Despair's Last Journey

by David Christie Murray

From this time forward the voyage was like a happy dream. Suez and Naples and Gibraltar were full of interest and wonder to the untravelled Madge, and the Mediterranean was smooth as a pond through all the lovely days and nights of the European spring. The Bay of Biscay so far belied its stormy reputation that there was scarcely a heave upon its surface, and at last the shores of England came in sight, sacred and beautiful to the eyes of a girl born and bred in the Colonies. Then came Tilbury, and at Tilbury brother George was waiting to bid his sisters welcome.

Paul was happy and content enough to be in the mood to like anybody and everybody, and an inward suggestion that he was not favourably impressed with brother George presented itself only to be discounted and ignominiously turned out of doors at once. As Tennyson has said, ‘It is not true that second thoughts are best, but first and third, which are a riper first.’ Brother George was undeniably good-looking after his fashion. He was well set up and a little over the middle height. He was very perfectly groomed, and had very fine, regular, white teeth which he was a little too fond of showing in a rather mechanical smile. His eyes were rather too closely set either for beauty or for character, and his manner was a trifle over-suave.

Bill, who had been promoted after her own desires, fell upon him like an avalanche, and being at first unrecognised in her aspect of grown-up young lady, embarrassed brother George considerably. But there was such a laugh at this as set all four in high spirits, and there were so many questions and answers that the time of waiting for the train passed in a flash.

The quartette lunched together at a restaurant in town, and brother George carried off his sisters to the apartments he had secured for them in the house in which he lodged. But before he went a little episode, which was afterwards renewed in various forms until it grew monotonous, occurred. Brother George naturally played the host at the restaurant, and spread a generous and delicate feast, but on the presentation of the bill was struck through with chagrin at the discovery that he had lost his purse. That he had brought it from home was beyond cavil in his mind, for had he not paid his cab-fare and the other expenses from it? It was an awkward beginning of an acquaintance, as he allowed with an embarrassed smile, but if Mr. Armstrong would be his banker for a day—— Mr. Armstrong was happy enough to be willing to be any man’s banker at that moment, and brother George borrowed a ten-pound note with many expressions of regret and obligation. He forgot this little transaction so completely, that it was not so much as mentioned for a year or two; but brother George gave clear proof later on that he was not the man to leave unworked any social patch which at the first stroke of the hoe would yield so promising a little harvest, and first and last quite a handsome income in a small way accrued to brother George at the expense of brother George’s sister’s lover.

It is not when a man is happy, and the errors of his life have not yet yielded their inevitable crop of suffering, that conscience bestirs itself. Things went smoothly with Paul Armstrong. His plays prospered and yielded rich returns. A volume of verses gave him something more than the reputation of the average minor poet There was no more popular man at his clubs than he, and, if he had cared for it, he might have been something of a social lion. As it was, he met many notable people on terms of intimacy, and reckoned himself as rich in friendships as any man alive; and, when the six months’ probation was over, he and Madge went quietly away together to spend in Paris a honeymoon which had not been consecrated by any rite of the Church, and entered upon a wedded life which was not even sanctioned by the registrar. Madge became informally Mrs. Paul Armstrong, and, under that style and title, was introduced to a dozen of Paul’s intimates who were in no doubt as to the facts of the case, and to hundreds of other people who accepted the pretence without a thought of inquiry. The whole family lived together—Madge and her mother, Bill and brother George—and things went smoothly for two or three prosperous and happy years. In mere prosperity and happiness there is little to record, but the heart of the Exile in the mountains yearned over that vanished time in a bitter and unavailing regret. How sweet it had been! With how tender a gradation the first passion of delight in possession had softened into friendship, and the calm love of happily wedded people, and the delicious intimate camaraderie which springs of the unbroken companionship of board and bed, and the sharing of every little confidence of life!

The past was obliterated; it was wiped out as cleanly as if it had been written on a slate, and a wet sponge had been passed over it. Practically it was forgotten, but the obliterated record sprang to light again with an unlooked-for, dreadful swiftness.

Bill by this time had developed into Miss Hampton, and was a grown-up young lady in real earnest, with lovers by the dozen. She and Paul were chums, and she had no secrets from him. Her face alone was bright enough to have made sunshine in any house; but it happened one day that Paul, returning from rehearsal, found it blank with astonishment and pain. She had evidently been waiting and listening for him; for at the instant at which his latch-key clicked in the lock, she threw the hall-door open, and, as he entered, closed it silently, almost stealthily, behind him. Then, with her hand upon his shoulder, she led him to his study—the plainly furnished little workshop which looked out on the trim suburban garden. This was the room in which he had spent the richest and most prosperous hours of the only tranquil years he had known, and it was here that he was fated to meet the death-blow to his happiness.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked—‘what has happened? Where is Madge?’

‘She is in her own room,’ Phyllis answered, her eyes wide with terror, and her pretty Australian roses all vanished from her cheeks. ‘Mother and she have locked themselves in together, and Madge is crying her heart out Oh, Paul, Paul,’ she cried, clasping her hands, ‘what have you done?’

With that she broke into sudden weeping, and Paul stood amazed, with a chill terror, as yet unrecognised, clutching at his heart.