George Gissing
Will Warburton
CHAPTER 47
When Mrs. Cross came home she brought with her a changed countenance. The lines graven by habitual fretfulness and sourness of temper, by long-indulged vices of the feminine will, could not of course be obliterated, but her complexion had a healthier tone, her eyes were brighter, and the smile with which she answered Bertha's welcome expressed a more spontaneous kindliness than had appeared on her face for many a year. She had recovered, indeed, during her visit to the home of her childhood, something of the grace and virtue in which she was not lacking before her marriage to a man who spoilt her by excess of good nature. Subject to a husband firm of will and occasionally rough of tongue, she might have led a fairly happy and useful life. It was the perception of this truth which had strengthened Bertha in her ultimate revolt. Perhaps, too, it had not been without influence on her own feeling and behaviour during the past week.
Mrs. Cross had much to relate. At the tea-table she told all about her brother's household, described the children, lauded the cook and housemaid—"Ah, Bertha, if one could get such servants here! But London ruins them."
James Rawlings was well-to-do; he lived in a nice, comfortable way, in a pretty house just outside the town. "Oh, and the air, Bertha. I hadn't been there a day before I felt a different creature." James had been kindness itself. Not a word about old differences. He regretted that his niece had not come, but she must come very soon. And the children—Alice, Tom, and little Hilda, so well-behaved, so intelligent. She had brought photographs of them all. She had brought presents—all sorts of things.
After tea, gossip continued. Speaking of the ages of the children, the eldest eight, the youngest four, Mrs. Cross regretted their motherless state. A lady-nurse had care of them, but with this person their father was not quite satisfied. He spoke of making a change. And here Mrs. Cross paused, with a little laugh.
"Perhaps uncle thinks of marrying again?" said Bertha.
"Not a bit of it, my dear," replied her mother eagerly. "He expressly told me that he should never do that. I shouldn't wonder if—but let bygones be bygones. No, he spoke of something quite different. Last night we were talking, when the children had gone to bed, and all at once he startled me by saying—'If only you could come and keep house for me.' The idea!"
"A wonderfully good idea it seems to me," said Bertha, reflectively.
"But how is it possible, Bertha? Are you serious?"
"Quite. I think it might be the very best thing for you. You need something to do, mother. If Uncle James really wishes it, you ought certainly to accept."
Fluttered, not knowing whether to look pleased or offended, surprised at her daughter's decisiveness, Mrs. Cross began urging objections. She doubted whether James was quite in earnest; he had admitted that Bertha could not be left alone, yet she could hardly go and live in his house as well.
"Oh, don't trouble about me, mother," said the listener. "Nothing is simpler."
"But what would you do?"
"Oh, there are all sorts of possibilities. At the worst"—Bertha paused a moment, face averted, and lips roguish—"I could get married."
And so the disclosure came about. Mrs. Cross seemed so startled as to be almost pained; one would have thought that no remotest possibility of such a thing had ever occurred to her.
"Then Mr. Warburton has found a position?" she asked at length.
"No, he keeps to the shop."
"But—my dear—you don't mean to tell me—?"
The question ended in a mere gasp. Mrs. Cross' eyes were darkened with incredulous horror.
"Yes," said Bertha, calmly, pleasantly, "we have decided that there's no choice. The business is a very good one; it improves from day to day; now that there are two assistants, Mr. Warburton need not work so hard as he used to."
"But, my dearest Bertha, you mean to say that you are going to be the wife of a grocer?"
"Yes, mother, I really have made up my mind to it. After all, is it so very disgraceful?"
"What will your friends say? What will—"
"Mrs. Grundy?" interposed Bertha.
"I was going to say Mrs. Franks—"
Bertha nodded, and answered laughingly:
"That's very much the same thing, I'm afraid."
CHAPTER 48
Norbert Franks was putting the last touches to a portrait of his wife; a serious portrait, full length, likely to be regarded as one of his most important works. Now and then he glanced at the original, who sat reading; his eye was dull, his hand moved mechanically, he hummed a monotonous air.
Rosamund having come to the end of her book, closed it, and looked up.
"Will that do?" she asked, after suppressing a little yawn.
The painter merely nodded. She came to his side, and contemplated the picture, inclining her head this way and that with an air of satisfaction.
"Better than the old canvas I put my foot through, don't you think?" asked Franks.
"Of course there's no comparison. You've developed wonderfully. In those days—"
Franks waited for the rest of the remark, but his wife lost herself in contemplation of the portrait. Assuredly he had done nothing more remarkable in the way of bold flattery. Any one who had seen Mrs. Franks only once or twice, and at her best, might accept the painting as a fair "interpretation" of her undeniable beauty; those who knew her well would stand bewildered before such a counterfeit presentment.
