The Yellow Flag: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

by Edmund Yates

The contents of the desk were two packets of letters, one large, one small, each tied round with faded ribbon, two or three loose sheets of blotting-paper, an old diary, and an account-book. Pauline took the larger packet in her hand, and untied the string. The letters slipped asunder: they were all written in the same hand, all addressed to 'Miss Durham, care of J. Preston, Esquire, Heslington-road, York.'

'Miss Durham!' A mist seemed to come over Pauline's sight, and she rubbed her eyes quickly to clear it away. Miss Durham! And A. D. on the lid of the desk? Good Heaven! had all the anguish of mind which she had endured, all the jealousy and rage, all the plotting and planning which she had carried on for the last few months, had all these sprung from an unfounded suspicion, from an absurd creation of her own distorted fancy? Miss Durham! There it was plain enough, in a hand that Pauline recognised as Mr. Calverley's. The letters were those addressed by him to Alice before their marriage, were signed 'John Claxton,' and were so bright and buoyant, so full of affectionate enthusiasm, that Pauline could scarcely imagine they were the productions of the staid, grave man whom she had known. Miss Durham! What could it mean? Stay! There was the other packet. In an instant that was undone, and Pauline had seized from it one of the letters. And then there was no more to learn, for at a glance she saw that they were in her husband's handwriting, that they were addressed to his 'Dearest Alice,' by her 'Loving brother, Tom.'

The paper dropped from Pauline's hand to the floor, and she sank into her chair with something like a sense of shame upon her. It was then as she had just thought. She had been frightened, as it were, by her own shadow, had herself created the bugbear before which she had fled, or against which she had fought; she had been befooled by her own suspicions, and her foolish fancy had allowed her to be jealous of Tom's sister.

Tom's sister! The pale-faced girl lying there, sleeping on so peacefully and unconsciously, was Tom's sister. How could she be supposed to have guessed that? She had seen the girl in Tom's embrace, had seen her bathed in tears and inconsolable at Tom's departure; how could she know that this was his sister, of whose existence she had never been informed?

Why had Tom never taken her into his confidence on that point? Why had he never told her that he had a sister of whom he was so fond? Why? And a fierce pang of anger shot through her, and her face drew dark and hard as the reply rose in her mind. She knew the reason well enough--it was because her husband was ashamed of her; ashamed of the unscrupulousness, of the underhand ways, which he was ready enough to use and to call into play when they could be of service to him; because he thought her not good enough to associate with his gentle, womanly, silly little sister, or to appreciate the stupid comfort of the narrow proprieties of her home. Her home! What if Tom could see that home now, and could know the truth about his sister, as she lay there, with no name, no home, no position, a person for her, his distrusted wife, to patronise and befriend if she chose!

So this was the trust he had placed in her, his wife, his ally, his colleague, of whose fertile brain and ready hand he had so often boasted. This one honest honourable association (as he had imagined it) he had kept hidden from her. And as this thought germinated and broadened in Pauline's mind her feelings passed into a new channel. She who had been her husband's adviser so long, and who had served him so well; she who had fondly imagined herself the trusted confidante and sharer of his inmost thoughts, now found that she had been slighted and considered not worthy to associate with this innocent piece of prettiness. The strange nature of the woman was roused to deadly retrospective anger, and the kindly contemptuous liking which she had begun to feel for Alice faded away.

This pale-faced sleeping girl was her successful rival, though not in the manner she had at first supposed. She had felt an instinctive hatred of her when she saw her on the platform at Southampton, and her instinct never betrayed her. Tom Durham's sister! Pauline remembered that when her husband spoke of his early days, and the inmates of his home, it was always with a softened voice and manner, and with a certain implied respect, as though he were scarcely fitted, through his present surroundings and mode of life, even to mention so sacred a subject. This pale-faced girl had been one of those associations; she was too pure and too innocent, forsooth, to be mixed up with such society as her brother's wife was forced to keep. She, when she recovered her consciousness, would find herself a mark for the finger of scorn, a text for the Pharisee, a pariah, and an outcast.

And so that weak, clinging, brainless thing was Tom Durham's sister, and preferred by him to his wife, with her grasp of mind and energy of purpose? The wife was to slave with him, and for him, to do the rough work, to be sent off here and there, travelling night and day, to lie to such a woman, to flatter such a man, to be always vigilant and patient, and to be punished with black looks, and sometimes with curses, if anything went wrong; while from the sister all difficulties and dangers were to be fended off, she was to be lapped in luxury, and her simplicity and innocence were to be as strictly guarded as though she had been a demoiselle in a convent.

Well, Pauline thought, the new phase of circumstances need not cause much alteration in the line of conduct she had marked out for herself. The girl lying there was to her in a different position from what she had imagined. So far as she was concerned, there was no question of revenge now, but it would be as well to keep watch over her, and use her as a tool if occasion should arise. The interest which Martin Gurwood felt in Alice would induce him to keep up his acquaintance with her, and to be en rapport with Martin Gurwood was Pauline's fixed intention. Over him she had obtained a strong influence, which she did not intend to give up, while the knowledge that she continued to be acquainted with all that was going on would deprive Martin, or those friends of his of whom he thought so much--this Mr. Statham for instance--from attempting to interfere with the exercise of her power over Mrs. Calverley.

And now, for the first time since she had waited for her husband at the Lymington station, Pauline began to believe that the conjecture which she had seen printed in the newspapers had some foundation, and that Tom Durham was really dead. Hitherto she had imagined that he had deceived her, as he had deceived the rest of the world; that the tale which he told her of his intention to dive from the steamer at night, to swim to the shore, and to meet her the next morning, had been merely trumped up in order to turn her off the scent, and to prevent her from tracing him in his flight with the woman of whom he had taken such an affectionate farewell at the Southampton railway station. But the identity of that woman with Alice Claxton being now settled, and it being made perfectly clear that she was Tom Durham's sister, all motive for that worthy's concealment of himself was done away with. There was no reason, so far as Pauline knew, why her husband should not acquaint her with his whereabouts, while there was every reason to believe that, were he on the face of the earth, he would make himself known, if it were only for the sake of reclaiming his two thousand pounds. He must have been drowned, she thought, his strength must have failed him, and he must have gone down when almost within reach of the shore, to which he was hastening. Drowned, dead, lost to her for ever! Not lost as she had once imagined him, seduced by the wiles and fascinations of another woman into temporary forgetfulness of her, for then there was a chance, and more than a chance, almost a certainty, that when those wiles and fascinations ceased to charm he would miss the clear brain and the ready hand on which he had so long relied, and come back to claim their aid once more--not lost in that way, but totally lost, drowned, dead, passed away for ever.