Chapter VII: Author’s Story Continued

AT MORLEY’S.

The Colonel had telegraphed for a suite of rooms on the second floor looking out upon the Square, and he found them ready for him. A cheerful fire in the salon, another in the bedroom, with every candle lighted in the chandelier and in the candelabra upon the mantle. Divesting herself quickly of her wet wrappings Fanny took an easy chair before the fire, towards which she held her cold hands, while she said, “This is delightful; the rooms are lovely, and I am so glad to be here.”

For a time she was glad. Jack and the old life had nothing to offer like this luxurious apartment, with the warmth and the light, and a little later on the waiter asking when Madame would have dinner served.

“Now,—at once,” the Colonel answered for her, saying, when the man had gone, “We dine in here. I have no fancy for _table d’hôtes_ with all the canaille and bourgeois round me. One can’t be too careful in Europe as to his acquaintances.”

Fanny, who was very social in her nature and liked to see people, preferred, as a rule, to mingle with them, but to-night she was so tired that she was glad to dine by themselves, and she felt a thrill of satisfaction that she was able to do so without counting the cost. Once, when quite a young girl, she had gone to the Spotswood in Richmond, with her father, who was not feeling well and to whom she had suggested that he have his dinner in his room.

“No, daughter; there would be an extra charge and I cannot afford it,” he had said.

She was very poor then;—she was rich now, and need not mind expense. It was a good thing to be rich, and she felt glad and content as she nestled down in the easy chair and felt its soft folds about her and the glow of the fire on her face and watched the two waiters laying the table for dinner, with cut glass and silver and the finest of linen, and a vase of flowers in the centre.

“If father were only here to share it with me,” she thought, recalling the many straits to which poverty had reduced them. “If he could share it with me,—or Annie,—or Katy,—or—Jack!”

The last name sent her blood rushing so hotly through her veins that she moved away from the fire as if it scorched her. She did not mean to be disloyal to her husband, and it did not occur to her that she was as she began to wonder how she should feel if it were Jack whom she heard stepping around so briskly in the dressing-room, making himself ready for dinner. She could see just how he would look lounging easily up to her with a smile on his face and in his laughing eyes which had never rested upon her except with love and tenderness. It was not Jack, but a tall, stern, dignified man, who emerged from the dressing-room just as the soup was put upon the table, and led her to her seat. The dinner was excellent and well served, and Fanny, who was hungry for the first time since her marriage, enjoyed it with a keen relish of a healthy appetite. She was young and hopeful and elastic in her temperament, and as her spirits rose she laughed and joked until her face, which had lost something of its freshness during her illness, grew bright and sparkling, and her husband thought with pride how beautiful she was and almost forgave her for the _eyes_ which had troubled her so on shipboard. They had gone through all the courses and the black coffee had been brought in. This the Colonel took by the fire, while Fanny still sat at the table sipping hers and occasionally tasting a Hamburg grape. The waiter had just gone out when there was a knock at the door and a servant entered bringing a cablegram upon a silver salver. It came several days ago, he said, and the clerk at the office had forgotten to give it to the gentleman when he registered.

Naturally the Colonel put out his hand to take it when the waiter said quietly, “If you please, it is for the lady.”

“For me!” Fanny exclaimed in surprise. “Who can have telegraphed to me?”

Taking the message in her hand she read the address aloud:—“Mrs. Geo. W. Errington, Morley’s Hotel, London, Eng.”

It was the first time she had seen her new name in writing, and it gave her a peculiar sensation as she studied it for a moment.

“It’s a cablegram from home and may have bad news. Open it,” the Colonel said, and instantly Fanny’s fingers were tearing at the envelope and she was reading the message: “The Elms, Thanksgiving morning. To Mrs. G. W. Errington. Mr. Fullerton is here and very ill with brain fever. Recovery doubtful. C. Errington.”

For a moment everything in the room swam before Fanny’s eyes, but she neither spoke nor stirred until the Colonel, alarmed at the whiteness of her face, came to her side and asked “What is it?” She gave him the cablegram which he read aloud and then said, “That’s bad. A fever is likely to go hard with a man of Mr. Fullerton’s temperament.”

The next moment he repented his words, calling himself a brute, partly for his thoughtlessness and more for the vindictive feeling which had prompted it.

“Oh, Jack! I have killed you,” Fanny cried, stretching out her hands, and then lying back in her chair in a dead faint, the first she had ever had in her life.

