George Manville Fenn

“ I’m irritable enough without that!”
“Nonsense, my dear old friend!” cried Bayle, rising.
“Hang it, man, don’t throw my age in my teeth! I can’t help being old!”
“May I live to be as old,” said Bayle, smiling, and laying his hand on Sir Gordon’s shoulder.
“Bah! don’t pray for that, man! Why should you want to live? To see all your pet schemes knocked on the head, and those you care for go to the bad, while your aches and pains increase, and you are gliding down the hill of life a wretched, selfish old man, unloved, uncared for. There, life is all a miserable mistake.” ”

“ In a flash, as it were, Christie Bayle seemed to see into the future, and in that future he saw, as it were, the simple happy little home he had made for the woman he had once loved crumbling away into nothingness, the years of peace gone for ever, and a dark future of pain and misery usurping their place. The dew upon his brow grew heavier, and as Sir Gordon’s eyes ranged from one to the other he could read that the anguish in the countenance of the man he had made his friend was as great as that suffered by the woman to whom, in the happy past, they had talked of love. ”

“ My husband, my husband! for the sake of our innocent child!”
“Give up what I have!” he cried. “Now that I have schemed till success is mine! Not a shilling if it were to save old Sir Gordon’s life.”
“But, Robert, for the sake of our child. I am your wife, and I will bear this blow; but let her go on believing in him whom I have taught her to love. Let the past be dead; begin a new life—repentance for that which has gone. Robert, my husband, I have loved you so dearly, and so long.”
“Pish!” he cried, impatiently. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Lead a new life—a life of repentance! ”

“ It was like some episode in a dream to Bayle, as that white figure flew to his side.
“Quick, Mr Bayle, quick!” and, catching at Eaton in the belief that she was helping to bear him, Julia pressed towards the house.
“Julie! are you mad?” roared Hallam, as soon as she was seen; and Crellock started out after her.
“Quick! help! help!” she cried in a sharp imperious manner; and, as is so often the case where one quick order is given, those who would not, if they had time to think, stir a finger in a cause, feel themselves moved by some irresistible influence, and obey. ”

“ Millicent Hallam asked herself, as, seeing all dimly through a veil of tears, she heard Julia’s words, excited, broken, with all a child’s surging excitement and delight, as she ran from her side, across the smooth lawn to where that grey little old lady sat beneath the yew hedge, to swoop down upon her, folding her in one quick caress, and then, before she had recovered from her surprise, darting away, and off the path, over the newly-dug ground, to where that grey old gentleman dropped the hoe with which he was drawing a furrow for his summer marrowfats. ”

“ And as they appeared to come hissing through the air, Millicent Hallam seemed to realise more and more how Bayle had been their protector, and how she had done wisely in fleeing from the little town, where every flaw in a man’s life was noted and remembered to the end.
“How dare he?” cried Julia indignantly; and her young eyes flashed. “Mother, we ought not to have come down here.”
“Hush, my child!” said Mrs Hallam softly; “who are we that we cannot bear patiently a few revolting words? If we were guilty, there would be a sting.” ”

“ He raised her hand as if to press it to his lips, but let it fall, and, drawing her towards him, kissed her tenderly on the brow, ending by retaining her hand in both of his.
“An old man’s kiss, my child,” he said, gazing at her wistfully. “You remind me so of one I loved—twenty years ago, my dear, and before you were born.” He looked round from one to the other, as if apologising for his emotion. “My dear Bayle,” he said at last, recovering himself, and speaking with chivalrous courtesy, “I am in your debt for introducing me to our young friend. Mrs Hallam, you will let me come and see you?” ”

“ This man, Crellock, who had seemed like Hallam’s evil genius from the first, but whom she saw now as her husband’s willing tool, had conceived a passion for her darling child. More—he was her husband’s chosen companion in pleasure and in guilt, and Hallam would—if he had not done so already—accept him.
“And I sit here bemoaning my suffering,” she cried passionately, “when such a blow is impending for my darling. Shame! shame! Am I ever to be so weak a woman, so mere a puppet in others’ hands? Heaven give me strength to be forgetful of self, and strong in defence of my child!” ”

“ As Sir Gordon finished his bitter speech, Tom Porter took a step forward and threw the basin of mutton broth, basin, plate, and all, under the grate with a crash, and stalked towards the door.
“You scoundrel!” roared Sir Gordon. “You, Tom Porter, stop!”
“Be damned if I do!” growled the man. “There’s mutiny on, and I leave the ship.”
Bang!
The door was closed violently, and Sir Gordon looked helplessly up at Bayle.
“You see!”
“Yes,” said Bayle, “I see. Poor fellow! Why did you wound his feelings like that?”
“There!” cried Sir Gordon; “now you side with the scoundrel. ”

