CHAPTER V.

It was chilly as only an English spring knows how to be. The fir-woods were deserted—the pathways through them wet and slippery. But overhead there was fitful sunshine and patches of blue sky, though the Surrey hills were misty and the fields were sodden with many rains. The leaves were beginning to unfold, fresh and green; the primroses were thick in the hedges; and here and there the little white stitchwort showed itself, tearful and triumphant. The thrushes and blackbirds were making ready for summer, though as yet there was not a sign of it.

Alfred Wimple and Aunt Anne had been more than a month at the cottage. The latter pottered about the garden, looking at every up-coming plant with absent recognition; but that was all. She was too sad to care any more for the delights of the country. She had grown feeble, too, and could not walk very far—even the garden tired her. Mrs. Burnett’s governess-cart had been her great comfort. She had no fear of doing the pampered pony, as she called it, any harm, and had driven herself for hours along the lonely roads between the fir-trees, and the hedges of awakening gorse and heather. The straggling population for three miles round knew her well—the lonely old lady, with the black bonnet and the long black cloak fastened with the steel clasp. Alfred Wimple never went with her; he had refused from the very first. But he had a way of disappearing by himself for long hours together. Where he went she could never divine; and to ask him questions, she told herself once, was like trying to look at the bottom of the sea by pushing away the water with her two hands. Still it was a mystery she was determined to unravel sooner or later: she felt that the solution lay at Liphook, and dreaded to think what it might be. Into her heart, against her will, lately there had sometimes crept a suspicion that was shame and agony; but she would not own, even in the lowest, most secret whisper, that it was possible. She never went to Liphook, though it would have been easy enough to drive there; she never dared: something seemed to hold her back from that which she felt to be only a few miles away, on the other side of Hindhead. She would not try to put into any shape at all what her dread was: least of all would her pride let her for a single moment imagine that it was the one thing of which the humiliation would kill her. But, silently, she watched, and hour after hour she sat wondering what was in the heart of that strange, inscrutable young man, who spoke so few words, and seemed to be always watching and waiting for the accomplishment of some mysterious plan he revolved again and again in his mind, but to which he had no intention of giving a clue.

He could hire no more waggonettes at Steggall’s without paying for them, or without her knowledge; but once or twice she had seen him going along a by-path towards the station, so that he would arrive there just about the time there was a train to Liphook. She remembered that on the first occasion, he had pulled a shilling out of his pocket an hour or two before he started and looked at it, as if wondering whether it would be enough for a return ticket.

“Alfred,” she asked one day, “will you take me to see your country quarters, my love? I should like to visit the place which has been of so much benefit to you?”

“No,” he answered, looking at her steadfastly, as he always did; “I don’t wish you to go there.”

“May I ask your reason?”

“My wish should be sufficient.”

“It is,” she said gently; “for I know, dear Alfred, that you always have a reason for what you wish, and you would not prevent me from seeing a place for which you have such a preference if you had not a good one.”

He was soothed by her conciliatory manner.

“I owe some money there,” he said, “and if you went they might expect you to pay it”—an answer which satisfied her for a time on account of its obvious probability. But still his disappearances tormented her, and his silence stifled all questions she longed to ask.

She liked being at the cottage; she liked being the virtual mistress of a certain number of rooms and of a servant of her own; and, on the whole, the first month had gone smoothly. Florence and Walter had been generous, and made many provisions for their comfort, and she had been separated less from Alfred than when she was in town. And here, too, she was better able to keep some account of his movements. Moreover, if he disappeared for hours together now, it had been for days together then. He always went off silently, without warning or hint, and as silently reappeared.

“Have you been for a walk, my love?” she asked him one evening. He turned and looked at her: there was no anger in his dull eyes, but he made her quail inwardly, though outwardly she showed no sign.

“Yes”—and she knew, perfectly, he would tell her no more. Still, hopelessly, she persevered.

“In what direction did you bend your steps, dear Alfred?”

“I dislike being asked to give an account of my movements, Anne,” he said, and locked his lips in the manner that was so peculiar to him.

