Volume Two – Chapter Three.
Lady Millet’s Choice
Rich men are not always to be congratulated, especially if they are good-looking and weak. Frank Morrison was both, and in early days after her wedding Renée found that a loveless marriage was not all bliss.
But she had marked out her own course, and, with the hopefulness of youth, she often sat alone, thinking that she would win her husband entirely to herself, and that when he fully saw her devotion he would give up acquaintances whom he must have known before they were wed.
One Sunday evening, and she was seated waiting, when she heard a well-known step upon the stairs.
It was quite dinner-time, and she was waiting, dressed, for her husband’s return, looking sad, but very sweet and self-possessed; and as he entered the room she ran to meet him, put her arms round his neck and kissed him on lips that had been caressing others not an hour before.
“Ah, Renée,” he said quietly, “waiting dinner? So sorry, little woman. I could not get near a telegraph office, or I would have sent and told you.”
“I have not waited long, Frank,” she said cheerfully. “I am so glad you have come back.”
“But that is not what I meant, dear,” he replied. “I am only returned to dress. I dine out.”
“Dine out, Frank?” she said, trying hard not to seem troubled.
“Yes – obliged to. Two or three fellows at the club. Couldn’t refuse. You will excuse me to-night, little one?”
“Oh yes, Frank,” she said quickly, “if you must go, dear. I will not say I am not disappointed; but if you must go – ”
“Yes, I must, really,” he said. “Don’t fidget, and don’t wait up. There may be a rubber of whist afterwards, and I shall be late.”
“How easy it is to lie and deceive!” thought Renée, as, with the same calm, placid smile, she listened to her husband’s excuses. “You are going, Frank, to that handsome, fashionable-looking woman? You will dine with her, and spend the evening at her house, while I, with breaking heart, sit here alone, mad almost with jealousy I dare not show.”
Thoughts like these flitted through her mind as she put up her face and kissed him before quietly ringing the bell for her dinner to be served, and going down to the solitary meal.
Her husband came in for a moment to say good-bye, cheerfully, and then she was alone.
It was a hard and a bitter task, but she fulfilled it, sitting there calmly, and partaking of her solitary dinner. It was for his sake, she said, for no servant must dream that they were not happy; all must go on as usual, and some day he would come back repentant to her forgiving arms, won by her patience and long-suffering.
She sat thinking this over and over again later in the drawing-room with a sad smile upon her lips, pitying, but telling herself that she could be strong enough to fulfil her self-imposed task. Not one word of reproach should be his, only tenderness and kindness always. She was his wife, and would forgive; yes, had already forgiven, and granted him a dispensation for the sins against her that he might commit.
“Poor Frank, he never loved me as he thought he did; but I shall win him yet,” she murmured; and then started, for she fancied that she heard a door close.
She saw nothing, though, and paid little heed, for if it was, it might easily be one of the servants in the farther drawing-room, one of the set of three, the third being quite a small boudoir, where she was seated, while the others were only half lit.
She leaned back in her low chair dreaming of the happy days to come, when her husband would return to her, and then her thoughts glided off to Gertrude and her projected marriage.
“I wonder whether I shall have a child,” she thought, “and if so, whether I shall be, in time to come, as mamma is. Poor Gerty! it seems very shocking that she, too, while caring for another, should be almost forced to accept the addresses of an old man like Lord Henry Moorpark. For that’s what mamma means,” she said half aloud.
Then she sat dreaming on and wondering whether some reports she had heard about John Huish were true – reports of a very dishonourable nature, but which she had carefully hidden from her sister.
“It may be all scandal,” she murmured; “but I am getting hard now – so soon! ah, so soon! Where there is smoke, they say, there is fire. Poor Gerty! Better Lord Henry – who seems to love her – than that she should waste her days on a worthless man. And yet I liked John Huish. Uncle Robert likes him, too; and I never knew him wrong, in spite of his retired life.”
