TELLING HOW TWO PERSONS, OF VERY DIFFERENT MORAL CALIBRE, WERE COMPELLED TO WEAR THE FLOWER OF HUMILIATION IN THEIR RESPECTIVE BUTTONHOLES

Cross-country connections by rail were not easy to make, with the consequence that Sir Charles Verity, Hordle, gun-cases, bags and portmanteaux, in attendance did not reach The Hard until close upon midnight.

Hearing the brougham at last drive up, Theresa Bilson felt rapturously fluttered. Her course had been notably empty of situations and of adventure; drama, as in the case of so many ladies of her profession the pages of fiction notwithstanding conspicuously cold-shouldering and giving her the go-by. Now, drama, and that of richest quality might perhaps for she admitted the existence of awkward conjunctions be said to batter at her door. She thought of the Miss Minetts, her ever-willing audience. She thought also as so frequently during the last, in some respects, extremely unsatisfactory twenty-four hours of Mr. Rochester and of Jane Eyre. Not that she ranged herself with Jane socially or as to scholastic attainments. In both these, as in natural refinement, propriety and niceness of ideas, she reckoned herself easily to surpass that much canvassed heroine. The flavour of the evangelical charity-school adhered incontestably it adhered, and that to Jane’s disadvantage. No extravagance of Protestantism or of applied philanthropy, thank heaven, clouded Theresa’s early record. The genius of Tractarianism had rocked her cradle, and subsequently ruled her studies with a narrowly complacent pedantry all its own. Nevertheless in moments of expansion, such as the present, she felt the parallel between her own case and that of Jane did, in certain directions, romantically hold. Fortified by thought of the Miss Minetts’ agitated interest in all which might befall her, she indulged in imaginary conversations with that great proconsul, her employer the theme of which, purged of lyrical redundancies, reduced itself to the somewhat crude announcement that “your daughter, yes, may, alas, not impossibly be taken from you; but I, Theresa, still remain.”

When, however, a summons to the presence of the said employer actually reached her, the bounce born of imaginary conversations, showed a tendency, as is its habit, basely to desert her and soak clean away. She had promised herself a little scene, full of respectful solicitude, of sympathy discreetly offered and graciously accepted, a drawing together through the workings of mutual anxiety leading on to closer intercourse, her own breast, to put it pictorially, that on which the stricken parent should eventually and gratefully lean. But in all this she was disappointed, for Sir Charles did not linger over preliminaries. He came straight and unceremoniously to the point; and that with so cold and lofty a manner that, although flutterings remained, they parted company with all and any emotions even remotely allied to rapture.

Charles Verity stood motionless before the fire-place in the long sitting-room. He still wore a heavy frieze travelling coat, the fronts of it hanging open. His shoulders were a trifle humped up and his head bent, as he looked down at the black and buff of the tiger skin at his feet. When Theresa approached with her jerky consequential little walk pinkly self-conscious behind her gold-rimmed glasses he glanced at her, revealing a fiercely careworn countenance, but made no movement to shake hands with or otherwise greet her. This omission she hardly noticed, already growing abject before his magnificence for thus did his appearance impress her which, while claiming her enthusiastic admiration, enjoined humility rather than the sentimental expansions in which her imaginary conversations had so conspicuously abounded.

“I have seen Dr. McCabe,” he began. “His report of Damaris’ condition is very far from reassuring. He tells me her illness presents peculiar symptoms, and is grave out of all proportion to its apparent cause. This makes me extremely uneasy. It is impossible to question her at present. She must be spared all exertion and agitation. I have not attempted to see her yet.”

He paused, while anger towards her ex-pupil waxed warm in Theresa once again. For the pause was eloquent, as his voice had been when speaking about his daughter, of a depth of underlying tenderness which filled his hearer with envy.

“I must therefore ask you, Miss Bilson,” he presently went on, “to give me a detailed account of all that took place yesterday. It is important I should know exactly what occurred.”

