Mr. Spivey's Clerk/Chapter 9

I had been working very hard one day, about the middle of July, chiefly because Mr. Spivey was holiday-making at Eastbourne, and Mr. McFlynn drunk in his lodgings, and at four o'clock I went away from the office resolved to do nothing further until I had had a breath of fresh air. I walked down to the river and got on board a steamboat and rode up to Westminster, from whence I made my way to Hyde Park, which is, in my opinion, the breeziest place in London, except Hampstead Heath. And there I strolled about, watching the gay carriages and fine horses, and wondering who the lady in blue was, and whether the girl in white was single or married.

​The paths were just as full of pedestrians as the Row was full of carriages, and every face and figure was alike strange to me, though the types were of the usual cast. There was the country cousin staring about him with wide open eyes and mouth, and there the City swell who endeavoured to look as if to the manner born. Here was the bluff old country squire with two daughters, one on each arm, and at his elbow a Chinaman resplendent in silk, and buttons, and pig-tail. And walking along through the motley crowd, I suddenly saw two people, at sight of whom I stood still and wondered—Lestrange and Maggie Primrose.

They were standing near the rails watching the gay procession of carriages go by, and they did not see me. He was attired in the most approved style and looked very handsome and distinguished, as indeed he did at all times. But Maggie was almost beyond my recognition. She was always particularly fastidious about her ​dress; but upon this occasion she had taken more than ordinary care over it. From the dainty hat to the neat shoes everything was perfect.

I had a full view of her face as I stood there watching them. She was talking and laughing gaily to Lestrange, and her pretty face was full of life and animation. I had never seen her look so bright in Tom Christmas's company.

I turned away for the moment, sick at heart. Somehow an irrepressible feeling of trouble came over me. I felt that these two had no right to be together in this way, and that Tom Christmas was being betrayed. And then I turned round again, and would have gone up to them if I had not suddenly remembered that I had no right to interfere. I was not even Maggie Primrose's brother, though I had come to look upon her as a sister. I was only the friend of Tom—and he was far away in Australia.

After a while Lestrange and Maggie moved ​away, and I followed them at a distance wondering what I ought to do. I could easily have gone up and greeted them in the ordinary fashion, concealing my surprise and astonishment. But I felt it wisest not to reveal myself, and I let them go on before while I followed after. There was not much fear of losing sight of them, for Lestrange was conspicuous by his tall figure and handsome bearing, and even in that crowd of pretty and beautiful women there were few more graceful han Maggie Primrose.

I followed them away from the crowd and across the Park towards the Marble Arch. They were evidently in the closest sympathy, and I began to think that these walks must have been going on for some time. I noted everything as I followed them. Once beneath a tree they paused, and I could see that Lestrange was talking quickly and earnestly, and that Maggie was listening in silence with averted eyes and downcast head. And then they went ​on again and I followed them into Oxford Street, where Lestrange put Maggie into a hansom and she drove away. I watched him light a cigar and turn back into the Park, and then I went back to the City and wondered what to do.

It was late that night when I returned home, and I found Maggie alone, Mrs. Christmas having gone out to tea two doors away. I suppose I was very silent and gloomy during the evening, and more than once I saw Maggie glance at me as if she did not altogether understand my quiet mood.

"You are very quiet to-night, Len," she said at length, "and you look as if something troubles you."

"I am tired and have a bad headache, Maggie," I answered. "My head has ached badly all day. It was so bad this afternoon that I was obliged to leave the office and go out for some fresh air."

​"And where did you go, Len?"

"Hyde Park."

I tried this direct shot with the view of seeing what effect it would have upon her. But, unprepared as she must have been, it produced very little. She merely bent her head a little closer over her work and made no answer.

"The Park was very full this afternoon," I continued. "And do you know, Maggie, I thought I saw two people there whom I did not expect to see."

She looked up quickly then and coloured slightly.

"Indeed, Len. And who were they?"

"You and Lestrange, Maggie."

She bent her head over her work again and went on with it for a minute or two before replying.

"Quite right, Len," she said at last. "You did see us. I had been to Knightsbridge, and I met Mr. Lestrange near the Park. He ​walked through the Park with me, and was kind enough to send me home in a cab."

