ROWLAND was able to carry out the programme which he had made for himself. He was a man to whom pieces of what is called luck are apt to come. Luck goes rather against the more serious claims of deserving, and is a thing which many of us would like to ignore—but it is hard to believe there is not something in it. One man who is just as worthy as another gets little that he wants, while his neighbour gets much; one who is just as unworthy as another gets all the blows while his fellow sinner escapes. Mr. Rowland had always been a lucky man. The things he desired seemed to drop into his mouth. That white house on the peninsula looking down upon Clyde, with its noble groups of trees, its fine woods behind, its lochs and inlets, and the great noble estuary at its foot, proved as soon as he set his heart upon it procurable. Had you or I wanted it, it would have been hopeless. Even he, though his luck was so great and he possessed that golden key which opens so many doors, was not able to move the noble proprietor to a sale; but he was permitted to rent it upon a long lease which was almost as satisfactory. “I should have preferred to buy it outright and settle it upon you, Evelyn,” he said to his wife as they sat at breakfast in their London hotel, and he read aloud the lawyer’s letter about this coveted dwelling. “But when one comes to think of it, you might not care for a big house in Scotland after I am out of the way. It was to please me, I know, that you fixed on Scotland first. And then you might find it a trouble to keep up if you were alone.”
“There is no occasion for thinking what I should do when I am alone, thank heaven,” said Mrs. Rowland; “there is little likelihood of that.”
“We must be prepared for everything,” he said with a beaming face, which showed how little the possibility weighed upon him. “However, perhaps it is just as well. Now, my dear, I will tell you what I am going to do. I am going up to the North to see after it all. You shall stay comfortably here and see the pictures and that sort of thing, and I shall run up and prepare everything for you, settle about Rosmore on the longest term I can get, look after the furniture a bit: well—I should like, you know, to look after the children a bit, too.”
“To be sure you would,” she said cheerfully. “You know I wanted you to have them here to meet us; but I understand very well, my dear James, that you would rather have your first day with them alone.”
“It’s not that,” he said rising and marching about the room—“it’s not that. I’d rather see you with them, and taking to them than anything else in the world—but—perhaps I’d better go first and see how the land lies. You don’t mind my leaving you—for a few days.” He said this with a sort of timid air which sat strangely on the otherwise self-confident and consciously fortunate man, so evidently inviting an expression of regret, that Evelyn could scarcely restrain a smile.
“I do mind very much,” she said: and he was so genial, so kind, even so amusing in his simplicity, that it was strictly true. “I don’t like at all to be left alone in London; but still I understand it perfectly, and approve—though I’d rather you stayed with me.”
“Oh, if you approve,” he said with a sort of shame-faced laugh of satisfaction, “that is all I want; and you may be sure I’ll not stay a moment longer than I can help. I never saw such a woman for understanding as you are. You know what a man means before he says a word.”