Whereat Theresa, perceiving pitfalls alike in statement and in suppression of fact, hesitated and gobbled to the near neighbourhood of positive incoherence, while admitting, and trying to avoid admitting, how inconveniently ignorant of precise details she herself was.

“Perhaps I erred in not more firmly insisting upon an immediate enquiry,” she said. “But, at the time, alarm appeared so totally uncalled for. I assumed, from what was told me, and from my knowledge of the strength of Damaris’ constitution, that a night’s rest would fully restore her to her usual robust state of health, and so deferred my enquiry. The servants were excited and upset, so I felt their account might be misleading all they said was so confused, so far from explicit. My position was most difficult, Sir Charles,” she assured him and incidentally, also, assured herself. “I encountered most trying opposition, which made me feel it would be wiser to wait until this morning. By then, I hoped, the maids would have had time to recollect themselves and recollect what is becoming towards their superiors in the way of obedience and respect.”

Charles Verity threw back his head with a movement of impatience, and looked down at her from under his eyelids in effect weary and a little insolent.

“We seem to be at cross purposes, Miss Bilson,” he said. “You do not, I think quite follow my question. I did not ask for the servants’ account of the events of yesterday whatever those events may have been but for your own.”

“Ah! it is so unfortunate, so exceedingly unfortunate,” Theresa broke out, literally wringing her hands, “but a contingency, an accident, which I could not possibly have foreseen I cannot but blame Damaris, Sir Charles”

“Indeed?” he said.

“No, truly I cannot but blame her for wilfulness. If she had consented as I so affectionately urged to join the choir treat to Harchester, this painful incident would have been spared us.”

“Am I to understand that you went to Harchester, leaving my daughter here alone?”

“Her going would have given so much pleasure in the parish,” Theresa pursued, dodging the question with the ingenuity of one who scents mortal danger. “Her refusal would, I knew, cause sincere disappointment. I could not bring myself to accentuate that disappointment. Not that I, of course, am of any importance save as coming from this house, as as in some degree your delegate, Sir Charles.”

“Indeed?” he said.

“Yes, indeed,” Theresa almost hysterically repeated.

For here if anywhere was her chance, as she recognized. Never again might she be thus near to him, alone with him the normal routine made it wholly improbable. And at midnight too. For the unaccustomed lateness of the hour undoubtedly added to her ferment, provoking in her obscure and novel hopes and hungers. Hence she blindly and her action viewed from a certain angle quite heroically precipitated herself. Heroically, because the odds were hopelessly adverse, her equipment, whether of natural or artificial, being so conspicuously slender. Her attempt had no backing in play of feature, felicity of gesture, grace of diction. The commonest little actress that ever daubed her skin with grease-paint, would have the advantage of Theresa in the thousand and one arts by which, from everlasting, woman has limed twigs for the catching of man. Her very virtues respectability, learning, all the proprieties of her narrowly virtuous little life counted for so much against her in the present supreme moment of her self-invented romance.

“You hardly, I dare say,” she pursued “how should you after the commanding positions you have occupied? appreciate the feelings of the inhabitants of this quiet country parish towards you. But they have a lively sense, believe me, of the honour you confer upon them, all and severally I am speaking of the educated classes in particular, of course by residing among them. They admire and reverence you so much, so genuinely; and they have extended great kindness to me as a member of your household. How can I be indifferent to it? I am thankful, Sir Charles, I am grateful the more so that I have the happiness of knowing I owe the consideration with which I am treated, in Deadham, entirely to you. Yes, yes,” she cried in rising exaltation, “I do not deny that I went to Harchester yesterday went Dr. Horniblow thus expressed it when inviting me ’as representing The Hard.’ I was away when Damaris made this ill-judged excursion across the river to the Bar. Had she confided her intention to me, I should have used my authority and forbade her. But recently we have not been, I grieve to say, on altogether satisfactory terms, and our parting yesterday was constrained, I am afraid.”

