The Lovels of Arden by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook offline reader txt) 📕

Corfu which I have pitched upon for the site of a villa, just such a fairy place as you can sketch for me--your own architecture--neither gothic nor composite, neither classic nor rustic, only _le style Clarisse_; not for our permanent dwelling--to my mind, nothing but poverty should ever chain a man to one habitation--but as a nest to which we might fly now and then, when we were weary of roaming."

He was talking lightly, after his nature, which was of the lightest, but for a purpose, also, trying to beguile Clarissa from serious considerations, to bring a smile to the pale sad face, if he could. In vain; the hazel eyes looked straight forward with an unwonted fixedness, the lips were firmly set, the hands clasped rigidly.

After this, his tone grew more earnest; again he pleaded, very much as he had pleaded before, but with a stronger determination, with a deeper passion, painting the life that might be for those two in the warmest, brightest colours that his fancy could lend it. What had she to care for? he argued. Absolutely nothing. She had broken with her husband, whom George Fairfax knew by his own experience to be implacable in his resentment. And oh, how much to gain! A life of happiness; all her future spent with the man who loved her; spent wherever and however she pleased. What was he but her slave, to obey her?

She was not unmoved by his pleading. Unmoved? These were words and tones that went home to her heart of hearts. Yes, she could imagine the life he painted so well. Yes, she knew what the future would seem to her, if it were to be spent with him. She loved him dearly--had so loved him ever since that night in the railway-carriage, she thought. When had his image really been absent from her since that time?

He insisted that she should hear him to the end, and she submitted, not unwillingly, perhaps. She had no thought of yielding; but it was sweet to her to hear his voice--for the last time, she told herself; this must be the last time. Even while he pleaded and argued and demonstrated that the wisest thing in the world she could do was to run away with him, she was meditating her plan of escape. Not again must they meet thus. She had a certain amount of strength of mind, but it was not inexhaustible, and she felt her weakness.

"You forget that I have a son," she said at last, when he urged her to speak.

"He shall be my son. Do you think I do not love that rosy yearling? He shall inherit Lyvedon, if you like; there is no entail; I can do what I please with it. Yes, though I had sons of my own he should be first, by right of any wrong we may do him now. In the picture I have made of our future life, I never omitted that figure, Clarissa. Forget your son! No, Clary; when I am less than a father to him, tell me that I never loved you."

This was the man's way of looking at the question; the boy's future should be provided for, he should have a fine estate left him by way of solatium. The mother thought of what her son would think of _her_, when he grew old enough to consider her conduct.

"I must ask you to get me a fly somehow, Mr. Fairfax," she said quietly. "It is still raining, and I am really anxious to get home to Lovel. I am sorry you should have taken so much trouble about me; it is quite useless, believe me. I know that I have been very weak--guilty even--in many ways since I have known you; but that is all over now. I have paid the penalty in the loss of my husband's esteem. I have nothing now to live for but my child."

"And is that to be the end of everything, Mrs. Granger?" asked George Fairfax, with an angry look in his eyes. "Are we to part upon that? It is such an easy thing to lure a man on to a certain point, and then turn upon him and protest you never meant to go beyond that point. You have paid the penalty! Do you think I have paid no penalty? Was it a pleasant thing to me, do you suppose, to jilt Geraldine Challoner? I trampled honour in the dust for your sake, Clarissa. Do you know that there is a coolness between my mother and me at this moment, because of my absence from England and that broken-off marriage? Do you know that I have turned my back for ever upon a place that any man might be proud to call his home, for the sake of being near you? I have cast every consideration to the winds; and now that you have actually broken loose from your bondage, now that there is nothing to come between us and a happy future, you set up your son as an obstacle, and"--he concluded with a bitter laugh--"ask me to fetch you a fly!"

"I am sorry to wound you; but--but--I cannot bring dishonour upon my son."

"Your son!" cried George Fairfax savagely. "An east wind may blow your son off the face of the earth to-morrow. Is a one-year-old baby to stand between a man and his destiny? Come, Clary, I have served my apprenticeship; I have been very patient; but my patience is exhausted. You must leave this place with me to-night."

"Mr. Fairfax, will you get me a fly, or must I walk home?"

He looked at her fixedly for a few moments, intent upon finding out if she were really in earnest, if this cold persistence were unconquerable even by him. Her face was very pale, the eyes downcast, the mouth firm as marble.

