Addie's Husband; or, Through clouds to sunshine
suddenly. Her eyes fall on the upturned address; she springs to her
feet with a cry.
"At last--at last! Quick, Robert, quick--open it, my boy!"
But Robert rises deliberately, his face white and set, walks over to
the fire, and thrusts the unopened letter into the blazing coal. His
aunt stares for a second paralyzed, then rushes forward to snatch it
out; but she is stopped by Robert, whose strong young arms pinion hers
powerless to her side. She struggles fiercely, and then appeals to
Armstrong, who is staring in much astonishment at the extraordinary
scene.
"Tom--Tom Armstrong, save it, save it! For the love of Heaven, save it!
It's from her--from your unfortunate wife! Oh, save it!"
Without a moment's hesitation he thrusts his hand into the fire,
burning himself smartly; but he is too late--all that he rescues is a
quivering sheet that crumbles to ashes in his grasp. Miss Darcy bursts
into tears; she turns to Robert, her voice husky with bitterness and
anger.
"Heaven will punish you--oh, Heaven will punish you, you wicked,
heartless boy, for this morning's deed! Christmas morning, the morning
of peace on earth and love and forgiveness, when that poor wandering
sinner, probably weary of the ways of sin, thought she might reach your
heart of stone--she, Robert Lefroy, who crept to your bedside, when you
were thought to be dying of an infectious fever, and nursed you night
and day! Oh, Heaven will punish you for this!"
"I can not help it," Robert sullenly replies. "I have done this before,
and so has my sister Pauline, and I will do it again and again."
"Leave my house, leave my house, all of you! I will have no feasting
here. This to me is a day of mourning, not of rejoicing. Thomas
Armstrong, you came to me to-day against your will, I know. I thank you
for your goodness in so humoring an old woman; but you may go now. I
will not ask you to come here again. Good-by, good by! You are a just,
generous, and honest man, and have treated me and mine well; but I
wish I had never seen your face. I do not want to see it any more. The
object of my life is taken from me to-day. I have no further motive in
dragging out my weary life, or in struggling to--"
"My dear lady," breaks in Armstrong gently. "There is no reason for
you to take so hopeless a view of the case; the disaster is not
irretrievable. You will probably hear from--from your niece again."
But Miss Darcy, heedless of the interruption, goes on, in whining
soliloquy--
"I loved her, I loved her! She was to me as my own child; her first cry
was uttered in my arms, and I wanted to save her from eternal death,
to bring her here and on her knees to receive your pardon, Thomas
Armstrong, and then to take her away with me to some quiet corner
of the world, where she could live down the memory of her sin and
spend her days in preparation to meet her Judge. But my hope is gone.
Something tells me that we shall never hear of her again, that she will
sink too low for even a voice from heaven to reach her in the mist of
coming death. We shall never hear of her again--never! Go from me now,
all of you; you can say nothing, do nothing, to comfort me. Go and
leave me to my grief!"
They obey her silently. Robert takes his brother back with him to town,
where they dine with some military acquaintances. Lottie spends a merry
evening at the house of a neighboring school-friend, winding up with
snap-dragon and an impromptu dance. Armstrong, returning home to a
solitary dinner, is met at the station by Everard, who carries him off
to Broom Hill, where he is most heartily welcomed by its new mistress,
the late Miss Cicely Deane, who makes a most charming hostess, and
her husband the happiest man in the parish. The whole party from the
rectory spend the day with the bride and bridegroom; and late in the
evening, when the young people are tired of romping and laughing,
Cicely sings some sweet old-fashioned carols breathing of love and
fireside peace, and the music of her rare voice brings to Armstrong's
hardened heart a softening touch; he thinks with gentleness, almost
with pity, of her who has wronged him past retrieval.
But Miss Darcy's forebodings prove true; no other letter comes from
across the sea, and Adelaide's name is not mentioned again.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Two years more go by. The Lefroys, though enjoying both health and
prosperity, are no longer banded together in family union as in days of
yore. Lady Saunderson, whose social engagements are increasing day by
day, is spending the winter and early spring in Rome; Robert is with
his regiment at Sheffield, Hal on board a training-ship at Portsmouth,
and Lottie finishing her education in an advanced collegiate academy in
South Kensington. They are all doing well in the world, and growing out
of the passionate attachment they once had for their old home, which
still remains desolate and untenanted.
One night, Armstrong takes Lottie and a school-friend to the theater.
"You have enjoyed yourself, my dear?" he asks, when he is taking them
home.
"Oh, I don't think I ever enjoyed anything so much in my life before!
Feel my handkerchief, Mr. Armstrong. Wouldn't you think I had soaked
it in a tub of water? And I'm sure Susie Arthur's sobs were quite
heartrending. Oh, we've enjoyed ourselves tremendously."
"It was quite too awfully touching. Thank you so much, Mr. Armstrong,
for bringing us," chimes in the sensitive Miss Arthur.
"I'm so glad we decided on 'Jo,' instead of 'Hamlet.' Shakespeare is
such a grind sometimes; isn't he, Susie? And now, if we knew some kind
friend who would take us to see the Kendals, I think we should die
happy, shouldn't we Susie?"