But it would be strange, she thought, if both she and her sister should have set the affections of their young hearts upon men who upon being tried proved to be unworthy of trust. “Poor Gerty! – poor me!” she said, half laughing. “It is a strange world, and perhaps, after all, our parents are right in choosing our partners for life.”
Then she started once more, for she knew that she was not alone, and on turning, there, in evening dress, his crush hat in his hand, and looking calm, handsome, and sardonic enough for an incarnation of the spirit of evil himself, stood Major Malpas.
“Nervous, Mrs Morrison? Good-evening. Did you not hear me announced? No? Your carpets are so soft.”
He almost forced her to hold out her hand to him as she sat up, by extending his own, and he took it and raised it respectfully to his lips.
“But where is Frank?” he asked.
“My husband dines out this evening,” said Renée coldly.
“Indeed! how unfortunate! He asked me to run over one evening for a cup of coffee and a cigar. Perhaps he will return soon.”
“Not till quite late,” said Renée, who tried hard not to show that she was troubled by the visit.
“I am so glad to see you better, Renée,” he said, taking a chair near her, and speaking in a low, earnest voice.
Renée started, for it was the first time since her marriage that he had called her by her name; and as she met his eyes she felt that it was also the first time since the same event that he had gazed at her with such bold admiration.
What could she do? She could not bid him leave her; and, besides, she felt that in a few minutes his gentlemanly instincts must lead him to go, and, indeed, what was there to fear? He was a gentleman – a friend of her husband – and he had called to see them.
“How times are changed, Renée!” he said, after a pause, as he gazed at her pensively. “Once your eyes used to brighten and the colour flushed into your cheek when I came near. Now, is it a dream – a trick of fancy? I find you another’s, and you turn from me with coldness.”
“Major Malpas,” said Renée quietly, “is this a suitable way of addressing the wife of your friend?”
The mask fell off at these words.
“Friend!” he cried bitterly, as he drew his chair close to the couch on which she sat; “he is no friend of mine. Friend! What, the man who has robbed me of all that was dear – who has made my life a desert! Friend? Renée, you mock me by using such a word.”
“Major Malpas!” she cried loudly.
“Hush!” he exclaimed, throwing down his hat. “Hear me now, for the time has come, and I must speak, even though it be to wound the heart of the tenderest and sweetest of women. Renée, can I call the man friend who deliberately forsakes you for the society of a notorious woman – an actress!”
“Friend? No,” cried Renée with flashing eyes, as she rose to ring; but he caught her wrist and stayed her. “No; nor he you, if this is your friendship – to come and blacken my husband’s name with foul calumny to his wife.”
“Stop!” he said. “You shall not ring. Calumny! foul! Is it a foul calumny to say that he was driving her in the Park to-day, that he is dining with her and her friends to-night? Shame, Renée, that you should speak thus to the man who has ever been your faithful slave.”
“Major Malpas, I insist upon your leaving me this instant. There is the door!”
“Leave you! No,” he cried, seizing her other hand, as he fell upon his knees at her feet, “not till I have told you, Renée, that the old love never died in my heart, but has grown up stronger, day by day, till it has mastered my very being.”
That same night there was a party given by Madame Dorinde, limited to eight, fairly balanced between the sexes. The dinner was to be good, the supply of wines very liberal, especially as they cost the hostess nothing.
But they were a curious collection of guests, such as would have puzzled a student of human nature. Certainly he would have understood the status of Madame Dorinde, a handsome, showy woman, with plenty of smart repartee on her lips, and an abundance of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds for neck, arms and fingers – the gifts of the admirers of her histrionic powers. He would have told you that this would be a bright and gay career for a few years, and then probably she would drop out of sight.
There was a pretty, fair girl with good features and the glow of youth on her cheeks, putting to shame the additions of paint, and who seemed to think it right to laugh loudly and boisterously at everything said to her; there was Miss Grace Lister, the first burlesque actress of the day, dark, almost gipsy-looking in her swarthy complexion, whose colour was heightened by the novelty and excitement of the scene; Lottie Deloraine, née Simpkins, of the Marquise Theatre; Frank Morrison and a couple of washed-out habitués of the stalls lounged about the room, and the assembled company were beginning to wonder why dinner was not announced.
