CHAPTER XIII
"Valentine," said her husband, as they stood together by the fire in their bedroom that night, "I have a great favor to ask of you."
"Yes, Gerald – a favor! I like to grant favors. Is it that I must wear that soft white dress you like so much to-morrow evening? Or that I must sing no songs but the rectory songs for father's visitors in the drawing-room. How solemn you look, Gerald. What is the favor?"
Gerald's face did look careworn. The easy light-hearted expression which had characterized it downstairs had left him. When Valentine laid her hand lovingly on his shoulder, he slipped his arm round her waist, however, and drew her fondly to his side.
"Val, the favor is this," he said. "You can do anything you like with your father. I want you to persuade him to let us live in a little house of our own for a time, until, say next summer."
Valentine sprang away from Gerald's encircling arm.
"I won't ask that favor," she said, her eyes flashing. "It is mean of you, Gerald. I married you on condition that I should live with my father."
"Very well, dear, if you feel it like that, we won't say anything more about it. It is not of real consequence."
Gerald took a letter out of his pocket, and opening the envelope began leisurely to read its contents. Valentine still, however, felt ruffled and annoyed.
"It is so queer of you to make such a request," she said. "I wonder what father would say. He would think I had taken leave of my senses, and just now too when I have been away from him for months. And when it is such a joy, such a deep, deep joy, to be with him again."
"It is of no consequence, darling. I am sorry I mentioned it. See, Valentine, this letter is from a great friend of mine, a Mrs. Price – she wants to call on you; she is coming to-morrow. You will be at home in the afternoon, will you not?"
Valentine nodded.
"I will be in," she said. Then she added, her eyes filling with tears – "You don't really want to take me away from my father, Gerald?"
"I did wish to do so, dear, but we need not think of it again. The one and only object of my life is to make you happy, Val. Now go to bed, and to sleep, dearest. I am going downstairs to have a smoke."
The next morning, very much to her surprise, Mr. Paget called his daughter into his study, and made the same proposition to her which Gerald had made the night before.
"I must not be a selfish old man, Val," he said. "And I think it is best for young married folks to live alone. I know how you love me, my child, and I will promise to pay you a daily visit. Or at least when you don't come to me, I will look you up. But all things considered, it is best for your husband and you to have your own house. Why, what is it, Valentine, you look quite queer, child."
"This is Gerald's doing," said Valentine – her face had a white set look – never before had her father seen this expression on it. "No, father, I will not leave you; I refuse to do so; it is breaking our compact; it is unfair."
She went up to him, and put her arms round his neck, and again her golden locks touched his silvered head, and her soft cheek pressed his.
"Father darling, you won't break your own Val's heart – you couldn't; it would be telling a lie. I won't live away from you – I won't, so there."
Just at this moment Wyndham entered the room.
"What is it, sir?" he said, almost fiercely. "What are you doing with Val? Why, she is crying. What have you been saying to her?"
"My father said nothing," answered Valentine for him. "How dare you speak to my father in that tone? It is you. Gerald; you have been mean and shabby. You went to my father to try to get him on your side – to try and get him – to try and get him to aid you in going away – to live in another house. Oh, it was a mean, cowardly thing to do, but you shan't have your way, for I'm not going; only I'm ashamed of you, Gerald, I'm ashamed of you."
Here Valentine burst into a tempest of angry, girlish tears.
"Don't be silly, Val," said her husband, in a quiet voice. "I said nothing about this to Mr. Paget. I wished for it, but as I told you last night, when you disapproved, I gave it up. I don't tell lies. Will you explain to Valentine, please, sir, that I'm guiltless of anything mean, or, as she expresses it, shabby, in this matter."
"Of course, Wyndham – of course, you are," said Paget. "My dear little Val, what a goose you have made of yourself. Now run away, Wyndham, there's a good fellow, and I'll soothe her down. You might as well go to the office for me. Ask Helps for my private letters, and bring them back with you. Now, Valentine, you and I are going to have a drive together. Good-bye, Wyndham."
Wyndham slowly left the room – Valentine's head was still on her father's shoulder – as her husband went away he looked back at her, but she did not return his glance.
"The old man is right," he soliloquized bitterly. "I have not a chance of winning her heart. No doubt under the circumstances this is the only thing to be desired, and yet it very nearly maddens me."
Wyndham did not return to Queen's Gate until quite late; he had only time to run up to his room and change his dress hastily for dinner. Valentine had already gone downstairs, and he sighed heavily as he noticed this, or he felt that unwittingly he had managed to hurt her in her tenderest feelings that morning.
