THE HOUSE WE went to was a house in St. John’s Wood. Everybody knows the kind of place. A garden wall, with lilacs and laburnums, all out of blossom by this time, and beginning to look brown and dusty, waving over it; inside, a little bright suburban garden, full of scarlet geraniums, divided by a white line of pavement, dazzlingly clean, from the door in the wall to the door of the house; and a stand full of more scarlet geraniums in the little square hall. Mrs. Merridew became very much agitated as we approached. It was all that I could do to keep her up when we had rung the bell at the door. I think she would have turned and gone back even then had it been possible, but, fortunately, we were admitted without delay.
We were shown into a pretty shady drawing-room, full of old furniture, which looked like the remnants of something greater, and at which she gazed with eyes of almost wild recognition, unconsciously pressing my arm, which she still held. Everything surrounding her woke afresh the tumult of recollections. She was not able to speak when the maid asked our names, and I was about to give them simply, and had already named my own, when she pressed my arm closer to her, and interposed all at once —
‘Say two ladies from the country anxious to speak with her about business. She might not — know — our names.’
‘Is it business about the house, ma’am?’ said the maid with some eagerness.
‘Yes, yes; it is about the house,’ said Mrs. Merridew, hastily. And then the door closed, and we sat waiting, listening to the soft, subdued sounds in the quiet house, and the rustle of the leaves in the garden. ‘She must be going to let it,’ my companion said hoarsely; and then rose from the chair on which she had placed herself, and began to move about the room with agitation, looking at everything, touching the things with her hands, with now and then a stifled exclamation. ‘There is where we used to sit, Ellen and I,’ she said, standing by a sofa, before which a small table was placed, ‘when there was company in the evenings. And there Matilda — oh, what ghosts there are about! Matilda is married, thank Heaven! but if Ellen comes, I shall never be able to face her. Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave, if you would but speak for me!’
At this moment the door was opened. Mrs. Merridew shrank back instinctively, and sat down, resting her hand on the table she had just pointed out to me. The new-comer was a tall, full figure, in deep mourning, a handsome woman of five-and-thirty, or thereabouts, with bright hair, which looked all the brighter from comparison with the black depths of her dress, and a colourless, clear complexion. All the colour about her was in her hair. Though she had no appearance of unhealthiness, her very lips were pale, and she came in with a noiseless quiet dignity, and the air of one who felt she had pain to encounter, yet felt able to bear it.
‘Pardon me for keeping you waiting,’ she said; and then, with a somewhat startled glance, ‘I understood you wanted to see — the house.’
My companion was trembling violently; and I cleared my throat, and tried to clear up my ideas (which was less easy) to say something in reply. But before I had stammered out half-a-dozen words Mrs. Merridew rose, and made one or two unsteady steps towards the stranger.
‘Ellen,’ she cried, ‘don’t you know me?’ and stopped there, standing in the centre of the room, holding out appealing hands.
Miss Babington’s face changed in the strangest way. I could see that she recognized her in a moment, and then that she pretended to herself not to recognize her. There was the first startled, vivid, indignant glance, and then a voluntary mist came over her eyes. She gazed at the agitated woman with an obstinately blank gaze, and then turned to me with a little bow.
‘Your friend has the advantage of me,’ she said; ‘but you were saying something? I should be glad, if that was what you wanted, to show you over the house.’
It would be hard to imagine a more difficult position than that in which I found myself; seated between two people who were thus strangely connected with each other by bonds of mutual injury, and appealed to for something meaningless and tranquillizing, to make the intercourse possible. I did the best I could on the spur of the moment.
‘It is not so much the house,’ I said, ‘though, if you wish to let it, I have a friend who is looking for a house; but I think there was some other business Mrs. Merridew had; something to say — —’
‘Mrs. Merridew!’ said Miss Babington, suffering the light once more to come into her eyes; and then she gave her an indignant look. ‘I think this might have been spared us at least.’
‘Ellen,’ said Mrs. Merridew, speaking very low and humbly— ‘Ellen, I have never done anything to you to make you so hard against me. If I injured your sister, it was unwittingly. She is better off than I am now. You were once fond of me, as I was of you. Why should you have turned so completely against me? I have come in desperation to ask a hearing from you, and from your mother, Ellen. God knows I mean nothing but good. And oh, what have I ever done? — what harm?’
