Neighbours on the Green; My Faithful Johnny
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‘This is not the pretty room you brought me to last night,’ she said.
‘No; this is the dining-room. I thought it would be quieter and pleasanter for you, in case any one should call.’
‘Ah! yes, that was very considerate for my feelings,’ she said, ‘but I am used to it, I am always thrust into a corner now. It did not use to be so before that man came and ruined me. Whereabouts is it that he lives?’
‘You can see the house from the window,’ said I.
Then she went to the window and looked out. She shook her clenched fist at the cottage; her face grew dark like a sky covered by a thunder-cloud. She came back and seated herself in front of me, wrapping herself close in my shawl.
‘When I married him I was as beautiful as the day. That was what they all said,’ she began. ‘I was nineteen, and the artists used to go on their knees to me to sit to them. I might have married anybody. I don’t know why it was that I took him, I must have been mad; twenty years older than me at the least, and nothing to recommend him. Of course he was rich. Ah! and I was so young, and thought money could buy everything, and that it would last for ever. We had a house in town and a house in the country, and he gave me a lovely phaeton for the park, and we had a carriage and pair. It was very nice at first. He was always a curious man, never satisfied, but we did very well at first. He was not a man to make a woman happy, but still I got on well enough till he sent me away.’
‘He sent you away!’
‘Yes. Oh! that was nothing; that got to be quite common. When he thought I was enjoying myself, all at once he would say, “Pack up your things; we shall go to the country to-morrow;” always when I was enjoying myself.’
‘But if he went with you, that was not sending you away.’
‘Then it was taking me away—which is much the same—from all I cared for; and he did not always go with me. The last two times I was sent by myself as if I had been a prisoner. And then, at last, after years and years of oppression, he turned me out of the house,’ she said—‘turned me out! He dared to do it. Oh! only think how I hated him. He said every insult to me a man could say, and he turned me out of his house, and bade me never come back. One day I was there the mistress of all, with everything heart could desire, and the next day I was turned out, without a penny, without a home, still so pretty as I was, and at my age!’
‘Oh! that was terrible,’ I cried, moved more by her rising passion than by her words—‘that was dreadful. How could he do it? But you went to your friends—?’
‘I had no friends. My people were all dead, and I did not know much about them when they were living. He separated me from everybody, and he told lies of me—lies right and left. He had made up his mind to destroy me,’ she cried, bursting into sobs. ‘Oh! what a devil he is! Everything I could desire one day, and the next turned out!’
Looking at her where she sat, something came into my throat which choked me and kept me from speaking: and yet I felt that I must make an effort.
‘Without any—cause?’ I faltered with a mixture of confusion and pain.
‘Cause?’
‘I mean, did not he allege something—say something? He must have given some—excuse—for himself.’
She looked at me very composedly, not angry, as I had feared.
‘Cause? excuse?’ she repeated. ‘Of course he said it was my fault.’
She kept her eyes on me when she said this; no guilty colour was on her face, no flush even of shame at the thought of having been slandered. She was a great deal calmer than I was; indeed I was not calm at all, but disturbed beyond the power of expression, not knowing what to think.
‘He is very clever,’ she went on. ‘I am clever myself, in a kind of a way, but not a match for him. Men have education, you see. They are trained what to do; but I was so handsome that nobody thought I required any training. If I had been as clever as he is, ah! he would not have found it so easy. He drove me into a trap, and then he shut me down fast. That is four years ago. Fancy, four years without anything, wandering about, none of the comforts I was used to! I wonder how I gave in at the time: it was because he had broken my spirit. But I am different now; I have made up my mind, until he behaves to me as he ought, I will give him no peace, no grace!’
‘But you must not be revengeful,’ I said, knowing less and less what to say. ‘And if you were not happy together before, I am afraid you would not be so now.’
She did not make any answer; a vague sort of smile flitted over her face, then she gave a little shiver as of cold, and wrapped the shawl closer. ‘A shawl suits me,’ she said, ‘especially since I am so thin. Do you think a woman loses as much as they say by being thin? It is my heart-disease. When it comes on it is very bad, though afterwards I feel just as well as usual. But it must tell on one’s looks. Could you tell that I was thin by my face?’