It was on his wife’s lips to tell him that he said innumerable words of which he was unaware, about quite other matters, on every kind of subject, but all showing the way his thoughts were tending, but she forbore; for sweet as it is to be understood, it is not so sweet to be shown how you betray yourself and lay bare your secrets unwittingly to the eye of day. It was not difficult to divine that his mind was now very much taken up by the thought of his children, not merely in the way of love and desire to see them, but from an overmastering anxiety as to how they would bear his wife’s inspection, and what their future place in his life would be. In his many thoughts on the subject, he had decided that he must see them first and judge of that. During the three months in which he had been seeing with Evelyn’s eyes and perceiving with her mind, various things had changed for James Rowland. He was not quite aware of the agency, nor even that a revolution had taken place in him, but he was conscious of being more and more anxious about the effect which everything would produce on her, and specially, above all other things, of the effect that his children would produce. And he had said and done many things to make this very visible. For his own part he thought he had concealed it completely, and even that she gave him credit for too much feeling in imputing to him that eagerness to see them, to take his boy and his girl into his arms, which she had just said was so natural. He preferred to leave that impression on her mind. The feelings she imputed to him would have been her feelings, she felt sure, had she been coming home to her children after so long a separation. He could not say even to himself that this was his feeling. He had done without them for a very long time, perhaps he could have gone on doing without them. But what would Evelyn say to them? Would they be fit for her notice? Would they shock and startle her? What manner of beings would they seem in her eyes? It was on the cards that did she show any distaste for them, their father, who was their father after all, might resent it secretly or openly—for the claims of blood are strong; but at the present moment this was not at all in his thoughts. His thoughts were full of anxiety to know how they would please her, whether they were worthy to be brought at all into her presence. Mrs. Rowland would fain have assured him that his anxiety was unnecessary, and that, whatever his children were, they would be her first duty; but she was too understanding to do even this. All that she could do to help him in the emergency, was to accept his pretext and give him her approval, and tell him it was the most natural thing in the world. Useless to say that she was anxious too, wondering how the experiment would turn out. Whether the lowly upbringing would be so great a disadvantage as she feared, or whether the more primitive laws of that simpler social order would develop the better faculties, and suppress the conventional, as many a theorist believes. She was no theorist, but only a sensible woman who had seen a good deal of the world, and I fear that she did not believe in that suppression of the conventional. But whatever it was, she was anxious, as was natural, on a matter which would have so large an influence upon her entire life.
“I’ll tell you what you can do to amuse yourself,” he said, “when you’re tired of the pictures and all that. Go to Wardour Street, Evelyn, and if you see anything that strikes your fancy, buy it. Buying is a great amusement. And we shall want all sorts of handsome things. Yes, I know. I’d put it into the best upholsterer’s hands and tell him to spare no expense. But that’s not your way: I’ve learnt as much as that. And then there are carpets and curtains and things. Buy away—buy freely. You know what is the right thing. What’s the name of the people in Regent Street, eh? Well go there—buy him up if you please—the whole shop. I don’t care for those flimsy green and yellow things. I like solid, velvet and damask, and so forth. But what does that matter if you do? I like what you like.”
“Do you want me to ruin you, James?” she said.
He laughed with that deep laugh of enjoyment which moneyed men bring out of the profoundness of their pockets and persons. “If it pleases you,” he said. He was not afraid. That she should ruin him, was a very good joke. He had no desire for an economical wife. He wanted her to be extravagant, to get every pretty thing that struck her fancy. He had a vision of himself standing in the drawing-room which looked out upon the Clyde, and saying to everybody, “It’s my wife’s taste. I don’t pretend to know about this sort of thing, except that it costs a lot of money. It’s she that’s responsible.” And this anticipation pleased him to the bottom of his heart.
He went away next day, taking the train to Glasgow, not without sundry expressions of contempt for the arrangement of the Scotch trains, and the construction of the railways. “We do things better in India,” he said. He was very compunctious about going away, very sorry to leave her, very anxious that she should have everything that was possible to amuse her while he was gone; and exceedingly proud, yet distressed, that she should insist upon coming to the railway with him. It was such an early start for her, it would tire her, it was too much trouble, he said, with a beaming countenance. But when the train started, and Mr. Rowland was alone, he became suddenly very grave. He had not consented to her wish to have the children to meet them in London, because of the fancies that had seized him. If he could only have gone on paying largely for the children, knowing nothing but that they were happy and well, he would on the whole have been very thankful to make such an arrangement. But not only would it have been impossible to do so, but his wife would not have permitted it. She it was who talked of duty in respect to them, who planned everything that would have to be done. For his part, he would have been quite content to let well alone. But how often it happens that you cannot do that, but are compelled to break up rational arrangements and make fictitious ones, visibly altering everything for the worse. Rowland in his prophetic soul felt that this was what he was about to do. He was going to take his children out of the sphere they belonged to, to transport them to another with which they had nothing to do. And his mind altogether was full of compunctions. He had not after all shown their photographs or their letters to his wife. It would be less dreadful, he thought, that they should burst upon her in their native vulgarity and commonness all at once, than that she should be able to divine what like they were, and look forward to the meeting with horror. Naturally he exaggerated the horror Evelyn would be likely to feel, as he depreciated her acuteness and power of divining the motive which made him so certain that he could not find the photographs. Evelyn knew the situation, indeed, almost as well, perhaps in some ways better, than he did. She divined what was to be expected from the two young people brought up upon a very liberal allowance by the aunt whose husband had been a working engineer in the foundry. She was sincerely sorry for them, as well as a little for herself, wondering how they would meet her, feeling it almost impossible that there should not be a little grudge and jealousy, a determination to make a stand against her, and to feel themselves injured and supplanted. She followed her husband in her mind with a little anxiety, hoping that he would not show himself too enlightened as to their deficiencies. And then there would be their aunt to reckon with, the mother’s sister, the second mother. How would she bear it if the young people whom she thought perfect failed to please their father? It would be thought to be the stepmother’s fault even before the stepmother appeared on the scene.
