Chapter Eleven.
A Bear’s Hug.
About a fortnight after the events mentioned in the last chapter, my quiet time in the queer little lodgings at Putney came to an end. Jack was declared free from infection, Hetty was quite well again, and with some difficulty we managed to get them both admitted to a Convalescent Home at Broadstairs.
It was quite affecting to see the meeting between Jack and Hetty. Jack’s illness had both improved and refined him. He was always the best-looking of the family, and he really looked quite handsome as he took that little confiding gentle wife of his into his arms and kissed her three or four times. Poor Jack,—he kissed me too with a fervour he had never hitherto shown. He murmured something I could not quite catch about never being able to show sufficient gratitude to me, and then he and Hetty went away.
I saw them off from the railway station. The last glimpse I got of Hetty, she was sitting very close to her husband, and looking into his face. That poor young face of his looked worn and anxious enough, but Hetty knew nothing of the anxiety, and nothing of Jack’s fall from the paths of honour;—to her he was a prince—the first of men.
I sighed as I left the railway station. “Poor Jack!” I said to myself, “the path that lies before him will not be too easy to climb. Fancy having a little wife like Hetty to look after and support, and no means whatever to earn money for either of them. His character and chance of success practically gone. What is to be done with them both after their fortnight at Broadstairs is over?”
I returned home that afternoon to my dear mother. It was mid-winter and bitterly cold. Christmas was come and gone, we were well into January; snow rested on the ground, and as I entered the cottage, I saw by the look of the sky that more was likely to fall.
My mother welcomed me with just that degree of warmth which seemed to me the perfection of greeting. It consisted of very little in the way of embraces, scarcely anything in the shape of endearing words, but the expression in my mother’s eyes told me all I wanted to know. She was very, very happy to have me back again; and as to me, I felt for the time being rested and satisfied. Why not? I was with the human being I loved best on earth.
We had tea together, and then my mother began to speak.
“You saw Jack off, poor fellow?”
“Yes, mother,” I answered; “I saw Jack and Hetty off.”
“Oh, Hetty,” repeated my mother, with the faintest perceptible toss of her head. She had been very good about Hetty at first, but to have her coupled with Jack in this cool and easy manner gave her something of a shock.
“Mother,” I said with enthusiasm, “Jack had no right to marry any girl secretly, but as he did so we cannot be too thankful that he has taken this sweet little creature. She is as good as gold, mother, and as innocent as a little flower, and she thinks Jack perfection.”
“My dear,” said my mother, “that’s the right way; that’s as it should be. Though every one, I fear,” she added with a sigh, “cannot live up to it.”
“Hetty will,” I said quickly, for I did not want my mother to have time to make unhappy comparisons even in her heart.
“She has got an excellent husband,” proceeded my mother. “Rose, I did not know there was half as much in Jack as I find there is. He surprised me wonderfully during his illness; he really is a very fine fellow.”
I was silent.
“It was a great comfort to be alone with him,” proceeded my mother; “I got really to know my boy at last. Yes, his wife is a lucky woman. I trust she will prove worthy of him.” This time I was spared making any further remarks, for my father’s latch-key was heard in the front-door. The next moment he and George entered the little drawing-room together. “Bitterly cold night,” said my father, walking up to the fire, and monopolising the whole of it. “A sharp frost has set in already. Ha! is that you, Rosamund? Home again? How do you do? My dear,” turning to his wife, “did you register the thermometer as I told you to do this afternoon?”
“Yes, George. There were five degrees of frost then.”
“Ha! there’ll be fifteen by nine o’clock to-night. Why do you women keep such miserable fires? This thimbleful is enough to freeze any one.”
My father turned, and seizing the coal-scuttle, dashed a quantity of loose coal into the grate. It raised a dust, and almost extinguished the fire, but we none of us expostulated, for my father was unquestionably master in his own house.
George meanwhile flung himself into a deep easy-chair, crossed one muddy boot over the other, and seizing my mother’s favourite tabby cat, began to stroke it the wrong way, and otherwise to worry it. He laughed once or twice, when pussy resisted his endearments. He suddenly flung her on the ground almost roughly.
“Do turn that ugly thing out of the room, Rosamund,” he said.
I did not stir. I thought the time had come when I would cease to allow George to bully me.
“By the way,” said my father suddenly, in his harsh voice, “what’s this I hear, that Chillingfleet has given Jack the sack? You gave me the information, didn’t you, George?”
“Yes, sir, and it’s correct,” replied George. “I suppose Jack was playing the fool in some way, and Chillingfleet took advantage of his illness to get rid of him.”
“Monstrous, I call it,” interrupted my father; “an unprecedented sort of thing to do. I shall call on Chillingfleet to-morrow morning, and sift this matter to the very bottom.”
