A Woman's Burden: A Novel

Miriam laughed too.

"Now I am fighting my way through the wood. Whist, Whist! oh how strong the branches are; but here is the palace. I walk upstairs and find the room where the beautiful princess is sleeping on her purple bed. I kiss her, and – "

"She wakes!" cried Miriam, catching the boy in her arms, and repaying the kiss with a dozen. "Oh, Dicky, how I wish I could sleep for a hundred years!"

"I don't," replied the boy seriously. "You would not be with me then."

"But think of the long holiday you would have, dear."

"I don't want any holiday without you. There would be no jolly games like we have now. Come on, Miss Crane. I'm going to be Samson now, and slay the Philistines; I – "

"All right, Dick, my boy, here's one of them; come on!"

It was Gerald Arkel who spoke, and the instant he did so, Miriam noticed that his voice was quite unlike himself. There was always upon him that look of hereditary delicacy, but now there were dark circles under his eyes, and he wore a haggard and weary expression which unmistakably betokened sleepless nights. When he saw who it was, Dicky threw himself into his arms with a shout.

"Oh, I'm so glad it's you, Cousin Gerald; come on, we can play at horses now."

"No, no, Dicky, I can't. I'm not on for games this morning. You go on being Samson and find some more Philistines to slaughter. How are you, Miss Crane?"

"Oh, I'm very well, thank you. And you, Mr. Arkel, you're not looking quite yourself; are you ill?"

He flung himself on the grass beside her, and picked up a fir-cone which he began to pull to pieces.

"I feel nearly dead," he said irritably; "I suppose I must expect to. I was playing pretty well through the night, and worse luck, dropped a good deal too. I never can get on without my sleep, and lately my nerves have been playing Old Harry with me!"

"Then why in the name of goodness do you go on like this – you are ruining your health."

"Oh, a fellow must live, and enjoy himself somehow!"

"And do you call playing cards into the small hours and shattering your nerves – not to speak of losing your money – enjoyment? I really am surprised, Mr. Arkel, that a man like you, especially when you know your constitution won't stand much, should behave so foolishly. It isn't as if you hadn't sufficient means – "

Gerald shook his head.

"Sufficient means? – that's just it. I know nothing about my means. For the present, yes, my uncle allows me – well, I suppose really you would call it a sufficiency. But in the future? I am all in the dark. He may make me his heir – on the other hand he may not. You know how eccentric he is. He may leave me without a penny. He's quite capable of it. That's really why I gamble, so that I can put by something and be independent of his whims."

"You should be independent of anyone's whims, certainly. But hardly by gambling. In any case, you must know it is a fool's game waiting for dead men's shoes, Mr. Arkel. Why don't you work and make your own fortune – you have a great deal in your favour?"

"Oh, come now," interrupted Gerald, "that's pretty rough on me. I've never been brought up to work. 'Pon my soul, I shouldn't know how to go about it. Besides, why should I, when there's no absolute need?"

"For one very good reason if for no other. You must not be offended with what I'm going to say – but you're one of those men who are not fitted to be their own master. Whilst you are idle you are bound to get into mischief. Work – right-down hard work would be the salvation of you."

"Well, upon my word – I suppose you would have me grub away in some beastly office all day!"

"Well, better an honest grub than a – yes, I'll say it – than a dishonest butterfly. You know quite well what I mean."

He flushed, sat up, and faced her.

"Miss Crane, I thought you liked me!"

It was Miriam's turn to flush now, and it was a very crimson face that looked at him.

"I do like you, Mr. Arkel," she said, "otherwise I should not be speaking to you like this. I want to be able to think well of you."

"You don't think well of me then?"

"No, I do not. I don't see how you can expect me to. How can I think well of a man who is content to occupy a position such as yours? You accept money from – indeed you are content to be wholly dependent upon a man whom you know you dislike, and you tolerate his whims simply that you may step into the shoes which you are waiting for him to vacate. You cannot hold that it is an honourable employment, Mr. Arkel."

Now Mr. Gerald was wholly unaccustomed to this order of treatment, more especially at the hands of a comely young lady. From them he had come from experience to expect treatment vastly more solicitous and sympathetic. And he was quite inclined to resent this change from the tactics upon which he had been reared, so to speak; more especially, seeing that his ill-luck and shattered nerves should of themselves have been sufficient to enlist the condolence of anyone – certainly of one who pretended to a liking for him as Miss Miriam Crane had just done. Such methods of exhibiting "liking" this spoiled child did not understand. And he did not quite know what to say, so he deemed it best to maintain for the moment a dignified silence. She might take what she liked from that. She saw his attitude, and felt hurt at it, but undaunted she went on.