"If there is much of this sort of thing," he said to himself. "I shall not be so sorry when the year is up. When once the plunge is over I may come up another man, and anything is better than perpetually standing on the brink." Yet half an hour later Wyndham had completely changed his mind, for when he entered the drawing-room, a girlish figure jumped up at once out of an easy-chair, and ran to meet him, and Valentine's arms were flung about his neck and several of her sweetest kisses printed on his lips.
"Forgive me for being cross this morning, dear old darling. Father has made me see everything in quite a new light, and has shown me that I acted quite like a little fiend, and that you are very nearly the best of men. And do you know, Gerry, he wishes us so much to live alone, and thinks it the only right and proper thing to do, that I have given in, and I quite agree with him, quite. And we have almost taken the sweetest, darlingest little bijou residence in Park-lane that you can imagine. It is like a doll's house compared to this, but so exquisite, and furnished with such taste. It will feel like playing in a baby-house all day long, and I am almost in love with it already. You must come with me and see it the first thing in the morning. Gerry, for if we both like it, father will arrange at once with the agent, and then, do you know the very first thing I mean to do for you, Gerry? Oh, you need not guess, I'll tell you. Lilias shall come up to spend the winter with us. Oh, you need not say a word. I'm not jealous, but I can see how you idolize Lilias, Gerry."
CHAPTER XIV
At the end of a week the Wyndhams were settled in their new home, and Valentine began her duties as wife and housekeeper in earnest. She, too, was more or less impulsive, and beginning by hating the idea she ended by adopting it with enthusiasm. After all it was her father's plan, not Gerald's, and that in her heart of hearts made all the difference.
For the first time in her life, Valentine had more to get through than she could well accomplish. Her days, therefore, just now were one long delight to her, and even Gerald felt himself more or less infected by her high spirits. It was pretty to see her girlish efforts at housekeeping, and even her failures became subjects of good-humored merriment. Mr. Paget came over every day to see her, but he generally chose the hours when her husband was absent, and Wyndham and his young wife were in consequence able to spend many happy evenings alone.
By-and-bye this girlish and thoughtless wife was to look back on these evenings, and wonder with vain sighs of unavailing regret if life could ever again bring her back such sweetness. Now she enjoyed them unthinkingly, for her time for wakening had not come.
When the young couple were quite settled in their own establishment, Lilias Wyndham came up from the country to spend a week with them. Nothing would induce her to stay longer away from home. Although Valentine pleaded and coaxed, and even Gerald added a word or two of entreaty, she was quite firm.
"No," she said, "nothing would make me become the obnoxious sister-in-law, about whom so much has been written in all the story books I have ever read."
"Oh, Lilias, you darling, as if you could!" exclaimed Val, flying at her and kissing her.
"Oh, yes, my dear, I could," calmly responded Lilly – "and I may just as well warn you at once that my ways are not your ways in a great many particulars, and that you'd find that out if I lived too long with you. No, I'm going home to-morrow – to my own life, and you and Gerald must live yours without me. I am ready to come, if ever either of you want me, but just now no one does that as much as Marjory and my father."
Lilias returned to Jewsbury-on-the-Wold, and Valentine for some days continued to talk of her with enthusiasm, and to quote her name on all possible occasions.
"Lilias says that I'll never make a good housekeeper, unless I bring my wants into a fixed allowance, Gerald. She says I ought to know what I have got to spend each week, and not to exceed it, whether it is a large or small sum. She says that's what she and Marjory always do. About how much do you think I ought to spend a week on housekeeping, Gerry?"
"I don't know, darling. I have not the most remote idea."
"But how much have we to spend altogether? We are very rich, are we not?"
"No, Valentine, we are very poor. In fact we have got nothing at all."
"Why, what a crease has come between your brows; let me smooth it out – there, now you look much nicer. You have got a look of Lilias, only your eyes are not so dark. Gerald, I think Lilias so pretty. I think she is the very sweetest girl I ever met. But what do you mean by saying we are poor? Of course we are not poor. We would not live in a house like this, and have such jolly, cosy, little dinners if we were poor. Why, I know that champagne that we have a tiny bottle of every evening is really most costly. I thought poor people lived in attics, and ate bread and American cheese. What do you mean by being poor, Gerald?"
"Only that we have nothing of our own, dearest; we depend on your father for everything."
