A Girl of the North. A Story of London and Canada

“I cannot bear to leave you. Lily, think of me – a little – think of – ”

“Leave me. Go now, and never come back.”

She threw herself down on the floor, crushing her fresh dress and knocking down another vase, which broke. She lay there and could not cry – could only moan, long shuddering moans of sorrow. Alone, alone – always now, and forever, and he never would know that she had loved him – loved him! If only she had written to him!

Launa was busy with her clothes, and people were giving her teaspoons.

Paul had gone to Germany. He would return in time for her wedding. Hugh Wainbridge and Lord Wainbridge, who liked his future niece very much, had her all to themselves. Lady Wainbridge sent her volumes of sermons and books on the disappointments of the marriage state.

“I suppose it is wretched,” said Launa; “but people seem to bear it fairly well after a time.”

“I could,” said her lover, “with you. Don’t believe all you read in my aunt’s books.”

“Thank you,” she replied gaily.

They were alone in the music-room. The piano had vases of flowers, and a strip – a beautiful deadening strip – of velvet upon it. Launa’s piano had hitherto been bare.

Matrimony and music – more often matrimony and discord. She did not play very much, only little things for Lord Wainbridge; Chopin and ghosts went together.

“How do you like my dress?” she asked.

Mr. Wainbridge inspected her critically.

“It is too black,” he said.

It fell in long straight folds made of some soft black material. It was becoming and yet dreary, like the robe of a sister of charity.

“It suits you; but you look like a widow.”

“Death,” she said; “how unlucky of you to say that! I dreamed of a coffin last night – my own – and I was getting in and out of it to see if it fitted.”

“Dearest, you and I shall always be together.”

“Always?” she repeated, with a little shiver, as if some ghost of the past was near, “always.”

Already his mind did not answer hers. She did not want him always.

“It was a horrid dream. It frightened me.”

“You will never be frightened with me. Have you heard about Herbert?”

“I have heard nothing about him.”

“He was yachting with Blakeley in the Mediterranean, and the yacht went down. They were all drowned.”

“All? Mr. Herbert too?”

“Yes.”

“How terrible! I am so sorry for Lily, and I liked him very much. What will she do? She loves him, I am sure of that. It is terrible.”

“Darling you feel for all women. But for her – she has Sir Ralph.”

“Yes, but she does not love him. I must go to her. I may as well go now.”

“Now? It is tea-time.”

“Well, why not? With her it is probably no time, simply a long, dreary future through which she must exist. I will change my dress; ring for tea, and then you can come with me – in a hansom.”

“Mrs. Herbert has said vile things about you and me. She said you were – ”

“I know. But now she is in trouble, and I am sorry for her. I can forget what she has said. She was once my friend, and so I will go to her.”

She dressed quickly, and they drove to Mrs. Herbert’s.

Launa did not ask whether Lily would see her. She sent him away and went in alone. A bewildered maid, whose eyes were red with weeping, led the way to the drawing-room.

Mrs. Herbert lay, face downwards, on the big sofa. She had stayed on the floor until the maids lifted her on to it.

In her mind was a galloping medley of thoughts and regrets, of ungratified desires; a repetition of words she had not said, and now could never say, hurried through her brain with torturing reiteration.

Launa kneeled by her.

“I have come to you to try and comfort you.”

Mrs. Herbert moaned – and then started.

“You! you! Oh Launa, I am so wretched. He is dead – dead without knowing how I love him… He will never know. Is it really you, Launa? I was a brute to you; I was jealous of you. Can you forgive me? I am alone, alone. I thought he was fond of you.”

“He used to talk of you,” said Launa.

“Help me!” said the other. “It is all over.”

For some days Launa stayed with her. Lily was more than miserable; she was crushed, and could not bear to be alone.

There was so much inaction, none of those details which have to be fulfilled when anyone dies at home, no work was to be done except the purchasing of black, no beautiful flowers to arrange, no farewell look, painful, yet a comfort, for in the last sleep the wayfarer appears at peace. There was nothing, only a dumb hideous sorrow and remorse, endless torment, weary reflection on a dreadful past, which she would have blotted out if she could, and the tears of repentance wash away nothing.

Some days had passed since the dreadful tidings.

Mrs. Herbert went exhausted to bed, and Launa left her to go home.