My mother looked up in alarm when my father spoke in this tone.
“I understand,” she said in her gentle voice, “that Jack has had a particularly kind letter from Mr Chillingfleet. He did not show it to me, but he told me of it.”
“Then you knew of this?” said my father, angrily.
“Yes, George, Jack told me that he was going about a fortnight ago.”
“H’m—ha! The young cub doesn’t choose to confide in me. Did he give you any reason for his dismissal?”
“No, I did not think any necessary. Jack has been ill for weeks, and unable to attend to his work. Mr Chillingfleet had naturally to get some one to take his place.”
“Naturally, indeed! That’s all you women know!”
My father began to pace the floor in his indignation.
“Much chance a poor young clerk would have, if just because he was unlucky enough to take fever, he was dismissed from his post. But, of course, people who know nothing jump to conclusions. Now if I had been consulted at the time, as I ought to have been, I might have talked Chillingfleet round, and shown him the enormity of his own proceeding.”
“I don’t think your talking would have had the least effect,” suddenly interrupted George. “If there is a hard old flint in this world, its Chillingfleet. Every one knows his character.” My father frowned at George’s presuming to doubt his powers of eloquence. After a pause, he said, emphatically:
“Your mother has acted in a very foolish way, keeping this affair to herself; but even now it is not too late, and notwithstanding your opinion, George, for which I am much obliged, I shall tackle Chillingfleet in the morning.”
With these last words my father left the room, banging the door noisily after him. My mother looked disturbed, George cross. How little they knew what revelations might reach them, what agony and distress might be theirs through my father’s untimely interference! I felt that I must prevent his having an interview with Mr Chillingfleet at any cost.
It was easier, however, to make this resolve than to act upon it.
“Rose, you don’t look at all well,” said my father, as we sat over our evening meal. “You have knocked yourself up nursing that common place young woman. I might have told you that would be the case. If you go on in this erratic fashion you will be old before your time.”
Even this rather gruff notice from my father was so unusual that I quite blushed with pleasure.
“I will not let him be humiliated,” I said to myself. “After all he is my father. Hard he is—sometimes cruel—but always, always the very soul of honour. I must—I will save him from what would bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.”
My eyes travelled slowly from my father’s face to George’s.
George was also hard. George could also be cruel, but he at least was young. George might share my burden. If George knew, it would be his interest to keep the thing quiet, and I felt sure that where I was powerless to keep my father from turning even a hair’s-breadth from his own way, George might have many means of influencing him.
After dinner I came up to where George was idly reading the newspaper.
“Can I speak to you before you go to bed?” I said, in a low voice.
“What about?” he asked, crossly.
“I can’t tell you in this room. Will you come to my bedroom before you go to sleep?”
“Very well,” he answered, still very gruffly.
“Now what is it?” he asked, when he came to my room between ten and eleven that night. “What girl’s confidence am I to be worried, with?”
“No girl’s confidence, as you are pleased to call it, George. Now listen. Our father must not see Mr Chillingfleet in the morning. He must not—he shall not. You, George, must prevent it.”
“I must prevent it! Is that what you have kept me out of my bed to say? Upon my word, Rose, you are unreasonable. Pray tell me how I am to keep my father from doing what he wishes.”
“Oh! George, you are very clever, and you can find a way when I—I can’t, although I’d give all the world to. George, George! he must not see Mr Chillingfleet, and this is the reason.”
Then I told my story. I told it quite calmly and without any outward show of shame. I found as I talked that I had grown accustomed to this tragedy, that the first edge of its agony was blunted to me.
I was not prepared, however, for the effect it had on my brother. As my story proceeded I saw all the colour leave George’s large, healthily-tinted face; drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the moisture from his lips and brow.
When I ceased speaking he sank down on the nearest chair. I had expected a perfect storm of angry and bitter words. George did not utter one.
“Well?” I could not help saying at last.
“Well,” he answered, “there’s an end of everything, that’s all. I meant to ask an honest girl with a nice little bit of money to be my wife. I thought I’d ask her next Sunday. I love her, too, ’tisn’t on account of the money; that’s at an end. She shan’t ever say she married the brother of a thief!”
“Oh! George, don’t be too hard on him. He was sorely tempted, and he is so young.”
“Am I hard on him, Rose? Am I saying anything?”
“George, dear brother, I wish I could help you.”
“You can’t; I’m off to bed now.”
“George, you will keep this from my father?”
“Rather!”
“You will manage that he shall not see Mr Chillingfleet?”
“I will manage that he never hears the story you have told me to-night. Good-night, Rose.”
“Kiss me, George. Oh! George, I’m bitterly sorry for you.”
I ran after him and flung my arms round his neck, and gave him what we used in the old childish days to call a bear’s hug.
When I pressed my lips to his cheek I saw tears in his eyes.