‘No,’ I said, and I did not add, though it was on my lips, ‘O woman, one could not tell by your face that you were not an angel or a queen. And what are you? What are you?’ Alas! she was not an angel, I feared.
A little while longer she sat musing in silence. How little she had told me after all. How much more she must know in that world within herself to which she had now retired. At length she turned to me, her face lighted up with the most radiant smile. ‘Shall I be a great trouble to you?’ she asked. ‘Am I taking up anybody’s room?’
She spoke as a favourite friend might speak who had arrived suddenly, and did not quite know what your arrangements were, though she was confident nothing could make her coming a burden to you. She took away my breath.
‘N—no,’ I said; and then I took courage and added: ‘But your friends will be expecting you—the people where you live: and you are better now–’
I could not, had my life depended on it, have said more.
‘Oh, they will not mind much,’ she said. ‘I don’t live anywhere in particular. When one thinks that one’s own husband, the man who is bound to support one, has a home, and is close at hand, how do you think one can stay in a miserable lodging! But he does not care: he will sit there doing his horrible problems, and what is it to him if I were to die at his door! He would be glad. Yes, he would be glad. He would have me carted away as rubbish. He cares for nothing but his books and his experiments. I have sat at his door a whole night begging him to take me in, begging out of the cold and the snow, and his light has burnt steady, and he has gone on with his work, and then he has gone to bed and taken no notice. Oh, my God! I should have let him in had he been a cat or a dog.’
‘Oh, surely, surely you must be mistaken,’ I cried.
‘I am not mistaken. I heard the window open; he looked down at me, and then he went away. I know he knew me: and so he did last night. He knew I was there; and he had a fire lighted in the room where he works. So he knew it was cold, too; and I his wife, his lawful wedded wife, sitting out in the chill. Some time or other he thinks it will be too much for me, and I shall die, and he will be free.’
‘It is too dreadful to think of,’ said I. ‘I don’t think he could have known that you were there.’
She smiled without making any further reply. She held out her thin hands to the fire with a little nervous shiver. They would have been beautiful hands had they not been so thin, almost transparent. She wore but one ring, her wedding-ring; and that was so wide that it was secured to her finger with a silk thread. I suppose she perceived that I looked at it. She held it up to me with a smile.
‘See,’ she said, ‘how worn it is. But I have never put it off my finger; never gone by another name, or done anything to forfeit my rights. Whatever he may say against me, he cannot say that.’
At this moment she espied a chair in a corner which looked more comfortable than the one she was seated in, and rose and wheeled it to the fire. She said no ‘By’r leave’ to me, but did it as if she had been at home; there was something so natural and simple in this that I did not know how to object to it, but yet—I have had many a troublesome responsibility thrown upon me by strangers, but I was never so embarrassed or perplexed in my life. She drew the easy chair to the fire, she found a footstool and put her feet on it, basking in the warmth. She had my velvet slippers on her feet, my Indian shawl round her shoulders, and here she was settled and comfortable—for how long? I dared not even guess. A sick sort of consciousness came upon me that she had established herself and meant to stay.
After a while, during which I sat and watched, sitting bolt upright on my chair and gazing with a consternation and bewilderment which I cannot express upon her graceful attitude as she reclined back, wooing every kind of comfort, she suddenly drew her chair a little nearer to me and put her hand upon my knee.
‘Look here,’ she said hurriedly, ‘you must see him for me. If any one could move him to do his duty it would be you. You must see him, and tell him I am—willing to go back. Perhaps he may not listen to you at first, but if you keep your temper and persevere–’
‘I?’ said I, dismayed.
‘Yes, indeed, who else? only you could do it. And if you are patient with him and keep your temper—the great thing with him is to keep your temper—I never could do it, but you could. It would not be difficult to you. You have not got that sort of a nature, one can see it in your face.’
‘But you mistake me, I—I could not take it upon myself,’ I gasped.
