The Way We Live Now III

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

“She don’t deserve it; do she? And even now she never says a word about him that I call respectful. She looks on him as just being better than Mrs. Buggins’s children. That’s all.”

“She’ll be all right when he has once got her home.”

“And I shall be all alone by myself,” said Mrs. Pipkin, with her apron up to her eyes.

It was after this that Mrs. Hurtle received Hetta’s letter. She had as yet returned no answer to Paul Montague, — nor had she intended to send any written answer. Were she to comply with his request she could do so best by writing to the girl who was concerned rather than to him. And though she wrote no such letter she thought of it, — of the words she would use were she to write it, and of the tale which she would have to tell. She sat for hours thinking of it, trying to resolve whether she would tell the tale, — if she told it at all, — in a manner to suit Paul’s purpose, or so as to bring that purpose utterly to shipwreck. She did not doubt that she could cause the shipwreck were she so minded. She could certainly have her revenge after that fashion. But it was a woman’s fashion, and, as such, did not recommend itself to Mrs. Hurtle’s feelings. A pistol or a horsewhip, a violent seizing by the neck, with sharp taunts and bitter-ringing words, would have made the fitting revenge. If she abandoned that she could do herself no good by telling a story of her wrongs to another woman.

Then came Hetta’s note, so stiff, so cold, so true, — so like the letter of an Englishwoman, as Mrs. Hurtle said to herself. Mrs. Hurtle smiled as she read the letter. “I make this proposition not thinking that anything you can say to me can change my mind.” Of course the girl’s mind would be changed.

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a man she really liked, because her wicked son was so grievous a burden on her shoulders. A woman, she thought, if she were unfortunate enough to be a lady without wealth of her own, must give up everything, her body, her heart, — her very soul if she were that way troubled, — to the procuring of a fitting maintenance for herself. Why should Hetta hope to be more fortunate than others? And then the position which chance now offered to her was fortunate. This cousin of hers, who was so devoted to her, was in all respects good. He would not torture her by harsh restraint and cruel temper. He would not drink. He would not spend his money foolishly. He would allow her all the belongings of a fair, free life. Lady Carbury reiterated to herself the assertion that she was manifestly doing a mother’s duty by her endeavours to constrain her girl to marry such a man. With a settled purpose she was severe and hard. But when she found how harsh her daughter could be in response to this, — how gloomy, how silent, and how severe in retaliation, — she was almost frightened at what she herself was doing. She had not known how stern and how enduring her daughter could be. “Hetta,” she said, “why don’t you speak to me?” On this very day it was Hetta’s purpose to visit Mrs. Hurtle at Islington. She had said no word of her intention to any one. She had chosen the Friday because on that day she knew her mother would go in the afternoon to her publisher. There should be no deceit. Immediately on her return she would tell her mother what she had done. But she considered herself to be emancipated from control. Among them they had robbed her of her lover. She had submitted to

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the robbery, but she would submit to nothing else. “Hetta, why don’t you speak to me?” said Lady Carbury.

“Because, mamma, there is nothing we can talk about without making each other unhappy.”

“What a dreadful thing to say! Is there no subject in the world to interest you except that wretched young man?”

“None other at all,” said Hetta obstinately.

“What folly it is, — I will not say only to speak like that, but to allow yourself to entertain such thoughts!”

“How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after I had owned to you that I loved a man, — after I had owned it to him and, worst of all, to myself, — I could have myself separated from him, and then not think about it? It is a cloud upon everything. It is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me.”

There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the mother felt, — as she was intended to feel it, — but to which she could make no reply. It accused her of being too much concerned for her son to feel any real affection for her daughter. “You are ignorant of the world, Hetta,” she said.

“I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate.”

“Do you think it is worse than others have suffered before you? In what little you see around you do you think that girls are generally able to marry the men upon whom they set their hearts?” She paused, but Hetta made no answer to this. “Marie Melmotte was as warmly attached to your brother as you can be to Mr. Montague.”

“Marie Melmotte!”

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“She thinks as much of her feelings as you do of yours. The truth is you are indulging a dream. You must wake from it, and shake yourself, and find out that you, like others, have got to do the best you can for yourself in order that you may live. The world at large has to eat dry bread, and cannot get cakes and sweetmeats. A girl, when she thinks of giving herself to a husband, has to remember this. If she has a fortune of her own she can pick and choose, but if she have none she must allow herself to be chosen.”

“Then a girl is to marry without stopping even to think whether she likes the man or not?”

“She should teach herself to like the man, if the marriage be suitable. I would not have you take a vicious man because he was rich, or one known to be cruel and imperious. Your cousin Roger, you NQRZ ³

“Mamma,” said Hetta, getting up from her seat, “you may as well believe me. No earthly inducement shall ever make me marry my cousin Roger. It is to me horrible that you should propose it to me when you know that I love that other man with my whole heart.”