"Clarissa," he cried, "I have been fooled from first to last--you have never loved me!"

Those words took her off her guard; she lifted her eyes to meet his, eyes full of love and despair, and again he told himself success was only a question of time. His apprenticeship was not finished yet; he must be content to serve a little longer. When she had tasted the bitterness of her new life, its helplessness, its desolation, with only such a broken reed as Austin Lovel to lean upon, she would turn to him naturally for comfort and succour, as the fledgling flies back to its nest.

But if in the meantime Daniel Granger should relent and pursue her, and take her back to his heart with pardon and love? There was the possibility of that event; yet to press matters too persistently would be foolish, perilous even. Better to let her have her own way for a little, since he knew that she loved him.

He went to look for the depressed waiter, whom he dispatched in quest of a vehicle, and then returned to the rustic shelter, where Clarissa sat like a statue, watching the rain pouring down monotonously in a perpetual drizzle. They heard the wheels of the carriage almost immediately. Mr. Fairfax offered his arm to Clarissa, and led her out of the garden; the obsequious waiter on the other side holding an umbrella over her head.

"Where shall I tell the man to drive?" he asked.

"To St. Gudule."

"But you don't live in the cathedral, like Hugo's Esmeralda. Am I not to know your address?"

"It is better not. Austin knows that you were the cause of my leaving Paris. If you came, there might be some misunderstanding."

"I am not afraid of facing Austin."

"But I am afraid of any meeting between you. I cannot tell you where I am living, Mr. Fairfax."

"That seems rather hard upon me. But you will let me see you again, won't you, Clary? Meet me here to-morrow at dusk--say at six o'clock. Promise to do that, and I will let you off."

She hesitated, looking nervously to the right and left, like a hunted animal.

"Promise, Clary; it is not very much to ask."

"Very well, then, I promise. Only please let the man drive off to St. Gudule, and pray don't follow me."

Mr. Fairfax grasped her hand. "Remember, you have promised," he said, and then gave the coachman his orders. And directly the fly containing Clarissa had rattled off, he ran to the nearest stand and chartered another.

"Drive to St. Gudule," he said to the man, "and when you see a carriage going that way, keep behind it, but not too near."

It happened, however, that the first driver had the best horse, and, being eager to earn his fare quickly, had deposited Clarissa in the Place Gudule before George Fairfax's charioteer could overtake him. She had her money ready to slip into the man's hand, and she ran across the square and into the narrow street where Austin lived, and vanished, before Mr. Fairfax turned the corner of the square.

He met the empty vehicle, and dismissed his own driver thereupon in a rage. "Your horse ought to be suppressed by the legal authorities," he said, as he gave the man his fare.

She must live very near the cathedral, he concluded, and he spent a dreary hour patrolling the narrow streets round about in the wet. In which of those dull-looking houses has she her dwelling? He could not tell. He walked up and down, staring up at all the windows with a faint hope of seeing her, but in vain; and at last went home to his hotel crestfallen and disappointed.

"She escapes me at every turn," he said to himself. "There is a kind of fatality. Am I to grow old and gray in pursuing her, I wonder? I feel ten years older already, since that night when she and I travelled together."

* * * * *


CHAPTER XLVI.


ON THE WING.

Clarissa hung over her baby with all manner of fond endearments.

"My darling! my darling!" she sobbed; "is it a hard thing to resist temptation for your sake?"

She had shed many bitter tears since that interview with George Fairfax, alone in the dreary room, while Level slept the after-dinner sleep of infancy, and while Mrs. Level and Jane Target gossipped sociably in the general sitting-room. Austin was out playing dominoes at the café of a Thousand Columns, with some Bohemianishly-disposed Bruxellois.

She had wept for the life that might have been, but which never could be. On that point she was decided. Not under the shadow of dishonour could she spend her days. She had her son. If she had been alone, utterly desolate, standing on some isolated rock, with nothing but the barren sea around her, she might perhaps have listened to that voice which was so very sweet to her, and yielded. But to take this dreadful leap which she was asked to take, alone, was one thing; to take it with her child in her arms, another. Her fancy, which was very vivid, made pictures of what her boy's future might be, if she were to do this thing. She thought of him stung by the mention of his mother's name, as if it were the foulest insult. She thought of his agony when he heard other men talk of their mothers, and remembered the blackness of darkness that shrouded his. She thought of the boyish