The Lovels of Arden by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> The Lovels of Arden

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41

She went out, but shrank from returning immediately to her child. Those
agitating thoughts had affected her too deeply. She walked away from the
church up towards the park, hoping to find some quiet place where she might
walk down the disturbance in her mind, so as to return with a calm smiling
face to her darling. It was not a tempting day for any purposeless
pedestrian. The sky had darkened at noon, and there was a drizzling rain
coming down from the dull gray heavens. The streets cleared quickly now the
services were over; but Clarissa went on, scarcely conscious of the rain,
and utterly indifferent to any inconvenience it might cause her.

She was in the wide open place near the park, when she heard footsteps
following her, rapidly, and with a purpose, as it seemed. Some women have
a kind of instinct about these things. She knew in a moment, as if by some
subtle magnetism, that the man following her was George Fairfax.

"Clarissa," said a voice close in her ear; and turning quickly, she found
herself face to face with him.

"I was in the church," he said, "and have followed you all the way here.
I waited till we were clear of the narrow streets and the crowd. O, my
darling, thank God I have found you! I only knew yesterday that you had
left Paris; and some happy instinct brought me here. I felt sure you would
come to Austin. I arrived late last night, and was loafing about the
streets this morning, wondering how I should discover your whereabouts,
when I turned a corner and saw you going into St. Gudule. I followed,
but would not disturb your orisons, fair saint. I was not very far off,
Clarissa--only on the other side of the pillar."

"Was it kind of you to follow me here, Mr. Fairfax?" Clarissa asked
gravely. "Have you not brought enough trouble upon me as it is?"

"Brought trouble upon you! Yes, that seems hard; but I suppose it was my
fate to do that, and to make amends for it afterwards, dearest, in a life
that shall know no trouble."

"I am here with my son, Mr. Fairfax. It was the fear of being separated
from him that drove me away from Paris. If you have one spark of generous
feeling, you will not pursue me or annoy me here. If my husband were to see
us together, or were to hear of our being seen together, he would have just
grounds for taking my child away from me."

"Clarissa," exclaimed George Fairfax, with intensity, "let us make an end
of all folly and beating about the bush at once and for ever. I do not say
that I am not sorry for what happened the other night--so far as it caused
annoyance to you--but I am heartily glad that matters have been brought to
a crisis. The end must have come sooner or later, Clary--so much the better
if it has come quickly. There is only one way to deal with the wretched
mistake of your marriage, and that is to treat it as a thing that has never
been. There are places enough in the world, Clary, in which you and I are
nameless and unknown, and we can be married in one of those places. I will
run all risks of a criminal prosecution and seven, years at Portland. You
shall be my wife, Clarissa, by as tight a knot as Church and State can
tie."

She looked at him with a half scornful smile.

"Do you think you are talking to a child?" she said.

They had been standing in the chill drizzling rain all this time,
unconscious, and would have so stood, perhaps, if a shower of fire and
brimstone had been descending upon Brussels. But at this juncture Mr.
Fairfax suddenly discovered that it was raining, and that Clarissa's shawl
was growing rapidly damper.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what a brute I am. I must find you some kind
of shelter."

There was a cafe near at hand, the cafe attached to the Theatre du Pare,
with rustic out-of-door constructions for the accommodation of its
customers. Mr. Fairfax conducted Clarissa to one of these wooden arbours,
where they might remain till the rain was over, or till he chose to bring
her a carriage. He did not care to do that very soon. He had a great deal
to say to her. This time he was resolved not to accept defeat.

A solitary waiter espied them promptly, having so little to do in this
doleful weather, and came for orders. Mr. Fairfax asked for some coffee,
and waited in silence while the man brought a little tray with cups and
saucers and a great copper coffee-pot, out of which he poured the black
infusion with infinite flourish.

"Bring some cognac," said Mr. Fairfax; and when the spirit had been
brought, he poured half a wine-glassful into a cup of coffee, and entreated
Clarissa to drink it as an antidote to cold.

