The Way We Live Now III
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THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
might come within reach. With such a son, with such need for struggling before her, would she not be wicked not to catch even at every straw? But this man had now become so true to her, that she hardly knew how to beg him to do that which she, with all her mistaken feelings, did in truth know that he ought not to do. He had asked her to marry him, for which, — though she had refused him, — she felt infinitely grateful. And though she had refused him, he had lent her money, and had supported her in her misery by his continued counsel. If he would offer to do this thing for her she would accept his kindness on her knees, — but even she could not bring herself to ask to have this added to his other favours. Her first word to him was about Mr. Alf. “So he has given up the paper?”
“Well, yes; — nominally.” “Is that all?”
“I don’t suppose he’ll really let it go out of his own hands. Nobody likes to lose power. He’ll share the work, and keep the authority. As for Westminster, I don’t believe he has a chance. If that poor wretch Melmotte could beat him when everybody was already talking about the forgeries, how is it likely that he should stand against such a candidate as they’ll get now?”
“He was here yesterday.”
“And full of triumph, I suppose?”
“He never talks to me much of himself. We were speaking of my new book, — my novel. He assured me most positively that he had nothing further to do with the paper.”
“He did not care to make you a promise, I dare say.” “That was just it. Of course I did not believe him.”
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“Neither will I make a promise, but we’ll see what we can do. If we can’t be good-natured, at any rate we will say nothing ill-natured. Let me see, — what is the name?”
“’The Wheel of Fortune.’” Lady Carbury as she told the title of her new book to her old friend seemed to be almost ashamed of it.
“Let them send it early, — a day or two before it’s out, if they can. I can’t answer, of course, for the opinion of the gentleman it will go to, but nothing shall go in that you would dislike. Good-bye. God bless you.” And as he took her hand, he looked at her almost as though the old susceptibility were returning to him.
As she sat alone after he had gone, thinking over it all, — thinking of her own circumstances and of his kindness, — it did not occur to her to call him an old goose again. She felt now that she had mistaken her man when she had so regarded him. That first and only kiss which he had given her, which she had treated with so much derision, for which she had rebuked him so mildly and yet so haughtily, had now a somewhat sacred spot in her memory. Through it all the man must have really loved her! Was it not marvellous that such a thing should be? And how had it come to pass that she in all her tenderness had rejected him when he had given her the chance of becoming his wife?
CHAPTER XC
HETTA’S SORROW
When Hetta Carbury received that letter from her lover which was given to the reader some chapters back, it certainly did not tend in any way to alleviate her misery. Even when she had read it over half-a-dozen times, she could not bring herself to think it possible that she could be reconciled to the man. It was not only that he had sinned against her by giving his society to another woman to whom he had at any rate been engaged not long since, at the very time at which he was becoming engaged to her, — but also that he had done this in such a manner as to make his offence known to all her friends. Perhaps she had been too quick; — but there was the fact that with her own consent she had acceded to her mother’s demand that the man should be rejected. The man had been rejected, and even Roger Carbury knew that it was so. After this it was, she thought, impossible that she should recall him. But they should all know that her heart was unchanged. Roger Carbury should certainly know that, if he ever asked her further question on the matter. She would never deny it; and though she knew that the man had behaved badly, — having entangled
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himself with a nasty American woman, — yet she would be true to him as far as her own heart was concerned.
And now he told her that she had been most unjust to him. He said that he could not understand her injustice. He did not fill his letter with entreaties, but with reproaches. And certainly his reproaches moved her more than any prayer would have done. It was too late now to remedy the evil; but she was not quite sure within her own bosom that she had not been unjust to him. The more she thought of it the more puzzled her mind became. Had she quarrelled with him because he had once been in love with Mrs. Hurtle, or because she had grounds for regarding Mrs. Hurtle as her present rival? She hated Mrs. Hurtle, and she was very angry with him in that he had ever been on affectionate terms with a woman she hated; — but that had not been the reason put forward by her for quarrelling with him. Perhaps it was true that he, too, had of late loved Mrs. Hurtle hardly better than she did herself. It might be that he had been indeed constrained by hard circumstances to go with the woman to Lowestoft. Having so gone with her, it was no doubt right that he should be rejected; — for how can it be that a man who is engaged shall be allowed to travel about the country with another woman to whom also he was engaged a few months back? But still there might be hardship in it. To her, to Hetta herself, the circumstances were very hard. She loved the man with all her heart. She could look forward to no happiness in life without him. But yet it must be so.
