Read Ebook: Sink or swim? by Houstoun Mrs Matilda Charlotte

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Ebook has 368 lines and 63366 words, and 8 pages

"You are going to be married," she said coldly. "You told me so yourself, and I have seen the young lady that is to be your wife. She is rich and pretty, and looks nice and kind. Why do you say that you are strangely situated?"

Again she looked at him, but this time with eyes full of pity and distress.

"How strange!" she said softly. "No, indeed, I never should have thought that; I always believed--I always fancied--"

"That I was one of those jolly fellows that can do what they like, and have everything their own way. How wonderfully you, and everyone else are mistaken! I should just like--no, I shouldn't, it would be such a bitter shame--to have the whole business shown up. I know I must seem such an awful screw sometimes, such a confounded cur! People must wonder why I don't subscribe to charities and asylums, and to the hounds; and, now--why I marry this girl,--this heiress, who," he continued as if talking to himself, "is no connection, has no beauty; while I--well, in the common course of nature, may expect to live a few years longer--to a rational age that is--for what is called 'settling down.' The truth is"--and here he lowered his voice, although there was no one within hearing, to a whisper--"the truth is, that I have no inclination, no 'call,' as they say, to marry. If Miss Duberly were the most beautiful creature that ever breathed, I should feel the same. It is now three months since I engaged myself to Sophy Duberly, and since then"--with a glance full of meaning at his companion--"I have had time to discover that on her account, as well as my own, I have made a grievous and fatal mistake."

It was this compassion, this truly feminine feeling for one whose sorrows she was so well able to understand, that prompted Honor's reply, and encouraged her to be brave.

He was quieted in a moment; brought for the nonce, by the sight of her unfeigned distress, to a sense of his misconduct, and said quite humbly:

"I am very sorry; I will not offend you again--never! But at least let us part friends. We are quite near the people and the tent now. Give me one moment before you go back to be happy. Only say that you forgive me; say that you will think kindly of me, and wish me well when I am far away."

"O, there is milady at last," the former exclaimed, as Honor, escorted by Mr. Vavasour, advanced slowly towards them. "You've been a pretty time away, Mrs. John; and here 'ave I been looking for you everywhere."

She spoke very crossly, an irritability occasioned not only by Honor's short absence, which the old lady had magnified into five times its actual length, but by the "incivility," as she called it, of Mr. Arthur, who, instead of staying to say something "pretty," had, after making what she supposed he considered a "fine bow," taken himself off to some of his "great acquaintances;" a slight which Mrs. Beacham did not appear very likely soon to look over.

"I'm sorry I went away, and sorrier still if you've been wanting me," Honor said good-humouredly. "Mr. Vavasour wanted to show me a tree--such a beautiful one!--I forget its name; but if you would like to see it, I could find the way again. The branches all feather down to the ground, and the leaves are so wonderfully green! I shall ask John to have some at the Paddocks."

"Humph! I don't fancy that John will care to indulge you much with anything when he hears of your goings-on."

"Goings-on!" repeated Honor almost mechanically, for she was too much astonished by this sudden attack to answer coherently. "I don't quite understand--really I don't. I did not know I was doing wrong when I walked a little way with Mr. Vavasour. I would not have gone for anything in the world if I had thought that you or John would have minded it."

At that moment John himself, looking a little warm and discomposed, strode up the rising ground towards the spreading lime-trees under which the old lady, hugging closely her wrath and jealousy, was grimly waiting his approach. John was the kindest-hearted man alive. He would not wantonly hurt the feelings even of an enemy ; but Honor had not been married three months without discovering that her husband was what is called "hasty," and that in those exceptional moments when he was a trifle "put about," the wisest plan was to leave him alone till he should have recovered himself. Mrs. Beacham, however--whether owing to the absence of perceptive qualities, or from an idea that her son was not too old to be spoilt by over-indulgence--went on different tactics, and generally chose the occasions when poor John was not quite himself to "touch him up," as the good man would himself have said, "on the raw."

