Dr. Wainwright's Patient: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

[CHAPTER XXV.]

WARNED.

Paul Derinzy had indeed little reason to be satisfied with the treatment which he was experiencing at Daisy's hands; for though there had been nothing approaching to a final rupture between them, the new views of life which had opened upon her since her acquaintance with Colonel Orpington had afforded her a vast amount of matter for reflection. Of course the idea of the position which the Colonel had offered to her was by no means new to the girl's mind. Unhappily, too, the existence of such a position is unknown to a very small minority of innocents; and according to the present constitution of society, such a status is, it is to be feared, regarded by young women in Daisy's walk of life as one rather to be envied than shunned. But up to this time--perhaps partly owing to the severe training which she had received, which had had the effect of making her regard propriety as a sound commercial investment rather than as a duty to her conscience, partly to a real affection which she felt for Paul--she had resolutely refused to entertain any such ideas.

What had changed her? Not any diminution in the affection between her and her lover--not on his part, at least; for no man who did not worship her with all the depth of passion possible in his nature could have suffered so acutely as he did. Had she ceased to love him? No, she thought not; she could scarcely tell--the position was so unsatisfactory; that was all she could say to herself in thinking the matter over. She had not the least doubt that Paul would willingly make her such an offer as that which she had received from the Colonel; but then their circumstances were so different. Though Paul was undoubtedly a gentleman well connected, he was decidedly not rich, she knew that, or he would never have been content to remain in this office which he talked about; and to be rich, free from care, to have command of money and servants and dresses and carriages, that was what her mind was bent on just now. Then Paul would marry her too if she were to press it, she knew that; but what would be the benefit by their marriage? He would gain no more money; she would gain merely the name of a position. She would not be received into his society; and he, finding she was ignored, would either break with his own people and cleave to her, when he would be sulky and bored, always regarding her as the bar to his assumption of his proper status in society; or would give her up, and lead his life among his friends, merely treating her as his housekeeper, and his home as a place to return to when there was no other house to visit.

It would be dull and dreary either way with Paul, the latter condition worse than the former, for then she would be tied, and the bonds would be more difficult to break. And yet she could not bring herself to an open rupture with her lover. He was so kind, so attentive, so delicate, and above all, so passionately devoted to her. It must come, she thought; it would come some time or other, but not just yet. The evil day should be delayed as long as possible. And she had given no answer to Colonel Orpington. She did not mind about that; he was a man of the world, and would not expect one immediately. He would ascribe her delay either to modesty or calculation; under the sway of which of the two he might imagine her to be deliberating was quite indifferent to her.

To only one out of the three men who proposed to pay her their addresses had she conveyed her decision: that one was John Merton. There would be no more trouble with him, she thought. He could not misunderstand her words, and, above all, her manner, during that conversation in the street on her way to the chambers in the Temple. She knew he had not misunderstood it by the abrupt way in which he had taken his departure. Daisy felt a mild kind of pain at having hurt John Merton's feelings, as the details of that interview recurred to her. But, after all, it was better at an end. It was perfectly impossible that she could have led the life which he offered her. In company with him it would have been very respectable and very dull: in her then state of mind, Daisy considered that respectability and dulness generally went together. There would have been a bare sufficiency to live upon at first, and they would have had to have been supported by the hope of thriving on the inevitable progress of honesty, industry, and that kind of twaddle, which she had heard enunciated from pulpits, and seen set forth in the pages of cheap popular periodicals, in which, contrary to her experience of the world, the virtuous people got on wonderfully, besides being preternaturally clean in the woodcuts, while those who drank beer, and abstained from Sunday-afternoon service, were necessarily dirty and poverty-stricken.

It was not in her lodgings in South Molton Street that Daisy sat cogitating over these eventful circumstances, and deliberating as to her future. Madame Clarisse had gone away on business to Paris, and before she left she had requested her assistant to instal herself in the private rooms of the establishment in George Street.

"You will be better there, Fanfan, my child, than in the mansarde where you have been so long. There are certain people--you know who I mean; I need not mention their names--who, I think, would particularly wish it, and it is as well for us to oblige them, particularly when at the same time we do a good thing for ourselves; besides, it is good for the business that I should leave you in charge of it. I will not disguise from you, my dear child, that I do not think of continuing in commerce very much longer. I have had enough of it myself; and though I thought there might be a chance of my giving it up to someone who would comprehend the delicate nuances of the details with which I have surrounded it, and the care and trouble which I have expended upon it, it shall not go to Augustine, or to any of those others who have copied me and my ways over here in this pays barbare. I shall find someone in Paris who would like to come and exploiter her youth and her talent, and also, my faith! her money, amongst the jeunes meess and the robust dames of England; and as for myself, when that is done, Fanfan, I shall be free, and then vogue la galère. Perhaps in those days to come, Fanfan, you will not mind seeing an old friend, who will not be so old but she will understand the life, and how to lead it." And here Madame Clarisse kissed her fingers and waved them in the air with an eminently-suggestive French gesture. "And you will give her a seat in your carriage, and tell her of all the conquests you are making."

And then Madame Clarisse gave Daisy's ear a little pinch, and laughed shrilly, and betook herself to the cold fowl and half bottle of very excellent Bordeaux which constituted her luncheon.

So Madame Clarisse went to Paris, and Daisy was installed in her place. And it was in the cosy little low-ceilinged room that she was seated, gazing at, but certainly not seeing, the furniture in red velvet, the engravings, the nicknacks, and the statuettes by Danton, that all these reflections on the past, and speculations upon the future, passed through her mind.