Man and Maid

Jane is ashamed to be quite sure that she remembers praying to Dante and Shakespeare, and at last to Christina Rossetti, because she was a woman and loved her brothers.

But no help came. The old woman fussed in and out with wood for the fire – candles – food. Very kindly, it appears, but Jane wished she wouldn’t. Jane thinks she must have eaten some of the food, or the old woman would not have left her as she did.

Jane took the draught, and went to bed.

When Mrs Beale came into the sitting-room next morning, a neat pile of manuscript lay on the table, and when she took a cup of tea to Jane’s bedside, Jane was sleeping so placidly that the old woman had not the heart to disturb her, and set the tea down on a chair by the pillow to turn white and cold.

When Jane came into the sitting-room, she stood long looking at the manuscript. At last she picked it up, and, still standing, read it through. When she had finished, she stood a long time with it in her hand. At last she shrugged her shoulders and sat down. She wrote to Milly.

“Here is the story. I don’t know how I’ve done it, but here it is. Do read it – because I really am a little mad, and if it’s any good, send it in at once to the Monthly Multitude. I slept all last night. I shall soon be well now. Everything is so delightful, and the air is splendid. A thousand thanks for sending me here. I am enjoying the rest and change immensely. – Your grateful

“Jane.”

She read it through. Her smile at the last phrase was not pretty to see.

When the long envelope was posted, Jane went down to the quiet shore and gazed out over the sunlit sands to the opal line of the far receding tide.

The story was written. There was an end to the conflict of agonies, so now the fiercer agony had the field to itself.

“I suppose I shall learn to bear it presently,” she told herself. “I wish I had not forgotten how to cry. I am sure I ought to cry. But the story is done, anyway. I daresay I shall remember how to cry before the next story has to be done.”

There were two more nights and one whole day. The nights had islands of sleep in them – hot, misty islands in a river of slow, crawling, sluggish hours. The day was light and breezy and sunny, with a blue sky cloud-flecked. The day was worse than the nights, because in the day she remembered all the time who she was, and where.

It was on the last day of the week. She was sitting rigid in the little porch, her eyes tracing again and again with conscious intentness the twisted pattern of the budding honeysuckle stalks. A rattle of wheels suddenly checked came to her, and she untwisted her stiff fingers and went down the path to meet Milly – a pale Milly, with red spots in her cheeks and fierce, frowning brows – a Milly who drew back from the offered kiss and spoke in tones that neither had heard before.

“Come inside. I want to speak to you.”

The new disaster thus plainly heralded moved Jane not at all. There was no room in her soul for any more pain. In the little dining-room, conscientiously “quaint” with its spotted crockery dogs and corner cupboard shining with willow pattern tea-cups, Milly shut the door and turned on her friend.

“Now,” she said, “I came down to see you, because there are some things I couldn’t write – even to you. You can go back to the station in the cab, I’ve told the man to wait. And I hope I shall never see your face again.”

“What do you mean?” Jane asked the question mechanically, and not at all because she did not know the answer.

“You know what I mean,” the other answered, still with white fury. “I’ve found you out. You thought you were safe, and Edgar was dead, and no one would know. But as it happens I knew; and so shall everybody else.”

Jane moistened dry lips, and said: “Knew what?” and held on by the table.

“You didn’t think he’d told me about it, did you?” Milly flashed – “but he did.”

“I think you must tell me what you mean,” Jane said, and shifted her hold from table to armchair.

“Oh, certainly.” Milly tossed her head, and Jane’s fingers tightened on the chair-back. “Yes, I don’t wonder you look ill – I suppose you were sorry when you’d done it. But it’s no use being sorry; you should have thought of all that before.”

“Tell me,” said Jane, low.

“I’ll tell you fast enough. You shall see I do know. Well, then, that story you sent me – you just copied it from a story of Edgar’s that was in the old cabinet. He wrote it when he was here; and he said it wasn’t good, and I said it was, and then he said he’d leave it in the secret drawer, and see how it looked when he came back. And you found it. And you thought you were very clever, I daresay, and that Edgar was dead, and no one would know. But I knew, and – ”

“Yes,” Jane interrupted, “you said that before. So you think I found Edgar’s manuscript? If I did it I must have done it in my sleep. I used to walk in my sleep when I was a child. You believe me, Milly, don’t you?”

