George Gissing
The Paying Guest
CHAPTER VIII
'It may be someone calling upon me,' said Louise to the servant. 'Let me know the name before you show anyone in.'
'Of course, miss,' replied the domestic, with pert familiarity, and took her time in arranging the shade of the lamp. When she returned from the door it was to announce, smilingly, that Mr. Cobb wished to see Miss Derrick.
'Please to show him in.'
Louise stood in an attitude of joyous excitement, her eyes sparkling. But at the first glance she perceived that her lover's mood was by no means correspondingly gay. Cobb stalked forward and kept a stern gaze upon her, but said nothing.
'Well? You got my letter, I suppose?'
'What letter?'
He had not been home since breakfast-time, so Louise's appeal to him for advice lay waiting his arrival. Impatiently, she described the course of events. As soon as she had finished, Cobb threw his hat aside and addressed her harshly.
'I want to know what you mean by writing to your sister that you are going to marry Bowling. I saw your mother this morning, and that's what she told me. It must have been only a day or two ago that you said that. Just explain, if you please. I'm about sick of this kind of thing, and I'll have the truth out of you.'
His anger had never taken such a form as this; for the first time Louise did in truth feel afraid of him. She shrank away, her heart throbbed, and her tongue refused its office.
'Say what you mean by it!' Cobb repeated, in a voice that was all the more alarming because he kept it low.
'Did you write that to your sister?'
'Yes—but I never meant it—it was just to make her angry—'
'You expect me to believe that? And, if it's true, doesn't it make you out a nice sort of girl? But I don't believe it You've been thinking of him in that way all along; and you've been writing to him, or meeting him, since you came here. What sort of behaviour do you call this?'
Louise was recovering self-possession; the irritability of her own temper began to support her courage.
'What if I have? I'd never given you any promise till last night, had I? I was free to marry anyone I liked, wasn't I? What do you mean by coming here and going on like this? I've told you the truth about that letter, and I've always told you the truth about everything. If you don't like it, say so and go.'
Cobb was impressed by the energy of her defence. He looked her straight in the eyes, and paused a moment; then spoke less violently.
'You haven't told me the whole truth. I want to know when you saw Bowling last.'
'I haven't seen him since I left home.'
'When did you write to him last?'
'The same day I wrote to Cissy. And I shall answer no more questions.'
'Of course not. But that's quite enough. You've been playing a double game; if you haven't told lies, you've acted them. What sort of a wife would you make? How could I ever believe a word you said? I shall have no more to do with you.'
He turned away, and, in the violence of the movement, knocked over a little toy chair, one of those perfectly useless, and no less ugly, impediments which stand about the floor of a well-furnished drawing-room. Too angry to stoop and set the object on its legs again, he strode towards the door. Louise followed him.
'You are going?' she asked, in a struggling voice.
Cobb paid no attention, and all but reached the door. She laid a hand upon him.
'You are going?'
The touch and the voice checked him. Again he turned abruptly and seized the hand that rested upon his arm.
'Why are you stopping me? What do you want with me? I'm to help you out of the fix you've got into, is that it? I'm to find you a lodging, and take no end of trouble, and then in a week's time get a letter to say that you want nothing more to do with me.'
Louise was pale with anger and fear, and as many other emotions as her little heart and brain could well hold. She did not look her best—far from it but the man saw something in her eyes which threw a fresh spell upon him. Still grasping her one hand, he caught her by the other arm, held her as far off as he could, and glared passionately as he spoke.
'What do you want?'
'You know—I've told you the truth—'
His grasp hurt her; she tried to release herself, and moved backwards. For a moment Cobb left her free; she moved backward again, her eyes drawing him on. She felt her power, and could not be content with thus much exercise of it.
