This Man's Wife
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In six months, portly, florid and well-dressed, he was unrecognisable for the man who had been released from the great prison, and no longer confined himself to the house.
Stephen Crellock had changed in a more marked manner than his prison friend. Considerably his junior, the convict life had not seemed to affect him, so that when six months of his freedom had passed, he looked the bluff, bearded squatter in the full pride of his manhood, bronzed by the sun, and with a dash and freedom of manner that he knew how to restrain when he was in the presence of his old companion’s wife and child, for he could not conceal from himself the fact that Mrs Hallam disliked his presence and resented his being there.
At first, in her eagerness to respond to Hallam’s slightest wish, in the proud joy she felt in the change that was coming over his personal appearance, and which with the boastfulness of a young wife she pointed out to Julia, she made no objection to Crellock’s presence.
“Poor fellow! he has suffered horribly,” Hallam said. “He deserves a holiday.”
How she had watched all this gradual change, and how she crushed down the little voices that now and then strove in her heart to make themselves heard!
“No, no, no,” she said to them as it were half laughing, “there is nothing but what I ought to have pictured.”
Then one day she found herself forced to make apology to Julia.
“You have hurt him, my darling, by your coldness,” she said tenderly. “Julie, my own, he complains to me. What have you done?”
“Tried, dear mother – oh, so hard. I did not know I had been cold.”
“Then you will try more, my child,” said Mrs Hallam, caressing Julia tenderly, and with a bright, loving look in her eyes. “I have never spoken like this before. It seemed terrible to me to have to make what seems like an apology for our own, but think, dearest. He parted from us a gentleman – to be taken from his home and plunged into a life of horror, such as – no, no, no,” she cried, “I will not speak of it. I will only say that just as his face will change, so will all that terrible corrosion of the prison life in his manner drop away, and in a few months he will be again all that you have pictured. Julie, he is your father.”
Julia flung herself, sobbing passionately, into her mother’s arms, and in a burst of self-reproach vowed that she would do everything to make her father love her as she did him.
Bravely did the two women set themselves to the task of blinding their eyes with love, passing over the coarse actions and speech of the idol they had set up, yielding eagerly to his slightest whim, obeying every caprice, and, while at times something was almost too hard to bear, Millicent Hallam whispered encouragement to her child.
“Think, my own, think,” she said lovingly. “It is not his fault. Think of what he has suffered, and let us pray and thank Him that he has survived, for us to win back to all that we could wish.”
There were times when despair looked blankly from Millicent Hallam’s eyes as she saw the months glide by and her husband surely and slowly sinking into sensuality. But she roused herself to greater exertions, and was his veriest slave. Once only did she try by kindly resistance to make the stand she told herself she should have made when Crellock was first brought into the house.
It was when he had been out about six months, and Crellock, after a long debauch with Hallam and two or three chosen spirits from the town, had sunk in a brutal sleep upon the floor of the handsomely-furnished dining-room. The visitors had gone; they had dined there, Sir Gordon being of the party, and Mrs Hallam had smilingly done the honours of the table as their hostess, though sick at heart at the turn the conversation had taken before her child, who looked anxious and pale, while Sir Gordon had sat there very silent and grim of aspect. He had been the first to go, and had taken her hand in the drawing-room, as if about to speak, but had only looked at her, sighed, and gone away without a word.
“I must speak!” she had said. “Heaven help me! I must speak! This cannot go on!”
As soon as she could, she had hurried Julia to bed, and then sat and waited till the last visitor had gone, when she walked into the dining-room, where Hallam sat smoking, heavy with drink, but perfectly collected, scowling down at Crellock where he lay.
That look sent a thrill of joy through Millicent Hallam. He was evidently angry with Crellock, and disgusted with the wretched drinking scene that had taken place – one of many such scenes as would have excited comment now, but the early settlers were ready enough to smile at eccentricities like this.
“Robert – my husband! may I speak to you?”
“Speak, my dear? Of course,” he said, smiling. “Why didn’t you come in as soon as that old curmudgeon had gone? Have a glass of wine now. Nonsense! – I wish it. You must pitch over a lot of that standoffish-ness with my friends. Julia, too – the girl sits and looks at people as glum as if she had no sense.” Mrs Hallam compressed her lips, laid her hand upon her husband’s shoulder, yielding herself to him as he threw an arm round her waist, but stood pointing to where Crellock lay breathing stertorously, and every now and then muttering in his sleep.