Miss Babington had seated herself, still preserving her air of dignity, but without an invitation by look or gesture to her visitor to be seated; and in the silent room, all so dainty and so sweet with flowers, with the old furniture in it, which reminded her of the past, the culprit of twenty years ago stood pleading between one of those whom she was supposed to have wronged and myself, a most ignorant and uneasy spectator. Twenty years ago! In the meantime youth had passed, and the hard burdens of middle age had come doubled and manifold upon her shoulders. Had she done nothing in the meantime that would tell more heavily against her than that girlish inadvertence of the past? Yet here she stood — not knowing, I believe, for the moment, whether she was the young governess in her first trouble, or the mother of all those children, acquainted with troubles so much more bitter — among the ghosts of the past.
‘I would much rather not discuss the question,’ said Miss Babington, still seated, and struggling hard to preserve her calm. ‘All the grief and vexation we have owed to you in this house cannot be summed up in a moment. The only policy, I think, is to be silent. Your very presence here is an offence to us. What else could it be?’
‘I should never have come,’ said Mrs. Merridew, moved by a natural prick of resentment, ‘but for what I have just heard —— I should never have returned to ask for pardon where I had done no wrong — had it not been for this — this that I feel to be unjust. Your poor brother John — —’
‘Stop!’ cried the other, her reserve failing. ‘Stop, oh! stop, you cruel woman! He was nothing to you but a toy to be played with — but he was my brother, my only brother; and you have made him an undutiful son in his very grave.’
The tears were in her eyes, her colourless face had flushed, her soft voice was raised; and Mrs. Merridew, still standing, listened to her with looks as agitated — when all at once the door was again opened softly. The aspect of affairs changed in a moment. To my utter amazement, Mrs. Merridew, who was standing with her face to the door, made a quick, imperative, familiar gesture to her antagonist, and looked towards an easy-chair which stood near the open window. Miss Babington rose quickly to her feet, and composed herself into a sudden appearance of calm.
‘Mamma,’ she said, going forward to meet the old lady, who came slowly in; ‘here are some ladies come upon business. This is — Mrs. Merridew.’ She said the name very low, as Mrs. Babington made her way to her chair, and Mrs. Merridew sank trembling into her seat, unable, I think, to bear up longer. The old lady seated herself before she spoke. She was a little old woman, with a pretty, softly-coloured old face, and had the air of having been petted and cared for all her life. The sudden change of her daughter’s manner; the accumulation of every kind of convenience and prettiness, as I now remarked, round that chair; the careful way in which it had been placed out of the sun and the draught, yet in the air and in sight of the garden, told a whole history of themselves. And now Mrs. Merridew’s passionate sense that the alienation of the son’s fortune from the mother was a thing impossible, was made clear to me at once.
‘Whom did you say, Ellen?’ said the old lady, when she was comfortably settled in her chair. ‘Mrs. —— ? I never catch names. I hope you have explained to the ladies that I am rather infirm, and can’t stand. What did you say was your friend’s name, my dear?’
Her friend’s name! Ellen Babington’s face lightened all over as with a pale light of indignation.
‘I said — Mrs. Merridew,’ she repeated, with a little emphasis on the name. Then there was a pause; and the culprit who was at the bar trembled visibly, and hid her face in her hands.
‘Mrs. Merridew! —— Do you mean —— ? Turn me round, Ellen, and let me look at her,’ said the old lady with a curious catching of her breath.
It was a change which could not be done in a moment. While the daughter turned the mother’s chair, poor Mrs. Merridew must have gone through the torture of an age; her hands trembled, in which she had hidden herself. But as the chair creaked and turned slowly round, and all was silent again, she raised her white face, and uncovered herself, as it were, to meet the inquisitor’s eye. It might have been a different woman, so changed was she: her eyes withdrawn into caves, the lines of her mouth drawn down, two hollows clearly marked in her cheeks, and every particle of her usual colour gone. She looked up appalled and overcome, confronting, but not meeting, the keen, critical look which old Mrs. Babington fixed upon her; and then there was again a pause; and the leaves fluttered outside, and the white curtains within, and a gay child’s voice, passing in the road without, suddenly fell among us like a bird.
‘Ah!’ said the old lady, ‘that creature! Do you mean to tell me, Ellen, that she has had the assurance to come here? Now look at her and tell me what a man’s sense is worth. That woman’s face turned my poor boy’s head, and drove Charles Merridew out of his wits. Only look at her: is there anything there to turn anybody’s head now? She has lost her figure too; to be sure that is not so wonderful, for she is forty if she is a day. But there are you, my dear, as straight as a rush, and your sister Matilda as well. So that is Janet Singleton, our governess: I wonder what Charles thinks of his bargain now? I never saw a woman so gone off. Oh, Ellen, Ellen, why didn’t she come and show herself, such a figure as she is, before my poor dear boy was taken from us? My poor boy! And to think he should have gone to his grave in such a delusion! Ellen, I would rather now that you sent her away.’
