Nothing would induce Florence to go
to Aylmer’s Court and Mrs. Aylmer the less,
in great distress of mind, was forced to remain with
her in her flat that evening.
Florence gave her the very best that
the flat contained, sleeping herself on the sofa in
her sitting-room.
Mrs. Aylmer sat up late and talked
and talked until she could talk no longer. At
last Florence got her into bed, and then went to visit
Edith in her room.
“You don’t look well,”
said Edith; “your engagement has not improved
you. What is the matter?”
“I don’t exactly know
what is the matter,” said Florence. “I
am worried about mother’s visit. My aunt,
Mrs. Aylmer, is dying. She is a very rich woman.
Mother is under the impression that, if she and I went
to Aylmer’s Court, Mrs. Aylmer might leave me
her property. I don’t want it; I should
hate to have it. I have learned in the last few
months that money is not everything. I don’t
want to have Aunt Susan’s money.”
“Well,” replied Edith,
staring her full in the face, “that is the most
sensible speech you have made for a long time.
I have closely studied the question of economics,
and have long ago come to the conclusion that the
person of medium income is the only person who is truly
happy. I am even inclined to believe that living
from hand to mouth is the most enviable state of existence.
You never know how the cards will turn up; but the
excitement is intense. When I am a doctor, I shall
watch people’s faces with intense interest,
wondering whether, when their next illness comes on,
they will send for me; then there will be the counting
up of my earnings, and putting my little money by,
and living just within my means. And then
I shall have such wide interests besides money:
the cure of my patients, their love and gratitude to
me afterwards. It is my opinion, Florence, that
the more we live outside money, and the smaller
place money takes in the pleasures of our lives, the
happier we are; for, after all, money can do so little,
and I don’t think any other people can be so
miserable as the vastly rich ones.”
“I agree with you,” said Florence.
“It is more than Tom does,”
replied Edith, looking fixedly at her. “After
all, Florence, are you not in some ways too good for
my brother?”
“In some ways too good for him?”
repeated Florence. She turned very white.
“You don’t know me,” she added.
“I don’t believe I do,
and, it occurs to me, the more I am with you the less
I know you. Florence, is it true that you have
a secret in your life?”
“It is quite true,” said
Florence, raising her big dark eyes and fixing them
on the face of her future sister-in-law.
“And is it a secret that Tom knows nothing about?”
“A secret, Edith, as you say, that Tom knows
nothing about.”
“How very dreadful! And you are going to
marry him holding that secret?”
“Yes; I shall not reveal it. If I did,
he would not marry me.”
“But what is it, my dear? Won’t you
even tell me?”
“No, Edith. Tom marries
me for a certain purpose. He gets what he wants.
I do not feel that I am doing wrong in giving myself
to him; but, wrong or right, the thing is arranged:
why worry about it now?”
“You are a strange girl.
I am sorry you are going to marry my brother.
I do not believe you will be at all happy, but, as
I have said already, I have expressed my opinion.”
“The marriage is to take place
quite quietly three weeks from now,” said Florence.
“We have arranged everything. We are not
going to have an ordinary wedding. I shall be
married in my travelling-dress. Tom says he can
barely spend a week away from his editorial work, and
he wants me to live in a flat with him at first.”
“Oh, those flats are so detestable,”
said Edith; “no air, and you are crushed into
such a tiny space; but I suppose Tom will sacrifice
everything to the sitting-rooms.”
“He means to have a salon:
he wants to get all the great and witty and wise around
us. It ought to be an interesting future,”
said Florence in a dreary tone.
Edith gazed at her again.
“Well,” she said, after
a pause, “I suppose great talent like yours does
content one. You certainly are marvellously brilliant.
I read your last story, and thought it the cleverest
of the three. But I wish you were not so pessimistic.
It is terrible not to help people. It seems to
me you hinder people when you write as you do.”
“I must write as the spirit
moves me,” said Florence, in a would-be flippant
voice, “and Tom likes my writing; he says it
grows on him.”
“So much the worse for Tom.”
“Well, I will say good-night
now, Edith. I am tired, and mother will be disturbed
if I go to bed too late.”
Florence went into her own flat, shut
and locked the door, and, lying down, tried to sleep.
But she was excited and nervous, and no repose would
come to her. Up to the present time, since her
engagement, she had managed to keep thought at bay;
but now thoughts the most terrible, the most dreary,
came in like a flood and banished sleep. Towards
morning she found herself silently crying.
“Oh, why cannot I break off
my engagement with Tom Franks? Why cannot I tell
Maurice Trevor the truth?” she said to herself.
Early the next day Mrs. Aylmer the
less received a telegram from Bertha Keys. This
was to announce the death of the owner of Aylmer’s
Court. Mrs. Aylmer the less immediately became
almost frantic with excitement. She wanted to
insist on Florence accompanying her at once to the
Court. Florence stoutly refused to stir an inch.
Finally the widow was obliged to go off without her
daughter.
“There is little doubt,”
she said, “that we are both handsomely remembered.
I, of course, have my fifty pounds a year that
was settled on me many years ago but I
shall have far more than that now, and you, my poor
child, will have a nice tidy fortune, ten to twelve
or twenty thousand pounds, and then if you will only
marry Maurice Trevor, who inherits all the rest of
the wealth, how comfortable you will be! I suppose
you would like me to live with you at Aylmer’s
Court, would you not?”
