"No, don"t tell me," he rejoined quickly. "Your past is nothing to me.
Nothing that you may have done, and nothing that you may yet do, can alter my feeling--my respect for you. As I have known you, so will you always be to me--the sweetest, kindest friend I ever had, the best woman I ever knew."
Men are monotonous creatures. Given a position, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will come to the same conclusion about it, only by diverse methods, according to their prejudices; and this is especially the case when women are in question. Woman is generally out of focus in the mind of man; he sees her less as she is than as she ought or ought not to be. Beth did not thank Arthur Brock for his magnanimity. The fact that he should shrink from hearing the story bespoke a doubt that made his generous expression an offence. It may be kind to ignore the past of a guilty person, but the innocent ask to be heard and judged; and full faith has no fear of revelations.
Beth rose from her knees, and began to prepare the invalid"s evening meal in silence. Usually they chattered like children the whole time, but that evening they were both constrained. One of those subtle changes, so common in the relations of men and women, had set in suddenly since the morning; they were not as they had been with each other, nor could they continue together as they were; there must be a readjustment, which was in preparation during the pause.
"You have heard me speak of Gresham Powell?" Brock began at last. "He was here this afternoon. He thinks I had better go away with him into the country for a change as soon as I can manage it."
"It is a good idea," said Beth--"inland of course, not near the sea with your rheumatism. I will get your things ready at once."
This immediate acquiescence depressed him. He played with his supper a little, pretending to eat it, then forgot it, and sat looking sadly into the fire. Beth watched him furtively, but once he caught her gazing at him with concern.
"What"s the matter?" he asked, with an effort to be cheerful.
"The matter is the pained expression in your eyes," she answered. "Are you suffering again?"
"Just twinges," he said, then set his firm full lips, resolute to play the man.
But the twinges were mental, not bodily, and Beth understood. Their happy days were done, and there was nothing to be said. They must each go their own way now, and the sooner the better. Fortunately the old lawyer had consented without demur to let Beth have her half-year"s dividend in advance, so that there was money for Arthur. He expressed some surprise that there should be, but took what she gave him without suspicion, and did not count it. He was careless in money matters, and had forgotten what he had had when he was taken ill.
"You"re a great manager," he said to Beth. "But I suppose you haven"t paid up everything. You must let me know. It _will_ be good to be at work again!"
"Yes," Beth answered; "but don"t worry about it. You won"t want money before you are well able to make it."
"I wish I knew for certain that you would go somewhere yourself to see the spring come in," he said, looking at her wistfully.
"All in good time," she answered in her sprightliest way.
When the last morning came, Beth attended to her usual duties methodically. She had made every arrangement for him, packed the things he was to take, and put away those that were to be left behind.
When the cab was called, she went downstairs with him, and stood with Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen on the doorstep in the spring sunshine, smiling and waving her hand to him as he drove off. Her last words to him were, "You will go home before we meet again. Give my love to America--and may she send us many more such men," Beth added under her breath.
"Amen!" Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen echoed.
When the cab was out of sight, Beth turned and went into the house, walking wearily. At the foot of the stairs she looked up as if she were calculating the distance; then she began the long ascent with the help of the banisters, counting each step she took mechanically. The attic seemed strangely big and bare when she entered it--it was as if something had been taken away and left a great gap. There was something crude and garish about the light in it, too, which gave an unaccustomed look to every familiar detail. The first thing she noticed was the chair beside the fire, the old grandfather chair in which he had been sitting only a few minutes before, resting after the effort of dressing--the chair in which she had seen him sit and suffer so much and so bravely. She would never see him there again, nor hear his voice--the kindest voice she had ever heard. At his worst, it was always of her he thought, of her comfort, of her fatigue; but all that was over now. He had gone, and there could be no return--nothing could ever be as it had been between them, even if they met again; but meet again they never would, Beth knew, and at the thought she sank on the floor beside the senseless chair, and, resting her head against it, broke down and cried the despairing cry of the desolate for whom there is no comfort and no hope.
The fire she had lighted for Arthur to dress by had gone out; there were no more coals. The remains of his breakfast stood on the table; she had not touched anything herself as yet. But she felt neither cold nor hunger; she was beyond all that. The chair was turned with its back to the window, and as she cowered beside it, she faced the opposite whitewashed wall. A ray of sunshine played upon it, wintry sunshine still, crystal cold and clear. Beth began to watch it. There was something she had to think about--something to see to--something she must think about--something she ought to see to, but precisely what it was she could not grasp. It seemed to be hovering on the outskirts of her mind, but it always eluded her. However, she had better not move for fear of making a noise. And there was far too much noise as it was--the wind rising and the waves breaking
"All down the thundering sh.o.r.es of Bude and Bos----"
No, though; it was a procession of camels crossing the desert, and in the distance was an oasis surrounded by palms, and there was white stonework gleaming between the trees in the wonderful light. And those great doors that opened from within? They were opening although she had not knocked. She was expected, then--there, where there was no more weariness, nor care, nor hunger. But that was not where she wished to go. No! no! that did not tempt her.
"Take me where I shall not remember," she implored.
Poor Beth! the one boon she had to ask of Heaven at five-and-twenty was oblivion: "Let me be where I shall forget."
Downstairs on the doorstep, Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen lingered a while before they turned to follow Beth into the house, and, as they did so, they noticed that a lady had stopped her carriage in the middle of the road, jumped out impetuously, and was running towards them, regardless of the traffic.