‘Oh, mamma, don’t speak like this,’ cried Ellen, red with shame and distress; ‘what does it matter about her figure? if that were all! — but she is going away.’
‘Yes, yes, send her away,’ said the old lady. ‘You liked her once, but I don’t suppose even you can think there could be any intercourse now. My son left all his money to her,’ she added, turning to me — past his mother and his sister. You will admit that was a strange thing to do. I don’t know who the other lady is, Ellen, but I conclude she is a friend of yours. He left everything past us, everything but some poor pittance. Perhaps you may know some one who wants a house in this neighbourhood? It is a very nice little house, and much better furnished than most. I should be very glad to let it, now that I can’t afford to occupy it myself, by the year.’
‘Mamma, the other lady is with Mrs. Merridew,’ said Ellen; ‘I do not know her — —’ and she cast a glance at me, almost appealing to my pity. I rose up, not knowing what to do.
‘Perhaps, my dear,’ I said, I confess with timidity, ‘we had better go away.’
‘Unless you will stay to luncheon,’ said the old lady. ‘But I forgot — I don’t want to look at that woman any more, Ellen. She has done us enough of harm to satisfy any one. Turn me round again to my usual place, and send her away.’
Mrs. Merridew had risen to her feet too. She had regained her senses after the first frightful shock. She was still ghastly pale, but she was herself. She went up firmly and swiftly to the old lady, put Ellen aside by a movement which she was unconscious of in her agitation, and replaced the chair in its former place with the air of one to whom such an office was habitual. ‘You used to say I always did it best,’ she said. ‘Oh, is it possible you can have forgotten everything! Did not I give him up when you asked me, and do you think I will take his money now? Oh, never, never! It ought to be yours, and it shall be. Oh, take it back, and forgive me, and say, “God bless you” once again.’
‘Eh, what was that you said? Ellen, what does she say?’ said the old woman. ‘I have always heard the Merridews were very poor. Poor John’s fortune will be a godsend to them. Go away! I suppose you mean to mock me after all the rest you have done. I don’t understand what you say.’
Yet she looked up with a certain eagerness on her pretty old face — a certain sharp look of greed and longing came into the blue eyes, which retained their colour as pure as that of youth. Her daughter towered above her, pale with emotion, but still indignant, yielding not a jot.
‘Mamma, pay no attention,’ she said; ‘Mrs. Merridew may pity us, but what is that? surely we can take back nothing from her hands.’
‘Pity! I don’t see how Janet Merridew can pity me. But I should like,’ Mrs. Babington went on, with a little tremble of eagerness, ‘to know at least what she means.’
‘This is what I mean,’ said Mrs. Merridew, sinking on her knees by the old lady’s chair: ‘that I will not take your money. It is your money. We are poor, as you say; but we can struggle on as we have done for twenty years; and poor John’s money is yours, and not mine. It is not mine. I will not take it. It must have been some mistake. If he had known what he was doing he never would have left it to any one but you.’
‘So I think myself,’ said the old lady, musing; and then was silent, taking no notice of any one — looking into the air.
‘Mamma,’ said Ellen, behind her chair, ‘I can work for you, and Matilda will help us. It cannot be. It may be kind of — her — but it cannot, cannot be. Are we to take charity? — to live on charity? Mamma, she has no right to disturb you.’
‘She is not disturbing me, my dear,’ said the old lady; ‘on the contrary. Whatever I might think of her, she used to be a girl of sense. And Matilda always carried things with a very high hand, and I never was fond of her husband. But I am very fond of my house,’ she added, after a pause; ‘it is such a nice house, Ellen. I think I should die if we were to leave it. I shall die very soon, most likely, and be a burden on nobody; but still, Ellen, if she meant it, you know — —’
‘Mamma, what does it matter what she means? you never can think of accepting charity. It will break my heart.’
‘That is all very well to say,’ said Mrs. Babington. ‘But I have lived a great deal longer than you have done, my dear, and I know that hearts are not broken so easily. It would break my heart to leave my nice house. Janet, come here, and look me in the face. I don’t think you were true to us in the old times. Matilda did carry things with a very high hand. I told her so at the time, and I have often told her so since; but I don’t think you were true to us, all the same.’
‘I did not know — I did not mean — —’ faltered Mrs. Merridew, leaning her head on the arm of the old lady’s chair.
