"Thank you, Carr, that is an excellent thought, and what is more you shall escort Lilias or Marjory up to town. They have a standing invitation to my boy's house, and a little change just now would do – shall I say Lilias? – good."
"Miss Lilias wants a change, sir. She is affected like yourself with, may I call it, an attack of the nerves."
CHAPTER XIX
Valentine really made an excellent housekeeper. Nobody expected it of her; her friends, the ladies, old and young, the girls, married or otherwise, who knew Valentine as they supposed very intimately, considered the idea of settling this remarkably ignorant young person down with a fixed income and telling her to buy with it, and contrive with it, and make two ends meet with it, quite one of the best jokes of the day.
Valentine did not regard it as a joke at all. She honestly tried, honestly studied, and honestly made a success as housekeeper and household manager.
She was a most undeveloped creature, undeveloped both in mind and heart; but she not only possessed intense latent affections, but latent capacities of all sorts. She scarcely knew the name of poverty, she had no experience with regard to the value of money, but nature had given her an instinct which taught her to spend it wisely and well. She found a thousand a year a larger income than she and Gerald with their modest wants needed. She scarcely used half of what she received, and yet her home was cheerful, her servants happy, her table all that was comfortable.
When she brought her housekeeping books to her husband to balance at the end of the first month, he looked at her with admiration, and then said in a voice of great sadness: —
"God help me, Valentine, have I made a mistake altogether about you? Am I dreaming, Valentine, are you meant for a poor man's wife after all?"
"For your wife, whether rich or poor," she said; and she knelt down by his side, and put her hand into his.
She had always possessed a sweet and beautiful face, but for the last few weeks it had altered; the sweetness had not gone, but resolution had grown round the curved pretty lips, and the eyes had a soft happiness in them.
"Pretty, charming creature!" people used to say of her. "But just a trifle commonplace and doll-like."
This doll-like expression was no longer discernible in Valentine.
Gerald touched her hair tenderly.
"My little darling!" he said. His voice shook. Then he rose abruptly, with a gesture which was almost rough. "Come upstairs, Val; the housekeeping progresses admirably. No, my dear, you made a mistake, you were never meant for a poor man's wife."
Valentine kissed his brow: she looked at him in a puzzled way.
"Do you know," she said, laying her hands on his, with a gesture half timid, half appealing; "don't go up to the drawing-room for a moment, Gerald, I want to say a thing, something I have observed. I am loved by two men, by my father and by you. I am loved by them very much – by both of them very much. Oh, yes, Gerald, I know what you feel for me, and yet I can't make either of them happy. My father is not happy. Oh, yes, I can see – love isn't blind. I never remembered my father quite, quite happy, and he is certainly less so than ever now. He tries to look all right when people are by; even succeeds, for he is so unselfish, and brave, and noble. But when he is alone – ah, then. Once he fell asleep when I was in the room, he looked terrible in that sleep; his face was haggard – he sighed – there was moisture on his brow. When he woke he asked me to marry you. I didn't care for you then, Gerald, but I said yes because of my father. He said if I married you he would be perfectly happy. I did so – he is not happy."
Gerald did not say a word.
"And you aren't happy, dear," she continued, coming a little nearer to him. "You used to be; before we were engaged you had such a gay face. I could never call you gay since, Gerald. You are so thin, and sometimes at night I lie awake, and I hear you sigh. Why, what is the matter. Gerald? You look ghastly now. Am I hurting you? I wouldn't hurt you, darling."
Wyndham turned round quickly. He had been white almost to fainting, now a great light seemed to leap out of his eyes.
"What did you say? What did you call me? Say it again."
"Darling."
"Then I thank my God – everything has not been in vain."
He sank down on the nearest chair and burst into tears. Tragedies go on where least expected. The servants in the servants' hall thought their young master and mistress quite the happiest people in the world. Were they not gay, young, rich? Did they not adore one another? Gerald's devotion to Valentine was almost a joke with them, and Valentine's increasing regard for him was very observable to those watchful outsiders.
