In answer to this Miss Biggs of course offered the use of her own bedroom and of her father's house; but her father was an old man, and Mrs. Furnival positively refused to agree to any such arrangement. At last it was decided that Martha should at once go off and look for lodgings in the vicinity of her own home, that Mrs. Furnival should proceed to carry on her own business in her own way,--the cruelty being this, that she would not give the least hint as to what that way might be,--and that the two ladies should meet together in the Red Lion Square drawing-room at the close of the day.

"And about dinner, dear?" asked Miss Biggs.

"I will get something at a pastrycook's," said Mrs. Furnival.

"And your clothes, dear?"

"Rachel will see about them; she knows." Now Rachel was the old female servant of twenty years' standing; and the disappointment experienced by poor Miss Biggs at the ignorance in which she was left was greatly enhanced by a belief that Rachel knew more than she did.

Mrs. Furnival would tell Rachel but would not tell her. This was very, very hard, as Miss Biggs felt. But, nevertheless, friendship, sincere friendship is long enduring, and true patient merit will generally receive at last its appropriate reward.

Then Mrs. Furnival had sat down, Martha Biggs having been duly sent forth on the mission after the lodgings, and had written a letter to her husband. This she intrusted to Rachel, whom she did not purpose to remove from that abode of iniquity from which she herself was fleeing, and having completed her letter she went out upon her own work. The letter ran as follows:--

Harley Street--Friday.

MY DEAREST TOM,

I cannot stand this any longer, so I have thought it best to leave the house and go away. I am very sorry to be forced to such a step as this, and would have put up with a good deal first; but there are some things which I cannot put up with,--and won't. I know that a woman has to obey her husband, and I have always obeyed you, and thought it no hardship even when I was left so much alone; but a woman is not to see a s.l.u.t brought in under her very nose,--and I won't put up with it. We've been married now going on over twenty-five years, and it's terrible to think of being driven to this. I almost believe it will drive me mad, and then, when I'm a lunatic, of course you can do as you please.

I don't want to have any secrets from you. Where I shall go I don't yet know, but I've asked Martha Biggs to take lodgings for me somewhere near her. I must have somebody to speak to now and again, so you can write to 23 Red Lion Square till you hear further. It's no use sending for me, for I _won't come_;--not till I know that you think better of your present ways of going on. I don't know whether you have the power to get the police to come after me, but I advise you not. If you do anything of that sort the people about shall hear of it.

And now, Tom, I want to say one word to you. You can't think it's a happiness to me going away from my own home where I have lived respectable so many years, or leaving you whom I've loved with all my whole heart. It makes me very very unhappy, so that I could sit and cry all day if it weren't for pride and because the servants shouldn't see me. To think that it has come to this after all! Oh, Tom, I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be so happy in Keppel Street! There wasn't anybody then that you cared to see, except me;--I do believe that. And you'd always come home then, and I never thought bad of it though you wouldn't have a word to speak to me for hours. Because you were doing your duty. But you ain't doing your duty now, Tom. You know you ain't doing your duty when you never dine at home, and come home so cross with wine that you curse and swear, and have that nasty woman coming to see you at your chambers. Don't tell me it's about law business. Ladies don't go to barristers'

chambers about law business. All that is done by attorneys. I've heard you say scores of times that you never would see people themselves, and yet you see her.

Oh, Tom, you have made me so wretched! But I can forgive it all, and will never say another word about it to fret you, if you'll only promise me to have nothing more to say to that woman. Of course I'd like you to come home to dinner, but I'd put up with that. You've made your own way in the world, and perhaps it's only right you should enjoy it. I don't think so much dining at the club can be good for you, and I'm afraid you'll have gout, but I don't want to bother you about that. Send me a line to say that you won't see her any more, and I'll come back to Harley Street at once. If you can't bring yourself to do that, you--and--I--must--part. I can put up with a great deal, but I can't put up with that;--_and won't_.

