Hullo! What's up? Look! Bulford is w.a.n.ging into Charlie, calling him names as he slashes him across the face with stick and thong, using a fist now,--hobbling after Charlie when Charlie has had enough, trying with his uninjured leg to kick behind Charlie's back,--and tumbling at full length on the damp gra.s.s.

Mr. Kenion took his bleeding face home to be patched; and early this morning he had gone to London--where Mrs. Bulford was waiting for him.

"And, mother, he as good as said that I should never see him again. He confessed that he and Mamie had been very imprudent--and Major Bulford has discovered everything."

"But, my darling, why do you cry? Why aren't you rejoicing--singing your song of joy?"

"Mother!"

"All this is splendid good news--not bad news."

"Mother, don't say it."

"But I do say it. I say, Thank G.o.d--if this is going to give my girl release from her slavery." Mrs. Marsden had spoken in a tone of exaltation; but now her brows contracted, and her voice became grave.

"Enid, we mustn't run on so fast. To me it seems almost too good to be true."

"To me it seems dreadful."

"Yes, at the moment. But later, you will know it is emanc.i.p.ation, _life_. Only, let us keep calm. This man--Bulford--may not intend to divorce her."

"Oh, he _will_."

"You think he will wish to cast her off?"

"Yes. Charlie as good as said so."

"But tell me this--You say they are very rich. Which of them has the money--the husband or the wife?"

"Oh, it is all Mrs. Bulford's--her very own."

"Ah! The man may not divorce her--but if he does, there is one thing of which you can be absolutely certain. Kenion will stick to her, and give you your freedom."

It was nearly one o'clock. Mrs. Marsden, glancing at the mantlepiece, started. Her husband would soon return for his substantial mid-day meal.

"Enid dear, I must take you and Jane out to lunch. I know you won't care to meet Richard. Come! I shan't be a minute putting on my bonnet;" and she hurried from the room. "Eliza! If Mr. Marsden asks for me, tell him I shall not be in to luncheon.... That is all that you need say."

To avoid the chance of being seen by her husband in High Street, she led Enid and the little girl up the court instead of down it, round the church-yard, and through devious ways to Gordon's, the confectioner's.

Here, at a small table in the back room, she gave them a comfortable and sufficient repast--chicken for Enid, and nice soup and milk pudding for Jane. She herself was unable to eat: excitement had banished all appet.i.te. She cut up toast for the soup, carved the chicken, dusted the pudding with sugar; and smilingly watched over her guests.

But every now and then she frowned, and became lost in deep thought.

Once, after a frowning pause, she leaned across the table and clutched Enid's arm.

"Enid," she whispered, with intense anxiety, "is this Bulford really an upright honourable man who will do the right thing, and cast her off; or is he a mean-spirited cur who will support his disgrace for the sake of the cash?"

They remained at the confectioner's until Mrs. Marsden could feel no doubt that her husband was now safe in his saloon; and then she took them back to the house.

She sent Mears a message to say that he and the shop must do without her this afternoon, and she sat for a couple of quiet hours hearing the remainder of Enid's grievous tale. Plainly it did Enid good to talk about her troubles; the longer she talked the calmer she grew; and while stage by stage she traced the history of her unhappy married life, Mrs.

Marsden thought very often of her own experiences.

Jane, contented and replete, had fallen asleep upon granny's lap; and Mrs. Marsden softly rocked her to and fro, to make the sleep sweeter and easier.

Unhappy Enid! She recited all her pains and pangs and torments. She had loved the man, had thought him a fine gentleman, and had found him a cruel beast. She had dreamed and awakened. She had tried to reconst.i.tute the dream, to shut her eyes to realities, and live in the dream that she knew to be unreal. But he would not let her. She had forgiven misdeeds, and even forgotten them; he had hurt her again and again and again; and each time she had healed her wounds, and presented herself to him whole and loyal once more.

While Mrs. Marsden listened, she was thinking, "Yes, that is the keynote, the apology, and the explanation. Love dies so slowly."

Now Enid had come to the end of her tale.

"Mother," she was saying, "I know I shall never see him any more;" and, saying it, she began to cry again. "He spoke to me so kindly when he was going from me.... And I looked at his poor face, all striped with the sticking-plaster, and I thought of what he had been to me. It all came back to me in a rush--the old feelings, mother,--and I begged him not to go. And I asked him at least to kiss me--and he did it--and I knew that he was sorry."

Very quietly and carefully Mrs. Marsden got up, and placed the sleeping child on her mother's lap.

"Enid, take what is left to you. Put your arms round her, and hold her against your heart. Hold her safe, and hold her close--for you are holding all the world."

Then, in great agitation, she walked up and down the room; and when she stopped, and stood by Enid's chair, her eyes were streaming.

