Edmund Yates

“ Bowker waited for a moment, and then said,
"You might as well pretend to have forgotten me and our talk at Elm Lodge that day that I came up to see Geoffrey."
"Elm Lodge! Geoffrey!--ah, good God, now I remember all!" said Margaret, in a kind of scream, raising herself in the chair, and wringing Bowker's hand.
"Hush, my dear Madam; don't excite yourself; I thought you would remember all; you--"
"You are Mr. Bowker!" said Margaret, pressing her hand to her head; "Mr. Bowker, whose story Geoff told me: Geoff! ah, poor, good Geoff! ah, dear, good Geoff! But why are you here? he hasn't sent you? ”

“ Don't let him jump on your mother, Lionel; his fleas, give you my honour, big as lobsters!--on the wrong scent! Dear old Caterham, best fellow in the world; but frets at the curb, don't you know? Put him a couple of links higher up than usual, and he rides rusty and jibs--jibs, by Jove! And that's what you've been doing now. Dear old Caterham! not much to amuse him in life, don't you know? goes on like a blessed old martyr; but at last finds something which he likes, and you don't. Quite right, dear Lady Beauport; I see it fast enough, because I'm an old lad, and have seen men and cities ”

“ He would sit in his painting-room quite idle, and with a moody brow--unlike the Geoff Ludlow of old times--and think and puzzle himself about his wife; he would sometimes work, in short desultory fits of industry, desperately, as though putting thought from him by main force; and then he would meet Margaret, at meals or other times of association, with so indifferent an assumption of being just as usual, that it was wonderful she did not notice the change in her husband. But Geoffrey did not interest her, and Margaret did not observe him with any curiosity. ”

“ Ludlow was either a widow with a comfortable jointure, in which case Annie pictured her to herself as short, stout, and red-faced, with black hair in bands and a perpetual black-silk dress; or a small heiress of uncertain age, thin, with hollow cheeks and a pointed nose, ringlets of dust-coloured hair, a pinched waist, and a soured temper. And to think of Geoff's going and throwing away the rest of his life on a person of this sort, when he might have been so happy in his old bachelor way! ”

“ Lord and Lady Beauport were not likely to notice the circumstance, or to object to it if they did. The blinds were decorously drawn; the rooms were scrupulously arranged; every thing in them in its place, as though never to be used or handled any more. The books, the objects of art, the curious things which the dead man alone of all the house had understood and valued, had a staring lifeless look about them in the unaccustomed precision of their distribution; the last flowers which Annie ha placed in the Venetian glasses had withered, and been thrown away by the notable housemaids. ”

“ And Lord Caterham knew all this; read it as in a book; and suffered, and was strong. Who know most of life, discern character most readily, and read it most deeply? We who what we call "mix in the world," hurry hither and thither, buffeting our way through friends and foes, taking the rough and the smooth, smiling here, frowning there, but ever pushing onward? Or the quiet ones, who lie by in the nooks and lanes, and look on at the strife, and mark the quality and effect of the blows struck; who see not merely how, but why the battle has been undertaken ”

“ Don't you remember how Caterham always wished me to travel and improve my mind?"
"I remember," said Geoff moodily; "but I don't think your mind wants improving, Annie. How selfish I am! I really had a kind of fancy that this was your home; different as it is from such as you might, as you may command, it was your own choice once. You see what creatures we men are. A woman like you sacrifices herself for one of us, to do him good in his adversity, and he takes it as a matter of course that the sacrifice is to continue--" Geoffrey turned to the window, and looked wearily out. ”

“ Now if the infatuation in question had been legitimate, and likely to lead to good results, Algy Barford would have been the very last man on earth to attempt to put a stop to it, or to interfere in any way save for its advancement. But this airy, laughing philosopher, with all his apparent carelessness, was a man of the world and a shrewd reader of human character; and he had made certain inquiries, the result of which proved that Carry Chesterton was, if not all that Lionel Brakespere had made her out, at all events a heartless coquette and fortune-huntress, always rising at the largest fly. ”

“ Perhaps the man she loved and longed for, as the sick long for health or the shipwrecked for a sail, had never seen her look so beautiful as she looked one day, when, after Mrs. Ludlow and her daughter, who had come to lunch at Elm Lodge, had gone away, and Geoffrey, puzzled and mortified more than ever, had returned to his painting-room, she stood by the long window of the drawing-room, gazing out over the trim little space which bloomed with flowers and glowed in the sunshine, with eyes which seemed indeed as if their vision cleft distance and disdained space. ”