‘Not when I ask you? You might feel you were not equal to it, I allow. But when I ask you? Oh, yes, you can do it. It is not so very hard, only to keep your temper, and to take no denial—no denial! Make him say he will not be so unkind any more. Oh, how tired it makes me even to think of it!’ she cried, suddenly putting up her hands to her face. ‘Please don’t ask me any more, but do it—do it! I know you can.’
And then she sat and rocked herself gently with her hands clasped over her face. This explanation had been too much for her, and somehow I felt that I was blamable, that it was my fault. I sat by her in a kind of dream, wondering what had happened to me. Was I under a spell? I did not seem able to move a step or raise a hand to throw off this burden from me. And the curious thing was that she never thanked me, never expressed, nor apparently felt, any sort of gratitude to me, but simply signified her will, and took my acquiescence as a right.
CHAPTER VII
I cannot tell how I got through that day: she got through it very comfortably, I think. In the evening she asked me to go into the pretty room she had been in last night.
‘I am so fond of what is pretty,’ she said; ‘I like everything that is nice and pleasant. I never would sit in any but the best rooms in the house if I had a house like this.’
‘But—someone might come in,’ I said. ‘To be sure the time for callers is over, but still my neighbours are very intimate with me, and some one might come in.’
‘Well?’ she said, looking up in my face. ‘If they do, I don’t mind. You may have objections perhaps, but I have none. I don’t mind.’
‘Oh! if you don’t mind,’ I said in my consternation; and I took up the cushion she had placed in her chair, and carried it humbly for her, while she made her way to the drawing-room.
I think I was scarcely in possession of my senses. I was dazed. The whole position was so extraordinary. I was ashamed to think of any one coming in and finding her there: not because I was ashamed of her, but for my own sake. What was I to say to anybody? How was I to explain myself? I had taken her in without knowing anything of her, and she had taken possession of my house. Fortunately, no one came that night. She placed herself on the sofa, where she had lain in her wretchedness the night before. She stretched herself out upon it, lying back with an air of absolute enjoyment. She had got a book—a novel—which she was reading, not taking very much notice of me; but now and then she would pause to say a word. I think had any one seen us seated together that evening, without knowing anything of the circumstances, he would have decided that she was the lady of the house and I her humble and rather stupid companion. But I was more than rather stupid—I felt like a fool; and that in nothing more than this—that I could not for my life tell what to do.
‘Nobody is coming to-night, I suppose?’ she said at last, putting down her book.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘I thought from what you said you had always some one coming; and I like seeing people; I should like of all things to see some of the people here. Do you think if they saw me it would make any difference–? Oh, I can’t tell you exactly what I mean. I mean—but it is so very unpleasant to be always obliged to explain;’ and then she yawned: and then she said: ‘I am so tired; I think I shall go to bed. Hush! was not that some one at the door?’
‘It is my next neighbour going home,’ I said.
‘Does Reinhardt know the people about here?’
‘He has not gone into society at all; but many of them know him to speak to,’ said I.
‘Ah! that is always the way; you hide me out of sight, and you send word to your people not to come; but everybody is quite ready to make friends with him. Oh! I am so tired—I am tired of everything; life is so dull, so monotonous, always the same thing over, no pleasure, no amusement.’
‘I live a very dull, quiet life,’ I said, as firmly as I could; ‘I cannot expect it to suit you; and perhaps to-morrow you will be able to make arrangements to go to your own home.’
‘Ah!’ she said, giving a curious little cry. She looked at me, catching her breath; and then she cried, ‘My own home!—my own home! That is at the cottage yonder; you will open the door for me, and take me back there–’
‘But how can I? Be reasonable,’ I said. ‘I scarcely know—your husband; I don’t know—you; how can I mediate between you? I don’t know anything of the circumstances. There must have been some cause for all this. Indeed it will be a great deal better to go home and get some one to interfere who knows all.’
‘Don’t you believe in feelings?’ she said suddenly. ‘I do. The first time I saw Reinhardt I had the feeling I ought not to have anything to do with him, and I neglected it. When I saw you, it went through and through me like an arrow: ‘This is the person to do it. And I always trust my feelings. I am sure that you can do it, and no one else.’
‘Indeed—indeed you are mistaken.’
‘Oh! I am so tired,’ she cried again. ‘Let me go to bed. I can’t argue to-night; I am so dreadfully tired.’