It was clear to me that the story had two sides, and that my friend was perhaps not so innocent as she had made herself out to be. But there was something very pitiful in the comparison between the passion of anxiety in her half-hidden face, and the calm of the old woman who was thus deciding on her fate.
‘My dear, I am afraid you knew,’ said Mrs. Babington. ‘You accepted my poor boy, and then, when I spoke to you, you gave him up, and took Charles Merridew instead. If I had not interfered, perhaps it would have been better; though, to be sure, I don’t know what we should have done with a heap of children. And as for poor John’s money, you know you have no more real right to it, no more than that other lady, who never saw him in her life.’
‘She has the best possible right to it, mamma — he left it to her,’ said Ellen anxiously, over her shoulder. ‘Oh, why did you come here to vex us, when we were not interfering with you? I beg of you not to trouble my mother any more, but go away.’
Then there was a moment of hesitation. Mrs. Merridew rose slowly from her knees. She turned round to me, not looking me in the face. She said, in a hoarse voice, ‘Let us go,’ and made a step towards the door. She was shaking as if she had a fever; but she was glad. Was that possible? She had delivered her conscience — and now might not she go and keep the money which would make her children happy? But she could not look me in the face. She moved as slowly as a funeral. And yet she would have flown, if she could, to get safely away.
‘Janet, my dear,’ said the old lady, ‘come back, and let us end our talk.’
Mrs. Merridew stopped short, with a start, as if a shot had arrested her. This time she looked me full in the face. Her momentary hope was over, and now she felt for the first time the poignancy of the sacrifice which it had been her own will to make.
‘Come back, Janet,’ said Mrs. Babington. ‘As you say, it is not your money. Nothing could make it your money. You were always right-feeling when you were not aggravated. I am much obliged to you, my dear. Come and sit down here, and tell me all about yourself. Now poor John is dead,’ she went on, falling suddenly into soft weeping, like a child, ‘we ought to be friends. To think he should die before me, and I should be heir to my own boy — isn’t it sad? And such a fine young fellow as he was! You remember when he came back from the University? What a nice colour he had! And always so straight and slim, like a rush. All my children have a good carriage. You have lost your figure, Janet; and you used to have a nice little figure. When a girl is so round and plump, she is apt to get stout as she gets older. Look at Ellen, how nice she is. But then, to be sure, children make a difference. Sit down by me here, and tell me how many you have. And, Ellen, send word to the house-agent, and tell him we don’t want now to let the house; and tell Parker to get luncheon ready a little earlier. You must want something, if you have come from the country. Where are you living now? and how is Charles Merridew? Dear, dear, to think I should not have seen either of you for nearly twenty years!’
‘But, mamma, surely, surely,’ cried Ellen Babington, ‘you don’t think things can be settled like this?’
‘Don’t speak nonsense, Ellen; everything is settled,’ said the old lady. ‘You know I always had the greatest confidence in Janet’s good sense. Now, my dear, hold your tongue. A girl like you has no right to meddle. I always manage my own business. Go and look after luncheon — that is your affair.’
I do not remember ever to have seen a more curious group in my life. There was the old lady in the centre, quite calm, and sweet, and pleasant. A tear was still lingering on her eyelash; but it represented nothing more than a child’s transitory grief, and underneath there was nothing but smiles, and satisfaction, and content. She looked so pretty, so pleased, so glad to find that her comforts were not to be impaired, and yet took it all so lightly, as a matter of course, as completely unconscious of the struggle going on in the mind of her benefactress as if she had been a creature from a different world. As for Mrs. Merridew, she stood speechless, choked by feelings that were too bitter and conflicting for words. I am sure that all the advantages this money could have procured for her children were surging up before her as she stood and listened. She held her hands helplessly half stretched out, as if something had been taken out of them. Her eyes were blank with thinking, seeing nothing that we saw, but a whole world of the invisible. Her breast heaved with a breath half drawn, which seemed suspended half way, as if dismay and disappointment hindered its completion. It was all over then — her sacrifice made and accepted, and no more about it; and herself sent back to the monotonous struggle of life. On the other side of the pretty old lady stood Ellen Babington, pale and miserable, struggling with shame and pride, casting sudden glances at Mrs. Merridew, and then appealing looks at me, who had nothing to do with it.
‘Tell her, oh, tell her it can’t be!’ she cried at last, coming to me. ‘Tell her the lawyers will not permit it. It cannot be.’
And Mrs. Merridew, too, gave me one pitiful look — not repenting, but yet —— Then she went forward, and laid her hand upon the old lady’s hand, which was like ivory, with all the veins delicately carved upon it.