"You will get plenty of people, I know, to flatter and to spoil you, Mr. Arkel, and I suppose you think me a very objectionable person for speaking to you like I am doing. But I have had a bitter, hard, and cruel life, and it is deep down from experience that I speak. If you knew – but there, all I can say is, that no matter how difficult it has been for me, I have always stuck to it, and tried to do my duty. You know I don't want to preach, I – "

"You have not always been teaching," hazarded Gerald, in the hope of changing the subject.

"No, you know I have not. Did you not tell me that you yourself had seen me at the 'Frivolity'?"

"Yes, I did. But mind you, I have not breathed a word of it to a soul. You were in the chorus, weren't you, in one of the musical sketches?"

"I was," replied Miriam calmly. "But I felt obliged in my present position to deny it point-blank to Mrs. Darrow – not for my own sake altogether, but for the sake of others. Besides, although I know well the sort of capital Mrs. Darrow and her friends would make out of such an incident, I was doing nothing to be ashamed of. I was earning an honest living when I could do so by no other means, though it was only ten shillings a week."

"But however did you manage to get yourself into such straits, may I ask, Miss Crane?"

"I will tell you. My father was a captain in the merchant marine. He was lost at sea, leaving my mother and me penniless. I thought that as I had received a good education, if I came to London I should be able to find employment as a governess. But I found it quite impossible, as I had no one to speak for me. Little by little my funds dwindled away, until in sheer desperation I applied at the music-halls for work of any description. My voice helped me there, and I managed to get this engagement at the 'Frivolity.' But I was not there long, for shortly after that I met an old friend, a school teacher, through whom I obtained an introduction to an agency in Kensington, and so came to be engaged by Mr. Barton for Dicky. But what I have come through and what I have suffered – well, it is because I have so suffered that I speak to you as I do, because somehow such acute trouble seems to impel one to warn – anyone they are interested in."

"You have been very plucky, Miss Crane."

"Because I have put honour first, Mr. Arkel; one cannot be plucky without it. In the very depths of despair I have always clung to that, and though as I say, I have suffered, yes, even to starvation, thank God there is nothing to which I can look back with shame. I concealed from Mrs. Darrow what I did because I know the kind of woman she is, and because I knew that I was justified in doing so for the sake of others – for the sake of this dear little fellow here who needs me, and whose little life it is my thought to care for and to guide. Do you think if it were otherwise I could stay beside him, Mr. Arkel? Still, even now, if you think it right, you can tell Mrs. Darrow everything – or I will."

Gerald protested hotly.

"I am not quite the black crow you paint me, Miss Crane. I most heartily approve of the course you took. It would have done nothing but harm all round if you had taken any other. No one shall ever hear a word of it from me. Whatever I am, I'm not the man to think lightly of a woman because she has had to come through the rough and tumble of life a bit. You have had a hard fight for it, but you have won, and although you have told me pretty plainly that you think precious little of me and my present mode of life, my opinion of you is – if you care to have it – that you are a very fine and noble woman, and worth a hundred Julias any day of the week."

This was sweet music to Miriam's ears. He believed in her withal. She was, in his mind, on an equality with the best – on an equality with Hilda, fenced off as she had been by the protective pale of home influence from the harsh and bitter realities of the world. How good it was to know that! It had cut her to the quick to think that perhaps she stood in his mind on a lower plane. But thus reassured from his own lips, she felt she could bear anything – almost to lose him.

"Indeed, indeed, I care to have it, Mr. Arkel," she said. "It is not because I urge you to take up your own fight in life that I value your good opinion the less. I know you are capable of good things, and I want to see you achieve them. You do not start handicapped as I did; you have not the sins of others to hamper you – " she stopped, for with the words came the thought of Barton and his diabolic scheme. "You have but one enemy worth the counting."

"And who is that?"

"Yourself. You are weak, and your love of pleasure dwarfs all else with you. At least you can strive to put a check on your desires – to indulge yourself less. Then gradually the rest will come; if you will only try. Will you?"

There was a whole world of meaning in her tone; and the expression upon her face was very beautiful. His eye met hers, and he took her hand.

"I will try, Miss Crane," he said. "No one has ever spoken to me before as you have done. I know that what you say is true. You are a brave woman, and as good and kind as you are brave. I will try and deserve the interest you take in me."

"And you will succeed," said Miriam. "All I would ask of you is to be worthy of yourself."

CHAPTER VIII.

SHORTY