LOUIE'S MARRIED LIFE

BY

SARAH DOUDNEY

AUTHOR OF "WHEN WE TWO PARTED," "WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON," "A ROMANCE OF LINCOLN'S INN," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY W. RAINEY, R. I.

LONDON

S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO.

8 & 9 PATERNOSTER ROW.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. BEGINNING

II. LOOKING BACK

III. INEZ

IV. RONALD

V. RECOVERY

VI. THE GUITAR

VII. JARS

VIII. MARIAN

IX. GOING OUT

X. SHADOWS DEEPEN

XI. POISONED WORDS

XII. JEALOUSY

XIII. ANGUISH

XIV. STRICKEN

XV. FLIGHT

XVI. A FEVERISH DREAM

XVII. AWAKING

XVIII. HEART TO HEART

XIX. THE OLD ALBUM

XX. THE JEWELS

XXI. CLOSING WORDS

LOUIE'S MARRIED LIFE

CHAPTER I.

BEGINNING.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart," I hear the two clear notes, And see the sunlight shining through the shower; "Sweetheart," how faintly from the meadow floats The early fragrance of the cuckoo-flower! The wind is keen, and April skies are grey; But love can wait till rain-clouds break apart; And still the bird sings through the longest day; "Sweetheart, sweetheart." When lives are true, the springtide never dies, When souls are one, the love-notes never cease; Our bird sings on beneath the cloudy skies, Our little world is full of light and peace; Fresh as the breath of violets new-born Comes the sweet thought to hearts that cannot part, "After the night of weeping breaks the morn, "Sweetheart, sweetheart."

SURELY no one would ever believe that this song was written by a Londoner, and yet I, who wrote it, am a Londoner in heart and soul. But I was born far away in the country, and all the familiar sights and sounds of old days lend themselves to my rhymes, so that I oftener sing of fields, and birds, and flowers, than of those things which are always before my eyes. Moreover, as all authors know, it is sometimes easier to write of the unseen than of the seen, and these home fields of mine have borrowed much of their beauty from the glamour of distance.

It is because this tale is called "Louie's Married Life," that I shall give you my songs. They were all written for Ronald to sing to the accompaniment of his guitar; and if it had not been for Ronald, I hardly think that they would ever have been written at all. For if I had married somebody else (as I nearly did, once upon a time), this little flame of song which is in me would have been extinguished altogether, and I should have become the dullest woman in the world. These songs are a part of my life as a wife.

I daresay, however, that many people have wasted a great deal of pity on the wife of Ronald Hepburne; and if they do not openly point at the lines on my forehead and the crow's feet at the corners of my eyes, they convey by looks and tones their deep distress on seeing my altered appearance. I admit that they have every possible right to indulge in polite lamentations. Never having been a buxom woman, I had not much flesh to lose; and nursing through long days, and watching through longer nights, have left upon me certain traces which are not likely to be effaced, even in this present time of peace.

When I wrote the foregoing little song, it was early in an April morning; the only sunbeams that I could see were shining on brick walls, blackened with smoke; and the only sky that I could see was a patch of pale blue above the chimney-tops. But, as I lifted my head from my pillow, a feeling of unutterable gratitude thrilled me through and through: it was the last night that we should ever spend in that dreary London room, and Ronald had been sleeping soundly and long. Weeping may endure for a night (and with me it had endured for many nights), but joy cometh in the morning.

I thought of all the other watchers in the crowded houses around me, of mothers counting the hours by the beds of sick children, of wives who had agonised as I had done and prayed as I had prayed; and then, as I looked at Ronald's face, in the dim dawn, I began to recall the note of an early bird in my old country home—and so the song was made.

We had only been married six months when Ronald was stricken with fever. First a slight cold, a few days of languor and depression, and then, before I had had time to realise the danger, he was face to face with death. So the battle for life was fought and won in the dark chamber of a London lodging, and on that April morning I was tasting the first sweets of the great deliverance.

But when with a great effort he rose from the bed whereon he had lain for weeks, I almost feared that the conflict was about to begin again. He had never answered to the popular notion of a fine, handsome man (and I must needs say here that I have no fancy for burly men), yet I had not thought it possible that he could become so fragile, so spectre-like, as he now appeared. Mine is, I suppose, a transparent character, for Ronald always reads my thoughts at a glance; and as his eyes met mine, he gave me a reassuring smile.

