A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"It was difficult to obtain, friend. No one but myself could have procured it. Myself alone did that boy fear. I had broken his nerve. In drink one night, not many weeks ago, he came to me, forgetting himself so far as to threaten me and demand of me money, accusing me of having killed your uncle. At once I knew then it was he who had killed him. I had suspected him for long. He told me he was there and had seen me in the library. But I was not to be thus threatened by this youth. We were alone. It was night. I locked the door and taxed him with the crime. He would not confess. But I knew the lad; I alone knew Shorty and the only way with him. In the grate there burned a fire, and by the hearth a poker stood – 'twas easy made red-hot, and – "

"Good God, man, don't describe to me your loathsome horrors. Have done with your story and go."

"Well, that was how, friend, I came by this confession. I told him while he lived I would not use it for his undoing. In truth I could not, since my own past is not clean. But now that he is dead he cannot suffer in this world for his crimes. I alone am left. Your uncle ruined me, friend. I hated him. All my life I hated him. He sapped my soul; he was a vampire. I ask you now to help me to end my days in such peace as is left to me. I am without money. I wish to leave this country and return to the land of my exile. The Mark of the Beast is on me, and I am getting old. My end will come soon now, and I shall join your uncle, and Jabez Crane, and Shorty, and all our other kindred souls in Hell; down there, deep down in Hell. Already I have tasted of its fires – but they have not caught me yet; They chase me all the time, but They – "

The Major stopped him.

"If I give you money," he said, "I give it you in this way: fifty pounds and your passage to Australia. Never again set foot in this country. I may be wrong; but I believe your story, and I would wipe out once for all the memory of it. I am sorry for you, Farren. Give me some address, and what I have promised you shall follow. But remember if I catch you in this country that's the end of you."

"Thanks be to you," he said. Then he scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, and took up his hat and cloak and vanished.

EPILOGUE

John Dundas was as good as his word, and within a fortnight of his visit to Brampton the unhappy Farren was on board an Oriental liner bound for Melbourne.

As the Major read his name in the passenger list, he breathed a sigh of relief. For with him disappeared all record of the past. He felt convinced the creature – queer in the head as he undoubtedly was – had told him nothing but the truth. His life story was indeed a pitiful one, and the Major would not but admit that there was something of retributory justice about the fate which had overtaken his old uncle. For that he had met his death by Shorty's hand there was not a doubt. Miriam had been shown the signature appended to those three lines of confession – confession absolute and unqualified – and she had recognised it instantly.

There remained no doubt in the Major's mind. As he had told Miriam, the whole affair was horribly repellent to him. The remotest connection with such men as Jabez, Shorty, and Farren ran counter to every instinct he possessed. He alone among his contaminated stock recoiled from the merest contact with the morbid. Gerald, in his bouts of alcoholism, had always shown that he was attracted in that direction. Even when most himself that side of him had been plainly apparent to any keen observer.

And so the Major thanked his stars that things were as they were. His hundred pounds had been well spent, indeed if it had purchased in the future complete immunity from all reference to the terrible past. So far as Farren was concerned he felt perfectly safe. It was not difficult to foretell his end. It would be speedy. And the Major knew enough of Melbourne even to localise it with some degree of accuracy. That fair city of the south possesses in its heart the foulest opium dens outside of China. It would be in one of them – in that fœtid artery named Little Bourke Street – that Farren would die; and with him would disappear the last of what the Major was wont to refer to in his own mind always as the Lambeth gang.

From time to time he caught a glimpse of Miriam; anything from an hour to two hours constituting merely a glimpse in the eyes of the Major. Each time he told himself she was more beautiful than before; and for the first time in his life a year seemed to contain at least twenty-four calendar months; and all the rifle practice or tactical manœuvres in the world were of no avail to shorten it. Slowly, wearily, it dragged itself along, with now and then a spurt on such days as could furnish him with reasonable excuse for a run up to town – town being bounded on the east by Addison Road and on the west by Hammersmith.

In Mrs. Parsley, had he only known it, he possessed the strongest of allies. If he had needed anyone to plead his cause, he could not have chosen a better.

"My dear, I am just waiting for the day that shall see you Mistress of the Manor House. Won't that be a knock-me-down-staggerer for her?" Such was Mrs. Parsley's leit-motive now, the "her" having, it is scarcely necessary to say, reference to Mrs. Darrow.

"But, my dear Mrs. Parsley," Miriam would remonstrate, "he hasn't – "

"Oh, don't tell me he hasn't if he hasn't, you've only to hold up your little finger for him to have. Why any fool can see he just worships the ground you tread on – not that I ever believe altogether in that sort of thing myself; but my experience of them is they're all the same. It's either that or nothing. Take my word for it, my dear, unless a man's abject, he's not in love, and unless he's in love, he'll never make a good husband. Now the Major is in love – he is abject, horribly abject. And of all the men I've known he's the most promising as a husband. I do believe he is a thoroughly good fellow."

"I know, I know, my dear Mrs. Parsley; there is no better fellow in the world. But you seem to take it quite as – well, what shall I say? – quite as necessary to my existence that I should have a husband. Does it not occur to you that I might like a little freedom – that my first experience of matrimony has not been altogether encouraging?"

"Freedom! Encouraging? – rubbish! What does a woman want with freedom, except to get into captivity again? As for encouragement, no one ought to require much encouragement to grab a good thing when they see it. John Dundas, matrimonially speaking, is a good thing, and if it weren't for the Reverend Augustine, I tell you candidly I'd soon show you I mean what I say!"