"Well, John, I must say you've taken your time," the old lady, in conformity with this judicious practice, was beginning; but her son, who, as a rule, was accustomed to let his mother "have her fling," stopped her further speech by an authoritative wave of his hand, while he said in a louder voice than he had ever yet used to Honor :

"Why, what's the matter, John?" Honor said, amused, as any girl of her age might have been at his words and action. "What has anyone done to put you in such a pet?" And, half in reparation of the wrongs, slight though they were, which she was conscious of having done him, she stole her arm through his, and looked up with an air of pretty entreaty into his face.

"How absurd!" Honor said. "My dear John, I never set eyes on him after you told me who he was."

Intensely as John Beacham admired his wife's beauty, he had, somewhat strange to say, been awake for the first time that day to a sense of its effect on others. His wrath--the natural wrath of a man and a husband--had been grievously stirred within him at the sight of Fred Norcott's bold stare into Honor's modest eyes. He had noted the crimson flush that made her look so passing lovely, and feared--not without good cause--that the hardened profligate, who had never had the grace to hide under a bushel his solitary talent , would discover in Honor's rising colour only another proof, if proof were wanting, of his own irresistible power to fascinate. At that moment--so unjust does personal annoyance often render even the best amongst us--John felt half angry with his wife for this additional proof, had proof been wanting, of a delicacy and reserve which repelled with indignation the coarse incense offered for her acceptance. It certainly was wrong on John's part; but then you must remember that he was not a fashionable husband--was, in fact, only a clod, as Colonel Norcott's might have said; and being only a clod, he may be excused for holding certain anti-Mormon and old-world ideas. For instance, this stupid, selfish fellow, entertaining the barbaric notion of keeping his wife's beauty for his own delectation, would, I fear, have strongly objected to seeing that well-conducted young woman join in the "voluptuous waltz"--

"The only dance that teaches girls to think"--

"Looking after Colonel Norcott! I don't understand what you can mean, mother; I--"

But before he could proceed any further in his inquiries, he was interrupted by a slight tap on the shoulder, and by the voice of the man whose name he had just uttered, whispering in his ear:

"I am glad to have found you at last, Mr. Beacham; and I shall be glad if you will step this way, and allow me the favour of a few minutes' conversation."

The words in themselves were courteous enough--too courteous, perhaps, as spoken to one whom Colonel Norcott believed to be his inferior. There was condescension mingled with their graciousness; and John, despising as he did from the bottom of his heart the man who uttered them, followed very unwillingly, and with a tolerably ungracious air, this agreeable profligate to a short distance under the branching trees.

"THAT WAS HONOR'S MOTHER?"

"I want to speak to you, Mr. Beacham," he said confidentially, "on a subject which--er--er--is one that you cannot fail to be--er--er--interested in; and, at the same time, that I--" he grew more fluent when it was a question of himself--"have very much at heart."

He paused. It was a fairly-rounded period, and one of which he had no reason to be ashamed; but John, who did not seem greatly struck by the merits of this exordium, contented himself for all reply with making a stiff and decidedly uncompromising bow. There was something both of defiance and contempt in the action, and it roused Norcott to the immediate unfolding of his secret.

"You will be surprised at what I'm going to say," he began, stroking his under-lip the while with the smooth gilt knob of his dandy bamboo walking-cane. "Decidedly surprised, I'll go bail; and so was I myself two hours ago, when I heard what I'm going to tell you. Had no more idea of it, upon my soul and honour, than an infant."

"I beg your pardon, Colonel Norcott," said John hastily, for his impatience at the other's delay was beginning to get the better of his politeness. "I should be obliged if you would say anything you have to say to me at once, for I--"

The colour deepened visibly on John Beacham's always ruddy cheek at this coarse allusion to the delicate girl, whose beauty he was perhaps fully as capable of appreciating as if he had belonged to the Travellers', and worn a coat manufactured by Poole.

"Sir," he said, mastering his passion by an effort which nothing short of his fear of rendering his wife's name a theme for public gossip would have rendered possible, "Mrs. Beacham is not, in my presence, to be spoken about by strangers. I have no wish to be rude, none in the least--but--but as neither my wife nor I desire your acquaintance, you will allow me," raising his low-crowned wide-awake about an inch from his head, "to wish you a good-evening."