This was her way of getting over a difficulty, and what could I do? I could not stop her from going to bed; I could not turn her out of my house. I went to the door of the west room with her, more embarrassed and uncomfortable than could be described. She turned round and waved her hand to me as she shut the door. The light of the candle which she held shone upon her pale, beautiful face. She had my shawl still round her. I, too, had a candle in my hand, and as I strayed back through the long passage I am sure I looked like a ghost. Bewilderment was in my soul. Had I taken a burden on my shoulders for life? Was I never to be free again? Never alone as I used to be? It had only lasted one day; but there seemed no reason why it should ever come to an end.
Then I went back and sat over the fire in the drawing-room, till it died away into white ashes, trying to decide what I should do. To consult somebody was of course my first thought; but whom could I consult? There was not one creature on the Green who would not blame me, who would not be shocked at my foolishness. I did not dare even to confess it to Lady Denzil. I must keep her concealed till I could persuade her to go away. And to think she should have been disappointed that nobody came! Good heavens! if anybody did come and see her, what should I do? Looming up before my imagination, in spite of all my resistance to it, came a picture of a possible interview with Mr. Reinhardt. It drove me half wild with fear to think of such a thing, and yet I felt as one sometimes does, that out of mere terror I should be driven to do it, if I could not persuade her to go away. That was my only hope, and I felt already what a forlorn hope it was.
And thus another day passed, and another night. She was quite well-behaved, and sometimes her beauty overwhelmed me so that I felt I could do anything for her; and sometimes her strange calmness and matter-of-course way of taking everything filled me with irritation. She never looked or spoke as if she were obliged to me, neither did she ever imply, by anything she said or did, that she meant to go away. She would stand for a long time by the window, gazing at the East Cottage; she even stepped out into the garden through the drawing-room window, and went and stood at the gate, looking out, though I called her back, and trembled lest she should be seen (and, of course, she was seen); but the answer she gave me when I objected put a stop to the controversy.
‘You are afraid to let people see me,’ she said; ‘but I don’t mind. There is nothing to be ashamed of in looking at Reinhardt’s house. If any one calls, it is quite the same to me. Indeed I would rather be seen than otherwise. I think it is right that people should see me.’
To this I made no answer, for my heart was growing faint. And then she turned, and seized my arm—it was in the garden.
‘Oh!’ she said, ‘listen to me. When are you going to see him? Are you going to-day?’
As she spoke the sound of footsteps quite close to us made me start. I had my back to the gate, and she was standing close to the verandah, so that she saw who was coming though I could not. She dropped my arm instantly; she subdued her voice; she put on a smile; and then she half-turned, and began to gather some rosebuds from the great monthly rose, with the air of one who is waiting to be called forward.
‘Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave! we have found you at last,’ said a voice in my ear, and, turning round, I saw the Stokes—Lottie and Lucy, and their brother Everard, a short way behind, following them on to the lawn.
‘At last?’ I said.
‘Yes, and I think we have a very good right to complain. Why, you have shut yourself up for two whole days. The Green is in a commotion about it,’ said Lottie, as she kissed me; and she threw a quick glance at the stranger, whom she did not know, and asked me, ‘Who is that?’ with her eyes.
‘And somebody said you had visitors, but we would not believe it,’ Lucy began, open-mouthed.
‘And so she has—one visitor, at least,’ said my guest, turning round, with her hand full of roses. Then she stopped short, and a look, which was half alarm, crept over her face. Everard Stoke was coming up behind.
‘How do you do, Mrs. Mulgrave?’ he said in his languid way. ‘It is not my fault if I came in unceremoniously. It’s the girls who are to blame.’
‘There is no one to blame,’ said I, turning round, and holding out my hand to him.
But even in the moment of my turning round a change had come over him. He gave a slight start, and he looked straight over my shoulder at my companion. I said to myself that perhaps they knew each other, and forgave him his rudeness. But the next moment he went on hastily, ‘We must not stay now. Lottie, I have just remembered something I promised to do for my mother. I have just thought of it. Mrs. Mulgrave will excuse me. Come away quick, please.’