“What are we waiting for, Dory?” said Morrison at last. “Aren’t we all here?”
“Only for an old friend of mine. You know him – John Huish,” said the hostess rather maliciously; and then she added to herself, “He’ll keep your eyes off Gracy Lister, my gentleman.”
Morrison screwed up his face a little, laughed in a curious way, uttered the ejaculation “Oh!” and then smiled as the door was opened and a smart soubrette loudly announced “Mr John Huish!” the bearer of that name entering hurriedly, looking flushed and full of apologies, which were at once received and the dinner commenced.
It was intended to be free and easy and full of spirit; but somehow it seemed as if a spirit of discontent had crept in, and from time to time, though there was no open unpleasantly, flashes of annoyance played like the summer lightning which prefaces a storm over the table with its sparkling glass.
Madame Dorinde had a great favour to ask of her admirer, Frank Morrison, and sought to put him in the best of humours; but to her great annoyance she found him preoccupied, for his attention had from the first moment been taken up by Grace Lister, and his eyes were being constantly turned in her direction as, after a time, forgetting past troubles and neglect in the gaiety and excitement of the scene, Madame Dorinde looked brighter and more animated than she had seemed for weeks.
All this annoyed Huish, who was not long in detecting the glances directed by Frank Morrison at the glowing beauty of Grace, and he was the more annoyed because, just before dinner, he had whispered to the giver of the feast:
“Have the cards on the table as soon as you can. You propose.”
“There will be no cards to-night, my friend, so you need not expect to win any money,” the hostess had replied; and the young man had bitten his lip, and sat thinking how he could turn the little party to his own account.
“Why, I say, Huish,” Morrison cried gaily, a little later on, “what a canting humbug you are! I never thought to meet you at a party like this;” and he smiled significantly. “We always thought you were a kind of saint.”
“I am – sometimes.”
“It’s wonderful,” sneered Morrison.
“Yes, it is a wonder, my dear fellow; but you set me such an example.”
The two habitués of the stalls nodded to one another their approbation of the retort, and Madame Dorinde, to calm what threatened to be one ebullition with another, called for champagne.
As the dinner went on, the elements of discord began to leaven the party with greater effect, and a calm observer would have felt sure that the evening would not pass away without a quarrel. Morrison slighted his hostess more than once, and a redder spot burned in her cheeks right in the centre of a rather unnatural tint, while Huish, out of sheer bravado, on seeing how Morrison kept trying to draw Grace into conversation, directed his to Madame Dorinde.
“By the way, why hasn’t Malpas come?” said Morrison at last. “I expected to see him here with little Merelle.”
“Better employed, perhaps,” said Madame Dorinde tartly; and the young girl with the youthful look laughed very heartily.
“I say, Huish,” said Morrison at last, on finding that his attentions to Grace were resented by her companion, “I shall see little fair somebody to-morrow. You know whom I mean. What tales I might tell!”
“Tell them, then,” said Huish sharply; “perhaps I shall retort by telling too.”
“Oh, tut, tut, tut!” cried Dorinde. “Nobody tells tales out of school.”
“This is not the School for Scandal, then,” said one of the habitués of the stalls; and the fair young lady laughed again.
“I say, Dorinde,” said Morrison at last, rather uneasily, “why is not Malpas here?” and as he spoke he directed a peculiar smile at Grace.
Huish drew his breath hard, but said nothing. He set one of the menu cards close to his plate, wrote something on the back, and, waiting his time, doubled it up at last.
“Give that to the gentleman opposite,” he whispered to a waiter, slipping a florin into the man’s hand. “Don’t say where it came from.”
The man nodded, and Huish turned to chat gaily with Dorinde; then, filling his glass slowly, he directed a sidelong glance at Morrison as he took the card, glanced at its writing, crushed it up in his hand, and closed his eyes, as a spasm ran through his countenance and he turned pale as death.