It was one thing to give Jack up voluntarily, and know that somewhere in the world he was still alive, remembering and loving her, as she believed he would, and another thing to think of him as dead,—gone out of her life forever,—murdered by her. That was the way she put it, and murderess was the word in her mind when she cried out, “Oh, Jack, I have killed you.” She had no doubt as to the cause of his illness. He had received her letter, enclosed in Annie’s, and been stricken down at once in the old home where he had expected to make her his wife and where both Miss Errington and Katy were now. When Thanksgiving came on the _Celtic_ she was too ill to know or care what day it was, and she had not thought of it since. But she remembered now all the bright anticipations of that day of which both Annie and Jack had written to her,—the dinner they were to have and for which Phyllis was making so great preparations, and after dinner the walk or drive to “Our house on The Plateau.” This last was the burden of Jack’s letter to her, and now she was another man’s wife, and Jack was dying, or dead. All her work, and she was as surely a murderess as if with her hand she had killed him. It takes some time to tell all this, but it scarcely took Fanny a second to think it, so rapid were her thoughts and conclusions before she became unconscious. The Colonel had seen death in many phases on the battlefield, but no face had ever affected him like this, which was so still and white with a grieved expression around the mouth pitiful to see. He was glad he was alone with her, and when he heard the servant coming to clear the table he called to him to wait until he got Madame to her room, as she was ill. Taking her in his arms he carried her to their sleeping-room, loosened her dress, laid her upon the bed, and then applied every restorative which came to his mind, water, cologne, camphor, bay rum and ammonia, with no effect whatever for a time, and he began to wonder if it were possible for her to die upon his hands. At last, however, after what seemed to him an interminable length of time, she recovered and asked in some surprise what had happened, and why her hair and dress were so wet and why she was on the bed.

“You had a cablegram and fainted,” the Colonel explained, and then it came to her.

“Yes, I know,” she said, with a sob. “Jack is dead, and I killed him.”

“Humbug!” the Colonel answered, sternly. “He is not dead. If he were my sister would have cabled again. This message was sent several days ago. Brain fever runs its course quickly. He is better by this time. Don’t make another scene. Restrain yourself. I am not fond of high tragedy, especially when the hero is another man. I have had enough of it.”

Fanny had never heard him speak like this, and her heart stood still a moment and her breath came in short gasps, as she watched him putting the bottles of camphor and cologne and bay rum in their places and saw how pale he was and how his hands trembled. Something like pity for him was in her heart, but a stronger feeling overmastered it. She must know if Jack were living.

“George,” she said, her voice compelling him to go to her against his will. “George,” she continued, looking up at him with eyes which held his, much as he wished to withdraw them, “I am sorry for it all, but I must know if Jack is alive, and you must cable to your sister to-night, if possible,—to-morrow, sure.”

Mentally the Colonel swore he wouldn’t, but Fanny’s face conquered, and the message “How is Jack?” which his sister received was sent by him with Fanny’s name appended. The next two days were not very merry ones to either the Colonel or Fanny. _She_ sat silent and shivered by the fire, counting the hours as they went by, and every time there was a knock at the door starting up in hopes that the word which meant life or death had come. _He_ spent many hours in the smoking and reading room trying to divert his mind from what weighed upon him almost as heavily as it did upon Fanny. Again, he took long walks through the damp and fog, cursing his folly in marrying a girl who loved another as he now knew Fanny loved Jack, and trying to arrange his future. She was his wife. Nothing could undo that, and he did not know that he wanted it undone. He could still be very proud of her, if she would behave herself and not go pining and puling after another man, and this she should do. He was resolved upon that. Whether Jack lived or died she was to seem to forget him and be loyal to himself outwardly, whatever she might feel. She had married him for money. She should have it in full measure, and return to him an equivalent in obedience to his will. No one had ever thwarted that with impunity, and his wife should not be the first to do it. It seemed to him he had walked over nearly half of London when he came to this conclusion and began to feel that he was tired. Hailing a hansom he was driven to the hotel where he found his sister’s second cablegram, which he took at once to his wife. She was sitting just as he had left her hours before, wrapped in a shawl before the fire, with a hopeless look upon her face, which made him angry, and also sorry for her as he handed her the envelope and watched her as she tore it open and read, “He is better.”

He had never dreamed that a face could change as hers did in an instant.

