The Golden Calf by M. E. Braddon

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'If you don't object to this gown and hat, I can manage very well till we
get to my father's house,' she said quietly.

'I adore you in that hat and gown,' replied Brian, eagerly, dropping the
sovereigns back into his pocket; and so the question was settled.

An elderly lady came into the carriage at the next station, and there was
no renewal of confidences between bride and bridegroom till they came to
Waterloo, nor even then, for there is not much opportunity for
confidential utterances in a hansom, and it was that convenient vehicle
which carried Brian and his bride to the Temple.

They alighted at a gate on the Embankment, and made their way by a garden
to a row of grave old houses, with a fine view of the river. Brian led
his wife into one of these houses and up the uncarpeted stair to the
third floor, where he ushered her into a room with two old-fashioned
windows looking out upon grass, and trees, and old-fashioned buildings,
all grave and gray, and having an air of sober peacefulness, as of a
collegiate or monastic seclusion, while beyond the broad green lawn shone
the broad blue river.

'What a nice old place!' said Ida, looking down at the garden. 'How
quiet, how grave, how learned-looking! I don't wonder you like this
_pied-à-terre_ in London, as a change from your grand old Abbey.'

Brian gave a little nervous cough, as if something were choking him. He
came to the window, and put his arm round his wife's waist.

'Ida,' he began, somewhat huskily, 'I am going to tell you a secret.'

'What is that?' she asked, turning and looking at him.

'The Abbey does not belong to me!'

'What?' she cried, with wide-open eyes.

'You have been rather fond of talking about the Abbey; but I hope your
heart is not too much set upon it. You told me the other day, you know,
that you did not value me upon account of the Abbey or my position as its
owner. I hope that was the truth, Ida; for Wendover Abbey belongs to my
cousin. You have married the poor Brian and not the rich one!'

'What?' she cried. 'You have lied to me all this time--you have fooled
and deluded me!'

She turned and faced him with eyes that flamed indignant fire, lips that
quivered with unrestrained passion.

'It was not my doing,' he faltered, shrinking before her like the veriest
craven; 'it was the girls--Urania and Bessie--who started the notion as a
practical joke, just to see what you would think of me, believing me to
be my cousin. And when you seemed to like me--a little--Bessie, who is
fond of me and who adores you, urged me to follow up my advantage.'

'But not to cheat me into a marriage. No; it is not in Bessie to suggest
such falsehood.'

'She hardly contemplated an immediate marriage. I was to win your heart,
and when I was sure of that--'

'You were to tell me the truth,' said Ida, looking him straight in the
eyes.

His head drooped upon his breast.

'And you did not tell me. You knew that I saw in you Brian Wendover, the
head of the family, the owner of a great estate; that I was proud of
being loved and sought by a man who stooped from such a high position to
love me, who renounced the chance of a brilliant marriage to marry me, a
penniless body! You knew that it was in that character I admired you
and respected you, and was grateful to you! Not as the briefless
barrister--the man without means or position!'

'You harped a good deal upon the Abbey. But I had some right to suppose
you liked me for my own sake, and that you would forgive me for a
stratagem which was prompted by my love for you. How could I know that
you looked upon marriage as a matter of exchange and barter?'

'No,' said Ida, bitterly. 'You are right. You could not know how mean I
am. I did not know it myself till now. And now,' she pursued, with
flashing eyes, with a look in her splendid face that seemed to blight and
wither him, with all her beauty, all her womanhood, up in arms against
him, 'and now to punish you for having kept the truth from me, I will
tell _you_ the truth--plainly. I have never cared one straw for you. I
thought I did while I still believed you Brian Wendover of the Abbey. I
was dazzled by your position; I was grateful in advance for all the good
things that your wealth was to bring me. I tried to delude myself into
the belief that I really loved you; but the voice of my conscience told
me that it was not so, that I was, in sober truth, the basest of
creatures--a woman who marries for money. And now, standing here before
you, I know what a wretch I seem--what a wretch I am.'

'You are my wife,' said Brian, trying to take her hand; 'and we must both
make the best of a bad bargain.'

'Your wife?' she echoed, in a mocking voice.

'Yes, my very wife, Ida. The knot that was tied to-day can only be
loosened by death--or dishonour.'

'You have married me under a false name.'

'No, I have not. You married Brian Walford Wendover. There is no other
man of that name.'

