CHAPTER
I
The
man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives
hereafter
depicted--no great man, in any sense, by the way--first had
knowledge
of them on an October evening, in the city of Melchester.
He
had been standing in the Close, vainly endeavouring to gain amid
the
darkness a glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediaeval
architecture
in England, which towered and tapered from the damp and
level
sward in front of him. While he stood
the presence of the
Cathedral
walls was revealed rather by the ear than by the eyes; he
could
not see them, but they reflected sharply a roar of sound which
entered
the Close by a street leading from the city square, and,
falling
upon the building, was flung back upon him.
He
postponed till the morrow his attempt to examine the deserted
edifice,
and turned his attention to the noise.
It was compounded of
steam
barrel-organs, the clanging of gongs, the ringing of hand-
bells,
the clack of rattles, and the undistinguishable shouts of men.
A
lurid light hung in the air in the direction of the tumult.
Thitherward
he went, passing under the arched gateway, along a
straight
street, and into the square.
He
might have searched Europe over for a greater contrast between
juxtaposed
scenes. The spectacle was that of the
eighth chasm of the
Inferno
as to colour and flame, and, as to mirth, a development of
the
Homeric heaven. A smoky glare, of the
complexion of brass-
filings,
ascended from the fiery tongues of innumerable naphtha lamps
affixed
to booths, stalls, and other temporary erections which
crowded
the spacious market-square. In front of
this irradiation
scores
of human figures, more or less in profile, were darting
athwart
and across, up, down, and around, like gnats against a
sunset.
Their
motions were so rhythmical that they seemed to be moved by
machinery. And it presently appeared that they were
moved by
machinery
indeed; the figures being those of the patrons of swings,
see-saws,
flying-leaps, above all of the three steam roundabouts
which
occupied the centre of the position. It
was from the latter
that
the din of steam-organs came.
Throbbing
humanity in full light was, on second thoughts, better than
architecture
in the dark. The young man, lighting a
short pipe, and
putting
his hat on one side and one hand in his pocket, to throw
himself
into harmony with his new environment, drew near to the
largest
and most patronized of the steam circuses, as the roundabouts
were
called by their owners. This was one of
brilliant finish, and
it
was now in full revolution. The musical
instrument around which
and
to whose tones the riders revolved, directed its trumpet-mouths
of
brass upon the young man, and the long plate-glass mirrors set at
angles,
which revolved with the machine, flashed the gyrating
personages
and hobby horses kaleidoscopically into his eyes.
It
could now be seen that he was unlike the majority of the crowd. A
gentlemanly
young fellow, one of the species found in large towns
only,
and London particularly, built on delicate lines, well, though
not
fashionably dressed, he appeared to belong to the professional
class;
he had nothing square or practical about his look, much that
was
curvilinear and sensuous. Indeed, some
would have called him a
man
not altogether typical of the middle-class male of a century
wherein
sordid ambition is the master-passion that seems to be taking
the
time-honoured place of love.
The
revolving figures passed before his eyes with an unexpected and
quiet
grace in a throng whose natural movements did not suggest
gracefulness
or quietude as a rule. By some
contrivance there was
imparted
to each of the hobby-horses a motion which was really the
triumph
and perfection of roundabout inventiveness--a galloping rise
and
fall, so timed that, of each pair of steeds, one was on the
spring
while the other was on the pitch. The
riders were quite
fascinated
by these equine undulations in this most delightful
holiday-game
of our times. There were riders as
young as six, and as
old
as sixty years, with every age between.
At first it was
difficult
to catch a personality, but by and by the observer's eyes
centred
on the prettiest girl out of the several pretty ones
revolving.
It
was not that one with the light frock and light hat whom he had
been
at first attracted by; no, it was the one with the black cape,
grey
skirt, light gloves and--no, not even she, but the one behind
her;
she with the crimson skirt, dark jacket, brown hat and brown
gloves. Unmistakably that was the prettiest girl.
Having
finally selected her, this idle spectator studied her as well
as
he was able during each of her brief transits across his visual
field. She was absolutely unconscious of everything
save the act of
riding: her features were rapt in an ecstatic
dreaminess; for the
moment
she did not know her age or her history or her lineaments,
much
less her troubles. He himself was full
of vague latter-day
glooms
and popular melancholies, and it was a refreshing sensation to
behold
this young thing then and there, absolutely as happy as if she
were
in a Paradise.