What could I say? The explanation was satisfactory enough to satisfy any one, and I had no right to mention the scene under the tree, nor to ask if she had ever met Lestrange before under similar circumstances. I took up a book and began to read, and presently Maggie sat down at Mrs. Christmas's desk and commenced writing a letter. She used to write to Tom Christmas every week.

Lestrange did not come to see us for some weeks after this occurrence, and I began to hope that he had gone abroad again. Nothing would have pleased me better than to hear that he had left England for good. I was so anxious to hear something of him that I once or twice went to a few places where I thought I should be likely to find him if he was in London. But I saw nothing of him.

During those few weeks, Maggie went on ​in much the same way as usual. She went about her housekeeping duties and took care of Mrs. Christmas, and wrote her letter to Tom Christmas every week. She was quiet and content enough now to all appearance, and had evidently quite got over Tom's departure. And seeing her calm demeanour I gradually lost all fears about Lestrange, and did not mention the matter to Tom when I next wrote to him, as I had once thought of doing.

September came, and early in the month we received a letter from Tom Christmas which contained no end of good news. He was succeeding beyond all his anticipations in the business which had taken him out, and he believed that Mr. Spivey would be more than satisfied. He hoped to return home by the beginning of November, and to be married about three weeks later. He had not the least doubt that Mr. Spivey would materially increase his salary, and he begged Maggie to make her pre​parations for the wedding, as it was quite possible that Mr. Spivey might request Tom to take up his permanent residence in Melbourne as manager of the business there.

Once upon a time this letter would have given Maggie Primrose all manner of pleasurable anticipations; but now it fell flat. She read it quietly enough and gave it to Tom's mother and then to me. Tom Christmas's love-letters were such as any one could read. There was neither sentiment nor poetry in them, but they were straightforward and practical, and true and honest. I went away to the City that morning, wishing that Tom Christmas could return at once and marry Maggie and take her away with him. And I hoped ardently that Lestrange would not appear on the scene again before Tom's return.

That afternoon I was coming past Charing Cross Station, and remembering that I wished to get something from the bookstall inside, I went in and walked down the platform. The ​tidal train was just about leaving, and I lingered watching the heavy-cloaked and coated passengers as they came along the platform. And then, just as suddenly as I had seen her in the Park, I saw Maggie Primrose coming towards me. She recognised me at the same moment, and she did not stop or falter, but came directly towards me. She was very pale, and there were unshed tears in her eyes; but her face was resolute and determined.

"Maggie!" I cried. "What brings you here? Where are you going?"

"I am going away, Len. I am———"

"Going away? Oh, Maggie! What does it mean?"

She looked round her and bit her lips. A porter carrying a portmanteau came up, and placing it in a carriage, signalled to her to come across and take the place he had reserved for her. She nodded to him, and turning round to me began to speak quickly.

​"It means, Len, that I am going away, and that you will not see me again. I thought I should have got away without your knowing it. Leonard, listen. When you go home to-night, look in your desk. You will find two letters, one for yourself, and one for—for Tom."

"For Tom?"

I thought she would break down then, but she controlled herself, and went on again:

"For Tom, Len. Send it to him, and ask him to—to forgive me and forget me. Oh, Len, it must seem bad, wicked, dreadful conduct, this of mine! I can't help it. I have tried, oh, so very hard to be true to him, and I can't, I can't."

"Maggie, tell me what you are going to do?"

"I am going to be married, Len."

"Married? You, Maggie? And to whom?"

"To Mr. Lestrange."

I said no more, but stood before her silent and surprised beyond measure.

​"I have told Tom everything in my letter, Leonard. You will send it to him at once, will you not? And now, good-bye, Len, and oh, thank you so many, many times for———"

She began to cry then, and I found my tongue.

"Maggie," I said, and I never tried to put so much persuasion into my voice before or since, "Maggie, for Heaven's sake, stop! Think of what you are doing? Where is Lestrange? If you are going to marry him, why not in the proper way? Why are you going away like this? Why is he not with you?"

"He is ill, in Paris," she said. "We are to be married there to-morrow morning. Let me go, now, Len, and try to think kindly of me sometimes."

"Let me go with you, Maggie. Nay, I will go."

"No, Leonard, no, please! He would be so angry. See, I will write to you to-morrow morning."

