A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"Not so quickly as you, I believe," retorted Hilda.

"I console myself? A pretty sort of consolation mine has been! You at least have the satisfaction of having plenty of money. If it were only the other way round, I tell you, Hilda, I wouldn't hesitate for one moment; I'd clear out with you to-morrow."

"Indeed, that's taking me a little bit for granted, isn't it? You don't seem to count the cost – to me! Remember, the unfortunate woman always pays in these cases, as indeed she does in most others, as far as I can see. No, Gerald, you've got to stick to your bargain and I to mine. I was always fond of you, you know. But Fate evidently didn't intend us for one another."

"If only I thought you really cared for me still – Hilda, tell me you do; say you do care for me now as you used to do."

"Gerald, I forbid you to behave like this. Are you crazy? What do you expect this sort of thing to lead to? – ruin, absolute ruin, in every way for me – yes, and for you too for that matter."

"I don't care – I care for nothing but you. I will have you, I – "

He was blind with passion now, and she saw it. Without another word she pushed his arm aside, and letting down the window, called upon the driver to stop.

"Very well," he said, when he saw what she had done. "I have finished with you from this moment. Remember, whatever happens is your doing."

"Will you help Dicky inside, please, and tell the driver to go on?"

Her intense placidity infuriated him only the more. He seized her wrist roughly and twisted it, glaring at her. Then he banged the door and strode away.

Without word or sound – though he had hurt her wrist badly – she jumped out of the cab and got Dicky down from his perch. She bade the driver go on to the hotel. Then she leaned back in her seat and smiled, well pleased with herself. Placed as she was she couldn't have done better, she thought. He was as much in love with her as ever, that was quite certain. He would not be content to leave her like that. She had thrilled at his savage clutch of her, painful though it was. It meant that he was hers, body and soul. He would come at her bidding – he would be her slave. But not now was he for her or she for him. There might come a time, perhaps —

But that was another story. Now, she was face to face, she knew, with the crucial point of her life. On her immediate action depended everything. The will was in her possession to do with it what she would. What should she do with it? Destroy it – destroy it – destroy it – the words seemed to buzz continually in her brain.

She was so completely engrossed that she did not notice that they had arrived at the hotel. The porter came to the door. Taking Dicky by the hand, she went straight upstairs to their private sitting-room. Her husband was there reading the paper. She was surprised to see him.

"Dear me," she said, "you here, John? I thought you surely would be at the club. You don't mind if I leave the boy with you till Kimber can take him? I have such a splitting headache that I must go straight and lie down."

"Sorry, Hilda – leave him by all means." She certainly looked tired he thought.

In her own room, having dismissed her maid, she threw herself on the bed, and fell to thinking again. Five minutes after she rang the bell.

"Kimber," she said, as the maid appeared, "I am shivering – just put a match to the fire. That will do, thank you; you needn't wait."

As the fire burned up she rose from the bed, and settled herself on the rug by the hearth. Then she took the will from the pocket of her dress and spread it out before her. She read it from beginning to end. And so she learned how Miriam, if she had done this thing, had sacrificed herself in the doing of it. Could she have sacrificed herself like that? No – emphatically no. Could Miriam? She was obliged to confess to herself that she thought she could – and had. But the confession galled her ever so, and she hated her the more for it. And then for a moment she gave way to her hate.

"She shall not have it," she almost hissed; "nor shall she have him much longer. Yes, I'll burn it I'll teach her not to try conclusions with me!"

At that moment her meditations were interrupted. The door opened, and her husband, pale and short of breath, literally burst into the room. Their eyes met. Instinctively she knew that he knew. Without a moment's hesitation she threw the will into the fire. Catching her round the waist he flung her quickly to one side and rescued it.

"Just in time," he panted; "only just in time!"

CHAPTER VI.

SOME MUTUAL COMPLIMENTS AND A CONFESSION

In silence husband and wife stared at each other – she as furious with anger at discovery as with the knowledge that therewith all chance of her retaining wealth and position was at an end; he, astonished at the utter want of scruple, at the horrid immorality in the nature of the woman whom he had chosen to bear his name. It was as much as he could do to contain himself. Every instinct within him revolted at the cowardly criminality at which he had caught her red-handed. He wondered she had not been afraid, if only of her own skin.

