The Railway Man and His Children. Mrs. Oliphant
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to have seen you so well. And I have two children whom I shall have to leave to the tender mercies of the world. Ah, we have trials in our youth that we are tragical about; but believe me these are the real tragedies of life,” he said.
And then there came something almost more painful still. His servant came into the room and put on his coat and buttoned him into it as if he had been a child, then raised him smartly from his chair, drew an arm within his own, and led him away. The two ladies heard them go slowly shuffling downstairs, the master leaning upon the servant. Evelyn had grown as pale as marble. She remembered now to have seen an invalid chair standing at the door. And this was he who had filled her young life with joy, and afterwards with humiliation and pain. “Oh,” she cried, “and that is he, that is he!”
“I wish I could have spared you the sight,” said Lady Leighton, “but when he saw your card—he looked at it, when I dropped it out of my hand: people ill like that are so inquisitive—I knew how it would be. Well, you must have seen him sooner or later. It is as well to get it over. He is a wreck, as he says. And oh the contrast, Evelyn! He could not but see it—you so young-looking, so happy and well off. What a lesson it is.”
“I don’t want to be a lesson,” said Evelyn, with a faint smile. “Don’t make any moral out of me. He was a man always so careful of himself. What has he done to be so broken down?”
“Can you ask me what he has done, Evelyn? He has thought of nothing but himself and his own advantage all his life. Don’t you think we all remember——”
“I hope that you will forget—with all expedition,” cried Evelyn quickly. “I have no stone to cast at him. I am very very sorry.” The moisture came into her kind eyes. Her pity was so keen that it felt like a wound in her own heart.
“Oh, Evelyn, I would give the world this had not happened. I did all I could to keep you from seeing he was there. Such a shock for you without any warning! I know, I know that a woman never forgets.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Rowland, hastily, “that has nothing to do with it. I never was sentimental like you; and a spectacle like that is not one to call up tender recollections, is it? But I am very sorry. And he has children, to make him feel it all the more.”
“Yes,” said Lady Leighton doubtfully, “he has children. I must tell you that he still has a way of working on the feelings. Oh, poor man, I would not say a word that was unkind; but now that he has nothing but his troubles to give him an interest, he likes, perhaps, to make the most of his troubles. I wish you had not had this shock to begin with, dear Evelyn, your first day at home.”
CHAPTER VI.
Does a woman never forget? It was not true perhaps as Lady Leighton said it, but it would be vain to say that Evelyn was not moved to the bottom of her heart by the sight of her former lover. He, about whom all the dreams of her youth had been woven, who had deserted her, given her up in her need, and humiliated her before all the world. To see him at all would not have been without effect upon her, but to see him so humiliated in his turn, so miserable a wreck, while she was in all the flush of a late return to youth and well-being, happy in a subdued way, and on the height of prosperity, gave her a shock of mingled feeling, perhaps more strong than any she had experienced since he rent her life in two, and covered her (as she felt) with shame. But it was not any re-awakening of the extinguished fire which moved Evelyn. She could not forget, it was true, and yet she could easily have forgotten, the relation in which she had stood to him, and her old adoration of him, at all times the visionary love of a girl, giving a hundred fictitious excellencies to the hero she had chosen. This was not what had occurred to her mind. Had she seen him in his ancient supremacy of good fortune—a well-preserved, middle-aged Adonis, smiling perhaps, as she had imagined, at her late marriage with a rich parvenu, keeping the superior position of a man who has rejected a love bestowed upon him, and never without that complacent sense of having “behaved badly,” which is one of the many forms of vanity—the sight would not have disturbed her, except, perhaps, with a passing sensation of anger. But to see him in his downfall gave Evelyn a shock of pain. It was too terrible to think of what he had been and what he was. Instead of the sense of retribution which her friend had suggested, Evelyn had a horrified revulsion of feeling, rebellious against any such possibility, angry lest it should be supposed that she could have desired the least and smallest punishment, or could take any satisfaction from its infliction. She would have hated herself could she have thought this possible. There is an old poem in which the story of Troilus and Cressida, so often treated by the poets in its first bloom, has an after episode, an administration of poetic justice, in which all the severity of the mediæval imagination comes forth. The false Cressida falls into deepest misery in this tragic strain, and becomes a leper, the last and most awful of degradations. And while she sits with her wretched companions, begging her miserable bread by the roadside, the injured Troilus, the true knight, rides by. Evelyn, though I do not suppose she had ever seen Henryson’s poem, felt the same anguish of pity which arose in the bosom of the noble Greek. If she could have sent in secret the richest offering, and stolen aside out of the way not to insult the sufferer even by a look, she would have done it. Her pity was an agony, but it had nothing in it akin to love.
Lady Leighton, however, did not leave her friend any time to brood over this painful scene. She had no intention to confine to a mere interchange of courtesies this sudden reappearance upon the scene of a former companion whom, indeed, she could not help effectually in the period of her humiliation, but to whom now, in her newly acquired wealth, Madeline felt herself capable of being of great use. And it must not be supposed that it was purely a vulgar inclination to connect herself with rising fortunes, or to derive advantage from her friend’s new position that moved her. It was in its way a genuine and natural desire to further her old companion, whom she had been fond of, but for whom she could do nothing when she was poor and her position desperate. The love of a little fuss and pleasant meddling was the alloy of Lady Leighton’s gold, not any mercenary devotion to riches or thought of personal advantage. It was certainly delightful to have somebody to push and help on who could be nothing but a credit to you; to whom it would be natural to spend much money; and who yet was “one of our own set” and a favourite friend.
On the second day accordingly after that meeting which had been so painful an entry into the old world, Lady Leighton came in upon Evelyn as she sat alone, not very cheerful, longing for her husband and the new home in which she should find her natural place. She came with a rustle and bustle of energy, and that pretty air of having a thousand things to do, which is distinctive of a lady in the height of the season. “Here you are, all alone,” she said, “and so many people asking for you. Why didn’t you come to luncheon yesterday? We waited half an hour for you. And then we expected you at five o’clock, and I had Mary Riversdale and Alice Towers to meet you, who had both screamed to hear you were in town. And you never came! And of course they thought me a delusion and a snare, for they had given up half a dozen engagements. Why didn’t you come?”
“I am very sorry,” Evelyn said.
“That is no excuse,” cried her friend. “You were upset by the sight of that wretched Ned Saumarez. And I don’t wonder; but I believe he is not half so ill as he looks, and up to a good deal of mischief still. However, that is not the question. I have come about business. What are you going to do about a house?”
“About a house?”
“I came to be quite frank with you to-day. When your husband comes back you ought to have something ready for him. My dear Evelyn, I am going to speak seriously. If you want to know people, and be properly taken up, you must have a house for the rest of the season. A hotel is really not the thing. You ought to be able to have a few well chosen dinner parties, and to see your friends a little in the evening. There is nothing like a speciality. You might go in for Indian people. Let it be known that people are sure to meet a few Eastern big wigs, and your fortune would be made.”
“But——” cried Evelyn aghast.