'You may go if you like. But you understand, if you do—'
Cobb, inflamed with desire and jealousy, made an effort to recapture her. Louise sprang away from him; but immediately behind her lay the foolish little chair which he had kicked over, and just beyond that stood the scarcely less foolish little table which supported the heavy lamp, with its bowl of coloured glass and its spreading yellow shade. She tottered back, fell with all her weight against the table, and brought the lamp crashing to the floor. A shriek of terror from Louise, from her lover a shout of alarm, blended with the sound of breaking glass. In an instant a great flame shot up half way to the ceiling. The lamp-shade was ablaze; the much-embroidered screen, Mrs. Mumford's wedding present, forthwith caught fire from a burning tongue that ran along the carpet; and Louise's dress, well sprinkled with paraffin, aided the conflagration. Cobb, of course, saw only the danger to the girl. He seized the woollen hearthrug and tried to wrap it about her; but with screams of pain and frantic struggles, Louise did her best to thwart his purpose.
The window was open, and now a servant, rushing in to see what the uproar meant, gave the blaze every benefit of draught.
'Bring water!' roared Cobb, who had just succeeded in extinguishing Louise's dress, and was carrying her, still despite her struggles, out of the room. 'Here, one of you take Miss Derrick to the next house. Bring water, you!'
All three servants were scampering and screeching about the hall. Cobb caught hold of one of them and all but twisted her arm out of its socket. At his fierce command, the woman supported Louise into the garden, and thence, after a minute or two of faintness on the sufferer's part, led her to the gate of the neighbouring house. The people who lived there chanced to be taking the air on their front lawn. Without delay, Louise was conveyed beneath the roof, and her host, a man of energy, sped towards the fire to be of what assistance he could.
The lamp-shade, the screen, the little table and the diminutive chair blazed gallantly, and with such a volleying of poisonous fumes that Cobb could scarce hold his ground to do battle. Louise out of the way, he at once became cool and resourceful. Before a flame could reach the window he had rent down the flimsy curtains and flung them outside. Bellowing for the water which was so long in coming, he used the hearthrug to some purpose on the outskirts of the bonfire, but had to keep falling back for fresh air. Then appeared a pail and a can, which he emptied effectively, and next moment sounded the voice of the gentleman from next door.
'Have you a garden hose? Set it on to the tap, and bring it in here.'
The hose was brought into play, and in no great time the last flame had flickered out amid a deluge. When all danger was at an end, one of the servants, the nurse-girl, uttered a sudden shriek; it merely signified that she had now thought for the first time of the little child asleep upstairs. Aided by the housemaid, she rushed to the nursery, snatched her charge from bed, and carried the unhappy youngster into the breezes of the night, where he screamed at the top of his gamut.
Cobb, when he no longer feared that the house would be burnt down, hurried to inquire after Louise. She lay on a couch, wrapped in a dressing-gown; for the side and one sleeve of her dress had been burnt away. Her moaning never ceased; there was a fire-mark on the lower part of her face, and she stared with eyes of terror and anguish at whoever approached her. Already a doctor had been sent for, and Cobb, reporting that all was safe at 'Runnymede,' wished to remove her at once to her own bed room, and the strangers were eager to assist.
'What will the Mumfords say?' Louise asked of a sudden, trying to raise herself.
'Leave all that to me,' Cobb replied reassuringly. 'I'll make it all right; don't trouble yourself.'
The nervous shock had made her powerless; they carried her in a chair back to 'Runnymede,' and upstairs to her bedroom. Scarcely was this done when Mr. and Mrs. Mumford, after a leisurely walk from the station, approached their garden gate. The sight of a little crowd of people in the quiet road, the smell of burning, loud voices of excited servants, caused them to run forward in alarm. Emmeline, frenzied by the certainty that her own house was on fire, began to cry aloud for her child, and Mumford rushed like a madman through the garden.
'It's all right,' said a man who stood in the doorway. 'You Mr. Mumford? It's all right. There's been a fire, but we've got it out.'
Emmeline learnt at the same moment that her child had suffered no harm, but she would not pause until she saw the little one and held him in her embrace. Meanwhile, Cobb and Mumford talked in the devastated drawing-room, which was illumined with candles.