Your affectionate loving wife,

C. FURNIVAL.

"I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be so happy in Keppel Street?" Ah me, how often in after life, in those successful days when the battle has been fought and won, when all seems outwardly to go well,--how often is this reference made to the happy days in Keppel Street! It is not the prize that can make us happy; it is not even the winning of the prize, though for the one short half-hour of triumph that is pleasant enough. The struggle, the long hot hour of the honest fight, the grinding work,--when the teeth are set, and the skin moist with sweat and rough with dust, when all is doubtful and sometimes desperate, when a man must trust to his own manhood knowing that those around him trust to it not at all,--that is the happy time of life. There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it. And when the expected pay for that work is worse than doubtful, the inner satisfaction is so much the greater. Oh, those happy days in Keppel Street, or it may be over in dirty lodgings in the Borough, or somewhere near the Marylebone workhouse;--anywhere for a moderate weekly stipend. Those were to us, and now are to others, and always will be to many, the happy days of life. How bright was love, and how full of poetry! Flashes of wit glanced here and there, and how they came home and warmed the c.o.c.kles of the heart. And the unfrequent bottle! Methinks that wine has utterly lost its flavour since those days. There is nothing like it; long work, grinding weary work, work without pay, hopeless work; but work in which the worker trusts himself, believing it to be good. Let him, like Mahomet, have one other to believe in him, and surely nothing else is needed. "Ah me! I wonder whether you ever think of the old days when we used to be so happy in Keppel Street?"

Nothing makes a man so cross as success, or so soon turns a pleasant friend into a captious acquaintance. Your successful man eats too much and his stomach troubles him; he drinks too much and his nose becomes blue. He wants pleasure and excitement, and roams about looking for satisfaction in places where no man ever found it. He frets himself with his banker's book, and everything tastes amiss to him that has not on it the flavour of gold. The straw of an omnibus always stinks; the linings of the cabs are filthy. There are but three houses round London at which an eatable dinner may be obtained.

And yet a few years since how delicious was that cut of roast goose to be had for a shilling at the eating-house near Golden Square. Mrs.

Jones and Mrs. Green, Mrs. Walker and all the other mistresses, are too vapid and stupid and humdrum for endurance. The theatres are dull as Lethe, and politics have lost their salt. Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.

Mrs. Furnival, when she had finished her letter and fastened it, drew one of the heavy dining-room arm-chairs over against the fire, and sat herself down to consider her past life, still holding the letter in her lap. She had not on that morning been very careful with her toilet, as was perhaps natural enough. The cares of the world were heavy on her, and he would not be there to see her. Her hair was rough, and her face was red, and she had hardly had the patience to make straight the collar round her neck. To the eye she was an untidy, angry, cross-looking woman. But her heart was full of tenderness,--full to overflowing. She loved him now as well as ever she had loved him:--almost more as the thought of parting from him pressed upon her! Was he not all in all to her? Had she not worshipped him during her whole life? Could she not forgive him?

Forgive him! Yes. Forgive him with the fullest, frankest, freest pardon, if he would only take forgiveness. Should she burn that letter in the fire, send to Biggs saying that the lodgings were not wanted, and then throw herself at Tom's feet, imploring him to have mercy upon her? All that she could do within her heart, and make her words as pa.s.sionate, as soft, and as poetical as might be those of a young wife of twenty. But she felt that such words,--though she could frame the sentence while sitting there,--could never get themselves spoken. She had tried it, and it had been of no avail. Not only should she be prepared for softness, but he also must be so prepared and at the same moment. If he should push her from him and call her a fool when she attempted that throwing of herself at his feet, how would it be with her spirit then? No. She must go forth and the letter must be left. If there were any hope of union for the future it must come from a parting for the present. So she went up stairs and summoned Rachel, remaining with her in consultation for some half-hour. Then she descended with her bonnet and shawl, got into a cab while Spooner stood at the door looking very serious, and was driven away,--whither, no one knew in Harley Street except Mrs.

Furnival herself, and that cabman.

"She'll never put her foot inside this hall door again. That's my idea of the matter," said Spooner.

"Indeed and she will," said Rachel, "and be a happier woman than ever she's been since the house was took."

"If I know master," said Spooner, "he's not the man to get rid of an old woman, easy like that, and then 'ave her back agin." Upon hearing which words, so very injurious to the s.e.x in general, Rachel walked into the house not deigning any further reply.

And then, as we have seen, Mrs. Furnival was there, standing in the dark shadow of the Lincoln's Inn pa.s.sage, when Lady Mason left the lawyer's chambers. She felt sure that it was Lady Mason, but she could not be quite sure. The woman, though she came out from the entry which led to her husband's chambers, might have come down from some other set of rooms. Had she been quite certain she would have attacked her rival there, laying bodily hands upon her in the purlieus of the Lord Chancellor's Court. As it was, the poor bruised creature was allowed to pa.s.s by, and as she emerged out into the light at the other end of the pa.s.sage Mrs. Furnival became quite certain of her ident.i.ty.

"Never mind," she said to herself. "She sha'n't escape me long. Him I could forgive, if he would only give it up; but as for her--! Let what come of it, come may, I will tell that woman what I think of her conduct before I am many hours older." Then, giving one look up to the windows of her husband's chambers, she walked forth through the dusty old gate into Chancery Lane, and made her way on foot up to No.