“What are you pointing at?” said Hallam. “Steve? Yes, the pig! Why can’t he take his wine like a gentleman, and not like a brute?”
“Robert, dear,” she said tenderly, “you love me very dearly?”
“Love you, my pet! why, how could a man love wife better?”
“And our Julia – our child?”
“Why, of course. What questions!”
“Will you do something to please me – to please us both?”
“Will I? Say what you want – another carriage – diamonds – a yacht like old Bourne’s?”
“No, no, no, dearest; we have everything if we have your love, and my dear husband glides from the past misery into a life of happiness.”
“Well, I think we are doing pretty well,” he said with a laugh that sent a shudder through the suffering woman; he was so changed.
“I want to speak to you about Mr Crellock.”
“Well, what about him? Make haste; it’s getting late, and I’m tired.”
“Robert, we have made a mistake in having this man here.”
Hallam seemed perfectly sober, and he frowned.
“I would not mind if you wished him to be here, love,” she said, with her voice sounding sweetly pure and entreating; “but he is not a suitable companion for our Julia.”
“Stop there,” said Hallam, sharply.
“No, no, darling; let me speak – this time,” said Mrs Hallam, entreatingly. “I know it was out of the genuine goodness and pity of your heart that you opened your door to him. Now you have done all you need, let him go.”
Hallam shook his head.
“Think of the past, and the terrible troubles he brought upon you.”
“Oh, no! that was all a mistake,” said Hallam, quickly. “Poor brute! he was as ill-treated as I was, and now you want him kicked out.”
“No, no, dear; part from him kindly; but he was the cause of much of your suffering.”
“No, he was not,” said Hallam, quickly. “That was all a mistake. Poor Steve was always a good friend to me. He suffered along with me in that cursed hole, and he shall have his share of the comfort now.”
“No, no, do not say you wish him to stay.”
“But I do say it,” cried Hallam, angrily. “He is my best friend, and he will stay. Hang it, woman, am I to be cursed with the presence of your friends who sent me out here and not have the company of my own?”
“Robert! – husband! – don’t speak to me like that.”
“But I do speak to you like that. Here is that wretched old yachtsman forcing his company upon me day after day, insisting upon coming to the house, and reminding me by his presence who I am, and what I have been.”
“Darling, Sir Gordon ignores the past, and is grieved, I know, at the terrible mistake that brought you here. He wishes to show you this by his kindness to us all.”
“Let him keep his kindness till it is asked for,” growled Hallam. “He sits upon me like a nightmare. I don’t feel that the place is my own when he is here. As for Bayle, he has had the good sense to stay away lately.”
Mrs Hallam’s eyes were full of despair as she listened.
“I hate Sir Gordon coming here. He and Bayle have between them made that girl despise me, and look down upon me every time we speak, while I am lavishing money upon her, and she has horses and carriage, jewels and dress equal to any girl in the colony.”
“Robert, dear, you are not saying all this from your heart.”
“Indeed, but I am,” he cried angrily.
“No, no! And Julie – she loves you dearly. It is for her sake I ask this,” and she pointed to Crellock where he lay.
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” said Hallam, with a meaning laugh. “Poor Steve! I don’t like him, but he has been a faithful mate to me, and I’m not going to turn round upon him now.”
“But for Julie’s sake!”
“I’m thinking about Julie, my dear,” he said, nodding his head; “and as for Steve – there, just you make yourself comfortable about him. There’s no harm in him; he is faithful as a dog to me, and if I behaved badly he might bite.”
“You need not be unkind to Mr Crellock if he has been what you say. I only ask you for our child’s sake to let him leave here.”
“Impossible; he is my partner.”
“Yes, you intimated that. In your business.”
“Speculations,” said Hallam quietly. “There, that will do.”
“But, Robert – ”
“That will do!” he roared fiercely. “Stephen Crellock must live here! Do you hear —must! Now go to bed.”
“A woman’s duty,” she whispered softly, “is to obey,” and she obeyed.
She obeyed, while another six months glided away, each month filling her heart more and more with despair as she shunned her child’s questioning eyes and fought on, a harder battle every day, to keep herself in the belief that the pure gold was still beneath the blackening tarnish, and that her idol was not made of clay.