Evelyn returned to her hotel after seeing her husband off, with a countenance not less grave than his, and a strong consciousness that the new troubles were about to begin. She had shaken off her old ones. As for that familiar distress of not having any money, it had disappeared like last year’s snow. It is a curious sensation to be exhorted to be extravagant when you have never had money to spend during your whole life, and there are few ladies who would not like to try that kind of revolution. Evelyn felt it exhilarating enough for a short time, though she had no extravagance in her; but she soon grew tired of the attempt to ruin her husband which gave him so much pleasure. She bought a few things both in Wardour Street and in the shop in Regent Street to which he had alluded, finding with a little trouble things that were not flimsy and diaphanous. But very soon she got tired, and by the third day it was strongly impressed upon her that to be alone, even with unlimited capacity of buying, is a melancholy thing. She had said to herself when she came to London that to recall herself to the recollection of old friends was the last thing she would desire to do. There was too much sorrow in her past: she did not want to remind herself of the time when she, too, used to come to London for the season, to do as everybody did, and go where everybody went. That was so long ago, and everything was so changed. But it is strange how the firmest resolution can be overset in a moment by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about his children, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff, she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased? had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had occurred—to be sure, it was the first time he had communicated his sentiments to her by way of writing, and probably he had no such freedom in expressing himself that way as by word of mouth. Whatever the fact might be, Evelyn felt herself cast down, she scarcely knew why. She vaguely devined that there was no satisfaction in his own mind, and to be thrust away from his confidence in this respect would be very painful to her, as well as making an end of all attempts on her part for the good of the children.
Evelyn was in this melancholy mood, sitting alone, and with everything suspended in her life, feeling a little as if she had been brought away from India where she had at least a definite known plan and work, to be stranded on a shore which had grown cold, unknown, and inhospitable to her, when in the newspaper which she had languidly taken up she saw suddenly the name of an old friend. She had said to herself that she would not seek to renew acquaintance with her old friends: but it is one thing to say that when one feels no need of them, and another to reflect when you are lonely and in low spirits, that there is some one in the next street, round the next corner, who would probably receive you with a smile of delight, fall upon your neck, and throw open to you the doors of her heart. Evelyn represented to herself when she saw this name that here was one of whom she would have made an exception in any circumstances, one who would certainly have sought her out in her trouble, and would rejoice in her well-being. She half resisted, half played with the idea for half the morning—at one time putting it away, at another almost resolved to act upon it. And at length the latter inclination carried the day. Part of the reluctance arose from the fact that she did not know how to introduce herself. Would any one in London have heard of the wedding far away at an obscure station in India? Would any one imagine that it was she who was the bride? She took out her new card with Mrs. James Rowland upon it, in a curious shamefacedness, and wrote Evelyn Ferrars upon it with an unsteady hand. But she had very little time to entertain these feelings of uncertainty. It was so like Madeline to come flying with her arms wide open all the length of the deep London drawing-room against the light, with that shriek of welcome. Of course she would shriek. Evelyn knew her friend’s ways better, as it proved, than she knew that friend herself.
