as you sit in the bow-window of your comfortable lodging at your favourite watering-place during your annual autumn holiday, your breakfast finished and the débris removed, the newspaper rustling idly on your knees, and the first and pleasantest pipe of the day between your lips, you look up and see the aspect of affairs in the little street below very much changed from its normal state. the pleasure-boats--the lively nancy, which sails so regularly at eleven a.m. with a cargo of happy excursionists, and which arrives in port at irregular intervals varying from one to three, laden with leaden-coloured men and hopelessly-bedraggled fainting women; the william and ellen, in which you go out to catch codling and plaice; and all the other little craft usually stationed on the beach--have been bodily removed, their owners and touters are drinking rum and smoking shag-tobacco in evil-smelling little public-houses, and their customers have no notion of putting them into requisition. the bathing-machines,--those cumbrous vehicles in which you have so often made that dread journey into the ocean, after being bidden to "stand by" while the horse gives his first awful jerk and afterwards dashes you against the sides of your travelling-prison, while you catch horribly-distorted glimpses of your wretched countenance in the miserable little sixpenny looking-glass pendant from the rusty nail and swinging here and there like a live thing convulsed,--the bathing-machines have all been dragged from the spot where they ordinarily stand like a row of hideous guardians of the coast, and have defiantly taken possession of one side of the little main street. the place where the german band subsidised by the town usually pours forth its perpetual iteration of the "faust" waltz is now covered with roaring plunging waves, thick brown walls of water rearing their white crests a hundred yards off, as if in survey of their ultimate goal, tearing madly onward, gathering in size and strength at every stride, and at length discharging themselves with a thunder-crash in a blinding avalanche of spray. these 'waves, this roaring seething mass of trembling turgid water, is the great attraction to-day. in vain the monkey on the three-legged table clashes his cymbals, or plies the ramrod of his gun with frantic energy; in vain the good-looking italian boy, his master, shows his gleaming teeth or touches his hat to attract attention; in vain the highlander blows discord into his bagpipes until all the neighbouring dogs possessing musical ears are howling in misery. nobody cares for anything but the sea to-day; the little parade is thronged with visitors all gazing seaward, all rapt in attention on the boiling waters; at one point, where the waves dash in and sweep over the solid masonry, boys rush in between the ebb and flow, returning happy if they have escaped, happier if they have been soaked by the spray. people look out all round and scan the horizon to see if there be any craft in sight, inspired with that singular feeling which only rochefoucauld has dared to define, the feeling which sends crowds to watch blondin's walk upon the high-rope, or the performances of a lion-tamer,--the feeling which, in a lesser extent, originates the sensation-loving element in us, and which is about the lowest in degraded human nature. far away, at the end of the worm-eaten sea-besoaked jetty, is a little cluster of fishermen in dreadnaught and sou'-westers, patiently watching the weather, which to them is no toy nor amusement, but that on which hang their hopes of daily bread; and they will tell you if you ask them, that these big breakers thundering on to the shore are the result of some great storm that has taken place far away in the heart of the atlantic; and that though the tempest is probably over now, these creations of its fury, these evidences of its wrath, will continue to roll and surge and foam for days to come.
so it was with the adullam-street household and its surroundings. the storm that had swept through it had been short, sharp, and decisive; but the traces of its wrecking power were visible long, long after it had past.
at first it seemed quite impossible for frank churchill to understand the extent of the misery which had fallen upon him. however roseate might have been the dreams, in which he had indulged, of the blisses of matrimony, he had lived too long in the world not to know that few indeed were the couples whose lives were not checkered by some occasional difference. these, he had been told, generally occurred in the early portion of a matrimonial career, while the two persons were each unaccustomed to the peculiarities of the other, and while ignorance was, to a great extent, supported and backed up by obstinacy and pride. the unwillingness of each to give way would eventually result in a clash, whence would arise one of those domestic differences popularly known as "tiffs," in which the actors, though horribly wretched in themselves and disagreeable to each other, were supremely ridiculous to the rest of the world, which either affected to be blind or sympathising, and in either case was sniggering in its sleeve at the absurdity of the scene. but these little sparring-matches were usually of short duration; and though a constant repetition of them might have a triturating effect upon the original foundation of love and constancy, yet churchill had noticed that long before such a fatal result occurred, the sharp angles and points had generally become gradually rounded off and rubbed down, and the machine had begun to work harmoniously and with regularity. at all events no open scandal took place. that open scandal, if not an actual healer of wounds, is a rare anodyne to impulsive spirits and hearts, thumping painfully against the tightened chain which day by day, with corroding teeth, is eating its way into their core. exposure, publicity in the press, mrs. grundy--these are the greatest enemies of the divorce-court lawyers; heavy though the list of cases standing over for hearing may be, it would be fifty times heavier could the proceedings be kept secret. hundreds of couples now living together, hating each other "with the hate of hell;" scowling, carping, badgering, wearing, maddening, to desperation driving, from the hour they rise till the hour they retire to rest and fall asleep,--the one cursing his life, the other feebly bemoaning her fate, or openly defiant, "each going their own way;" a state of being more horrible, loathsome, and pitiable even than the other,--would be disunited, were it not for the public scandal. "for the sake of the children," for the scandal which would be entailed on their offspring, mrs. emilia will not leave mr. iago; and so they continue to live together, while the children are daily edified spectators of the manner in which their father treats their mother, and listen to the constantly-renewed expression of mrs. emilia's wish in reference to the possession of that whip with which to lash the rascal (their father) naked through the world.
