A Woman's Burden Part 30

"You don't mean to say that Mr. Arkel drinks to excess?"

"I should jus' say 'e do. 'E comes 'ere at times and is drunk for days!

Can't 'elp it, 'e sez--I'd 'elp 'im if I'd my way. There was another of 'em in an asylum; she was always stealin', couldn't 'elp it, it seemed no'ow. As for the morals of 'em, I blushes to think of the way they used to carry on. It's a blessin', I'm sure, that some of 'em's committed suicide."

"Major Dundas seems to be perfectly normal in every way."

"Oh, 'e's the proud and 'aughty sort, 'e is. I never 'eard anything worse than that about 'im. But 'e'll break out some day, Miss Cranes, never you fear. What's born in the Barton bones'll come out in the Barton flesh, mark my words if it don't."

Apparently Major Dundas was the only member of the house of Barton for whom Mrs. Perks had even comparative approval. And Miriam had little doubt but that she was correct in her judgment, if not in her prognostications. At least she had had a lengthy experience of the family. An hereditary weakness had undoubtedly exhibited itself in various manners, none of which was either trivial or attractive. Theft, or to give it the more scientific name, kleptomania, uncontrollable rage, alcoholism, and--in the Squire--distinct and avowed homicidal mania, which characteristics left little ground for doubt as to there being decided mental aberration in the Barton family. But of the last, and more serious failing on the part of the late Squire, Mrs. Perks seemed to be wholly in ignorance. To her he was an eccentric, and a dilettante in crime--a seeker after the lower strata of humanity, but nothing more.

As soon as she arrived in town Miriam had at once proceeded to investigate the fact of Jabez' being in England. Her first visit was to the hovel of Mother Mandarin, for there she knew he was wont to take refuge when in London. But to her surprise Mother Mandarin knew nothing of his present whereabouts. She had not seen him indeed since he had left for Lesser Thorpe. Shorty, too, although he looked knowingly at her and seemed once or twice on the point of being confidential, denied all knowledge of him. For Jabez' own sake she inserted a cypher advertis.e.m.e.nt in several of the daily papers, warning him of the great danger he was running by remaining in England. But he made no sign of any kind, and Miriam gave up in despair.

She heard from Inspector Prince that in spite of the thorough search of all outgoing steamers for America, both at Southampton and at Liverpool, no trace had been found of the man she had described. And from the mere fact of the inspector writing to her thus ex-officio, she gathered--and rightly--that she had not failed so far as he was concerned. So she was forced to rest content with the knowledge that for the present, at least, Jabez, wherever he was, was safe.

Then one morning Gerald Arkel made his appearance at the Pitt Hotel. He was very much changed. His former expression of light-hearted gaiety had given way to one of dejection, even sullenness. His dress, usually so irreproachable, was conspicuous now by his untidy carelessness; and the springy gait, which had always been so characteristic of him, was gone.

It was almost as if the breath of old age had pa.s.sed over him, and in the pa.s.sing had roughed the outlines of his youth.

"My! you do look bad, Mr. Arkel!" was Mrs. Perks' greeting. "Wot 'ave you been doin'?"

"Mourning for my uncle," retorted Gerald with a discordant laugh.

"Having lost my benefactor, Mrs. Perks, you can't expect me to be very sprightly, eh? Is Miss Crane in?"

"Yes, sir, she is--you'll find 'er first door on the right there. I wonder what 'e wants with 'er," she mumbled, as Gerald made his way along the pa.s.sage. "No good, I'll be bound. You've been drinkin' 'ard, young man, and wot's more, you'll come to no 'appy end, unless I'm much mistaken."

A knock at the door of the room in which Miriam was occupied at her morning's work caused her to bid her visitor to enter. She did not raise her eyes from her work. She was accustomed to be thus disturbed for some trivial matter or other in the morning. For half a minute Gerald stood there looking at her. How beautiful and composed her expression was! He faltered out her name. She paled at the sound of his voice, and rose slowly to her feet, repeating his name in a tone hardly less faltering.

In silence their eyes met.

"You are surprised to see me?" said Gerald, throwing his hat on a chair and sitting down. "I got your address from Dundas. I thought you would not mind if I came and saw you."

A more serious expression came over her face as she looked at him.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Arkel," she said; "but you look to me terribly ill. Is anything the matter? I am afraid----" She hesitated.

"That I've been making a fool of myself?" he finished bitterly. "Well, you're right as usual--I have. And what's more, I'm afraid I shall go on making a fool of myself until I can find someone to give me a helping hand."

"But is not Hilda----?"

"Hilda!" His face crimsoned, and he bit his lip. "Hilda has given me up.

That's all over now!"

"Given you up?" She did not know whether she felt glad or sorry.

"Yes; given me up. When through the theft of that will I lost everything, she flatly declined to marry me. Her father forbade her to.

I saw him--I saw her--and the whole thing was too much for me. I had a kind of fit, I believe."

"Poor Mr. Arkel!"

"Still Mr. Arkel?--you used to take an interest in me. You used to be my friend."