'You have cheated me into a miserable marriage. I will never forgive that
cheat. I will never acknowledge you as my husband. I will never bear your
name, or be anything to you but a stranger, except that I shall hate you
all the days of my life. That will be the only bond between us,' she
added, with a bitter laugh.

'Come, Ida,' said Brian, soothingly, feeling himself quite able to face
the situation now the first shock was over, 'I was prepared for you to be
disappointed--to be angry, even; but you are carrying matters a little
too far. Even your natural disappointment can hardly excuse such language
as this. I am the same man I was yesterday morning when I asked you to
marry me.'

'No, you are not. I saw you in a false light--glorified by attributes
that never belonged to you.'

'In plain words, you thought me the owner of a big house and a fine
income. I am neither; but I am the same Brian Wendover, for all that--a
briefless barrister, but with some talent; not without friends; and with
as fair a chance of success as most young men of my rank.'

'You are an idler--I have heard that from your uncle--self-indulgent,
fond of trivial pleasures. Such men never succeed in life. But if you
were certain to be Lord Chancellor--if you could this moment prove
yourself possessed of a splendid fortune--my feelings would be unchanged.
You have lied to me as no gentleman would have lied. I will own no
husband who is not a gentleman.'

'You carry things with a high hand,' said Brian, with sullen wrath; and
then love prevailed over anger, and he flung himself on his knees at her
feet, clasping her reluctant hands, urging every impassioned argument
which young lips could frame; but to all such prayers she was marble.
'You are my wife,' he pleaded; 'you are my snared bird; your wings are
netted, darling. Do you think I will let you go? Yes, I was false, but it
was love made me deceive you. I loved you so well that I dared not risk
losing you.'

'You have lost me for ever,' she cried, breaking from him and moving
towards the door; 'perhaps, had you been loyal and true, you might have
taught me to love you for your own sake. Women are easier won by truth
than falsehood.'

'It seems to me they are easier won by houses and lands,' answered Brian,
with a sneer.

And then he followed her to the door, caught her in his arms, and held
her against his passionately beating heart, covering her angry face with
kisses.

'Let me go!' she cried, tearing herself from his arms, with a shriek of
horror; 'your kisses are poison to me. I hate you--I hate you!'

He recoiled a few paces, and stood looking at her with a countenance in
which the passionate love of a moment ago gave place to gloomy anger.

'So be it,' he said; 'if we cannot be friends we must be enemies. You
reveal your character with an admirable candour. You did not mind
marrying a man who was absolutely repulsive to you--whose kisses are
poison--so long as you thought he was rich. But directly you are told he
is poor you inform him of your real sentiments with a delightful
frankness. Suppose this confession of mine were a hoax, and that I really
were the wealthy Brian after all--playing off a practical joke to test
your feelings--what a sorry figure you would cut!'

'Despicable,' said Ida, with her hand on the handle of the door. 'Yes, I
know that. I despise and loathe myself as much as I despise and loathe
you. I have drained the cup of poverty to the dregs, and I languished for
the elixir of wealth. When you asked me to marry you, I thought Fate had
thrown prosperity in my way--that it would be to lose the golden chance
of a lifetime if I refused you.'

'Not much gold about it,' said Brian, lightly.

He had one of those shallow natures to which the tragedy of life is
impossible. He was disappointed--angry at the turn which affairs had
taken; but he was not reduced to despair. To take things easily had been
his complete code of morals and philosophy from earliest boyhood. He was
not going to break his heart for any woman, were she the loveliest, the
cleverest, the noblest that ever the gods endowed with their choicest
gifts. She might be ever so fair, but if she were not fair for him she
was, in a manner, non-existent. Life, in his philosophy, was too short to
be wasted in following phantoms.

'You must have thought me a mean cad this morning, when I offered you a
couple of sovereigns,' he said; 'yet they constituted a third of my
worldly possessions, and I was sorely puzzled how we were to get to
Dieppe on less than four pounds. I have been living from hand to mouth
ever since I left the university, picking up a few pounds now and then by
literature, writing criticisms for a theatrical journal, and so on--by no
means a brilliant living. Perhaps, after all, it is as well you take
things so severely,' he added, with a sneer. 'If we had been well
disposed towards each other, we must have starved.'

'I could have lived upon a crust with a husband whom I loved and
respected; but not with a man who could act a lie, as you did,' said Ida.

She took her bag from the chair where Brian had thrown it as they entered
the room, and went out on the landing.

'Good-bye, Mrs. Wendover,' he called after her; 'let me know if I can
ever be of any use to you.'

