CHAPTER IV
Till a few years ago the cottage was still standing where Anne Champion went to live at the bounty of Richard Meadowes. It stood on one of the crossways leading off the great west London road; but few people passed down the green lane, few even looked that way. The cottage was one of those deep thatched old dwellings that look like an owl with its feathers drawn up over its head; it had a garden filled with flowers and bee-hives, and the straight walk leading up to the door was bordered with flowering shrubs. Anne worked in the garden, clumsily enough at first, and she looked after the bees and got stung frequently, and time went on. Each week the old woman, Martha Hare, who occupied the house along with her, received a certain sum of money to be divided between herself and Anne; but Meadowes only came occasionally to the cottage at first: he was very cautious, having weighed Anne’s character pretty accurately. Then his visits became more frequent, and were somewhat prolonged, then he brought Anne a present from town. Anne began to draw her usual conclusions from these things: ‘He’s a-making up to me,’ she said to Martha Hare.
But she was scarcely prepared for it when Meadowes suddenly asked her one day if she would marry him.
‘I have been thinking of it for long, Anne,’ he said.
‘Sir, sir!’ said vulgar Anne. ‘I’m not your kind.’
‘But that is just my difficulty, and if you will listen to me I shall explain it. You cannot but see, Anne, that you are scarce in my class, as you say, and for that reason ’twill be better to keep the matter private, else my father will cut me off with a shilling. But if you will marry me privately, Anne, I swear to you I’ll be a good husband to you.’
Anne had been listening intently; but here she suddenly held up her hand.
‘There,’ she cried, ‘I’ll have you with no promises if I have you at all. I’ll take you as I know you, sir, and trust you but so far as I sees you.’
‘But you will trust me, Anne?’ he said.
‘No. I’ll never trust no man again this side time. But I’ll come an’ live along of you, sir, if so be I’m done with work and care for ever.’
‘Anne, Anne, do not be so bitter,’ said Meadowes. Anne stood looking at him silently for a moment, then she laughed.
‘ ’Tis like I’m marrying you for love, sir?’ she said.
‘Well, I have done what I could for you,’ said Meadowes (but he blushed hotly as he spoke. ‘I am a devil,’ he said to himself).
‘You have, sir, one way, but now you’ve showed your hand, so to say. I knew as it would be this way some day—I’ve had lovers an’ lovers by the score. Not but that you’ve been civil and taken your time, sir. Well, as I do say, sir, you be kind and I’ll take you for that. But ’tis not for love, sir. I have no heart left in me now, but a stone where it once was. A woman she do have two throws o’ the dice in her life—one’s love an’ t’other’s money. Lose the first; you’d best, if you’re a wise woman, have a try for the second, for with never the one nor t’other you be in a sad case.’
Meadowes listened gravely to this, Anne’s gospel of prudence.
‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘that’s your way of thinking, Anne, and mayhap mine is not so different—to take what I can get.’
‘What are you gettin’, sir?’ asked Anne, turning suddenly to him. ‘Lor’ sakes, sir! what hath gone agin you in life that you take second best so soon?’
‘Second best?’ queried Meadowes.
‘Ay, second best. You’ll not make me believe as how you are wedding for love, sir.’
‘I—I am very fond of you,’ Meadowes began, but Anne stopped him impatiently.
‘Not you, sir. I’m rarely fine-looking, an’ men be terrible fools. You’ve a mind to marry—that’s short and long for it,—but for love——’
The silence that Anne ended her sentence with was more expressive than words. Then she turned and laid her hand in his.
‘Here, sir,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask no questions. Mayhap you’ve had your story like myself. Leastways you’ve been kind to me, and I’ll be a good wife to you if you’re wishful to marry with me. Like enough some day we may both forget——’
She turned hastily away with a sob that would not be kept back.
‘Shall we say Friday of next week, then, Anne?’ said Meadowes, passing his arm round her and patting her shoulder very kindly.