"That I am still; but surely Major Dundas is your friend. Surely he----?"

"Oh yes; in a cold-blooded sort of way," replied Gerald listlessly. "He has helped me. He gave me three hundred pounds, and said he would try and get me something to do. Considering that he has all that I should have had, that is not a great deal."

"It is very good, I think," replied Miriam. "And what do you think of doing?"

"Blessed if I know." He spoke fretfully and with discontent. "The thing is, what am I fit for?"

"What are you fit for?--what any man worthy of the name is fit for--work--hard work. Do you remember how I always told you it would be your salvation. Well, now it has come--no longer is it a matter of choice with you, but one of necessity. Will you be angry with me if I say that I am glad it is all over between Hilda Marsh and you? She was not the woman for you. She was not fit to be any poor man's wife. You have everything before you now. In robbing you of what you had come to think of as your inheritance, Providence befriended you--not the opposite. Your uncle's money would have been your ruin, Gerald." His face brightened at the sound of his name on her lips. "Yes, you know it would. You know how weak you are, how you love pleasure, self-indulgence--how already you have indulged your love of it far too much. Oh, do try now, I beg of you. Let me help you if I can. I will do anything if it will help to put you on your feet again. Who is there you can go and see? Tell me you will try."

She had risen from her seat and was standing by his side. He looked so dull, so heavy-eyed, so despairing.

"Gerald, this chance is thrown right in your way. Don't neglect it."

"You put new life in me, Miriam--and indeed I have tried. I have vowed that I would overcome my weakness. And when I am with you I feel as if I really could. But somehow, when I am alone, the feeling goes, and I can't go on. You know I am not religious, but I tell you I have prayed for help to do what you would have me do. But it hasn't come to me. Life is too much for me alone. If I had you to help me----"

"I will help you!"

"Oh, Miriam, if only you would--if I could think that I should have you by me, that you would not leave me, I believe I could succeed, Miriam."

He looked at her, and took her hand and grasped it hard. "I know I am a wreck compared to what I was, that I am weak, and poor, and helpless.

You know how I am handicapped. But I feel that with you--if you would take me--life would all be different. I could work for you. With you I should feel safe, without you I am doomed. Will you take pity on me?--will you marry me, Miriam?"

She looked at him and smiled so sadly.

"I will help you, Gerald. I will stay beside you--always. Your life shall be my life--but not because I pity you, Gerald--because I love you!"

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

5A, ROSARY MANSIONS.

The neighbourhood of West Kensington is nothing if not genteel. It is, moreover, by no means a costly area, and is thus in every way calculated to recommend itself to those about to marry on an income somewhat sharply defined. And the income of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Arkel was somewhat sharply defined. They accordingly looked around West Kensington, and succeeded in finding, on the fifth floor of a palatial red-brick erection, a flat to suit their requirements at the very moderate rental of fifty pounds a year. This they took on a three years'

agreement, and proceeded to embellish with a sufficiency of furniture and upholstery, which if not valuable, was in eminently good taste. But their good fortune did not stop here--it extended even to the securing of a "cook-general," a model of her kind, who not only spared the china to an extent almost uncanny, but did not object to "do" the dining-room, and asked for no more than three nights out a week. Thus blessed, and with a gross income of three hundred pounds per annum, Mr. and Mrs.

Arkel commenced their married life for all the world as content as if their address had been Grosvenor Square.

For two years Fortune had continued to smile on them in an un.o.btrusive yet perfectly satisfactory manner, and they were now celebrating the second anniversary of their wedding-day by witnessing the performance of a certain masterpiece of farcical comedy from the centre of the dress-circle of the Avenue Theatre. To those who may think such an extravagance unjustifiable in the circ.u.mstances, let it be said at once that the tickets had not been paid for, but were a present from the hands of the author of the piece himself, who was for the time being finding a Klond.y.k.e in the, to him, wholly inexplicable mania of the London public for the child of his brain. For the rest the evening's expenditure was strictly limited to a sixpenny bill of the play, and two second-cla.s.s return tickets by the Metropolitan Railway.

The play over, Mr. and Mrs. Arkel returned home to a cold supper, at peace with themselves and all the world. With the temperature at something under forty they considered themselves justified in lighting the fire. But this was easier said than done, for the West Kensington chimneys, excellent as they may seem to the naked eye, are at times disconcerting in their refractoriness, and on this especial evening this especial chimney chose to be unusually so. At last, by the aid of his morning paper--carefully brought home in the pocket of his tail-coat--and a rather alarming expenditure of f.a.ggots, Gerald contrived to induce something approaching a cheerful blaze. That done, he got into the arm-chair, and prepared to enjoy his final pipe.

The excursion to the theatre had been so "out of the usual," so wholly commemorative in character, that it was natural that, after expression of appreciation or otherwise of their friend's production, they should fall into a gentle retrospect.

"It was a lucky day, Miriam, old girl, when I dropped in on you at the Pitt Hotel," said Gerald. "If you hadn't consented then to become my domestic angel, I suppose I should have been dead by this time, or in a lunatic asylum, or worse!"