CHAPTER VII.

‘SORROW HAS NEED OF FRIENDS.’

Geoffrey went to the concert at the Stillmington Assembly Rooms that evening, his disappointment notwithstanding. Granted that he had comported himself in a mean and cad-like fashion; granted that this woman he loved was colder than granite, unapproachable as the rocky spurs of Australian mountains, whose sheer height the foot of man has never scaled; granted that his passion was of all follies the maddest,—he loved her still. That one truth remained, unshaken and abiding, fixed as the centre of this revolving globe. He loved her.

The audience at the Assembly Rooms that evening was not large; indeed, Stillmington spent so much money upon gentility as to have little left for pleasure. The Stillmingtonites visited one another in closed flies, which were solemnly announced towards the end of each entertainment as Colonel or Mr. So-and-so’s carriage. The distance that divided their several abodes was of the smallest, yet he was a daring innovator who ventured to take his wife on foot to a Stillmington dinner-party, rather than immure her during the brief journey in one of Spark’s flies. Concerts, however, the Stillmingtonites approved as a fashionable and aristocratic form of entertainment—not boisterously amusing, and appealing to the higher orders, for the most part through the genteel medium of foreign languages. There was generally, therefore, a fair sprinkling of the _élite_ of Stillmington in the Assembly Room on such occasions, and there was a fair sprinkling to-night—a faint flutter of fans, an assortment of patrician shoulders draped with opera cloaks of white or crimson; an imposing display of elderly gentlemen with shining bald heads and fierce gray whiskers; and, on the narrower benches devoted to the vulgar herd, a sparse assemblage of tradesmen’s wives and daughters in their best bonnets.

Geoffrey Hossack sat amongst the _élite_, sick at heart, yet full of eager longing, of feverish expectancy, knowing that his only hope now was to see her thus, that the fond vain dream of being something nearer to her was ended. Nothing was left him but the privilege of dogging her footsteps, of gazing at her from among the crowd, of hearing the sweet voice whose Circean strains had wrought this madness in his mind, of following her to the end of life with his obnoxious love.

‘I shall become a modern Wandering Jew,’ he thought, ‘and she will hate me. I shall provoke her with my odious presence till she passes from indifference to aversion. I can’t help it. My destiny is to love her, and a man can but fulfil his destiny.’

She sang the old Italian song he loved so well—that melody whose pathetic tones have breathed their sad sweetness into so many ears—recalling fond memories and vain regrets, thoughts of a love that has been and is no more, of lives only beyond the grave.

To Geoffrey those pensive strains spoke of love in the present—love dominant, triumphant in its springtide of force and passion.

‘Voi che sapéte che cosa è amor,’ he repeated to himself bitterly; ‘I should rather think I did. It’s the only thing I do know in the present obfuscation of my faculties.’

Their eyes met once in the look she cast round the room. Great Heaven, what regretful tenderness in hers! Such a look as that maddened him. Had she but looked at him thus to-day in the garden, he would surely have done something desperate—clasped her in his arms, and sworn to carry her to the uttermost ends of the earth, if thereby he might be sure of his prize. Could she look at him thus, she who had been colder than the icy breath of the polar seas, when he had pleaded with all the force of his passion two short hours ago?

His eyes never left her face while she sang. When she vanished, the platform was a blank. Other performers came and went; there was other music, vocal and instrumental—to him it seemed no more than the vague murmur of a far-off waterfall in the ears of slumber. She came back again, after an interval that seemed intolerably long, and sang something of Balfe’s—a poem by Longfellow, called ‘Daybreak’—mournful, like most of her songs, but full of music.

During the interval between the two concerts Geoffrey paced Stillmington and its environs with an indefatigable industry that might have shamed the local postman, for _he_ at least was weary, while Geoffrey knew not weariness. Vainly did he haunt that aristocratic High-street, vainly linger by the door of the circulating library, the fancy repository, the music-shop where somebody was perpetually trying pianos with woolly basses and tinkling trebles; vainly did he stroll in and out of the garden where he had dared to molest Mrs. Bertram with his unwelcome adoration,—she was nowhere to be met with.

One comfort only remained to him, a foolish one, like all those fancies whence love derives consolation. He knew where his enchantress lived, and in the quiet dusk, when the gentle hush of evening enfolded Stillmington like a mantle, he would venture to pace the lonely street beneath her windows; would watch her taper gleaming faintly in that gray nightfall which was not yet darkness, would, as it were, project his spirit into her presence, and keep her company in spite of herself.