"You were walking ever so long in the rain," he said.

She declined the nauseous dose.

"I am not afraid of catching cold," she said; "but I shall be very glad if
you will let that man fetch me a fly. I ought to have been at home half an
hour ago."

"At home! Is it permissible to ask where you live?"

"I would rather not tell you my address. I hope, if my being here had
anything to with your coming to Brussels, that you will go back to Paris at
once."

"I shall never go back to Paris unless I enter its gates with you some day.
I am going to the East, Clary; to Constantinople, and Athens, and all the
world of fable and story, and you are going with me--you and young Lovel.
Do you know there is one particular spot in the island of Corfu which I
have pitched upon for the site of a villa, just such a fairy place as you
can sketch for me--your own architecture--neither gothic nor composite,
neither classic nor rustic, only _le style Clarisse_; not for our permanent
dwelling--to my mind, nothing but poverty should ever chain a man to one
habitation--but as a nest to which we might fly now and then, when we were
weary of roaming."

He was talking lightly, after his nature, which was of the lightest,
but for a purpose, also, trying to beguile Clarissa from serious
considerations, to bring a smile to the pale sad face, if he could. In
vain; the hazel eyes looked straight forward with an unwonted fixedness,
the lips were firmly set, the hands clasped rigidly.

After this, his tone grew more earnest; again he pleaded, very much as
he had pleaded before, but with a stronger determination, with a deeper
passion, painting the life that might be for those two in the warmest,
brightest colours that his fancy could lend it. What had she to care for?
he argued. Absolutely nothing. She had broken with her husband, whom George
Fairfax knew by his own experience to be implacable in his resentment. And
oh, how much to gain! A life of happiness; all her future spent with the
man who loved her; spent wherever and however she pleased. What was he but
her slave, to obey her?

She was not unmoved by his pleading. Unmoved? These were words and tones
that went home to her heart of hearts. Yes, she could imagine the life he
painted so well. Yes, she knew what the future would seem to her, if it
were to be spent with him. She loved him dearly--had so loved him ever
since that night in the railway-carriage, she thought. When had his image
really been absent from her since that time?

He insisted that she should hear him to the end, and she submitted, not
unwillingly, perhaps. She had no thought of yielding; but it was sweet to
her to hear his voice--for the last time, she told herself; this must be
the last time. Even while he pleaded and argued and demonstrated that the
wisest thing in the world she could do was to run away with him, she was
meditating her plan of escape. Not again must they meet thus. She had a
certain amount of strength of mind, but it was not inexhaustible, and she
felt her weakness.

"You forget that I have a son," she said at last, when he urged her to
speak.

"He shall be my son. Do you think I do not love that rosy yearling? He
shall inherit Lyvedon, if you like; there is no entail; I can do what I
please with it. Yes, though I had sons of my own he should be first, by
right of any wrong we may do him now. In the picture I have made of our
future life, I never omitted that figure, Clarissa. Forget your son! No,
Clary; when I am less than a father to him, tell me that I never loved
you."

This was the man's way of looking at the question; the boy's future should
be provided for, he should have a fine estate left him by way of solatium.
The mother thought of what her son would think of _her_, when he grew old
enough to consider her conduct.

"I must ask you to get me a fly somehow, Mr. Fairfax," she said quietly.
"It is still raining, and I am really anxious to get home to Lovel. I am
sorry you should have taken so much trouble about me; it is quite useless,
believe me. I know that I have been very weak--guilty even--in many ways
since I have known you; but that is all over now. I have paid the penalty
in the loss of my husband's esteem. I have nothing now to live for but my
child."

