Chapter Nineteen.
Jessop and Co. at Home.
“No, my dear, I’m not going to play the tragedy parent and talk about cursing and all that sort of thing. I’m only a plain matter-of-fact Englishman, leading too busy a life to be bothered. You write to me, and call me my dear father and talk of affection—my affectionate daughter; but how do I know that you are not still under the influence of the man whom you have chosen for your husband? How do I know that he has not said to you that you had better try and make it up with the old man, because the old man’s money may be useful one of these days? Mind, I don’t say that you have so base and sordid an idea; but I give him the credit of being moved in this spirit. I am glad to hear that you are well, and of course I wish you to be perfectly happy; but you proved to me that you thought you could run alone, so I feel that my responsibility as a father has ceased. I can’t reproach myself with any lapses. I did my duty by you; with your liking to the front. I chose you a husband—a good fellow, who would have made you happy; but you chose to flirt with a scoundrel and let him delude you even to making a disgraceful elopement, so you must take your course. Let him see this letter by all means, and thoroughly gauge my opinion of him. If he amends, and behaves well to you, perhaps some day I may accede to what you propose, and receive you both here. But he will have to alter a good deal first. I have no enmity against you, Heaven forbid! for I do not forget that you are my child; but, once for all, I will not have him here, and you may let him know at once that, as to what little money I have, that goes to my hospital, unless Clive Reed happens to want it, and that will alter the case.
“There; this is a very long letter, but as it is the first I have written to you since your marriage, I may as well say in it all I have to say, and this is one very particular part, so keep it in mind. If in the future Jessop Reed behaves badly to you—that is to say, more badly than you can bear, come home. There is your bedroom, and your little drawing-room, too, just as you left them. They shall be kept so, ready for you, and I shall cut all the past out of our lives again as of old; but mind this, Jessop Reed does not have you back again, lord or no lord. I’ll buy a yacht first and live upon the high seas.
“There! that is all I have to say as your father.”
Janet let the letter fall in her lap, and sat in her commonly-furnished room at Norwood, hot and red of eye. No tears came to her relief, for their source seemed to have long been dried-up. Every word had combined with its fellows to form for her the old saying in the ballad: “As you have made your bed, so on it you must lie.”
Her father had been correct enough. She had fought against making any advances in her great despair; but Jessop had insisted, and actually brutally used the very words about the old man’s money, with the addition that he had been trapped into marrying a beggar, and he must make the best of it.
“I must have been mad,” she sighed, as she laid the letter on the table and looked at the clock on the chimney-piece; but it was a cheap French affair under a glass shade, and one which doubtless considered that so long as it looked attractive its duty was done. The hour hand pointed to six, and the minute hand to three.
Janet sighed, and looked at her watch, but she had not wound it up.
At that moment a sleepy-looking servant-girl entered the room.
“Want me to sit up any longer, ma’am?”
“No; you can go to bed.”
“I don’t think master means to come home to-night, ma’am, again. He took his best clothes with him o’ Chewsday.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Janet quietly. “He is very busy now.”
“I’ll sit up if you like, mum. I don’t think it’s no use for both to sit up again to-night.”
“No. Go and get a good long night’s rest, Mary.”
“Yes, mum, thankye, mum,” said the girl, with a yawn. “But won’t you come, too?”
“Presently. I’ll sit up till twelve.”
“Twelve, mum?” said the girl, staring. “Why, it’s ’most one now.”
“Then go to bed. I’ll come soon.”
“Don’t ketch me gettin’ married and settin’ up for no husbands,” muttered the girl. “I’d soon let my gentleman know what the key of the street meant.”
Left alone, Janet again read the letter she had received from her father, though she hardly needed this, for she pretty well knew it by heart. Then, laying it on the table again for her husband to see, she sat thinking of what might have been, and contrasted the brothers, her brow wrinkling up as she felt that day by day she was sounding some deeper depth, and finding but a fresh meanness in Jessop’s nature.
“But it was only right after all,” she told herself; and she went over again the scene in Guildford Street, the hot jealous blood rising to her cheeks, as she thought of Lyddy and her acts and words.
“I could never have forgiven that. Poor father does not believe he was guilty, or else looks upon the offence with the eyes of a man.”
She started up listening, for a cab had stopped at the gate, and her first impulse was to go to the door; but she sank back wearily, and listened for the clang of the gate and the rattle of the latch-key in the door.
She had not long to wait, and she was preparing herself for her husband’s coming, when the door was shut loudly. There was a scuffling sound in the little hall, and as she turned pale with alarm, dreading some new trouble, there was a strange voice. The door was flung open, and, supported by his friend Wrigley, Jessop Reed staggered into the room.