The street where she lodged was on the outskirts of the town, newly built—a street of commonplace dwellings of the speculative builder’s pattern; a row of square boxes, with not a variation of an inch from number one to number thirty; sordid, unpicturesque: habitations which even love could not beautify. Mrs. Bertram occupied the upper floor above a small haberdasher’s shop, such a shop as one felt could be kept only by a widow—a scanty display of poor feminine trifles in the window, children’s pinafores, cheap gloves, cheap artificial flowers, cheap finery of divers kinds, whose unsubstantial fabric a spring shower would reduce to mere pulp or rag useless even for the paper-mill.

Here, between seven and eight o’clock, Mr. Hossack used to smoke his after-dinner cigar, despairing yet deriving a dismal pleasure from the sense of his vicinity to the beloved, like those who, in the gloaming, pace a churchyard within whose pale their treasure lies. The twinkling light shining palely athwart the white blind cheered him a little. Her hand had perhaps kindled it. She was there alone—for Geoffrey, in whom the parental instinct was unawakened, did not count a child as company—amidst those humble surroundings, she whose loveliness would enhance the splendour of a palace. Thus, with all love’s exaggeration, he thought of her.

One evening he was bold enough to penetrate the little shop. ‘Had they any gloves that would fit him?—eights or nines he believed he required.’ As he had supposed, the shopkeeper was a widow. She emerged from the little parlour at the back, dressed in rusty weeds, to assist a young woman with a small pinched visage and corkscrew ringlets, who was feebly groping among the shelves and little paper packets with hieroglyphical labels.

‘Lor, Matilda Jane, you never know where to find anything! There’s a parcel of drab men’s on that top shelf. I’m sorry to keep you waiting, sir. We have a large selection of cloth and lisle-thread gloves. You’d like lisle-thread, perhaps, as the weather’s setting in so warm?’

‘Yes, lisle-thread will do,’ answered Geoffrey, who had never worn anything but Jouvin’s best, at five shillings a pair.

He seated himself, and looked round the stuffy little shop. Above this gloomy den Mrs. Bertram lived. He listened for her light step while the drab men’s were being hunted for.

‘I think you have one of the ladies who sang at the concert lodging with you?’ said this hypocrite, while he made believe to try on the thread gloves.

‘Yes, sir; Mrs. Bertram: a very sweet young person; so mild and affable.’

‘But not chatty, mother,’ interjected the damsel in ringlets. ‘It’s as much as one can do to get half-a-dozen words out of her; and it’s my belief she’s as proud as she can be, in spite of her soft voice.’

‘Hold your tongue, Matilda Jane; you’re always running people down,’ remonstrated the matron. ‘I think that pair will fit you nicely, sir,’ as Geoffrey thrust his strong fingers into the limp thread. ‘Poor dear lady, there wasn’t much pride left in her this morning, when she spoke to me about her little girl.’

‘Her little girl! There is nothing the matter, I hope?’

‘Yes, sir, there is. The poor little dear has took the scarlatina. Where she could have took it, I can’t imagine; for it’s not in this street: indeed, we’re very free from everything except measles in this part of the town; and they’re everywhere, as you may say, where there’s children. But the little girl has took the scarlatina somehow, and Mrs. Bertram’s dreadful down-hearted about it. The poor child’s got it rather bad, I grant you; but then, as I tell her mar, it’s only scarlatina: those things ending with a “tina” are never dangerous—it isn’t as if it was scarlet-fever.’

‘You are sure the child is in no danger?’ cried Geoffrey anxiously; not that he cared for children in the abstract; but _her_ child—a priceless treasure, doubtless—_that_ must not be imperilled.

‘No, sir; indeed I don’t think as there’s any danger. I’ll allow the fever’s been very high, and the child has been brought down by it; but the doctor hasn’t hinted at danger. He is to look in again this evening.’

‘He comes twice a day, does he? That looks as if the case were serious.’

‘It was Mrs. Bertram’s wish, sir. Feeling anxious like, she asked him.’

Geoffrey was silent for a few minutes, meditating. If he could establish some kind of _rapport_ between himself and these people, it would be something gained: he would feel himself nearer to his beloved in her affliction. Alas, that she should be sorrowful, and he powerless to comfort her; so much a stranger to her, that any expression of sympathy would seem an impertinence!

‘I have heard Mrs. Bertram sing a great many times,’ he said, ‘and have been charmed with her singing. I am deeply interested in her (as a musical amateur), and in anything that concerns her welfare. I shall venture to call again to-morrow evening, to inquire how the little girl is going on. But pray do not mention me to Mrs. Bertram; I am quite unknown to her, and the idea that a stranger had expressed an interest in her might be displeasing. I’ll take half-a-dozen pairs of gloves.’

He threw down a sovereign—a delightful coin, which not often rang upon that humble counter. The widow emptied her till in order to find change for this lavish customer.