"And is that to be the end of everything, Mrs. Granger?" asked George
Fairfax, with an angry look in his eyes. "Are we to part upon that? It is
such an easy thing to lure a man on to a certain point, and then turn upon
him and protest you never meant to go beyond that point. You have paid the
penalty! Do you think I have paid no penalty? Was it a pleasant thing to
me, do you suppose, to jilt Geraldine Challoner? I trampled honour in the
dust for your sake, Clarissa. Do you know that there is a coolness between
my mother and me at this moment, because of my absence from England and
that broken-off marriage? Do you know that I have turned my back for ever
upon a place that any man might be proud to call his home, for the sake of
being near you? I have cast every consideration to the winds; and now that
you have actually broken loose from your bondage, now that there is nothing
to come between us and a happy future, you set up your son as an obstacle,
and"--he concluded with a bitter laugh--"ask me to fetch you a fly!"

"I am sorry to wound you; but--but--I cannot bring dishonour upon my son."

"Your son!" cried George Fairfax savagely. "An east wind may blow your
son off the face of the earth to-morrow. Is a one-year-old baby to
stand between a man and his destiny? Come, Clary, I have served my
apprenticeship; I have been very patient; but my patience is exhausted. You
must leave this place with me to-night."

"Mr. Fairfax, will you get me a fly, or must I walk home?"

He looked at her fixedly for a few moments, intent upon finding out if she
were really in earnest, if this cold persistence were unconquerable even by
him. Her face was very pale, the eyes downcast, the mouth firm as marble.

"Clarissa," he cried, "I have been fooled from first to last--you have
never loved me!"

Those words took her off her guard; she lifted her eyes to meet his, eyes
full of love and despair, and again he told himself success was only a
question of time. His apprenticeship was not finished yet; he must be
content to serve a little longer. When she had tasted the bitterness of her
new life, its helplessness, its desolation, with only such a broken reed as
Austin Lovel to lean upon, she would turn to him naturally for comfort and
succour, as the fledgling flies back to its nest.

But if in the meantime Daniel Granger should relent and pursue her, and
take her back to his heart with pardon and love? There was the possibility
of that event; yet to press matters too persistently would be foolish,
perilous even. Better to let her have her own way for a little, since he
knew that she loved him.

He went to look for the depressed waiter, whom he dispatched in quest of a
vehicle, and then returned to the rustic shelter, where Clarissa sat like a
statue, watching the rain pouring down monotonously in a perpetual drizzle.
They heard the wheels of the carriage almost immediately. Mr. Fairfax
offered his arm to Clarissa, and led her out of the garden; the obsequious
waiter on the other side holding an umbrella over her head.

"Where shall I tell the man to drive?" he asked.

"To St. Gudule."

"But you don't live in the cathedral, like Hugo's Esmeralda. Am I not to
know your address?"

"It is better not. Austin knows that you were the cause of my leaving
Paris. If you came, there might be some misunderstanding."

"I am not afraid of facing Austin."

"But I am afraid of any meeting between you. I cannot tell you where I am
living, Mr. Fairfax."

"That seems rather hard upon me. But you will let me see you again, won't
you, Clary? Meet me here to-morrow at dusk--say at six o'clock. Promise to
do that, and I will let you off."

She hesitated, looking nervously to the right and left, like a hunted
animal.

"Promise, Clary; it is not very much to ask."

"Very well, then, I promise. Only please let the man drive off to St.
Gudule, and pray don't follow me."

Mr. Fairfax grasped her hand. "Remember, you have promised," he said, and
then gave the coachman his orders. And directly the fly containing Clarissa
had rattled off, he ran to the nearest stand and chartered another.

"Drive to St. Gudule," he said to the man, "and when you see a carriage
going that way, keep behind it, but not too near."

It happened, however, that the first driver had the best horse, and, being
eager to earn his fare quickly, had deposited Clarissa in the Place Gudule
before George Fairfax's charioteer could overtake him. She had her money
ready to slip into the man's hand, and she ran across the square and into
the narrow street where Austin lived, and vanished, before Mr. Fairfax
turned the corner of the square.

