Man and Maid Part 25

"Fool!" she said, "how could you? Hateful, shameless, unwomanly! And it's all for nothing, too. He'll never do it. It's _too_ mad!"

Michael went straight to Sylvia, and told his tale.

"And I felt I couldn't," he said; "she is the daintiest, sweetest little old lady. I couldn't marry her and see her every day and live in the hope of her death."

"I don't see why not," Sylvia said, a little coldly. "She wouldn't die any sooner because you married her, and, anyway, she can't have long to live."

The words were almost those of the little old lady herself. Yet--or perhaps for that very reason--they jarred on Michael's mood. He alleged business, and cut short his call.

Next day Miss Thrale called again. Mr Wood was sorry to have given her so much trouble. He had decided that the idea was too wild, and must be abandoned.

"Is it because I am too old?" said the old lady wistfully; "would you marry me if I were young?"

"Upon my word, I believe I would," Michael surprised himself by saying.

That it was not the answer Miss Thrale expected was evident from her smile of sudden amus.e.m.e.nt.

"May I say," she said, "in return for what, in its way, is a compliment, that I like you very much. I would take care of you, and I shall perhaps not live more than a year or two."

The tremor of her voice touched him. The 15,000 a year pulled at his will. In that instant he saw the broad glades of waving bracken, the big trees of the park, the sober face of the great house he might inherit, looking out over the smooth green lawns. He looked again at the little lady. After all, he was more than thirty. The world would laugh--well, they laughed best who laughed last. And, after a few years, there would be Sylvia--pretty, charming, enchanting Sylvia. He put the thought of her roughly away. Not because he was ashamed of it, but because it hurt him. The thought that Sylvia should wait for a dead woman's shoes had seemed natural; what hurt him was that she herself should see nothing unnatural in such waiting.

The silence had grown to the limit that spells discomfort; the ticking of the tall clock, the rustle of the plane tree's leaves outside the window, the discords of Fleet Street harmonised by distance, all deepened the silence and italicised it. She spoke.

"Well?" she said.

The plane tree's leaves murmured eloquently of the great oaks in the park. The old lady's eyes looked at him appealingly through the pale-smoked gla.s.ses. How she would like that old place! And his debts--he could pay them all.

"I will," he said suddenly; "if you will, I will; and I pray you may never regret it."

"I don't think _you_ will regret it," she said gently; "it is a truly kind act to me."

Bank and solicitor, duly consulted, testified to Miss Thrale's respectability and to her income--the requisite hundred a year in Consols. And on a certain day in June Michael Wood woke from a feverish dream, in which obstinacy and the longing for money had fought with many better things and worsted them, to find himself married to a white-haired woman of sixty.

The awakening took place in his rooms in the Temple. He had yielded to the little old lady's entreaties, and consented, most willingly, to forego the "wedding journey," in this case so sad a mockery.

The set was a large one--five rooms; it seemed that they might live here, and neither irk the other.

And she was in the room he had caused to be prepared for her--dainty and neat as herself--and he, left alone in the room where he had first seen her, crossed his arms on the table, and thought. His wedding-day! And it might have been Sylvia, the rustle of whose dress he could hear in the next room. He groaned. Then he laid his head on his arms and cried--like a child that has lost its favourite toy: for he saw, suddenly, that respect for his old wife must keep him from ever seeing Sylvia now; and life looked grey as the Thames in February twilight.

A timid hand on his shoulder startled him to the raising of his tear-stained face. The little old lady stood beside him.

"Ah, don't!" she said softly--"don't! Believe me, it will be all right.

Your old wife won't live more than a year--I know it. Take courage."

"_Don't!_" he said in his turn; "it's a wicked thing I've done. Forgive me! If only we could have been friends. I can't bear to think I shall make you unhappy."

"My dear boy," she said, "we are friends. I am your housekeeper. In a year at latest you will see the last of my white hairs. Be brave."

He could not understand the pang her words gave him.