“I quite understand, my love,” she answered gently; “it is also extremely repugnant to me to be questioned. I merely asked, hoping that you felt invigorated by your walk.” He looked at her again, and said nothing.

It was nine o’clock. Jane Mitchell, the postman’s sister, who acted as their daily servant, came in to say she was going home till the morning. Aunt Anne followed her, as she always did, to see that the outer door was made fast. She looked out at the night for a moment, with a haunting feeling of mistrust—of what, she did not know—and listened to the silence. Not a sound—not even a footstep passing along the road. The fir-trees stood up, dark and straight, like voiceless sentinels. She looked at the stars and thought how far they were away. They gave her a sense of helplessness. She was almost afraid of the soft patter of her own feet as she went back to the drawing-room. She winked nervously, and looked quickly and suspiciously round, then sat down uneasily before the fire and watched Alfred Wimple. She knew that again and again his eyes were fixed upon her, though his lips said no word.

“Are you sleepy, my love?” she asked.

“I am very tired, Anne; good-night”—and, taking up a candlestick, he went slowly upstairs while she stayed below, looking at the deadening fire, knowing that one night, suddenly, everything would be changed; but how and when it would be changed she could not guess. She did not dare look forward a single day or hour. She extinguished the lamp and shut the drawing-room door and locked it, remembering for a moment the unknown people, in the bygone years, who had gone out of the room never to enter it more.

Gradually the money in their possession was coming to a sure and certain end. She knew it, and her recklessness and extravagance vanished. She guarded every penny as if it were her heart’s blood, though she still did her spending with an air of willingness that concealed her reluctance. Hour after hour she racked her brains to think of some new source of help; but no suggestion presented itself, and he and she together faced, in silence, the bankruptcy that was overtaking them. He went less often towards the station now; he stayed discontentedly in the drawing-room, sitting uneasily by the fire on one of the easy-chairs with the peacock screen beside it. Sometimes, after he had brooded for a while in silence, he would get up and write a letter, but he always carefully gave it himself to the postman, and no letters at all ever arrived for him to Aunt Anne’s knowledge.

“Alfred,” she asked one day, “what has become of your work in town?—the work you used to go to your chambers to do?”

“I am resting now, and do not wish to be questioned about it. I require rest,” he said: and that was all.

Then a time came when he took to walking in the garden, and she knew that while he did so he kept a watch on the house, and especially on the window of the room in which she was sitting. When he thought she did not see him he disappeared down the dip behind and along the pathway between the fir-trees and larches towards the short cut to Hindhead. She remembered that the way to Hindhead was also the way to Liphook. It was, of course, too far to walk there, but perhaps there were some means of obviating that necessity. She said nothing, but she waited. It seemed to her as if Alfred Wimple waited too. For what? Was it for her to die? she sometimes asked herself, though she reproached herself for her suspicions. Then all her tenderness would come back, and she hovered round him lovingly, or stole away to commune with herself.

“I am sure he loves me,” she would think, as she sat vainly trying to comfort herself—“or why should he have married me? His love must be the meaning of mine for him, and the forgiveness of the past, after all the long years of waiting. It is different from what it was then; he is changed, and I am changed too. I am old with waiting, and he does not yet understand the reason of his own youth. I wonder which it is,” she said one day, almost in a dream, as she rocked to and fro over the fire—“is he disguised with youth of which he does not know the meaning; or am I disguised with years, so that he does not know that under them my youth is hidden?”

