He was not involved past hope of extrication. Before his bills fell due again, Mr. Black would more than probably be able to meet them. The future did not lie shrouded in total darkness before him; but as he had been unreasonably sanguine, so he was now unreasonably depressed. He knew more about business, too, than had formerly been the case; he understood better that there were risks in it as well as certainties—blanks as well as prizes, and he could not blind himself to the truth that Fortune had not hitherto favoured him with so many smiles, as to justify his imagining she would never dishearten him with her frowns.
Besides all this, he was for the first time since his marriage wretched in his home. He could not bear to see his wife’s sorrow—a sorrow in which she gave him no chance of sharing.
The changed, worn face—the eyes heavy with weeping, the weary, unelastic step—the silent grief which found no relief in words—were so many tacit reproaches for the cold selfishness which had kept them apart through the course of the years gone by.
Vaguely it began to dawn upon his understanding that nothing earthly can live for ever—that there is no plant so strong but the keenness of a prolonged frost may kill it; that if men do not enjoy and prize a blessing while it is blooming beside them, the day will surely come when they shall sigh for its fragrance, and its beauty all in vain.
He had neglected his wife’s love in the years when that bright stream flowed through the fields of his existence, nourishing and making green as it poured its treasures on his unthankful heart; and now the fountain gushed no longer; the spring was dried up, the waters made no gladness in the land. Where there had been life, there was lifelessness; where there had been devotion, there was indifference; where there had been championship, there was resentment,—and Arthur did not know how to put the wrong right. He had not strength sufficient in his character to set about winning Heather for the second time—wooing the woman as he had wooed the girl.
She had no idea her husband was in such trouble; she was ignorant of his fears as she had been of his hopes. No one told her Berrie Down was mortgaged—that it must be let, in order to pay the interest—that the Protector was tottering—that trade was wretched, that money was almost an extinct currency.
Mr. Black was the only person, indeed, she ever heard mention financial matters at all, and the words he spoke conveyed very little meaning to her understanding.
“Money,” said that gentleman to Arthur one day when she chanced to be present—“money, what is it like? Can you remember ever having seen the article? The first five-pound note which comes my way, I intend to frame and keep by me, lest I should never behold another. Some people must be laying up for themselves a lot of treasures; but who they can be, puzzles my brain. According to his own account, not a soul I meet has sixpence in his pocket to keep the devil out of it. Do you happen to know any one, Mrs. Dudley, who has money, for I do not? As for me, I am thinking of applying for out-door relief—sending Mrs. B. up to the workhouse for a couple of loaves. We are coming to it, fast as we can run.”
“Some people have money, I suppose,” answered Heather, remembering at that very moment she had a good round sum locked up in one of her drawers—which sum proved a perpetual plague to her—a plague and yet a comfort.
It was not her own, it was trust-money; and how the amount chanced to come into her hands, Heather never told to any one for many a day afterwards—for many and many a long day. And yet there was no particular mystery about the matter. Heather had the money from Mr. Douglas Croft, and it was given to her in this fashion:—