Hugh Wainbridge had come to fetch her, and stayed until after tea. Launa was resting when Sylvia came in.

She wandered about the room touching everything until Launa said:

“Sit down, Sylvia, unless you desire to be slain.”

Sylvia obediently sat down.

She had grown morose and variable. She no longer took an interest in Mr. George and his frivolities, and she worked very hard.

Launa talked a little about Lily.

“I know,” said Sylvia, “that she is miserable now, and yet I envy her. They were together for a time, he loved her and she loved him. She can remember it all. What is the use of goodness? Good women live and die without knowing love, mad real love. Men marry them, but – why didn’t I do as he wanted me to do? He loved me, he asked me over and over again to belong to him absolutely, and I refused. He promised to settle all he had on me, and no one need have known. I loved him – how I do still love him! I thought I was doing right, and I believed that God would reward us – us mind – I believed that. I was sure that together we should be rewarded. He would never have died if I had gone, and people could have called me bad, but I would have been gloriously happy with him.”

“It is awful,” said Launa, “the apparent futility of all things.”

“I have never lived, never had any life, nor joy, nothing except empty applause at the theatre… I am so wretched, so wretched. I will go to see Mrs. Herbert and tell her I envy her. He has held her in his arms, he has kissed her, and I ache for the touch of those arms I shall never feel, I hunger for the kisses I shall never have.”

“Ah, never,” said Launa softly.

Sylvia continued:

“I shall be sorry to-morrow when I remember all I have said. You are lucky, you are happy, and I – She is better off; I wish I had had her chances – if I had lived with him he would never have left me. Will he ever know how I love him? Will he, Launa? Say something. Don’t stare at me. Will he? Do you believe it?”

“Many waters cannot quench love, nor death, nor parting, nor marriage, nor anything.”

“No,” said Sylvia, “nor marriage. He was married to a devil. A reputation never brought a woman comfort. You never say to yourself ‘I am respectable!’ You do not feel as if respectability were a new frock in which to rejoice. Would you, Launa, have received me if I had been – what would my label be?”

“There are no men, there is no man, who is worthy of a woman giving up everything for him.”

“There is love, love, love. I will go to see Mrs. Herbert to-morrow. It is so easy to call men unworthy, but life is dreary when one tries to be good.”

CHAPTER XXI

Lily Herbert had accepted her fate – one must, no matter how rebellious the heart may be. The days were long and black and endless; the nights were worse, and full of spectres. The path of life behind her shone with the brilliancy of past happiness, which is often imaginary; before her the path was dark, with the gloom of hopelessness and despair.

Sylvia’s sympathy was a light to her. They frequently talked about Launa. How happy she was! How fortunate! Loved by the gods and by men. The love of men they put last; it was first in both their minds. The love of the gods is death, the love of man life. They had both wilfully thrown it away.

“Once he told me I should live with him as his sister,” said Sylvia. “I hated him for it. I would have been his mistress, but not his sister. He was too good, and I was willing to risk all for him. He gave me credit for so much goodness.”

“Why did you not try it?” asked Lily. “Men do not care for the brotherly pose very long. Their resolutions are momentary.”

Sylvia looked at her. Then she had felt sure men mean what they say after they have said it, as well as while they are saying it – she had changed her mind now.

“I see,” she replied, “and it is too late.”

There was a pause for some moments. Each woman was thinking of those things which usually intrude only at night, and which we push into their corner and avoid contemplating as much as possible.

“Launa is an angel,” said Lily. “She has been so good to me.”

“She has never loved any one,” said Sylvia.

“She would probably have married the other man for money, if she had,” said Lily.

“Her well-regulated affection for Mr. Wainbridge is like her engagement ring. A diamond between two sapphires – neat and even. Have you ever seen my locket?”

“No. I cannot help thinking, Sylvia, he meant to come back. He sent me a present on my birthday, a little locket of pearls. He would not have sent pearls if he thought me – bad – would he? Oh, Sylvia, how lovely!”

Sylvia had unbuttoned her dress and pulled out a locket. It was an opal in the shape of a heart, surrounded by diamonds. It gleamed and glowed with an unearthly radiance. It seemed a living thing emitting sparks of fire.

“How lovely!” repeated Lily.

Sylvia hid it again.