No one else noticed it, and he opened his eyes and glanced quickly round to see that the company were all busily conversing. Then, rising quietly, he left the room, walked slowly to the lobby of the great building, where he had left hat and coat, and went out of the house.
Then he let his excitement have its full vent.
“Hansom!” he shouted, leaping into the first he saw. “Chesham Place – double fare – gallop.”
The horse dashed off in answer to the sharp cut of the whip, and as it tore along Piccadilly Frank Morrison strove to get rid of the fumes of the wine he had been drinking, and to think calmly.
“She is too pure and sweet and true a woman – I don’t believe it,” he said, grinding his teeth. “Whom I am cursed scoundrel enough to neglect. Who could have written that? Curse him! that John Huish, of course. What a scoundrel he has turned out!”
“Bah! what am I railing at?” he cried. “Whom do I call scoundrel? Damn you!” he roared, forcing up the little trap in the roof of the hansom. “Faster, man, faster.”
There was another lash of the whip, and the horse galloped furiously.
“Scoundrel, indeed! he is no worse scoundrel than I. He is an open roué, while I stoop to all kinds of beggarly petty subterfuges to conceal the life I lead. I won’t believe it, though; it is a malicious trick of John Huish’s because he was jealous – and he has fooled me.”
“Well,” he muttered, after a pause, “a good thing too. I’m sick of the whole thing – cards, lose, pay, feast a woman who does not care a sou for me. Heavens, what a fool I am! John Huish, you have ousted me; take my place and welcome. Renée, little woman, I’ll come back, and be a good boy now.”
He said this with a mocking laugh, and then changed his position impatiently in the cab, growing, in spite of his words, more excited every moment.
“How could Huish know?” he said, gnawing his nails. “Impossible; and, besides, he is too good and tried a friend. Suppose he did drop in, what then? Why, he is wiser than I: he prefers the society of a sweet good little woman to that of a set of painted animals, who have not a scrap of reputation big enough to make a bow for their false hair.”
“There, I’ve been tricked,” he exclaimed, as the cab turned down out of Knightsbridge and he neared Chesham Place. “Never mind; I’ll forgive him for fooling me, and I’ll try to leave all this wretched, stupid life behind. We’ll go abroad for a bit; or, no, we’ll go yachting – there’ll be no temptations there. I’m going to begin afresh. We’ll have a new honeymoon, Renée, my little girl. But – but – if that fellow’s words were true!”
The gas-lamps seemed to spin round as he stopped the cab, and he leapt out to hastily thrust some money in the drivers hand, and then walked sharply down the Place till he came opposite his own house.
“Curse it – it can’t be so!” he groaned, as he saw the dimly-lit drawing-room. “If it were true, I should go mad or go to the bad altogether. I won’t believe it. Malpas, old fellow, I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “Renée, my child, if heaven will give me strength, I’ll confess to you like an honest man that I’ve been a fool and an idiot, and ask you to forgive me.”
“Yes, and she’ll forgive me without a word,” he said, as he opened the door, quickly threw off hat and coat, and ran up the great stone staircase three steps at a time, then, trying to control the agitation that made his heart beat so heavily against his side, he threw open the door, closed it hastily, and walked across the faintly-lit room into the next, where he could see into the little boudoir with its bright furniture, flowers, and graceful hanging-lamp, which shed a softened light through the place.
The next instant he had entered, and was standing there face to face with his wife, who with flushed face stood trembling before him, supporting herself by-one hand upon the chimney-piece.
“Renée,” he cried, turning white with rage, as his worst suspicions seemed confirmed, “what does this mean?”
“Frank, Frank!” stretching out her hands towards him as she tottered a couple of steps and then reeled and would have fallen, but he caught her and swung her round on to the couch, where he laid her, and stood gazing down for a few moments.
Then, looking dazed, and trembling in every limb, he turned round, his eyes rested on the curtains which shut off the little conservatory, and with two strides he reached them, tore them aside, and then started away.