'It's a bad job, Mr. Mumford. My name is Cobb: I daresay you've heard of me. I came to see Miss Derrick, and I was clumsy enough to knock the lamp over.'
'Knock the lamp over! How could you do that? Were you drunk?'
'No, but you may well ask the question. I stumbled over something—a little chair, I think—and fell against the table with the lamp on it.'
'Where's Miss Derrick?'
'Upstairs. She got rather badly burnt, I'm afraid. We've sent for a doctor.'
'And here I am,' spoke a voice behind them. 'Sorry to see this, Mr. Mumford.'
The two went upstairs together, and on the first landing encountered Emmeline, sobbing and wailing hysterically with the child in her arms. Her husband spoke soothingly.
'Don't, don't, Emmy. Here's Dr. Billings come to see Miss Derrick. She's the only one that has been hurt. Go down, there's a good girl, and send somebody to help in Miss Derrick's room; you can't be any use yourself just now.'
'But how did it happen? Oh, how did it happen?'
'I'll come and tell you all about it. Better put the boy to bed again, hadn't you?'
When she had recovered her senses Emmeline took this advice, and, leaving the nurse by the child's cot, went down to survey the ruin of her property. It was a sorry sight. Where she had left a reception-room such as any suburban lady in moderate circumstances might be proud of; she now beheld a mere mass of unrecognisable furniture, heaped on what had once been a carpet, amid dripping walls and under a grimed ceiling.
'Oh! Oh!' She all but sank before the horror of the spectacle. Then, in a voice of fierce conviction, 'She did it! She did it! It was because I told her to leave. I know she did it on purpose!'
Mumford closed the door of the room, shutting out Cobb and the cook and the housemaid. He repeated the story Cobb had told him, and quietly urged the improbability of his wife's explanation. Miss Derrick, he pointed out, was lying prostrate from severe burns; the fire must have been accidental, but the accident, to be sure, was extraordinary enough. Thereupon Mrs. Mumford's wrath turned against Cobb. What business had such a man—a low-class savage—in her drawing-room? He must have come knowing that she and her husband were away for the evening.
'You can question him, if you like,' said Mumford. 'He's out there.'
Emmeline opened the door, and at once heard a cry of pain from upstairs. Mumford, also hearing it, and seeing Cobb's misery-stricken face by the light of the hall lamp, whispered to his wife:
'Hadn't you better go up, dear? Dr. Billings may think it strange.'
It was much wiser to urge this consideration than to make a direct plea for mercy. Emmeline did not care to have it reported that selfish distress made her indifferent to the sufferings of a friend staying in her house. But she could not pass Cobb without addressing him severely.
'So you are the cause of this!'
'I am, Mrs. Mumford, and I can only say that I'll do my best to make good the damage to your house.'
'Make good I fancy you have strange ideas of the value of the property destroyed.'
Insolence was no characteristic of Mrs. Mumford. But calamity had put her beside herself; she spoke, not in her own person, but as a woman whose carpets, curtains and bric-a-brac have ignominiously perished.
'I'll make it good,' Cobb repeated humbly, 'however long it takes me. And don't be angry with that poor girl, Mrs. Mumford. It wasn't her fault, not in any way. She didn't know I was coming; she hadn't asked me to come. I'm entirely to blame.'
'You mean to say you knocked over the table by accident?'
'I did indeed. And I wish I'd been burnt myself instead of her.'
He had suffered, by the way, no inconsiderable scorching, to which his hands would testify for many a week; but of this he was still hardly aware. Emmeline, with a glance of uttermost scorn, left him, and ascended to the room where the doctor was busy. Free to behave as he thought fit, Mumford beckoned Cobb to follow him into the front garden, where they conversed with masculine calm.
'I shall put up at Sutton for the night,' said Cobb, 'and perhaps you'll let me call the first thing in the morning to ask how she gets on.'