At the end of his letter he had told her to go to Mrs. Hurtle herself if she wanted corroboration of the story as told by
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him. Of course he had known when he wrote it that she could not and would not go to Mrs. Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or four days, — unanswered, for, as a matter of course, no answer to it from herself was possible, — and had been read and re-read till she knew every word of it by heart, she began to think that if she could hear the story as it might be told by Mrs. Hurtle, a good deal that was now dark might become light to her. As she continued to read the letter, and to brood over it all, by degrees her anger was turned from her lover to her mother, her brother, and to her cousin Roger. Paul had of course behaved badly, very badly, — but had it not been for them she might have had an opportunity of forgiving him. They had driven her on to the declaration of a purpose from which she could now see no escape. There had been a plot against her, and she was a victim. In the first dismay and agony occasioned by that awful story of the American woman, — which had, at the moment, struck her with a horror which was now becoming less and less every hour, — she had fallen head foremost into the trap laid for her. She acknowledged to herself that it was too late to recover her ground. She was, at any rate, almost sure that it must be too late. But yet she was disposed to do battle with her mother and her cousin in the matter — if only with the object of showing that she would not submit her own feelings to their control. She was savage to the point of rebellion against all authority. Roger Carbury would of course think that any communication between herself and Mrs. Hurtle must be most improper, — altogether indelicate. Two or three days ago she thought so herself. But the world was going so hard with
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her, that she was beginning to feel herself capable of throwing propriety and delicacy to the winds. This man whom she had once accepted, whom she altogether loved, and who, in spite of all his faults, certainly still loved her, — of that she was beginning to have no further doubt, — accused her of dishonesty, and referred her to her rival for a corroboration of his story. She would appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. The woman was odious, abominable, a nasty intriguing American female. But her lover desired that she should hear the woman’s story; and she would hear the story, — if the woman would tell it.
So resolving, she wrote as follows to Mrs. Hurtle, finding great difficulty in the composition of a letter which should tell neither too little nor too much, and determined that she would be restrained by no mock modesty, by no girlish fear of declaring the truth about herself. The letter at last was stiff and hard, but it sufficed for its purpose.
Madam, —
Mr. Paul Montague has referred me to you as to certain circumstances which have taken place between him and you. It is right that I should tell you that I was a short time since engaged to marry him, but that I have found myself obliged to break off that engagement in consequence of what I have been told as to his acquaintance with you. I make this proposition to you, not thinking that anything you will say to me can change my mind, but because he has asked me to do so, and has, at the same time, accused me of injustice towards him. I do not wish to rest under an accusation of injustice from one to whom
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I was once warmly attached. If you will receive me, I will make it my business to call any afternoon you may name.
Yours truly,
+ &.
When the letter was written she was not only ashamed of it, but very much afraid of it also. What if the American woman should put it in a newspaper! She had heard that everything was put into newspapers in America. What if this Mrs. Hurtle should send back to her some horribly insolent answer; — or should send such answer to her mother, instead of herself! And then, again, if the American woman consented to receive her, would not the American woman, as a matter of course, trample upon her with rough words? Once or twice she put the letter aside, and almost determined that it should not be sent; — but at last, with desperate fortitude, she took it out with her and posted it herself. She told no word of it to any one. Her mother, she thought, had been cruel to her, had disregarded her feelings, and made her wretched for ever. She could not ask her mother for sympathy in her present distress. There was no friend who would sympathise with her. She must do everything alone.