‘When you please, sir.’
‘And we shall be married here, not in church, for the reason I have mentioned?’
‘Any place you please, sir.’
‘My friend Mr. Prior will marry us.’
‘Any parson you have a mind for, sir.’
Meadowes drew Anne closer to him, and kissed her lovely tear-stained face. Then he bade her good-bye, and she went into the cottage and sat there face to face with life, as every woman is when she makes up her mind on what now-a-days we term the Marriage Problem.
Anne was very clear-sighted; she saw, as every woman with her wits about her must see, that it is not good for woman—especially pretty woman—to be alone. She saw in ‘Dick Sundon,’ as she called him, a protector whom she had every reason to like. In the bitterness of her heart she had vowed never to trust any man again, but she must have had some vague feeling of confidence in this kindly bright-eyed suitor, else Anne would have hesitated more than she did before coming to her decision. She had hitherto been rather suspicious of the attentions of ‘fine gentlemen,’ as she termed them, but this offer of marriage seemed honourable to a degree. ‘I’ll never forget Sebastian—not for all he hath done by me—but mayhap I’d be happier wedded to Dick Sundon than living alone all my days. Oh, he’s kind enough for certain, an’ free with his money, and now he do wish to marry me what better can I do?’ she asked herself.
Unanswerable arguments.
Meadowes, on his part, went home profoundly miserable. For the sinner who would sin enjoyably must be of another stuff from that of which this man was made. Just as he had achieved success, his heart turned with a perfectly genuine emotion of pity towards the woman he had deceived so cruelly.
Yet on he went.
That evening he called upon his friend Mr. Simon Prior, at his rooms in Piccadilly.
‘A somewhat late visitor, I fear, Prior,’ he said.
‘Never too late to be welcome,’ said Prior.
‘Well, I am come on business, which must be my excuse,’ said Meadowes. He sat down, and Prior waited to hear what the business might be.
‘The fact is, I wish you to do me a favour,—I wish your assistance to the carrying out of—of an affair of some delicacy.’
‘I shall be delighted; but I find it difficult to imagine . . . my money affairs,’ . . . began Prior, whose one idea of a difficulty was money.
‘I had best make a long story short,’ said Meadowes, ‘I want you to act cleric for me; I’ve seen your powers of mimicry ere this, and I swear you’d play the parson to a nicety.’
‘Phew!’ whistled Prior. ‘So ’tis a woman is the difficulty; but why, Meadowes, if I may intrude upon your secrets, why do you demand a parson?’
‘Ah! there is my difficulty. There are women, you see, who value their good name, and this woman is of the number. ’Tis unfortunate, but a fact I cannot get over. She hath promised to be my wife, however, and I have explained to her that family reasons make a private marriage necessary at present. I trusted to you for the rest of it.’
Simon Prior leant back in his chair and eyed his visitor narrowly.
‘And what are you going to give to me in return for these valuable services?’ he said.
Meadowes leant forward—his bright eyes blazed in the lamplight.
‘I’ll pay every debt you have, if that will do,’ he said.
Prior went through a quick mental sum.
‘Yes, that will do,’ he said, when it had been added up. ‘I have played many a part, and have no doubt I could acquit myself with credit in this. I’ll go to church and hear the parson’s drawl (I’ve not heard it this many a year), and I’ll reproduce it for you whenever you please with becoming gravity.’
‘Thanks! I’ve no manner of doubt you will. Then you will tell me what I owe you? And, by the way, this matter must never cross your lips, Prior; I may trust you for that?’
‘You may.’
‘Then on Saturday of next week, all being well?’
‘On Saturday of next week, all being well,’ repeated Prior, in such a startling reproduction of Meadowes’ voice that both men laughed aloud.
But laughter was not in Meadowes’ heart though it was on his lips. He rose to say good-night soon after, and Simon Prior lay back in his arm-chair and smiled.