Dreading
the moment when the inexorable stoker, grimily lurking
behind
the glittering rococo-work, should decide that this set of
riders
had had their pennyworth, and bring the whole concern of
steam-engine,
horses, mirrors, trumpets, drums, cymbals, and such-
like
to pause and silence, he waited for her every reappearance,
glancing
indifferently over the intervening forms, including the two
plainer
girls, the old woman and child, the two youngsters, the
newly-married
couple, the old man with a clay pipe, the sparkish
youth
with a ring, the young ladies in the chariot, the pair of
journeyman-carpenters,
and others, till his select country beauty
followed
on again in her place. He had never
seen a fairer product
of
nature, and at each round she made a deeper mark in his
sentiments. The stoppage then came, and the sighs of the
riders were
audible.
He
moved round to the place at which he reckoned she would alight;
but
she retained her seat. The empty
saddles began to refill, and
she
plainly was deciding to have another turn.
The young man drew up
to
the side of her steed, and pleasantly asked her if she had enjoyed
her
ride.
'O
yes!' she said, with dancing eyes. 'It
has been quite unlike
anything
I have ever felt in my life before!'
It
was not difficult to fall into conversation with her. Unreserved-
-too
unreserved--by nature, she was not experienced enough to be
reserved
by art, and after a little coaxing she answered his remarks
readily. She had come to live in Melchester from a
village on the
Great
Plain, and this was the first time that she had ever seen a
steam-circus;
she could not understand how such wonderful machines
were
made. She had come to the city on the
invitation of Mrs.
Harnham,
who had taken her into her household to train her as a
servant,
if she showed any aptitude. Mrs.
Harnham was a young lady
who
before she married had been Miss Edith White, living in the
country
near the speaker's cottage; she was now very kind to her
through
knowing her in childhood so well. She
was even taking the
trouble
to educate her. Mrs. Harnham was the
only friend she had in
the
world, and being without children had wished to have her near her
in
preference to anybody else, though she had only lately come;
allowed
her to do almost as she liked, and to have a holiday whenever
she
asked for it. The husband of this kind
young lady was a rich
wine-merchant
of the town, but Mrs. Harnham did not care much about
him. In the daytime you could see the house from
where they were
talking. She, the speaker, liked Melchester better
than the lonely
country,
and she was going to have a new hat for next Sunday that was
to
cost fifteen and ninepence.
Then
she inquired of her acquaintance where he lived, and he told her
in
London, that ancient and smoky city, where everybody lived who
lived
at all, and died because they could not live there. He came
into
Wessex two or three times a year for professional reasons; he
had
arrived from Wintoncester yesterday, and was going on into the
next
county in a day or two. For one thing
he did like the country
better
than the town, and it was because it contained such girls as
herself.
Then
the pleasure-machine started again, and, to the light-hearted
girl,
the figure of the handsome young man, the market-square with
its
lights and crowd, the houses beyond, and the world at large,
began
moving round as before, countermoving in the revolving mirrors
on
her right hand, she being as it were the fixed point in an
undulating,
dazzling, lurid universe, in which loomed forward most
prominently
of all the form of her late interlocutor.
Each time that
she
approached the half of her orbit that lay nearest him they gazed
at
each other with smiles, and with that unmistakable expression
which
means so little at the moment, yet so often leads up to
passion,
heart-ache, union, disunion, devotion, overpopulation,
drudgery,
content, resignation, despair.
When
the horses slowed anew he stepped to her side and proposed
another
heat. 'Hang the expense for once,' he
said. 'I'll pay!'
She
laughed till the tears came.
'Why
do you laugh, dear?' said he.
'Because--you
are so genteel that you must have plenty of money, and
only
say that for fun!' she returned.
'Ha-ha!'
laughed the young man in unison, and gallantly producing his
money
she was enabled to whirl on again.
As
he stood smiling there in the motley crowd, with his pipe in his
hand,
and clad in the rough pea-jacket and wideawake that he had put
on
for his stroll, who would have supposed him to be Charles Bradford
Raye,
Esquire, stuff-gownsman, educated at Wintoncester, called to
the
Bar at Lincoln's-Inn, now going the Western Circuit, merely
detained
in Melchester by a small arbitration after his brethren had
moved
on to the next county-town?