'Of course. We'll see the doctor when he comes down. But I wish I could understand how you managed to throw the lamp down.'
'The truth is,' Cobb replied, 'we were quarrelling. I'd heard something about her that made me wild, and I came and behaved like a fool. I feel just now as if I could go and cut my throat, that's the fact. If anything happens to her, I believe I shall. I might as well, in any case; she'll never look at me again.'
'Oh, don't take such a dark view of it.'
The doctor came out, on his way to fetch certain requirements, and the two men walked with him to his house in the next road. They learned that Louise was not dangerously injured; her recovery would be merely a matter of time and care. Cobb gave a description of the fire, and his hearers marvelled that the results were no worse.
'You must have some burns too?' said the doctor, whose curiosity was piqued by everything he saw and heard of the strange occurrence. 'I thought so; those hands must be attended to.'
Meanwhile, Emmeline sat by the bedside and listened to the hysterical lamentation in which Louise gave her own—the true—account of the catastrophe. It was all her fault, and upon her let all the blame fall. She would humble herself to Mr. Higgins and get him to pay for the furniture destroyed. If Mrs. Mumford would but forgive her! And so on, as her poor body agonised, and the blood grew feverish in her veins.
CHAPTER IX
'Accept it? Certainly. Why should we bear the loss if he's able to make it good? He seems to be very well off for an unmarried man.'
'Yes,' replied Mumford, 'but he's just going to marry, and it seems—Well, after all, you know, he didn't really cause the damage. I should have felt much less scruple if Higgins had offered to pay—'
'He did cause the damage,' asseverated Emmeline. 'It was his gross or violent behaviour. If we had been insured it wouldn't matter so much. And pray let this be a warning, and insure at once. However you look at it, he ought to pay.'
Emmeline's temper had suffered much since she made the acquaintance of Miss Derrick. Aforetime, she could discuss difference of opinion; now a hint of diversity drove her at once to the female weapon—angry and iterative assertion. Her native delicacy, also, seemed to have degenerated. Mumford could only hold his tongue and trust that this would be but a temporary obscurement of his wife's amiable virtues.
Cobb had written from Bristol, a week after the accident, formally requesting a statement of the pecuniary loss which the Mumfords had suffered; he was resolved to repay them, and would do so, if possible, as soon as he knew the sum. Mumford felt a trifle ashamed to make the necessary declaration; at the outside, even with expenses of painting and papering, their actual damage could not be estimated at more than fifty pounds, and even Emmeline did not wish to save appearances by making an excessive demand. The one costly object in the room—the piano—was practically uninjured, and sundry other pieces of furniture could easily be restored; for Cobb and his companion, as amateur firemen, had by no means gone recklessly to work. By candle-light, when the floor was still a swamp, things looked more desperate than they proved to be on subsequent investigation; and it is wonderful at how little outlay, in our glistening times, a villa drawing-room may be fashionably equipped. So Mumford wrote to his correspondent that only a few 'articles' had absolutely perished; that it was not his wish to make any demand at all; but that, if Mr. Cobb insisted on offering restitution, why, a matter of fifty pounds, etc. etc. And in a few days this sum arrived, in the form of a draft upon respectable bankers.
Of course the house was in grievous disorder. Upholsterers' workmen would have been bad enough, but much worse was the establishment of Mrs. Higgins by her daughter's bedside, which naturally involved her presence as a guest at table, and the endurance of her conversation whenever she chose to come downstairs. Mumford urged his wife to take her summer holiday—to go away with the child until all was put right again—a phrase which included the removal of Miss Derrick to her own home; but of this Emmeline would not hear. How could she enjoy an hour of mental quietude when, for all she knew, Mrs. Higgins and the patient might be throwing lamps at each other? And her jealousy was still active, though she did not allow it to betray itself in words. Clarence seemed to her quite needlessly anxious in his inquiries concerning Miss Derrick's condition. Until that young lady had disappeared from 'Runnymede' for ever, Emmeline would keep matronly watch and ward.