He met the empty vehicle, and dismissed his own driver thereupon in a rage.
"Your horse ought to be suppressed by the legal authorities," he said, as
he gave the man his fare.

She must live very near the cathedral, he concluded, and he spent a dreary
hour patrolling the narrow streets round about in the wet. In which of
those dull-looking houses has she her dwelling? He could not tell. He
walked up and down, staring up at all the windows with a faint hope of
seeing her, but in vain; and at last went home to his hotel crestfallen and
disappointed.

"She escapes me at every turn," he said to himself. "There is a kind of
fatality. Am I to grow old and gray in pursuing her, I wonder? I feel ten
years older already, since that night when she and I travelled together."

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLVI.

ON THE WING.

Clarissa hung over her baby with all manner of fond endearments.

"My darling! my darling!" she sobbed; "is it a hard thing to resist
temptation for your sake?"

She had shed many bitter tears since that interview with George Fairfax,
alone in the dreary room, while Level slept the after-dinner sleep of
infancy, and while Mrs. Level and Jane Target gossipped sociably in the
general sitting-room. Austin was out playing dominoes at the cafe of a
Thousand Columns, with some Bohemianishly-disposed Bruxellois.

She had wept for the life that might have been, but which never could be.
On that point she was decided. Not under the shadow of dishonour could she
spend her days. She had her son. If she had been alone, utterly desolate,
standing on some isolated rock, with nothing but the barren sea around her,
she might perhaps have listened to that voice which was so very sweet to
her, and yielded. But to take this dreadful leap which she was asked to
take, alone, was one thing; to take it with her child in her arms, another.
Her fancy, which was very vivid, made pictures of what her boy's future
might be, if she were to do this thing. She thought of him stung by the
mention of his mother's name, as if it were the foulest insult. She thought
of his agony when he heard other men talk of their mothers, and remembered
the blackness of darkness that shrouded his. She thought of the boyish
intellect opening little by little, first with vague wonder, then fearful
curiosity, to receive this fatal knowledge; and then the shame for that
young innocent soul!

"O, not for worlds!" she cried, "O, not for worlds! God keep me from any
more temptation!"

Not with mere idle prayers did she content herself. She knew her danger;
that man was resolute, unscrupulous, revengeful even: and she loved him.
She determined to leave Brussels. She would go and lose herself in the wide
world of London; and then, after a little while, when all possibility of
her movements being traced was over, she would take her child to some
secluded country place, where there were woods and meadows, and where the
little dimpled hands could gather bright spring flowers. She announced her
intention to her brother that evening, when he came home at a latish hour
from the Thousand Columns, elated by having won three francs and a half at
dominoes--an amount which he had expended on cognac and syphons for himself
and his antagonist.

He was surprised, vexed even, by Clarissa's decision. Why had she come to
him, if she meant to run away directly? What supreme folly to make such a
journey for nothing! Why did she not go from Paris to London at once?

"I did not think of that, Austin; I was almost out of my senses that day, I
think, after Daniel told me he was going to separate me from my boy; and it
seemed natural to me to fly to you for protection."

"Then why run away from me? Heaven knows, you are welcome to such a home
as I can give. The quarters are rough, I know; but we shall improve that,
by-and-by."

"No, no, Austin, it is not that. I should be quite happy with you,
only--only--I have a particular reason for going to London."

"Clarissa!" cried her brother sternly, "has that man anything to do with
this? Has he tried to lure you away from here, to your destruction?"

"No, no, no! you ought to know me better than that. Do you think I would
bring dishonour upon my boy?"

Her face told him that she was speaking the truth.

"Very well, Clary," he said with a sigh of resignation; "you must do as you
please. I suppose your reason is a good one, though you don't choose to
trust me."

So, by an early train next morning, Clarissa, with her nurse and child,
left Brussels for Ostend--a somewhat dreary place wherein to arrive in
early spring-time, with March winds blowing bleak across the sandy dunes.