“It knew when he was dying, and grew so dull and pale. Now it burns brighter than ever.”

Then they parted. Sylvia went to the theatre, Lily sat by the fire. The day was cold and dark. She had cocoa instead of dinner, that was an ordeal she could not face alone. She sat and thought; she shut her eyes until she imagined he was there, she could almost feel his kisses, till a shuddering sob of the cold reality recalled her mind to the present. About nine o’clock her parlourmaid came in and told her Captain Carden wished to see her on important business.

“Very well,” said Lily, “I will see him.”

She disliked him – indifferently – and regarded a visit from him as she would one from the cabinet-maker or the plumber, so he was admitted, when to Mr. George or Sir Ralph she would have said “Not at home.”

Captain Carden’s face was red, he appeared excited.

“I have good news,” he said. “You dislike Launa almost as much as I do?”

“No, no, Launa and I are friends. She is one of the noblest women I have ever met.”

“You have changed. Would you not be glad to hear something which will give her trouble, which will be a blow to her? Women often are glad when such things happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you are telling me the truth I will not tell you what I mean. Are you not trying to deceive me by a pretence of virtue and friendship with Launa? You are slightly under a cloud now, will she know what gloom means soon?”

“Why?”

“I shall not tell you. I am waiting until – what day is she to be married to Wainbridge? On which day are they to be joined together, and never put asunder by man? When he can kiss her, touch her, and hold her – that is what men do.”

“Go away. Go at once, you have had too much to drink.”

“You do not want to hear? You do not – ?”

“No; go!”

Left alone, Mrs. Herbert thought it all over. Captain Carden was mad with rage and jealousy.

Reflection during the night watches made her write to him, asking him to tea, and mentioning that she had changed her mind.

Captain Carden came. He spent the afternoon with her, and left in a rage because he had not been invited to Launa’s wedding on the 25th. He sent her a present – a chain supposed to possess power against the evil eye.

After this Carden visited Mrs. Herbert frequently. Launa spent the time in receiving presents, and trying on dresses, and in suffering the embraces of her future lord, who had grown more ardent and more reckless in his love-making. Paul came back from Norway, and Mr. George ordered a new frock-coat, and admired Sylvia more fervently in black than in any colour. He went every available night to see her act, and wished for Sunday evening performances in London, for on that evening they seldom met, and he had not the satisfaction of gazing at her. Launa announced her intention of going, soon after her marriage, to Norway, where her father was buried.

Mr. Wainbridge was jealous – jealous of the dead man.

He agreed to go. He reminded himself when he promised that he was merely a lover – when the promise was to be carried out he would be a husband. There is a difference between the doings of lovers and husbands; few people – especially women – realise this beforehand.

It was the twenty-sixth of October, and very cold. Launa had been for a long walk; the suspicion of frost was quite Canadian and exhilarating while it wearied her. She was staying at Shelton.

It was barely six. She was reading. She heard a carriage drive up and wondered who it could be.

The door opened, and announced by the new butler – Launa always had maids, but with the prospect of a husband she had engaged a butler – Mrs. Herbert and Captain Carden walked in.

The former looked very handsome; her face was unusually pink; her crape bonnet and long veil thrown back suited her.

“Lily!” said Launa, “how kind of you! I am so very glad to see you. You will stay, of course.”

She avoided Captain Carden’s hand.

“How are you?” he asked. “Well, I hope?”

Launa had turned to Lily, and did not answer his inquiries.

“Where is – where are the others?” asked Lily.

“Are you alone already?” added Captain Carden.

Mr. Wainbridge came in and greeted them with a bored air.

“I have come on business,” said Captain Carden stiffly.

“And you, Lily, have come to stay,” said Launa.

“If you will have me I shall be very glad to stay.”

“I may as well tell you the object of my visit,” said Carden, with importance. “Mrs. Wainbridge, I – ”

“Stop!” said Launa.

“Never mind,” said Lily, taking hold of her hand and almost crushing it. “Let him say what he has to say, and then go.”

“I did not tell you before, because I have always wanted to remind you of one day at Victoria Mansions – the day you turned me out. I loved you, and now I am quite willing to marry you, even after the disgrace of having lived for some days as this man’s mistress, for Wainbridge is married.”