“No,” said Milly, “I don’t.”

“Then I’ll say nothing more,” said Jane with bitter dignity. “I will go at once, and I will try to forgive your cruelty. I would never have doubted your word – never. I am very ill – look at me. I had a sleeping draught, and I suppose it upset me: such things have happened. You’ve known me eight or nine years: have you ever known me do a dishonourable thing, or tell a lie? The dishonour is in yourself, to believe such things of me.”

Jane had drawn herself up, and stood, tall and haggard, her dark eyes glowing in their deep sockets. The other woman was daunted. She hesitated, stammered half a word, and was silent.

“Good-bye,” said Jane; “and I hope to God no one will ever be such a brute to you as you have been to me.” She turned, but before she reached the door Milly had caught her by the arm.

“No, don’t, don’t!” she cried. “I do believe you, I do! You poor darling! You must have done it in your sleep. Oh, forgive me, Jane dear. I’ll never tell a soul, and Edgar – ”

“Ah,” said Jane, turning mournful eyes on her, “Edgar would have believed in me.”

And at that Milly understood – in part, at least – and held out her arms.

“Oh, you poor dear! and I never even guessed! Oh, forgive me!” and she cried over Jane and kissed her many times. “Oh, my dear!” she said, as Jane yielded herself to the arms and her face to the kisses, “I’ve got something to tell you. You must be brave.”

“No – no more,” Jane said shrilly; “I can’t bear any more. I don’t want to know how it happened, or anything. He’s dead – that’s enough.”

“But – ” Milly clung sobbing to her, sobbing with sympathy and agitation.

Jane pushed her back, held her at arm’s length and looked at her with eyes that were still dry.

“You’re a good little thing, after all,” she said. “Yes – now I’ll tell you. You were quite right. It was a lie – but half of it was true – the half I told you – but I wanted you to believe the other half too. I did walk in my sleep, and I must have opened that cabinet and taken Edgar’s story out, because I found myself standing there with it in my hands. And he was dead, and – Oh, Milly. I knew he was dead, of course, and yet he was there – I give you my word he was there, and I heard him say ‘Take it, take it, take it!’ quite plainly, like I’m speaking to you now. And I took it; and I copied it out – it took me nearly all night – and then I sent it to you. And I’d never have told you the truth as long as you didn’t believe me – never – never. But now you do believe me I won’t lie to you. There! Let me go. I think I was mad then, and I know I am now. Tell every one. I don’t care.”

But Milly threw her arms round her again. The love interest had overpowered the moral sense. What did the silly story, or the theft, or the lie matter – what were they, compared with the love-secret she had surprised?

“My darling Jane,” she said, holding her friend closely and still weeping lavishly, “don’t worry about the story: I quite understand. Let’s forget it. You’ve got quite enough trouble to bear without that. But there’s one thing, it’s just as well I found out before the story was published. Because Edgar isn’t dead. His ship has been towed in: he’s at home.”

Jane laughed.

“Don’t cry, dear,” said Milly; “I’ll help you to bear it. Only – oh dear, how awful it is for you! – he’s going to be married.”

Jane laughed again; and then she thinks the great, green waves really did rise up all round the quaint dining-room – rise mountains high, and, falling, cover her.

Jane was ill so long that Milly had to tell Edgar about the story after all, and they sent it in, and it was published in Jane’s name. So the little brothers were all right. And he wrote the next story for her too, and they corrected the proofs together.

Jane has always thought it a pity that Milly had not troubled to ask the name of the girl whom Edgar intended to marry, because the name proved, on enquiry, to be Jane.

V

THE MILLIONAIRESS

I

It is a dismal thing to be in London in August. The streets are up for one thing, and your cab can never steer a straight course for the place you want to go to. And the trees are brown in the parks, and every one you know is away, so that there would be nowhere to go in your cab, even if you had the money to pay for it, and you could go there without extravagance.