"Never fear, Louie," he said, cheerfully. "I shall grow more substantial by-and-by." And then, touching my thin arm, he added, with a sadder look, "I am afraid, poor child, that you have thrown your own strength away in trying to save mine."

"I'm very strong," I answered, buttoning his great-coat with vigorous fingers. "The cab will be here in a minute, and we have no time to spend in bemoaning our leanness. Are you not very glad, Ronald, to leave this dismal old sick room fer ever and ever?"

But, even while I spoke, there flitted across my brain a faint foreshadowing of a time when the memory of that dim little room would become painfully dear. The feeling passed as quickly as it came, and I drew the folds of Ronald's wrapper over his mouth to guard him from the chilly wind of spring. Then the cab came up to the door, and we stood at the window to watch the disposal of our luggage on the roof.

"The guitar will go inside," said I to the servant.

So the guitar was carried out in its case and deposited on the front seat, and Ronald followed, so slowly and feebly that my heart ached to see him. I was the last to get in; and so we turned our backs upon that dreary house where we had suffered the sharpest sorrow that we had ever yet known.

The drive to our new abode was not a long one; and as it was fated that we were to meet with a disaster, it was well that it did not come upon us until we were very near our home. As we turned sharply out of Welbeck Street another cab came smashing into ours, and we were overturned in a moment. Assistance was soon forthcoming; the two drivers exchanged compliments after the manner of their kind; ready helpers collected our boxes, and placed us, quite unharmed, in another vehicle; in short, it was one of those "marvellous escapes" of which one hears so much, and there was only one thing belonging to us which was much the worse for the accident.

And that one thing was Ronald's guitar.

Until I was fairly inside our new rooms, I did not realise that the poor guitar was completely done for, and then I confess I shed some very bitter tears. Our new landlady (who had been a dear old nurse of mine) was much amazed and scandalised by my excessive grief, and instantly fell to reproving me as she had done in the days of my childhood.

"I'm astonished at you, Miss Louie," said she, forgetting my matronly dignity. "If your husband's bones had been smashed, you couldn't have made a greater fuss, and all about a musical instrument of no account whatever! A pianner, now, would be worth crying over, but there never was much noise to be got out of that poor silly stringed thing."

I am quick of temper, and I felt very much inclined to slap nurse at that moment.

"Go away," I said, crying anew. "You never can understand how dear that guitar is to me. I first f-f-fell in love with Ronald when he was playing upon it."

"What a fool I be!" soliloquised nurse, smiling. "I might have known as much. Why, I remember that I took a fancy to my old man when he was blowing his flute; and yet most folks say that a flute's dreadfully disfiguring to the countenance."

After that I kissed nurse, and she went off cheerfully to prepare our seven o'clock dinner, while I took my way to our little sitting-room. Finding Ronald lying tranquilly on an old-fashioned sofa, and looking a trifle more like his old self, my spirits rose again, and I began to feel myself a happy woman.

Most Londoners are well enough acquainted with Chapel Place—that convenient little alley which runs from Oxford Street into Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square—and it was in Chapel Place that we, a lonely pair of lovebirds, had now found a settled nest. Our rooms were on the ground-floor, and we looked out upon the grey stone wall of the great post-office, and were thankful for any "small mercies" vouchsafed us by stray sunbeams.

And yet, from that very first afternoon in nurse's house, I felt that here was to be the truest and happiest home that I had ever known. I watched the pigeons fluttering softly about the east gable of St. Peter's Church, and saw the faint crescent of the new moon rise above the house-roofs, and show its pale golden outline against a background of misty lilac sky. And Ronald, languid but content, studied my brightened face, and lazily whispered that I was once more like the girl he had wooed two years ago.

When I read a novel, I always make a point of skipping the explanations, and now that I am writing a story I shall endeavour to explain as little as I can, and to leave as much as possible to the instincts of my intelligent readers. It is necessary, however, that I should briefly state how I came to know Ronald Hepburn, and who and what my husband was.