"Oh, my dear friend, this love, this love!" sighed Miriam, "this keep the world a-whirling! – well, I suppose you're right. You know it is not that I underrate Major Dundas' good qualities. I do not. I know he is a good man, and I like him and respect him more than I can say; but – but – "

"But – but – there you go! you're thinking about that wretched past of yours again. Well, tell him, tell him everything; he'll think none the less of you for that!"

"Indeed I have; he knows everything of my wretched past. It is not that – "

"Well, what is it then?"

"Oh, I don't know – let us leave it. It will settle itself I expect if it's meant to be settled. Meanwhile, we're quite happy, you and I, aren't we?"

"Oh yes, we're very happy, Miriam, with our work. That reminds me that old Chinese Mandarin creature's dead at last."

"Really? Poor old thing! When did she die?"

"Yesterday morning. The place is becoming quite respectable now – a veritable land of promise. And that reminds me again I have to go down there in the morning to finish up one or two things, and in the afternoon, dear, you know I am going back to Thorpe. Augustine's got a cold, and you know what Augustine is with a cold!"

"Poor Mr. Parsley – he is very good. I sometimes think I should like to change places with you, and go down and look after him while you're looking after Lambeth," said Miriam, just to see how she would take it.

"Indeed, my dear, you'll do nothing of the kind. You'd spoil him altogether, that's what you'd do. I understand Augustine and he understands me. He'd break out in all sorts of fresh places with any other treatment than what I give him. Besides, he likes to be alone – he always says I'm the only woman he could stand. Not that he means it, you know – he doesn't. He thinks all women a nuisance, except when he's ill – then he's glad enough to have 'em, I can tell you. Now, dear, I must really go. I shall have tea at the Stores. Who's that at the door I wonder? – let me get out of sight. Good-bye, Miriam dear."

She kissed her and hurried off. They were in the dining-room. Miriam remained where she was, awaiting the announcement of her visitor whoever it might prove to be.

The name brought in to her was that of "Mrs. Latham."

"Mrs. Latham?" she repeated to herself. "I don't know any Mrs. Latham."

She went into the little drawing-room. Her visitor was closely veiled and in the deepest black. She looked at her.

"You don't know me, Miriam?"

"Hilda! Is it you? Mrs. Latham! – but – "

"Yes, Miriam, I am Mrs. Latham. But my husband is dead. He died only a month ago!"

"It is only a year since Gerald died."

"Poor Gerald – did he forgive me for leaving him?"

"He never forgot – I cannot say whether he forgave. Your name was last on his lips – not mine!"

"My name? And you were so good to him? Miriam, will you forgive?"

"I – yes, I forgive. It was him you wronged more than me, for I could guide my life – he couldn't. He was weak, helpless – little more than a child. And you led him further astray, Hilda. And yet he loved you as he never loved me, even at the end."

"Oh, Miriam, you don't know what I've suffered. I am not so wholly to blame as you think. You don't know what my life was – from the merest child I was neglected. I was never taught to care save for myself. I was pampered, spoiled, allowed to run utterly wild. My only teaching was to put a value on myself – to see to it that I secured the biggest prize in marriage. You cannot afterwards undo the evil done by an up-bringing such as mine. And my instincts were never for good, Miriam. I secured through John Dundas all that I craved, riches, position, ease, gaiety. And when I lost them, remember, I lost what was to me all. Gerald loved me I know; yes, and I loved him as much as it was in me to love any man. I could not resist the temptation that assailed me. But I was prepared to do my duty by him, Miriam. I would have gone on loving him. I would have been with him at the end – "

"Why, then, did you leave him?"

"Because he forced me to. He drank so horribly. He was like a madman most of the time. He gambled recklessly – more than once he struck me. I stayed by him as long as I could, and then one night he treated me so cruelly I had to leave him. I was afraid for my life. I had already met Mr. Latham. He fell in love with me, and he urged me all the time to leave Gerald. But I would not have left him, I swear to you, if he had not treated me so violently. Mr. Latham was rich I know, and Gerald then had little money left. But it was not that that took me. I was in daily, hourly terror of him. Oh, Miriam, you cannot imagine how he was. That night I tell you of, I left him. I went with Mr. Latham to Italy, and there we were married. He was more than good to me, far better I know than I deserved. I was prepared to make amends for my past life, and at least to be a good wife to him. But fate determined, I suppose, that I should suffer, for he died – died when we had been married only a few months. And now I am alone, and oh, so wretched, Miriam, so terribly unhappy."

She burst into tears.

"Hilda, don't – I, too, am alone. Believe me, I forgive you if it is my forgiveness you would have. You have been wrong; but I was wrong, I think, in the beginning, too – towards Gerald. I ought to have left things to take their chance. But what I did, I did to save him. For that I was punished. God knows what I have suffered. But, come now, even though you are alone, you have your father and mother – "

"My father and mother! Don't name them to me. I hate them. To them I owe the whole failure of my life. They had no right to bring children into the world, and allow them to grow up weeds. I wish never to see either of them again. No, I am going back to Italy. I shall find some niche to fill there I suppose. But I could not stay here. All I wanted was to know that you forgave me. You have been so good, Miriam, and if you forgive me, I can bear the rest. And, Miriam – "

"Yes, Hilda."

"You will marry John Dundas? Don't be angry with me, but if you are happy, I should feel my life was easier. John is good, Miriam, he is one of the best of men – I never deserved him. You do. Let me feel that you won't – that the past won't stand in your way. He deserves to be happy."

"He has been very good to me, Hilda, very kind. I know what you must feel. Let us both try and forget."

"Say again that you forgive me, Miriam."