She was going downstairs by this time, and he was looking down at her
across the heavy old banister rail.

'I suppose you are going straight to your father's?'

'Yes.'

'Hadn't you better stop and have some lunch? The train doesn't go for
hours.'

'No, thanks.'

The gray gown fluttered against the sombre brown panelling as his
wife turned the corner of the lower landing and disappeared from his
view--perhaps for ever.

Brian went back to his room, and stood in the middle of it, looking
round him with a contemplative air. It was a pleasant room, arranged
with rather a dandified air--pipes, walking-sticks, old engravings,
_bric-à-brac_--the relics of his college life.

'Well, if she had been more agreeable, I should have had to get new
rooms, and that would have been a bore,' he said to himself; and then he
sank into a chair, gave a laugh that was half a sob, and wiped a mist of
tears from his eyes.

'What fools we have both been!' he muttered to himself, 'I knew she was
in love with the Abbey; but I don't believe a word she says about hating
me!'

And yet--and yet--she had seemed very much in earnest when she tore
herself from his arms with that agonized shriek.

CHAPTER X.

A BAD PENNY.

Ida made her way back to the Embankment somehow, hardly knowing where she
was going or what she was going to do. The airy castle which she had
built for herself had fallen about her ears, and she was left standing
amidst the ruins. Wendover Abbey, wealth, position, independence, the
world's respect, were all as far from her as they had been a month ago.
Her sense of disappointment was keen, but not so keen as the sense of her
self-abasement. Her own character stood revealed, to herself in all its
meanness--its sordid longing for worldly wealth--its willingness to
stoop to falsehood in the pursuit of a woman's lowest aim, a good
establishment. Seen in the light of abject failure, the scheme of her
life seemed utterly detestable. Success would have gilded everything. As
the wife of the rich Brian she would have done her duty in all wifely
meekness and obedience, and would have gone down to the grave under
the comforting delusion that she had in no wise forfeited honour or
self-respect. Cheated, duped, degraded, she now felt all the infamy
implied in her willingness to marry a man for whom she cared not a straw.

'Oh, it was cruel, iniquitous,' she said to herself, as she hurried along
the dusty pavement, impelled by agitated thoughts, 'to trade upon my
weakness--my misery--to see me steeped to the lips in odious poverty,
and to tempt me with the glitter of wealth. I never pretended to love
him--never--thank God for that! I let him tell me that he loved me, and I
consented to be his wife; but I pretended no love on my side. Thank God
for that! He cannot say that I lied to him.'

She hurried along, citywards, following the stream of people, and found
herself presently in broad, busy Queen Victoria Street, with all the
traffic hastening by her, staring helplessly at the cabs, and omnibuses,
waggons, carriages streaming east and west under the murky London sky,
vaguely wondering what she was to do next.

He--her husband--had asked her if she were going back to her father, and
she had said 'Yes.' Indeed it was the only course open to her. She must
go home and face the situation, and accept any paternal reproof that
might be offered her. She had lost a day. No doubt Miss Pew's indictment
would have arrived before her; and she would have to explain her conduct
to father and step-mother. But the little white-walled house near Dieppe
was the only shelter the universe held for her, and she must go there.

'Wendover Abbey!' she repeated to herself. I the mistress of Wendover
Abbey! That was too good a joke, 'Why did I not see the folly of such a
dream? But it was just like other dreams. When one dreams one is a queen,
or that one can fly, there is no consciousness of the absurdity of the
thing.'

She stood staring at the omnibuses till the conductor of one that was
nearly empty murmured invitingly in her ear, 'London Bridge?'

It was the place to which she wanted to go. She nodded to the man, who
opened his door and let her in.

She was at the station at a quarter to four, and the train for Newhaven
did not leave till seven--a long dismal stretch of empty time to be lived
through. But she could not improve her situation by going anywhere else.
The station, with its dingy waiting-rooms and garish refreshment-room,
was as good an hotel for her as any other. She was faint for want of
food, having taken nothing since her apology for breakfast at seven
o'clock.

'Can one get a cup of tea here?' she asked of the dry-as-dust matron in
charge of the waiting-room; whereupon the matron good-naturedly offered
to fetch her some tea.

'If you would be so kind,' she faltered, too exhausted to speak above a
whisper; 'I don't like going into that crowded refreshment-room.'

'No, to be sure--not much used to travelling alone, I daresay. You will
be better when you've had a cup of tea.'

