CHAPTER XXVI

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A CHILLING RECONCILIATION.

That unfortunate meeting on the stairs made a very deep impression upon Maude Tredethlyn. She had never before encountered drunkenness; and it was one of those sins which seemed to her to belong to a region of outer darkness, in which decent people had no place. Her father had always been as sober as an anchorite; her father’s guests were gentlemen. She had heard, now and then, in the course of her life at the Cedars, of a drunken gardener dismissed with ignominy from the gardens--a drunken groom degraded from has rank in the stables. But Francis, her husband,--that _he_ should be thick of speech and unsteady of foot under the influence of strong drink!--it seemed almost too horrible for belief. She lay awake in the morning sunlight, thinking of Francis Tredethlyn’s misdemeanour.

“And just as I fancied that I was beginning to love him!” she thought, regretfully. Would they meet at breakfast? she wondered. And if they did meet, what would Francis say to her? A sickly dread of that meeting took possession of her mind. If he apologized, how was she to answer him? Would it be possible for her to conceal her disgust?

“Let me remember his goodness to my father,” she murmured. “Oh, can I ever be so base as to forget that?”

The possible meeting at the breakfast-table was very easily avoided. Mrs. Tredethlyn had a headache, and took her strong green tea and dry toast in the pretty little boudoir, with the pink draperies and Parian statuettes, the satin-wood cabinets and bookcases, the Persian carpets and polar-bear-skin rugs, the marqueterie _jardinières_, and toy Swiss-cottage birdcages, selected by Harcourt Lowther. It was rather an enervating little boudoir, eminently adapted for the perusal of French novels, and the neglect of all the duties of life. Mrs. Tredethlyn breakfasted in this room; so there was no uncomfortable meeting between the husband and wife. Francis left the house before noon, in order to keep an appointment with his friend Mr. Lowther. They were going together to the Doncaster spring meeting, where Bohemianism would be rampant, and were to be away for some days. Poor Francis ran into the library, while his friend waited for him, and scribbled a hasty note to his wife, full of penitence and self-humiliation. He gave the missive to Mrs. Tredethlyn’s maid at the foot of the stairs, while Harcourt was standing in a little room opening out of the hall, arranging the strap of a race-glass across his light overcoat. Mr. Tredethlyn went back to the library in search of a railway rug which he had flung off his arm when he sat down to write the letter; and during his brief absence there was a flutter of silk in the hall, and a little conference between Mr. Lowther and the Abigail.

Half an hour afterwards, when the two men were walking up and down the platform at the King’s Cross station, with cigars in their mouths, Mr. Lowther handed his friend the identical letter which Francis had entrusted to his wife’s maid.

“You can post that to its address if you like, dear boy; but I think _I_ should light my cigar with it. The seal is unbroken, you see; but I fancy I can make a tolerable guess at the contents of the epistle. Dear old Frank, if you want to preserve the merest semblance of manhood, the poorest remnant of independence, never beg your wife’s pardon.”

Of course Mr. Tredethlyn was very angry. Harcourt Lowther was prepared to encounter a given amount of resistance. The wave may lash and beat itself against the quiet breast of the rock; and the rock, secure in its supremacy, has only to stand still until that poor worn-out wave crawls meekly to the stony bosom, a conquered and a placid thing. Mr. Lowther had his work to do, and he took his own time about doing it. The apologetic little epistle was _not_ sent to Mrs. Tredethlyn; and at an uproarious after-dinner assemblage at the Reindeer, Francis abandoned such frivolous stuff as sparkling Moselles and Burgundies for fierce libations of brandy punch. He made a tremendous book for all manner of events, always under the advice of his friend; indeed, its pages contained many rather heavy engagements with Mr. Lowther himself, who affected extreme simplicity amongst the magnates of the turf, but who was nevertheless eminently respected by those gentlemen, as being of the deep and dangerous class--a dark horse, secretly exercised on lonely commons at weird hours of the early morning, and winning with a rush when he was least expected to do so.

While Francis was seeing life through the medium provided for him by his experienced adviser, Maude enjoyed herself after her own fashion. She had been very happy at Twickenham; but she had never until now been entirely her own mistress, with unlimited credit and unlimited ready money, and all the privileges of a matron. At the Cedars she had been always more or less under her father’s direction. She had acted very much as she pleased upon all occasions; but she had made a point of consulting him about the smallest step in her simple life; a round of calls, a day’s shopping, a little musical gathering after a dinner-party, the amount of a subscription to a charity,--even the colour of a dress.