"You speak in quite a bitter tone. It is sweet to depend on my father. But doesn't he give us an allowance?"
"No, Valentine, I just take him all the bills, and he pays them."
"Oh, I don't like that plan. I think it is much more important and interesting to pay one's own bills, and I can never learn to be a housekeeper if I don't understand the value of money. I'll speak to father about this when he comes to-morrow. I'll ask him to give me an allowance."
"I wouldn't," replied Gerald. He spoke lazily, and yawned as he uttered the words.
"There's no use in taking up things that one must leave off again," he added, somewhat enigmatically. Then he opened a copy of Browning which lay near, and forgot Valentine and her troubles, at least she thought he forgot her.
She looked at him for a moment, with a half-pleased, half-puzzled expression coming into her face.
"He is very handsome and interesting," she murmured under her breath. "I like him, I certainly do like him, not as well as my father of course – I'm not sorry I married him now. I like him quite as well as I could ever have cared for the other man – the man who wore white flannels and had a determined voice, and now has been turned into a dreadful prosy curate. Yes, I do like Gerald. He perplexes me a good deal, but that is interesting. He is mysterious, and that is captivating – yes, yes – yes. Now, what did he mean by that queer remark about my housekeeping – 'that it wasn't worth while?' I hope he's not superstitious – if anything could be worth while it would be well for a young girl like me to learn something useful and definite. I'll ask him what he means."
She drew a footstool to her husband's side, and taking one of his hands laid her cheek against it. Wyndham dropped his book and smiled down at her.
"Gerry, do you believe in omens?" she asked.
Gerald gave a slight start. Circumstances inclined him to superstition – then he laughed. He must not encourage his wife in any such folly.
"I don't quite understand you, my love," he replied.
"Only you said it was not worth my while to learn to housekeep. Why do you say that? I am very young, you are young. If we are to go on always together, I ought to become wise and sensible. I ought to have knowledge. What do you mean, Gerald? Have you had an omen? Do you think you will die? Or perhaps that I shall die? I should not at all like it. I hope – I trust – no token of death has been sent to you about me."
"None, my very dearest, none. I see before you a life of – of peace. Peace and plenty – and – and – honor – a good life, Valentine, a guarded life."
"How white you are, Gerald. And why do you say 'you' all the time? The life, the peaceful life, and it sounds rather dull, is for us both, isn't it?"
"I don't know – I can't say. You wouldn't care, would you, Val – I mean – I mean – "
"What?"
Valentine had risen, her arms were thrown round Gerald's neck.
"Are you trying to tell me that I could be happy now without you?" she whispered. "Then I couldn't, darling. I don't mind telling you I couldn't. I – I – "
"What, Val, what?"
"I like you, Gerald. Yes, I know it – I do like you – much."
It ought to have been the most dreadful sound to him, and yet it wasn't. Wyndham strained his wife to his heart. Then he raised his eyes, and with a start Valentine and he stepped asunder.
Mr. Paget had come into the room. He had come in softly, and he must have heard Valentine's words, and seen that close embrace.
With a glad cry the girl flew to his side, but when he kissed her his lips trembled, he sank down on the nearest chair like a man who had received a great shock.
CHAPTER XV
"I'm afraid I can't help it, sir," said Wyndham.
Mr. Paget and his son-in-law were standing together in the very comfortable private room before alluded to in the office of the former.
Wyndham was standing with his back to the mantel-piece; Valentine's lovely picture was over his head. Her eyes, which were almost dancing with life, seemed to have something mocking in them to Mr. Paget, as he encountered their gaze now. As eyes will in a picture, they followed him wherever he moved. He was restless and ill at ease, and he wished either that the picture might be removed, or that he could take up Wyndham's position with his back to it.
"I tell you," he said, in a voice that betrayed his perturbation, "that you must help it. It's a clear breaking of contract to do otherwise."
"You see," said Wyndham, with a slow smile, "you under-rated my attractions. I was not the man for your purpose after all."
"Sit down for God's sake, Wyndham. Don't stand there looking so provokingly indifferent. One would think the whole matter was nothing to you."
"I am not sure that it is much; that is, I am not at all sure that I shall not take my full meed of pleasure out of the short time allotted to me."
"Sit down, take that chair, no, not that one – that – ah, that's better. Valentine's eyes are positively uncomfortable the way they pursue me this evening. Wyndham, you must feel for me – you must see that it will be a perfectly awful thing if my – my child loses her heart to you."