CHAPTER
II
The
square was overlooked from its remoter corner by the house of
which
the young girl had spoken, a dignified residence of
considerable
size, having several windows on each floor.
Inside one
of
these, on the first floor, the apartment being a large drawing-
room,
sat a lady, in appearance from twenty-eight to thirty years of
age. The blinds were still undrawn, and the lady
was absently
surveying
the weird scene without, her cheek resting on her hand.
The
room was unlit from within, but enough of the glare from the
market-place
entered it to reveal the lady's face.
She was what is
called
an interesting creature rather than a handsome woman; dark-
eyed,
thoughtful, and with sensitive lips.
A
man sauntered into the room from behind and came forward.
'O,
Edith, I didn't see you,' he said. 'Why
are you sitting here in
the
dark?'
'I
am looking at the fair,' replied the lady in a languid voice.
'Oh? Horrid nuisance every year! I wish it could be put a stop to'
'I
like it.'
'H'm. There's no accounting for taste.'
For
a moment he gazed from the window with her, for politeness sake,
and
then went out again.
In
a few minutes she rang.
'Hasn't
Anna come in?' asked Mrs. Harnham.
'No
m'm.'
'She
ought to be in by this time. I meant
her to go for ten minutes
only.'
'Shall
I go and look for her, m'm?' said the house-maid alertly.
'No. It is not necessary: she is a good girl and will come soon.'
However,
when the servant had gone Mrs. Harnham arose, went up to her
room,
cloaked and bonneted herself, and proceeded downstairs, where
she
found her husband.
'I
want to see the fair,' she said; 'and I am going to look for Anna.
I
have made myself responsible for her, and must see she comes to no
harm. She ought to be indoors. Will you come with me?'
'Oh,
she's all right. I saw her on one of
those whirligig things,
talking
to her young man as I came in. But I'll
go if you wish,
though
I'd rather go a hundred miles the other way.'
'Then
please do so. I shall come to no harm
alone.'
She
left the house and entered the crowd which thronged the market-
place,
where she soon discovered Anna, seated on the revolving horse.
As
soon as it stopped Mrs. Harnham advanced and said severely, 'Anna,
how
can you be such a wild girl? You were
only to be out for ten
minutes.'
Anna
looked blank, and the young man, who had dropped into the
background,
came to her assistance.
'Please
don't blame her,' he said politely. 'It
is my fault that she
has
stayed. She looked so graceful on the
horse that I induced her
to
go round again. I assure you that she
has been quite safe.'
'In
that case I'll leave her in your hands,' said Mrs. Harnham,
turning
to retrace her steps.
But
this for the moment it was not so easy to do.
Something had
attracted
the crowd to a spot in their rear, and the wine-merchant's
wife,
caught by its sway, found herself pressed against Anna's
acquaintance
without power to move away. Their faces
were within a
few
inches of each other, his breath fanned her cheek as well as
Anna's. They could do no other than smile at the
accident; but
neither
spoke, and each waited passively. Mrs.
Harnham then felt a
man's
hand clasping her fingers, and from the look of consciousness
on
the young fellow's face she knew the hand to be his: she also
knew
that from the position of the girl he had no other thought than
that
the imprisoned hand was Anna's. What
prompted her to refrain
from
undeceiving him she could hardly tell.
Not content with holding
the
hand, he playfully slipped two of his fingers inside her glove,
against
her palm. Thus matters continued till
the pressure lessened;
but
several minutes passed before the crowd thinned sufficiently to
allow
Mrs. Harnham to withdraw.
'How
did they get to know each other, I wonder?' she mused as she
retreated. 'Anna is really very forward--and he very
wicked and
nice.'
She
was so gently stirred with the stranger's manner and voice, with
the
tenderness of his idle touch, that instead of re-entering the
house
she turned back again and observed the pair from a screened
nook. Really she argued (being little less
impulsive than Anna
herself)
it was very excusable in Anna to encourage him, however she
might
have contrived to make his acquaintance; he was so gentlemanly,
so
fascinating, had such beautiful eyes.
The thought that he was
several
years her junior produced a reasonless sigh.
At
length the couple turned from the roundabout towards the door of
Mrs.