“Oh, mother, don’t,”
said poor Florence. “I have a feeling which
I cannot explain that Mrs. Aylmer will disappoint
everyone. Don’t count on her wealth, mother.
Oh, mother, don’t think so much of money, for
it is not the most important thing in the world.”
“Money not the most important
thing in the world!” said Mrs. Aylmer, backing
and looking at her daughter with bright eyes of horror.
“Flo, my poor child, you really are getting
weak in your intellect.”
A few moments afterwards she left,
sighing deeply as she did so, and Florence, to her
own infinite content, was left behind.
The next few days passed without anything
special occurring; then the news of Mrs. Aylmer’s
extraordinary will was given to Florence in her mother’s
graphic language.
“Although she is dead, poor
thing, she certainly always was a monster,”
wrote the widow. “I cannot explain to you
what I feel. I have begged of Mr. Trevor to dispute
the will; but, would you believe it? unnatural
man that he is, he seems more pleased than otherwise.
“My little money is still to
the fore, but no one else seems to have been remembered.
As to that poor dear Bertha Keys, she has not been
left a penny. If she had not saved two or three
hundred pounds during the time of her companionship
to that heathenish woman, she would now be penniless.
It is a fearful blow, and I cannot think for which
of our sins it has been inflicted on us. It is
too terrible, and the way Maurice Trevor takes it
is the worst of all.”
When Florence read this letter, she
could not help clapping her hands.
“I cannot understand it,”
she said to herself; “but a great load seems
to have rolled away from me. Of course, I never
expected Aunt Susan’s money, but mother has
been harping upon it as long as I can remember.
I don’t think Maurice wanted it greatly.
It seemed to me that that money brought a curse with
it. I wonder if things are going to be happier
now. Oh, dear, I am glad yes, I am
glad that it has not been left to any of us.”
Florence’s feelings of rapture,
however, were likely soon to be mitigated. Her
wedding-day was approaching.
Mrs. Aylmer the less, who had at first
told Florence that she could not on any account marry
for three or four months, owing to the sad death in
the family, wrote now to say that the sooner she secured
Tom Franks the better.
“Maurice Trevor is a pauper,”
she said, “not worth any girl’s serious
consideration. Marry Mr. Franks, my dear Florence;
he is not up to much, but doubtless he is the best
you can get. You need not show the smallest respect
to Susan Aylmer; the wedding need not be put off a
single hour on her account.”
Nor did Flo nor Tom intend to postpone
the wedding. Mrs. Aylmer had not been loved by
Florence, and, as the couple were to be married quietly,
there was not the least occasion why the ceremony should
be delayed. Florence had not a trousseau, in
the ordinary sense of the word.
“I have no money,” she said, looking full
at Edith.
Tom Franks happened to come into the room at the time.
“What are you talking about?”
he said. “By the way, here is a letter for
you.”
As he spoke, he laid a letter on the
table near Florence’s side. She glanced
at it, saw that it was in the handwriting of Bertha
Keys, and did not give it a further thought.
“Flo is thinking about her trousseau;
all brides require trousseaux,” said Edith,
who, although unorthodox in most things, did not think
it seemly that a bride should go to the altar without
fine clothes.
“But why should we worry about
a trousseau?” replied Tom. “I take
Florence for what she is, not for her dress; and I
can give you things in Paris,” he added, looking
at her. “I have some peculiar ideas, and
my own notions with regard to your future dress.
You want a good deal of rich colour, and rich stuffs,
and nothing too girlish. You are very young,
but you will look still younger if you are dressed
somewhat old, as I mean to dress you. We will
get your evening dress in Paris. I am not a rich
man, but I have saved up money for the purpose.”
“I don’t really care about
clothes at all,” said Florence.
“I know that; but you will change
your mind. With your particular style, you must
be careful how you dress. I will manage it.
Don’t waste your money on anything now.
I want you to come to me as you are.”
Tom then sat down near Florence, and
began to give her particulars with regard to several
flats which he had looked over. He was a keen
man of business, and talked L. s. d.
until the girl was tired of the subject.
“I shall take the flat in Fortescue
Mansions to-morrow morning,” he said finally;
“it will just suit us. There is a very fine
reception-room, and, what is still better, all the
reception-rooms open one into the other. We must
begin to give our weekly salons as soon as ever you
return from your wedding tour, Florence.”
“Surely you will wait until
people call on Florence?” interrupted Edith.
“You are too quick, Tom, for anything. You
must not transgress all the ordinary rules of society.”
Tom looked at his sister, shut up
his firm lips, and turned away; he did not even vouchsafe
to answer.
A moment later, he left the room.
It was his custom when he met Florence to kiss her
coldly on the forehead, and to repeat this ceremony
when he left her. He did not neglect this little
attention on the present occasion. As his steps,
in his patent-leather boots, were heard descending
the stairs, Edith saw Florence raise her handkerchief
to her forehead and rub the spot which Tom’s
lips had touched.
“How heartily you dislike him!”
said Edith. “I would not marry him if I
were you.”
Florence made no reply. She took
up her letter and prepared to leave the room.
“Why do you go? There is
a good fire here, and there is none in your room.
Sit by the fire, and make yourself comfy. I am
going out for a little.”