And Lottie lifts her round bonny face, framed in a white hood,
appealingly to Armstrong, who smiles negatively and turns away his
head. The brougham stops, and with a sigh the two blooming school-girls
descend, and Armstrong drives back to his hotel in Piccadilly, where,
after knocking about a few billiard-balls, he lights a cigar and
strolls out again. This time he unconsciously wends his way eastward,
his mind absorbed in a semi-political, semi-commercial speculation
in which he is much interested, having invested a large sum of money
and allowed his name to appear at the head of the list of directors.
Heedless of time or distance, he walks on, with knitted brow and
absorbed senses, until he is vigorously recalled to reality by a grimy
hand making a snatch at his watch-chain, which, however, he is expert
enough to rescue; but the would-be thief wriggles himself out of his
grasp. On looking round he finds that he has strayed into the back
slums of Shoreditch, into a regular labyrinth of reeking streets, dark
lanes, and courts, from which egress seems almost impossible. He seeks
in vain for a policeman to direct him, makes inquiries right and left,
but receives only slangy, insulting, and sometimes almost threatening
answers. At last he turns to a weather-beaten motherly-looking old lady
presiding over a sugar-stick stall at a corner of a lane, who responds
by throwing her arms protectingly around him, and murmuring words
soothing but tipsy toned.
"Losh yer way, did shye, me love? Mile-En' Road, to b'shure; bring
ye there insh jiffy. Come 'long, come 'long, me lamb! Mile-En'
Road--insh jiffy"--leading him at the same moment to the open door of a
public-house opposite.
He tries laughingly to shake her off; but she clings to him with a
grasp of iron. Being unwilling to use her roughly, he is about to put
his hand into his pocket to purchase freedom, when a sudden drunken
sortie from the house in question hurls them both off the footpath
and effects his purpose. The row soon looks rather alarming, people
crowding from all parts, and the night becomes hideous with shrieks
and imprecations. Armstrong stands by, watching a scene to which he
was well accustomed in his earlier days, until he notices that two
policemen, pluckily trying to restore order, are getting rather badly
handled; then he begins pushing his way to give them help, when an
unexpected backward movement of the crowd obliges him to retreat, and
a woman, who has been feebly struggling to get away, is thrown heavily
against his shoulder, where she lies without movement. He throws his
strong arm around her and plows his way to an open hall door a few
yards further down, where he leans panting for a moment against the
wall.
"Are you hurt?" he asks gently; but, as she makes no answer, he raises
the hanging head, and the dismal yellow light of a gas-jet in the
street outside falls on the face of Adelaide Armstrong--a face livid,
worn, ghastly, from which the bloom and life of youth have fled.
Armstrong does not recognize her in the least; nevertheless he remains
gazing with a startled fascination into the unconscious face until she
opens her heavy eyes and looks straight into his.
"Thomas Armstrong!" she says dreamily.
"Great Heaven," he cries, "is it you?"
He starts back, shaking her from him; she sways, tries to save herself,
and is on the point of falling when he puts out his hand, and she
grasps it feverishly.
"I--I think I must have been crushed a little in the crowd; I feel
faint," she says gaspingly. "Will you--help me up to my room? It is in
the next house to this." Then, seeing that he hesitates, she adds,
with a hard laugh, "You can take a bath--wash off my touch--afterward,
you know."
Gravely he puts out his arm, and they toil slowly and silently up the
rotting evil-smelling stairway to a garret furnished with one chair, a
table, and a litter in one corner, dimly suggesting a bed. She sinks
upon the chair exhausted.
"There is a bit of candle on the table. If you have a match, will you
strike it?"
He obeys her mechanically. When the dismal tallow light reveals the
bare hideousness of the room she leans her arms on the table and looks
full into his stern face with unabashed, and, to him, crime-hardened
glance.
"How well you wear, Thomas Armstrong! How strong and big and full of
life you are! It gives me breath to look at you."
"You are ill?" he says abruptly.
"Ill! Well, I am not exactly in what you call robust health; I haven't
been for many a day. I wish I could get into the consumptive hospital.
A woman on the landing below me, a French-polisher, said she'd try to
get me in when she came back from a job in the country; she has been a
long time away."
"You are alone?"
"Yes; he left me three weeks ago to attend some Newmarket meeting,
and he has not returned since. I suspect he doesn't mean to do so
either, though he has left an old portmanteau in my charge. I--I am not
what you call a cheerful or fascinating companion for any man--am I?
You--you would not like to escort me down Regent Street, would you, Mr.
Armstrong?"
He answers not a word.
"Do you know, I passed my brother Robert Lefroy in the Strand a week
ago. When I uttered his name he sprung off the footpath to avoid my
touch, and jumped into a passing hansom, as if to get out of the very
air I was breathing; he looked almost ill when he saw me. You bore the
shock better; but then you are made of stronger stuff than he, and,
besides, you sprung from the depths into which I have sunk. You are
acclimatized. Won't you sit down? I haven't a second chair; but the
corner of the table near the door will bear your weight."
"Have you no one to help you? Are you destitute?" he asks, bringing out
his words with a jerk.
"He left me seven-and-sixpence when he went away, saying he would be
back in a few days. I have had nothing since; and yet he knew I was
dying and friendless. I wrote to my sister Lady Saunderson when I first
landed, and asked her, for the love of Heaven, for the sake of the same
mother who bore us, to give me help, to let me die somewhere out of