Harnham's house, and the young man could be heard saying that he
would
accompany her home. Anna, then, had
found a lover, apparently
a
very devoted one. Mrs. Harnham was
quite interested in him. When
they
drew near the door of the wine-merchant's house, a comparatively
deserted
spot by this time, they stood invisible for a little while
in
the shadow of a wall, where they separated, Anna going on to the
entrance,
and her acquaintance returning across the square.
'Anna,'
said Mrs. Harnham, coming up. 'I've
been looking at you!
That
young man kissed you at parting I am almost sure.'
'Well,'
stammered Anna; 'he said, if I didn't mind--it would do me no
harm,
and, and, him a great deal of good!'
'Ah,
I thought so! And he was a stranger
till to-night?'
'Yes
ma'am.'
'Yet
I warrant you told him your name and every thing about
yourself?'
'He
asked me.'
'But
he didn't tell you his?'
'Yes
ma'am, he did!' cried Anna victoriously.
'It is Charles
Bradford,
of London.'
'Well,
if he's respectable, of course I've nothing to say against
your
knowing him,' remarked her mistress, prepossessed, in spite of
general
principles, in the young man's favour.
'But I must
reconsider
all that, if he attempts to renew your acquaintance. A
country-bred
girl like you, who has never lived in Melchester till
this
month, who had hardly ever seen a black-coated man till you came
here,
to be so sharp as to capture a young Londoner like him!'
'I
didn't capture him. I didn't do
anything,' said Anna, in
confusion.
When
she was indoors and alone Mrs. Harnham thought what a well-bred
and
chivalrous young man Anna's companion had seemed. There had been
a
magic in his wooing touch of her hand; and she wondered how he had
come
to be attracted by the girl.
The
next morning the emotional Edith Harnham went to the usual week-
day
service in Melchester cathedral. In
crossing the Close through
the
fog she again perceived him who had interested her the previous
evening,
gazing up thoughtfully at the high-piled architecture of the
nave: and as soon as she had taken her seat he
entered and sat down
in
a stall opposite hers.
He
did not particularly heed her; but Mrs. Harnham was continually
occupying
her eyes with him, and wondered more than ever what had
attracted
him in her unfledged maid-servant. The
mistress was almost
as
unaccustomed as the maiden herself to the end-of-the-age young
man,
or she might have wondered less. Raye,
having looked about him
awhile,
left abruptly, without regard to the service that was
proceeding;
and Mrs. Harnham--lonely, impressionable creature that
she
was--took no further interest in praising the Lord. She wished
she
had married a London man who knew the subtleties of love-making
as
they were evidently known to him who had mistakenly caressed her
hand.
CHAPTER
III
The
calendar at Melchester had been light, occupying the court only a
few
hours; and the assizes at Casterbridge, the next county-town on
the
Western Circuit, having no business for Raye, he had not gone
thither. At the next town after that they did not
open till the
following
Monday, trials to begin on Tuesday morning.
In the natural
order
of things Raye would have arrived at the latter place on Monday
afternoon;
but it was not till the middle of Wednesday that his gown
and
grey wig, curled in tiers, in the best fashion of Assyrian bas-
reliefs,
were seen blowing and bobbing behind him as he hastily
walked
up the High Street from his lodgings.
But though he entered
the
assize building there was nothing for him to do, and sitting at
the
blue baize table in the well of the court, he mended pens with a
mind
far away from the case in progress.
Thoughts of unpremeditated
conduct,
of which a week earlier he would not have believed himself
capable,
threw him into a mood of dissatisfied depression.
He
had contrived to see again the pretty rural maiden Anna, the day
after
the fair, had walked out of the city with her to the earthworks
of
Old Melchester, and feeling a violent fancy for her, had remained
in
Melchester all Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; by persuasion
obtaining
walks and meetings with the girl six or seven times during
the
interval; had in brief won her, body and soul.
He
supposed it must have been owing to the seclusion in which he had
lived
of late in town that he had given way so unrestrainedly to a
passion
for an artless creature whose inexperience had, from the
first,
led her to place herself unreservedly in his hands. Much he
deplored
trifling with her feelings for the sake of a passing desire;
and
he could only hope that she might not live to suffer on his
account.
