Mrs. J. H. Riddell

“ Mr. Croft was present; but from him, Alick Dudley kept aloof. Even amongst the moss-grown headstones in Fifield graveyard, he could not forget what he had seen amidst the tombs at North Kemms.
He would not break faith with Bessie; but he could not be cordial to the man, although he had been kind to Heather and fond of Lally.
Alick was able, perhaps, now to guess the reason of his fancy for the child; but that did not soften him much towards the offender.
Rather the reverse, possibly; young people are, like most women, apt to be a trifle intolerant. ”

“ Contrasting gloomily with their bright red-brick fronts was the gateway which gave ingress to Mr. Lukin’s silk-weaving factory.
A gloomy, disreputable gateway, affording admittance up a narrow cart-road into a wider court-yard beyond, one side of which was occupied by a packing-shed and a carpenter’s shop; another by the weaving factory, and a third by the dwelling of the manager; the only picturesque things about the place being the windlass and buckets belonging to a disused well.
We must pass in, if you please, for Arthur Dudley is the manager, and this is his house. ”

“ In the eyes of Alick Dudley, 167Douglas Aymescourt Croft seemed the incarnation of evil, of hypocrisy, of treachery, and of sin.
With all his heart and with all his soul, Alick hated the man—hated him all the more, perhaps, because he felt quite confident, if Mr. Croft once told his tale to Heather, he would deceive her also somehow, perhaps even move her to pity.
And Alick held in those days the pleasant creed, that no human being who went wrong should ever be pitied. ”

“ Little more than twelve months before, Heather had told Alick she did not know much about wickedness herself, and behold, already she was coming dimly to understand, that no human comprehension of life can be perfect, the boundaries of which exclude from sight, all evil, all passion, all temptation, all repentance, all despair. ”

“ It is human to err, and your humanity has erred, perhaps, on the safest side. On a safer side than mine, certainly,” he muttered, as Alick, jumping up beside Ned, took the reins, and, with a cold farewell to Mr. Croft, drove off at a rattling trot along Berrie Down Lane, and thence through Fifield to Palinsbridge.
As they passed Fifield church, the moonlight fell clear and cold on the mound of freshly-turned mould, which was heaped over the spot where Heather’s darling lay all alone, and the tears came welling up into Alick’s eyes when he thought of the dead child. ”

“ Black for an enemy, what troubles might he not expect to have to face in the future—what about his bills, what about Berrie Down, what about his means of actual subsistence? If a man could, secretly and anonymously, damage another’s credit, plot and scheme to beggar a person against whom he had a grudge, watch the growth of his plans through months, and never flinch nor falter in the execution of his purpose, what might Arthur not expect at his hands, after having baulked him in his design? ”

“ Heather Bell—Heather Bell, the waves seemed to murmur the name as they stole upon the sands; and the old man grew young again as the years faded away; and he saw, reflected as in a mirror, the bright glad face of the long, and long ago, when he first, at Sir Wingrave Bell’s, met Lilian Gladwin, who was even in those days engaged to the baronet’s cousin, William, then a poor curate in London, and afterwards the poor rector of Layford, Derbyshire. ”

“ Is not anything, any sin, any disgrace, any suffering, preferable to a loveless marriage? Answer me, truly, Mrs. Dudley,” he persisted; “do you not believe it is?”
With her cheeks on fire, Heather rose and answered him—“Why do you put such a question to me, Mr. Croft—to me, of all women living?” ”

“ What a cruel world it is; what a hard, wicked, misjudging, uncharitable, mercenary world! Thus Heather Dudley reflected, while, without waiting for Lucy or Leonard, she walked homewards with Lally, the hot tears filling her eyes and coursing down her cheeks as she recalled Mrs. Croft’s insulting words, as she came gradually to comprehend the full meaning of her insolent accusation. ”

“ Is not it the inevitable rule that storms must come, if only to clear the air; that women should shed tears in order that their eyes may be all the brighter afterwards? What right had Mrs. Dudley to look for a succession of sunshiny hours, when Douglas Croft, who was popularly supposed to be the most lucky fellow on earth, met with nothing but contrary winds and heavy rains during the short periods in the year he and his wife reluctantly spent together? ”

“ But in this conclusion, Arthur Dudley—like all people who, reasoning in a passion, reason illogically—chanced to be wrong. His few thousands would have made but a very poor figure when placed to the credit of Mr. Black’s recent purchases; they would have been a drop in the ocean, a blade of grass on the prairie, a single crow amongst the occupants of a rookery. Those poor thousands were many for a poor man to lose; but even had he pocketed every sixpence of the money for which Arthur was responsible, the whole amount would not have tided Mr. Black over three months’ expenditure. ”