They had to spend a night here, at a second-rate hotel on the Quay.

"We must go to humble-looking places, you know, Jane, to make our money
last," Clarissa said on the journey. They had travelled second-class; but
she had given a five-pound note to her brother, by way of recompense for
the brief accommodation he had given her, not telling him how low her stock
was. Faithful Jane's five-and-twenty pounds were vanishing. Clarissa looked
at the two glittering circlets on her wedding finger.

"We cannot starve while we have these," she thought; and once in London,
she could sell her drawings. Natural belief of the school-girl mind, that
water-coloured sketches are a marketable commodity!

Again in the dismal early morning--that sunrise of which poets write so
sweetly, but which to the unromantic traveller is wont to seem a dreary
thing--mother and nurse and child went their way in a great black steamer,
redolent of oil and boiled mutton; and at nine o'clock at night--a starless
March night--Clarissa and her belongings were deposited on St. Katharine's
Wharf, amidst a clamour and bustle that almost confused her senses.

She had meditated and debated and puzzled herself all through the day's
voyage, sitting alone on the windy deck, brooding over her troubles, while
Jane kept young Lovel amused and happy below. Inexperienced in the ways of
every-day life as a child--knowing no more now than she had known in her
school-girl days at Belforet--she had made her poor little plan, such as it
was.

Two or three times during her London season she had driven through
Soho--those weird dreary streets between Soho Square and Regent Street--and
had contemplated the gloomy old houses, with a bill of lodgings to let
here and there in a parlour-window; anon a working jeweller's humble shop
breaking out of a private house; here a cheap restaurant, there a French
laundress; everywhere the air of a life which is rather a struggle to
live than actual living. In this neighbourhood, which was the only humble
quarter of the great city whereof she had any knowledge, Clarissa fancied
they might find a temporary lodging--only a temporary shelter, for all her
hopes and dreams pointed to some fair rustic retreat, where she might live
happily with her treasure. Once lodged safely and obscurely, where it would
be impossible for either her husband or George Fairfax to track her, she
would spend a few shillings in drawing-materials, and set to work to
produce a set of attractive sketches, which she might sell to a dealer. She
knew her brother's plan of action, and fancied she could easily carry it
out upon a small scale.

"So little would enable us to live happily, Jane," she said, when she
revealed her ideas to her faithful follower.

"But O, mum, to think of you living like that, with such a rich husband as
Mr. Granger, and him worshipping the ground you walk upon, as he did up to
the very last; and as to his anger, I'm sure it was only tempory, and he's
sorry enough he drove you away by this time, I'll lay."

"He wanted to take away my child, Jane."

They took a cab, and drove from Thames-street to Soho. Clarissa had never
been through the City at night before, and she thought the streets would
never end. They came at last into that quieter and dingier region; but it
was past ten o'clock, and hard work to find a respectable lodging at such
an hour. Happily the cabman was a kindly and compassionate spirit, and
did his uttermost to help them, moving heaven and earth, in the way of
policemen and small shopkeepers, until, by dint of much inquiry, he found
a decent-looking house in a _cul-de-sac_ out of Dean-street--a little
out-of-the-way quadrangle, where the houses were large and stately, and had
been habitations of sweetness and light in the days when Soho was young,
and Monmouth the young man of the period.

To one of these houses the cabman had been directed by a good-natured
cheesemonger, at a corner not far off; and here Clarissa found a
second-floor--a gaunt-looking sitting-room, with three windows and
oaken window-seats, sparsely furnished, but inexorably clean; a bedroom
adjoining--at a rent which seemed moderate to this inexperienced
wayfarer. The landlady was a widow--is it not the normal state of
landladies?--cleanly and conciliating, somewhat surprised to see travellers
with so little luggage, but reassured by that air of distinction which was
inseparable from Mrs. Granger, and by the presence of the maid.

