Chapter Eleven.
Mr Tankardew’s Story Begun.
“You must know, dear friends,” began the old man sadly, “that I’m a wiser man now than I was once. Not that there’s much wisdom to boast of now; only I have learnt by experience, and he is a sharp schoolmaster.
“I was born to trust others; it was misery to me to live in distrust and suspicion; I couldn’t do it. People told me I was a fool; it was true, I knew it, but I went on trusting. David said in his haste, ‘all men are liars.’ I said in my haste, or rather my folly, ‘all men are true.’ They might lie to others, but I thought they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or didn’t lie to me. At any rate I’d trust them; it was so sad to think that a being made in God’s image could go about wilfully deceiving others. I’d take a brighter view of my fellow-men and women. I never could abide your shrewd, knowing people, who seemed to be always living with a wink in their eyes, and a grin on their lips, as if they believed in nobody and nothing but their own sharpness. I loathed them, and I loathe them still. But I wasn’t wise. I had to smart for it. I had plenty of money when I came of age, and I had plenty of friends, or rather acquaintances, who knew it. But I was shy, and not over fond of many companions; my weakness wasn’t in that direction. I had sense enough to see through your common gold-hunters. I was never over fond of sugar-candy; coarse flattery made me sick, and I had no taste for patching up the holes in the purses of profligates and spendthrifts. I never was a worshipper of money, but I knew its value, and wasn’t disposed to make ducks and drakes of it, nor partridges and pheasants either. So the summer flies, after buzzing about me a little, flew off to sunnier spots; all except one. He puzzled me a bit at first, but I blamed myself for having a shadow of suspicion of him. All seemed so open about him, open hands, open eyes, open brow; he wound himself round my heart before I knew where I was. Mine was a fair estate (it will be yours one day, Mary, my child, I trust; John’s and yours together). I’d lived away from home many years before I came into it, for both my parents died while I was young, and when I came of age, my nearest relations were only distant. I never had brother nor sister. When I came to reside on my property the neighbours called, and I returned their calls, and it didn’t go much beyond that. They thought me cold and unfeeling, but they were mistaken. But I must go back and take up my dropped thread. I said there was one man who got hold of my heart. I had a good stout fence of prejudices, and an inner paling of reserve about that heart of mine, but he contrived to climb over both, and get inside. I could have done anything for him, but he did not seem to want anything but my affection; so I thought. He had a sister: well, what shall I say? I’m a poor, weak, old fool; it is all past and gone now. I must go straight on; but it is like ploughing up my heart into a thousand deep furrows with my own hand. But; well, he had a sister; I’ll not tell you her name, nor his either: at least not now. He brought her with him to call on me one day. She had never been in the neighbourhood before, for her brother was only a recent settler in the place. I was charmed with her; the more so because she was so like her brother, so bright and so open; so thoroughly transparent. She beamed upon me like a flood of sunshine, and gilded my cloudy reserve with her own radiance, so that I shone out myself in her company; so they told me, and I believed it. I was young then, you’ll remember. I wasn’t the wrinkled old pilgrim that I am now. We got attached to one another, it would seem, at once; others may fall in love; we leapt into it; I never thought to ask myself whether she loved God. I was content to know that she loved me. I was aware that I had a heart, but at that time I hadn’t learnt that I had a soul. Well, my friend (shall I drop the ‘r,’ and call him ‘fiend’? ’Twould be truer); he did all he could to hasten on our marriage. He did it very quietly, so openly, too. He was so radiant with joy at the thoughts of my coming happiness. ‘She was such a sister,’ he said, ‘she would be such a wife to me.’ I never had any misgivings but once, and then the shadow was but as the passing of a white cloud before summer’s noonday sunshine. I was going from home for a week, but unexpected business detained me for another day. I walked over to my future brother-in-law’s in the afternoon. It was summer time. I went in, as was my habit, by the garden door, and was crossing the lawn, when I heard sounds of wild laughter proceeding from a little summer-house; they were sounds of boisterous and almost idiotic mirth. There was a duet of merriment, in which a male and female each took a part. I hardly knew what I was doing, or whether to go back or advance. As I hesitated, all was hushed. I saw a female figure dart like lightning into the house, and then my friend (I must call him so for want of a better title) came forward, and holding out both his hands to me, said ‘Welcome, welcome, this is an unexpected pleasure. I thought you were far away on your journey before now; my sister and I have been almost dying with laughter over a book lent to us by a friend. I do think I never read anything so irresistibly ludicrous in all my life.’ I hardly knew what to say in reply, I was so completely taken aback. I was turning, however, towards the summer-house in which I just caught a glance of a table with a bottle and glasses on it, when my companion, catching my arm in his, hurried me away to another part of the garden, where, he said, he was going to make some improvements, about which he must have my judgment and suggestions. As we afterwards went into the house, we again passed the summer-house, but the glasses and bottle were gone. We entered into one of the sitting-rooms, and the servant came to tell us that her mistress had just been sent for to see a poor sick cottager, who wanted her immediately. This led her brother to break out into raptures about his sister’s benevolence, self-denial, and charity! Indeed, I never heard him so eloquent on any subject before. I left, however, in a little while, for he seemed unnaturally restless and excited during my stay, and a cloud lowered upon me all the way home, but it had melted away by the next morning. But I must hasten on. We were married soon after this, and I settled a handsome allowance on my wife for her own private use. She had no parents living, but had kept house for another brother before she came to reside in our neighbourhood. I wished to suppose myself happy as a married man, but, somehow or other, I was not. My wife made large professions of affection, but, spite of myself, I mistrusted them. Her brother, too, seldom came now to see me, unless he had some private business with his sister; and they were often closeted together alone for an hour or more. Then she would come out to me, radiant with smiles, and full of excitement; and her brother would rattle on, hurrying from one topic to another, so as to leave me no power to collect my thoughts, or shape any questions which I was anxious to ask him. I am given to trust, as I have told you, and ever shall be, if I live to be a dozen centuries old. Still, I couldn’t help having my doubts, my grievous doubts. Well, one morning, my brother-in-law called; he seemed agitated, and in much distress, saying that he must give up his house and join his brother, with whom he was in partnership; as he found his presence was required for the investigation, and, he feared it might be, the winding-up of their affairs. I pitied him, and offered him help. He refused it almost with indignation, but I pressed it, and he accepted a loan, merely as a loan, he said, of a thousand pounds, for which I gave him a cheque on the spot. With tears in his eyes, and a warm pressure of the hand, he was gone. I never saw him again. A few mornings after this; it was about six months after we were married; my wife and I were sitting at breakfast when she threw a paper to me across the table, saying, ‘I suppose you’ll see to that.’ It was a bill for a considerable amount, contracted by herself before our marriage, and for articles which were certainly no part of a lady’s toilet or wardrobe, nor could be of any possible use to one of her sex. I was astonished; but she treated the matter very coolly, or appeared to do so. When I asked for an explanation, she avoided my eye, and turned the matter off; and when I pressed her on the subject, she said, ‘Well, it is no use my entering into explanations now; you’ll find it all right.’ I was greatly disturbed, for there was something in her manner that showed me she was ill at ease, though she endeavoured to wear a nonchalant air. There was a wild light, too, in her eyes, which distressed and almost alarmed me, and a suspicion came over me which almost made me faint. She left the breakfast table abruptly, and I saw no more of her till luncheon time; but when I went to my library, I found a packet on my table which I had not noticed there before. I opened it; it was full of unpaid bills, all made out to my wife in her maiden name, and most, indeed nearly all of them, for articles unsuited for female use. A horrible suspicion flashed across my mind. Could it possibly be that these were her brother’s debts: that he had got these articles in her name, and had had the bills sent in to her? And could it be that brother and sister had been in league together, and that he with all his assumption of openness and candour and large-heartedness, had entrapped me into this marriage that I might liquidate the debts of an abandoned and reckless profligate? And could it be, farther, (madden ing thought!) that the whole extravagance was not his, and that numerous unpaid accounts for wine and spirits were, partly, for what she had taken as well as her brother? Then I thought of the scene in the garden, of the wild laughter, of her sudden disappearance, of the signs of drinking in the summer-house. Oh! My heart turned sick; was I tricked, deceived, ruined in my peace for ever? I paced up and down my library, more like a lunatic than a sane man. Luncheon time came: we met: she threw herself into my arms, and wept and laughed and implored; but I felt that a drunkard was embracing me, and I flung her from me, and rushed out of the house. O misery! Whither should I go, what should I do? It was all too true: her brother was the basest of men: she did love him, I believe, it was the only unselfish thing about her. Well, I had to go back home; home! Vilest of names to me then! ‘home, bitter home!’ And yet I loved that poor guilty, fallen creature. There was a terrible light in her eyes as we sat opposite one another at dinner. We had to play a part before the footman. Oh! What a dreadful meal that was! I seemed to be feeding on ashes, and drinking wormwood. I felt as if every morsel would choke me. We spoke to one another in measured terms. Would the miserable farce of a dinner never be over? It came to an end at last. And then she came to me trembling and penitent, and, laying her head on my shoulder, wept till tears would fall no longer. She was sober then; she had taken nothing but water at dinner. She unburdened her heart to me (so I thought), and confessed all. She told me how she and her brother had been brought up, as children, in habits of self-indulgence, especially in having free access to the wine and spirits. She told me that she and her unworthy brother had been all in all to one another, that gambling and drink had brought him into difficulties, and that she had allowed him to run up accounts in her name. She declared that he really loved and valued me, and that the thought of hurrying on our marriage for any selfish object, was quite a recent idea, suggested by distress under pecuniary embarrassment. She asserted passionately that she truly loved me; she implored me to overlook the past, and promised, with solemn appeal to Heaven, that she would renounce the drink from that hour, and give me no more uneasiness. Ay, she promised; a drunkard’s promise! Lighter than the lightest gossamer; brittle as the ice of an April morning. I believed her: did she believe herself? I fear not. But the worst was to come, the shadows were deepening, the storm was gathering. A year had passed over our wedded life, when a little girl was given to us. Every cord of my heart that had been untwined or slackened of late wound itself fast round that blessed little one.”