Certainly the pair stayed in a good deal in the evenings, and why to-night in particular did they linger so long in the dining-room, rather to the inconvenience of the kitchen regime. But presently their steps were heard going upstairs, and then Valentine accompanied Gerald's violin on the piano.
Wyndham played very well for an amateur, so well that with a little extra practice he might almost have taken his place as a professional of no mean ability. He had exquisite taste and a sensitive ear. Music always excited him, and perhaps was not the safest recreation for such a highly strung nature.
Valentine could accompany well; she, too, loved music, but had not her husband's facility nor grace of execution. In his happiest moments Gerald could compose, and sometimes even improvise with success.
During their honeymoon it seemed to him one day as he looked at the somewhat impassive face of the girl for whom he had sold himself body and soul – as he looked and felt that not yet at least did her heart echo even faintly to any beat of his, it occurred to him that he might tell his story in its pain and its longing best through the medium of music. He composed a little piece which, for want of another title, he called "Waves." It was very sweet in melody, and had some minor notes of such pathos that when Valentine first heard him play it on the violin she burst into tears. He told her quite simply then that it was his story about her, that all the sweetness was her share, all the graceful melody, the sparkling joyous notes which coming from Gerald's violin seemed to speak like a gay and happy voice, represented his ideal of her. The deeper notes and the pain belonged to him; pain must ever come with love when it is strongest, she would understand this presently.
Then he put his little piece away – he only played it once for her when they were in Switzerland; he forgot it, but she did not.
To-night, after her confession, when they went up to the drawing-room, his heart immeasurably soothed and healed, and hers soft with a wonderful joy which the beginning of true love can give, he remembered "Waves," and thought he would play it for her again. It did not sound so melancholy this time, but strange to say the gay notes were not quite so gay, the warble of a light heart had deepened. As Wyndham played and Valentine sat silent, for she offered no accompaniment to this little fugitive piece, he found that he must slightly reconstruct the melody. The minor keys were still minor, but there was a ring of victory through them now; they were solemn, but not despairing.
"He that loseth his life shall find it," Wyndham said suddenly, looking full into her eyes.
The violin slipped from his hand, coming down with a discordant crash, the door was flung open by the servant, as Lilias Wyndham and Adrian Carr came into the room.
In a minute all was gay bustle and confusion. Gerald forgot his cares, and Valentine was only too anxious to show herself as the hospitable and attentive hostess.
A kind of improvised meal between dinner and tea was actually brought up into the drawing-room. Lilias ate chicken and ham holding her plate on her lap. Carr, more of a stranger, was not allowed to feel this fact. In short, no four could have looked merrier or more free from trouble.
"It is delightful to have you here – delightful, Lilias," said Valentine, taking her sister-in-law's hand and squeezing it affectionately.
"Do you know, Lil," said Gerald, "that this little girl-wife of mine, with no experience whatever, makes a most capable housekeeper. With all your years of knowledge I should not like you to enter the lists with her."
"With all my years of failure, you mean," answered Lilias. "I always was and always will be the most incompetent woman with regard to beef and mutton and pounds, shillings and pence who walks this earth."
She laughed as she spoke; her face was cloudless, her dark eyes serene. For one moment before he went away Carr found time to say a word to her.
"Did I not tell you it was simply a case of nerves?" he remarked.
CHAPTER XX
Esther Helps was certainly neither a prudent nor a careful young woman. She meant no harm, she would have shuddered at the thought of actual sin, but she was reckless, a little defiant of all authority, even her father's most gentle and loving control, and very discontented with her position in life.
Morning, noon, and night, Esther's dream of dreams, longing of longings, was to be a lady. She had some little foundation for this desire. The mother who had died at her birth had been a poor half-educated little governess, whose mother before her had been a clergyman's daughter. Esther quickly discovered that she was beautiful, and her dream of dreams was to marry a gentleman, and so go back to that station in life where her mother had moved.