But now the young matron shook off even the gentle fetters which had held the girl, and spread her pinions for a bolder flight. A much wider world had opened itself to the merchant’s daughter since her marriage. The story of Mr. Tredethlyn’s fortune--always multiplied by the liberal tongue of rumour--was one of the most popular topics amongst the denizens of the new district in which Mr. Tredethlyn’s house was situated. None of these West-end people knew that Lionel Hillary’s position had ever endured a dreadful crisis of uncertainty and terror. The marriage between Maude and Francis was supposed to be one of those sublime unions in which wealth is united to wealth--the alliance of a Miss Rothschild with a Master Lafitte--a grand commercial combination for the consolidation of capital.

So Maude took her place as one of the most important novelties of the current year. She gave great receptions in her three drawing-rooms, whose gorgeous decorations were just a little too much like the velvet and ormolu magnificence of a public room at a gigantic hotel. She organized dinner-parties, and revised and corrected a _menu_, with the _savoir faire_ of a Brillat Savarin in petticoats. Always accustomed to a reckless expenditure, she had no idea of the necessity for some regulation in the expenses of a large household. Left a great deal to herself, and frequently at a loss for occupation, she often spent her husband’s money from sheer desire for amusement. After that unlucky encounter on the stairs, she resigned herself entirely to her position as a fashionable wife. Her husband went his way unmolested, and she went hers. She was tolerably happy, for the life was a very pleasant one to live; but oh, what a vain, empty, profitless existence to look back upon!--the success of a dinner, the triumph of an audacious toilette, the only landmarks on a great flat of frivolity. But Mrs. Tredethlyn was not at the age in which people are given to looking back; she was rich, beautiful, accomplished, agreeable, with that dash of recklessness in her gaiety which makes a woman such an acquisition in a drawing-room, and the fumes of the incense which her admirers burned before her were just a little intoxicating. The Twickenham loungers, who had worshipped her mutely and reverently from afar off, found themselves distanced now by bolder adorers, and, conversing amongst themselves upon the staircases and on the outer edges of crowded drawing-rooms in the stuccoed district, shook their heads and pulled their whiskers, gravely opining that Mrs. Tredethlyn was “going the pace.”

Maude had been Francis Tredethlyn’s wife more than six months, and the London season was at its fullest height, when an accidental meeting with Julia Desmond brought about that young lady’s restoration to her old position of confidante and companion to the pampered daughter of her dead father’s friend. The two women met in the Pantheon; and it was a terrible shock to Maude to see her old companion dawdling listlessly before a stall of toys, dressed in a shabby black silk and a doubtful bonnet, and attended by two ungainly girls in short petticoats and scarlet stockings.

The proud spirit of the Desmonds had been crushed by the iron hand of necessity. In these perpetual duels between pride and poverty, the result seems only a question of time. Poverty must have the best of it, unless, indeed, death steps between the combatants to give poor pride a doubtful victory. Julia Desmond had carried her pride and anger away from the luxurious idleness of the Cedars, to nurse them in a London lodging. The only money she had in the world was a ten-pound note, left out of a sum which the liberal merchant had given her for the payment of a dressmaker’s bill. She had the jewels given her by Francis Tredethlyn--the diamonds which she had thrown at his feet in the little study at the Cedars, on the night of the amateur theatricals--but which the sober reflections of the following morning had prompted her to retain amongst her possessions. She had these, and upon these she might have raised a very considerable sum of money. But the angry Julia had no desire to raise money. A life of idleness in a London lodging was the very last existence to suit her energetic nature. She inserted an advertisement in the “Times” upon the very day after her departure from Twickenham, and she went on advertising until she succeeded in getting a situation as governess in a gentleman’s family. But ah! then came the bitterest of all her trials. She fancied that her life, wherever she went, would be more or less like her life at the Cedars. There would be a great deal more work, perhaps, there might be less luxury, less gaiety, but it would be the same kind of life: while on any day the lucky chance might arise, and the beauty of the Desmonds might win her some great prize in the matrimonial lottery.

Alas for Julia’s inexperienced notions of a governess’s existence! She found herself the drudge of an exacting mistress, with every hour of her dreary life mapped out and allotted for her, with less share in the social pleasures of the house she lived in than if she had been the kitchen-maid, and with two small tyrants in crinkled hair and holland pinafores always on the watch to detect her shortcomings, and to twist them into excuses for their own. The dreadful monotony of her life would alone have made it odious; but Julia had “a sorrow’s crown of sorrow” perpetually pressing on her tortured brow. She had the recollection of happier things--the pleasant idleness at the Cedars, the position of Francis Tredethlyn’s affianced wife. And she had given up this position in one moment of ungovernable rage and jealousy. She had suffered one mad impulse of her proud nature to undo the slow work of months. Miss Desmond had ample leisure for the contemplation of her folly during the long winter evenings which she spent in a third-floor sitting-room at Bayswater, hearing unwilling children grind hopelessly at a German grammar by the light of two guttering tallow-candles. She _did_ contemplate her folly, while the guttural verbs and declensions fell with a droning noise on her unlistening ears; but the rage which swelled her bosom was against Maude Hillary, and Maude alone.

