Only a clod
his poor little wife’s hand through his arm, just nodded to me and
mother, and walked off to the cab without a word, leaving me and mother
in the registrar’s office. The registrar was full of praises of the
gentleman’s generosity, and said he’d like to tie up a half-a-dozen such
couples every week; but mother was regularly cross about that
twenty-pound note, and went on about it all the way home, saying that
Mr. Lesley had ground her down close enough about the rent for these
rooms, and needn’t go showing off his generosity to strange registers.”
“And my cousin Susan went to Paris?”
“Yes, but only for a fortnight, and we was to keep the apartments for
her, which we did; and at the end of a fortnight she came back, dressed
beautiful, and with all sorts of lovely things in her boxes, and she was
looking so well and so happy, and anybody would have thought she was the
luckiest woman in the world. But mother, she used to shake her head
about it, and say she never knew those secret sort of marriages to come
to any good, because when a gentleman begins by not wanting to own his
wife, he’s very apt to end by wishing he hadn’t married her. But mother
always looks at the black side of things, whether it’s taxes, or whether
it’s lodgers, or whatever it is; so I didn’t take much notice. Mrs.
Lesley seemed very happy; and Mr. Lesley, for the first week or so, he
stopped at home a great deal, and scarcely ever went out, except to take
his wife out to dine, or to a theatre, or something of that kind; and
they really seemed the happiest couple that ever was; but by-and-by Mr.
Lesley went away,--to college, his wife told me; and I shall never
forget how she cried, poor thing, the night he left her, and how lonely
she looked sitting in this room, where they’d been so happy together,
with their little oyster-suppers after the theatre, and everything that
heart could wish. She’d got some books that he’d left behind him spread
out before her on the table, and she was turning one of them over when I
went in to see her.
“‘They’re very hard to understand, Miss Banks,’ she said; ‘but I try to
read them, because I want to be clever, and able to talk to Robert when
he comes home.’
“After this she was almost always reading, poor little thing, and she’d
sit in this room for days and days together; for she didn’t like to go
out alone, and mother does drive and worry so, that it wasn’t often I
could get out with her. Mr. Lesley was to be away three months, she told
me; and I’m sure that poor thing used to count the hours and minutes
almost, wishing the time to go: but when the three months was up, there
was no Mr. Lesley; he was going fishing, somewhere in Wales, with some
grand friends she told me, and wouldn’t be home till the next vacation.
I never saw any one so cut up as she was by the disappointment, though
she wouldn’t talk about it; only I could see every morning by her face,
that she’d been lying awake half the night, crying her poor eyes out.”
“Poor girl, poor girl!” murmured Francis Tredethlyn.
This all-absorbing passion called love was a sorrowful thing, then, he
thought, let it come to whom it would--a one-sided frenzy, a perpetual
sacrifice, a self-imposed immolation.
“Pray tell me all you can about my cousin,” he said to Miss Banks. “You
cannot imagine how anxious I am to hear of her.”
“I’m sure she and me was always the best of friends,” answered the fair
Jemima, with a touch of diplomacy; “and if you _did_ think of taking the
apartments, me and mother would do all in our power to make you
comfortable, if it was only on Mrs. Lesley’s account; for she was one of
the sweetest young creatures I ever knew. She stayed with us three weeks
before she was married; and I never shall forget her pretty face the day
she first came up from the country after the lodgings had been took for
her.”
“Mr. Lesley engaged the lodgings, I suppose?”
“No, it was Mr. Lesley’s brother.”
“Oh, he had a brother, then?”
“Yes, his brother was something in the law, I think--a very nice
gentleman, and almost the living image of Mr. Lesley himself.”
“Can you give me a description of Mr. Lesley? I never saw him, and I
want very much to know what kind of man he is.”
Miss Banks hesitated for some moments.
“It’s so difficult to give an exact description of any one,” she said.
“Mr. Lesley was a tall, handsome-looking man, with fair hair and blue
eyes. I don’t think I could describe him any nearer than that.”
Francis Tredethlyn sighed. There are so many tall, handsome-looking men
with fair hair and blue eyes! and it is chiefly in melodrama that people
go about the world conveniently marked with a strawberry or a coronet.
“Answer me one question,” said Francis, eagerly, “before you tell me the
rest of my cousin’s history. Do you know where she is now?”
Miss Banks shook her head, and sighed despondently.
“No more than you do, sir,” she exclaimed. “It’s two years and a half
ago since I set eyes upon Mrs. Lesley, and I don’t know no more than the
dead what’s become of her since.”
“Then she’s as much lost to me to-day as she was yesterday,” said
Francis, sadly. “But you can at least tell me all you know of my poor
cousin. It may help me to some clue by which to find her.”
Jemima was evidently a good-natured girl. She begged Mr. Tredethlyn to
be seated, and placed herself opposite to him.
“I’ll call mother if you like,” she said; “but I think I can tell you
more about Mrs. Lesley; mother is such a one to wander, and when one’s
anxious to know anything quick, it don’t do to have to deal with a
person whose mind’s always harping upon lodgers and their ways. Of
course everybody knows lodgers are tiresome, and nobody lets apartments
for pleasure, and nobody would pay taxes if they could help it, and
poor-rates are not expected to raise people’s spirits; but if facts are
disagreeable, that’s no reason you should have them cropping up
promiscuous in every style of conversation. Till now it used to be a
relief to me to come and sit with Mrs. Lesley of an evening, and hear
_her_ troubles, if it was only for the sake of a change.”