Mrs. Hurtle, it will be remembered, had at last determined that she would retire from the contest and own herself to have been worsted. It is, I fear, impossible to describe adequately the various half resolutions which she formed, and the changing phases of her mind before she brought herself to this conclusion. And soon after she had assured herself that this should be the conclusion, — after she had told Paul Montague that
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it should be so, — there came back upon her at times other half resolutions to a contrary effect. She had written a letter to the man threatening desperate revenge, and had then abstained from sending it, and had then shown it to the man, — not intending to give it to him as a letter upon which he would have to act, but only that she might ask him whether, had he received it, he would have said that he had not deserved it. Then she had parted with him, refusing either to hear or to say a word of farewell, and had told Mrs. Pipkin that she was no longer engaged to be married. At that moment everything was done that could be done. The game had been played and the stakes lost, — and she had schooled herself into such restraint as to have abandoned all idea of vengeance. But from time to time there arose in her heart a feeling that such softness was unworthy of her. Who had ever been soft to her? Who had spared her? Had she not long since found out that she must fight with her very nails and teeth for every inch of ground, if she did not mean to be trodden into the dust? Had she not held her own among rough people after a very rough fashion, and should she now simply retire that she might weep in a corner like a love-sick schoolgirl? And she had been so stoutly determined that she would at any rate avenge her own wrongs, if she could not turn those wrongs into triumph! There were moments in which she thought that she could still seize the man by the throat, where all the world might see her, and dare him to deny that he was false, perjured, and mean.
Then she received a long passionate letter from Paul Montague, written at the same time as those other letters to Roger Carbury and Hetta, in which he told her all the circumstanc-
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es of his engagement to Hetta Carbury, and implored her to substantiate the truth of his own story. It was certainly marvellous to her that the man who had so long been her own lover and who had parted with her after such a fashion should write such a letter to her. But it had no tendency to increase either her anger or her sorrow. Of course she had known that it was so, and at certain times she had told herself that it was only natural, — had almost told herself that it was right. She and this young Englishman were not fit to be mated. He was to her thinking a tame, sleek household animal, whereas she knew herself to be wild, — fitter for the woods than for polished cities. It had been one of the faults of her life that she had allowed herself to be bound by tenderness of feeling to this soft over-civilised man. The result had been disastrous, as might have been expected. She was angry with him, — almost to the extent of tearing him to pieces, — but she did not become more angry because he wrote to her of her rival.
Her only present friend was Mrs. Pipkin, who treated her with the greatest deference, but who was never tired of asking questions about the lost lover. “That letter was from Mr. Montague?” said Mrs. Pipkin on the morning after it had been received.
“How can you know that?”
“I’m sure it was. One does get to know handwritings when letters come frequent.”
“It was from him. And why not?”
“Oh dear no; — why not certainly? I wish he’d write every day of his life, so that things would come round again. Nothing
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ever troubles me so much as broken love. Why don’t he come again himself, Mrs. Hurtle?”
“It is not at all likely that he should come again. It is all over, and there is no good in talking of it. I shall return to New York on Saturday week.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hurtle!”
“I can’t remain here, you know, all my life doing nothing. I came over here for a certain purpose, and that has — gone by. Now I may just go back again.”
“I know he has ill-treated you. I know he has.” “I am not disposed to talk about it, Mrs. Pipkin.”
“I should have thought it would have done you good to speak your mind out free. I know it would me if I’d been served in that way.”
“If I had anything to say at all after that fashion it would be to the gentleman, and not to any other else. As it is I shall never speak of it again to any one. You have been very kind to me, Mrs. Pipkin, and I shall be sorry to leave you.”
“Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, you can’t understand what it is to me. It isn’t only my feelings. The likes of me can’t stand by their feelings only, as their betters do. I’ve never been above telling you what a godsend you’ve been to me this summer; — have I? I’ve paid everything, butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you’re going away!” Then Mrs. Pipkin began to sob.
“I suppose I shall see Mr. Crumb before I go,” said Mrs. Hurtle.
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