“So it is you! At last! I meant to go out this very day on a round of all the hotels to find you; but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come, for you knew where to find me.”
“At last!” said Evelyn astonished. “How did you know I was in London at all?”
“Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did. They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.”
“Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had not the most distant idea of offending.
“Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that never happens to us poor people at home.”
“I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but, Madeline, that is not what interests me most. There are so many things I should like to hear of.”
“Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if I were you I wouldn’t inquire—not now, when everything is so changed.”
“What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised.
Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there—don’t see him. It would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well off?”
“Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.
“Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your place.”
At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen before—and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”
Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know. She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting, and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.
“Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you back to your chair.”
A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.
Oh, heaven and earth, was this he? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in it. He! The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it——is it? I did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.
“Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my congratulations. I am not in such good case myself,—nobody is likely to congratulate me.”
“I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better than you have been.”
“That’s very true. I may be congratulated so far. I should offer to call at your hotel on Mr. Rowland, but I fear my strength is not to be trusted. I am more glad than I can tell you to have seen you looking so well and happy, after so many years. Lady Leighton, I think I will now accept your kind offer to ring for my man.” He put out the grey tremulous hand again, and enfolded that of Evelyn in it. “I am very glad, very glad,” he said with emphasis, in a low but firm tone, Lady Leighton having turned away to ring the bell, “to have seen you again, and so well, and so young, and I don’t doubt so happy. My wife is dead, and I am a wreck as you see——”
“I am very sorry, very sorry.”
“I knew you would be: while I am glad to have seen you so well. And I have two children whom I shall have to leave to the tender mercies of the world. Ah, we have trials in our youth that we are tragical about; but believe me these are the real tragedies of life,” he said.
And then there came something almost more painful still. His servant came into the room and put on his coat and buttoned him into it as if he had been a child, then raised him smartly from his chair, drew an arm within his own, and led him away. The two ladies heard them go slowly shuffling downstairs, the master leaning upon the servant. Evelyn had grown as pale as marble. She remembered now to have seen an invalid chair standing at the door. And this was he who had filled her young life with joy, and afterwards with humiliation and pain. “Oh,” she cried, “and that is he, that is he!”
“I wish I could have spared you the sight,” said Lady Leighton, “but when he saw your card—he looked at it, when I dropped it out of my hand: people ill like that are so inquisitive—I knew how it would be. Well, you must have seen him sooner or later. It is as well to get it over. He is a wreck, as he says. And oh the contrast, Evelyn! He could not but see it—you so young-looking, so happy and well off. What a lesson it is.”
“I don’t want to be a lesson,” said Evelyn, with a faint smile. “Don’t make any moral out of me. He was a man always so careful of himself. What has he done to be so broken down?”
“Can you ask me what he has done, Evelyn? He has thought of nothing but himself and his own advantage all his life. Don’t you think we all remember——”
“I hope that you will forget—with all expedition,” cried Evelyn quickly. “I have no stone to cast at him. I am very very sorry.” The moisture came into her kind eyes. Her pity was so keen that it felt like a wound in her own heart.
“Oh, Evelyn, I would give the world this had not happened. I did all I could to keep you from seeing he was there. Such a shock for you without any warning! I know, I know that a woman never forgets.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Rowland, hastily, “that has nothing to do with it. I never was sentimental like you; and a spectacle like that is not one to call up tender recollections, is it? But I am very sorry. And he has children, to make him feel it all the more.”
“Yes,” said Lady Leighton doubtfully, “he has children. I must tell you that he still has a way of working on the feelings. Oh, poor man, I would not say a word that was unkind; but now that he has nothing but his troubles to give him an interest, he likes, perhaps, to make the most of his troubles. I wish you had not had this shock to begin with, dear Evelyn, your first day at home.”