Mrs. Higgins declared at least a score of times every day that she could not understand how this dreadful affair had come to pass. The most complete explanation from her daughter availed nothing; she deemed the event an insoluble mystery, and, in familiar talk with Mrs. Mumford, breathed singular charges against Louise's lover. 'She's shielding him, my dear. I've no doubt of it. I never had a very good opinion of him, but now she shall never marry him with my consent.' To this kind of remark Emmeline at length deigned no reply. She grew to detest Mrs. Higgins, and escaped her society by every possible manoeuvre.
'Oh, how pleasant it is,' she explained bitterly to her husband, 'to think that everybody in the road is talking about us with contempt! Of course the servants have spread nice stories. And the Wilkinsons'—these were the people next door—'look upon us as hardly respectable. Even Mrs. Fentiman said yesterday that she really could not conceive how I came to take that girl into the house. I acknowledged that I must have been crazy.'
'Whilst we're thoroughly upset,' replied Mumford, with irritation at this purposeless talk, 'hadn't we better leave the house and go to live as far away as possible?'
'Indeed, I very much wish we could. I don't think I shall ever be happy again at Sutton.'
And Clarence went off muttering to himself about the absurdity and the selfishness of women.
For a week or ten days Louise lay very ill; then her vigorous constitution began to assert itself. It helped her greatly towards convalescence when she found that the scorches on her face would not leave a permanent blemish. Mrs. Mumford came into the room once a day and sat for a few minutes, neither of them desiring longer communion, but they managed to exchange inquiries and remarks with a show of friendliness. When the fifty pounds came from Cobb, Emmeline made no mention of it. Louise said with an air of satisfaction,
'So he has paid the money! I'm very glad of that.'
'Mr. Cobb insisted on paying,' Mrs. Mumford answered with reserve. 'We could not hurt his feelings by refusing.'
'Well, that's all right, isn't it? You won't think so badly of us now? Of course you wish you'd never set eyes on me, Mrs. Mumford; but that's only natural: in your place I'm sure I should feel the same. Still, now the money's paid, you won't always think unkindly of me, will you?'
The girl lay propped on pillows; her pale face, with its healing scars, bore witness to what she had undergone, and one of her arms was completely swathed in bandages. Emmeline did not soften towards her, but the frank speech, the rather pathetic little smile, in decency demanded a suave response.
'I shall wish you every happiness, Louise.'
'Thank you. We shall be married as soon as ever I'm well, but I'm sure I don't know where. Mother hates his very name, and does her best to set me against him; but I just let her talk. We're beginning to quarrel a little—did you hear us this morning? I try to keep down my voice, and I shan't be here much longer, you know. I shall go home at first my stepfather has written a kind letter, and of course he's glad to know I shall marry Mr. Cobb. But I don't think the wedding will be there. It wouldn't be nice to go to church in a rage, as I'm sure I should with mother and Cissy looking on.'
This might, or might not, signify a revival of the wish to be married from 'Runnymede.' Emmeline quickly passed to another subject.
Mrs. Higgins was paying a visit to Coburg Lodge, where, during the days of confusion, the master of the house had been left at his servants' mercy. On her return, late in the evening, she entered flurried and perspiring, and asked the servant who admitted her where Mrs. Mumford was.
'With master, in the library, 'm.'
'Tell her I wish to speak to her at once.'
Emmeline came forth, and a lamp was lighted in the dining-room, for the drawing-room had not yet been restored to a habitable condition. Silent, and wondering in gloomy resignation what new annoyance was prepared for her, Emmeline sat with eyes averted, whilst the stout woman mopped her face and talked disconnectedly of the hardships of travelling in such weather as this; when at length she reached her point, Mrs. Higgins became lucid and emphatic.