‘Say, God bless us, at least. Say, “God bless you and your children,” once before I go.’
‘To be sure,’ said the old lady cheerfully. ‘God bless you, my dear, and all the children. Matilda has no children, you know. I should like to see them, if you think it would not be too much for me. But you are not going, Janet, when it is the first time we have met for nearly twenty years?’
‘I must go,’ said Mrs. Merridew.
She could not trust herself to speak, I could see. She put down her face and kissed the ivory hand, and then she turned and went past me to the door, without another word. I think she had forgotten my very existence. When she had reached the door she turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes upon Ellen. She was going away, having given them back their living, without so much acknowledgment as if she had brought a nosegay. There was in her look a mute remonstrance and appeal and protest. Ellen Babington trembled all over; her lips quivered as if with words which pride or pain would not permit her to say; but she held, with both hands immovable, to the back of her mother’s chair, who, for her part, was kissing her hand to the departing visitor. ‘Good-bye; come and see us soon again,’ the old lady was saying cheerfully. And Ellen gazed, and trembled, and said nothing. Thus this strangest of visits came to an end.
She had forgotten me, as I thought; but when I came to her side and my arm was within her reach, she clutched at it and tottered so that it was all I could do to support her. I was very thankful to get her into the cab, for I thought she would have fainted on the way. But yet she roused herself when I told the man to drive back to the station.
‘We must go to the lawyer’s first,’ she said; and then we turned and drove through the busy London streets, towards the City. The clerks looked nearly baked in the office when we reached it, and the crowd crowded on, indiscriminate and monotonous. One feels one has no right to go to such a place and take any of the air away, of which they have so little. And to think of the sweet air blowing over our lawns and lanes, and all the unoccupied, silent, shady places we had left behind us! Such vain thoughts were not in Mrs. Merridew’s head. She was turning over and over instead a very different kind of vision. She was counting up all she had sacrificed, and how little she had got by it; and yet was going to complete the sacrifice, unmoved even by her thoughts.
I confess I was surprised at the tone she took with the lawyer. She said ‘Mr. Merridew and myself’ with a composure which made me, who knew Mr. Merridew had no hand in it, absolutely speechless. The lawyer remonstrated as he was in duty bound, and spoke about his client’s will; but Mrs. Merridew made very little account of the will. She quoted her husband with a confidence so assured that even I, though I knew better, began to be persuaded that she had communicated with him. And thus the business was finally settled. She had recovered herself by the time we got into the cab again. It is true that her face was worn and livid with the exertions of the day, but still, pale and weary as she was, she was herself.
‘But, my dear,’ I said, ‘you quoted Mr. Merridew, as if he knew all about it; and what if he should not approve?’
‘You must not think I have no confidence in my husband,’ she said quickly; ‘far from that. Perhaps he would not see as I do now. He would think of our own wants first. But if it comes to his ears afterwards, Charles is not the man to disown his wife’s actions. Oh, no, no; we have gone through a great deal together, and he would no more bring shame upon me, as if I acted when I had no right to act — than — I would bring shame upon him; and I think that is as much as could be said.’
And then we made our way back to the station; but she said nothing more till we got into the railway-carriage, which was not quite so noisy as our cab.
‘It would have been such a thing for us,’ she said then, half to herself. ‘Poor Charles! Oh, if I could but have said to him, “Don’t be so anxious; here is so much a year for the children.” And Jack should have gone to the University. And there would have been Will’s premium at once’ (i.e., to Mr. Willoughby, the engineer). ‘The only thing that I am glad of is that they don’t know. And then Janet; she breaks my heart when she talks. It is so bad for her, knowing the Fortises and all those girls who have everything that heart can desire. I never had that to worry me when I was young. I was only the governess. Janet’s talk will be the worst of all. I could have made the house so nice too, and everything. Well! — but then I never should have had a moment’s peace.’
‘You don’t regret?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Mrs. Merridew with a long sigh. And then, ‘Do you think I have been a traitor to the children?’ she cried suddenly, ‘taking away their money from them in the dark? Would Charles think me a traitor, as they do? Is it always to be my part? — always to be my part?’
‘No, no,’ I said, soothing her as best I could; but I was very glad to find my pony-carriage at the station, and to drive her home to my house and give her some tea, and strengthen her for her duties. Thus poor John Babington’s fortune was disposed of, and no one was the wiser, except, indeed, the old lady and her daughter, who were not likely to talk much on the subject. And Mrs. Merridew walked calmly across to her house in the dusk as if this strange episode of agitation and passion had been nothing more solid than a dream.