the exposure--the public scandal! to no one had these words more terror in their sound than to frank churchill. all his life he had shrunk from every chance of notoriety: had gloried in being able to work anonymously; not for the sake of shirking any responsibility, not from the slightest doubt of the right and truth and purity of whatever cause he might be advocating: but because, when he had shot his bolt, and hit his mark, as he generally did, he could stand calmly by and mark the result, without being deafened by empty pans or sickened by false flattery. his horror of publicity had been extreme; he had invariably refused all details of his history to contemporary biographers, and had never been so deeply disgusted as when he saw some of his work tracked home to its author by the gossipping correspondent of a provincial paper. it was good work, too--work creditable to his brain and his heart; yet had it been penny-a-lining written to order, he could not have been more annoyed at being accredited with it. and now the full garish eye of day was to be let into the inmost recesses of his heart's sanctuary! "break lock and seal, betray the trust!" let the whole world revel in the details. a domestic scandal, and one besmirching a man who, despite of himself, had made some name in the world, and a woman whose triumphs had rung through society, was exactly the thing which the "many-headed beast" would most delight in prying into and bandying about. the details?--there were no details; none, at least, which the world would ever hear of, or which would give the smallest explanation of the result. there was the fact of the separation, and nothing more; what led to it must be the work of conjecture, and people would invent all kinds of calumny about him; and--great heaven!--about her. the lying world, with its blistering tongue, would be busy with her name, warping, twisting, inventing every thing--perhaps imputing shame to her, to her whose shield he should have been, to her whom he should have protected from every blow.
and here must be exhibited one of the flaws in frank churchill's by-no-means-perfect character. his wife had taken a step which nothing could excuse, had given way to her passion; and, in obedience to the promptings of rage and jealousy, had done him an irreparable wrong, and covered them both with a reproach which would cling to them for life,--all this without any thing like adequate provocation on his part; so that he had been shamefully treated, and, had he been properly heroic, would have a fair claim upon your compassion, if not your admiration. but the truth is he was anything but a hero; notwithstanding the manner in which his hopes had been blighted and his life wrecked, notwithstanding his having been deserted in that apparently heartless way by his wife,--he loved her even then with a passionate devotion; and when he thought of her, perhaps vilified and calumniated, without her natural protector, wretched and perhaps solitary, he had almost determined to fling his pride--nay, what he knew to be his duty--to the winds, to rush after her and implore her to come back to his home, and to do with him what she would. of course nothing could have been more degrading to him than such a proceeding, and it was fortunate that good advice was coming to him in the person of his mother.
coming in to pay her usual afternoon visit, the old lady walked straight to the study, and after tapping lightly at the door with her parasol-handle, she opened it and went in. she found her son seated at his desk, his head buried in his hands, which were supported by the projecting arms of the chair. his legs were stretched out before him, and he seemed lost in thought. he did not change his position at his mother's entrance, not until she addressed him by name; when, on raising his head, she saw the dull whiteness of his cheeks, and the bistre rings round his eyes. she noticed too that his hands shook, and on touching them they were hot and dry.
"my boy," said the old lady, gently, "you're not well, i'm afraid! what's the matter with you? too much of this horrid work, or--why, good god, frank, there are marks of tears on your face! what is the matter,--what has happened?"
"nothing, mother--nothing to me at least,--don't be alarmed, dearest; i'm all right enough."
"then barbara's ill!" said mrs. churchill, rising from the seat she had taken. "i'll go to her at once, poor thing--"
"you wouldn't find her, mother!" said frank, in a very hollow voice. "she's not upstairs; she's gone!"
"gone! gone where?" asked the old lady.
"gone away--left me--gone away for ever!" and as the thought of his desolation broke with renewed force upon him, his voice nearly failed him, and it was with great difficulty that he prevented himself from breaking down.