“ Annie knew that she must appear strangely obstinate to Lady Beauport; but it could not be helped; it was impossible that she could explain. The visit of the Countess was a long one; and Annie gathered from her further confidences that her dissatisfaction with Lionel was not her only trouble. The future was not bright before Lady Beauport. The charms of the world were fading in her estimation; society was losing its allurements, not under the chastening of a wholesome grief; but under the corroding, disenchanting influence of bitterness and disappointment. She looked aged and wearied ”

“ Potts showed her brother's letter to Annie Maurice with infinite delight, on that memorable day when she made her first visit, as a married woman, to Elm Lodge. The flutter and excitement of so special an occasion makes itself felt amid all the other flutters and excitements of that period which is the great epoch in a woman's life. The delights of "a home of one's own" are never so truly realised as when the bride returns, as a guest, to the home she has left for ever as an inmate. ”

“ To the crippled man's heartwrung wail of contempt and neglect, to his passionate appeal for some one to love and to be loved by, the parents had no reply. They knew that he had bitter cause for complaint; but they also knew that he was now in pursuit of a shadow; that he was about to assuage his thirst for love with Dead-Sea apples; that the "set gray life and apathetic end" were better than the wild fierce conflict and the warming of a viper in the fires of one's heart. Lady Beauport read Carry Chesterton like a book, saw her ends and aims, and told Lord Caterham plainly what they were. ”

“ This is a confoundedly back-slapping age; every body is a deuced sight too fond of every body else; there is an amount of philanthropy about which is quite terrible."
"Yes, and you're about the largest-hearted and most genial philanthropist in the world; you know you are."
"I, dear old boy? I am Richard Crookback; I am the uncle of the Babes in the Wood; I am Timon the Tartar of Athens, or whatever his name was; I am a ruthless hater of all my species, when I have the vin triste, as I have this morning. O, that reminds me--the business I came to see you about. What a fellow you are, Caterham! ”

“ O, Arthur, isn't it hard to think of Geoffrey loving her so much, and working so hard, and getting so poor a return?"
"It is indeed, Annie," said Lord Caterham, with a strange wistful look at her; "it is very hard. But I fear there are harder things than that in store for Ludlow. He is not conscious of the extent of his misfortune, if even he knows of its existence at all. I fear the time is coming when he must know all there is to be known, whatever it may be. ”

“ When all was ready for her reception--it is a pretty house at Sydenham, Geoffrey, and she is as well cared for as any one can be--I went to her, and told her I was come to take her home."
"And she--Margaret--did she consent? Did she think it was I who--"
"Who sent me?" interrupted Annie. "No,--she would not have consented; for her feeling is that she has so wronged you that she must owe nothing to you any more. In this I know she is quite wrong; for to know that she was in any want or suffering would be still worse grief to you,--but that can never be,--and I did not need to contradict her. ”

“ Geoffrey Ludlow covered his face with his hands, and groaned. Once again she looked at him--this time as if she saw him--and went on:
"Let me speak to you, while I can, of yourself--while I can, I say, for his face is rising between me and all the world beside, and I can hardly force myself to remember any thing, to calculate any thing, to realise any thing which is not him. You ask me not to leave you; you would have me stay! Are you mad, Geoffrey Ludlow? Have you lived among your canvases and your colours until you have ceased to understand what men and women are, and to see facts? ”

“ Darling Annie Maurice, orphan daughter of a second cousin of my lord's, transplanted from a suburban curacy to be companion and humble friend of my lady, the one bright bit of sunshine and reality in that palace of ghastly stucco and sham. Even now, as she came in, Lord Beauport seemed to feel the cheering influence of her presence, and his brow relaxed for an instant as he stepped forward and offered his hand; after taking which, she, with a bow to the Countess, glided round and stood by Lord Caterham's chair. ”

“ I really wish he'd come. I want to know how far he has really lived down his trouble; I can't bear to think that it may conquer and spoil him."
"It has not done that; it won't do that--no fear of it," said Annie eagerly; "I can tell from his letters that Geoffrey is a strong man again,--stronger than he has ever been before."
"He needs to be, Miss Maurice," said William, with a short, kind, sounding laugh, "for Geoffrey's nature is not strong. I don't think I ever knew a weaker man but one--"
He paused, but Annie made no remark. ”