Esther had no real instincts of ladyhood. She spoke loudly, her education had been of a very flashy and superficial order. From the time she left the fourth-rate boarding-school where her father alone had the means to place her, she had stayed at home and idled. Idling was very bad for a character like hers; she was naturally active and energetic – she had plenty of ability, and would have made a capital shopwoman or dressmaker. But Esther thought it quite beneath her to work, and her father, who could support her at home, was only too delighted to have her there. He was inordinately proud of her – she was the one sunbeam in his dull, clouded timorous life. He adored her beauty, he found no fault with her Cockney twang, and he gave her in double measure the love which had lain buried for many years with his young wife.
Esther, therefore, when she left school, sat at home, and made her own dresses, and chatted with her cousin Cherry, who was an orphan, and belonged to Helps' side of the house. Cherry was a very capable, matter-of-fact hearty little girl, and Esther thought it an excellent arrangement that she should live with them, and take the drudgery and the cooking, and in short all the household work off her hands. Esther was very fond of Cherry, and Cherry, in her turn, thought there was never anyone quite so grand and magnificent as her tall, stately cousin.
"Well, Cherry," said Esther, as the two were going to bed on the night after Wyndham's visit, "what do you think of him? Oh, I needn't ask, there's but one thing to be thought of him."
"Elegant, I say," interrupted Cherry. She was looking particularly round and dumpy herself, and her broad face with her light grey eyes was all one smile. "An elegant young man, Essie – a sort of chevalier, now, wouldn't you say so?"
"It's just like you, Cherry, you take up all your odd moments with those poetry books. Mr. Wyndham ain't a chevalier – he's just a gentleman, neither more nor less – a real gentleman, oh dear. I call it a cruel disappointment. Cherry," and she heaved a profound sigh.
"What's a disappointment?" asked unsuspicious Cherry, as she tumbled into bed.
"Why, that he's married, my dear. He'd have suited me fine. Well, there's an end of that."
Cherry thought there was sufficiently an end to allow her to drop off to sleep, and Esther, after lying awake for a little, presently followed her example.
The next day she was more restless than ever, once or twice even openly complaining to Cherry of the dullness of her lot, and loudly proclaiming her determination to become a lady in spite of everybody.
"You can't, Essie," said her father, in his meek, though somewhat high-pitched voice, when he overheard some of her words that evening. "It ain't your lot, child – you warn't born in the genteel line; there's all lines and all grooves, and yours is the narrowing one of the poverty-struck clerk's child."
"I think it's mean of you to talk like that, father," said Esther, her eyes flashing. "It's mean of you, and unkind to my poor mother, who was a lady born."
"I don't know much about that," replied Helps, looking more despondent than ever. "She was the best of little wives, and if she was born a lady, which I ain't going to deny, for I don't know she warn't a lady bred, I mind me she thought it a fine bit of a rise to leave off teaching the baker's children, and come home to me. Poor little Essie – poor, dear little Essie. You don't take much after her, Esther, my girl."
"If she was spiritless, and had no mind for her duties, which were in my opinion to uphold her station in life, I don't want to take after her," answered Esther, and she flounced out of the room.
Helps looked round in an appealing way at Cherry.
"I don't want to part with her," he said, "but it will be a good thing for us all when Essie is wed. I must try and find some decent young fellow who will be likely to take a fancy to her. Her words fret me on account of their ambition. Cherry, child."
"I wouldn't be put out if I was you, uncle," responded Cherry in her even, matter-of-fact voice. "Esther is took up with a whim, and it will pass. It's all on account of the chevalier."
"The what, child?"
"The chevalier. Oh, my sakes alive, there's the milk boiling all over the place, and my hearth done up so beautiful. Here, catch hold of this saucepan, uncle, while I fetch a cloth to wipe up. My word, ain't this provoking. I thought to get time to learn a verse or two out of the poetry book to-night; but no such luck – I'll be brushing and blacking till bed-time."
In the confusion which ensued, Helps forgot to ask Cherry whom she meant by the chevalier.
A few days after this, as Helps was coming home late, he was rather dismayed to find his daughter returning also, accompanied by a young man who was no better dressed than half the young men with whom she walked, but who had a certain air and a certain manner which smote upon the father's heart with a dull sense of apprehension.
