"I am sorry to wound you; but--but--I cannot bring dishonour upon my son."
"Your son!" cried George Fairfax savagely. "An east wind may blow your son off the face of the earth to-morrow. Is a one-year-old baby to stand between a man and his destiny? Come, Clary, I have served my apprenticeship; I have been very patient; but my patience is exhausted. You must leave this place with me to-night."
"Mr. Fairfax, will you get me a fly, or must I walk home?"
He looked at her fixedly for a few moments, intent upon finding out if she were really in earnest, if this cold persistence were unconquerable even by him. Her face was very pale, the eyes downcast, the mouth firm as marble.
"Clarissa," he cried, "I have been fooled from first to last--you have never loved me!"
Those words took her off her guard; she lifted her eyes to meet his, eyes full of love and despair, and again he told himself success was only a question of time. His apprenticeship was not finished yet; he must be content to serve a little longer. When she had tasted the bitterness of her new life, its helplessness, its desolation, with only such a broken reed as Austin Lovel to lean upon, she would turn to him naturally for comfort and succour, as the fledgling flies back to its nest.
But if in the meantime Daniel Granger should relent and pursue her, and take her back to his heart with pardon and love? There was the possibility of that event; yet to press matters too persistently would be foolish, perilous even. Better to let her have her own way for a little, since he knew that she loved him.
He went to look for the depressed waiter, whom he dispatched in quest of a vehicle, and then returned to the rustic shelter, where Clarissa sat like a statue, watching the rain pouring down monotonously in a perpetual drizzle.
They heard the wheels of the carriage almost immediately. Mr. Fairfax offered his arm to Clarissa, and led her out of the garden; the obsequious waiter on the other side holding an umbrella over her head.
"Where shall I tell the man to drive?" he asked.
"To St. Gudule."
"But you don"t live in the cathedral, like Hugo"s Esmeralda. Am I not to know your address?"
"It is better not. Austin knows that you were the cause of my leaving Paris. If you came, there might be some misunderstanding."
"I am not afraid of facing Austin."
"But I am afraid of any meeting between you. I cannot tell you where I am living, Mr. Fairfax."
"That seems rather hard upon me. But you will let me see you again, won"t you, Clary? Meet me here to-morrow at dusk--say at six o"clock. Promise to do that, and I will let you off."
She hesitated, looking nervously to the right and left, like a hunted animal.
"Promise, Clary; it is not very much to ask."
"Very well, then, I promise. Only please let the man drive off to St.
Gudule, and pray don"t follow me."
Mr. Fairfax grasped her hand. "Remember, you have promised," he said, and then gave the coachman his orders. And directly the fly containing Clarissa had rattled off, he ran to the nearest stand and chartered another.
"Drive to St. Gudule," he said to the man, "and when you see a carriage going that way, keep behind it, but not too near."
It happened, however, that the first driver had the best horse, and, being eager to earn his fare quickly, had deposited Clarissa in the Place Gudule before George Fairfax"s charioteer could overtake him. She had her money ready to slip into the man"s hand, and she ran across the square and into the narrow street where Austin lived, and vanished, before Mr. Fairfax turned the corner of the square.
He met the empty vehicle, and dismissed his own driver thereupon in a rage.
"Your horse ought to be suppressed by the legal authorities," he said, as he gave the man his fare.
She must live very near the cathedral, he concluded, and he spent a dreary hour patrolling the narrow streets round about in the wet. In which of those dull-looking houses has she her dwelling? He could not tell. He walked up and down, staring up at all the windows with a faint hope of seeing her, but in vain; and at last went home to his hotel crestfallen and disappointed.
"She escapes me at every turn," he said to himself. "There is a kind of fatality. Am I to grow old and gray in pursuing her, I wonder? I feel ten years older already, since that night when she and I travelled together."
CHAPTER XLVI.
ON THE WING.
Clarissa hung over her baby with all manner of fond endearments.
"My darling! my darling!" she sobbed; "is it a hard thing to resist temptation for your sake?"
She had shed many bitter tears since that interview with George Fairfax, alone in the dreary room, while Lovel slept the after-dinner sleep of infancy, and while Mrs. Lovel and Jane Target gossipped sociably in the general sitting-room. Austin was out playing dominoes at the cafe of a Thousand Columns, with some Bohemianishly-disposed Bruxellois.
She had wept for the life that might have been, but which never could be.
On that point she was decided. Not under the shadow of dishonour could she spend her days. She had her son. If she had been alone, utterly desolate, standing on some isolated rock, with nothing but the barren sea around her, she might perhaps have listened to that voice which was so very sweet to her, and yielded. But to take this dreadful leap which she was asked to take, alone, was one thing; to take it with her child in her arms, another.
Her fancy, which was very vivid, made pictures of what her boy"s future might be, if she were to do this thing. She thought of him stung by the mention of his mother"s name, as if it were the foulest insult. She thought of his agony when he heard other men talk of their mothers, and remembered the blackness of darkness that shrouded his. She thought of the boyish intellect opening little by little, first with vague wonder, then fearful curiosity, to receive this fatal knowledge; and then the shame for that young innocent soul!
"O, not for worlds!" she cried, "O, not for worlds! G.o.d keep me from any more temptation!"
Not with mere idle prayers did she content herself. She knew her danger; that man was resolute, unscrupulous, revengeful even: and she loved him.
She determined to leave Brussels. She would go and lose herself in the wide world of London; and then, after a little while, when all possibility of her movements being traced was over, she would take her child to some secluded country place, where there were woods and meadows, and where the little dimpled hands could gather bright spring flowers. She announced her intention to her brother that evening, when he came home at a latish hour from the Thousand Columns, elated by having won three francs and a half at dominoes--an amount which he had expended on cognac and syphons for himself and his antagonist.
He was surprised, vexed even, by Clarissa"s decision. Why had she come to him, if she meant to run away directly? What supreme folly to make such a journey for nothing! Why did she not go from Paris to London at once?
"I did not think of that, Austin; I was almost out of my senses that day, I think, after Daniel told me he was going to separate me from my boy; and it seemed natural to me to fly to you for protection."
"Then why run away from me? Heaven knows, you are welcome to such a home as I can give. The quarters are rough, I know; but we shall improve that, by-and-by."
"No, no, Austin, it is not that. I should be quite happy with you, only--only--I have a particular reason for going to London."
"Clarissa!" cried her brother sternly, "has that man anything to do with this? Has he tried to lure you away from here, to your destruction?"
"No, no, no! you ought to know me better than that. Do you think I would bring dishonour upon my boy?"
Her face told him that she was speaking the truth.
"Very well, Clary," he said with a sigh of resignation; "you must do as you please. I suppose your reason is a good one, though you don"t choose to trust me."
So, by an early train next morning, Clarissa, with her nurse and child, left Brussels for Ostend--a somewhat dreary place wherein to arrive in early spring-time, with March winds blowing bleak across the sandy dunes.
They had to spend a night here, at a second-rate hotel on the Quay.
"We must go to humble-looking places, you know, Jane, to make our money last," Clarissa said on the journey. They had travelled second-cla.s.s; but she had given a five-pound note to her brother, by way of recompense for the brief accommodation he had given her, not telling him how low her stock was. Faithful Jane"s five-and-twenty pounds were vanishing. Clarissa looked at the two glittering circlets on her wedding finger.
"We cannot starve while we have these," she thought; and once in London, she could sell her drawings. Natural belief of the school-girl mind, that water-coloured sketches are a marketable commodity!