Stephen Guillemot sat over his uncomfortable breakfast-table in the rooms he shared with his friend, and cursed his luck. His friend was away by the sea, and he was here in the dirty and sordid blackness of his Temple chambers. But he had no money for a holiday; and when Dornington had begged him to accept a loan, he had sworn at Dornington, and Dornington had gone off not at all pleased. And now Dornington was by the sea, and he was here. The flies buzzed in the panes and round the sticky marmalade jar; the sun poured in at the open window. There was no work to do. Stephen was a solicitor by trade; but, in fact and perforce, an idler. No business came to him. All day long the steps of clients sounded on the dirty, old wooden staircase – clients for Robinson on the second, for Jones on the fourth, but none for Guillemot on the third. Even now steps were coming, though it was only ten o’clock. The young man glanced at the marmalade jar, at the crooked cloth stained with tea, which his laundress had spread for his breakfast.

“Suppose it is a client – ” He broke off with a laugh. He had never been able to cure himself of that old hope that some day the feet of a client – a wealthy client – would pause at his door, but the feet had always gone by – as these would do. The steps did indeed pass his door, paused, came back, and – oh wonder! it was his knocker that awoke the Temple echoes.

He glanced at the table. It was hopeless. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I daresay it’s only a bill,” he said, and went to see.

The newcomer was impatient, for even as Guillemot opened the door, the knocker was in act to fall again.

“Is Mr Guillemot – Oh, Stephen, I should have known you anywhere!”

A radiant vision in a white linen gown – a very smart tailor-made-looking linen gown – and a big white hat was standing in his doorway, shaking him warmly by the hand.

“Won’t you ask me in?” asked the vision, smiling in his bewildered face.

He drew back mechanically, and closed the door after him as she went in. Then he followed her into the room that served him for office and living-room, and stood looking at her helplessly.

“You don’t know me a bit,” she said; “it’s a shame to tease you. I’ll take off my hat and veil; you will know me then. It’s these fine feathers!”

And take them off she did – in front of the fly-spotted glass on the mantel-piece; then she turned a bright face on him, a pretty mobile face, crowned with bright brown hair. And still he stood abashed.

“I never thought you would have forgotten the friend of childhood’s hour,” she began again. “I see I must tell you in cold blood.”

“Why, it’s Rosamund!” he cried suddenly. “Do forgive me! I never, never dreamed – My dear Rosamund, you aren’t really changed a bit it’s only – your hair being done up and – ”

“And the fine feathers,” said she, holding out a fold of her dress. “They are very pretty feathers, aren’t they?”

“Very,” said he. And then suddenly a silence of embarrassment fell between them.

The girl broke it with a laugh that was not quite spontaneous.

“How funny it all is!” she said. “I went to New York with my uncle when dear papa died – and then I went to Girton, and now poor uncle’s dead, and – ” Her eye fell on the tablecloth. “I’m going to clear away this horrid breakfast of yours,” she said.

“Oh, please!” he pleaded, taking the marmalade jar up in his helpless hands. She took the jar from him.

“Yes, I am,” she said firmly; “and you can just sit down and try to remember who I am.”

He obediently withdrew to the window-seat and watched her as she took away the ugly crockery and the uglier food to hide them in his little kitchen; and as he watched her he remembered many things. The lonely childhood in a country rectory – the long, dull days with no playfellows; then the arrival of the new doctor and his little daughter Rosamund Rainham – and almost at the same time, it seemed, the invalid lady with the little boy who lodged at the Post Office. Then there were playfellows, dear playfellows, to cheer and teach him – poor Stephen, he hardly knew what play or laughter meant. Then the invalid lady died, and Stephen’s father awoke from his dreams amid his old books, as he had a way of doing now and then, enquired into the circumstances of the boy, Andrew Dornington, and, finding him friendless and homeless, took him into his home to be Stephen’s little brother and friend. Then the long happy time when the three children were always together: walking, boating, birdsnesting, reading, playing and quarrelling; the storm of tears from Rosamund when the boys went to College; the shock of surprise and the fleeting sadness with which Stephen heard that the doctor was dead and that Rosamund had gone to America to her mother’s brother. Then the fulness of living, the old days almost forgotten, or only remembered as a pleasant dream. Stephen had never thought to see Rosamund again – had certainly never longed very ardently to see her; at any rate, since the year of her going. And now – here she was, grown to womanhood and charm, clearing away his breakfast things! He could hear the tap running, and knew that she must be washing her hands at the sink, using the horrid bit of yellow soap with tea-leaves embedded in it. Now she was drying her hands on the dingy towel behind the kitchen door. No; she came in drying her pink fingers on her handkerchief.