“How can you speak so of one who has treated you with the utmost contumely?”

“I know nothing of any contumely. What reason have I to be offended because he has liked a woman whom he knew before he ever saw me? It has been unfortunate, wretched, miserable; but I do not know that I have any right whatever to be angry with Mr. Paul Montague.” Having so spoken she walked out of the room without waiting for a further reply.

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It was all very sad to Lady Carbury. She perceived now that she had driven her daughter to pronounce an absolution of Paul Montague’s sins, and that in this way she had lessened and loosened the barrier which she had striven to construct between them. But that which pained her most was the unrealistic, romantic view of life which pervaded all Hetta’s thoughts. How was any girl to live in this world who could not be taught the folly of such idle dreams?

That afternoon Hetta trusted herself all alone to the mysteries of the Marylebone underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at King’s Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from thence to Islington. She knew well the name of the street and the number at which Mrs. Hurtle lived. But when she reached the door she did not at first dare to stand and raise the knocker. She passed on to the end of the silent, vacant street, endeavouring to collect her thoughts, striving to find and to arrange the words with which she would commence her strange petition. And she endeavoured to dictate to herself some defined conduct should the woman be insolent to her. Personally she was not a coward, but she doubted her power of replying to a rough speech. She could at any rate escape. Should the worst come to the worst, the woman would hardly venture to impede her departure. Having gone to the end of the street, she returned with a very quick step and knocked at the door. It was opened almost immediately by Ruby Ruggles, to whom she gave her name.

“Oh laws, — Miss Carbury!” said Ruby, looking up into the stranger’s face. “Yes; — sure enough she must be Felix’s sister.” But Ruby did not dare to ask any question. She had ad-

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mitted to all around her that Sir Felix should not be her lover any more, and that John Crumb should be allowed to return. But, nevertheless, her heart twittered as she showed Miss Carbury up to the lodger’s sitting-room.

Though it was midsummer Hetta entered the room with her veil down. She adjusted it as she followed Ruby up the stairs, moved by a sudden fear of her rival’s scrutiny. Mrs. Hurtle rose from her chair and came forward to greet her visitor, putting out both her hands to do so. She was dressed with the most scrupulous care, — simply, and in black, without an ornament of any kind, without a ribbon or a chain or a flower. But with some woman’s purpose at her heart she had so attired herself as to look her very best. Was it that she thought that she would vindicate to her rival their joint lover’s first choice, or that she was minded to teach the English girl that an American woman might have graces of her own? As she came forward she was gentle and soft in her movements, and a pleasant smile played round her mouth. Hetta at the first moment was almost dumbfounded by her beauty, — by that and by her ease and exquisite self-possession. “Miss Carbury,” she said with that low, rich voice which in old days had charmed Paul almost as much as her loveliness, “I need not tell you how interested I am in seeing you. May I not ask you to lay aside your veil, so that we may look at each other fairly?” Hetta, dumbfounded, not knowing how to speak a word, stood gazing at the woman when she had removed her veil. She had had no personal description of Mrs. Hurtle, but had expected something very different from this! She had thought that the woman would be coarse and big, with fine eyes and a bright colour. As it was

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they were both of the same complexion, both dark, with hair nearly black, with eyes of the same colour. Hetta thought of all that at the moment, — but acknowledged to herself that she had no pretension to beauty such as that which this woman owned. “And so you have come to see me,” said Mrs. Hurtle. “Sit down so that I may look at you. I am glad that you have come to see me, Miss Carbury.”

“I am glad at any rate that you are not angry.”

“Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to see you. It is a poor time we women have, — is it not, — in becoming playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an American I should say that he had behaved badly to me; — but as he is an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me; — what can I do, or what can I say?”

“He told me that you could tell me the truth.”

“What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?”

“Certainly I have quarrelled with him.”

“I am not curious; — but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?”

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Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. “Mrs. Hurtle,” she said, “I had never heard your name when he first asked me to be his wife.”

“I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?”

“Because, — oh, because — . Surely he ought, if it is true that he had once promised to marry you.”

“That certainly is true.”

“And you were here, and I knew nothing of it. Of course I should have been very different to him had I known that, — that, — that — “

“That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle interfering with him. Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?”

“And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him and he bids me ask you. I have not been unjust.”

“I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury. To me he has been the last and worst of a long series of, I think, undeserved misfortune. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be for you to decide.”

“Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?”

“Because I asked him, — and because, like many men, he cannot be ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given a hand not to have gone, but he could not say me nay. As you have come here, Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends long before he had

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