The Small House at Allington
said about L. D. Of course, you will be glad to see the
friends of your childhood; and it would be far from your
Amelia's heart to begrudge you such delightful pleasure.
Your friends will, I hope, some day be my friends.
[Another crunch.] And if there be any one among them, any
real L. D. whom you have specially liked, I will receive
her to my heart, specially also.
This assurance on the part of his Amelia was too much for him,
and he threw the letter from him, thinking whence he might get
relief--whether from suicide or from the colonies; but presently he
took it up again, and drained the bitter cup to the bottom.
And if I seemed petulant to you before you went away, you
must forgive your own Amelia. I had nothing before me but
misery for the month of your absence. There is no one here
congenial to my feelings,--of course not. And you would
not wish me to be happy in your absence,--would you? I can
assure you, let your wishes be what they may, I never can
be happy again unless you are with me. Write to me one
little line, and tell me that you are grateful to me for
my devotion.
And now, I must tell you that we have had a sad affair in
the house; and I do not think that your friend Mr. Cradell
has behaved at all well. You remember how he has been
always going on with Mrs. Lupex. Mother was quite unhappy
about it, though she didn't like to say anything. Of
course, when a lady's name is concerned, it is particular.
But Lupex has become dreadful jealous during the last
week; and we all knew that something was coming. She is
an artful woman, but I don't think she meant anything
bad--only to drive her husband to desperation. He came
here yesterday in one of his tantrums, and wanted to see
Cradell; but he got frightened, and took his hat and went
off. Now, that wasn't quite right. If he was innocent,
why didn't he stand his ground and explain the mistake?
As mother says, it gives the house such a name. Lupex
swore last night that he'd be off to the Income-tax
Office this morning, and have Cradell out before all the
commissioners, and clerks, and everybody. If he does
that, it will get into the papers, and all London will be
full of it. She would like it, I know; for all she cares
for is to be talked about; but only think what it will
be for mother's house. I wish you were here; for your
high prudence and courage would set everything right at
once,--at least, I think so.
I shall count the minutes till I get an answer to this,
and shall envy the postman who will have your letter
before it will reach me. Do write at once. If I do not
hear by Monday morning I shall think that something is the
matter. Even though you are among your dear old friends,
surely you can find a moment to write to your own Amelia.
Mother is very unhappy about this affair of the Lupexes.
She says that if you were here to advise her she should
not mind it so much. It is very hard upon her, for she
does strive to make the house respectable and comfortable
for everybody. I would send my duty and love to your dear
mamma, if I only knew her, as I hope I shall do one day,
and to your sister, and to L. D. also, if you like to tell
her how we are situated together. So, now, no more from
your
Always affectionate sweetheart,
AMELIA ROPER.
Poor Eames did not feel the least gratified by any part of this fond
letter; but the last paragraph of it was the worst. Was it to be
endured by him that this woman should send her love to his mother
and to his sister, and even to Lily Dale! He felt that there was a
pollution in the very mention of Lily's name by such an one as Amelia
Roper. And yet Amelia Roper was, as she had assured him,--his own.
Much as he disliked her at the present moment, he did believe that he
was--her own. He did feel that she had obtained a certain property
in him, and that his destiny in life would tie him to her. He had
said very few words of love to her at any time--very few, at least,
that were themselves of any moment; but among those few there had
undoubtedly been one or two in which he had told her that he loved
her. And he had written to her that fatal note! Upon the whole, would
it not be as well for him to go out to the great reservoir behind
Guestwick, by which the Hamersham Canal was fed with its waters, and
put an end to his miserable existence?
On that same day he did write a letter to Fisher, and he wrote also
to Cradell. As to those letters he felt no difficulty. To Fisher he
declared his belief that Cradell was innocent as he was himself as
regarded Mrs. Lupex. "I don't think he is the sort of man to make
up to a married woman," he said, somewhat to Cradell's displeasure,
when the letter reached the Income-tax Office; for that gentleman
was not averse to the reputation for success in love which the
little adventure was, as he thought, calculated to give him among
his brother clerks. At the first bursting of the shell, when that
desperately jealous man was raging in the parlour, incensed by the
fumes both of wine and love, Cradell had felt that the affair was
disagreeably painful. But on the morning of the third day--for he had
passed two nights on his friend Fisher's sofa--he had begun to be
somewhat proud of it, and did not dislike to hear Mrs. Lupex's name
in the mouths of the other clerks. When, therefore, Fisher read
to him the letter from Guestwick, he hardly was pleased with his
friend's tone. "Ha, ha, ha," said he, laughing. "That's just what I
wanted him to say. Make up to a married woman, indeed. No; I'm the
last man in London to do that sort of thing."
"Upon my word, Caudle, I think you are," said Fisher; "the very last
man."
And then poor Cradell was not happy. On that afternoon he boldly went
to Burton Crescent, and ate his dinner there. Neither Mr. nor Mrs.