She
had begged him to come to her again; entreated him; wept. He had
promised
that he would do so, and he meant to carry out that promise.
He
could not desert her now. Awkward as
such unintentional
connections
were, the interspace of a hundred miles--which to a girl
of
her limited capabilities was like a thousand--would effectually
hinder
this summer fancy from greatly encumbering his life; while
thought
of her simple love might do him the negative good of keeping
him
from idle pleasures in town when he wished to work hard. His
circuit
journeys would take him to Melchester three or four times a
year;
and then he could always see her.
The
pseudonym, or rather partial name, that he had given her as his
before
knowing how far the acquaintance was going to carry him, had
been
spoken on the spur of the moment, without any ulterior intention
whatever. He had not afterwards disturbed Anna's
error, but on
leaving
her he had felt bound to give her an address at a stationer's
not
far from his chambers, at which she might write to him under the
initials
'C. B.'
In
due time Raye returned to his London abode, having called at
Melchester
on his way and spent a few additional hours with his
fascinating
child of nature. In town he lived
monotonously every
day. Often he and his rooms were enclosed by a
tawny fog from all
the
world besides, and when he lighted the gas to read or write by,
his
situation seemed so unnatural that he would look into the fire
and
think of that trusting girl at Melchester again and again.
Often,
oppressed by absurd fondness for her, he would enter the dim
religious
nave of the Law Courts by the north door, elbow other
juniors
habited like himself, and like him unretained; edge himself
into
this or that crowded court where a sensational case was going
on,
just as if he were in it, though the police officers at the door
knew
as well as he knew himself that he had no more concern with the
business
in hand than the patient idlers at the gallery-door outside,
who
had waited to enter since eight in the morning because, like him,
they
belonged to the classes that live on expectation. But he would
do
these things to no purpose, and think how greatly the characters
in
such scenes contrasted with the pink and breezy Anna.
An
unexpected feature in that peasant maiden's conduct was that she
had
not as yet written to him, though he had told her she might do so
if
she wished. Surely a young creature had
never before been so
reticent
in such circumstances. At length he
sent her a brief line,
positively
requesting her to write. There was no
answer by the
return
post, but the day after a letter in a neat feminine hand, and
bearing
the Melchester post-mark, was handed to him by the stationer.
The
fact alone of its arrival was sufficient to satisfy his
imaginative
sentiment. He was not anxious to open
the epistle, and
in
truth did not begin to read it for nearly half-an-hour,
anticipating
readily its terms of passionate retrospect and tender
adjuration. When at last he turned his feet to the
fireplace and
unfolded
the sheet, he was surprised and pleased to find that neither
extravagance
nor vulgarity was there. It was the
most charming
little
missive he had ever received from woman.
To be sure the
language
was simple and the ideas were slight; but it was so self-
possessed;
so purely that of a young girl who felt her womanhood to
be
enough for her dignity that he read it through twice. Four sides
were
filled, and a few lines written across, after the fashion of
former
days; the paper, too, was common, and not of the latest shade
and
surface. But what of those things? He had received letters from
women
who were fairly called ladies, but never so sensible, so human
a
letter as this. He could not single out
any one sentence and say
it
was at all remarkable or clever; the ensemble of the letter it was
which
won him; and beyond the one request that he would write or come
to
her again soon there was nothing to show her sense of a claim upon
him.
To
write again and develop a correspondence was the last thing Raye
would
have preconceived as his conduct in such a situation; yet he
did
send a short, encouraging line or two, signed with his pseudonym,
in
which he asked for another letter, and cheeringly promised that he
would
try to see her again on some near day, and would never forget
how
much they had been to each other during their short acquaintance.
CHAPTER
IV
To
return now to the moment at which Anna, at Melchester, had
received
Raye's letter.
It
had been put into her own hand by the postman on his morning
rounds. She flushed down to her neck on receipt of
it, and turned it
over
and over. 'It is mine?' she said.
'Why,
yes, can't you see it is?' said the postman, smiling as he
guessed
the nature of the document and the cause of the confusion.
'O
yes, of course!' replied Anna, looking at the letter, forcedly
tittering,
and blushing still more.
Her
look of embarrassment did not leave her with the postman's
departure. She opened the envelope, kissed its
contents, put away
the
letter in her pocket, and remained musing till her eyes filled
with
tears.