"left you--gone away--eloped!" cried the old lady, in whose mind there suddenly arose a vision of a yellow post-chaise, with four horses and two postillions, and barbara inside, with captain lyster looking out of the window.
"no, no; not so bad as that," said frank; "though horrible enough, in all conscience;" and he gave his mother a description of the scene which had occurred.
as mrs. churchill listened, it was plain to see that she was greatly moved; her hands trembled, and tears burst from her eyes and stole down her cheeks. as the story proceeded, two feelings were struggling for the mastery within her--one, pity for her son; the other, indignation at her son's wife. the old lady, although now so quiet and retiring and simple, had lived in the world, and knew the ways and doings, the ins and outs, of its denizens. she had had tolerable experience of man's inconstancy, of his proneness to sin, of his exposure to flattery, and liability to temptation. had frank confessed some slight flirtation with a pretty girl, some beneficence towards a female acquaintance of bygone times, she would have thought that barbara had acted with worse than rashness in taking so decided a step; but now, when frank told her that the letter which had provoked the final eruption was one which--had he not been pledged by its writer to be silent concerning, pledge given long before he had made barbara's acquaintance--might have been read before the world, she believed her son fully, and could form no judgment too severe on barbara's conduct. she was no vain-glorious pharisee, to tell of the tithes she had given, the good she had done; no humbler-minded sinner poured out a nightly tale of shortcomings and omissions to the great father: but when she thought of her own married life, when she recollected all vance churchill's frailties, all his drinking bouts and intrigues, all his carelessness and idleness, his neglect of his wife his pettish waywardness, and constant self-indulgence; when she compared all this with frank's calm, steady, laborious, good life, and recollected that under all her provocation her husband had scarcely so much as a harsh word from her, she felt that barbara's conduct had been outrageous indeed.
she said nothing at first, though her heart was full. with the tears rolling down her cheeks, she rose from her chair, and, taking up her position by her son, fell to smoothing his hair and passing her hand lightly over his brow, as she had done--oh, how many thousand times!--when he was a child; muttering softly, "my poor boy! oh, my poor boy!" the gentler spirit which had taken possession of frank just before his mother's entrance grew and expanded under her softening touch. he felt like some swimmer who, after a prolonged buffet with the angry waves, feels his feet, and knows that a few more strokes will bring him rest and home. there was a chance of nipping this wretched scandal in its bud, which was much; there was a chance of bringing his beloved to his side once more, which was all in all. after a time he broke the silence, cautiously sounding the depths.
"do you think there's any chance of this horrible business being put straight, mother?" he asked.
"we are in the hands of god, my boy," replied the old lady, fervently. "time is the great anodyne. he may think fit to have it all set right in the course of time."
"yes; but--i mean--you don't think it could be settled at once--to-night, i mean?"
"if she were to come back to-night, which she will not, and confess that her miserable pride and jealousy had driven her forth in a mad fit, and were to ask pardon, and be as she ought to be--god knows--humble and contrite, i would say let there be an end of it; forget it all, and strive to live happier for the future. but if she remains away to-night--well, i don't know what to say;" and the old lady heaved a very intelligible sigh--a sigh which meant that in such an event the worst had arrived.
"yes," said frank; his mind still dwelling on the little course he had proposed to himself;--"yes, of course, you don't think it would be right, then, to go to her--"
"go to her!" echoed the old lady.
"yes, go to her, and tell her how utterly wrong she had been--that there was not the slightest foundation for her suspicions; and that she had acted most unjustifiably in quitting her husband's house in the manner she has done; and--"
old mrs. churchill had been sitting as if petrified, with her lips wide apart, during the delivery of this sentence; at this point she thawed into speech.
"are you mad, frank? has your misfortune turned your brain? you propose to go to her,--this woman, who has brought contempt on you-- and not only on you, on me and all our name,--and sue to her to come back, and box her ears playfully, and tell her what a naughty girl she has been! do you imagine that this affair is any longer a secret, that it has not been talked over already between mrs. schr?der's maid and your servants, between your servants and the tradespeople? don't you know that if your wife is absent from your house to-night, the doubt will become a certainty, and that to-morrow the whole neighbourhood will be ringing with it? no!" continued the old lady; "it has come, and we must bear it. if that wicked girl--for i can't help feeling and saying that she is wicked in her present course--sees her error and repents, it will be your duty to forgive her and to take her back; but as to your humbling yourself by going to her and asking her to return, it's not to be thought of for a moment."