The tea, with a roll and butter, revived exhausted nature. Ida paid for
this temperate refreshment, went to the booking-office, made some
inquiries about her ticket, and bought herself a book at the stall,
wherewith to beguile the time and to distract her mind from brooding on
its own miseries.

She felt it was a frightful extravagance as she paid away two of Miss
Cobb's shillings for Bulwer's 'Caxtons;' but she felt also that to live
through those three tedious hours without such aid would be a step on the
road to a lunatic asylum.

Armed with her book, she went back to the waiting-room, settled herself
in a corner of the sofa, and remained there absorbed, immovable; while
travellers came and went, all alike fussy, flurried, and full of their
own concerns--not one of them stopping to notice the pale, tired-looking
girl reading in the remotest corner of the spacious room.

A somewhat stormy passage brought the boat which carried Ida and her
fortunes to straggling, stony, smelly Dieppe, now abandoned to its native
population, and deprived of that flavour of fashion which pervades its
beach in the brighter months of August and September. The town looked
gray, cold, and forbidding in the bleak October morning, when Ida found
herself alone amidst its stoniness, the native population only just
beginning to bestir itself in the street above the quay, and making
believe, by an inordinate splashing and a frantic vehemence in the use of
birch-brooms, to be the cleanest population under the sun; an assertion
of superiority somewhat belied by an all-pervading odour of decomposed
vegetable matter, a small heap of which refuse, including egg-shells and
fishy offal--which the town in the matutinal cleansing process offered up
to the sun-god as incense upon an altar--lay before every door, to be
collected by the local scavenger at his leisure, or to be blown about and
disseminated by the winds of heaven.

Alone upon the stony quay, in the freshness and chilliness of early
morning, Ida took temporary refuge in the humblest _café_ she could find,
where a feeble old woman was feebly brooming the floor, and where there
was no appearance of any masculine element. Here she expended another of
Miss Cobb's shillings upon a cup of coffee and a roll. She had spent five
and twenty shillings for her second-class ticket. The debt to Miss Cobb
now amounted to a sovereign and a half; and Ida Palliser thought of it
with an aching sense of her own helplessness to refund so large a sum.
Yesterday morning, believing herself about to become the wife of a rich
man, she had thought what fun it would be to send 'Cobby' a five-pound
note in the prettiest of ivory purses from one of those shops in the
street yonder.

She drank her coffee slowly, not anxious to hasten the hour of a
home-coming which could not be altogether pleasant. She was as fond of
her father as adverse circumstances had allowed her to be; she adored her
half-brother, and was not unkindly disposed towards her step-mother. But
to go back to them penniless, threadbare, disgraced--go back to be a
burden upon their genteel poverty. That was bitter.

She had made up her mind to walk to Les Fontaines rather than make any
further inroad upon Miss Cobb's purse for coach-hire. What was she that
she should be idle or luxurious, or spare the labour of her young limbs?
She went along the narrow stony street where the shops were only now
being opened, past the wide market where the women were setting out their
stalls in front of the fine old church, and where Duguesclin, heroic and
gigantic, defied the stormy winds that had ruffled his sculptured hair.

Two years and a half ago it had been a treat to her to walk in that
market-place, hanging on her father's arm, to stand in the sombre
stillness of that solemn cathedral, while the organ rolled its
magnificent music along the dusky aisles. They two had chaffered for
fruit at those stalls, laughing gaily with the good-tempered
countrywomen. They had strolled on the beach and amused themselves
economically, from the outside, with the diversions of the
_établissement_. An afternoon in Dieppe had meant fun and holiday-making.
Now she looked at the town with weary eyes, and thought how dull and
shabby it had grown.

The walk to Les Fontaines, along a white dusty road, seemed interminable.
If she had not been told again and again that it was only four miles from
the town to the village, she would have taken the distance for eight--so
long, so weary, seemed the way. There were hills in the background, hills
right and left of her, orchards, glimpses of woodland--here and there a
peep of sea--pretty enough road to be whirled along in a comfortable
carriage with a fast horse, but passing flat, stale, and unprofitable to
the heavy-hearted pedestrian.