‘Why, we have but just arrived!’ said Lucy, full of a girl’s resistance.
‘Come!’ her brother said; and before I could speak he had swept them away again, leaving me in greater consternation than ever. My companion had turned back, and was busy again among the roses, gathering them. I had not even her to respond to my look of wonder. What was the meaning of it? Could they have known each other, Everard and she?
‘Your friends are gone very soon,’ she said without turning to me; ‘it is rather strange; but I suppose they are strange people. Oh! how sweet these roses are—I never thought such pale roses could be so sweet.’
I made her no answer, and, what was strangest of all, she did not seem to expect it, for immediately after she went back into the drawing-room, and the next minute I heard her voice singing as if on the way to her own room. The more I thought of it the more strange it seemed.
That night she began to question me about my neighbours on the Green, and somehow managed to bring the conversation to the people who had called.
‘I thought I knew the man’s face; I must have met him out,’ she said, looking at me steadily.
Everard Stoke did not bear a good character on the Green. To have known him was no recommendation to any one; and this encounter did not increase my happiness. But after that first evening it did not disturb her. Next day went on like the previous one. I told the servants not to admit any visitors, and I felt as if I must be going mad. I could think only of one subject, my imagination could bring forward but one picture before me, and that was of a meeting with Mr. Reinhardt, which I kept going over in my mind. I said to myself, ‘I could not do it—I could not do it,’ with an angry vehemence, and yet I seemed to see just how he would look, and to hear what we were to say. It seemed to be the only outlet out of this impossible position in which I stood.
CHAPTER VIII
‘Lady Denzil says she must see you, please, ma’am,’ said Mary at my room door.
It had lasted for a week and I was downright ill. She would not go away; when I represented to her that I could not go on keeping her, that she must go to her own home, wherever that was, she either moaned that she had no home, or that I must open a way for her back to her husband. She was quite unmoved by my attempts to dislodge her. I told her I had people coming, and she assured me she did not mind, that there was plenty of room in the house, and that, if I wished it, she would change into a smaller chamber. This drove me almost out of my senses, I could not turn her out by force. I dared not face the criticisms of my neighbours: I shut myself up. I got a headache which never left me, and the result was, that I was quite ill. I had been lying down in my own room to try to get a little quiet and respite from the pain in my head; and I was impatient in my trouble, and felt disposed to turn my back on all the world.
‘I cannot see her,’ I said impatiently. ‘I am not well enough to see any one.’
‘Please, ma’am, is that what I am to say?’ asked Mary.
Then I recollected myself. Lady Denzil was my close friend and counsellor. I had been admitted into the secret places of her life, and she knew me in every aspect of mine. I would not send such a reply to my old friend. I rose from my sofa and went stumbling to the door, feeling more miserable than I can say. ‘Tell her I have a very bad headache, Mary. I will try to see her to-morrow. Give her my love, and say that I could not talk to-day, nor explain anything. If she will please leave it till to-morrow!—’
‘Please, ma’am,’ said Mary, earnestly, ‘I think it would be a deal better if you could make up your mind to see my lady to-day.’
‘I cannot do it—I cannot do it!’ I said. ‘If you but knew how my head aches! Give her my dear love, but I must keep quiet. If you tell her that, she will understand.’
‘If you won’t give no other answer, ma’am—’ said Mary, disapprovingly; and I had lost my wits so completely that I actually locked the door when she went down-stairs, in case some one should force the way. I went back to my sofa and lay down again. I had closed the shutters, I don’t know why—not that the light hurt me, but because I did not feel able to bear anything. I never lost my head in the same way before. I was irritable to such a degree that I could not bear any one to speak to me—this was, I suppose, because I felt that nobody would approve of me, and was ashamed of myself and my weakness. While I lay thus, she began to sing down-stairs; she had a pretty voice; there was a quaver in it, which was in reality a defect, but did not appear so when she sang. Her voice, I felt sure, could be heard half over the Green, and Lady Denzil would be sure to hear it, and what would they think of me? They would think she was a relation, somebody belonging to me, whom I had motive for hiding. No one would believe that she was a mere stranger whom I knew nothing of.