"That was Mrs. Maclure who was standing with you here just now and went into the house?" she exclaimed.
"_Miss_ Maclure," Ethel Maud Mary corrected her.
"Oh, Miss or Mrs., what does it matter?" the lady cried. "It was Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure looking like death--where is she? Take me to her at once!" She emphasised the request with an imperious stamp of her foot.
A few minutes later, Angelica, kneeling on the attic floor beside Beth, cried aloud in horror, "Why, she is dead!"
CHAPTER LI
One warm morning when the apple-trees were out, Arthur Brock was sitting with Gresham Powell in the garden of the farm-house where they were lodging in the country, turning over a portfolio full of Powell"s sketches, and Powell was looking at them over his shoulder, and discussing them with him. Arthur had just come upon a clever study of the head of a girl in a hat, and was looking hard at it.
"That"s a study in starvation," Powell explained. "It"s an interesting face, isn"t it? She came into a hairdresser"s one day when I was there, and sat down just in that att.i.tude, and I sketched her on the spot. She was too far through at the moment to notice me. Look at her pretty hair particularly. You"ll see why in the next sketch, which is the sequel."
Brock took up the next sketch hurriedly. It was the same girl in the same hat, but with her hair cut short.
"I asked the barber fellow about her when she"d gone," Gresham pursued. "He"d taken her into an inner room, and when she came out she was cropped like that. She told him she had come to her last shilling, and she had an invalid at home depending on her entirely, and she entreated him to give her all he could for her hair. I believe the chap did too," he seemed so moved by her suffering and gentleness.
"What"s the matter?"
Brock had risen abruptly with the sketches still in his hand. The colour had left his face, and he looked as pinched and ill as he had done during the early days of his convalescence.
"The matter!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I"ve just discovered what a blind fool I am, that"s what"s the matter; and I"ll keep these two studies with your permission to remind me of the fact. Choose amongst mine any you like instead of them, old chap, but these you must let me have."
Without waiting for an answer, he took the sketches away with him into the house. When he returned a short time afterwards, he was dressed for a journey, and had a travelling bag in his hand.
"I"m going to town," he said, "to see the original of these sketches.
I"ve run up an account with her I shall never be able to settle, but at all events I can acknowledge my debt, dolt that I am! _I_ was that invalid. And I thought myself such a gentleman too! not counting my change and asking no questions, trusting her implicitly: that was my pose from the day you came and poisoned my mind. Before that I had neither trusted nor distrusted, but just taken things for granted as they came, beautifully. I was too self-satisfied even to suspect that she might be imposing her bounty upon me, starving herself that I might have all I required, and sending me off here finally with the last penny she had in the world. I told you I was wondering she did not answer my letters. I expect she hadn"t the stamp. But you said it was out of sight out of mind, and she"d be trying it on with some one else in my absence. If I"d the strength, I"d thrash you, Gresham, for an evil-minded bounder."
"I"ll carry your bag to the station, old chap," Gresham replied with contrition, "and take the thrashing at your earliest convenience."
Ethel Maud Mary was standing on the steps in the sunshine looking out when Arthur Brock arrived, just as she had stood to watch him depart, but in the interval a happy change had pleasantly transformed her. Her golden hair was brightly burnished again, her blue eyes sparkled, and her delicate skin had recovered its rose-leaf tinge. She wore a new frock, a new ring, a new watch and chain, and there was a new look in her face, one might say, as if the winter of care had pa.s.sed out of her life with the snow and been forgotten in the spring sunshine of better prospects.
"O Mr. Brock!" she exclaimed; "you back! But none too well yet, judging by appearances."
"Where is Mrs. Maclure?" he demanded.
"I wish I knew!" Ethel Maud Mary rejoined, becoming important all at once. "She"s gone for good, that"s all I can tell you. O Mr. Brock!
fancy her being tip-top all the time, and us not suspecting it, though I might have thought something when I saw the dresses she sold when you were ill, only I"d got the fashion papers in my mind, and didn"t know but what she"d been paid in dresses! Come into the parlour; you look faint."
"You said she sold her dresses?"
"Yes; sit down, Mr. Brock. A gla.s.s of port wine is what you want, as she"d say herself if she was here; and you"ll get it good too, for it"s been sent for Ma. My! the things that have come! Look at me--all presents--everything she ever heard me say I"d like to have; and Gwendolen the same."
She got out the wine and the biscuits from a chiffonier as she chattered, and set them before him.
"Yes, she sold her dresses, and her rings, and her books, and every other blessed thing she possessed except what had belonged to an old aunt. She got _them_ out too, one day, but cried so when it came to parting with them, I persuaded her to wait. I said something would turn up, I was sure. And something did, for _you_ went away, and directly after--the next minute, so to speak, for you were scarcely out of sight--a lady stopped her carriage--a fine carriage and pair and coachman and footman all silver-mounted--and ran up the steps in a great way. She"d seen Mrs. Maclure go into the house, and she said she"d been hunting for her everywhere for months, and all her friends were in a way about her, not knowing what had happened to her. I took the lady up to the attic, and there was Mrs. Maclure lying on the floor looking like death, with her head up against the big chair where you used to sit. We thought she _was_ dead at first, but the doctor came and brought her round. He said it was just exhaustion from fatigue and starvation."