A Woman's Burden Part 31

"Gerald, don't. I won't have you talk like that. You have worked hard, and I am proud of you. Lots of men have done for less without half your weaknesses."

"Well, there's no denying it is jolly rough on any man to have to give up a life like mine, and go and grub in a beastly office."

"I say you have done more than well, dear. But don't call the office 'beastly,' Gerald. They have done everything to show their appreciation of you. Remember, you started with three pounds a week, and they are now giving you six. I often think it was very good of the Major to get you so good a start."

"I owe nothing to the Major," returned Gerald hotly. "What he did, he did as a salve to his own conscience, that was all. It's no use, Miriam, I can't forget that it was through him I lost everything--not that I regret the exchange so far as Hilda is concerned. You are worth a hundred of her any day. You know, dear, I don't regret that. Still, I can't help feeling sore when I think that Dundas got everything and I nothing. I can see now that Hilda was no loss. She showed her hand pretty plainly. I believe she'd have married Beelzebub himself for money. Anyhow, directly she knew I was out of it, she made very short work of me."

"But, dear, you told me yourself that her father made her give you up!"

"I don't fancy she required so much 'making.' But don't let's talk about her now. Do you know, Miriam, I used to think Dundas was rather sweet on you."

Miriam shook her head and laughed.

"Nonsense, dear. He liked to talk to me, nothing more. Besides, if he had been ever so in love with me, I wouldn't have married him. I'm afraid I had too soft a spot for someone else!"

The young man chuckled inwardly at this allusion to her preference for himself. He was as vain as ever. But to Miriam's mind there came back the recollection of a certain day at the Pitt Hotel--it was strange how indissolubly connected was that hotel with the greater issues of her life--when Major Dundas had come to her and asked her to be his wife, only to be told that she was already engaged to his cousin. She recalled, too, his great generosity--so ill-appreciated, she was forced to confess, by the recipient of it--in straightway using every endeavour to procure for his more successful rival a berth in a shipping-office where he had some influence. He had even gone so far as to offer her an income, which of course she had refused. And he had promised always to be her friend. After that she had seen him no more. He had drifted back to Lesser Thorpe, there to do his work as lord of the manor, and twelve months later had capitulated to Hilda. She could see it all in her mind's eye--the good-natured, simple, easy-going soldier, and the pretty, covetous, artful girl, backed by her poverty-stricken, designing parents, and, as a result, Miss Hilda Marsh the lady of the manor of Lesser Thorpe.

All this pa.s.sed rapidly through her mind now as she sat gazing into the fire. Her two years of married life had not engendered in her any admiration for her husband's character. She was obliged to confess that it was not to be admired. By dint of much exertion of her superior moral force over him she had so far succeeded as to keep in check his innate tendencies to lapse. She had kept him to his work, and it was only fair to him to say he had worked. He had even proved to have more capacity than she had ever credited him with. Strong as her feeling was for him, there had been times when she had come very near being ashamed of it.

She could not account for it. She only knew that it existed--had existed from the moment when they first had met. It was a thing almost apart from her life, and yet wholly of it. There were times when she tried to persuade herself that it was pity she had felt for him--that pity which is so akin to love. But in her heart of hearts she knew better--she knew that it was rather that fierce pa.s.sion which no woman can control; which exists of itself and for itself, and is outside and utterly unaffected by any admiration or lack of it, and which comes but once in the lifetime of any man or woman. This was the feeling inspired in her by Gerald Arkel, and she had not been proof against it. It had whirled her off her feet, and she was now irrevocably committed to it. She had married a child--a weak, vain, selfish, pleasure-loving child, with instincts tending all towards destruction. The tinkle of a gla.s.s aroused her from her reverie. She looked up at him.

"Gerald dear, don't take any more whiskey; you have had two gla.s.ses already."

"Luck in odd numbers," he replied gaily, "we don't celebrate our anniversary more than once a year. Just one more, Miriam, and then to bed."

She looked at him in reproof.

"It's the thin end of the wedge, Gerald--you know your weakness!"

He turned on her angrily.

"I ought to; you're always telling me of it."

"Gerald, that is unjust. You know I speak only for your good."

"People invariably do when they have anything disagreeable to say. Hang it, Miriam, you might leave me alone for once in a way. I am awfully sick of your everlasting preaching. Goodness knows I've given up quite enough for you as it is. I never get the taste of a gla.s.s of wine; a drop of whiskey at night's my only comfort."

