The Way We Live Now III

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

her choice. It was me as was to blame, because I didn’t do it before. I ought to ha’ dropped into him when I first heard as he was arter her. It’s that as girls like. So, squoire, I’m just going again to Lon’on right away.”

Roger suggested that old Ruggles would, of course, receive his niece; but as to this John expressed his supreme indifference. The old man was nothing to him. Of course he would like to have the old man’s money; but the old man couldn’t live for ever, and he supposed that things would come right in time. But this he knew, — that he wasn’t going to cringe to the old man about his money. When Roger observed that it would be better that Ruby should have some home to which she might at once return, John adverted with a renewed grin to all the substantial comforts of his own house. It seemed to be his idea, that on arriving in London he would at once take Ruby away to church and be married to her out of hand. He had thrashed his rival, and what cause could there now be for delay?

But before he left the field he made one other speech to the squire. “You ain’t a’taken it amiss, squoire, ‘cause he was coosin to yourself?”

“Not in the least, Mr. Crumb.”

“That’s koind now. I ain’t a done the yong man a ha’porth o’ harm, and I don’t feel no grudge again him, and when me and Ruby’s once spliced, I’m darned if I don’t give ‘un a bottle of wine the first day as he’ll come to Bungay.”

Roger did not feel himself justified in accepting this invitation on the part of Sir Felix; but he renewed his assurance that he, on his own part, thought that Crumb had behaved well in

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that matter of the street encounter, and he expressed a strong wish for the immediate and continued happiness of Mr. and Mrs. John Crumb.

“Oh, ay, we’ll be ‘appy, squoire,” said Crumb as he went exulting out of the field.

On the day after this Roger Carbury received a letter which disturbed him very much, and to which he hardly knew whether to return any answer, or what answer. It was from Paul Montague, and was written by him but a few hours after he had left his letter for Hetta with his own hands, at the door of her mother’s house. Paul’s letter to Roger was as follows: —

0 5, —

Though I know that you have cast me off from you I cannot write to you in any other way, as any other way would be untrue. You can answer me, of course, as you please, but I do think that you will owe me an answer, as I appeal to you in the name of justice.

You know what has taken place between Hetta and myself. She had accepted me, and therefore I am justified in feeling sure that she must have loved me. But she has now quarrelled with me altogether, and has told me that I am never to see her again. Of course I don’t mean to put up with this. Who would? You will say that it is no business of yours. But I think that you would not wish that she should be left under a false impression, if you could put her right.

Somebody has told her the story of Mrs. Hurtle. I suppose it was Felix, and that he had learned it from those people at Islington. But she has been told that which is untrue. Nobody knows

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and nobody can know the truth as you do. She supposes that I have willingly been passing my time with Mrs. Hurtle during the last two months, although during that very time I have asked for and have received the assurance of her love. Now, whether or no I have been to blame about Mrs. Hurtle, — as to which nothing at present need be said, — it is certainly the truth that her coming to England was not only not desired by me, but was felt by me to be the greatest possible misfortune. But after all that had passed I certainly owed it to her not to neglect her; — and this duty was the more incumbent on me as she was a foreigner and unknown to any one. I went down to Lowestoft with her at her request, having named the place to her as one known to myself, and because I could not refuse her so small a favour. You know that it was so, and you know also, as no one else does, that whatever courtesy I have shown to Mrs. Hurtle in England, I have been constrained to show her.

I appeal to you to let Hetta know that this is true. She had made me understand that not only her mother and brother, but you also, are well acquainted with the story of my acquaintance with Mrs. Hurtle. Neither Lady Carbury nor Sir Felix has ever known anything about it. You, and you only, have known the truth. And now, though at the present you are angry with me, I call upon you to tell Hetta the truth as you know it. You will understand me when I say that I feel that I am being destroyed by a false representation. I think that you, who abhor a falsehood, will see the justice of setting me right, at any rate as far as the truth can do so. I do not want you to say a word for me beyond that.

Yours always,

3 0.

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What business is all that of mine? This, of course, was the first feeling produced in Roger’s mind by Montague’s letter. If Hetta had received any false impression, it had not come from him. He had told no stories against his rival, whether true or false. He had been so scrupulous that he had refused to say a word at all. And if any false impression had been made on Hetta’s mind, either by circumstances or by untrue words, had not Montague deserved any evil that might fall upon him? Though every word in Montague’s letter might be true, nevertheless, in the end, no more than justice would be done him, even should he be robbed at last of his mistress under erroneous impressions. The fact that he had once disgraced himself by offering to make Mrs. Hurtle his wife, rendered him unworthy of Hetta Carbury. Such, at least, was Roger Carbury’s verdict as he thought over all the circumstances. At any rate, it was no business of his to correct these wrong impressions.