Both men were in evening dress, Wrigley’s faultless, his glass in his eye, and the flower in his button-hole unfaded, while Jessop’s shirt front was crumpled and wine-stained, and his flushed face told of the number of times the glass had been raised to his lips. As he entered the little drawing-room he made a staggering lurch towards a chair, and would have fallen, as his hat did, but for the tight hold which Wrigley kept of his arm.
“Now, then,” he cried resentfully; “what’s the matter? Don’t get hauling a man all over the room like that.”
“Really I am very sorry,” said Wrigley, guiding Jessop into the chair and taking off his hat, “but the fact is, Mrs Reed, Jessop here was quite out of order when I met him this evening to attend a dinner at the Crystal Palace.”
“Yes. Dinner at Crystal Palace. But that’ll do. You leave my wife alone, Mr Solicitor.”
“Yes, yes, dear boy. Let me get you up to bed.”
“What for? I’m all right.”
“You will be after a night’s rest, my dear Jessop. There’s nothing much the matter, Mrs Reed. Pray don’t be alarmed. The wine was rather bad, too. I really think I drank more of it than he did.”
Janet was standing looking from one to the other with her eyes full of the misery and despair in her breast. Miserable as her life had been, full of bickering and quarrel, reproach and neglect, she had never yet seen her husband like this; and for a few moments she was ready to believe in his companion’s words.
“Have you a little soda-water in the house?” said Wrigley.
“Yes; bring some soda-water and the brandy,” cried Jessop, with an idiotic laugh which contradicted all that his friend had said.
Janet’s anger was rising now.
“We have no soda-water or brandy,” she replied.
“Never mind, Mrs Reed. Let me get him up to his room.”
“You sit down and hold your tongue,” cried Jessop, with tipsy sternness. “I’m master of my own house.”
“Of course, dear boy. I beg your pardon, I’m sure.”
“Granted! I’ll let you see I’m not going to be dictated to by haughty, ill-tempered women. Madam, my friend wants some soda and brandy. Get it at once.”
Wrigley gave Janet a nod and a smile, as if to say, “Better humour him.”
“All right, dear boy,” he said; “I won’t have any now.”
“I say you shall, sir. Sit down. Think I’m going to let her show her airs to you.”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!”
“Hold your tongue. I know what I’m talking about. She’s got Clive on the brain. Always throwing my brother at me. Scoundrel about poor Lyddy Milsom, but she can’t let him drop.”
“Mr Wrigley, I will see to my husband,” said Janet coldly. “You will excuse me; it is getting late.”
“Really, I beg your pardon,” said Wrigley, speaking with gentlemanly deference. “Yes, it will be better. Good-night, Mrs Reed. I am very sorry he should have been so affected, but it is really nothing. Believe me.”
“Hold your tongue, will you? Mind your own business,” cried Jessop sharply. “I know what you’re saying.”
“All right, old fellow. Get up to bed now. Good-night.”
Jessop made a dash at his wrist and held it fast.
“Sit down. Not going yet. I’m master here. Won’t go and fetch the soda and brandy, won’t she? Very well; then she shall hear something she won’t like. Look here, madam, what do you say to our dear brother now? On the stilts, is he? Well, then, he has got to come down.”
“Here, that will do, my dear Jessop,” said Wrigley, with a hurried laugh. “Don’t take any notice, Mrs Reed.”
“You hold your tongue, I say again,” cried Jessop, gripping Wrigley’s wrist so tightly that, without a struggle, there was no escape. “She has to hear it.”
“Nonsense, nonsense!”
“Is it?” cried Jessop, sitting bolt upright now.
“We shall see about that. She’s always at me about him.”
“Now, my dear old Jessop, friend of all these years, do you think I want you to insult Mrs Reed before me?”
“Insult, is it? You should hear how she insults me.”
“And I daresay you deserve it, just as you do now.”
“No, you don’t. Want to make friends at court, do you?”
“There, there! let me help you to bed, old fellow.”
“I’m going up to bed when I like, and when you’re gone.”
“All right, then, I’ll go now. I should have been rattling off to town in the cab if you hadn’t stopped me. There! good-night.”
“Sit down. She’s got to hear it. Do you hear, you Janet? He’s a fine boy, our Clive. Sort of Abel, he is, and I’m a kind of Cain, am I? But we shall see. Cries about him, she does, and before her lawful husband. Jealous of him. Do you hear, Janet?”
“Mr Wrigley, pray go,” she cried indignantly.
“My dear madam, I really am trying to go, but you see.”
“A blackguard with his pretty mistress down in Derbyshire. Nice saint!”
Janet turned and her eyes flashed, while Jessop burst into a jeering laugh.
“That bites her. Nobody must look at a pretty girl. She’s everybody, Wrigley. Do you hear? Old Bob Wrigley—I say, wasn’t it Ridley, though?”