The answer to this broad hint that the interview might be considered at an end was a low laugh, which, to John's exasperated ears, sounded very like an insult.

"One lives and learns," he said provokingly; "and some day, when you are as old I am--not that there's so much difference between our ages--I say, if it's not impertinent, how old, may I ask, are you?"

John could have "punched the fellow's head," as he said afterwards, at that moment with the greatest pleasure in life. He was the last man in the world to be sensitive on the score of his age. The whole universe might have known, for what he cared, that he was thirty-seven; but he did not choose to put up with impertinence on that or any other subject from Colonel Norcott. Before, however, he could make that resolution known in words, his free-and-easy interlocutor was off at another score.

"What was I saying? O, about finding out things; that, however, is neither here nor there, so we had better come to the point at once. What I propose asking you is, whether you did not notice my looking rather hard at your wife when I passed her an hour or two ago."

At this apparently wanton insult John lost his temper altogether.

"Now, by G--!" he was beginning, while his clenched fist came very near in his strong excitement to Fred's well-curled whiskers. But the latter did not give him time to proceed.

"Come, now," he said, with a composure which was in striking contrast to the other's look of concentrated passion, "keep yourself cool. It's a bore when a man flies off in that kind of way. You can't suppose I meant to insult your wife. Ridiculous! But husbands are such fools! The reason why I looked at Mrs. Beacham--but first let me ask you one question: do you know anything of your wife's family, of her connections? or did you take--I beg your pardon--a pig in a poke, and trust to thingummy--Providence, I mean--that everything was right?"

John hesitated ere he replied to these home questions. They had diverted the channel of his wrath, and had aroused the dormant spirit of curiosity within his breast. Here, perhaps, was the once earnestly wished-for opportunity of learning something concerning his dearly-loved Honor's birth and belongings. It was singular, certainly, and not wholly satisfactory, that the channel of information should be a person for whom he felt so much dislike and contempt as Colonel Norcott. But because he both detested and scorned the medium, it did not follow that he should reject the offered intelligence--intelligence, too, which he felt perfectly convinced, both from Colonel Norcott's manner and the singular step he had taken, was not altogether a matter to despise. In many respects at least, so decided John Beacham, he would be happier for discovering some particulars of Honor's parentage. He was aware that his mother did occasionally flout his little wife contemptuously, and talk "at her" in the way that women have the skill to do when aggravation is their aim and object. The romance attendant on mystery goes for nothing with women of Mrs. Beacham's age and stamp; whilst a something nearly akin to disgrace is inseparable in their minds from a birth which is neither recorded in the parish register nor made honourable mention of in the flyleaf of the family Bible. But gladly as John would have listened to any hints calculated to throw a light on his wife's antecedents, John Beacham yet shrunk with very natural repugnance from betraying, in Colonel Norcott's presence, any marked interest in the subject. To disguise that interest was, however, a task far beyond his very feeble powers of dissimulation; nevertheless, the would-be diplomatist considered himself not wholly devoid of what he, in his simplicity, would have called "gumption," when he responded after the following fashion to the fast London gentleman who had volunteered to address him on the sacred subject of his wife:

"You've asked me questions, sir, which I consider that no man, unless under very particular circumstarnces, has a right to put to another. Whether there are or are not those circumstarnces remains to be shown; but if there are not, all I can say is that you had better by a good deal have kept your tongue quiet in your head, instead of speaking of what didn't in any way concern you."

The effect of this exordium was not precisely what John either expected or intended, for the Colonel, making a movement as though about to turn on his heel, said carelessly,

"O, if you take it in that way, I've no more to say. If you choose to answer my questions, I may, perhaps, be induced to do you a good turn. You are a man I should like to oblige, but you know as well as other people, Beacham, that one gets riled, disgusted in short, by being spoken to in that tone."