"i suppose you're right, mother," was all that frank said--"i suppose you're right: we'll wait and see whether she comes back to-night."
so they waited, mother and son, through that long evening. the day died out, and the dusk came down, and the lamps were lighted in the streets, and the pattering feet grew fewer and fewer; and still those two sat without speaking, without moving, immersed in their own thoughts; and still no barbara returned. at length mrs. churchill, remembering that her son had had no dinner that day, grew tenderly solicitous about his health, and, crossing to him, raised his head and pressed her lips to his, and begged him to rouse himself and eat. and frank, who felt himself gradually going mad with the one sad strain upon his thoughts, said:
"no, mother--not here, at all events. i must shake this off, if only for a few minutes, or i shall go out of my mind. i'll take a turn in the air; and if i feel faint or to want any thing, i'll go to the club and get it. you go home and to bed, dearest; for you must be thoroughly knocked up with all my worries, which you are compelled to share; she won't come back to-night--it's all over now; and to-morrow we must face the future, and see what we're to do with the rest of our lives."
so they kissed again, and then went out together: frank with a dead, dull, wearying pain at his heart; and his mother, sad enough to see him so sad, but with some little consolation mingled with her grief at the feeling that this event was not unlikely to bring her and her son more together again; to give her the chance of being in more frequent and more affectionate communication with that being whom she worshipped next to her creator; of enjoying that to her inexpressible delight, of having her son "all to herself" again.
leaving the old lady at the door of her lodgings, frank strode on at a rapid pace, neither looking to the right nor to the left, seeing none of the people by whom he passed, thinking of nothing but his lost love. at length the long fasting he had undergone began to tell upon him, he felt sick and faint, and determined to go to his club to get some refreshment,--not to the flybynights; he could not have borne the noisy racket, the bewildering chaff, of that circle of free-lances; so he strode steadily down to pall mall, and turned into the retrenchment. even that solemn temple of gastronomy and politics was far too lively for him in his then mood. the coffee-room was filled with a number of men who had dined late, many of whom, just returned from their autumnal expeditions, and not having met for a couple of months, had "joined tables," and were loudly talking over their holiday experiences. all was light and lively and jolly; and frank felt, as he sat in the midst of them, like the death's-head at the banquet. at one table close by his four men were sitting over their wine, one of the number being rallied by the rest about his approaching marriage. "you're a lucky fellow, by jove, hope!" frank heard one of them say; "i always said miss chudleigh was the prettiest girl out since the lexden's year." "what's become of the lexden--didn't she get married or something?" asked another. "oh, yes!" answered the first--"married a man who's a member here. i don't know him; but a cleverish fellow, i believe. no tin--regular case of spoons, they said it was." "mistake that!" said the fiancé, whose future father-in-law was a wealthy brewer; "spoons is all very well, but it wants something to back it." "ah, but it's not every one that has your luck," said old tommy orme, who just then joined the party--"nor, i will say, hope it isn't every one that deserves it, by jove!" and on the hope of that speech, old tommy determined to borrow a ten-pound note from his friend on the first opportunity. frank shuddered as he listened, and bent his head over his cutlet. "was there any thing in what those men had said?" he asked himself, as he walked home. could it have been that the state of comparative poverty into which he had brought his wife had soured her temper, rendered her jealous and querulous, and so disgusted her as to cause her to avail herself of the first excuse which presented itself for returning to her former life? it might be so, indeed. if a were, frank was not disposed to think of her very uncharitably: he knew the whole wealth of love which he had bestowed upon her; but he thought that her bringing-up might perhaps have rendered her incapable of appreciating it; and he went to his solitary bed with a feeling of something more than pity for his absent wife, after imploring peace to and pardon for them both in his prayers.
the evening of the next day, however, found him in a very different frame of mind. not one word had been heard from barbara; and the fact of her absence, and the manner of her departure, had been thoroughly well discussed throughout the neighbourhood. early in the morning, frank, with the conviction that all must eventually be known, had removed the seal from his mother's lips; and the old lady's circumstantial account, softened as much as her conscience would allow,--for she felt really more strongly than she had admitted about barbara's defection,--was detailed to various knots of fa-miller friends throughout the day. the astonishment of the mesopotamians was immense; immense their horror, deep the condemnation they poured upon the peccant one. the good women of the district could not realise what had occurred. if barbara had eloped, they would have had some slight glimmering of it; though an elopement was a thing which in their idea only occurred in highly aristocratic families. they had heard through the medium of the newspapers, stories of post-chaise followed by post-chaise speeding along the northern road, guilty wife and "gay lothario" (mesopotamian phrase for cavalier villany varying from seduction to waltzing) in the one, injured husband in the other. but how a woman could take herself off, leave her home and her husband, and send a servant for her things afterwards, my dear, as cool as if she were going by the railway train,--that beat them altogether. but though they could not understand, they could condemn, and did, in most unmeasured terms. whatever the motive might have been, and the most energetic among them could not find in what was said any thing particularly damnifying ("in what is said, my dear; but i'm sure there must be something behind all this that we don't know of, but which will come out some day"),--whatever the motive might have been, there was the fact; that could not be got rid of or explained away: mrs. frank churchill had left her home and was not living with her husband. what more or less could you make of that? some of them had seen it in her from the first.