​I shook my head. There was something that I did not like about it. I stood wondering what to do. Should I follow her and see that all was right? While I hesitated, the bell rang, and a porter coming up, told Maggie that she must take her seat.

"You hear, Len—I must go. Won't you say good-bye to me?"

"God bless you, Maggie," I said, "wherever you go. But oh, my dear, this will kill Tom."

She turned paler than ever when I said that, and put her hand to her breast as if in pain. And then the look of resolution came back to her, and she got into the carriage and drew down her veil, and the train steamed away, and left me standing there like a man in a dream.

How I got out of the station, I hardly remember. I have confused recollections of swearing at Lestrange, and feeling that I should like to kill him. Then I think I cried, and after that ​laughed savagely, and vowed that every woman living was false and fickle. And then, although I had some very important business awaiting me in the City, I hailed a cab and went home to Canonbury Square.

Mrs. Christmas was sitting in calm repose by the fire, reading one of the novels which Lestrange had brought Maggie. She was very fond of light reading, but her daughter Julia had given her little chance of getting any during her régime. She looked placidly at me as I entered, and hardly expressed any surprise at my unusually early appearance. Miss Primrose, she said, had gone away that day to visit some friends, and had left instructions with Sarah Ann about things in general. An easy-going, even-tempered woman was Mrs. Christmas.

I went to the old desk in the corner and raised the lid. Yes, there lay the two letters she had spoken of, side by side, with the brief inscriptions, "Leonard" and "Tom," on the envelopes. And ​on the one marked "Tom," there was a great tear-stain.

I went upstairs to my own room, and read the letter addressed to myself. It was very brief, and it told me little more than Maggie had already told me herself. But reading between the lines I could see how absolutely fascinated the poor girl had been by Lestrange, and how, as soon as he put forth his power, she had yielded to his persuasions and renounced her allegiance to an incomparably better man. I could trace something of the struggle that had gone on in Maggie's heart before she finally gave way; I could see what she had suffered in thinking about Tom Christmas's disappointment. And I could also see something else—that she had come to regard Lestrange as a demi-god, and had lost her heart to him as she never could have lost it to plain Tom Christmas.

I was obliged to go back to the office, and I carried the letter for Tom with me, thinking that ​I would write to him that night and tell him everything, though I little knew how to find words in which to convey my message. But on second thoughts, I decided to wait a day or two in order that I might be able to tell him that Maggie was married to Lestrange. She had promised to write to me, and I knew that she would keep her promise if she could possibly do so.

I thought anxiously over the whole unfortunate business that evening, and lay awake most of the night still thinking of it. The more I considered it, the less I liked the look of it. Why had Lestrange not come a-wooing in straightforward fashion? Why, if he loved Maggie Primrose, had he not been brave enough to say so to others instead of letting her steal away from us in so clandestine a manner? And why was the wedding to take place in Paris, when it might have easily been celebrated in a score of quiet City churches? The only ray of light I ​could get was the few words which Maggie had dropped about Lestrange's illness. It might be that he was ill in some Parisian hotel, and had sent for her so that she could nurse him. There was some comfort in the thought, and I tried to gain courage from it.

How I lived through the next day I don't know. I could not eat or sit still, and I dare say that everybody with whom I came in contact thought I was going crazy. I was totally unfit for business as for everything else. I passed the evening in hearing Mrs. Christmas talk, and never did hours seem to drag so slowly or that good lady's tongue to wag so quickly. And that night I slept, being fairly worn out with anxiety.

And while I slept I dreamed. I was on a great promontory, and it was dark midnight, and beneath me the sea boiled and surged in mad fury, and overhead lightning flashed and thunder roared. And through all the wild devilry of the ​scene, I saw a little white dove fluttering, beaten this way and that, and never able to make headway against the tempest. Now it was dashed upwards by the angry wind, and now a fiercer gust caught it and whirled it far out to sea. And then, while I watched it, the tempest subsided, and the white dove, weary and worn, fluttered to the great rock on which I stood, and hid itself in the cleft. And then I awoke.

And again I slept and dreamed. I saw again the rocky promontory and the sea beneath. I saw the sea with the morning sun upon it, and it looked fair and gracious. There was scarcely a ripple upon it, and its emerald waters shone with light. I saw the white dove fly out across it, and sail far away towards the sunlighted east. And while I watched, the skies grew dark and the winds began to blow, and hail and rain came down, and the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled from north to south, and the white dove, far away from the shadow of the rock, was ​beaten and baffled, and sank down amongst the angry waves—lost. And I awoke once more.

