Sevenoaks Part 37

"You have never told me your whole name, Harry," she said tenderly, with the design of leading him away from the subject of his grief.

"Harry Benedict."

He felt the thrill that ran through her frame, as if it had been a shock of electricity. The arms that held him trembled, and half relaxed their hold upon him. Her heart struggled, intermitted its beat, then throbbed against his reclining head as if it were a hammer. He raised himself, and looked up at her face. It was pale and ghastly; and her eyes were dimly looking far off, as if unconscious of anything near.

"Are you ill?"

There was no answer.

"Are you ill?" with a voice of alarm.

The blood mounted to her face again.

"It was a bad turn," she said. "Don't mind it. I'm better now."

"Isn't it better for me to sit in a chair?" he inquired, trying to rise.

She tightened her grasp upon him.

"No, no. I am better with you here. I wish you were never to leave me."

Again they sat a long time in silence. Then she said:

"Harry, can you write?"

"Yes."

"Well, there is a pencil on the table, and paper. Go and write your father's name. Then come and give me a kiss, and then go home. I shall see you again, perhaps to-night. I suppose I ought to apologize to Mrs.

Balfour for keeping you so long."

Harry did her bidding. She did not look at him, but turned her eyes to the window. There she saw Mr. Belcher, who had just been sent away from the door. He bowed, and she returned the bow, but the smile she summoned to her face by force of habit, failed quickly, for her heart had learned to despise him.

Harry wrote the name, left it upon the table, and then came to get his kiss. The caress was calmer and tenderer than any she had given him. His instinct detected the change; and, when he bade her a good night, it seemed as if she had grown motherly,--as if a new life had been developed in her that subordinated the old,--as if, in her life, the sun had set, and the moon had risen.

She had no doubt that as Harry left the door Mr. Belcher would see him, and seek admission at once on his hateful business, for, strong as his pa.s.sion was for Mrs. Dillingham, he never forgot his knavish affairs, in which he sought to use her as a tool. So when she summoned the servant to let Harry out, she told him that if Mr. Belcher should call, he was to be informed that she was too ill to see him.

Mr. Belcher did call within three minutes after the door closed on the lad. He had a triumphant smile on his face, as if he did not doubt that Mrs. Dillingham had been engaged in forwarding his own dirty work. His face blackened as he received her message, and he went wondering home, with ill-natured curses on his lips that will not bear repeating.

Mrs. Dillingham closed the doors of her drawing-room, took the paper on which Harry had written, and resumed her seat. For the hour that lay between her and her dinner, she held the paper in her cold, wet hand.

She knew the name she should find there, and she determined that before her eye should verify the prophecy of her heart, she would achieve perfect self-control.

Excited by the interview with the lad, and the prescience of its waiting _denouement_, her mind went back into his and his father's history. Mr.

Belcher could have alleviated that history; nay, prevented it altogether. What had been her own responsibility in the case? She could not have foreseen all the horrors of that history; but she, too, could have prevented it. The consciousness of this filled her with self-condemnation; yet she could not acknowledge herself to be on a level with Mr. Belcher. She was ready and anxious to right all the wrongs she had inflicted; he was bent on increasing and confirming them.

She cursed him in her heart for his Injustice and cruelty, and almost cursed herself.

But she dwelt most upon the future which the discoveries of the hour had rendered possible to herself. She had found a way out of her hateful life. She had found a lad who admired, loved, and trusted her, upon whom she could lavish her hungry affections--one, indeed, upon whom she had a right to lavish them. The life which she had led from girlhood was like one of those deep canons in the far West, down which her beautiful boat had been gliding between impa.s.sable walls that gave her only here and there glimpses of the heaven above. The uncertain stream had its fascinations. There were beautiful shallows over which she had glided smoothly and safely, rocks and rapids over which she had shot swiftly amid attractive dangers, crooked courses that led she did not know whither, landing-places where she could enjoy an hour of the kindly sun. But all the time she knew she was descending. The song of the waterfalls was a farewell song to scenes that could never be witnessed again. Far away perhaps, perhaps near, waited the waters of the gulf that would drink the sparkling stream into its sullen depths, and steep it in its own bitterness. It was beautiful all the way, but it was going down, down, down. It was seeking the level of its death; and the little boat that rode so buoyantly over the crests which betrayed the hidden rocks, would be but a chip among the waves of the broad, wild sea that waited at the end.

Out of the fascinating roar that filled her ears; out of the sparkling rapids and sheeny reaches, and misty cataracts that enchanted her eyes; and out of the relentless drift toward the bottomless sea, she could be lifted! The sun shone overhead. There were rocks to climb where her hands would bleed; there were weary heights to scale; but she knew that on the top there were green pastures and broad skies, and the music of birds--places where she could rest, and from which she could slowly find her way back, in loving companions.h.i.+p, to the mountains of purity from which she had come.

She revolved the possibilities of the future; and, provided the little paper in her hand should verify her expectations, she resolved to realize them. During the long hour in which she sat thinking, she discounted the emotion which the little paper in her hand held for her, so that, when she unfolded it and read it, she only kissed it, and placed it in her bosom.