And now began, for these two, a strange life. In those Temple rooms--ideal nest for young lovers--Mrs Wood, the white-haired, kept house with firm and capable little hands. Comfort, which Michael's lazy nature loved but could not achieve, reigned peacefully. The old lady kept much to her own rooms, but whenever he needed talk she was there.

And she could talk. She had read much, reflected much. In her mind his own ideas found mating germs, and bore fruit of beautiful dreams, great thoughts. His verses--neglected this long time, since Sylvia did not care for poetry--flourished once more.

And music--Sylvia's taste in music had been Sullivan; the old wife touched the piano with magic fingers, and Bach, Beethoven, Wagner came to transfigure the Temple rooms. Michael had never been so contented--never so wretched; for, as the quiet weeks went by, the leaves fell from the plane tree, and the time drew near when he must show his wife to the tenants--his white-haired wife. In these months a very real friends.h.i.+p had grown up between them. Michael had never met a woman, old or young, whose tastes chimed so tunefully with his own. Ah!

what a pity he had not met a _young_ woman with these tastes--this soul.

And now, liking, friends.h.i.+p, affection--all the finer, n.o.bler side of love--he could indeed feel for his old wife; but love--lovers' love, that would set the seal on all the rest--this he might never know, except for some other woman, who would succeed to his wife's t.i.tle.

Badly as Michael had behaved, I think it is permissible to be sorry for him. His wife, in fact, was very sorry.

One day he met Sylvia in the park, and all the other side of him thrilled with pleasure. He sat by her an hour, his eyes drinking in her fresh beauty, while his soul shrivelled more and more. Ah! why could she not _talk_, as his wife could, instead of merely chattering?

His wife looked sad that evening. He asked the reason.

"I saw you in the park to-day," she said. "Are you going to see her?

Don't compromise her: it's not worth while."

He kissed her hand in its black mitten, and in a flash of pain saw the black funeral, when she should be carried from his house, and he be left free to marry Sylvia.

And now the days had dropped past; so even was their flow that it seemed rapid, and in another week it would be Christmas.

"And I must show you to the tenants," said he.

"My poor boy," she said--it was just as she had risen to bid him good night--"be brave. Perhaps it won't be so bad as you think. Good night."

He sat still after she had left him, gazing into the fire, and thinking thoughts in which now the estate and the fortune played but little part.

At last he shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he said, "I have no lover, no wife; but I have a companion, a friend--one in a million." And again the black funeral trailed its slow length before his eyes, and he shuddered.

I have not sought to deceive the reader. He knows as well as I do that at this moment the door opened, and a young and beautiful woman stood on the threshold. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning; round her neck were gleaming pearls. She was playing for a high stake, and being a true woman she had disdained no honest artifice that might help her. She wore s.h.i.+ning white silk, severely plain, and her brown hair was dressed high on her head. A woman one shade less intuitive would have let the dusky ma.s.ses fall over a lace-covered tea-gown.

"Michael," she said, "I am your wife. Are you going to forgive me?"

He raised himself slowly from his chair, and his eyes dwelt on detail after detail of the beauty before him.

"My wife!" he said. "You are a stranger!"

"I _did_ disguise myself well. My sister told me about your advertis.e.m.e.nt; she lives with Sylvia Maddox. We each have a hundred pounds a year. At first I did it for fun; but when I had seen how--how nice you were--my mother is very poor. There are no excuses. But are you going to forgive me?" Any other woman, to whom forgiveness meant all that it meant to her, might have kneeled at his feet. Frances stood erect by the door. "Anyway," she said, biting her lip, "I have saved you from Sylvia. For the sake of that, forgive me."

That stung him, as she had known it would.

"Forgive you?" he said. "Never. You've spoiled my life." But he took a step towards her as he spoke.

She took an equal step back.

"Take courage," she said. "Who knows but I may die before next June, after all. Good night."

"I hate you," he said, and took another step forward. But the door closed in his face.

Next morning the old lady, white haired and mittened, appeared behind the breakfast tea. Michael almost thought he had dreamed, till her eyes, now without their gla.s.ses, met his timidly.