And once more I slept and once more I dreamed. I saw the ocean again, fair and beautiful, and the light which lighted it was neither of sun nor moon nor star. And in the midst of it lay an island like a great pearl set in a silver sea, and on it I saw the white dove, calm, happy, and at rest. And I woke again and it was morning, and the autumn sunlight was flooding my window with light.

I lost little time that morning in getting away to the City. I expected that Maggie's letter would go to the office and not to the house. It was with a beating heart that I inquired of Jones if there were any letters for me. Yes, said Jones, there was one on my table with the Paris postmark.

I tore it open and glanced at the signature. Margaret Lestrange. Then she was married, and my vague fears were groundless. Thank God!

​I sat down and read the brief note. She had seized the opportunity, she said, of writing to me while her husband was out, making arrangements for leaving Paris. They had been married that morning, she said, and they were going away during the day, first to Italy, then to Egypt, and afterwards to India. They would probably go round the world before returning home. And then the letter concluded abruptly.

I wrote my letter to Tom Christmas that night, sitting in his little attic-study at home. How I did it I don't know; but I do remember that, when I had finished, I put my head on my arms and cried like a child to think of the pain and grief that good, honest fellow must endure when he came to read it. I would cheerfully have undergone the most exquisite tortures rather than have written that letter, if such a vicarious atonement would have done any good. But I knew that he must hear the bad news sooner or later, and I also knew that no one could break ​it so gently or considerately as I. I had come to be almost a part of himself, and I understood and loved him as no one else in this world did. And so I forced myself to write the letter, and finished the task and enclosed Maggie's note and despatched it, and wondered how Tom Christmas would feel when it reached him, and told him that his dearest hopes were shattered.

It was necessary that I should inform Julia of what had happened, and I was wondering whether a call or a letter would be the most fitting means of doing so, when I noticed a paragraph in the daily papers which informed the world that the Bishop of Grandchester and Mrs. Dumbury were in town for a few days. So I attired myself in my best and went the next morning to Grandchester House, where I found the prelate's lady busy with his lordship's chaplain and sundry other ecclesiastics. I think she saw that I had news of moment to communicate, for she gave me a private audience at once.

​I told her, in brief terms, that Maggie had gone away from us and had since been married.

"And pray, Leonard Tempest, who is the man that Maggie Primrose has married, and why have they behaved in such an underhand fashion?"

"The man, Mrs. Dumbury, is Frank Lestrange."

"Frank Lestrange! Impossible! Impossible!"

"It is true, Mrs. Dumbury. Why are you so surprised?"

"Surprised, Leonard Tempest, surprised? Are you a fool or an idiot?"

"I don't know," I replied, lamely. "I believe I soon shall be mad though, with a little more anxiety."

"If you knew all that I know, Leonard Tempest, of Frank Lestrange, you would not ask why I am surprised. He marry? Never!"

I remembered the scene in Lestrange's chambers, and that he had told Julia that he would never marry. His air of certainty had ​impressed me strongly at the time, and it came back to me now with much force. Why had I not remembered it sooner? I sat staring stupidly at Julia Dumbury.

"No," she continued, "Frank Lestrange would never marry that little simpleton. He is deceiving her. She is not the first woman that he has deceived and wronged, Leonard Tempest. He is a roué, a libertine, a liar."

She spoke with such vehemence that I was too much amazed to reply. What mystery lay hid behind her words?

"But, Mrs. Dumbury, Maggie herself tells me they are married. See, here is the letter."

"Fiddle-de-dee, Leonard Tempest. You are, after all, only a baby. Did it never occur to you that marriage, or what looked like marriage, was the only way in which Lestrange could overcome the girl's scruples? Why, of course they would go through some form, and she would fancy it was the real thing. I tell you I know ​Frank Lestrange. He will make much of his new toy for a while, and she will live in a fool's paradise. And then———"

"And then? What, Mrs. Dumbury?"

"And then she will wake from her dream, Leonard Tempest, and find that Frank Lestrange has deceived and ruined her, and that he will cast her away like an old glove or a faded flower."