The Way We Live Now Part 132

"I shall not play," said Mr. Lupton.

"There isn't a pack of cards in the house," said Dolly. Lord Gra.s.slough didn't condescend to say a word. Sir Felix sat down with his cigar in his mouth, and the others continued to smoke in silence.

"I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," asked Sir Felix. But no one made any answer, and they smoked on in silence. "He hasn't paid me a shilling yet of the money he owes me." Still there was not a word. "And I don't suppose he ever will." There was another pause.

"He is the biggest scoundrel I ever met," said Sir Felix.

"I know one as big," said Lord Gra.s.slough,--"or, at any rate, as little."

There was another pause of a minute, and then Sir Felix left the room muttering something as to the stupidity of having no cards;--and so brought to an end his connection with his a.s.sociates of the Beargarden. From that time forth he was never more seen by them,--or, if seen, was never known.

The other men remained there till well on into the night, although there was not the excitement of any special amus.e.m.e.nt to attract them. It was felt by them all that this was the end of the Beargarden, and, with a melancholy seriousness befitting the occasion, they whispered sad things in low voices, consoling themselves simply with tobacco. "I never felt so much like crying in my life," said Dolly, as he asked for a gla.s.s of brandy-and-water at about midnight. "Good-night, old fellows; good-bye. I'm going down to Caversham, and I shouldn't wonder if I didn't drown myself."

How Mr. Flatfleece went to law, and tried to sell the furniture, and threatened everybody, and at last singled out poor Dolly Longestaffe as his special victim; and how Dolly Longestaffe, by the aid of Mr.

Squerc.u.m, utterly confounded Mr. Flatfleece, and brought that ingenious but unfortunate man, with his wife and small family, to absolute ruin, the reader will hardly expect to have told to him in detail in this chronicle.

CHAPTER XCVII.

MRS. HURTLE'S FATE.

Mrs. Hurtle had consented at the joint request of Mrs. Pipkin and John Crumb to postpone her journey to New York and to go down to Bungay and grace the marriage of Ruby Ruggles, not so much from any love for the persons concerned, not so much even from any desire to witness a phase of English life, as from an irresistible tenderness towards Paul Montague. She not only longed to see him once again, but she could with difficulty bring herself to leave the land in which he was living. There was no hope for her. She was sure of that. She had consented to relinquish him. She had condoned his treachery to her,--and for his sake had even been kind to the rival who had taken her place. But still she lingered near him. And then, though, in all her very restricted intercourse with such English people as she met, she never ceased to ridicule things English, yet she dreaded a return to her own country. In her heart of hearts she liked the somewhat stupid tranquillity of the life she saw, comparing it with the rough tempests of her past days. Mrs. Pipkin, she thought, was less intellectual than any American woman she had ever known; and she was quite sure that no human being so heavy, so slow, and so incapable of two concurrent ideas as John Crumb had ever been produced in the United States;--but, nevertheless, she liked Mrs. Pipkin, and almost loved John Crumb. How different would her life have been could she have met a man who would have been as true to her as John Crumb was to his Ruby!

She loved Paul Montague with all her heart, and she despised herself for loving him. How weak he was;--how inefficient; how unable to seize glorious opportunities; how swathed and swaddled by scruples and prejudices;--how unlike her own countrymen in quickness of apprehension and readiness of action! But yet she loved him for his very faults, telling herself that there was something sweeter in his English manners than in all the smart intelligence of her own land.

The man had been false to her,--false as h.e.l.l; had sworn to her and had broken his oath; had ruined her whole life; had made everything blank before her by his treachery! But then she also had not been quite true with him. She had not at first meant to deceive;--nor had he. They had played a game against each other; and he, with all the inferiority of his intellect to weigh him down, had won,--because he was a man. She had much time for thinking, and she thought much about these things. He could change his love as often as he pleased, and be as good a lover at the end as ever;--whereas she was ruined by his defection. He could look about for a fresh flower and boldly seek his honey; whereas she could only sit and mourn for the sweets of which she had been rifled. She was not quite sure that such mourning would not be more bitter to her in California than in Mrs. Pipkin's solitary lodgings at Islington.

"So he was Mr. Montague's partner,--was he now?" asked Mrs. Pipkin a day or two after their return from the Crumb marriage. For Mr. Fisker had called on Mrs. Hurtle, and Mrs. Hurtle had told Mrs. Pipkin so much.

"To my thinking now he's a nicer man than Mr. Montague." Mrs. Pipkin perhaps thought that as her lodger had lost one partner she might be anxious to secure the other;--perhaps felt, too, that it might be well to praise an American at the expense of an Englishman.

"There's no accounting for tastes, Mrs. Pipkin."

"And that's true, too, Mrs. Hurtle."

"Mr. Montague is a gentleman."

"I always did say that of him, Mrs. Hurtle."

"And Mr. Fisker is--an American citizen." Mrs. Hurtle when she said this was very far gone in tenderness.

"Indeed now!" said Mrs. Pipkin, who did not in the least understand the meaning of her friend's last remark.

"Mr. Fisker came to me with tidings from San Francisco which I had not heard before, and has offered to take me back with him." Mrs. Pipkin's ap.r.o.n was immediately at her eyes. "I must go some day, you knew."

"I suppose you must. I couldn't hope as you'd stay here always. I wish I could. I never shall forget the comfort it's been. There hasn't been a week without everything settled; and most ladylike,--most ladylike! You seem to me, Mrs. Hurtle, just as though you had the bank in your pocket." All this the poor woman said, moved by her sorrow to speak the absolute truth.