“ Since my marriage, I often should have liked to choose; but perhaps, had power been given me to do so, I might only have made a worse mess of it. The best of a marriage like mine is, it makes a man so philosophical. It leaves one nothing to wish for, nothing to desire; jealousy, over-affection, anxiety about the dear creature’s health; sleepless nights if her finger aches; torturing doubts if another fellow is over-zealous in finding her shawls—from all these troubles I am exempt. My domestic life leaves me nothing to fret about. ”

“ Heaven help her! she felt very weak and very miserable, surrounded by people, whose stories seemed all more perfect than her own; and Douglas Croft, listening to that unexpected outburst, felt in 224his soul there were more ways of deceiving a woman than by a sham marriage; more means of breaking a loving heart than by deceit, and falsehood, and wrong.
“God pardon me,” he thought, as he walked slowly home; “but yet, have I been worse than Dudley? Is it more sinful to love and betray a woman, than to marry her without love?” ”

“ What woman is there who does not know exactly how Heather took the little fatuous-looking lump of mortality to her heart and cried over it; who cannot 174conceive how Bessie, sitting on a low stool, gazed at the meaningless features of her child, which cooed and clung to Heather, and dabbed its fists in her face, and crowed with delight at the sweet eyes bent upon it, and kicked in an ecstasy of infantile excitement at all the notice “mamma’s company” was taking of mamma’s autocrat. ”

“ Stewart, you certainly will ask in vain,” was the reply. “When, eight months since, we met in Moorgate Street, you did me the honour of asking my opinion about this Company,—and I gave you that opinion to the best of my ability,—what was your course of action? You certainly got rid of Bayley Crossenham, but you put in his shoes a man utterly incompetent to manage even his own business, how much less yours; a man, who, though perfectly honest himself, could never detect dishonesty in others. I asked you then, if Lord Kemms’ name had been really added to the Direction by his authority? ”

“ But Heather should never know this; no man, nor no woman, should ever say a Dudley of Berrie Down had committed a felony. There was one way of escape, and his feeble mind clutched hold of that poor straw eagerly: one way—he would take care of himself, and Alick would take care of Heather! ”

“ They are very ignorant, and they are very virtuous; their 153standard of right is happily high, their idea of sin is, fortunately, that it is black as night. There are two colours only for them in this world; of the delicate shades of grey into which, as the years go by, every human feeling seems ultimately to resolve itself, they have no understanding. It is entire innocence, or entire vice—it is either devil or angel. What is the good of a man being a man, if he cannot resist temptation? where is the boasted purity of a woman, if she have ever even looked on sin? ”

“ Shall we pity a man who is deceived by a thimblerigger, or fleeced by his chatty travelling acquaintance who, on the long northern journey, produces a pack of cards, and proposes a game merely to while away the time! And, in like manner, shall we, at this age of the world, pity those “clergymen and others,” without whose post-office orders and almost illegibly-signed cheques promoters and Limited Liability Companies would soon have to die a death of sheer inanition, and leave the commercial field open for honest labour—for legitimate competition. ”

“ Robert Crossenham; “and enough to kill a company, if it had as many lives as a cat. What the devil do we want with directors or any board? If they would only find the money, I swear I’d find the brains. It is such a mistake, having so many masters. Well, if the ‘Protector’ goes smash, I shall always say, one of the finest pots of broth ever a man brought to boiling-point was spoiled by too many cooks having a hand in dishing it.”
As for Mr. Stewart, he even, had his fits of irritability—his hours when he came to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and treated Arthur to his opinions. ”

“ There is no sin—of course not—and therefore, no harm being done, every one ought to be satisfied; only when flirting Virtue becomes, as it does in such cases, brazen-faced, the question arises whether Sin, with averted head and downcast eyes, be not the easier vanquished opponent of the two.
At all events, without for a moment insinuating that Mrs. Douglas Croft was other than the most discreet of British matrons, it is open to doubt whether the most indiscreet of women could have given Heather Dudley one-half so many heart-aches as did that amiable and estimable wife. ”

“ With all these helps, was it any wonder that the shares of the Protector should soon be at a premium? that every one connected with the Company felt himself to be to some extent a person of consequence; that Arthur Dudley forgot his fears, and only remembered his interest in the great concern; that even the mortgaging of Berrie Down grew in time to be a mere bagatelle—a trifle not worth fretting about?
What might the shares not ultimately touch! Supposing the ten pound share, paid up, came in time to be worth a hundred pounds, why, his income would be enormous ”