A
few minutes later she carried up a cup of tea to Mrs. Harnham in
her
bed-chamber. Anna's mistress looked at
her, and said: 'How
dismal
you seem this morning, Anna. What's the
matter?'
'I'm
not dismal, I'm glad; only I--' She
stopped to stifle a sob.
'Well?'
'I've
got a letter--and what good is it to me, if I can't read a word
in
it!'
'Why,
I'll read it, child, if necessary.'
'But
this is from somebody--I don't want anybody to read it but
myself!'
Anna murmured.
'I
shall not tell anybody. Is it from that
young man?'
'I
think so.' Anna slowly produced the letter, saying: 'Then will
you
read it to me, ma'am?'
This
was the secret of Anna's embarrassment and flutterings. She
could
neither read nor write. She had grown
up under the care of an
aunt
by marriage, at one of the lonely hamlets on the Great Mid-
Wessex
Plain where, even in days of national education, there had
been
no school within a distance of two miles.
Her aunt was an
ignorant
woman; there had been nobody to investigate Anna's
circumstances,
nobody to care about her learning the rudiments;
though,
as often in such cases, she had been well fed and clothed and
not
unkindly treated. Since she had come to
live at Melchester with
Mrs.
Harnham, the latter, who took a kindly interest in the girl, had
taught
her to speak correctly, in which accomplishment Anna showed
considerable
readiness, as is not unusual with the illiterate; and
soon
became quite fluent in the use of her mistress's phraseology.
Mrs.
Harnham also insisted upon her getting a spelling and copy book,
and
beginning to practise in these. Anna
was slower in this branch
of
her education, and meanwhile here was the letter.
Edith
Harnham's large dark eyes expressed some interest in the
contents,
though, in her character of mere interpreter, she threw
into
her tone as much as she could of mechanical passiveness. She
read
the short epistle on to its concluding sentence, which idly
requested
Anna to send him a tender answer.
'Now--you'll
do it for me, won't you, dear mistress?' said Anna
eagerly. 'And you'll do it as well as ever you can,
please? Because
I
couldn't bear him to think I am not able to do it myself. I should
sink
into the earth with shame if he knew that!'
From
some words in the letter Mrs. Harnham was led to ask questions,
and
the answers she received confirmed her suspicions. Deep concern
filled
Edith's heart at perceiving how the girl had committed her
happiness
to the issue of this new-sprung attachment.
She blamed
herself
for not interfering in a flirtation which had resulted so
seriously
for the poor little creature in her charge; though at the
time
of seeing the pair together she had a feeling that it was hardly
within
her province to nip young affection in the bud. However, what
was
done could not be undone, and it behoved her now, as Anna's only
protector,
to help her as much as she could. To
Anna's eager request
that
she, Mrs. Harnham, should compose and write the answer to this
young
London man's letter, she felt bound to accede, to keep alive
his
attachment to the girl if possible; though in other circumstances
she
might have suggested the cook as an amanuensis.
A
tender reply was thereupon concocted, and set down in Edith
Harnham's
hand. This letter it had been which
Raye had received and
delighted
in. Written in the presence of Anna it
certainly was, and
on
Anna's humble note-paper, and in a measure indited by the young
girl;
but the life, the spirit, the individuality, were Edith
Harnham's.
'Won't
you at least put your name yourself?' she said. 'You can
manage
to write that by this time?'
'No,
no,' said Anna, shrinking back. 'I
should do it so bad. He'd
be
ashamed of me, and never see me again!'
The
note, so prettily requesting another from him, had, as we have
seen,
power enough in its pages to bring one.
He declared it to be
such
a pleasure to hear from her that she must write every week. The
same
process of manufacture was accordingly repeated by Anna and her
mistress,
and continued for several weeks in succession; each letter
being
penned and suggested by Edith, the girl standing by; the answer
read
and commented on by Edith, Anna standing by and listening again.
Late
on a winter evening, after the dispatch of the sixth letter,
Mrs.
Harnham was sitting alone by the remains of her fire. Her
husband
had retired to bed, and she had fallen into that fixity of
musing
which takes no count of hour or temperature.
The state of
mind
had been brought about in Edith by a strange thing which she had
done
that day. For the first time since
Raye's visit Anna had gone
to
stay over a night or two with her cottage friends on the Plain,
and
in her absence had arrived, out of its time, a letter from Raye.