“George, George,” she exclaimed. “He is better; he will live; and I am not a murderess. I am so glad; so glad.”

She was not chilly now. The shawl was thrown aside, and it was her own suggestion that they should dine below with the other guests rather than in their private salon as they had done heretofore.

“Now that I do not feel the mark of Cain on my forehead I want to see people. I have been mewed up here long enough,” she said; and the Colonel assented, although in his present state of mind he cared little where he took his dinner.

He asked for a table apart by himself and to it he conducted his wife, whose grace and beauty could not fail to attract attention, and who talked with him as airily as if there were no sore spot in her heart which would never quite cease to throb with a dull pain when memory’s fingers touched it. At some little distance from them, at a table by themselves, sat the Frenchman and his wife, the little man bowing and throwing out his hand very politely to Fanny, while saying something to the lady whose back was to them, and who never moved from her rather stiff position. She was elaborately and elegantly attired, evidently for the opera. Her dress, V-shaped before and behind, showed a part of her white, plump neck, on which a few short golden curls were falling from the coil arranged above them.

“Look, George; there’s the little old man and his wife; I wonder who they are,” Fanny said, and the Colonel replied, “They are registered ‘Monsieur and Madame Felix, Paris.’ The clerk says they come here often and that he is very rich. I imagine she is a terror, as I overheard her giving him Hail Columbia for something. I couldn’t tell what, but fancied it was about _you_, and that he either wanted her to call at our door and inquire, or send you some flowers. He remembered seeing you at the station and had taken the great liberty, he called it, to ask for you, and seemed concerned when I told him that you were not well and were keeping your room. She affects a great deal of hauteur and reserve, but is a magnificent looking woman,—very Frenchy, with her dark eyes and yellow hair. I thought at first it might be a wig, but it isn’t; it is all her own, growing on her head. I had a glimpse of her in the hall one day, hurrying to her room, in a crimson silk dressing-gown, with all that hair hanging down her back below her waist. She knew I saw her and actually smiled upon me, showing a set of very white, even teeth and a pair of brilliant eyes.”

Cold and passionless as the Colonel seemed he never saw a beautiful woman that he did not at once take in every point of her beauty from her head to her feet, and as the French lady, who had excited Fanny’s curiosity, was beautiful, or certainly very attractive, he waxed so eloquent over her that some women might have been jealous. But Fanny scarcely heard him. She was thinking of the cablegram which had relieved her anxiety for Jack, and of the long letter she meant to write to Annie that night. The Colonel was going to the opera and had asked her to accompany him, but she did not feel quite strong enough. So he left her alone and she began her letter, telling of her fearful seasickness and homesickness, and her remorse and pain when she received the news that Jack was dangerously ill; struck down, she was sure, by her act.

“If he had died I should never have known another moment’s peace of mind, for I should have known I was the cause of his death,” she wrote. “But, thank God he is better, and there has been a little song of joy in my heart ever since I heard it. The world could never be the same to me with Jack gone from it.”

As she began to feel tired she did not finish the letter, but left it open on the writing desk, intending to finish it in the morning. She did not hear her husband when he came in, nor knew that her letter had caught his eye at once, with Jack’s name occurring so often on the page open in view that he had stopped and unconsciously at first read a few lines. Ordinarily he would have held another’s letter sacred, but now with his anger and jealousy aroused he took up this and read it with wrath and disgust. The next morning when Fanny awoke she found her husband up and dressed and standing by the bedside looking at her. Opening her eyes drowsily, and smiling up at him, she said, “Have I overslept? What time is it, please?”

He did not answer her, but instead held up her letter which he had read again with more bitterness than on the previous night.

“Fanny,” he began, and his voice was full of concentrated anger and determination, “this nonsense must be stopped. I have had enough of it. You are my wife. I cannot control your thoughts, but I can your actions, and I will not have you writing home such sentimental trash as this about seasickness and homesickness, as if you were the most wretched woman in the world. If you were so fond of Jack, why under Heavens did you take _me_,—and having taken me why do you prove faithless to your marriage vows by clinging so to _him_. This letter will _not_ go for my sister or your adorable Jack to exult over, saying we are both reaping our just deserts.”

He tore the letter in shreds, which he threw into the fire. For a moment Fanny was speechless, then all her spirit and temper rose and her eyes were like two volcanoes, emitting spits of flame, as she said, “Do you call yourself a gentleman, and is it usual for gentlemen to read their wives’ letters as you have read mine?”