Theresa blushed and swallowed. Fortunately her sense of humour was limited; but, even so, she could not but be aware of a dangerous decline. Not only of bathos, but of vulgar bathos, from which gentility revolted, must she be the exponent, thanks to Damaris’ indiscretion!

“You require me to give you the details, Sir Charles,” she resumed, “and although it is both embarrassing and repugnant to me to do so, I obey. I fear Damaris so far forgot herself forgot I mean what is due to her age and position as to remove her shoes and stockings and paddle in the sea a most unsuitable and childish occupation. While she was thus engaged her things her shoes and stockings appear to have been stolen. In any case she was unable to find them when tired of the amusement she came up on to the beach. Moreover she was caught in the rain. And I deeply regret to tell you but I merely repeat what I learned from Mary Fisher and Mrs. Cooper when I returned it was not till after dark, when the maids had become so alarmed that they despatched Tolling and Alfred to search for her, that Damaris landed from a boat at the breakwater, having been brought down the river by by”

Throughout the earlier portion of her recital Charles Verity stood in the same place and same attitude staring down at the tiger skin. Twice or thrice only he raised his eyes, looking at the speaker with a flash of arrogant interrogation.

Upon one, even but moderately, versed in the secular arts of twig-liming, such flashes would have acted as an effective warning and deterrent. Not so upon Theresa. She barely noticed them, as blindly heroic, she pounded along leading her piteous forlorn hope. Her chance her unique chance, in nowise to be missed and, still more, those obscure hungers, fed by the excitement of this midnight tete-a-tete, rushed her forward upon the abyss; while at every sputtering sentence, whether of adulation, misplaced prudery, or thinly veiled animosity towards Damaris, she became more tedious, more frankly intolerable and ridiculous to him whose favour she so desperately sought. Under less anxious circumstances Charles Verity might have been contemptuously amused at this exhibition of futile ardour. Now it exasperated him. Yet he waited, in rather cruel patience. Presently he would demolish her, if to do so appeared worth the trouble. Meanwhile she should have her say, since incidentally he might learn something from it bearing upon the cause of Damaris’ illness.

But now, when, at the climax of her narrative, Theresa seized by a spasm of retrospective resentment and jealousy, the picture of the young man carrying the girl tenderly in his arms across the dusky lawns arising before her choked and her voice cracked up into a bat-like squeaking, Charles Verity’s self-imposed forbearance ran dry.

“I must remind you that neither my time nor capacity of listening are inexhaustible, Miss Bilson,” he said to her. “May I ask you to be so good as to come to the point. By whom was Damaris rescued and brought home last night?”

“Ah! that is what I so deeply regret,” Theresa quavered, still obstinately dense and struggling with the after convulsion of her choke. “I felt so shocked and annoyed on your account, Sir Charles, when the maids told me, knowing how you would disapprove such a such an incident in connection with Damaris. She was brought home, carried” she paused “carried indoors by the owner of that objectionable public-house on the island. He holds some position in the Mercantile Marine, I believe. I have seen him recently once or twice myself in the village his name is Faircloth.”

Theresa pursed up her lips as she finished speaking. The glasses of her gold pince-nez seemed to gleam aggressively in the lamp-light. The backs of the leather-bound volumes in the many book-cases gleamed also, but unaggressively, with the mellow sheen as might fancifully be figured of the ripe and tolerant wisdom their pages enshrined. The pearl-grey porcelain company of Chinese monsters, saints and godlings, ranged above them placid, mysteriously smiling, gleamed as well.

For a time, silence, along with these various gleamings, sensibly, even a little uncannily, held possession of the room. Then Charles Verity moved, stiffly, and for once awkwardly, all of a piece. Backed against the mantelshelf, throwing his right arm out along it sharply and heavily careless of the safety of clock and of ornaments as though overtaken by sudden weakness and seeking support.

“Faircloth? Of course, his name is Faircloth.” he repeated absently. “Yes, of course.”

But whatever the nature of the weakness assailing him, it soon, apparently, passed. He stood upright, his face, perhaps, a shade more colourless and lean, but in expression fully as arrogant and formidably calm as before.