‘Half-a-dozen gloves, at fifteenpence, seven-and-sixpence. Thank you, sir. Is there anything in socks or pocket-handkerchiefs I can show you?’

‘Not to-night, thanks. I’ll look at some handkerchiefs to-morrow,’ said Geoffrey; and departed, rejoiced to find that by the expenditure of a few shillings he could keep himself informed of Mrs. Bertram’s movements.

He went straight to the best fruiterer in the town, whose shop was on the point of closing. Here he bought some hot-house grapes, at fourteen shillings a pound, which he dispatched at once to Mrs. Bertram’s lodging. He had sent her his tribute of choice flowers continually, in the course of his long pursuit, but she had never deigned to wear a blossom of his sending.

She was to sing on the following evening. ‘If her child is worse, she will not appear,’ he thought. But when he called at the little shop that afternoon, he heard the child was somewhat better, and that she meant to sing.

‘There was some grapes came last night, sir, soon after you left,’ said the widow. ‘Was it you that sent them? Mrs. Bertram seemed so pleased. The poor little thing was parched with fever, and the grapes was such a comfort.’

‘You didn’t say anything about me?’ said Geoffrey.

‘Not a syllable, sir.’

‘That’s right. I’ll send more grapes. If there is anything else I can do, pray let me know. I’m such a stupid fellow. You may send me a dozen of those handkerchiefs,’—without looking at the fabric, which was about good enough for his groom. ‘I shall be so grateful to you if you can suggest anything that I could do for the little girl.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything, sir. Her mar lets her want for nothing. But the grapes was a surprise. “I didn’t think there were any to be had,” Mrs. Bertram said. But perhaps she’d hardly go to the price, sir; for she doesn’t seem to be very well off.’

Pinched by poverty! What a pang the thought gave him! And he squandered his useless means without being able to purchase contentment. He had been happy enough, certainly, in his commonplace way, before he had seen her; but now that he had tasted the misery of loving her, he could not go back to that empty happiness—the joy of vulgar minds, which need only vulgar pleasures.

He was in his seat in the front row when the concert began. Whatever musical faculty might be latent in his composition stood a fair chance of development nowadays, so patiently did he sit out pianoforte solos, concertante duets, trios for piano, violin, and ’cello; warblings, soprano and contralto, classical or modern; hearing all alike with the same callous ear till she appeared—a tall slim figure simply robed; a sad sweet face, full of a quiet pride that seemed to hold him aloof, yet with that fleeting look of love and pity in those tender eyes which seemed to draw him near.

To-night that serious countenance was in his eyes supremely pathetic; for he knew her secret sorrow, knew that her heart was with her sick child.

She sang one of the old familiar songs—nothing classical, only an old-fashioned English ballad, ‘She wore a wreath of roses,’ a simple sentimental story of love and sorrow. The plaintive notes moved many to tears, even the Stillmingtonites, who were not easily melted, being too eminently genteel for emotion.

‘Good heavens, what a fool she makes of me!’ thought Geoffrey; ‘I who never cared a straw for music.’

He waited near a little door at the back of the Assembly Rooms, by which he knew the concert people went in and out—waited until Mrs. Bertram emerged, one of the earliest. She was not alone. Her landlady’s daughter, the young woman in corkscrew ringlets, accompanied her. He followed them at a respectful distance, observed by neither.

Pity and impetuous love made him bold. No sooner were they in a quiet unfrequented street than he quickened his pace, came up with them, and dared once more to address the woman who had scorned him.

‘Forgive me, Mrs. Bertram,’ he said. ‘I have heard of your little girl’s illness, and I am so anxious to know if I can be of any use to you. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Nothing,’ she answered sadly, not slackening her pace for a moment. ‘It is kind of you to wish to help me, but unless you could give my darling health and strength—she was so well and strong only a few days ago—you can do nothing. She is in God’s hands; I must be patient. I daresay it is only a childish illness, which need not make me miserable. But—but she is all the world to me.’

‘Are you satisfied with your doctor, or shall I get you other medical advice? I will telegraph to London for any one you would like to have.’

‘You are very kind,’ she answered gently, her manner strangely different from what it had been in the garden. ‘No; I have no reason to be dissatisfied with the doctor who is attending my pet. He is kind, and seems clever. I thank you for your wish to help me in my trouble. Good-night.’

They were in the street where she lived by this time. She made him a little curtsy, and passed on very quickly to the shop door, and vanished from his eager eyes. He paced the street for an hour, watching the light in the two little windows above the shop, before he went back to his hotel, and for him the night was sleepless. How could he rest while she was unhappy?