The cabman was dismissed, with many thanks and a princely payment; and so
Clarissa began life alone in London.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLVII.

IN TIME OF NEED.

It was a dreary habitation, that London lodging, after the gardens and
woods of Arden, the luxurious surroundings and innumerable prettinesses
which Mr. Granger's wealth had provided for the wife of his love; dreary
after the holiday brightness of Paris; dreary beyond expression to
Clarissa in the long quiet evenings when she sat alone, trying to face the
future--the necessity for immediate action being over, and the world all
before her.

She had her darling. That was the one fact which she repeated to herself
over and over again, as if the words had been a charm--an amulet to drive
away guilty thoughts of the life that might have been, if she had listened
to George Fairfax's prayer.

It was not easy for her to shut _that_ image out of her heart, even with
her dearest upon earth beside her. The tender pleading words, the earnest
face, came back to her very often. She thought of him wandering about
those hilly streets in Brussels, disappointed and angry: thought of his
reproaches, and the sacrifices he had made for her.

And then from such weak fancies she was brought suddenly back by the
necessities of every-day life Her money was very nearly gone; the journeys
had cost so much, and she had been obliged to buy clothing for Jane and
Lovel and herself at Brussels. She had spent a sovereign on colours
and brushes and drawing-paper at Winsor and Newton's--her little
stock-in-trade. She looked at her diamond rings meditatively as she sat
brooding in the March twilight, with as vague an idea of their value as a
child might have had. The time was very near when she would be obliged to
turn them into money.

Fortunately the woman of the house was friendly, and the rooms were clean.
But the airs of Soho are not as those breezes which come blowing over
Yorkshire wolds and woods, with the breath of the German Ocean; nor had
they the gay Tuileries garden and the Bois for Master Lovel's airings. Jane
Target was sorely puzzled where to take the child. It was a weary long
way to St. James's Park on foot; and the young mother had a horror of
omnibuses--in which she supposed smallpox and fever to be continually
raging. Sometimes they had a cab, and took the boy down to feed the ducks
and stare at the soldiers. But in the Park Clarissa had an ever-present
terror of being seen by some one she knew. Purposeless prowlings with baby
in the streets generally led unawares into Newport-market, from which busy
mart Mrs. Granger fled aghast, lest her darling should die of the odour of
red herrings and stale vegetables. In all the wider streets Clarissa was
afflicted by that perpetual fear of being recognised; and during the
airings which Lovel enjoyed with Jane alone the poor mother endured
unspeakable torments. At any moment Mr. Granger, or some one employed by
Mr. Granger, might encounter the child, and her darling be torn from her;
or some accident might befall him. Clarissa's inexperience exaggerated the
perils of the London streets, until every paving-stone seemed to bristle
with dangers. She longed for the peace and beauty of the country; but not
until she had found some opening for the disposal of her sketches could she
hope to leave London. She worked on bravely for a fortnight, painting half
a dozen hours a day, and wasting the rest of her day in baby worship, or
in profound plottings and plannings about the future with Jane Target. The
girl was thoroughly devoted, ready to accept any scheme of existence which
her mistress might propose. The two women made their little picture of the
life they were to lead when Clarissa had found a kindly dealer to give her
constant employment: a tiny cottage, somewhere in Kent or Surrey, among
green fields and wooded hills, furnished ever so humbly, but with a garden
where Lovel might play. Clarissa sketched the ideal cottage one evening--a
bower of roses and honeysuckle, with a thatched roof and steep gables.
Alas, when she had finished her fortnight's work, and carried half a dozen
sketches to a dealer in Rathbone-place, it was only to meet with a crushing
disappointment. The man admitted her power, but had no use for anything of
that kind. Chromolithographs were cheap and popular--people would rather
buy a lithograph of some popular artist's picture than a nameless
water-colour. If she liked to leave a couple of her sketches, he would try
to dispose of them, but he could not buy them--and giving her permanent
employment was quite out of the question.