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Eve's Ransom, a novel by George Gissing |
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Chapter 16 |
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_ CHAPTER XVI He was absent for full three weeks, and arrived with his friends at the Gare de Lyon early one morning of September. Narramore and the architect delayed only for a meal, and pursued their journey homeward; Hilliard returned to his old quarters despatched a post-card asking Eve and Patty to dine with him that evening, and thereupon went to bed, where for some eight hours he slept the sleep of healthy fatigue. The place he had appointed for meeting with the girls was at the foot of the Boulevard St. Michel. Eve came alone. "And where's Patty?" he asked, grasping her hand heartily in return for the smile of unfeigned pleasure with which she welcomed him. "Ah, where indeed? Getting near to Charing Cross by now, I think." "She has gone back?" "Went this very morning, before I had your card--let us get out of the way of people. She has been dreadfully home-sick. About a fortnight ago a mysterious letter came for her she hid it away from me. A few days after another came, and she shut herself up for a long time, and when she came out again I saw she had been crying. Then we talked it over. She had written to Mr. Dally and got an answer that made her miserable; that was the _first_ letter. She wrote again, and had a reply that made her still more wretched; and that was the _second_. Two or three more came, and yesterday she could bear it no longer." "Then she has gone home to make it up with him?" "Of course. He declared that she has utterly lost her character and that no honest man could have anything more to say to her! I shouldn't wonder if they are married in a few weeks' time." Hilliard laughed light-heartedly. "I was to beg you on my knees to forgive her," pursued Eve. "But I can't very well do that in the middle of the street, can I? Really, she thinks she has behaved disgracefully to you. She wouldn't write a letter--she was ashamed. 'Tell him to forget all about me!' she kept saying." "Good little girl! And what sort of a husband will this fellow Dally make her?" "No worse than husbands in general, I dare say--but how well you look! How you must have been enjoying yourself!" "I can say exactly the same about you!" "Oh, but you are sunburnt, and look quite a different man!" "And you have an exquisite colour in your cheeks, and eyes twice as bright as they used to be; and one would think you had never known a care." "I feel almost like that," said Eve, laughing. He tried to meet her eyes; she eluded him. "I have an Alpine hunger; where shall we dine?" The point called for no long discussion, and presently they were seated in the cool restaurant. Whilst he nibbled an olive, Hilliard ran over the story of his Swiss tour. "If only _you_ had been there! It was the one thing lacking." "You wouldn't have enjoyed yourself half so much. You amused me by your description of Mr. Narramore, in the letter from Geneva." "The laziest rascal born! But the best-tempered, the easiest to live with. A thoroughly good fellow; I like him better than ever. Of course he is improved by coming in for money--who wouldn't be, that has any good in him at all? But it amazes me that he can be content to go back to Birmingham and his brass bedsteads. Sheer lack of energy, I suppose. He'll grow dreadfully fat, I fear, and by when he becomes really a rich man--it's awful to think of." Eve asked many questions about Narramore; his image gave mirthful occupation to her fancy. The dinner went merrily on, and when the black coffee was set before them: "Why not have it outside?" said Eve. "You would like to smoke, I know." Hilliard assented, and they seated themselves under the awning. The boulevard glowed in a golden light of sunset; the sound of its traffic was subdued to a lulling rhythm. "There's a month yet before the leaves will begin to fall," murmured the young man, when he had smoked awhile in silence. "Yes," was the answer. "I shall be glad to have a little summer still in Birmingham." "Do you wish to go?" "I shall go to-morrow, or the day after," Eve replied quietly. Then again there came silence. "Something has been proposed to me," said Hilliard, at length, leaning forward with his elbows upon the table. "I mentioned that our friend Birching is an architect. He's in partnership with his brother, a much older man. Well, they nave offered to take me into their office if I pay a premium of fifty guineas. As soon as I can qualify myself to be of use to them, they'll give me a salary. And I shall have the chance of eventually doing much better than I ever could at the old grind, where, in fact, I had no prospect whatever." "That's very good news," Eve remarked, gazing across the street. "You think I ought to accept?" "I suppose you can pay the fifty guineas, and still leave yourself enough to live upon?" "Enough till I earn something," Hilliard answered with a smile. "Then I should think there's no doubt." "The question is this--are you perfectly willing to go back to Birmingham?" "I'm _anxious_ to go." "You feel quite restored to health?" "I was never so well in my life." Hilliard looked into her face, and could easily believe that she spoke the truth. His memory would no longer recall the photograph in Mrs. Brewer's album; the living Eve, with her progressive changes of countenance, had obliterated that pale image of her bygone self. He saw her now as a beautiful woman, mysterious to him still in many respects, yet familiar as though they had been friends for years. "Then, whatever life is before me," he said. "I shall have done _one_ thing that is worth doing." "Perhaps--if everyone's life is worth saving," Eve answered in a voice just audible. "Everyone's is not; but yours was." Two men who had been sitting not far from them rose and walked away. As if more at her ease for this secession, Eve looked at her companion, and said in a tone of intimacy: "How I must have puzzled you when you first saw me in London!" He answered softly: "To be sure you did. And the thought of it puzzles me still." "Oh, but can't you understand? No; of course you can't--I have told you so little. Just give me an idea of what sort of person you expected to find." "Yes, I will. Judging from your portrait, and from what I was told of you, I looked for a sad, solitary, hard-working girl--rather poorly dressed--taking no pleasure--going much to chapel-- shrinking from the ordinary world." "And you felt disappointed?" "At first, yes; or, rather, bewildered--utterly unable to understand you." "You are disappointed still?" she asked. "I wouldn't have you anything but what you are." "Still, that other girl was the one you _wished_ to meet." "Yes, before I had seen you. It was the sort of resemblance between her life and my own. I thought of sympathy between us. And the face of the portrait--but I see better things in the face that is looking at me now." "Don't be quite sure of that--yes, perhaps. It's better to be