Sisters Part 25

Frances drove away from the hotel in her smart carriage, with her smart luggage and smart maid, and her amorous old husband, and never thought or cared what was to become of her abandoned sister. She could only think of her own exciting affairs.

Partly they were unsatisfactory, no doubt. All her rights were not hers even now--no, not by a long way. But oh, how much better was this than the drab and shabby and barren existence for ever left behind! She was bound, indeed; yet she was free--freer than another might have been in her place, and far, far less bound. One must expect to pay some tax to Fortune for such extraordinary gifts, and Frances was not the one to pay it in heart's blood. She was philosophically prepared to pay it in her own coin, and be done with it, and then give herself to the enjoyment of the pleasures of her lot.

Her first enjoyment was in her beautiful going-away dress--grey cloth and chinchilla fur, with flushes of pink as delicate as the rose of her cheeks--and in her knowledge of the effect she made in that dream of a costume. There was no hiding her light under a bushel any more. The highway, and the middle of it, for her now--her proud husband strutting there beside her--and every pa.s.ser-by turning to look at and to admire her. There was joy in the occupancy of the best suite of rooms in the best hotel at every place she stopped at during her gay and well-filled bridal holiday; joy in the dainty meals--so long unknown; in the obsequious servants, in the plentiful theatres, in the ever-ready carriage that took her to them, in the having one's hair done to perfection by an expert maid, in sweeping forth with one's silks and laces trailing, and one's diamonds on. These were the delights for which her little soul had so long yearned; she now pursued them greedily. She could not rest if she were not doing something to display herself and feed her craving for what is known as seeing the world. Her husband was almost as obsequious as the servants--doubtless because from the first she took the beauty's high hand with him, as well as the att.i.tude of the superior, naturally a.s.sumed by youth towards age--and he enjoyed the sensation she made almost as much as she did. Visibly he swelled and preened himself when his venerable contemporaries cast the eye of surprise, not to say of envy, upon the conjunction of his complacent figure and that of the bride who might have been his grand-daughter; he toiled for that pleasure, and to make pleasure for her, as no old gentleman should toil; he gave her everything she asked for, including his own ease and consequence, his own vital health and strength.

But the honeymoon waned, and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was weary of his constant company. It became the kill-joy of her festive days, growing from a necessary bore to an intolerable irritation as the dimensions of her little court of younger gallants enlarged about her.

Therefore she had no objection to his halting on the toilsome path, so long as he allowed her to go on alone.

It was not a case of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and unselfishness, the result is a foregone conclusion.

So she began to go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty--an intoxicating experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing infirmities, and made secret visits to a married daughter (wife of a big hotel-keeper), who hated her young step-mother, and whose existence Frances ignored.

One day, Guthrie Carey, after several voyages to other ports, appeared again in Melbourne. He had just landed, and was strolling along Collins Street, when he encountered a vision of loveliness that almost took away his breath.

"What! It is not Miss Frances, surely?"

"It is not," smiled she, all her beauty at its conscious best as she recognised his, which was that of a man of men, splendid in his strong prime. And she told him who she was, and a few other things, as they stood on the pavement--she so graceful in her mature self-possession, he staring at her, stupidly distraught, like a bewildered school-boy.

"I had no idea--" he mumbled.

"That I was married? Alas, yes!"--with a sad shake of the head. "We girls are fated, I think."

"Miss Deb?"

"Oh, not Deb; she has escaped so far."

"Is she well?"

"I have not seen her lately, but I am sure she is, she always is." "She is not in Melbourne?"

"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on.

Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news."

They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the understanding that he would dine with her later in her own house. At the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, Mrs Ewing sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate.

"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, now that it is too late!"

At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but otherwise fairly well.

"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage."

He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They had a good home, and it was the best place.

But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on--not so much because it would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England and Europe, and was dying to do so.

Then they discussed routes.

"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of s.p.a.ce, and no tiresome rules and restrictions--"

"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I a.s.sure you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They are not YOUR style at all."

"Yes, I was talking to Captain Carey about it, and that was his advice, and HE knows. On his ship they have accommodation for about six pa.s.sengers, and he suggested that, if we were quick about it, we might be able to secure the whole, so as to be exactly as if we were on a yacht of our own. They have a fair cook; but we could take any servants we liked, and make ourselves comfortable in our own way--n.o.body to interfere with us. He doesn't go through the hot ca.n.a.l. He will be back from Sydney in three weeks--just nice time to get ready in."

Of course, they went that way. And perhaps it is better to leave the rest of the story to the imagination of the reader, who, one hopes, for Guthrie Carey's sake, is a common-sense person, as well as a dispa.s.sionate student of human nature.

CHAPTER XIX.

Deb was at Redford once more.

In her own room too, surrounded by familiar objects--the six-foot dressing-table and the nine-foot wardrobe, and the Aspinalled book-case that was a fixture, amongst other things. She had not taken them to her suburban villa, nor sent for them afterwards. Meanwhile, Mr Th.o.r.n.ycroft had bought them with the place, and taken care of them, as of everything that she had left behind. They had been in his possession now for several years.

The strange thing in the room was Mr Th.o.r.n.ycroft himself--Mr Th.o.r.n.ycroft on the little white bed that Deb used to sleep on, his hair white, his once stalwart frame reduced to a pale wreck of skin and bone.

"You will forgive me for coming here," he apologised. "I have not been using the things. But they had me moved for coolness--the south-east aspect, and being able to get a current through--"

"I am thankful they did. It is the best place for you this weather. But there's one thing I shall never forgive you--that you didn't let me know before."

She was sitting at his bedside, holding his hand--she, too, much changed, thinner, sadder, shabbier, or rather, less splendidly turned out than had been her wont in earlier days; beautiful as ever, notwithstanding--infinitely more so, in the sick man's eyes.

"Why should I bother you? I haven't been very bad--just the old asthma off and on. It is only lately that I have felt it upsetting my heart.

And you know I am used to being alone."

He spoke with the asthma pant, and a throb of the lean throat that she could not bear to see. His head was propped high, so that they squarely faced each other. His eyes were full of tenderness and content--hers of tears.

"You have been pretty lonely yourself, by all accounts," said he, stroking her hand. "It's odd to think of you in that case, Debbie."

"I've felt it odd myself," she smiled, with a whisk of her handkerchief. "But, like you, I am getting used to it."

"Where's Dalzell all this time?" "Don't know. Don't care. Please don't talk of him."

"n.o.body else--?"

"Oh, dear, no! Never will be. I am going to take up nursing or something."

"YOU!" he mocked.

"Do you suppose I can't? Wait till I have got you over this attack, and then tell me if I can't. I am going to stay with you, G.o.dpapa, until you are better. I have spoken to your housekeeper, and she is quite agreeable--if you are."

He did not think it necessary to reply to that hint, but just smiled and closed his eyes. She took up a palm-leaf fan and fanned him, watching him anxiously. It was a roasting February day, and he was breathing very badly.

"Have you given up your house?" he asked, when he could speak.

"Long ago. No use my staying there alone. Besides, I could not afford it."

"Francie not much good to you, I suppose?"