To
this Edith had replied on her own responsibility, from the depths
of
her own heart, without waiting for her maid's collaboration. The
luxury
of writing to him what would be known to no consciousness but
his
was great, and she had indulged herself therein.
Why
was it a luxury?
Edith
Harnham led a lonely life. Influenced
by the belief of the
British
parent that a bad marriage with its aversions is better than
free
womanhood with its interests, dignity, and leisure, she had
consented
to marry the elderly wine-merchant as a pis aller, at the
age
of seven-and-twenty--some three years before this date--to find
afterwards
that she had made a mistake. That
contract had left her
still
a woman whose deeper nature had never been stirred.
She
was now clearly realizing that she had become possessed to the
bottom
of her soul with the image of a man to whom she was hardly so
much
as a name. From the first he had
attracted her by his looks and
voice;
by his tender touch; and, with these as generators, the
writing
of letter after letter and the reading of their soft answers
had
insensibly developed on her side an emotion which fanned his;
till
there had resulted a magnetic reciprocity between the
correspondents,
notwithstanding that one of them wrote in a character
not
her own. That he had been able to
seduce another woman in two
days
was his crowning though unrecognized fascination for her as the
she-animal.
They
were her own impassioned and pent-up ideas--lowered to
monosyllabic
phraseology in order to keep up the disguise--that Edith
put
into letters signed with another name, much to the shallow Anna's
delight,
who, unassisted, could not for the world have conceived such
pretty
fancies for winning him, even had she been able to write them.
Edith
found that it was these, her own foisted-in sentiments, to
which
the young barrister mainly responded.
The few sentences
occasionally
added from Anna's own lips made apparently no impression
upon
him.
The
letter-writing in her absence Anna never discovered; but on her
return
the next morning she declared she wished to see her lover
about
something at once, and begged Mrs. Harnham to ask him to come.
There
was a strange anxiety in her manner which did not escape Mrs.
Harnham,
and ultimately resolved itself into a flood of tears.
Sinking
down at Edith's knees, she made confession that the result of
her
relations with her lover it would soon become necessary to
disclose.
Edith
Harnham was generous enough to be very far from inclined to
cast
Anna adrift at this conjuncture. No
true woman ever is so
inclined
from her own personal point of view, however prompt she may
be
in taking such steps to safeguard those dear to her. Although she
had
written to Raye so short a time previously, she instantly penned
another
Anna-note hinting clearly though delicately the state of
affairs.
Raye
replied by a hasty line to say how much he was affected by her
news: he felt that he must run down to see her
almost immediately.
But
a week later the girl came to her mistress's room with another
note,
which on being read informed her that after all he could not
find
time for the journey. Anna was broken
with grief; but by Mrs.
Harnham's
counsel strictly refrained from hurling at him the
reproaches
and bitterness customary from young women so situated.
One
thing was imperative: to keep the young
man's romantic interest
in
her alive. Rather therefore did Edith,
in the name of her
protegee,
request him on no account to be distressed about the
looming
event, and not to inconvenience himself to hasten down. She
desired
above everything to be no weight upon him in his career, no
clog
upon his high activities. She had
wished him to know what had
befallen: he was to dismiss it again from his
mind. Only he must
write
tenderly as ever, and when he should come again on the spring
circuit
it would be soon enough to discuss what had better be done.
It
may well be supposed that Anna's own feelings had not been quite
in
accord with these generous expressions; but the mistress's
judgment
had ruled, and Anna had acquiesced.
'All I want is that
NICENESS
you can so well put into your letters, my dear, dear
mistress,
and that I can't for the life o' me make up out of my own
head;
though I mean the same thing and feel it exactly when you've
written
it down!'
When
the letter had been sent off, and Edith Harnham was left alone,
she
bowed herself on the back of her chair and wept.
'I
wish it was mine--I wish it was!' she murmured. 'Yet how can I
say
such a wicked thing!'
CHAPTER
V
The
letter moved Raye considerably when it reached him. The
intelligence
itself had affected him less than her unexpected manner
of
treating him in relation to it. The
absence of any word of
reproach,
the devotion to his interests, the self-sacrifice apparent
in
every line, all made up a nobility of character that he had never
dreamt
of finding in womankind.