healthy, and enjoy life, than broken-spirited and hopeless. The strange thing is that you were right--you fancied me just the kind of a girl I was: sad and solitary, and shrinking from people--true enough. And I went to chapel, and got comfort from it--as I hope to do again. Don't think that I have no religion. But I was so unhealthy, and suffered so in every way. Work and anxiety without cease, from when I was twelve years old. You know all about my father? If I hadn't been clever at figures, what would have become of me? I should have drudged at some wretched occupation until the work and the misery of everything killed me." Hilliard listened intently, his eyes never stirring from her face. "The change in me began when father came back to us, and I began to feel my freedom. Then I wanted to get away, and to live by myself. I thought of London--I've told you how much I always thought of London--but I hadn't the courage to go there. In Birmingham I began to change my old habits; but more in what I thought than what I did. I wished to enjoy myself like other girls, but I couldn't. For one thing, I thought it wicked; and then I was so afraid of spending a penny--I had so often known what it was to be in want of a copper to buy food. So I lived quite alone; sat in my room every evening and read books. You could hardly believe what a number of books I read in that year. Sometimes I didn't go to bed till two or three o'clock." "What sort of books?" "I got them from the Free Library--books of all kinds; not only novels. I've never been particularly fond of novels; they always made me feel my own lot all the harder. I never could understand what people mean when they say that reading novels takes them 'out of themselves.' It was never so with me. I liked travels and lives of people, and books about the stars. Why do you laugh?" "You escaped from yourself _there_, at all events." "At last I saw an advertisement in a newspaper--a London paper in the reading-room--which I was tempted to answer; and I got an engagement in London. When the time came for starting I was so afraid and low-spirited that I all but gave it up. I should have done, if I could have known what was before me. The first year in London was all loneliness and ill-health. I didn't make a friend, and I starved myself, all to save money. Out of my pound a week I saved several shillings--just because it was the habit of my whole life to pinch and pare and deny myself. I was obliged to dress decently, and that came out of my food. It's certain I must have a very good constitution to have gone through all that and be as well as I am to-day." "It will never come again," said Hilliard. "How can I be sure of that? I told you once before that I'm often in dread of the future. It would be ever so much worse, after knowing what it means to enjoy one's life. How do people feel who are quite sure they can never want as long as they live? I have tried to imagine it, but I can't; it would b_ too wonderful." "You may know it some day." Eve reflected. "It was Patty Ringrose," she continued, "who taught me to take life more easily. I was astonished to find how much enjoyment she could get out of an hour or two of liberty, with sixpence to spend. She did me good by laughing at me, and in the end I astonished _her_. Wasn't it natural that I should be reckless as soon as I got the chance?" "I begin to understand." "The chance came in this way. One Sunday morning I went by myself to Hampstead, and as I was wandering about on the Heath I kicked against something. It was a cash-box, which I saw couldn't have been lying there very long. I found it had been broken open, and inside it were a lot of letters--old letters in envelopes; nothing else. The addresses on the envelopes were all the same--to a gentleman living at Hampstead. I thought the best I could do was to go and inquire for this address; and I found it, and rang the door-bell. When I told the servant what I wanted--it was a large house--she asked me to come in, and after I had waited a little she took me into a library, where a gentleman was sitting. I had to answer a good many questions, and the man talked rather gruffly to me. When he had made a note of my name and where I lived, he said that I should hear from him, and so I went away. Of course I hoped to have a reward, but for two or three days I heard nothing; then, when I was at business, someone asked to see me--a man I didn't know. He said he had come from Mr. So and So, the gentleman at Hampstead, and had brought something for me--four five-pound notes. The cash-box had been stolen by someone, with other things, the night before I found it, and the letters in it, which disappointed the thief, had a great value for their owner. All sorts of inquiries had been made about me and no doubt I very nearly got into the hands of the police, but it was all right, and I had twenty pounds reward. Think! twenty pounds!" Hilliard nodded. "I told no one about it--not even Patty. And I put the money into the Post Office savings bank. I meant it to stay there till I might be in need; but I thought of it day and night. And only a fortnight after, my employers shut up their place of business, and I had nothing to do. All one night I lay awake, and when I got up in the morning I felt as if I was no longer my old self. I saw everything in a different way--felt altogether changed. I had made up my mind not to look for a new place, but to take my money out of the Post Office--I had more than twenty-five pounds there altogether--and spend it for my pleasure. It was just as if something had enraged me, and I was bent on avenging myself. All that day I walked about the town, looking at shops, and thinking what I should like to buy: but I only spent a shilling or two, for meals. The next day I bought some new clothing. The day after that I took Patty to the theatre, and astonished her by my extravagance; but I gave her no explanation, and to this day she doesn't understand how I got my money. In a sort of way, I _did_ enjoy myself. For one thing, I took a subscription at Mudie's, and began to read once more. You can't think how it pleased me to get my books--new books--where rich people do. I changed a volume about every other day--I had so many hours I didn't know what to do with. Patty was the only friend I had made, so I took her about with me whenever she could get away in the evening." "Yet never once dined at a restaurant," remarked Hilliard, laughing. "There's the difference between man and woman." "My ideas of extravagance were very modest, after all." Hilliard, fingering his coffee-cup, said in a lower voice: "Yet you haven't told me everything." Eve looked away, and kept silence. "By the time I met you"--he spoke in his ordinary tone--"you had begun to grow tired of it." "Yes--and----" She rose. "We won't sit here any longer." When they had walked for a few minutes: "How long shall you stay in Paris?" she asked. "Won't you let me travel with you?" "I do whatever you wish," Eve answered simply. _ |
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