This screwed her up to the necessary effort. "I met my old sweetheart.
He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I"ve tried to keep it from you, but have found I cannot. There--that"s the substance of it, and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!"
She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.
"O, happy thing! How well it falls out!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers over his head. "Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my trouble--ha-ha!"
She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still continued smiling joyfully, she said, "O--what do you mean? Is it done to torment me?"
"No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--_I"ve_ got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have seen my way to tell mine!"
"What is yours--what is it?" she asked, with altogether a new view of things.
"Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!" said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.
"Not worse than mine?"
"Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don"t mind it. You see, we"ve been married a month, and it don"t jar upon me as it would if we"d only been married a day or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--"
"Past, present, and future!" she murmured. "It never occurred to me that you had a tragedy too."
"But I have!" he said, shaking his head. "In fact, four."
"Then tell "em!" cried the young woman.
"I will--I will. But be considerate, I beg "ee, mee deer. Well--I wasn"t a bachelor when I married "ee, any more than you were a spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man."
"Ah!" said she, with some surprise. "But is that all?--then we are nicely balanced," she added, relieved.
"No--it is not all. There"s the point. I am not only a widower."
"O, David!"
"I am a widower with four tragedies--that is to say, four strapping girls--the eldest taller than you. Don"t "ee look so struck--dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman, their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and--to cut a long story short--I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by degrees. I"ve long felt for the children--that it is my duty to have them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break it to "ee, but I"ve seen lately that it would soon come to your ears, and that hev worried me."
"Are they educated?" said the ex-schoolmistress.
"No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth, they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach "em, and bring "em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school."
"O, mercy!" she almost moaned. "Four great girls to teach the rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished--I am, I am!"
"You"ll get used to "em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets--mine against yours--will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I could send for "em this week very well--and I will! In faith, I could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my difficulty!"
Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned.
Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to her room she wept from very mortification at Mr Heddegan"s duplicity.
Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a young wife so!
The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer her eyes to turn towards him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. "How very well matched we be!" he said, comfortably.
Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall, hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, "Now come forrard, and shake hands properly with your stepmother."
Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without prospect of reward.
She went about quite despairing during the next few days--an unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been amongst the few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his secret, and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready-made household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support them in their remonstrances.
"No, you don"t yet know all," she said.
Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of this issue. For some time, whenever conversation arose between her and Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, "I am miserable, and you know it. Yet I don"t wish things to be otherwise."
But one day when he asked, "How do you like "em now?" her answer was unexpected. "Much better than I did," she said, quietly. "I may like them very much some day."
This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to their young lives before their mother"s wrong had been righted, had operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather than suffered.
This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of Baptista"s nature, that her attention, from being first arrested by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart expanded in sympathy with theirs. The sentences of her tragi-comedy, her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in humanity, as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but infinitely much to pity, she learnt with the lapse of each week in their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and from liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point of junction between her own and her husband"s interests, generating a sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there had threatened to be neither friendship nor love.
_George Moore_
A FAITHFUL HEART
(_The Speaker_, 16 April 1892)
Part I
It was a lovely morning, and Major Shepherd walked rapidly, his toes turned well out, his shoulders set well back. Behind him floated the summer foliage of Appleton Park--the family seat of the Shepherds--and at the end of the smooth, white road lay the Major"s destination--the small town of Branbury.
The Major was the medium height; his features were regular and cleanly cut. He would have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been two dark mud-coloured dots, set close together, wholly lacking in expression. A long brown moustache swept picturesquely over bright, smoothly shaven cheeks, and the ends of this ornament were beginning to whiten. The Major was over forty. He carried under his arm a brown-paper parcel (the Major was rarely seen without a brown-paper parcel), and in it were things he could not possibly do without--his diary and his letter-book. The brown-paper parcel contained likewise a number of other papers; it contained the Major"s notes for a book he was writing on the princ.i.p.al county families in Buckinghamshire. The Major had been collecting information for this book for many years, and with it he hoped to make two or three hundred pounds--money which he stood sorely in need of--and to advance his position in the county, a position which, in his opinion, his father had done little to maintain, and which, to his very deep regret, his sisters were now doing their best to compromise. That very morning, while packing up his brown-paper parcel, some quarter of an hour ago, he had had a somewhat angry interview on this subject with his sisters. For he had thought it his duty to reprove them for keeping company with certain small London folk who had chosen to come to live in the neighbourhood.
Ethel had said that they were not going to give up their friends because they were not good enough for him, and Maud had added significantly that they were quite sure that their friends were quite as good as the friend he was going to see in Branbury. The Major turned on his heel and left the house.