"Never mind, my darling." An extraordinary exaltation sounded in her voice; and, as she struggled to moderate its tone, there came a queer vibration and huskiness. It seemed that but for dread of waking the little girl, she would have shouted her words. "Never mind. You have your child. Think of that. Nothing else matters. _I_ have suffered; _you_ have suffered--never mind. Perhaps we women were intended to suffer--and we have to bear some things so cruel that they must be borne in silence. If we spoke of them, they might kill. But it is all nothing compared with _this_;" and she stooped to kiss Enid's forehead, and very gently and softly stroked the child's hair. "You and I have both made our link in the wonderful chain of life. We have given what G.o.d gave us.

We carried the torch, and it has not been struck out of our hands and extinguished.... We will rear your child; and I shall see you in her; and she will grow tall and strong; and she will love--you most--the mother,--but me too, when she understands that you came to her from me.... And the sun shall shine again, and you shall be happy again--for G.o.d is kind, and G.o.d is _just_.... And then there will be no more tears--and a touch of your child's lips will destroy the memory of tears."

XXV

Another year had slowly dragged by.

Enid was still living with her child at the farmhouse; but all the personal property of the child's father, all those numerous signs of too engrossing amus.e.m.e.nts, had disappeared. Horses and grooms, brushes and boots, spurs and bridles--all were gone. In the suit of Bulford vs.

Bulford and Kenion, the pet.i.tioner obtained a decree nisi; and soon the decree will be made absolute. Another undefended suit--that of Kenion vs. Kenion--is down for hearing. Very soon now Enid will be free.

Meanwhile the big looking-gla.s.ses on the stairs and at department entrances of Thompson & Marsden's shop had been growing tarnished, dull, and spotted. They showed nothing new in their misty depths--emptiness and desolation; unused s.p.a.ce so great that it was not necessary to multiply it by reflection; and a grey-haired black-robed woman pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing through the faint bluish fog, with shadowy, ghostly lines of such sad figures marching and wheeling at her side.

But there was no s.p.a.ce for fog in the establishment across the road.

During these twelve slow months the visible, unmistakable prosperity of Bence had been stupendous.

He had bought out Mr. Bennett, the butcher. He would buy the whole street. He had enlarged his popular market, adding Flowers to Fruit and Vegetables. The old auctioneer had retired, in order to make room for this addition; and where for a half a century there had been no objects more interesting than sale bills and house registers and dangling bunches of keys, beautiful unseasonable blossoms now shed their fragrance throughout the year. Plainly there was nothing too old, or too hard, or too large for Bence to swallow.

And the reputation of Bence's, as well as its mere success, had steadily been rising. It seemed as if the remorseless and triumphant Archibald had not only stolen the entire trade of his princ.i.p.al rival, but had also borrowed all the methods that in the old time built up the trade.

In his best departments the goods were now as solid and as real as those which had made the glory of Thompson's at its zenith. But beyond this laudable improvement of stock--a matter that no one could complain of,--Bence betrayed a cruel persistence in imitating subsidiary characteristics of Mrs. Thompson's tactical campaign.

Gradually Bence had won the town. It was Bence who now feasted and flattered the munic.i.p.al authorities, exactly as Mrs. Thompson had done years ago. Dinners to aldermen and councillors; soirees and receptions for their wives; compliments, largesse, confidential attention flowing out in a generous stream for the benefit of all--high and low--who could possibly a.s.sist or hinder the welfare of Bence! Last Christmas--by way of inaugurating his twentieth grand annual bazaar--he gave a ball to four hundred people, with a military band and a champagne sit-down supper.

The ancient aldermen were nearly all gone; the council nowadays professed themselves to be advocates of modern ideas; they said the conditions of life are always changing; and they were ready to admit the new style of trade as fundamentally correct. Then, making speeches after snug Bence-provided banquets, they said that their host represented in himself and his career the Spirit of the Age. They raised their gla.s.ses in a toast which all would honour. "Mr. Archibald Bence, you are a credit to the town of Mallingbridge; and speaking for the town, I say the town is proud of you, sir.... Now, gentlemen, give him a chorus--'For he's a jolly good fellow'"....

Bence never stopped their music. He sat at the head of the table, twirling his waxed moustache, fingering his jewelled studs, and smiling enigmatically--as if he considered the adulation of his guests quite natural and proper, or as if he felt amused by vulgar praise and a homage which could be purchased with a little meat and drink.

"Gentlemen," said Bence, rising to return thanks, and addressing the a.s.semblage in the usual tone of mock modesty, "I am overwhelmed by your good-nature. I lay no claim to merit. The most I ever say of myself is that I do work hard, and try my best. But I have been very lucky.

Anybody could have done what I have done, if they had been given the same opportunity--and the same support."