“What a horrid old charwoman you must have!” she said; “everything is six inches deep in dust – and all your crockery is smeary.”

“I am sorry it’s not nicer,” he said. “Oh, but it’s good to see you again! What times we used to have! Do you remember when we burned your dolls on the 5th of November?”

“I should think I did. And do you remember when I painted your new tool-chest and the handles of your saws and gimlets and things with pale green enamel? I thought you would be so pleased.”

She had taken her place, as she spoke, in the depths of the one comfortable chair, and he answered from his window-seat; and in a moment the two were launched on a flood of reminiscences, and the flight of time was not one of the things they remembered. The hour and the quarters sounded, and they talked on. But the insistence of noon, boomed by the Law Courts’ clock, brought Miss Rainham to her feet.

“Twelve!” she cried. “How time goes! And I’ve never told you what I came for. Look here. I’m frightfully rich; I only heard it last week. My uncle never seemed very well off. We lived very simply, and I used to do the washing-up and the dusting and things; and now he’s died and left me all his money. I don’t know where he kept it all. The people on the floor above here wrote me about it. I was going to see them, and I saw your name; and I simply couldn’t pass it. Look here, Stephen – are you very busy?”

“Not too busy to do anything you want. I’m glad you’ve had luck. What can I do for you?”

“Will you really do anything I want? Promise.”

“Of course I promise.” He looked at her and wondered if she knew how hard it would be to him to refuse her anything: for Mr Guillemot had been fancy free, and this gracious vision, re-risen from old times, had turned his head a little.

“Good! You must be my solicitor.”

“But I can’t. Jones – ”

“Bother Jones!” she said. “I shan’t go near him. I won’t be worried by Jones. What is the use of having a fortune – and it’s a big fortune, I can tell you – if I mayn’t even choose my own solicitor? Look here, Stephen – really – I have no relations and no friends in England – no man friends, I mean – and you won’t charge me more than you ought, but you will charge me enough. Oh, I feel like Mr Boffin – and you are Mortimer Lightwood, and Andrew is Eugene. Do you call him Dora still?”

It was the first question she had asked about the boy who had shared all their youth with them.

“Oh, Dornington is all right. He’d be awfully sick if you called him Dora nowadays. He’s got on a little – not much. He goes in for journalism. He’s at Lymchurch just now; he lives here with me generally.”

“Yes – I know; I saw his name on the door.” And Stephen did not wonder till later why she had not mentioned that name earlier in the interview.

“Here, give me paper and pens, the best there is time to procure. Now tell me what to say to Jones. I want to tell him that I loathe his very name; that I know I could never bear the sight of him; and that you are going to look after everything for me.”

He resisted – she pleaded; and at last the letter was written, not quite in those terms, and Stephen at her request reluctantly instructed her as to the method of giving a Power of Attorney.

“You must arrange everything,” she said; “I won’t be bothered. Now I must go. Jones is human, after all. He knew I should want money, and he sent me quite a lot. And I am going away for a holiday – just to see what it feels like to be rich.”

“You’re not going about alone, I hope,” said Stephen. And then, for the first time, he remembered that beautiful young ladies are not allowed to clear away tea-things in the Temple, without a chaperon – even for their solicitors.

“No; Constance Grant is with me. You don’t know her. I got to know her at Girton. She’s a dear.”

“Look here,” he said, awkwardly standing behind her as she pinned her hat and veil in front of his glass, “when you come back I’ll come to see you. But you mustn’t come here again; it’s – it’s not customary.” She smiled at his reflection in the glass.

“Oh, I forgot your stiff English notions! So absurd! Not going to see one’s old friend and one’s solicitor! However, I won’t come where I’m not wanted – ”

“You know – ” he began reproachfully; but she interrupted.

“Oh yes, it’s all right. Now remember that all my affairs are in your hands, and when I come back you will have to tell me exactly what I am worth – between eight and fourteen hundred thousand pounds, they say; but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? Good-bye.”

And with a last switch of white skirts against the dirty wainscot, and a last wave of a white-gloved hand, she disappeared down the staircase.

Stephen drew a long breath. “It can’t be fourteen hundred thousand,” he said slowly; “but I wish to goodness it wasn’t four-pence.”