A strange and awful silence settled on them. Mr. Wainbridge’s lips were parted, and trembled slightly as he made an effort to speak. Captain Carden looked supremely triumphant, and continued:

“I have proofs here. His wife lives in Edinburgh; he married her legally. You, Launa, are – what are you?”

“Not married, thank God; not married.”

Turning, she saw Paul behind her.

“Paul!” she cried, “help me!”

Paul remembered that this was the third time that she had turned to him in an uncertain situation. Was this the lucky time?

“Launa,” he said, “come away. Let me settle this for you.”

He was already her protector, and they both felt it.

“I must hear it all,” she answered.

“He has two children,” said Captain Carden. “One a son. Your child, Launa – ”

“Stop,” interrupted Wainbridge. “If you insult Miss Archer again I shall kick you.”

“Miss Archer!” repeated Carden, with a laugh. “You give in very quickly – you acknowledge she has no right to your name.”

“Nor has she. We are not married.”

“Of course not,” said Captain Carden, with a laugh.

“No, not married!” said Launa.

“The 30th was to be the wedding day,” said Sylvia.

“Damn you,” shouted Carden, turning to Lily. “And you knew!”

“Yes. I have won.”

“Take the proofs. I don’t want them.” He threw down a bundle of letters and turned away. “Oh, that I had succeeded! That you, Launa, were shamed in the sight of all men and all women. When a man trusts a woman she always betrays him! Beaten by five days. Think of it – by five days.”

He rushed from the room like a whirlwind – if he had succeeded, and brought shame to a woman and guilt to a man, he would have faced them all bravely. The women followed him – Launa still stood by Paul, who held her hand. She even returned the pressure of his fingers. Mr. Wainbridge went towards her, and Paul left the room.

“Good-bye, Launa,” said Mr. Wainbridge. “Good-bye. I suppose it is all over; I suppose you could not forget.”

“Forget. Do not say what I never can forget.”

“And yet women have faced the Divorce Court for a man they love.”

“When a woman loves; but when she pities – no. I told you once – ”

“I am not married to her,” he continued, with what he considered much passion. “You know I do not believe in marriage as a binding ceremony. Love only is binding. I went with her to a priest, and we signed our names. How can a priest – a mortal man – marry men and women for eternity?”

“Great Heaven!” said Launa, “and I meant to marry you. Thank God, I escaped.” Her piety would not have been so excessive had she loved him. “You would not have believed in your marriage with me?”

“No; but I had settled all I have or will have upon you by your name and on your children – I love you, but I see it is all over… Good-bye… Launa, my darling, wish me well.”

“I pray for that woman who is your wife, and I rejoice that I escaped. I thank Heaven – you told me lies, you wanted my pity, you – ”

“Heaven had but little to do with this. Carden was the ruling spirit.”

“Go!” said Launa; “go before I say all I want to.”

The new butler helped him on with his overcoat – he had listened at the key-hole, and Mr. Wainbridge would be a lord some day. He was a religious man, and remembered the chief butler and Joseph, but no quotation occurred to him which would apply to the situation; besides, he was a good servant and knew his place.

Mr. Wainbridge had the satisfaction of driving away in the trap which had brought Captain Carden to Shelton – therefore Carden would have to walk to the station and miss his train – unless Launa had out her horses for him. The reflections of Mr. Wainbridge during his journey to Paddington were unpleasant. There was his uncle to face, and he must make explanations to him.

Nothing was so disquieting as Launa’s cry for help to Paul. Why Paul? Why not to Sylvia or Lily or anyone? And the sound of relief in her voice – relief – was there joy? She had never loved him; if she had, she would have loved him married or dead. She was the sort of woman who does not – who cannot change. Therefore if she had loved him she could have risked all for him.

His only consolation was Carden’s walk in the dark to the station, and journey by a slow train at 1 a. m. to town. Carden would swear; it stopped at every station.

CHAPTER XXII

Paul consigned his beloved to Mrs. Herbert and went up to town. Mrs. Cooper and Sylvia were useless. The former wept over the disgrace and made speeches beginning with “if” – the latter said “everyone was unfortunate and miserable.” Paul felt as if everyone were happy, beginning with himself and including Launa. Her cry to him had not been the cry of disappointment and sorrow; it had been what? He could not define it. Relief was too mild, joy too great a name.