“Yes, all the same; but come now, be a good boy, and go to bed. You’re hurting my wrist.”
“Serve you right.”
“But you’re driving the sleeve-links into the flesh.”
“Serve you right. You’ve driven sleeve-links into plenty of people’s flesh. Sit still. And you, Madam Janet, do you hear? We’re going to ruin him.”
“Reed! Don’t make an ass of yourself. He doesn’t know what he is saying, Mrs Reed.”
“Ha, ha! Don’t I? Ruined, I tell you. Play Jacob to me, would he? Down upon his knees he comes.”
Janet looked sharply from one to the other, and Wrigley, who made no effort to go now, uttered an uneasy laugh.
“I’ve been down and found out all about him and his nice little ways. Do you hear, madam? Pretty mistress. Beats you all to fits. Dark. Large eyes. Juno sort of a girl. He’s got fine taste, our Clive. He knows a pretty girl when he sees one. This isn’t a white-faced Lyddy, but dark, I tell you; skin like cream, teeth of pearls, and a red, full, upturned lip. A beauty!”
“’Pon my word, my dear Jessop, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Wrigley.
“I am, to be here, and not down there, trying—bah! it wouldn’t want any trying—cutting the blackguard out.”
“Really, Mrs Reed, I feel quite ashamed to be here listening to such nonsense, but pray don’t take any notice; it is all said in a teasing spirit, and to-morrow morning he will not know what occurred.”
Janet looked at him searchingly, but she made no reply. In fact, she had no time, for Jessop chuckled.
“Won’t I?” he cried. “Don’t you make any mistake, lawyer. Sharper fellow than you think for. I’m drunk, am I? Only my legs, old man. Head’s sober as a judge. You think you are making me your tool, do you? All right: perhaps so; but I’m a very sharp tool, old man, and if you don’t use me properly I may cut your fingers.” Wrigley coughed.
“There!” he said; “you have had a good long talk, and you can let me go.”
“Wait a minute. You hear, madam—bring him to the dogs if I like. Schemed against me. Time I schemed against him.”
“So you shall, my dear boy,” said Wrigley. “Now am I to see you to bed?”
“I don’t want you for a valet,” said Jessop. “I want you to do my dirty work.”
Wrigley gave him an angry look, but turned the spiteful remark off with a laugh.
“All right, old fellow; you shall. Now may I go?”
“Yes, be off.”
“Good-night, then.”
“No: stop and help me up to bed.”
“I will, with pleasure,” said Wrigley, giving Janet an encouraging look. “Now then.”
Jessop rose, took his friend’s arm, offered with a smile, and suffered himself to be led to the door.
“Which room, Mrs Reed?” said Wrigley.
“Come along, I know,” snarled Jessop.
“All right, dear boy. You shall show me, then. Good-night, Mrs Reed. The cabman is waiting; and as soon as I’ve seen him in bed, I’ll slip off.”
“Thank you,” said Janet coldly, as she gazed searchingly at the smooth, well-dressed, polished man, and felt a strong repellent force at work.
Then the door closed, and she sank in a chair, helpless, hopeless, listening to the steps upon the stairs, and thinking of her husband’s words.
“And I let myself be led to believe that this man loved me,” she thought, in her bitterness,—“this man, who could degrade me as he has to-night before his companion.”
But her thoughts changed from her own misery to Jessop’s threats against his brother.
“What does he mean?” she asked herself. “Ruin him?”
She sat gazing before her wildly, her heart throbbing at the thought of the man she had told herself she loved coming to harm; but directly after Jessop’s other utterances flooded her mind, and swept the thought of trouble befalling Clive right away.
For was this true? So soon after his fathers death! Was there some one whom he had met, some one beautiful—fair to see?
“What is it to me?” she said scornfully. “He is not worthy of a second thought. Better Jessop’s wife, even if he sinks lower still.”
She listened and heard steps, then the front door closed, and lastly the sound of wheels. Then lying back in the chair, she prepared to rest there for the night, while Jessop sat up in bed, waiting for her to come, thoroughly sobered now.
For as soon as Wrigley had helped him up to and across the chamber, Jessop had felt two nervous hands seize him by the throat, and he was flung quickly and silently back on the bed.
“Look here, you miserable, brainless idiot!” whispered Wrigley savagely, as he held him down.
“Here, what are you doing?”
“Silence, fool! or I’ll choke the miserable life out of you. Now are you sober enough to understand? Mind this; if by any words of yours—any of your cursed blabbings, this business comes to grief, I warn you to run for your life.”
“What?”
“For there are those in it now who would not scruple much about making you pay.”
“Pay?” faltered Jessop, as he gazed in the fierce face so close to his.
“Yes, my dear friend, and so that the world would be none the wiser when you were dead.”