"Well, Mr. Paget, you can judge for yourself how matters stand. I – I cannot quite agree with you about what you fear being a catastrophe."
"You must be mad, Wyndham – you must either be mad, or you mean to cheat me after all."
"No, I don't. I have a certain amount of honor left – not much, or I shouldn't have lent myself to this, but the rag remaining is at your service. Seriously now, I don't think you have grave cause for alarm. Valentine is affectionate, but I am not to her as you are."
"You are growing dearer to her every day. I am not blind, I have watched her face. She follows you with her eyes – when you don't eat she is anxious, when you look dismal – you have an infernally dismal face at times, Wyndham – she is puzzled. It wasn't only what I saw last night. Valentine is waking up. It was in the contract that she was not to wake up. I gave you a child for your wife. She was to remain a child when – "
"When she became my widow," Wyndham answered calmly.
"Yes. My God, it is awful to think of it. We must go in, we daren't turn back, and she may suffer, she may suffer horribly, she has a great heart – a deep heart. It is playing with edged tools to make it live."
"Can't you shorten the time of probation?" asked Wyndham.
"I wish to heaven I could, but I am powerless. Wyndham, my good friend, my son – something must be done."
"Don't call me your son," said the younger man, rising and shaking himself. "I have a father who besides you is – there, I won't name what I think of you. I have a mother – through your machinations I shall never see her face any more. Don't call me your son. You are very wise, you have the wisdom of a devil, but even you can overreach yourself. You thought you had found everything you needed, when you found me – the weak young fool, the despairing idiotic lover. Poor? Yes, cursedly poor, and with a certain sense of generosity, but nothing at all in myself to win the heart of a beautiful young girl. You should have gone down to Jewsbury-on-the-Wold for a little, before you summed up your estimate of my character, for the one thing I have always found lying at my feet is – love. Even the cats and dogs loved me – those to whom I gave nothing regarded me with affection. Alack – and alas – my wife only follows the universal example."
"But it must be stopped, Wyndham. You cannot fail to see that it must be stopped. Can you not help me – can you not devise some plan?"
Wyndham dropped his head on his hands.
"Hasten the crisis," he said. "I want the plunge over; hasten it."
There came a tap at the room door. Mr. Paget drew back the curtain which stood before it, slipped the bolts, and opened it.
"Ah, I guessed you were here!" said Valentine's gay voice; "yes, and Gerald too. This is delightful," added she, as she stepped into the room.
"What is it, Val?" asked her father. "I was busy – I was talking to your husband. I am very much occupied this afternoon. I forgot it was the day you generally called for me. No, I'm afraid I can't go with you, my pet."
Valentine was looking radiant in winter furs.
"I'll go with Gerald, then," she said. "He's not too busy."
She smiled at him.
"No, my dear, I'll go with you," said the younger man. "I don't think, sir," he added, turning round, with a desperately white but smiling face, "that we can advance business much by prolonging this interview, and if you have no objection, I should like to take a drive with my wife as she has called."
Valentine instinctively felt that these smoothly spoken words were meant to hide something. She glanced from the face of one man to another; then she went up to her father and linked her hand in his arm.
"Come, too, daddy," she said. "You used always to be able to make horrid business wait upon your own Valentine's pleasure."
Mr. Paget hesitated for a moment. Then he stooped and lightly kissed his daughter's blooming cheek.
"Go with your husband, dear," he said, gently. "I am really busy, and we shall meet at dinner time."
"Yes, we are to dine with you to-night – I've a most important request to make after dinner. You know what it is, Gerry. Won't father be electrified? Promise beforehand that you'll grant it, dad."
"Yes, my child, yes. Now run away both of you. I am really much occupied."
Valentine and her husband disappeared. Mr. Paget shut and locked the door behind them – he drew the velvet curtains to insure perfect privacy. Then he sank down in his easy-chair to indulge in anxious meditation.
He thought some of those hard thoughts, some of those abstruse, worrying, almost despairing thoughts, which add years to a man's life.
As he thought the mask dropped from his handsome face; he looked old and wicked.
After about a quarter-of-an-hour of these meditations, he moved slightly and touched an electric bell in the wall. His signal was answered in about a minute by a tap at the room door. He slipped the bolts again, and admitted his confidential clerk, Helps.
"Sit down, Helps. Yes, bolt the door, quite right. Now, sit down. Helps, I am worried."