“I thank you heartily for having been good to my cousin,” Francis said,
earnestly. He was thinking that he would drop into a jeweller’s shop on
his way homeward, and choose the handsomest diamond ring in the man’s
stock for Miss Jemima Banks.
“I don’t know as I deserve any thanks, sir,” answered the girl. “I
couldn’t help taking to Mrs. Lesley, and I couldn’t help feeling for her
when I saw her so solitary and so sad. Months and months went by before
her husband came back to her; and when he did come her baby was born,
and there was the cradle in the corner just by where you’re sitting, and
she seemed as if she couldn’t make enough of the child.”
“A child!” murmured Francis. “Mrs. Burfield never told me of the child.”
“But Mr. Lesley, he didn’t seem so wrapped up in the baby as she did,”
continued Miss Banks; “and I used to fancy she saw it, and fretted about
it. He couldn’t take her out to dinner anywhere this time, nor yet to
the theatre, on account of the child. She asked him once to take her for
a drive somewhere in the country, and to take the child with them; but
he laughed at her, and said, ‘I don’t think there’s a pleasanter sight
in creation than an estimable mechanic in his Sunday clothes, with three
children in a wicker chaise, and a fourth in arms; but don’t you think
we may as well leave that sort of thing to the mechanic, Susy? the poor
fellow has so few chances of distinguishing himself.’ That was just the
sort of speech Mr. Lesley was always making, half laughing, half
scornful; he was always going on in a sneering way about the baby, and
her being so fond of it, and devoting herself so much to it; and
sometimes one of those nasty speeches of his would set his wife off
crying, for her health wasn’t very strong just then, and any little
thing would upset her. And then he’d look at her with a hard, cruel look
that he’d got sometimes, and throw his book into a corner, and get up
and walk out of the house, banging the door to that degree that mother
would be unnerved for the rest of the evening. Mr. Lesley took to
stopping out very late this time, and used to let himself in with a
latch-key, long after me and mother had gone to bed; but I know that
Susan used to sit up for him, and I know that he used to be angry with
her for doing it; for Woolcote Villas are slight-built, and I’ve heard
him talking to her as I lay awake overhead. He was at home for some
months this time off and on,--but he’d be away for days together,--and
when he was at home he had a tired way like, that made me feel
uncomfortable somehow to see him. He was always yawning, and smoking,
and sitting over his books, or lying asleep upon the sofa; and I’m sure
if I’d been Mrs. Lesley, I should have been very glad when he took
himself off. But, Lor’ bless your heart! poor little thing, she fretted
about his going away, just as if he’d been the kindest of husbands. He
wasn’t going back to college any more; he was going to Germany this
time. I know she wanted to go with him, poor, tender-hearted thing; and
I heard her say to him, so pitiful like, once, ‘Oh, Robert, what will
become of me when you are gone! If you would only take me!’ But he only
laughed at her, and cried out, ‘What! abandon the baby?’ So at last the
time came for him to go, and his poor wife got paler and paler every
day, till I’m sure she looked like a living corpse walking about the
house,” said Miss Banks, unconsciously paraphrasing Shelley.
“And this man left her?”
“Lor’, yes, what did he care for her looking white and sorrowful? He was
more wrapped up in his new portmanteaus, and travelling-bags, and
dressing-cases, and such-like, than in his wife or his child. He went
off as gay as could be, though he left Mrs. Lesley almost
broken-hearted. And he didn’t leave her too well off either, I know,
though she always paid mother to the moment; but all her pretty dresses
and bonnets that Mr. Lesley had bought her in Paris had grown shabby,
and he hadn’t bought her any new ones. He had so many expenses, she told
me; for she was always making excuses for him like, and pretending that
he was very good to her. Poor dear thing! after he was gone away the
baby was her only comfort; and I’m sure if it hadn’t been for that child
she’d have fretted herself away into the grave. Well, sir, the baby was
four months old when Mr. Lesley went away to Germany, and he was only to
be away three months at the longest, Susan told me: she was very
friendly with me, and I always called her Susan. And she used to count
the days just as she did before; and she’d say to me often how the time
was going, and her husband would soon be back. She used to write him
letters,--such long letters, all full of her talk about the baby, and
his taking notice, and growing, and such-like; but she didn’t have many
letters from him. ‘You see, Jemima, he’s always going from place to
place,’ she said; ‘and then my letters lie at the post-offices where I
direct them, and half the time he doesn’t receive them at all; so I
can’t wonder at not hearing very often from him.’ She used to be so
pleased, poor dear, when a letter did come, though I’m sure they were
short enough, for I’ve seen her open them; but, ah! when the three
months went by, and Mr. Lesley didn’t come back, how dreadfully she did
fret!--always secretly, though; for she didn’t seem to like that anybody
should know her troubles, for fear they should blame him, the brute!
‘He’s going farther north,’ she told me; ‘Germany’s such a big country,
you know, Jemima; and I’m afraid, from what Robert says, he thinks of
going beyond Germany, to St. Petersburg, perhaps. You see, it’s