It was a terrible battle, for her eyes refused to be blinded longer by the loving veil she cast over them. The appealing, half-wondering looks of her child increased her suffering, while an idea, that filled her with horror, was growing day by day, till it was assuming proportions from which she shrank in dread.
Volume Four – Chapter Three.
Our Julia’s Lover
“What have we done, wifie, that we should be consigned to such quarters as these?” said Captain Otway one day with a sigh. “I don’t think I’m too particular, but when I entered His Majesty’s service I did not know that I should be expected to play gaoler to the occupants of the Government Pandemonium.”
“It is a beautiful place,” said Mrs Otway laconically. “It was till we came and spoiled it. It is one great horror, ’pon my soul; and it is degrading our men to set them such duty as this.”
“Be patient. These troubles cure themselves.”
“But they take such a long time over it,” said the Captain. “It would be more bearable if Phil had not turned goose.”
“Poor Phil!” said Mrs Otway, with a sigh.
“Poor Phil? Pooh! you spoil the lad! I can’t get him out for a bit of shooting or hunting or fishing. Old Sir Gordon would often give us a cruise in his boat, but no: Phil must sit moonstruck here. The fellow’s spoiled! Can’t you knock all that on the head?”
“I perhaps could, but it must be a matter of time,” said Mrs Otway, going steadily on with her work, and mending certain articles of attire.
“But he must be cured. It is impossible.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs Otway, “so I tell him. I wish it were not.”
“My dear Mary – a convict’s daughter!”
“The poor girl was not consulted as to whose daughter she would like to be, Jack, and she is, without exception, the sweetest lassie I ever met.”
“Yes, she is nice,” said Otway. “Mother must have been nice too.”
“Is nice,” cried Mrs Otway, flushing. “I felt a little distant with her at first, but after what I have seen and know – by George, Jack, I do feel proud of our sex!”
“Humph!” ejaculated the Captain, with a smile at his wife’s bluff earnestness. “Yes, she’s a good woman; very ladylike, too. But that husband, that friend of his, Crellock! Poor creatures! it is ruining them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Otway dryly. “That’s one of the misfortunes of marriage; we poor women are dragged down to the level of our husbands.”
“And when these husbands come out to convict settlements as gaolers they have to come with them, put up with all kinds of society, give up all their refinements, and make and mend their own dresses, and – ”
“Even do their own chores, as the Americans call it,” said Mrs Otway, looking up smiling. “It makes me look very miserable, doesn’t it, Jack?”
She stopped her work, went behind her husband’s chair, put her arms round his neck, and laid her cheek upon his head.
Neither spoke for a few minutes, but the Captain looked very contented and happy, and neither of them heard the step as Bayle came through the house, and out suddenly into the verandah.
“I beg your pardon!” he cried, drawing back.
“Ah, parson! Don’t go!” cried the Captain, as Mrs Otway started up, and, in spite of her ordinary aplomb, looked disturbed. “Bad habit of ours acquired since marriage. We don’t mind you.”
Mrs Otway held out her hand to their visitor.
“Why, it is nearly a fortnight since you have been to see us. We were just talking about your friends – the Hallams.”
“Have you been to see them lately?” said Bayle, eagerly.
“I was there yesterday. Quite well; but Mrs Hallam looks worried and ill. Julia is charming, only she too is not as I should like to see her.”
She watched Bayle keenly, and saw his countenance change as she spoke.
“I am very glad they are well,” he said.
“Yes, I know you are; but why don’t you go more often?”
He looked at her rather wistfully, and made no reply. “Look here, Mr Bayle,” she said, “I don’t think you mind my speaking plainly, now do you? Come, that’s frank.”
“I will be just as frank,” he replied, smiling. “I have always liked you because you do speak so plainly.”
“That’s kind of you to say so,” she replied. “Well, I will speak out. You see there are so few women in the colony.”
“Who are ladies,” said Bayle quietly.
“Look here,” said Otway, in a much ill-used tone, “am I expected to sit here and listen to my wife putting herself under the influence of the Church?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jack!” said Mrs Otway sharply. “This is serious.”
“I’m dumb.”
“What I want to say, Mr Bayle, is this. Don’t you think you are making a mistake in staying away from your friends yonder?”
He sat without replying for some minutes.
“No,” he said slowly. “I did not give up my visits there till after I had weighed the matter very carefully.”
“But you seemed to come out with those two ladies as their guardian, and now, when they seem most to require your help and guidance, you leave them.”
“Have you heard anything? Is anything wrong?”