23 Red Lion Square. "I'm glad I've done it," she said to herself as she went; "very glad. There's nothing else for it, when things come to such a head as that." And in this frame of mind she knocked at her friend's door.

"Well!" said Martha Biggs, with her eyes, and mouth, and arms, and heart all open.

"Have you got me the lodgings?" said Mrs. Furnival.

"Yes, close by;--in Orange Street. I'm afraid you'll find them very dull. And what have you done?"

"I have done nothing, and I don't at all mind their being dull. They can't possibly be more dull than Harley Street."

"And I shall be near you; sha'n't I?" said Martha Biggs.

"Umph," said Mrs. Furnival. "I might as well go there at once and get myself settled." So she did, the affectionate Martha of course accompanying her; and thus the affairs of that day were over.

Her intention was to go down to Hamworth at once, and make her way up to Orley Farm, at which place she believed that Lady Mason was living. Up to this time she had heard no word of the coming trial beyond what Mr. Furnival had told her as to his client's "law business." And whatever he had so told her, she had scrupulously disbelieved. In her mind all that went for nothing. Law business! she was not so blind, so soft, so green, as to be hoodwinked by such stuff as that. Beautiful widows don't have personal interviews with barristers in their chambers over and over again, let them have what law business they may. At any rate Mrs. Furnival took upon herself to say that they ought not to have such interviews. She would go down to Orley Farm and she would have an interview with Lady Mason. Perhaps the thing might be stopped in that way.

On the following morning she received a note from her husband the consideration of which delayed her proceedings for that day.

"DEAR KITTY," the note ran.

I think you are very foolish. If regard for me had not kept you at home, some consideration with reference to Sophia should have done so. What you say about that poor lady at Orley Farm is too absurd for me to answer. If you would have spoken to me about her, I would have told you that which would have set your mind at rest, at any rate as regards her. I cannot do this in a letter, nor could I do it in the presence of your friend, Miss Biggs.

I hope you will come back at once; but I shall not add to the absurdity of your leaving your own house by any attempt to bring you back again by force. As you must want money I enclose a check for fifty pounds. I hope you will be back before you want more; but if not I will send it as soon as you ask for it.

Yours affectionately as always,

T. FURNIVAL.

There was about this letter an absence of sentiment, and an absence of threat, and an absence of fuss, which almost overset her. Could it be possible that she was wrong about Lady Mason? Should she go to him and hear his own account before she absolutely declared war by breaking into the enemy's camp at Orley Farm? Then, moreover, she was touched and almost overcome about the money. She wished he had not sent it to her. That money difficulty had occurred to her, and been much discussed in her own thoughts. Of course she could not live away from him if he refused to make her any allowance,--at least not for any considerable time. He had always been liberal as regards money since money had been plenty with him, and therefore she had some supply with her. She had jewels too which were her own; and though, as she had already determined, she would not part with them without telling him what she was about to do, yet she could, if pressed, live in this way for the next twelve months;--perhaps, with close economy, even for a longer time than that. In her present frame of mind she had looked forward almost with gratification to being pinched and made uncomfortable. She would wear her ordinary and more dowdy dresses; she would spend much of her time in reading sermons; she would get up very early and not care what she ate or drank. In short, she would make herself as uncomfortable as circ.u.mstances would admit, and thoroughly enjoy her grievances.

But then this check of fifty pounds, and this offer of as much more as she wanted when that was gone, rather took the ground from under her feet. Unless she herself chose to give way she might go on living in Orange Street to the end of the chapter, with every material comfort about her,--keeping her own brougham if she liked, for the checks she now knew would come without stint. And he would go on living in Harley street, seeing Lady Mason as often as he pleased.

Sophia would be the mistress of the house, and as long as this was so, Lady Mason would not show her face there. Now this was not a course of events to which Mrs. Furnival could bring herself to look forward with satisfaction.

All this delayed her during that day, but before she went to bed she made up her mind that she would at any rate go down to Hamworth. Tom, she knew, was deceiving her; of that she felt morally sure. She would at any rate go down to Hamworth, and trust to her own wit for finding out the truth when there.

CHAPTER L.

IT IS QUITE IMPOSSIBLE.

All was now sadness at The Cleeve. It was soon understood among the servants that there was to be no marriage, and the tidings spread from the house, out among the neighbours and into Hamworth. But no one knew the reason of this change;--none except those three, the woman herself who had committed the crime and the two to whom she had told it. On that same night, the night of the day on which the tale had been told, Lady Mason wrote a line,--almost a single line to her son.