'I've heard things as have made me that angry I can hardly bear myself. Would you believe that people are trying to take away my daughter's character? It's Cissy 'Iggins's doing: I'm sure of it, though I haven't brought it 'ome to her yet. I dropped in to see some friends of ours—I shouldn't wonder if you know the name; it's Mrs. Jolliffe, a niece of Mr. Baxter—Baxter, Lukin and Co., you know. And she told me in confidence what people are saying—as how Louise was to marry Mr. Bowling, but he broke it off when he found the sort of people she was living with, here at Sutton—and a great many more things as I shouldn't like to tell you. Now what do you think of—'
Emmeline, her eyes flashing, broke in angrily:
'I think nothing at all about it, Mrs. Higgins, and I had very much rather not hear the talk of such people.'
'I don't wonder it aggravates you, Mrs. Mumford. Did anyone ever hear such a scandal! I'm sure nobody that knows you could say a word against your respectability, and, as I told Mrs. Jolliffe, she's quite at liberty to call here to-morrow or the next day—'
'Not to see me, I hope,' said Emmeline. 'I must refuse—'
'Now just let me tell you what I've thought,' pursued the stout lady, hardly aware of this interruption. 'This'll have to be set right, both for Lou's sake and for yours, and to satisfy us all. They're making a mystery, d'you see, of Lou leaving 'ome and going off to live with strangers; and Cissy's been doing her best to make people think there's something wrong—the spiteful creature! And there's only one way of setting it right. As soon as Lou can be dressed and got down, and when the drawing-room's finished, I want her to ask all our friends here to five o'clock tea, just to let them see with their own eyes—'
'Mrs. Higgins!'
'Of course there'll be no expense for you, Mrs. Mumford—not a farthing. I'll provide everything, and all I ask of you is just to sit in your own drawing-room—'
'Mrs. Higgins, be so kind as to listen to me. This is quite impossible. I can't dream of allowing any such thing.'
The other glared in astonishment, which tended to wrath.
'But can't you see, Mrs. Mumford, that it's for your own good as well as ours? Do you want people to be using your name—'
'What can it matter to me how such people think or speak of me?' cried Emmeline, trembling with exasperation.
'Such people! I don't think you know who you're talking about, Mrs. Mumford. You'll let me tell you that my friends are as respectable as yours—'
'I shall not argue about it,' said Emmeline, standing up. 'You will please to remember that already I've had a great deal of trouble and annoyance, and what you propose would be quite intolerable. Once for all, I can't dream of such a thing.'
'Then all I can say is, Mrs. Mumford'—the speaker rose with heavy dignity—'that you're not behaving in a very ladylike way. I'm not a quarrelsome person, as you well know, and I don't say nasty things if I can help it. But there's one thing I must say and will say, and that is, that when we first came here you gave a very different account of yourself to what it's turned out. You told me and my daughter distinctly that you had a great deal of the very best society, and that was what Lou came here for, and you knew it, and you can't deny that you did. And I should like to know how much society she's seen all the time she's been here—that's the question I ask you. I don't believe she's seen more than three or four people altogether. They may have been respectable enough, and I'm not the one to say they weren't, but I do say it isn't what we was led to expect, and that you can't deny, Mrs. Mumford.'
She paused for breath. Emmeline had moved towards the door, and stood struggling with the feminine rage which impelled her to undignified altercation. To withdraw in silence would be like a shamed confession of the charge brought against her, and she suffered not a little from her consciousness of the modicum of truth therein.
'It was a most unfortunate thing, Mrs. Higgins,' burst from her lips, 'that I ever consented to receive your daughter, knowing as I did that she wasn't our social equal.'
'Wasn't what?' exclaimed the other, as though the suggestion startled her by its novelty. 'You think yourself superior to us? You did us a favour—'
Whilst Mrs. Higgins was uttering these words the door opened, and there entered a figure which startled her into silence. It was that of Louise, in a dressing-gown and slippers, with a shawl wrapped about the upper part of her body.