"Old Warburton must come and see it," said the artist presently.
Rosamund uttered a careless assent. Long since she had ceased to wonder whether Norbert harboured any suspicions concerning his friend's brief holiday in the south of France. Obviously he knew nothing of the dramatic moment which had preceded, and brought about, his marriage, nor would he ever know.
"I really ought to go and look him up." Franks added. "I keep on saying I'll go to-morrow and to-morrow. Any one else would think me an ungrateful snob; but old Warburton is too good a fellow. To tell the truth, I feel a little ashamed when I think of how he's living. He ought to have a percentage on my income. What would have become of me if he hadn't put his hand into his pocket when he was well off and I was a beggar?"
"But don't you think his business must be profitable?" asked Rosamund, her thoughts only half attentive to the subject.
"The old chap isn't much of a business man, I fancy," Franks answered with a smile. "And he has his mother and sister to support. And no doubt he's always giving away money. His lodgings are miserable. It makes me uncomfortable to go there. Suppose we ask him to lunch on Sunday?"
Rosamund reflected for a moment.
"If you like—I had thought of asking the Fitzjames girls."
"You don't think we might have him at the same time?"
Rosamund pursed her lips a little, averting her eyes as she answered:
"Would he care for it? And he said—didn't he?—that he meant to tell everybody, everywhere, how he earned his living. Wouldn't it be just a little—?"
Franks laughed uneasily.
"Yes, it might be just a little—. Well, he must come and see the picture quietly. And I'll go and look up the poor old fellow to-night, I really will."
This time, the purpose was carried out. Franks returned a little after midnight, and was surprised to find Rosamund sitting in the studio. A friend had looked in late in the evening, she said, and had stayed talking.
"All about her husband's pictures, so tiresome? She thinks them monuments of genius!"
"His last thing isn't half bad," said Franks, good-naturedly.
"Perhaps not. Of course I pretended to think him the greatest painter of modern times. Nothing else will satisfy the silly little woman. You found Mr. Warburton?"
Franks nodded, smiling mysteriously.
"I have news for you."
Knitting her brows a little his wife looked interrogation.
"He's going to be married. Guess to whom."
"Not to—?"
"Well—?"
"Bertha Cross—?"
Again Franks nodded and laughed. An odd smile rose to his wife's lips; she mused for a moment, then asked:
"And what position has he got?"
"Position? His position behind the counter, that's all. Say's he shan't budge. By the bye, his mother died last autumn; he's in easier circumstances; the shop does well, it seems. He thought of trying for something else, but talked it over with Bertha Cross, and they decided to stick to groceries. They'll live in the house at Walham Green. Mrs. Cross is going away—to keep house for a brother of hers."
Rosamund heaved a sigh, murmuring:
"Poor Bertha!"
"A grocer's wife," said Franks, his eyes wandering. "Oh, confound it! Really you know—" He took an impatient turn across the floor. Again his wife sighed and murmured:
"Poor Bertha!"
"Of course," said Franks, coming to a pause, "there's a good deal to be said for sticking to a business which yields a decent income, and promises much more."
"Money!" exclaimed Rosamund scornfully. "What is money?"
"We find it useful," quietly remarked the other.
"Certainly we do; but you are an artist, Norbert, and money is only an accident of your career. Do we ever talk about it, or think about it? Poor Bertha! With her talent!"
The artist paced about, his hands in his jacket pockets. He was smiling uneasily.
"Did you know anything of this kind was going on?" he asked, without looking at his wife.
"I had heard nothing whatever. It's ages since Bertha was here."
"Yet you don't seem very much surprised."
"And you?" asked Rosamund, meeting his eyes. "Were you profoundly astonished?"
"Why, yes. It came very unexpectedly. I had no idea they saw each other—except in the shop."
"And it vexes you?" said Rosamund, her eyes upon his face.
"Vexes? Oh, I can't say that." He fidgeted, turned about, laughed. "Why should it vex me? After all, Warburton is such a thoroughly good fellow, and if he makes money—"
"Money!"
"We do find it useful, you know," insisted Franks, with a certain obstinacy.
Rosamund was standing before the picture, and gazing at it.
"That she should have no higher ambition! Poor Bertha!"
"We can't all achieve ambitions," cried Franks from the other end of the room. "Not every girl can marry a popular portrait-painter."
"A great artist!" exclaimed his wife, with emphasis.
As she moved slowly away, she kept her look still turned upon the face which smiled from the easel. Watching her tremulous eyebrows, her uncertain lips, one might have fancied that Rosamund sought the solution of some troublesome doubt, and hoped, only hoped, to find it in that image of herself so daringly glorified.