Mr. Wainbridge found a certain amount of awkwardness in the interview with his uncle, which had to take place at once on account of the approaching marriage, which was now broken off. It was so difficult to explain what had transpired and to do it with a due regard for his own feelings.

Lord Wainbridge expressed much disappointment at his nephew’s engagement being broken off. He had received an announcement thereof by telegraph.

“Why! why! why!” he exclaimed. “My temper is very much upset to-day. Your aunt is most trying.”

“We have disagreed about settlements,” said the nephew.

“Damn settlements. That is rubbish. What else?”

“There is,” said his nephew slowly, “only one insurmountable barrier and she knows it.”

“Well? Can’t you do away with it?”

“I am married already.”

“Married? What a fool! You mean that you have had an establishment which you will give up now, of course, and she will not forgive this. She will naturally in time. Things will come right, do not be alarmed.”

“No, this will never come right for I am really married.”

“Yet you love Launa, and you meant to marry her and to live with her as your wife?”

“Yes.”

“To commit bigamy – in spite of the insurmountable barrier?”

“Yes,” replied Wainbridge.

His uncle stared at him aghast. Admiration, blended with contempt, showed in his countenance – admiration for the audacity of the plan, contempt for its failure.

“I thought, when I did think,” said the nephew, “that if we were once married, if she were only bound to me by indissoluble ties, she could not leave me, and if at any time she heard rumours, well, she would have kept quiet about it. The other woman does not know my name.”

“It is dreadful,” said Lord Wainbridge. “Now there is no heir and your aunt – ” he sighed. “I wish you had not told me. I should have preferred your being reticent with me. It is most unfortunate. I wish I did not know it.”

His was the hopeless lament of the aged.

“How old you are,” thought his nephew, who was more than sorry; but he did not groan – that was of no avail.

“There is an heir,” he said.

“You are a greater fool than I thought you. What will you tell your aunt?”

“Nothing – or the settlement story? which you prefer.”

He regretted being found out. His god had been the fear of discovery; he worshipped it, and to it he had made many sacrifices. But it was all over.

“He is quiet, and bears it well,” thought Lord Wainbridge; but then we should always bear the result of our own wrong-doing with philosophy. No one – Lord Wainbridge least of all – would have pitied him had he not endured it with patience. Inwardly Hugh Wainbridge was raging – raging with a wild longing to possess Launa – to have held her in his arms alone, while she was his – to have kissed the life and breath out of her. It was intolerable to think that it was over, that she was not his, and never would be. All through his own stupidity, which he cursed, he felt a mad wild beast, just an animal longing to kill anyone in his way, and to possess the one object of his passion. How he wished he had not told his uncle. Lord Wainbridge was so disappointed.

Mr. Wainbridge sat and meditated on the unsatisfactoriness, the dreariness of all things. His one desire was withheld from him, the desire which now threatened to become madness. He was hardly aware of his uncle’s departure – he seemed to see Launa with a smile of triumph, of victory, on her face, and he could not get to her; she eluded him. How he loved her! – loved her, would, must have her.

Paul wrote to Launa; then he waited and did not go down to see her, much as he longed to do so.

One afternoon he met Sylvia alone. She greeted him with joy. She looked different.

“You look wicked,” he said; and she laughed.

“When are you going to Launa? Go soon. One woman may as well think she is going to be happy in this world. As for me, I have learned that there is no happiness anywhere. I have vanquished my illusions.”

“How is Launa?”

“Alone down there in this dreary weather,” she replied. “She sent us all away – got rid of us very cleverly, even of Mrs. Herbert, and is there by herself.”

“Where are you going?” asked Paul.

“Home – I am wretched. I am so lonely and so weary of – virtue. I think it is very dull. My thoughts annoy me, and they continue so incessantly.”

“Come and have some tea with me,” he said.

For he was glad to be able to talk to her. He could not well rush down to Shelton at five o’clock, and he doubted the expediency of doing so.

“Launa took it quietly,” said Sylvia, as she drank her tea. “After we were alone she was so different – so glad. I rejoice when I remember how she said, ‘Paul!’ Did you hear the sound in her voice when she called you? – as if she could not be relieved and grateful enough. I am thinking of marriage – serious, uncomfortable marriage myself.”