"Mr. Fisker isn't in any way a special friend of mine, but I hear that he will be taking other ladies with him, and I fancy I might as well join the party. It will be less dull for me, and I shall prefer company just at present for many reasons. We shall start on the first of September." As this was said about the middle of August there was still some remnant of comfort for poor Mrs. Pipkin. A fortnight gained was something; and as Mr. Fisker had come to England on business, and as business is always uncertain, there might possibly be further delay. Then Mrs. Hurtle made a further communication to Mrs. Pipkin, which, though not spoken till the latter lady had her hand on the door, was, perhaps, the one thing which Mrs. Hurtle had desired to say. "By-the-bye, Mrs. Pipkin I expect Mr. Montague to call to-morrow at eleven. Just show him up when he comes." She had feared that unless some such instructions were given, there might be a little scene at the door when the gentleman came.

"Mr. Montague;--oh! Of course, Mrs. Hurtle,--of course. I'll see to it myself." Then Mrs. Pipkin went away abashed,--feeling that she had made a great mistake in preferring any other man to Mr. Montague, if, after all, recent difficulties were to be adjusted.

On the following morning Mrs. Hurtle dressed herself with almost more than her usual simplicity, but certainly with not less than her usual care, and immediately after breakfast seated herself at her desk, nursing an idea that she would work as steadily for the next hour as though she expected no special visitor. Of course she did not write a word of the task which she had prescribed to herself. Of course she was disturbed in her mind, though she had dictated to herself absolute quiescence.

She almost knew that she had been wrong even to desire to see him.

She had forgiven him, and what more was there to be said? She had seen the girl, and had in some fashion approved of her. Her curiosity had been satisfied, and her love of revenge had been sacrificed. She had no plan arranged as to what she would now say to him, nor did she at this moment attempt to make a plan. She could tell him that she was about to return to San Francisco with Fisker, but she did not know that she had anything else to say. Then came the knock at the door. Her heart leaped within her, and she made a last great effort to be tranquil. She heard the steps on the stairs, and then the door was opened and Mr. Montague was announced by Mrs. Pipkin herself. Mrs.

Pipkin, however, quite conquered by a feeling of grat.i.tude to her lodger, did not once look in through the door, nor did she pause a moment to listen at the keyhole. "I thought you would come and see me once again before I went," said Mrs. Hurtle, not rising from her sofa, but putting out her hand to greet him. "Sit there opposite, so that we can look at one another. I hope it has not been a trouble to you."

"Of course I came when you left word for me to do so."

"I certainly should not have expected it from any wish of your own."

"I should not have dared to come, had you not bade me. You know that."

"I know nothing of the kind;--but as you are here we will not quarrel as to your motives. Has Miss Carbury pardoned you as yet? Has she forgiven your sins?"

"We are friends,--if you mean that."

"Of course you are friends. She only wanted to have somebody to tell her that somebody had maligned you. It mattered not much who it was.

She was ready to believe any one who would say a good word for you.

Perhaps I wasn't just the person to do it, but I believe even I was sufficient to serve the turn."

"Did you say a good word for me?"

"Well; no;" replied Mrs. Hurtle. "I will not boast that I did. I do not want to tell you fibs at our last meeting. I said nothing good of you. What could I say of good? But I told her what was quite as serviceable to you as though I had sung your virtues by the hour without ceasing. I explained to her how very badly you had behaved to me. I let her know that from the moment you had seen her, you had thrown me to the winds."

"It was not so, my friend."

"What did that matter? One does not scruple a lie for a friend, you know! I could not go into all the little details of your perfidies. I could not make her understand during one short and rather agonizing interview how you had allowed yourself to be talked out of your love for me by English propriety even before you had seen her beautiful eyes. There was no reason why I should tell her all my disgrace,--anxious as I was to be of service. Besides, as I put it, she was sure to be better pleased. But I did tell her how unwillingly you had spared me an hour of your company;--what a trouble I had been to you;--how you would have shirked me if you could!"

"Winifred, that is untrue."

"That wretched journey to Lowestoft was the great crime. Mr. Roger Carbury, who I own is poison to me--"

"You do not know him."

"Knowing him or not I choose to have my own opinion, sir. I say that he is poison to me, and I say that he had so stuffed her mind with the flagrant sin of that journey, with the peculiar wickedness of our having lived for two nights under the same roof, with the awful fact that we had travelled together in the same carriage, till that had become the one stumbling-block on your path to happiness."

"He never said a word to her of our being there."

"Who did then? But what matters? She knew it;--and, as the only means of whitewashing you in her eyes, I did tell her how cruel and how heartless you had been to me. I did explain how the return of friendship which you had begun to show me, had been frozen, harder than Wenham ice, by the appearance of Mr. Carbury on the sands.

Perhaps I went a little farther and hinted that the meeting had been arranged as affording you the easiest means of escape from me."

"You do not believe that."

"You see I had your welfare to look after; and the baser your conduct had been to me, the truer you were in her eyes. Do I not deserve some thanks for what I did? Surely you would not have had me tell her that your conduct to me had been that of a loyal, loving gentleman. I confessed to her my utter despair;--I abased myself in the dust, as a woman is abased who has been treacherously ill-used, and has failed to avenge herself. I knew that when she was sure that I was prostrate and hopeless she would be triumphant and contented. I told her on your behalf how I had been ground to pieces under your chariot wheels. And now you have not a word of thanks to give me!"

"Every word you say is a dagger."

"You know where to go for salve for such skin-deep scratches as I make. Where am I to find a surgeon who can put together my crushed bones? Daggers, indeed! Do you not suppose that in thinking of you I have often thought of daggers? Why have I not thrust one into your heart, so that I might rescue you from the arms of this puny, spiritless English girl?" All this time she was still seated, looking at him, leaning forward towards him with her hands upon her brow.