She saw Maude’s carriage in the Park sometimes, while she took her allotted walk with the unwilling children, who might have been pleasant children enough, perhaps, if they had not been weighed down by intellectual exercises compared to which the enforced physical labours of Toulon would have seemed light and agreeable. Julia saw her old companion, and her mind went back to the sunny afternoons on the lawn at Twickenham; and the sight of the pretty face and golden hair, the Skye terriers and neatly appointed equipage, stirred the fire of hatred always burning in her breast, until she could almost have shaken her small fist at the merchant’s daughter.

She saw the announcement of Maude’s marriage in the “Times,” and hated her still more. She saw Maude in the Park, after her marriage, in a more splendid equipage than the landau from the Cedars, and she hated her even more and more. She set her teeth together, and drew back under the shadow of the trees to watch Francis Tredethlyn’s wife drive by.

“She has cheated me out of it all,” she thought; “it would all have been mine but for her treachery.”

Then one bright and sunny afternoon in early May the two women met,--Julia a wan shadow of her former self, worn out with hard work, depressed by the monotony of her life, indifferent as to her dress and appearance; Maude a beaming creature in gauzy mauve muslin, with a Watteau skirt, all a-flutter with ribands, and a voluminous train sweeping the dust behind her.

“Dear Julia----”

“Maude--Mrs. Tredethlyn!”

Miss Desmond turned as pale as death. The encounter had come upon her very suddenly, and she was neither physically nor mentally able to bear it. She set her teeth and tried to flash the old defiance from her dark eyes. But the light of that once fiery glance died out like the flame of a candle which burns feebly in the glare of the morning sun. Julia was quite worn out by the life she had been leading for the last year and a half. The pride of a Somerset might give way beneath a long course of overwork and indifferent diet.

After that first exclamation of surprise she drew herself to her fullest height, and tried to pass Mrs. Tredethlyn with a bow, and a faint, cold smile of recognition, but Maude stopped her.

“Dearest Julia, if you knew how anxious and unhappy I have been about you, I’m sure you would not want to pass me by. Do let us be friends. The past is forgotten, isn’t it? Yes, I’m sure it is. Will you come up-stairs to the picture-gallery? that’s always a nice solitary place where one can talk. Are those young ladies with you? What very nice little girls! Miss Desmond and I are going up-stairs, dear, to have a chat. Will you come with us?”

The elder of Julia’s pupils, to whom this question was addressed, replied only by a stony glare. She was petrified by the audacity of this smiling creature in mauve who dared to take possession of her governess. The youthful mind, soured by a long course of German declensions, is apt to contemplate everything in a gloomy aspect.

Maude and Julia went past poor Haydon’s big cold picture, and made their way to a small room which was quite empty. Julia’s face had a stern darkness upon it, which might have frightened any one less hopeful than Maude; but that young lady had been surrounded by an atmosphere of love from her cradle upwards, and was entirely unacquainted with the diagnosis of hatred. She despatched the children to look at the pictures in the larger rooms, and then laying her hand caressingly upon Miss Desmond’s arm, she said, very earnestly,--

“Dearest Julia, I hope you have forgiven me?”

Miss Desmond locked her lips, and stood for some moments with her face quite fixed, staring at vacancy. There were hollow rings round the dark eyes now, and the oval cheeks had lost their smooth outline. Perpetual drudgery and friendless solitude had brought Julia very low; but the Desmond pride still struggled for the mastery over its grim assailant--necessity.

“I don’t know that I have anything to forgive,” said she, after an ominous pause; “Mr. Tredethlyn was free to transfer his affections as often as he chose. I was very glad to read of your marriage, for it was at least satisfactory to find that he had not changed his mind a second time. I do not blame any one but myself, Mrs. Tredethlyn. I should have been wiser than to entrust my happiness to a man who----”

Miss Desmond stopped abruptly. She made a long pause, during which she contemplated Maude, almost as if she had been looking for some tender spot in which to plant her dagger.

“I must not forget that he is your husband, and I do not wish to say anything humiliating to you; but I _cannot_ forget that he is not a gentleman. No gentleman would have treated any woman as Mr. Tredethlyn treated me.”