II

The tide was low, the long lines of the sandbanks shone yellow in the sun – yellower for the pools of blue water left between them. Far off, where the low white streak marked the edge of the still retreating sea, little figures moved slowly along, pushing the shrimping-nets through the shallow water.

On one of the smooth wave-worn groins a girl sat sketching the village; her pink gown and red Japanese umbrella made a bright spot on the gold of the sand.

Further along the beach, under the end of the grass-grown sea-wall, a young man and woman basked in the August sun. Her sunshade was white, and so were her gown and the hat that lay beside her. Since her accession to fortune Rosamund Rainham had worn nothing but white.

“It is the prettiest wear in the world,” she had told Constance Grant; “and when you’re poor, it’s the most impossible. But now I can have a clean gown every day, and a clean conscience as well.”

“I’m not sure about the conscience,” Constance had answered with her demure smile. “Think of the millions of poor people.”

“Oh, bother!” Miss Rainham had laughed, not heartlessly, but happily. “Thank Heaven, I’ve enough to be happy myself and make heaps of other people happy too. And the first step is that no one’s to know I’m rich, so remember that we are two high-school teachers on a holiday.”

“I loathe play-acting,” Constance had said, but she had submitted, and now she sat sketching, and Rosamund in her white gown watched the seagulls and shrimpers from under the sea-wall of Lymchurch.

“And so your holiday’s over in three days,” she was saying to the young man beside her; “it’s been a good time, hasn’t it?”

He did not answer; he was piling up the pebbles in a heap, and always at a certain point the heap collapsed.

“What are you thinking of? Poems again?”

“I had a verse running in my head,” he said apologetically; “it has nothing to do with anything.”

“Write it down at once,” she said imperiously, and he obediently scribbled in his notebook, while she took up the work of building the stone heap – it grew higher under her light fingers.

“Read it!” she said, when the scribbling of the pencil stopped, and he read:

“Now the vexed clouds, wind-driven, spread wings of white,Long leaning wings across the sea and land;The waves creep back, bequeathing to our sightThe treasure-house of their deserted sand;And where the nearer waves curl white and low,Knee-deep in swirling brine the slow-foot shrimpers go.Pale breadth of sand where clamorous gulls conferMarked with broad arrows by their planted feet,White rippled pools where late deep waters were,And ever the white waves marshalled in retreat,And the grey wind in sole supremacyO’er opal and amber cold of darkening sky and sea.”

“Opal and amber cold,” she repeated; “it’s not like that now. It’s sapphire and gold and diamonds.”

“Yes,” he said; “but that was how it was last week – ”

“Before I came – ”

“Yes, before you came;” his tone put a new meaning into her words.

“I’m glad I brought good weather,” she said cheerfully, and the little stone heap rattled itself down under her hand.

“You brought the light of the world,” he said, and caught her hand and held it. There was a silence. A fisherman passing along the sea-wall gave them good-day. “What made you come to Lymchurch?” he said presently, and his hand lay lightly on hers. She hesitated, and looked down at her hand and his.

“I knew you were here,” she said. His eyes met hers. “I always meant to see you again some day. And you knew me at once. That was so nice of you.”

“You have not changed,” he said; “your face has not changed, only you are older, and – ”

“I’m twenty-two; you needn’t reproach me with it. Yours is the same to a month.”

He moved on his elbow a little nearer to her.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” he asked, looking out to sea, “that you and I were made for each other?”

“No; never.”

He looked out to sea still, and his face clouded heavily.

“Ah – no – don’t look like that, dear; it never occurred to me – I think I must have always known it somehow, only – ”

“Only what? – do you really? – only what?” A silence. Then, “Only what?” he asked again.

“Only I was so afraid it would never occur to you!”

There was no one on the wide, bare sands save the discreet artist – their faces were very near.

“We shall be very, very poor, I’m afraid,” he said presently.

“I can go on teaching.”

“No” – his voice was decided – “my wife shan’t work – at least not anywhere but in our home. You won’t mind playing at love in a cottage for a bit, will you? I shall get on now I’ve something to work for. Oh, my dear, thank God I’ve enough for the cottage! When will you marry me? We’ve nothing to wait for, no relations to consult, no settlements to draw up. All that’s mine is thine, lassie.”