As he walked towards Branbury he asked himself if it were possible that they knew anything about Charlotte Street; and as he approached the town he looked round nervously, fearing lest some friend might pop down upon him, and, after some hesitation, decided to take a long detour so as to avoid pa.s.sing by the house of some people he knew. As he made his way through a bye-street his step quickened, and at the corner of Charlotte Street he looked round to make sure he was not followed. He then drew his keys from his pocket and let himself into a small, mean-looking house.
Major Shepherd might have spared himself the trouble of these precautions; no one was minded to watch him, for everyone knew perfectly well who lived in 27, Charlotte Street. It was common talk that the tall, dark woman who lived in 27 was Mrs Charles Shepherd, and that the little girl who ran by Mrs Shepherd"s side on the rare occasions when she was seen in the streets--for it was said that the Major did not wish her to walk much about the town, lest she should attract the attention of the curious, who might be tempted to make inquiries--was the Major"s little daughter, and it had been noticed that this little girl went forth now and then, basket on her arm, to do the marketing. It was said that Mrs Shepherd had been a servant in some lodging-house where the Major had been staying; other scandal-mongers declared that they knew for certain that the Major had made his wife"s acquaintance in the street. Rumour had never wandered far from the truth. The Major had met his wife one night as he was coming home from his club. They seemed to suit one another; he saw her frequently for several months, and then, fearing to lose her, in a sudden access of jealousy--he had some time before been bitterly jilted--he proposed to marry her. The arrival of his parents, who came up to town beseeching of him to do nothing rash, only served to intensify his determination, and, losing his temper utterly, he told his father and mother that he would never set his foot in Appleton Park in their lifetime if they ever again ventured to pry into his private affairs; and, refusing to give any information regarding his intentions, he asked them to leave his lodgings. What he did after they never knew; years went by, and they sighed and wondered, but the matter was never alluded to in Appleton Park.
But the Major had only 400 a year, and though he lived at Appleton Park, never spending a penny more than was necessary, he could not allow her more than 3 a week. He had so many expenses: his club, his clothes, and all the incidental expenses he was put to in the grand houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work, she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest, she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers was a kind-hearted, simple nature, that misfortune had brought down in the world; but, as is not uncommon with persons of weak character, she possessed a clear, sensible mind which allowed her to see things in their true lights, and without difficulty she recognized the unalterable nature of her case. It mattered little whether the Major acknowledged her or not, his family would never have anything to do with her; the doors of Society were for ever closed against her. So within a year of her marriage with the Major she was convinced that her marriage had better be kept a secret; for, by helping to keep it a secret, she could make substantial amends to the man who had married her; by proclaiming it to the world, she would only alienate his affection. She understood this very well, and in all docility and obedience lent herself to the deception, accepting without complaint a mean and clandestine existence. But she would not allow her little girl to carry up a jug of hot water, and it was only rarely, when prostrate with pain, that she allowed Nellie to take the basket and run round to the butcher"s and buy a bit of steak for their dinner.
The heiress of Appleton Park must be brought up free from all degrading memory. But for herself she had no care. Appleton Park could never be anything to her, even if she outlived the old people, which was hardly probable. What would she, a poor invalid, do there? She did not wish to compromise her husband"s future, and still less the future of her darling daughter. She could only hope that, when dead, her sins would be forgiven her; and that this release might not be long delayed she often prayed. The house was poor, and she was miserable, but any place was good enough to suffer in. So she said when she rose and dragged herself downstairs to do a little cooking; and the same thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour, furnished with what a few pounds could buy--a paraffin-lamp, a round table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours. From the barren little pa.s.sage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative. The Major had impressed his personality upon the house. Everything looked as if it had been sc.r.a.ped. There was a time when Mrs Shepherd noticed the barrenness of her life; but she had grown accustomed to it, and she waited for the Major in the terrible armchair, glad when she heard his step, almost happy when he sat by her and told her what was happening "at home".
He took her hand and asked her how she was. "You are looking very tired, Alice."
"Yes, I"m a little tired. I have been working all the morning. I made up my room, and then I went out to the butcher"s and bought a piece of steak. I have made you such a nice pudding for your lunch; I hope you will like it."
"There"s not much fear about my liking any beefsteak pudding you make, dear; I never knew anyone who could make one like you. But you should not tire yourself--and just as you are beginning to get better."
Mrs Shepherd smiled and pressed her husband"s hand. The conversation fell. At the end of a long silence Mrs Shepherd said: "What has happened to trouble you, dear? I know something has, I can see it by your face."
Then the Major told how unpleasantly his sisters had answered him when he had ventured to suggest that they saw far too much of their new neighbours, who were merely common sort of Londoners, and never would be received by the county. "I"m sure that someone must have told them of my visits here; I"m sure they suspect something ... Girls are very sharp nowadays."