"I'm sorry to observe it, sir," said Helps. "Worries is nat'ral, but not agreeable. They come to the good and they come to the bad alike; worries is like the sun – they shines upon all."
"A particularly agreeable kind of glare they make," responded Mr. Paget, testily. "Your similes are remarkable for their aptitude, Helps. Now, have the goodness to confine yourself to briefly replying to my questions. Has there been any news from India since last week?"
"Nothing fresh, sir."
"No sign of stir; no awakening of interest – of – of – suspicion?"
"Not yet, sir. It isn't to be expected, is it?"
"I suppose not. Sometimes I get impatient, Helps."
"You needn't now, sir. Your train is, so to speak, laid. Any moment you can apply the match. Any moment, Mr. Paget. Sometimes, if you'll excuse me for speaking of that same, I have a heart in my bosom that pities the victim. You shouldn't have done it from among the clergy. Mr. Paget, and him an only son, too."
"Hush, it's done. There is no help now. Helps, you are the only soul in the world who knows everything. Helps, there may be two victims."
Helps had a sallow face. It grew sickly now.
"I don't like it," he muttered. "I never did approve of meddling with the clergy – he was meant for the Church, and them is the Lord's anointed."
"Don't talk so much," thundered Mr. Paget. "I tell you there are two victims – and one of them is my child. She is falling in love with her husband. It is true – it is awful. It must be prevented. Helps, you and I have got to prevent it."
Helps sat perfectly still. His eyes were lowered; they were following the patterns of the carpet. He moved his lips softly.
"It must be prevented," said Mr. Paget. "Why do you sit like that? Will you help me, or will you not?"
Helps raised his greeny-blue eyes with great deliberation.
"I don't know that I will help you, Mr. Paget," he replied; and then he lowered them again.
"You won't help me? You don't know what you are saying, Helps. Did you understand my words? I told you that my daughter was falling in love with that scamp Wyndham."
"He ain't a scamp," replied the clerk. "He's in the conspiracy, poor lad, he's the victim of the conspiracy, but he's no scamp. Now I never liked it. I may as well own to you, Mr. Paget, that I never liked your meddling with the clergy. I said, from the first, as no good would come of it. It's my opinion, sir – " here Helps rose, and raising one thin hand shook it feebly at his employer, "it's my opinion as the Lord is agen you – agen us both for that matter. We can't do nothing if He is, you know. I had a dream last night – I didn't like the dream, it was a hominous dream. I didn't like your scheme, Mr. Paget, and I don't think I'll help you more'n I have done."
"Oh, you don't? You are a wicked old scoundrel. You think you can have things all your own way. You are a thief. You know the kind of accommodation thieves get when their follies get found out. Of course, it's inexpensive, but it's scarcely agreeable."
Helps smiled slightly.
"No one could lock me up but you, and you wouldn't dare," he replied.
These words seemed somehow or other to have a very calming effect on Mr. Paget. He did not speak for a full moment, then he said quietly —
"We won't go into painful scenes of the past, Helps. Yes; we have both committed folly, and must stand or fall together. We have both got only daughters – it is our life's work to shield them from dishonor, to guard them from pain. Suppose, Helps, suppose your Esther was in the position of my child? Suppose she was learning to love her husband, and you knew what that husband had before him, how would you feel, Helps? Put yourself in my place, and tell me how you'd feel."
"It 'ud all turn on one point," said Helps. "Whether I loved the girl or myself most. Ef I saw that the girl was going deep in love with her husband – deep, mind you – mortal deep – so I was nothing at all to her beside him, why then, maybe, I'd save the young man for her sake, and go under myself. I might do that, it 'ud depend on how much I loved."
"Nonsense; you would bring dishonor and ruin on her. How could she ever hold up her head again?"
"Maybe he'd comfort her through it. There's no saying. Love, deep love, mind you, does wonders."
Mr. Paget began to pace up and down the room.
"You are the greatest old fool I ever came across," he said. "Now, mind you, your sentiments with regard to your low-born daughter are nothing at all to me. Noblesse oblige doesn't come into the case with you as it does with my child. Dishonor shall never touch her; it would kill her. She must be guarded against it. Listen, Helps. We have talked folly and sentiment enough. Now to business. That young man must not rise in my daughter's esteem. There is such a thing – listen, Helps, come close – such a thing as blackening a man's character. You think it over – you're a crafty old dog. Go home and look at Esther, and think it over. God bless me, I'd not an idea how late it was. Here's a five pound note for your pretty girl, Helps. Now go home and think it over."