there was something--one section said, in her eye, another in her manner--which showed discontent, or worse. "something" in her walk which displeased many of them greatly--"as though the ground she trod upon was not good enough for her," they said. and she who had held her head so high, for whom none of them were good enough, had come to this. well, if being a fine lady and being brought up amongst great people led to that, thank goodness they were as they were.
mrs. harding had been one of the earliest to receive old mrs. churchill's confidence, and had been so much astonished and impressed by what she heard, that she at once returned home and proceeded to rouse her husband, then peacefully sleeping off his hard night's work. it must have been something quite out of the common to have prompted such a step, as george harding was never pleased at having his hard-earned rest broken in upon; but on this occasion his wife thought she had a complete justification. so she went softly into the closed room, undrew the curtains and let in the full morning sun; then she shook the sleeper's shoulder and called "george!" harding roused himself at once and demanded what was the matter; he always had an idea, when suddenly awakened from sleep, that something had happened to the paper, either an indian mail omitted, or a leader of the wrong politics inserted, or something equally dreadful in its result; and he had scarcely got his eyes fairly open, when his wife said, "oh, my dear, such a terrible thing for poor churchill!"
"what do you mean?" asked george, broad-awake in an instant; "nobody ill?"
"oh, no, my dear; much better if it were. she's gone, my dear!"
"who's gone; what on earth do you mean?" and then his wife told him the story circumstantially. and after hearing it george harding dressed himself at once and went out to see his friend.
he found churchill sitting in his little study, looking vacantly before him. there were no signs of work on the desk, no book near him; he had evidently been sitting for some time in a state of semi-stupor. he was very pale; but he looked up at the opening of the door and smiled faintly when he saw who it was. there was something so cheery in dear old george harding's presence, that it shed light wherever he went, no matter how dark the surroundings: men who, as they knelt by the coffins of their wives, had prayed to god to take them then and there,--men who, contemplating the ruin sweeping down upon them, had horribly suggestive thoughts of the laudanum-bottle or the pistol-barrel,--had felt the dark clouds pass away at the sound of his genial voice and the sight of his hopeful face. but there were tears in george harding's gray eyes as he took his friend's hand, and his voice shook a little as he said, "my dear old frank! my poor dear fellow!"
"i'm hard hit, harding, and that's the truth. you've heard all about it, of course?" frank asked nervously, fearing he might have again to recount the miserable history.
"yes, my wife has told me,--she heard it from your mother, i believe,--and i came on at once. do you know i'm horribly afraid, frank, that it was from your taking my advice that this quarrel took place?"
"your advice?"
"yes, about tightening the curb. i told you, if you recollect, that i thought there should be a greater amount of firmness and decision in your manner to mrs. churchill, and--"
"oh, you need not be anxious on that score; it must have come sooner or later; and it's come sooner, that's all!"
"and what are you going to do?"
"do? what do sensible men do when they have troubles? grin and bear them, don't they? and so shall i. i can't live alone; so i shall instal my mother here again, and, i suppose, all will--will be pretty much as it was eighteen months ago."
"i was afraid from what my wife said, that i should find you in some such mood as this," said harding sternly. "one would think you were mad, frank churchill, to hear you talk such stuff. don't you know that mrs. churchill is as much your wife before god and man as she ever was? don't you feel that she has done nothing for which even the wretched laws which we in our mighty wisdom have chosen to frame would justify you in treating her in this way? i can understand it all; you've been worked upon by the chatter and magging of these silly women until you've lost your own calm common-sense. but don't you feel now, frank, that i'm right? don't you feel that a fit of rage, a mere wretched passing temper, is not the thing to separate those whom--you know i use it in no canting sense--those whom god has joined together? don't you feel that it is your duty to go to her, or to send--i'll go if you like, though it's not a very pleasant office--to point out to her the miserable folly of this course, and to bring her back to her proper place--her home?"
"my dear harding," said frank quietly, "i know you are sincere in your advice, but it is impossible for me to take it. my wife has subjected me to a very great outrage; and until that is explained and atoned for, i will never look upon or speak to her."
harding would have said something more, but churchill raised his hand in deprecation, and then changed the subject.