Closer and closer came the ills of poverty. The tradespeople trusted them to some extent, in spite of the warning they had received from the Hibberts, but at last they refused to do so any longer. The stores that Florence had sent in, too—Aunt Anne had said, “you must allow me to remain in your debt for them, my dear”—had gradually run out. Dinner became more and more of a difficulty, and at the scanty meal it was Alfred Wimple who ate, and Aunt Anne who looked on, pretending she liked the food she hardly dared to taste. He knew that she was starving herself for his sake, but he said nothing. It gave him a dull gratification to see her doing it. In his heart there was a resentment that death had not sooner achieved for his benefit that which from the first he had meant it to accomplish. Not that it was within his scheme to let Aunt Anne die yet; but when he married her he had not realized the awful shrinking that would daily grow upon him—the physical shrinking that youth sometimes feels from old age. In his nature there was no idealism, no sentiment. He could not give her the reverence that even mere age usually provokes, or the affection, as of a son, that some young men in his position might possibly have bestowed. He saw everything concerning her years with ghastly plainness—the little lines and the deep wrinkles on her face, the tremulous eyelids, the scanty hair brushed forward from places the cap covered. Even the soft folds of muslin round her withered throat made him shiver. He thought once, in one mad moment, how swiftly he could strangle the lingering life out of her. Her hands with the loose dry skin and the bloodless fingers and wrists that were always cold, as if the fire in them were going out, sent a thrill of horror through his frame when she touched him. The mere sound of her footstep, the touch of her black dress as she passed him by, insensibly made him draw back. He had played a daring game, but he had an awful punishment. He lived a brooding secret life, full of dread and alertness lest shame should overtake him, and his heart was not less miserable because it was incapable of generosity or goodness.

* * * * *

At last it became a matter of shillings.

“You had better go to London, Anne,” he said, “and borrow some money.”

“Of whom am I to borrow it?” she asked. “Florence and Walter are at Monte Carlo.”

“Walter is very selfish,” he answered; “I nursed him through an illness, years ago, at the risk of my own life.”

“I know how tender your heart is, dear Alfred.”

“I believe he resents my having borrowed some money from him once or twice. He forgets that if he were not in a much better position than I am he couldn’t have lent it.”

“Of course he could not, my love,” she said, agreeing with him, as a matter not merely of course but of loyalty and affection.

He gave one of his little gulps. “We can’t go on staying here, unless we have enough to eat; I cannot, at any rate. You must get some money. You had better go to London.” He looked at her fixedly, and she knew that he wanted to get rid of her for a space.

“Go to London, my love?” she echoed, almost humbly.

“Yes, to get money.”

“Alfred,” she asked, “how am I to get money? We disposed of everything that was available before we came here.”

“You must borrow it; perhaps you can go and persuade my uncle to let you have some.”

“If you would let me tell him that I am your wife,” she pleaded.

“I forbid you telling him,” he said shortly. “But you might ask him to advance your quarter’s allowance.”

“I might write and request him to do that, without going to town.”

“No. It is easy to refuse in a letter, and he must not refuse.”

“But if he will not listen to me, Alfred?” she asked, watching him curiously.

“Tell him that Sir William Rammage is your cousin, and that he has no right to refuse.”

“But if he does?” she persisted.

“Then you must get it elsewhere. There are those people you stayed with in Cornwall Gardens.”

She looked up quickly. “I cannot go to Mrs. North,” she said firmly. “There are some things due to my own self-respect: I cannot forget them even for you.”

“You can do as you like,” he answered. “If you cannot get money, I must go away.”

“Go away!” she echoed, with alarm; he saw his advantage and followed it up.

“I shall not stay here to be starved,” he repeated.

“I should starve, too,” she said sadly; “are you altogether oblivious of that fact, Alfred?”

“If you choose to do so it is your own business, and no reason why I should. I have friends who will receive me, and I shall go to them.”

“Would they not extend a helping hand to us both?”

“No,” he said doggedly.

“They cannot love you as I do,” she pleaded.

“I cannot help that. I shall go to them.”

“I give you all I have.”

“I want more—more than you give me now,” he answered; “and if you don’t give it me, I shall not stay here. You had better go to London to-morrow, and look for some money. My uncle will let you have some if you are persistent.”

“I think I will go to-day,” she said, with an odd tone in her voice. “I should be in time for the twelve o’clock train.”

“You will go to-morrow,” he replied decisively.

“Very well, my love”—and she winked quickly to herself. “I will go to-morrow.”

“Unless you bring back some money, I shall not stay here any longer. You must clearly understand that, Anne. I am tired of this business,” he said, in his hard, determined voice.

“It’s not worse for you than it is for me, Alfred. I can bear it with you; cannot you bear it with me?”