“ Men of business must always be pushing on, Mrs. Ludlow. Good day to you; and, I say, when--hem! there's any thing to renounce the world, the flesh, and the--hey, you understand? any body wanted to promise and vow, you know,--I'm ready; send for me. I've got my eye on a silver thug already. Goodbye, Ludlow; see you next week. Three before next May, recollect, and all for me. Ta-ta!" and Mr. Stompff stepped into his cab, and drove off, kissing his fat pudgy little hands, with a great belief in Geoffrey Ludlow and a holy horror of his wife. ”

“ It was a brother's love he told himself at first, and fully believed it; a brother's love for a favourite sister. He thought so until he pictured to himself her departure to some friend's or other, until he imagined the house without her, himself without her, and--and she with some one else. And then Lord Caterham confessed to himself that he loved Annie Maurice with all his soul, and simultaneously swore that by no act or word of his should she or any one else ever know it. ”

“ The hardness of Lionel's nature was shown in every thing his mother said of him--the utter want of feeling, the deadness of soul. Annie felt very sad as she listened to Lady Beauport's melancholy account of the life they had fallen into at the great house. She was oppressed by the sense of the strangeness of the events which had befallen, and in which the Countess had, all unconsciously, so deep an interest. It was very sad and strange to remember that she was detailing the conduct of the man whose baseness had enabled Margaret to lay Geoffrey's life in ruins under Geoffrey's own roof. ”

“ Well might he start; for Lord Caterham threw his hands wildly above his head, then let them fall helplessly by his side. By the time Algy Barford had sprung to his chair, and passed his arms around him, the dying man's head had drooped on to his right shoulder, and his eyes were glazing fast.
"Arthur! dear Arthur! one instant! Let me call for help."
"No, Algy; leave us so; no one else. Only one who could--and she--better not--bless her! better not. Take my hand, Algy, old friend--tried, trusted, dear old friend--always thoughtful, always affectionate--God bless you--Algy! ”

“ They are not women who love as I love. Where a child has power to sway and fill a woman's heart, to shake her resolution, and determine her life, love is not supreme. There is a proper and virtuous resemblance to it, no doubt, but not love--no, no, not love. I tell you I care nothing for the child. Geoffrey Ludlow, if I had loved you, I should have cared for him almost as little; if the man I love had been his father, I should have cared for him no more, if I know any thing of myself. ”

“ That seems to be my my fate, that no one can understand me. I never said he had, did I? though it would be a good thing for him if he had, poor fellow, I should say--any thing better than what he has to endure now."
"Don't be angry at my worrying you, dear mother; but for Heaven's sake tell me what you mean--what Geoff has to endure?"
"I am not angry, Til; though it seems to be my luck to be imagined angry when there's nothing further from my thoughts. I'm not angry, my dear--not in the least." ”

“ Geoffrey Ludlow never had been inside the walls on such an occasion--never expected to be; but on the evening before, as he was sitting in his studio smoking a pipe and thinking that within twenty-four hours he would have Margaret's final decision, looking back over his short acquaintance with her in wonder, looking forward to his future life with her in hope, when a mail-phaeton dashed up to the door, and in the strident tones, "Catch hold, young 'un," shouted to the groom, Geoff recognised the voice of Mr. Stompff, and looking out saw that great capitalist descending from the vehicle. ”

“ Annie continued; "every thing was so strange to me, just as it may be to you here, but I had come from the quietude to the gaiety; and I thought at one time it would be impossible for me to continue there. But I held on, and I manage to get on quite comfortably now. They are all very kind to me; and the sight of Mr. Ludlow occasionally insures my never forgetting the old days."
"It would be strange if they were not kind to you," said Margaret, looking fixedly at her. "I understand now what Geoffrey has told me about you. We shall be friends, shall we not?" suddenly extending her hand. ”

“ She was sure he would never think that Margaret was not fond of the child.
"O yes, he does perceive it," said Mrs. Ludlow; "I can see that very plainly; I saw it in his face when he came up to the nursery with us, and she never offered to stir; and did you not notice, Til, that when I asked her what the doctor said about vaccinating baby, she looked at me quite vacantly, and Geoffrey answered? Ah, no; he knows it well enough, poor fellow; and how ever he is to get through life with a woman with a bad temper and no heart, I'm sure I can't tell." ”

“ For one certain reason Bowker had almost hoped that nothing more might ever be heard of the wretched woman who had fallen like a curse upon his friend's life. He knew Geoffrey Ludlow root and branch, knew how thoroughly weak he was, and felt certain that, no matter how grievous the injury which Margaret had done him, he had but to see her again--to see her more especially in sickness and misfortune--to take her back to his heart and to his hearth, and defy the counsel of his friends and the opinion of the world. ”