'God
forgive me!' he said tremulously. 'I
have been a wicked wretch.
I
did not know she was such a treasure as this!'
He
reassured her instantly; declaring that he would not of course
desert
her, that he would provide a home for her somewhere.
Meanwhile
she was to stay where she was as long as her mistress would
allow
her.
But
a misfortune supervened in this direction.
Whether an inkling of
Anna's
circumstances reached the knowledge of Mrs. Harnham's husband
or
not cannot be said, but the girl was compelled, in spite of
Edith's
entreaties, to leave the house. By her
own choice she
decided
to go back for a while to the cottage on the Plain. This
arrangement
led to a consultation as to how the correspondence should
be
carried on; and in the girl's inability to continue personally
what
had been begun in her name, and in the difficulty of their
acting
in concert as heretofore, she requested Mrs. Harnham--the only
well-to-do
friend she had in the world--to receive the letters and
reply
to them off-hand, sending them on afterwards to herself on the
Plain,
where she might at least get some neighbour to read them to
her,
if a trustworthy one could be met with.
Anna and her box then
departed
for the Plain.
Thus
it befel that Edith Harnham found herself in the strange
position
of having to correspond, under no supervision by the real
woman,
with a man not her husband, in terms which were virtually
those
of a wife, concerning a condition that was not Edith's at all;
the
man being one for whom, mainly through the sympathies involved in
playing
this part, she secretly cherished a predilection, subtle and
imaginative
truly, but strong and absorbing. She
opened each letter,
read
it as if intended for herself, and replied from the promptings
of
her own heart and no other.
Throughout
this correspondence, carried on in the girl's absence, the
high-strung
Edith Harnham lived in the ecstasy of fancy; the
vicarious
intimacy engendered such a flow of passionateness as was
never
exceeded. For conscience' sake Edith at
first sent on each of
his
letters to Anna, and even rough copies of her replies; but later
on
these so-called copies were much abridged, and many letters on
both
sides were not sent on at all.
Though
selfish, and, superficially at least, infested with the self-
indulgent
vices of artificial society, there was a substratum of
honesty
and fairness in Raye's character. He
had really a tender
regard
for the country girl, and it grew more tender than ever when
he
found her apparently capable of expressing the deepest
sensibilities
in the simplest words. He meditated, he
wavered; and
finally
resolved to consult his sister, a maiden lady much older than
himself,
of lively sympathies and good intent.
In making this
confidence
he showed her some of the letters.
'She
seems fairly educated,' Miss Raye observed.
'And bright in
ideas. She expresses herself with a taste that must
be innate.'
'Yes. She writes very prettily, doesn't she,
thanks to these
elementary
schools?'
'One
is drawn out towards her, in spite of one's self, poor thing.'
The
upshot of the discussion was that though he had not been directly
advised
to do it, Raye wrote, in his real name, what he would never
have
decided to write on his own responsibility; namely that he could
not
live without her, and would come down in the spring and shelve
her
looming difficulty by marrying her.
This
bold acceptance of the situation was made known to Anna by Mrs.
Harnham
driving out immediately to the cottage on the Plain. Anna
jumped
for joy like a little child. And poor,
crude directions for
answering
appropriately were given to Edith Harnham, who on her
return
to the city carried them out with warm intensification.
'O!'
she groaned, as she threw down the pen.
'Anna--poor good little
fool--hasn't
intelligence enough to appreciate him!
How should she?
While
I--don't bear his child!'
It
was now February. The correspondence
had continued altogether for
four
months; and the next letter from Raye contained incidentally a
statement
of his position and prospects. He said
that in offering to
wed
her he had, at first, contemplated the step of retiring from a
profession
which hitherto had brought him very slight emolument, and
which,
to speak plainly, he had thought might be difficult of
practice
after his union with her. But the
unexpected mines of
brightness
and warmth that her letters had disclosed to be lurking in
her
sweet nature had led him to abandon that somewhat sad prospect.
He
felt sure that, with her powers of development, after a little
private
training in the social forms of London under his supervision,
and
a little help from a governess if necessary, she would make as
good
a professional man's wife as could be desired, even if he should
rise
to the woolsack. Many a Lord
Chancellor's wife had been less
intuiti