After dinner, she ordered her carriage. Then, thinking that it might be recognized by Mr. Belcher, she changed her order, and sent to a public stable for one that was not identified with herself; and then, so disguising her person that in the evening she would not be known, she ordered the driver to take her to Mr. Balfour's.

Mrs. Dillingham had met Mr. Balfour many times, but she had never, though on speaking terms with her, cultivated Mrs. Balfour's acquaintance, and that lady did not fail to show the surprise she felt when her visitor was announced.

"I have made the acquaintance of your little ward," said Mrs.

Dillingham, "and we have become good friends. I enticed him into my house to-day, and as I kept him a long time, I thought I would come over and apologize for his absence."

"I did not know that he had been with you," said Mrs. Balfour, coolly.

"He could do no less than come to me when I asked him to do so," said Mrs. Dillingham; "and I was entirely to blame for his remaining with me so long. You ladies who have children cannot know how sweet their society sometimes is to those who have none."

Mrs. Balfour was surprised. She saw in her visitor's eyes the evidence of recent tears, and there was a moisture in them then, and a subdued and tender tone to her voice which did not harmonize at all with her conception of Mrs. Dillingham's nature and character. Was she trying her arts upon her? She knew of her intimacy with Mr. Belcher, and naturally connected the visit with that unscrupulous person's schemes.

Mrs. Balfour was soon relieved by the entrance of her husband, who greeted Mrs. Dillingham in the old, stereotyped, gallant way in which gentlemen were accustomed to address her. How did she manage to keep herself so young? Would she be kind enough to give Mrs. Balfour the name of her hair-dresser? What waters had she bathed in, what airs had she breathed, that youth should clothe her in such immortal fas.h.i.+on?

Quite to his surprise, Mrs. Dillingham had nothing to say to this badinage. She seemed either not to hear it at all, or to hear it with impatience. She talked in a listless way, and appeared to be thinking of anything but what was said.

At last, she asked Mr. Balfour if she could have the liberty to obtrude a matter of business upon him. She did not like to interfere with his home enjoyments, but he would oblige her much by giving her half an hour of private conversation. Mr. Balfour looked at his wife, received a significant glance, and invited the lady into his library.

It was a long interview. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock sounded, and then Mrs. Balfour went upstairs. It was nearly midnight when Mrs. Dillingham emerged from the door. She handed a bank-note to the impatient coachman, and ordered him to drive her home. As she pa.s.sed Mr. Belcher's corner of the street, she saw Phipps helping his master to mount the steps. He had had an evening of carousal among some of his new acquaintances. "Brute!" she said to herself, and withdrew her head from the window.

Admitted at her door, she went to her room in her unusual wrappings, threw herself upon her knees, and buried her face in her bed. She did not pray; she hardly lifted her thoughts. She was excessively weary. Why she knelt she did not know; but on her knees she thought over the occurrences of the evening. Her hungry soul was full--full of hopes, plans, purposes. She had found something to love.

What is that angel's name who, shut away from ten thousand selfish, sinful lives, stands always ready, when the bearers of those lives are tired of them, and are longing for something better, to open the door into a new realm? What patience and persistence are his! Always waiting, always prepared, cheris.h.i.+ng no resentments, willing to lead, anxious to welcome, who is he, and whence came he? If Mrs. Dillingham did not pray, she had a vision of this heavenly visitant, and kissed the hem of his garments.

She rose and walked to her dressing-table. There she found a note in Mrs. Belcher's handwriting, inviting her to a drive in the Park with her and Mr. Belcher on the following afternoon. Whether the invitation was self-moved, or the result of a suggestion from Mr. Belcher, she did not know. In truth, she did not care. She had wronged Mrs. Belcher in many ways, and she would go.

Why was it that when the new and magnificent carriage rolled up to her door the next afternoon, with its wonderful horses and showy equipage, and appointments calculated to attract attention, her heart was smitten with disgust? She was to be stared at; and, during all the drive, she was to sit face to face with a man who believed that he had fascinated her, and who was trying to use her for all the base purposes in which it was possible for her to serve his will. What could she do with him? How, in the new relations of her life to him, should she carry herself?

The drive was a quiet one. Mr. Belcher sat and feasted his greedy, exultant eyes on the woman before him, and marveled at the adroitness with which, to use his own coa.r.s.e phrase, she "pulled the wool" over the eyes of his wife. In what a lovely way did she hide her pa.s.sion for him!

How sweetly did she draw out the sympathy of the deceived woman at her side! Ah! he could trust her! Her changed, amiable, almost pathetic demeanor was attributed by him to the effect of his power upon her, and her own subtle ingenuity in s.h.i.+elding from the eyes of Mrs. Belcher a love that she deemed hopeless. In his own mind it was not hopeless. In his own determination, it should not be!

As for Mrs. Belcher, she had never so much enjoyed Mrs. Dillingham's society before. She blamed herself for not having understood her better; and when she parted with her for the day, she expressed in hearty terms her wish that she might see more of her in the future.

Mrs. Dillingham, on the return, was dropped at her own door first. Mr.

Belcher alighted, and led her up the steps. Then, in a quiet voice, he said:

"Did you find out anything of the boy?"

"Yes, some things, but none that it would be of advantage to you to know."

"Well, stick to him, now that you have got hold of him."

"I intend to."

"Good for you!"