Lupex were to be seen, nor were their names mentioned to him by Mrs.
Roper. In the course of the evening he did pluck up courage to ask
Miss Spruce where they were; but that ancient lady merely shook her
head solemnly, and declared that she knew nothing about such goings
on--no, not she.
But what was John Eames to do as to that letter from Amelia Roper? He
felt that any answer to it would be very dangerous, and yet that he
could not safely leave it unanswered. He walked off by himself across
Guestwick Common, and through the woods of Guestwick Manor, up by the
big avenue of elms in Lord De Guest's park, trying to resolve how he
might rescue himself from this scrape. Here, over the same ground,
he had wandered scores of times in his earlier years, when he knew
nothing beyond the innocency of his country home, thinking of Lily
Dale, and swearing to himself that she should be his wife. Here he
had strung together his rhymes, and fed his ambition with high hopes,
building gorgeous castles in the air, in all of which Lilian reigned
as a queen; and though in those days he had known himself to be
awkward, poor, uncared for by any in the world except his mother and
his sister, yet he had been happy in his hopes--happy in his hopes,
even though he had never taught himself really to believe that they
would be realized. But now there was nothing in his hopes or thoughts
to make him happy. Everything was black, and wretched, and ruinous.
What would it matter, after all, even if he should marry Amelia
Roper, seeing that Lily was to be given to another? But then the idea
of Amelia as he had seen her that night through the chink in the door
came upon his memory, and he confessed to himself that life with such
a wife as that would be a living death.
At one moment he thought that he would tell his mother everything,
and leave her to write an answer to Amelia's letter. Should the worst
come to the worst, the Ropers could not absolutely destroy him. That
they could bring an action against him, and have him locked up for a
term of years, and dismissed from his office, and exposed in all the
newspapers, he seemed to know. That might all, however, be endured,
if only the gauntlet could be thrown down for him by some one else.
The one thing which he felt that he could not do was, to write to
a girl whom he had professed to love, and tell her that he did not
love her. He knew that he could not himself form such words upon the
paper; nor, as he was well aware, could he himself find the courage
to tell her to her face that he had changed his mind. He knew that
he must become the victim of his Amelia, unless he could find some
friendly knight to do battle in his favour; and then again he thought
of his mother.
But when he returned home he was as far as ever from any resolve to
tell her how he was situated. I may say that his walk had done him no
good, and that he had not made up his mind to anything. He had been
building those pernicious castles in the air during more than half
the time; not castles in the building of which he could make himself
happy, as he had done in the old days, but black castles, with cruel
dungeons, into which hardly a ray of light could find its way. In all
these edifices his imagination pictured to him Lily as the wife of
Mr. Crosbie. He accepted that as a fact, and then went to work in his
misery, making her as wretched as himself, through the misconduct
and harshness of her husband. He tried to think, and to resolve what
he would do; but there is no task so hard as that of thinking, when
the mind has an objection to the matter brought before it. The mind,
under such circumstances, is like a horse that is brought to the
water, but refuses to drink. So Johnny returned to his home, still
doubting whether or no he would answer Amelia's letter. And if he did
not answer it, how would he conduct himself on his return to Burton
Crescent?
I need hardly say that Miss Roper, in writing her letter, had been
aware of all this, and that Johnny's position had been carefully
prepared for him by--his affectionate sweetheart.
CHAPTER XI.
SOCIAL LIFE.
Mr. and Mrs. Lupex had eaten a sweetbread together in much connubial
bliss on that day which had seen Cradell returning to Mrs. Roper's
hospitable board. They had together eaten a sweetbread, with
some other delicacies of the season, in the neighbourhood of the
theatre, and had washed down all unkindness with bitter beer and
brandy-and-water. But of this reconciliation Cradell had not heard;
and when he saw them come together into the drawing-room, a few
minutes after the question he had addressed to Miss Spruce, he was
certainly surprised.
Lupex was not an ill-natured man, nor one naturally savage by
disposition. He was a man fond of sweetbread and little dinners, and
one to whom hot brandy-and-water was too dear. Had the wife of his
bosom been a good helpmate to him, he might have gone through the
world, if not respectably, at any rate without open disgrace. But
she was a woman who left a man no solace except that to be found in
brandy-and-water. For eight years they had been man and wife; and
sometimes--I grieve to say it--he had been driven almost to hope
that she would commit a married woman's last sin, and leave him. In
his misery, any mode of escape would have been welcome to him. Had
his energy been sufficient he would have taken his scene-painting
capabilities off to Australia,--or to the farthest shifting of
scenes known on the world's stage. But he was an easy, listless,
self-indulgent man; and at any moment, let his misery be as keen
as might be, a little dinner, a few soft words, and a glass of
brandy-and-water would bring him round. The second glass would make
him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him