"Essie, my girl," he said, when she had bidden her swain good-bye, and had come into the house, with her eyes sparkling and her whole face looking so bright and beautiful, that even Cherry dropped her poetry book to gaze in admiration. "Essie," said Helps, all the tenderness of the love he bore her trembling in his voice, "come here. Kiss your old father. You love him, don't you?"
"Why, dad, what a question. I should rather think I did."
"You wouldn't hurt him now, Essie? You wouldn't break his heart, for instance?"
"I break your heart, dad? Is it likely? Now, what can the old man be driving at?" she said, looking across at Cherry.
"It's this," responded Helps, "I want to know the name of the fellow – yes, the – the fellow, who saw you home just now?"
"Now, father, mightn't he be Mr. Gray, or Mr. Jones, or Mr. Abbott; some of those nice young men you bring up now and then from the city? Why mightn't he be one of them, father?"
"But he wasn't, my dear. The young men you speak of are honest lads, every one of them. I wouldn't have no sort of objection to your walking with them, Esther. It wasn't none of my friends from the city I saw you with to-night. Essie."
"And why shouldn't this be an honest fellow, too?" answered Esther, her eyes sparkling dangerously.
"I don't know, my dear. I didn't like the looks of him. What's his name, Essie, my love?"
"Captain Herriot, of the – Hussars."
"There! Esther, you're not to walk with Captain Herriot any more. You're not to know him. I won't have it – so now."
"Highty-tighty!" said Esther. "There are two to say a word to that bargain, father. And pray, why may I walk with Mr. Jones and not with Captain Herriot? Captain Herriot's a real gentleman, and Mr. Jones ain't."
"And that's the reason, my child. If Jones walked with you, he'd maybe – yes, I'm sure of it – he'd want all his heart and soul to make you his honest wife some day. Do you suppose Captain Herriot wants to make you his wife. Essie?"
"I don't say. I won't be questioned like that." Her whole pale face was in a flame. "Maybe we never thought of such a thing, but just to be friends, and to have a pleasant time. It's cruel of you to talk like that, father."
"Well, then, I won't, my darling, I won't. Just promise you'll have nothing more to say to the fellow. I'd believe your word against the world, Essie."
"Against the world? Would you really, dad? I wouldn't, though, if I were you. No, I ain't going to make a promise I might break." She went out of the room, she was crying.
A short time after this, indeed the very day after Lilias Wyndham's visit to London, Gerald noticed that Helps followed his every movement as he came rather languidly in and out of the office, with dull imploring eyes. The old clerk was particularly busy that morning, he was kept going here, there, and everywhere. Work of all kinds, work of the most unexpected and unlooked for nature seemed to descend to-day with the force of a sledge hammer on his devoted head.
Gerald saw that he was dying to speak to him, and at the first opportunity he took him aside, and asked him if there was anything he could do for him.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Wyndham, you can, you can. Oh, thank the good Lord for bringing you over to speak to me when no one was looking. You can save Esther for me – that's what you can do, Mr. Wyndham. No one can save her but you. So you will, sir; oh, you will. She's my only child, Mr. Wyndham."
CHAPTER XXI
"I will certainly do what I can," responded Wyndham, in his grave, courteous voice.
He was leaning against the window-ledge in a careless attitude; Helps, looking up at him anxiously, noticed how pale and wan his face was.
"Ah," he responded, rising from his seat, and going up to the younger man. "'Tis them as bears burdens knows how to pity. Thank the Lord there's compensation in all things. Now look here, Mr. Wyndham, this is how things are. You have seen my Essie, she's troublesome and spirited – oh, no one more so."
Helps paused.
"Yes," answered Gerald, in a quiet, waiting voice. He was not particularly interested in the discussion of Esther Helps' character.
"And she's beautiful, Mr. Wyndham. Aye, there's her curse. Beautiful and hambitious and not a lady, and dying to be one. You understand, Mr. Wyndham – you must understand."
Wyndham said nothing.