First of all, let me say that he was a soldier, sprung from a long line of soldiers who had fought and served in India. In India he was born, and when I met him, he had just been invalided home and had left the service. You have only to stroll into the neighbourhood of the best clubs and you will see dozens of men exactly like him any day. He was not in any way remarkable, and he had never been handsome, but he possessed a certain indolent grace of manner and bearing—a certain air of high breeding and perfect repose, which are attractions in the eyes of some women. After saying all this, I have merely to add that I like high breeding and repose, and it was therefore not surprising, perhaps, if Ronald Hepburne succeeded, pretty easily, in fascinating me.

CHAPTER II.

LOOKING BACK.

I HAD grown-up, a penniless little orphan, in my uncle's quiet country cottage, and when he died, I knew not where to look for another home. He had commended me to the care of his oldest friend, the rector of the parish, and had left me all that he had to leave—a thousand pounds and his blessing. The rector was a good man and a wise; he invested my small fortune to the best advantage, and sent me up to town to be the protégée and companion of his widowed sister, Lady Waterville.

It had seemed to me a hard thing that nurse, who had been my loving tyrant from baby-hood, should have left me just twelve months before my uncle's death. After years of comfortable widowhood, she had yielded to the prayers of an old admirer, whose liking for her comely, rustic face had survived through many chances and changes. And so, with tears, she had taken leave of my uncle and me, and had gone off with her husband to his London home, little thinking how soon I was destined to follow her.

Lady Waterville was very stout, very amiable, and indescribably lazy. I have said "indescribably," because no word in any language would ever completely express that wonderful indolence of hers. Many people are sufficiently ashamed of their idleness to veil it under pretty shams of work; but Lady Waterville never was ashamed in the least. She was uncompromisingly honest, and would plainly admit that anything in the shape of an occupation was hateful to her. The world was far too busy, she declared; as for herself, it had not pleased a kind Providence to give her a vocation, and she did not mean to thwart its designs by trying to find employment.

"Here I sit," she would say, "with my idle hands before me, and even Satan himself has never found any mischief for them to do. So Dr. Watts is not infallible, my dear."

In one of his stories, Mr. Wilkie Collins has introduced us to a lady who sat through life, and she must certainly have borne a strong resemblance to Lady Waterville. Strange as it may seem, this sitting existence appeared to agree with her extremely well; and, despite her obesity, she was a pretty old woman, with an open, good-tempered face, and soft hair which was a mixture of silver and gold. I have heard Ronald say that she always reminded him of an immense doll, smiling fatuously upon you through its glass window, untouched by any human ills, unaltered by the lapse of time. But although she was not blessed (or cursed) with any deep feelings, she was very comfortable to live with, and unvarying in her kindness to me.

Her husband, Sir Clement Waterville, had been knighted for his services in India; and, having done with the army, he had settled himself in an old house in George Street, Hanover Square. There his widow was still living when I came up to town to be her companion, and there she continued to live to the end of her days.

The house was let on a long lease at two hundred and sixty pounds a year, and was the property of Ronald Hepburne. It was the only property that he possessed, and it had been left to him by his aunt, Inez Greystock, who had perished in the Indian Mutiny.

Sir Clement Waterville and Colonel Greystock (the husband of Inez) had been intimate friends in India; and so it came to pass that Ronald became acquainted with the Watervilles, and continued to visit the widow after Sir Clement's death.

Lady Waterville did not receive many visitors, as she hated the trouble of entertaining; but any one who had been liked by her husband was welcomed to her house; and there were two young men in whom Sir Clement had taken an especial interest. These two were William Greystock and Ronald Hepburne.

Colonel Greystock had survived his wife many years; he had never had any children, and William, his nephew, had taken the place of a son. Through his influence, William had obtained a Government appointment in India, and had inherited all that his uncle had to leave. When I came to live with Lady Waterville, the colonel had been dead some time; and William, a single man, was living comfortably on his means.

"William Greystock would be a good match for you, Louie," said Lady Waterville one day.

How well I remember that day! It was May time; the drawing-room was sweet with flowers, and through the open windows came the first warm breath of summer. We sat with a little tea-table between us; the clocks were just striking four, and the sunshine lay brightly on the old street and square. I had been in town three months, and my ears had grown accustomed to the ceaseless roll of wheels; the noises that had seemed deafening at first were pleasant now, and I had already begun to love that loud hum of unresting life which is still dear to me.