If Julia’s conscience had had a voice, it might perhaps have chimed in with an awkward question here: “And would any lady have spread a net to catch a rich husband, Julia, trading on the generosity of his simple nature, and angling for the fortune of a man whose heart was obviously given to another?”

Mrs. Tredethlyn’s bright face crimsoned, and her lower lip fell a little. It is not to be supposed that she could be very fond of her husband; but she felt any allusion to his shortcomings almost as keenly as if he had been the incarnation of her girlish dreams. Whatever he was, he was hers, and she was responsible for him.

“If generosity of heart could make a gentleman, Julia,” she said, almost entreatingly, “I think Francis would be the first of gentlemen.”

Miss Desmond did not condescend to reply to this observation.

“Oh, Julia,” Mrs. Tredethlyn said, after another little pause, “how can you be so unkind and unforgiving? Have you forgotten how happy we used to be together long ago at the Cedars? If--if I thought you were pleasantly circumstanced now, I would not worry you with any proffers of friendship; but somehow I cannot think that you are happy. Dear Julia, forgive me for the past, and trust me once more.”

The stony look in Miss Desmond’s face did not melt away under the influence of Maude’s tenderness; but presently, with an almost awful suddenness, she sank upon the nearest chair, dropped her face upon her clasped hands, and burst into a passion of tears--convulsive sobs that shook her with their hysterical force. The strong will of the Desmonds asserted itself to the very last, for this passionate outburst was almost noiseless. The slender frame writhed and trembled, the chest heaved, the small hands were clenched convulsively, but there was no vulgar outcry. Miss Desmond recovered herself almost as suddenly as she had given way to her emotion, and drew up her head proudly, though her face was blotted with tears.

“Heaven help me!” she exclaimed; “what a poor weak wretch I am!”

“You will let me be your friend again, won’t you, Julia? You’ll come and live with me once more? You need see very little of Mr. Tredethlyn, if you dislike him. He and I are quite fashionable people, I assure you, and he is very seldom at home. I shall be so glad to have you with me. I go a great deal into society, and I know you like society, Julia. Come, dear, let us be friends again, just as we used to be in the dear old times.”

Maude gave a little sigh--she was apt now and then to think sentimentally of that remote period of her existence, some four or five years back, when she had believed that the happiest fate Heaven could award her would be a union with Harcourt Lowther. Even now, though she had schooled herself to think of him coldly, though she tried very hard not to think of him at all, the memory of the old time would come back; the picture of the home that might have been--the little cottage in St. John’s Wood--the long quiet evenings, made delightful by genial companionship--the pleasant hours devoted to art--the dear old concertante duets by Mozart and Beethoven--the “two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one,”--the images of these things were apt to arise suddenly before her, in the midst of her frivolous pleasure in her fine dresses, and gorgeous house, and admiring friends.

“Dear Julia,” she said, winding one arm caressingly about the Irish girl, “you will come, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Miss Desmond answered, “I will come if you want me. But I must come upon a new footing. This time I must work for my wages. I have been a hired slave ever since I left your father’s house. I will be your servant, Mrs. Tredethlyn, if you choose to hire me.”

“Julia, you will be my friend, just as you used to be.”

“No,” cried Miss Desmond, with a resolute gesture of her hand, “no; if you want a companion to keep your keys and attend to your lapdogs, to finish fancy-work that you have begun and grown tired of, to read French novels to you when you want to be read to sleep, to write your letters of invitation, to take the bass in your duets, or carry an occasional message to your milliner,--if you want a person of this kind, I am quite willing to be that person.”

“Julia!”

“I will come to you on those terms, or not at all.”

“You shall come to me on any terms you please, so long as you come.”

“Very well, then, I will come. My present employer gives me sixty guineas a year, and makes me work harder than a pack-horse. You can give me the same money, if you think my services worth so much. I will make arrangements for leaving my present situation. A housemaid left the other day, and I believe she gave her mistress a month’s notice--I suppose the same rule will hold good with me: I will come to you at the end of that time, unless you change your mind in the meanwhile.”

“I shall not change my mind; I only wish you could come to me to-day. Take my card, dear, and give me yours.”

“I have no cards,” answered Miss Desmond. “I have neither name nor place in the world, and have no need of visiting-cards.”

She wrote her address upon the back of an envelope, and gave it to Mrs. Tredethlyn. To the last her manner was cold and ungracious: but Maude parted from her happy in the idea that she had rescued her old companion from a life of drudgery.

“Why should I not be her hired slave? I shall still have the right to hate her,” thought Miss Desmond, as she went back to Bayswater with her gloomy charges.

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