“ Blindly infatuated, strong, and yet weak as a girl; foolish in her trust in an utterly heartless and selfish, scoundrel; but how loving! Her young heart had opened like a flower at the breath of his love. He had been the sun that had warmed it with that wondrous new life, and it wanted something far stronger than occasional harshness, neglect, or the charges of man against man, to tear out the belief that had fast rooted itself in Millicent Hallam’s nature. ”

“ You? I thought you were as honest a man as ever trod this earth!”
“Me, sir?” said the clerk grimly. “Oh, no! oh, no! I’m a gambler, I am.”
The vague horror was dissolving fast into thin mist. “You astound me!” cried Bayle, as he thought of Sir Gordon’s doubts of Hallam. “You, in your position of trust! What are you going to do?”
The grim smile on James Thickens’s lips grew more saturnine as he said:
“Make a clean breast of it, sir. That’s why I sent for you.”
“But, my good man!—oh, for heaven’s sake! go with me at once to Sir Gordon and Mr Hallam. I ought not to listen to this alone.” ”

“ One pleasant evening, when the chill of winter had passed away, and the few ragged trees in the square garden, washed less sooty than usual by the cold rains, were asserting that there was truth in the genial, soft breaths of air that came floating from the west, and that it really was spring, Mrs Hallam, Julia, and Sir Gordon were seated at tea in the little parlour with the window open, and the sound of the footsteps without coming in regular beats. ”

“ As the man, who was perfectly silent now, was raised by the convicts to the level of their shoulders, he wrenched his head round that he might turn his distorted features, purple with their deep flush, and continue his wondering stare at Julia and Mrs Hallam.
Then the tramp and clank, tramp and clank went on, the guard raising each a hand to his forehead, and smiling at the group they left, while the old sergeant took off his cap, the sun shining down on a good manly English face, as he took a step towards Julia. ”

“ Every new customer who comes to the place is an object of suspicion to a man like me. He may want to cheat us. Every cheque that’s drawn is an object of suspicion because it may be a forgery, or the drawer may not have a balance to meet it. Then money—the number of bad coins I’ve detected, sir, would fill a big chest full of sham gold and silver, so that one grows to doubt and suspect every sovereign one handles. Then, sir, there’s men in general, and even your own people. It’s a bad life, sir, a bad life, a bank clerk’s, for you grow at last so that you even begin to doubt yourself. ”

“ She snatched the letter from her breast, her eyes sparkling and a feverish flush coming into her face, while, as she stood there in the softened light shed by the lamp, her lips apart, and a glint of her white teeth just seen, it seemed to both Bayle and Sir Gordon that the Millicent Luttrell of the old days was before them. Even the tones of her voice had lost their harshness, and sounded mellow and round.
They stood wondering and rapt, noticing the transformation, the animated way; the eager excitement, as of one longing to take action, after an enforced sealing up of every energy ”

“ I don’t!” muttered Sir Gordon. “Then look at Mrs Hallam.”
Bayle drew in his breath with a low hiss.
“It is horrible, man—it is horrible!” cried Sir Gordon excitedly. “Bayle, you know how I loved that woman twenty years ago? Well, it was impossible; it would have been May and December even then, for I’m a very old man, Bayle—older than you think. I was an old fool, perhaps, but it was my nature. I loved her very dearly. It was not to be; but the old love isn’t dead. ”

“ Mine are open now—yes,” he said, with a sad smile, “wide open; I can see it all. But,” he added quickly as he rose, “you are not angry with me, my dear?”
“Angry? Sir Gordon!”
“No: you are not,” he said, taking her hand and patting it softly. “Is it not strange that I could see you so clearly and well, and yet be so blind to myself? Ah, well, it is over now. I suppose no man is perfect, but in my conceit I did not think I could have been so weak. If I had not seen Bayle this morning and realised what had taken place, I should not have let my vanity get the better of me as I did.” ”

“ Sir Gordon drew a long breath like a sigh of relief. He had been watching Millicent closely, as if he were suspicious either that she was playing a part, or had been biassed by her husband. But the true loving trust and belief of the woman shone out in her countenance and rang in her words. True woman—true wife! Let the world say what it would, her place was by her husband, and in his defence she was ready to lay down her life. ”

“ Dr Luttrell’s garden was just far enough out of the town for the birds to sing. They came so far, and no farther. Once in a way, perhaps, some reckless young blackbird went right into the elder clump behind the mill, close up to the streets, and hunted snails from out of the hollow roots, and from the ivy that hung over the stone wall by the great water-tank in Thickens’s garden; but that was an exception. Only one robin and the sparrows strayed so far in as that.
But with the doctor’s garden it was different. ”