"Do you realise what I have saved you from?" he asked sternly; "that but for the innocent betrayal of you by that little boy downstairs, you would now be a common felon and answerable to the law —you, my wife, the mistress of Thorpe Manor! Hilda, speak – for God's sake speak."

For some moments she did not answer. One feeling now had come uppermost in her – the feeling of hate and loathing for Miriam, intensified by the knowledge of her husband's admiration for her, while she, his wife, stood debased utterly in his eyes. The whole fury of her puny vindictive nature was striving to be let loose. At last she answered him.

"I have nothing to say," she said, "beyond this – that I am glad at last you know your friend for what she is – that even if your wife, as you say, was in danger of jeopardising her liberty, the pure, beautiful, saintly creature whom you so admire has done so long ago, since she is nothing but a common thief!"

"Hilda, how dare you! Upon my word, I begin to think you've lost your senses."

"Indeed; you'll find that whatever I may have lost, I still have them. You must allow me to repeat that your friend is a common thief, and therefore a criminal. She stole this will."

"She stole that will?– why, woman, how can you say such a thing. Mrs. Arkel is the soul of honour."

"I thought you'd be surprised. Evidently Dicky didn't tell you everything. As it happens, I myself saw it abstracted by him quite accidentally this afternoon from some false bottom, or rather, top, of her work-box, which no doubt has proved eminently useful to her before this, during her career."

"Hilda, for God's sake don't be so spiteful – if you have any decent womanhood in you don't crush it. Miriam Arkel is no thief. You may have found this will in her box, as you say. But she did not steal it. It was taken from Barton's table on Christmas night by – by Julia Darrow!"

"Julia Darrow? Impossible! Who told you that tale?"

"The person who saw her take it."

"I don't believe it – what motive had she? – none; besides, if that is so, how came it in the saintly Miriam's keeping – such very secure keeping too – at least she thought so."

The Major listened to her no longer. He became intent upon the contents of the will, and motioned to his wife to sit down. She continued her verbal fusillade none the less scathingly for lack of reply. At last she seemed to be approaching finality.

"You may talk as you like," she said (perhaps because he was not talking at all), "nothing will convince me that the woman is innocent. She stole that will out of sheer spite at me – to prevent my marrying Gerald."

"Oh, indeed!" This had roused the Major. "Would not the fact of your having elected to marry me have been a little inconvenient?"

"Not in the least – I should never have elected to marry you in those circumstances."

"Oh!" He looked at her in amazement. He was learning about women at a rate which threatened speedy disaster to his appreciation of them. He began firmly to hope that his education might become a trifle less rapid if less complete.

"You can look, and look, and look," she continued, "I don't care; you may as well know the truth, though goodness knows you might have guessed it long ago – I detest you!"

"Why – may I ask?"

"Why? – for lots of reasons. Chiefly I suppose because I love Gerald."

"Then in Heaven's name why didn't you marry him?"

"Because this wretched creature by her thievish trickery ruined him. I couldn't marry a man who had not the means of keeping me, could I?"

"That depends – on the man, and on yourself. In any case you and Gerald Arkel – you won't mind the frankness being mutual, will you? – no matter how situated, would in my opinion have made an easy and expeditious descent into – well, shall we say oblivion? – that is, of course, unless you had chosen to achieve notoriety of a wholly undesirable order. You, Gerald Arkel, and ample means! – nothing could have saved you. So perhaps, even as it is, you are better off. What think you, Hilda?"

"I don't know what to think – I don't understand you. I don't understand this universal outcry against Gerald, that simply because he is possessed of a few pounds he must go to the dogs altogether."

"Then you evidently don't understand the young gentleman himself. No self-respecting kennels would tolerate him, I assure you, for all the relegating to them we humans might choose to indulge in. You probably know nothing about dogs. They are plucky, honourable animals, with a maximum of virtue and a minimum of vice; and they resent pretty hotly, I can tell you, the arrival amongst themselves of a lot of our refuse. Now the young man whom you have chosen to honour with your 'love' must unfortunately be so described."

"It is cowardly of you to abuse him when he is not here to defend himself."

"He would not attempt to defend himself to me. Now come, Hilda – you are little more than a child after all. Let my attitude be parental, if you won't have it marital. Believe me, if it had not been for that very noble woman whom you have been slandering for the last quarter of an hour, Gerald Arkel, as it is, would have already reached his disastrous end."