And yet he was ill at ease as he thought of it all. He did believe that every word in Montague’s letter was true. Though he had been very indignant when he met Paul and Mrs. Hurtle together on the sands at Lowestoft, he was perfectly convinced that the cause of their coming there had been precisely that which Montague had stated. It took him two days to think over all this, two days of great discomfort and unhappiness. After all, why should he be a dog in the manger? The girl did not care for him, — looked upon him as an old man to be regarded in a fashion altogether different from that in which she regarded Paul Montague. He had let his time for love-making go by, and now it behoved him, as a man, to take the world as he found it, and not to lose himself in regrets for a kind of

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happiness which he could never attain. In such an emergency as this he should do what was fair and honest, without reference to his own feelings. And yet the passion which dominated John Crumb altogether, which made the mealman so intent on the attainment of his object as to render all other things indifferent to him for the time, was equally strong with Roger Carbury. Unfortunately for Roger, strong as his passion was, it was embarrassed by other feelings. It never occurred to Crumb to think whether he was a fit husband for Ruby, or whether Ruby, having a decided preference for another man, could be a fit wife for him. But with Roger there were a thousand surrounding difficulties to hamper him. John Crumb never doubted for a moment what he should do. He had to get the girl, if possible, and he meant to get her whatever she might cost him. He was always confident though sometimes perplexed. But Roger had no confidence. He knew that he should never win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to win it. The people around him, from old fashion, still called him the young squire! Why; — he felt himself at times to be eighty years old, — so old that he was unfitted for intercourse with such juvenile spirits as those of his neighbour the bishop, and of his friend Hepworth. Could he, by any training, bring himself to take her happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own?

In such a mood as this he did at last answer his enemy’s letter, — and he answered it as follows: —

I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I do not know

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since the night on which she had helped to entertain the Emperor of China.

On Saturday morning the inquest was held. There was not the slightest doubt as to any one of the incidents of the catastrophe. The servants, the doctor, and the inspector of police between them, learned that he had come home alone, that nobody had been near him during the night, that he had been found dead, and that he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid. It was also proved that he had been drunk in the House of Commons, a fact to which one of the clerks of the House, very much against his will, was called upon to testify. That he had destroyed himself there was no doubt, — nor was there any doubt as to the cause.

In such cases as this it is for the jury to say whether the unfortunate one who has found his life too hard for endurance, and has rushed away to see whether he could not find an improved condition of things elsewhere, has or has not been mad at the moment. Surviving friends are of course anxious for a verdict of insanity, as in that case no further punishment is exacted. The body can be buried like any other body, and it can always be said afterwards that the poor man was mad. Perhaps it would be well that all suicides should be said to have been mad, for certainly the jurymen are not generally guided in their verdicts by any accurately ascertained facts. If the poor wretch has, up to his last days, been apparently living a decent life; if he be not hated, or has not in his last moments made himself specially obnoxious to the world at large, then he is declared to have been mad. Who would be heavy on a poor clergyman who has been at last driven by horrid doubts to rid

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himself of a difficulty from which he saw no escape in any other way? Who would not give the benefit of the doubt to the poor woman whose lover and lord had deserted her? Who would remit to unhallowed earth the body of the once beneficent philosopher who has simply thought that he might as well go now, finding himself powerless to do further good upon earth? Such, and such like, have of course been temporarily insane, though no touch even of strangeness may have marked their conduct up to their last known dealings with their fellowmortals. But let a Melmotte be found dead, with a bottle of prussic acid by his side — a man who has become horrid to the world because of his late iniquities, a man who has so well pretended to be rich that he has been able to buy and to sell properties without paying for them, a wretch who has made himself odious by his ruin to friends who had taken him up as a pillar of strength in regard to wealth, a brute who had got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and had disgraced the House by being drunk there, — and, of course, he will not be saved by a verdict of insanity from the cross roads, or whatever scornful grave may be allowed to those who have killed themselves, with their wits about them. Just at this moment there was a very strong feeling against Melmotte, owing perhaps as much to his having tumbled over poor Mr. Beauclerk in the House of Commons as to the stories of the forgeries he had committed, and the virtue of the day vindicated itself by declaring him to have been responsible for his actions when he took the poison. He was felo de se, and therefore carried away to the cross roads — or elsewhere. But it may be imagined, I think, that during that night he may have become

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as mad as any other wretch, have been driven as far beyond his powers of endurance as any other poor creature who ever at any time felt himself constrained to go. He had not been so drunk but that he knew all that happened, and could foresee pretty well what would happen. The summons to attend upon the Lord Mayor had been served upon him. There were some, among them Croll and Mr. Brehgert, who absolutely knew that he had committed forgery. He had no money for the Longestaffes, and he was well aware what Squercum would do at once. He had assured himself long ago, — he had assured himself indeed not very long ago, — that he would brave it all like a man. But we none of us know what load we can bear, and what would break our backs. Melmotte’s back had been so utterly crushed that I almost think that he was mad enough to have justified a verdict of temporary insanity.

But he was carried away, no one knew whither, and for a week his name was hateful. But after that, a certain amount of whitewashing took place, and, in some degree, a restitution of fame was made to the manes of the departed. In Westminster he was always odious. Westminster, which had adopted him, never forgave him. But in other districts it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful things. Marylebone, which is always merciful, took him up quite with affection, and would have returned his ghost to Parliament could his ghost have paid for committee rooms. Finsbury delighted for a while to talk of the great Financier, and even Chelsea thought that he had been done to death by ungenerous

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