"Well, a month or so ago I found out there was a gentleman – at least a man who called himself a gentleman – walking with her, and filling her head with nonsense. His name was Herriot, a captain in the Hussars. I told her she was to have nought to say to him, but I soon found that she disobeyed me. Then I had to spy on her – you may think how I felt, but it had to be done. I found that she walked with him, and met him at all hours. I made inquiries about his character, and I found he was a scoundrel, a bad fellow out and out. He'd be sure to break my Essie's heart if he did no worse. Then I was in a taking, for the girl kept everything in, and would scarcely brook me so much as to look at her. I was that upset that I took Cherry into my confidence. She's a very good girl, is Cherry – the Lord hasn't cursed her with no beauty. Last week she brought me word that Esther was going to the Gaiety with Captain Herriot, that he had taken two stalls and they were to have a fine time. She said Esther was almost out of her mind with delight, as it was always her dream to be seen at the theatre, beautifully dressed, with a real gentleman. She had shown the tickets to Cherry, and Cherry was smart enough to take the numbers and keep them in the back of her head. She told me, and I can tell you, Mr. Wyndham, I was fit to kill someone. I went straight off to the Gaiety office, and by good luck or the grace of God, I found there was a vacant stall next to Esther's – just one, and no more. I paid for that stall, here's the ticket in my pocket."
"Yes," said Wyndham, "and you mean to go with Esther to-night? A very good idea – excellent. But how will she take it?"
"How will she take it, Mr. Wyndham? I feel fit to pull my grey hairs out. How would she have taken it, you mean? For it's all a thing of the past, sir. Oh, I had it all planned fine. I was to wait until she and that fellow had taken their places, and then I'd come in quite natural, and sit down beside her, and answer none of her questions, only never leave her, no, not for a quarter of a minute. And if he spoke up, the ruffian, I had my reply for him. I'd stay quiet enough till we got outside, and then just one blow in the middle of his face – yes, just one, to relieve a father's feelings. Then home with my girl, and I think it's more than likely we wouldn't have been troubled with no more of Captain Herriot's attentions."
Helps paused again.
"You speak in the past tense," said Gerald. "Why cannot you carry out this excellent programme?"
"That's it, sir, that's what about maddens me. I came to the office this morning, and what has happened hasn't happened this three months past. There's business come in of a nature that no one can tackle but myself. Business of a private character, and yet what may mean the loss or gain of thousands. Oh, I can't explain it, Mr. Wyndham, even though you are a partner; there are things that confidential clerks know that are hid from junior partners. I can't leave here till eleven o'clock to-night, Mr. Wyndham, and if you don't help me Esther may be a lost girl. Yes, there's no mincing matters – lost, beyond hope. Will you help me, Mr. Wyndham? I'll go mad if my only girl, my beautiful girl, comes to that."
"I? Can I help you?" asked Wyndham. There was hesitation and distress in his voice. He saw that he was going to be asked to do something unpleasant.
"You can do this, sir. You can make it all right. Bless you, sir, who's there to see? And you go with the best intentions. You go in a noble cause. You can afford to risk that much, Mr. Wyndham. I want you to take my place at the Gaiety to-night; take my ticket and go there. Talk pleasant to Esther: not much, but just a little, nothing to rouse her suspicions. Let her think it was just a coincidence your being there. Then, just at the end, give her this letter from me. I've said a thing in it that will startle her. She'll get a fright and turn to you. Put her into a cab then, and bring her here. You can sit on the box if you like. That's all. Put her into my arms and your task is done. Here's the ticket and the letter. Do it, Mr. Wyndham, and God will bless you. Yes, yes, my poor young sir – He'll bless you."
"Don't talk of God when you speak of me," said Wyndham. "Something has happened which closes the door of religion for me. The door between God and me is closed. I am still open, however, to the call of humanity. You want me to go to the Gaiety to-night to save your daughter. It is very probable that if I went I should save her. I am engaged, however, for to-night. My sister is in town. We are going to make a party to the Haymarket."
"Oh, sir, what of that? Send a telegram to say you have an engagement. Think of Esther. Think what it means if you fail me now."
"I do think of it, Helps. I will do what you want. Give me the letter and the theatre ticket."