“Very well, Miss Bilson,” he began. “You have now given me all the information I require, so I need detain you no longer save to say this. You will, if you please, consider your engagement as my daughter’s companion terminated, concluded from to-night. You are free to make such arrangements as may suit you; and you will, I trust, pardon my adding that I shall be obliged by your making them without undue delay.”

“You do not mean,” Theresa broke out, after an interval of speechless amazement “Sir Charles, you cannot mean that you dismiss me that I am to leave The Hard to to go away?”

“I mean that I have no further occasion for your services.”

Theresa waved her arms as though playing some eccentric game of ball.

“You forget the servants, the conduct of the house, Damaris’ need of a chaperon, her still unfinished education All are dependent upon me.”

“Hardly dependent,” he answered. “These things, I have reason to think, can safely be trusted to other hands, or be equally safely be left to take care of themselves.”

“But why do you repudiate me?” she cried again, rushing upon her fate in the bitterness of her distraction. “What have I done to deserve such harshness and humiliation?”

“I gave the most precious of my possessions Damaris into your keeping, and and well we see the result. Is it not written large enough, in all conscience, for the most illiterate to read? So you must depart, my dear Miss Bilson, and for everyone’s sake, the sooner the better. There can be no further discussion of the matter. Pray accept the fact that our interview is closed.”

But Theresa, now sensible that her chance was in act of being finally ravished away from her, fell or rose perhaps more truly the latter into an extraordinary sincerity and primitiveness of emotion. She cast aside nothing less than her whole personal legend, cast aside every tradition and influence hitherto so strictly governing her conduct and her thought. Unluckily the physical envelope could not so readily be got rid of. Matter retained its original mould, and that one neither seductive nor poetic.

She went down upon her fat little knees, held her fat little hands aloft as in an impassioned spontaneity of worship.

“Sir Charles,” she prayed, while tears running down her full cheeks splashed upon her protuberant bosom “Sir Charles”

He looked at the funny, tubby, jaunty, would-be smart, kneeling figure.

“Oh! you inconceivably foolish woman,” he said and turned away.

Did more than that walked out into the hall and to his own rooms, opening off the corridor. In the offices a bell tinkled. Theresa scrambled on to her feet, just as Hordle, in response to its summons, arrived at the sitting-room door.

“Did you ring, Miss?” he asked grudgingly. Less than ever was she in favour with the servants’ hall to-night.

Past intelligible utterance, Theresa merely shook her head in reply. Made a return upon herself began to instruct him to put out the lamps in the room. Remembered that now and henceforth the right to give orders in this house was no longer hers; and broke into sobbing, the sound of which her handkerchief pressed against her mouth quite failed to stifle.

About an hour later, having bathed and changed, Sir Charles Verity made his way upstairs. Upon the landing Dr. McCabe met him.

“Better,” he said, “thank the heavenly powers, decidedly better. Temperature appreciably lower, and the pulse more even. Oh! we’re on the road very handsomely to get top dog of the devil this bout, believe me, Sir Charles.”

“Then go to bed, my dear fellow,” the other answered. “I will take over the rest of the watch for you. You need not be afraid. I can be an admirable sick-nurse on occasion. And by the way, McCabe, something has come to my knowledge which in my opinion throws considerable light upon the symptoms that have puzzled you. Probably I shall be more sure of my facts before morning. I will explain to you later, if it should seem likely to be helpful to you in your treatment of the case. Just now, as I see it, the matter lies exclusively between me” he smiled looking at his companion full and steadily “between me” he repeated, “and my only child.”

All which upon the face of it might, surely, be voted encouraging enough. Yet:

“Should there be any that doubt the veritable existence of hell fire,” the doctor told himself, as he subsequently and thankfully pulled on his night-shirt, “to recover them, and in double quick time, of their heresy let ’em but look in my friend Verity’s eyes.” And he rounded off the sentence with an oath.