Not being in the least in awe of Lady Waterville, I never hesitated to speak my mind.

"I don't like Mr. Greystock much," I said, frankly.

"You might like him better, if he were to pay you particular attentions, my dear."

"I don't think I should. I liked our curate very much indeed until he became particularly attentive, and then I turned against him in the most extraordinary way. If I could have married him I would, just to please my uncle and the rector."

"So you are not quite such 'an unlesson'd girl' as I supposed," said Lady Waterville, surveying me with a benign smile. "You have had a lover; but as he didn't succeed, I think he must have played his cards very badly."

"He played them well enough, I believe," I replied, smiling at the remembrance of sundry proofs of devotion.

"I don't mean that he was not in earnest." The widow was still smiling at me across her teacup. "But he must have been terribly deficient in tact. You were in the dullest of country places; you saw nobody, and went nowhere. Under such circumstances, I don't see how any decent man could have failed to win you. My brother used to be rather fastidious about curates, so I suppose your admirer was presentable."

"Decidedly presentable and good-looking; but I got tired of him and his face."

"What was the matter with his face?"

"Nothing; but it was a face that had no story in it."

Lady Waterville held out her cup for more cream, and then looked at me with a slight shake of the head.

"I know you now," she said. "Louie, you are just the kind of girl who will marry badly or not marry at all."

I laughed gaily.

"What an awful prophecy, Lady Waterville!" I cried.

"Do you know what it is that writes the story on a man's face?" she went on. "I will tell you—folly, extravagance, sin, and bitter repentance."

I grew graver as I listened. Was she thinking of the very face that I was silently picturing at that moment? Despite her laziness, Lady Waterville possessed the faculty of observation; perhaps she saw all the more of life because she was wholly unoccupied. Her eyes were always at liberty; never being bent on crewelwork or patchwork, they studied human countenances in a leisurely fashion, and it is possible that they discovered a good many little secrets. I felt my cheeks beginning to burn.

"Give me another cup of tea, my dear," she said, speaking in quite a different tone. "The last was not sweet enough. How well those buttercups suit you!"

I had fastened a cluster of large water-buttercups into my bodice, and I thoroughly appreciated the widow's kindness in looking at them, and taking no notice of my blushes. She was talking on in a pleasant, rambling way, and I was gradually getting cool again, when the page threw open the door and announced Mr. Greystock.

William Greystock came in, dark, bland, inscrutable as he always was. He had black eyes, deep-set, and black hair, closely cropped, that lay in thick ripples over his head. As he wore no moustache, there was nothing to veil the hard outline of his thin lips and prominent chin; and I thought then (as I think now) that his was the strongest and most cruel profile I had ever seen in all my life.

He talked well and fluently; admired Lady Waterville's flowers, and even deigned to praise my humble buttercups. I told him that I had bought them of a little girl in the street, just because they reminded me of my old home; and then he asked me if I had not lately written some verses about the country.

My cheeks grew hot again. Lady Waterville looked with an amused glance from William Greystock's face to mine.

"I did not know that Miss Coverdale ever wrote poetry," she said to him. "Pray, how did you find it out?"

"Through Ronald," he replied, with one of his peculiar smiles. "I went into his room last night and found him as usual with his beloved guitar. He was setting some lines to music; I asked who had written them, and he told me."

"Does he always tell you everything?" I inquired, trying to speak playfully, and succeeding very badly.

"Yes," was the quiet answer.

"He has inherited his love of the guitar from his Aunt Inez," said Lady Waterville, not looking at me. "She had quite an unreasonable fondness for her guitar, poor woman! I used to see her sometimes when she was first married to Colonel Greystock, and I always thought her a most extraordinary person. Ronald's mother, her own sister, was not like her in the least."

"I have often looked at those two portraits in the dining-room," said I. "Mrs. Hepburne was not nearly as handsome as her sister, but I like her face better."

"Ronald is exactly like his aunt," Mr. Greystock remarked.

"As I was saying," went on Lady Waterville, "I always thought Inez a most extraordinary person. She expected too much happiness and never got any at all. Poor thing! She was a disappointed woman from beginning to end. Any one with a genius for scribbling might make a novel out of her history."

"I should like to hear it," I said.