At last the little straggling village, the half-dozen new houses--square
white boxes, which seemed to have been dropped accidentally in square
enclosures of ragged garden--white-walled penitentiaries on a small
scale, deriving an air of forced liveliness from emerald-green shutters,
here a tree, and there a patch of rough grass, but never a flower--for
the scarlet geraniums in the plaster vases on the wall of the grandest of
the mansions had done blooming, and beyond scarlet geraniums on the wall
the horticultural taste of Les Fontaines had never risen. The old
cottages, with heavy thatched roofs and curious attic windows, with fruit
trees sprawling over the walls, and orchards in the rear, were better
than the new villas; but even these lacked the neatness and picturesque
beauty of an English cottage in a pastoral landscape. There was a shabby
dustiness, a barren, comfortless look about everything; and the height of
ugliness was attained in the new church, a plastered barn, with a gaudily
painted figure of our Blessed Lady in a niche above the door, all red and
blue and gold, against the white-washed wall.

Ida thought of Kingthorpe,--the rustic inn with its queer old gables,
shining lattices, quaint dovecots, the green, the pond, with its willowy
island, the lovely old Gothic church--solid, and grave, and gray--calm
amidst the shade of immemorial yews. The country about Les Fontaines was
almost as pretty as that hilly region between Winchester and Romsey; but
the English village was like a gem set in the English landscape, while
the French village was a wart on the face of a smiling land.

'Why call it Les Fontaines?' Ida wondered, in her parched and dusty
weariness. 'It is the dryest village I ever saw; and I don't believe
there is anything like a fountain within a mile.'

Her father's house was one of the white boxes with green shutters. It
enjoyed a dignified seclusion behind a plaster wall, which looked as if
anyone might knock it down in very wantonness. The baby-boy had varied
the monotony of his solitary sports by picking little bits out of it.
There was a green door opening into this walled forecourt or garden,
but the door was not fastened, so Ida pushed it open and went in. The
baby-boy, now a sturdy vagabond of five years old, was digging an empty
flower-bed. He caught sight of his sister, and galloped off into the
house before she could take him in her arms, shouting, 'Maman, une
dame--une dame! lady, lady, lady!' exercising his lungs upon both those
languages which were familiar to his dawning intelligence.

His mother came out at his summons, a pretty, blue-eyed woman with an
untidy gown and towzley hair, aged and faded a little since Ida had seen
her.

'Oh, Ida,' she said, kissing her step-daughter heartily enough, despite
her reproachful tone, 'how could you go on so! We have had such a letter
from Miss Pew. Your father is awfully cut up. And we were expecting you
all yesterday. He went to Dieppe to meet the afternoon boat. Where have
you been since Tuesday?'

'I slept at the lock-house with a nice civil woman, who gave me a night's
lodging,' said Ida, somewhat embarrassed by this question.

'But why not have come home at once, dear?' asked the step-mother mildly.
She always felt herself a poor creature before her Juno-like daughter.

'I was flurried and worried--hardly knew what I was doing for the first
few hours after I left Mauleverer; and I let the time slip by till it was
too late to think of travelling yesterday,' answered Ida. 'Old Pew is a
demon.'

'She seems to be a nasty, unkind old thing,' said Mrs. Palliser; 'for,
after all, the worst she can bring against you is flirting with your
friend's cousin. I hope you are engaged to him, dear; for that will
silence everybody.'

'No, I am not engaged to him--he is nothing to me,' answered Ida,
crimsoning; 'I never saw him, except in Fräulein's company. Neither you
nor my father would like me to marry a man without sixpence.'

'But in Miss Pew's letter she said you declared you were engaged to Mr.
Wendover of the Abbey, a gentleman of wealth and position. She was wicked
enough to say she did not believe a word you said; but still, Ida, I do
hope you were not telling falsehoods.'

'I hardly knew what I said,' replied Ida, feeling the difficulties of her
position rising up on every side and hemming her in. She had never
contemplated this kind of thing when she repudiated her marriage and
turned her face homewards. 'She maddened me by her shameful attack,
talking to me as if I were dirt, degrading me before the whole school. If
you had been treated as I was you would have been beside yourself.'

'I might have gone into hysterics,' said Mrs. Palliser, 'but I don't
think I should have told deliberate falsehoods: and to say that you were
engaged to a rich man when you were not engaged, and the man hasn't a
sixpence, was going a little too far. But don't fret, dear,' added the
step-mother, soothingly, as the tears of shame and anger--anger against
fate, life, all things--welled into Ida's lovely eyes. 'Never mind. We'll
say no more about it. Come upstairs to your own room--it's Vernie's
day-nursery now, but you won't mind that, I know--and take off your hat.
Poor thing, how tired and ill you look!'

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