He looked at her—at her black dress, her white handkerchief, at the poverty-stricken age of which she seemed to be the symbol; and he shuddered perceptibly as he turned away and answered, “No, I cannot, and I want to go.”

“Alfred!” she said, with a cry of pain, and going to his side she put her hand on his arm; but he shook her off, and went a step farther away.

“Stay there,” he said sternly.

“Why do you recoil from me?” she asked; “am I so distasteful to you?”

But he only shuddered again, and looked at her with almost terror in his eyes, as though he dumbly loathed her.

“Have I forfeited your love, Alfred?” she asked humbly.

“I dislike being touched.”

“You will break my heart,” she cried, with a dry sob in her throat. “My dear one, I have given you all—all I possess; I have braved everything for you. Has all your love for me gone?”

“I don’t want to talk sentiment,” he said, drawing back still a little farther from her, as though he shrank from being within her reach.

“Do you remember that night when we walked along the road by the fir-trees, and you told me you would always love me and take care of me? What have I done to make you change? I never cease thinking of you, day or night, but it is months since you gave me a loving word. What have I done to change you so?”

He looked down at her; for a moment there was an expression of hatred on his face.

“You are old—and I am young.”

“My heart is young,” she said piteously. Still he was merciless.

“It is your face I see,” he said, “not your heart.”

She let her hands fall by her side. “I cannot bear it any more,” she said quickly; “perhaps we had better separate; these constant scenes will kill me. You must permit me to retire; I cannot bear any more”—and she walked slowly away into the little drawing-room, and shut the door. She went up to the glass, and looked at her own face, long and sadly; she put her wrists together, and looked at them hopelessly.

“Oh, I am old!” she cried, with a shiver; “I am old!”—and she sat down on the gaunt chair by the fireplace, still and silent, till cold and misery numbed her, and all things were alike.

Presently, she heard his footsteps; he had left the dining-room, and seemed to be going towards the front door; she raised her head and listened. He hesitated, turned back, and entered the drawing-room. He stood for a moment on the threshold and looked round the little room—at the hard, old-fashioned sofa, at the corner cupboard with the pot-pourri on it, the jingling piano, the chair on which she sat. He remembered the day of his interview with Florence, and afterwards with Aunt Anne, and he looked at the latter now half doubtfully. She did not move an inch as he entered, or raise her eyes.

“Anne!” There was no answer. She turned a little more directly away from him. “Anne,” he said, “we had better make it up. It is no good quarrelling.”

“You were very cruel to me, Alfred,” she said, with gentle indignation; “you forgot everything that was due to me. You frequently do.”

“I cannot always be remembering what is due to you, Anne. It irritates me.”

“But you cut me to the quick. I sometimes wonder whether you have any affection at all for me.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said, with an effort that was rather obvious; “and don’t let us quarrel. I dislike poverty—it makes me cross.”

“I can understand that,” she said, “but I cannot understand your being cruel to me.”

“I didn’t mean to be cruel,” he answered; “we had better forget it.” She stood up and faced him, timidly, but with a slight flush in her face.

“You said I was old; you taunted me with it; you often taunt me,” she said indignantly.

“Well, but I knew it before we were married.”

“Yes, you knew it before we were married,” she repeated.

“Then I couldn’t have minded it so much, could I?” he said, with a softer tone in his voice, though it grated still.

“No, my love”—and she tried to smile, but it was a sad attempt.

“Well, is it all right?” he asked. “We won’t quarrel any more.”

“Yes, my love, it is all right,” she said lovingly, and, half doubtfully, she put up her face to his.

Involuntarily he drew back again, but he recovered in an instant and forced himself to stoop and kiss her forehead.

“There,” he said, “it’s all right. To-morrow you shall go to London, and we will be more sensible in future.” He touched her hand, and went out into the garden. When she had watched him out of sight, she sat down once more on the chair by the fire.

“I am old!” she cried; “I am old, I am old”—and, with a quick movement, as if she felt a horror of herself, she hid her thin hands out of sight. “I cannot bear it—I am old.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]