“I have heard nothing, but I have seen a great deal, because I persist in visiting, in spite of Mr Hallam’s objection to my presence.”
“I say, my dear, that man is always civil to you, I hope?” cried Otway sharply.
“My dear Jack, be quiet,” said Mrs Otway. “Of course he is. I visit there because I have good reasons for so doing.”
“Tell me,” said Bayle anxiously.
“I have seen a great deal,” continued Mrs Otway: “but it all comes to one point.” Bayle looked at her inquiringly. “That it is very dreadful for those two sweet, delicate women to have come out here to such a fate. The man is dreadful!”
“They will redeem him,” said Bayle huskily. “Poor wretch! he has had a terrible experience. This convict life is worse than capital punishment. We must be patient, Mrs Otway. The habits of a number of years are not got rid of in a few months. He will change.”
“Will he?” said Mrs Otway shortly.
“Yes; they will, as I said before, redeem him. The man has great natural love for his wife and child.”
“Do you think this?”
“Yes, yes!” he cried excitedly, as he got up and began to pace the verandah. “I stop away because my presence was like a standing reproach to him. The abstinence gives me intense pain, but my going tended to make them unhappy, and caused constraint, so I stop away.”
“And so you think that they will raise him to their standard, do you?” said Mrs Otway dryly.
“Yes, I do,” he cried fervently. “It is only a matter of time.”
“How can you be so self-deceiving?” she cried quickly. “He is dragging them down to his level.”
“Oh, hush!” cried Bayle passionately. Then mastering his emotion, he continued in his old, firm, quiet way: “No, no; you must not say that. He could not. It is impossible.”
“Yes. You are wrong there, Bel,” said the Captain. “Mrs Hallam is made of too good stuff.”
“I give in,” said Mrs Otway, nodding. “Yes, you two are right. He could not bring that sweet woman down to his level; but all this is very terrible. The man is giving himself up to a life of sensuality. Drinking and feasting with that companion of his. There is gambling going on too at night with friends of his own stamp. What a life this is for a refined lady and her child!”
Bayle spoke calmly, but he wiped the great drops of sweat from his brow.
“What can I do?” he said. “I am perfectly helpless.”
“I confess I don’t know,” said Mrs Otway, with a sigh. “Only you and Sir Gordon must be at hand to help them in any emergency.”
“Emergency! What do you mean?” anxiously.
“I don’t know what may occur. Who knows? Women are so weak,” sighed Mrs Otway; “once they place their faith in a man, they follow him to the end of the world.”
“That’s true, Bayle, old fellow – to convict stations, and become slaves,” said the Captain.
“Mr Bayle,” said Mrs Otway suddenly. “I am under a promise to my old friend, Lady Eaton, and I have done my best to oppose it all; but you have seen how deeply attached Phil Eaton has become to Miss Hallam?”
“Yes,” said Bayle slowly, and he was very pale now, “I have seen it.”
“He shall not marry her if I can prevent it, much as I love the girl, for it would be a terrible mésalliance; but he is desperately fond of her, and, as my husband here says, he has taken the bit in his teeth, and he will probably travel his own way.”
“Don’t you get fathering your coarse expressions on me,” growled the Captain; but no one heeded him.
“As I say, he shall not marry her if I can stop it; but suppose he should be determined, and could get the father’s consent, would you and Sir Gordon raise any opposition?”
“Lieutenant Eaton is an officer and a gentleman.”
“He is a true-hearted lad, Mr Bayle, and I love him dearly,” said Mrs Otway. “Only that he is fighting hard between love and duty he would have been carrying on the campaign by now; but you must allow Fort Robert Hallam is a terrible one to storm and garrison afterwards, for it has to be retained for life.”
“I understand your meaning,” said Bayle, speaking very slowly. “It is a terrible position for Mr Eaton to be in.”
“Should you oppose it?”
“I have no authority whatever,” said Bayle in the same low, dreamy tone. “If I had, I should never dream of opposing anything that was for Miss Hallam’s good.”
“And it would be, to get her away from such associations, Mr Bayle.”
“Lady Eaton! Lady Eaton!” said the Captain in warning.
“Hush, Jack! pray.”
“Yes,” said Bayle; “it would be for Miss Hallam’s benefit; but it would nearly break her mother’s heart.”
“She would have to make a sacrifice for the sake of the child.”
