employer satisfied in full, the strangely married pair quitted England.
They arranged to wait for a few days in Paris, to receive any letters of importance which might have been addressed to Ernest in the interval. On the evening of their arrival a telegram from London was waiting at their hotel. It announced that the missing ship had pa.s.sed up channel--undiscovered in a fog until she reached the Downs --on the day before Ernest"s liabilities fell due.
"Do you regret it?" Mrs. Lismore said to her husband.
"Not for a moment!" he answered.
They decided on pursuing their journey as far as Munich.
Mrs. Lismore"s taste for music was matched by Ernest"s taste for painting. In his leisure hours he cultivated the art, and delighted in it. The picture-galleries of Munich were almost the only galleries in Europe which he had not seen. True to the engagements to which she had pledged herself, his wife was willing to go wherever it might please him to take her. The one suggestion she made was that they should hire furnished apartments. If they lived at a hotel friends of the husband or the wife (visitors like themselves to the famous city) might see their names in the book or might meet them at the door.
They were soon established in a house large enough to provide them with every accommodation which they required. Ernest"s days were pa.s.sed in the galleries, Mrs. Lismore remaining at home, devoted to her music, until it was time to go out with her husband for a drive. Living together in perfect amity and concord, they were nevertheless not living happily. Without any visible reason for the change, Mrs. Lismore"s spirits were depressed. On the one occasion when Ernest noticed it she made an effort to be cheerful, which it distressed him to see. He allowed her to think that she had relieved him of any further anxiety. Whatever doubts he might feel were doubts delicately concealed from that time forth.
But when two people are living together in a state of artificial tranquillity, it seems to be a law of nature that the element of disturbance gathers unseen, and that the outburst comes inevitably with the lapse of time.
In ten days from the date of their arrival at Munich the crisis came. Ernest returned later than usual from the picture-gallery, and, for the first time in his wife"s experience, shut himself up in his own room.
He appeared at the dinner hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore waited until the servant had withdrawn.
"Now, Ernest," she said, "it"s time to tell me the truth."
Her manner, when she said those few words, took him by surprise.
She was unquestionably confused, and, instead of looking at him, she trifled with the fruit on her plate. Embarra.s.sed on his side, he could only answer:
"I have nothing to tell."
"Were there many visitors at the gallery?" she asked.
"About the same as usual."
"Any that you particularly noticed?" she went on. "I mean among the ladies."
He laughed uneasily.
"You forget how interested I am in the pictures," he said.
There was a pause. She looked up at him, and suddenly looked away again; but--he saw it plainly--there were tears in her eyes.
"Do you mind turning down the gas?" she said. "My eyes have been weak all day."
He complied with her request the more readily, having his own reasons for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.
"I think I will rest a little on the sofa," she resumed. In the position which he occupied his back would have been now turned on her. She stopped him when he tried to move his chair. "I would rather not look at you, Ernest," she said, "when you have lost confidence in me."
Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and n.o.ble in his nature. He left his place and knelt beside her, and opened to her his whole heart.
"Am I not unworthy of you?" he asked, when it was over.
She pressed his hand in silence.
"I should be the most ungrateful wretch living," he said, "if I did not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made.
We will leave Munich to-morrow, and, if resolution can help me, I will only remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as the creature of a dream."
She hid her face on his breast, and reminded him of that letter of her writing which had decided the course of their lives.
"When I thought you might meet the happy woman in my lifetime I said to you, "Tell me of it, and I promise to tell her that she has only to wait." Time must pa.s.s, Ernest, before it can be needful to perform my promise, but you might let me see her. If you find her in the gallery to-morrow you might bring her here."