Jack Chauncey—good chap!—must have thought this from his wife just a wee bit spirited, for, after a pause, he gently drew a herring across the trail.
“By—the—by, dear,” he asked thoughtfully, “what became of that good-looking young widow who came here with her kid and looked so jolly miserable? By Gad! her face has been haunting me ever since. Did you manage anything for her?”
“You mean Mrs Mallandane. She would not take anything. She wanted to work; to earn, not to beg, she said. I have managed to get her some needlework, but, oh, so little, poor thing! And the pay is too dreadful! Now, there is a case in point. A widow, absolutely penniless, with a child of four or five to support. A woman of education and breeding, without a friend in the world, apparently; shunned by everyone—by some on account of her poverty, by others for her good looks and reserve. She certainly is difficult to approach. I have been to her now four times, and it was only on the last occasion that she thawed enough to tell me anything of herself. She has lived for years on what she believed to be the proceeds of her husband’s estate. Until within the last few months she was under this impression. But something happened which made her suspicious, and she found out that the income left by her husband was pure fiction, and that what she had been living on was an allowance from the only real friend she or her husband ever had—the man who was her husband’s partner when he died.”
“Does she say that her husband is dead?” asked Carter, the unfortunate “young man” who had before provoked Mrs Chauncey’s ire.
Carter was very young, and I could see that he had no arrière pensée in asking that question. He did not mean to be impertinent. But I could also see that Mrs Chauncey did not take that view. Her little iced reply finished poor Carter.
“I said that she was a widow, Mr Carter, and I do not care to make another’s misfortunes the subject of an argument.”
I felt sorry for Carter, he was such an ass; and I believe the other two fellows pitied him also; so we did not refer to the subject as we walked home together in the moonlight. That, however, did not suit Carter. After awhile he gave an uncomfortable laugh, and said:
“The little woman was rather down on me to-night about the charity show. I rather put my foot in it, I think.”
“Think!” said Lawton (one of our party), with heavy contempt. “Think! I wonder you claim to be able to think! I never in my life saw anyone make such a blighted idiot of himself!”
“Dash it all, man! give me a chance. The ‘distressed family’ allusion was unlucky, I admit; but I hadn’t the faintest intention of returning to the subject when I asked about the husband. Man alive! Why, the nerve of the Mallandane woman fairly knocked the breath out of me. The cheek of her cramming poor Mrs Chauncey with yarns of her husband’s death and estate, when everyone knows that he isn’t dead at all; that she gave him the slip, and went off with the ‘only friend’—his partner! A man with half his face eaten away by disease. I’ve seen the fellow at the house myself Old Larkin, of the Bank, knew them in Kimberley. They were claim-holders and contractors there and used to bank with him. The firm was Cassidy and Mallandane. I only wonder she continues to call herself Mallandane. It’s a formality she might as well have dispensed with.”