“Yes,” said Bayle softly. “Another sacrifice;” and then softly to himself, “how long? how long?”
He rose, and was gravely bidding his friends good-bye, when a sharp, quick step was heard, and Eaton came in, coloured like a girl on seeing Bayle, hesitated, and then held out his hand.
Bayle shook it warmly and left the verandah, Eaton walking with him to the gate.
“Jack,” said Mrs Otway softly, “it’s my belief that the parson loves Julia Hallam himself.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And will he marry her?”
“No. I’m about sure that she is desperately fond of our boy, and the parson is too true a man to stand in the way.”
“Nonsense!” said the Captain. “Such men are not made now.”
“But they were when Christie Bayle was born,” she said, nodding her head quickly. “Yes,” she said, after a pause, as they heard Eaton’s returning steps; “it’s a knot, Jack.”
“Humph!” he replied. “For time to untie.”
Volume Four – Chapter Four.
Stephen Crellock is Communicative
“No hurry, Steve, my lad,” said Hallam, as he turned over the newspaper that had come in by the last mail, and threw one of his booted legs upon a chair.
Crellock was leaning against the chimney-piece of the room Hallam called his study; but one, which in place of books was filled with fishing and shooting gear, saddles, bridles, and hunting whips, from that usually adopted for riding, to the heavy implement so terrible in a stockman’s hands.
The man had completely lost all his old prison look; and the obedient, servile manner that distinguished him, when, years before, he had been Hallam’s willing tool in iniquity, had gone. He had developed into a sturdy, independent, restless being, with whom it would be dangerous to trifle, and Robert Hallam had felt for some time that he really was master no longer.
Crellock had dressed himself evidently for a ride. He was booted and spurred; wore tightly-fitting breeches and jacket, and a broad-brimmed felt hat was thrust back on his curly hair, as he stood beating his boot with his riding-whip, and tucking bits of his crisp beard between his white teeth to bite.
“What do you say? No hurry?”
“Yes,” said Hallam, rustling his paper. “No hurry, my lad: plenty of time.”
“You think so, do you?”
“To be sure. There, go and have your ride. I’ve got some fresh champagne just come in by the Cross. We’ll try that to-day.”
“Hang your champagne! I’ve come to talk business,” said Crellock, sternly. “You think there’s no hurry, do you? Well, look here, I think there is, and I’m not going to wait.”
“Nonsense! Don’t talk like a boy.”
“No: I’ll talk like a man, Robert Hallam. A man don’t improve by keeping. I shall do now; by-and-by perhaps I shan’t. I’m double her age and more.”
“Oh! yes, I know all about that,” said Hallam, impatiently; “but there’s plenty of time.”
“I say there is not, and I’m going to have it settled. Your wife hates me. I’m not blind, and she’ll set Julie against me all she can.”
“I’m master here.”
“Then show it, Rob Hallam, and quickly, before there’s a row. I tell you it wants doing; she’s easily led now she’s so young; but I’m not blind.”
“You said that before; what do you mean?”
“That soldier Eaton; he’s hankering after her, and if we don’t mind, she’ll listen to him. It’s only your being an old hand that keeps him back from asking for her.”
“Well, well, let it go, and I’ll see about it by-and-by,” said Hallam. “Have patience.”
“A man at my time of life can’t have patience, Rob. Now come, you know I want the girl, and it will be like tying us more tightly together.”
“And put a stop to the risk of your telling tales,” said Hallam, bitterly.
“I’m not the man to tell tales,” said Crellock, sturdily, “neither am I the man for you to make an enemy.”
“Threatening?”
“No, but I’m sure you wouldn’t care to go back to the gang and on the road, Robert Hallam. Such a good man as your wife and child think you are!”
“Hold your tongue, will you?” cried Hallam savagely.
“When I please,” replied Crellock. “Oh! come, you needn’t look so fierce, old chap. I used to think what a wonder you were, and wish I could be as cool and clever, and – ”
“Well?” for the other stopped.
“Oh! nothing; only I don’t think so now.”
“Look here,” said Hallam, throwing aside the paper impatiently, “what do you want?”
“Julia.”
“You mean you want to try if she’ll listen to you.”
“No, I don’t. I mean I want her, and I mean to have her, and half share.”
“And if I say it’s impossible?”
“But you won’t,” said Crellock coolly.
Hallam sat back, frowning and biting his nails, while the other slowly beat his boot with his whip.