"But supposing she wasn't an orphan," put in Norcott, looking his auditor fixedly in the face; "supposing she had a father alive; and supposing that her father was a gentleman--a man who--Well, come now, I'll tell you the story in a few words, and you may make what you can of it. Some eighteen or nineteen years ago--gad, how time flies!--a young fellow with eyes in his head, and a heart, as the poets say, in his 'buzzom,' was quartered for his sins in a country town in that blessed country Ireland. There was nothing earthly for him to do; no society, or anything of the kind. As for hunting, that wasn't to be had for love or money; and, to make matters worse, there was rain, rain--rain from morning till night. Now I leave it to you, as a sensible man, to say what, under heaven, in such a case was to be done, and whether it isn't your opinion that, all things considered, it wasn't a lucky thing for the poor young fellow when he contrived to fall in love?"

John Beacham, feeling called on to make some reply, muttered something to the effect that, being placed in so unfortunate a position, it was perhaps just as well that the gentleman in question should have lighted on his legs in so providential a manner. Whereupon Colonel Fred, apparently satisfied with the rejoinder, continued swimmingly the thread of his discourse:

"The girl he got spoony on was devilish handsome; fair, with large blue eyes; the kind of beauty you hear about a good deal oftener in an Irish 'countryman's' house than you have the good fortune to see. She'd a grand figure too, and, if she had ever worn stays, which of course she hadn't--they never do in those diggings--Miss Winifred Moriarty would have been something worth looking at, by Jove!"

"And that was Honor's mother?" John said, very sadly, and as though talking to himself; for already over his young wife's birth there seemed to fall the shadow of a great shame, and the proud lowly-born man--prouder than many of the exalted ones of the earth, who too often take such matters as affairs of course--shrunk away, as does a wounded man from the sharp touch of the surgeon's probe.

THE COLONEL GETS HIS QUIETUS.

"I should never have thought that a man would have found it so easy to own himself a villain; for you are a villain, Colonel Norcott, whether you are, or are not--what I imagine you mean to imply--the father--" and his big honest heart throbbed as though it would have burst its bonds--"of my wife."

"I am her father, as surely as we stand here together under God's heaven," Norcott said almost solemnly; "and, being her father, I have perhaps some claim to be treated civilly. I can excuse a good deal from a man in your situation, a little struck on a heap, too, as you must have been, but I can't allow of any bad language; and if you attempt anything of the sort again," he went on passionately, and losing sight, in his indignation at what he considered John's insolence, of his own interests, "why, you will have to be taught how to conduct yourself before gentlemen. In the mean time, I have only to say--"

"You will say nothing, sir, till I have spoken--nothing till I have told you my mind about your behaviour in this miserable business! You think, perhaps, because forsooth you call yourself a gentleman, that I am to be glad, proud even maybe, of this--this connection. But I swear to you, by my honour as a man, that I am nothing of the kind; nay, so far am I from that," and he drew himself up, and set his strong white teeth firmly together, "that I would rather know my wife to be the daughter of the poorest man who walks the earth, if so be he was an honest one, than the child of such a gentleman as you--one whose name is a byword for profligacy and dishonour, and whose blood is black with the taint of sin and shame!"

He was blind with passion, and half maddened by a sense of the dire disgrace that had fallen upon the wife of whom he was both so proud and fond. The object, however, of that tremendous vituperation was not one to accept so bitter an affront with calmness. Though slight in appearance, he possessed considerable muscular power, and, like many of his sex, the sense of being endowed with personal vigour above the average lent the impulse to revenge himself for personal indignity with a blow. Already his hand, clenched and rigid, was raised to strike the man of low degree, who had so insolently abused and braved him, when John Beacham, whose blood was at boiling-point, seeing the action, quicker than thought intercepted the blow, and with his thick ash-stick hit his adversary a blow upon the head that would have felled an ox.

The man--Honor's father --sank to the ground, as if he had been shot through the brain, and lay there--it was an awful sight to his assailant--without sense or motion. In a moment, every angry feeling hushed, and with a terrible dread at his heart that he had done a deed never in the course of the longest life to be repaired, John bent over the man whom he had so lately despised and hated, and laying his hand upon the breast of the unconscious profligate, sought anxiously if any precious signs of life were yet remaining there.

"Dead! My God!" he exclaimed frantically; "and I, Heaven forgive me! have killed him!"

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