"A comfort which means ruin to you, Gerald--you know it."

"Jove! how like a woman that is--always ready to picture the worst of horrors. Why, I'd like you to see some fellows! What they drink in a night would keep me going a twelvemonth."

"Gerald, how can you speak so foolishly when you know how it is with you! Didn't you beg of me----"

"Oh, d.a.m.n it, do leave me alone. Preach, preach, preach, from morning till night. After all you're not such a purified saint as all that yourself. You forget you sang in the chorus at a music-hall once!"

"I did, and you knew it, and why I had to do it, before you married me."

"Perhaps I did; but there are some things you took precious good care I should not know--Jabez, for instance! Who is he?"

She did not flinch, although she was hurt to the quick. She looked into the fire, with her head resting on her hand.

"Jabez is a man with whom you can have nothing to do. He pa.s.sed out of my life two years ago. I have never seen him since."

"He was evidently very much in it once. Oh, Julia told me all about your little goings on--how you met him on the quiet, and gave him money, and worse even than that!"

"Gerald, what do you mean?"

"Why, what I say. According to Mrs. Darrow, you primed this chap to steal Uncle Barton's will."

"And you believe that?"

"I--I don't know. I can't say. At all events he threatened to kill my uncle, and the old man _was_ killed the very next night!"

"He was not killed by Jabez."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I am sure of it. Jabez had no reason to harm Mr. Barton. As to the will, I will only ask you--to put it on the lowest possible grounds--what had I to gain by its disappearance?"

"This, that you wanted to see me done out of the money. You know how you were always preaching to me on that subject, and urging me not to take it, saying that it would be my ruin, and I don't know what else!"

"And so it would have been. You know well that if you had inherited that money you would have been in your grave by now."

"Now look here, Miriam, I've had about enough of this. I'll drink what I jolly well please. Here goes." He poured out nearly half a tumbler of whiskey, and drank it down. "Now then, what have you to say?"

"Nothing, Gerald--for the present--further than I think you had better go to bed."

"Oh, that's just like you--after you have riled a chap. 'Pon my soul, Miriam, you're the most exasperating woman I know. You're always ready to go for me; you take precious good care, though, not to tell me much about yourself."

"You know everything about me, Gerald."

"No, I don't. That Jabez business is precious queer. Who is he?--what is he to you I should like to know?"

"Jabez is not unlike yourself--a weakling and an ingrate. I tried to save him from himself, as I have tried to save you."

"Oh, you seem to be a pretty old hand at experimenting with men. I don't believe you're any better than you ought to be!"

The drink had mounted to his brain now, and he was quite beside himself.

As Miriam left the room, she saw him pour out another half-tumbler of spirit.

"I shall sleep in the small bedroom to-night," she said. "You will probably sleep on the floor."

It was not the first time she had occupied that little room. Indeed, the number of occasions upon which she had been forced to do so, had been increasing all too frequently of late. She had made a huge mistake--she recognised it now. With such a man as this there could be no sense of security, hence no real happiness, though the sun of prosperity shone ever so brightly. With the pitying love of an angel she had put out her strong arm to pluck him from destruction. And for a time she had succeeded. But now he was eluding her grasp. The instinct within him was too strong for her to combat. His employer would soon come to complain of him. And then the end would soon be. Already he complained of her.

Her very virtues were fast becoming faults in his eyes. But even now it was not of herself she thought, though her intellect was being starved, and her soul was sick with the sorrow of despair. No longer could she feel any hope for the future--for his future. Worn out and utterly dejected, she threw herself on the bed in the bare little room, and cried herself to sleep.

Next morning Gerald rose late, and, it seemed, repentant. In truth, he rose from the floor which had been his bed that night. He took a cold bath, and so braced up his shattered nerves a trifle. She received him with a smile, and made no reference to what had been. He apologised, and she forgave him, and there the thing ended--for the time. She alone knew how her heart ached. It was Sunday. He went to church, and rebuked her because she said she felt unable to accompany him. From the window she watched him, smartly dressed and for all the world the most punctilious of men. His tendencies were strongly ritualistic. He would probably confess his sins and take holy vows about the future. But the future would be no better than the past for all that.

With the a.s.sistance of the "cook-general" she made the beds, and dusted the rooms, and laid the table. Then she took a book and sat down in the drawing-room to read. But her thoughts would not follow her page. They drifted back to Jabez. Where was he now she wondered? What had become of him? It was two whole years since she had seen him.