“ You were fond of her, were you not, boy? it vexes you to hear that there is no one belonging to her, no one on whom she has a claim—not even myself who can say where she is, whether living or dead; but what is your trouble to mine? When I looked in your face a moment since, my last hope vanished. I thought perhaps she might have gone to Heather—to Mrs. Dudley, I mean.”
“Would you have me understand that she never went off with you?” Alick interrupted. He stood still in the very middle of Berrie Down Lane as he spoke, and the shifting light gave a wild, curious expression to his face. ”

“ Adversity, as has been stated, had not proved beneficial to the tempers of his directors, and stormy meetings were now the rule instead of the exception. Every man looked angrily on his neighbour; every orator believed the last speaker, and the speakers who had preceded him, wrong—practically and theoretically, root and branch; every creature had his own pet plan for restoring public confidence in the Company, and was wont to return home full of dismal forebodings, of doleful prophecies. ”

“ Dudley turned and walked back along the Parade to the point where Lally was still engaged in animated conversation with her two gentlemen friends.
“It is time for you to come in, my pet,” she said, descending one of the flights of wooden steps, and making her way with difficulty over the shingle to the sands. “If you see my sister, Mr. Stewart, would you kindly ask her to bring Leonard back? I do not like him to be out in the heat of the day. I do not think it is good for children to be on the shore when the sun has so much power.” ”

“ It is a curious anomaly to notice how harsh the very excess of a woman’s sensibility frequently renders her.
She feels one side of a question so deeply, that 150there is no room left in her nature for considering even the possibility of there being another side at all. And, in that hour of mortal sorrow, Heather had no leisure to bestow a thought on any one except her dead child. Even her love for Arthur seemed blotted out in indignation at his neglect of their first-born. ”

“ But he stuck to his point; and, although right is not always might, in the hands even of a nobleman, still Lord Kemms may have been pronounced the victor, insomuch as he contrived to do the Protector a vast deal of injury; to shake the Company to its very foundation; to create an enormous amount of alarm amongst the shareholders; and to cause the directors much perplexity and annoyance.
After all, a company is very like a woman; once blown upon, its credit is worth but little from that time forth for ever. It may demean itself with the extremest propriety ”

“ Already she seemed to feel the hot tongues of flame licking her cheek—already the struggle for life, dear life, appeared to have begun—already the scorching heat was drying up her blood—already she was beating against the closed gates, beating with her clenched hands till they were bruised and bleeding, while the fire raged behind, and the air became hotter and hotter, the flames fiercer and fiercer. ”

“ A man may be weary of the devil which possesses him, even though he be unable to get rid of it. At one time, I confess, I thought Black was going to turn over a new leaf, and content himself with the fine things the Protector had in store for him, but now I fear the old Adam is too strong in Black ever to give him a chance of turning from the evil of his former ways, and I am satisfied if he can ruin our Company he will do it somehow. This business of Kemms’ is bad too. How many shares have you, Douglas, besides your qualification? ”

“ Mrs. Dudley answered. “If you are married, where is your husband—why are you here? if you are not married—oh! Bessie, sweet, forgive me!”
“Forgive you, Heather!” Bessie answered, 176“forgive you! If you think even the implication of such a misfortune so hurtful to me, what will the reality prove to you, Heather? I am not a married woman, spite of this—and this”—she pointed to ring and infant—“I am no more married in the eye of the law, than I was when I left Berrie Down!” ”

“ If you take a bill to the bank now, with, say, even my Lord Mayor’s name on it, the manager looks at you as if you were no better than a thief. It is no good being down-hearted, though; if care killed the cat, I still see no reason why care should kill us. We shall find the ‘Protector’ looking up yet, never fear, and the shares at a premium again. Deuce a share is at a premium in the City, I think, at this present minute of speaking. ”

“ Raidsford,” answered Mr. Stewart, with a look towards that gentleman, which seemed to say “I know all about it;” “and I suppose you and Mr. Raidsford have been settling our concerns for us over your claret. We stand at opposite poles,” he added, addressing the contractor; “there can be no doubt but that in some previous state of existence you were bitten by a company, and have had a kind of hydrophobic horror of Limited Liability ever since. Now, Frank, tell me all your grievances; what is this about your good name being taken from you?” ”

“ I have never lost money by a company yet, and I do not purpose beginning now.”
“But it is so confoundedly mean to desert a failing cause.”
“I never made any pretension to Quixotism. The moment Frank said he had written to the Times, I made up my mind to sell; and, if you were wise, you would sell also.”
“No; I shall not adopt that course,” said Mr. Stewart; but he did not tell his nephew what course he intended to adopt.
“It will be a bad business for Dudley, if anything should go wrong with the Protector,” remarked Mr. Croft, after an uncomfortable pause. “He has mortgaged Berrie Down.” ”