It was exactly what he had wound himself up to expect; but his faith in his injured wife was so strong that, as he drew back, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and with a giddy feeling stealing over him, he stood staring wildly at the apparition that he had unveiled. The blood seemed to swell in a chilling flood to his heart, and for a few moments he could neither speak nor move.
Then with an electric rush it seemed to dart again through every vein in his body, making his nerves tingle, and he flew at the man who had crept like a serpent into his Eden.
“Devil!” he cried hoarsely; and he tried to seize his enemy by the throat.
With a deft movement of the arms, though, Malpas struck his hands aside, caught them by the wrist, gave them a dexterous twist, and forced the other, stronger man though he was of the two, upon his knees.
“Fool! idiot!” he said, in a low voice. “Do you wish to publish it all over Belgravia?”
“You crawling, deceitful fiend!” cried Frank Morrison, making a savage effort to free himself, and succeeding so that he closed, and a sharp struggle ensued, which again went against the young husband. For his adversary was an adept in athletic exercises, and taking advantage of a low ottoman being behind, forced him backwards so suddenly that he fell, and in a moment was down with Malpas’s hands in his necktie and a knee on his chest.
“Are you mad?” he said, panting and trying to recover his breath; “what do you want?”
“Your life, you crawling, lying villain,” gasped Morrison.
“Look here, Morrison, be a man of the world,” said Malpas quietly. “So far, I don’t suppose they have heard anything downstairs, so why make a scene? If you wish it, I’ll meet you in Belgium; that is,” he added, smiling, “if you consider that your honour has suffered.”
“You scoundrel!” panted Morrison. “You have blasted my home!”
“Bah! don’t go into high sentiment. Blasted your home? Hang it, man, talk sense! What did you care for your home? Where have you been to-night?”
“Where I pleased,” cried Morrison, with subdued rage in his eyes; but he lowered his voice.
“Exactly, you had your little affair to attend to: why should not madame have her guest by way of solace, in the absence of so true and faithful a husband?”
“You villain!” panted Morrison again, as he caught the wrists that held him down.
“Villain, if you like to use such strong language, mon cher; but for heaven’s sake be calm – be a man of the world! We don’t live in the old, sentimental Darby-and-Joan days, my dear fellow, but in times when it is fashionable to follow one’s own sweet will. You are like the dog in the manger: obstinate – selfish – brutal. Go to, my dear friend, and enjoy yourself, but let others live and enjoy themselves too.”
For answer Frank Morrison made a desperate struggle to rise, but he was quite helpless under the strong pressure of his opponent’s knee.
“For goodness’ sake, be calm,” said Malpas angrily. “Hang it, man, what did you expect in our matter-of-fact world! You brought me here constantly, and you left us together constantly. Do you forget that we were old lovers before you came between us? There, you are coming to your senses, I hope.”
He stepped away quickly towards the door, and Frank Morrison sprang up and made as if once more to seize him, but with a violent thrust Malpas sent him backwards and was gone.
Frank Morrison stood motionless till he heard the front door close; then with a moan of anguish he turned towards where Renée still lay insensible upon the couch.
“My punishment!” he groaned: “and I believed in her so thoroughly; I thought her so pure, so sweet that – out upon me! I left her, dog that I was, for garbage. Curse him!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage, “curse her, with her smooth, white, innocent looks! The whole world is blasted with villainy, and there is not one among us worthy of a moment’s faith.”
“Frank – husband,” moaned a voice, and Renée, pale as death, rose trembling to clasp her hands before him.
He caught them in his, dragged her up savagely, and then swung her down upon her knees.
“And you, too, of all women in the world! Curse you! curse you! may you – ”
“Frank, my own, I – ”
“Out upon you!” he cried. “I’ll never look upon your smooth false face again!”
Choking with her emotion, she tried to speak – to cling to him; but he snatched himself away, and as she fell heavily upon the carpet he rushed from the house.