The taunt stung him, but he would not apologize, although he winced under the blaze of her eyes and the lash of her tongue. For a moment he let her have her own way and say what she chose; then buckled on his armor, which she could no more resist than she could strike her head against a wall hoping to move it. The fire in her black eyes was more than matched by the steely hardness of his, as he met her impetuous reproaches with words spoken very slowly and very low, but which left her vanquished and him master of the field and of her. It was a terrible battle, southern fire against northern coolness, and the latter conquered. Henceforth Fanny would go when he told her to go, come when he told her to come, do what he bade her do.

“But thank God I can _think_ what I please and of whom I please, and you cannot help yourself,” was her last defiant fling, as she dressed herself hurriedly and sat down to the breakfast which was served in their parlor and had waited some time while the matrimonial difference was settled.

Hot as was Fanny’s temper there was nothing sullen or vindictive in her nature, while the Colonel prided himself upon never striking a superfluous blow after the nail was driven in. If he was fierce in war he could be generous in peace, and if the waiter who served them that morning had been questioned upon the subject, he would have reported them as examples of conjugal harmony and affection. Madame, he might have said, was rather quiet, with a bright red spot on either cheek, while _Milor_ was very attentive to her, urging her to eat, and planning where he was to take her that day. First, shopping. He had met several friends the night before, both English and American, all of whom were coming to call. He had an invitation to dinner the next day but one at the house of an English lady, who had spent a part of a winter in Washington and been entertained by him and his sister. She had just heard he was in London and hoped he would accept her invitation, if it were rather late to give it. He also had tickets to hear Patti, and was to occupy a box with Lady _Hyer_, an American, who had married an earl. This necessitated a suitable outfit, and all the morning was spent at Marshall & Snelgrove’s and Peter Robinson’s, deep in the mysteries of silks and velvets and laces, as shown and recommended by the saleswoman and pronounced upon by the Colonel, who proved a connoisseur in matters of dress, and without really seeming to do so decided on every purchased article. Surrounded by so much elegance and receiving so much attention and deference, Fanny’s spirits rose. The scene of the morning, though rankling a little, was partially forgotten in the glamour of the dinner and evening dresses which were finally decided upon and were very becoming to her. The corsage of both was high, notwithstanding that the saleswoman had pleaded for something different.

“Madam’s neck was so white and smooth that it was a pity to cover it even with lace,” she said, while Fanny’s choice was the same as hers, but that did not matter. The Colonel knew her neck was smooth and fair, but it was for him only. No other man should look upon it, and he vetoed the low necks, but yielded to the short sleeves, which would only leave bare her arms, over which the saleswoman went into ecstasies.

All that evening and a part of the next day boxes of dry goods of various kinds kept coming to the Colonel’s apartments, which looked like some gay bazaar with Fanny in the midst, excited and seemingly happy and oblivious of all that had gone before, except occasionally when a sigh, or a sudden pressure of her hand upon her heart told that she remembered and was exercising her right to think her own thoughts untrammeled by anyone. The Colonel was very suave and gracious, enjoying her enthusiasm and smiling upon her as upon a wayward but conquered child. On the night of the dinner party, as she stood before him, radiant and lovely, and asked what he thought of her, he answered, “I think you will be the most beautiful woman there, after I have made a few additions to your toilet. Look here,” and pulling her down beside him, he laid in her lap a pair of exquisite diamond earrings, the stones large and white and clear, and showing their value by their brilliancy and depth. He fastened them in her ears himself, and then clasped around her wrists a pair of superb bracelets, scarcely less expensive than the diamonds.

“Oh, George,” she said, as she stood up and saw in the mirror the flash of the precious stones which enhanced her beauty, “Oh, George, you are kind, and I thank you so much, and I mean to be good.”

The last words were spoken with a half sob as she put her arms around his neck. She didn’t kiss him. The memory of the bitter words he had said to her was too fresh in her mind for that. But she was grateful and pleased, and as the Colonel had predicted, she was by far the most beautiful woman in Mrs. Harcourt’s drawing room and received the most attention. There was nothing like _gaucherie_ in Fanny’s manner. She conformed readily to the atmosphere around her, and the English, usually so critical where Americans are concerned, forgot to criticise and found her wholly charming and let her know they did. Never in her life had she been so flattered and admired, and never had she been more sparkling and said brighter, wittier things in a ladylike way than now. She had found her place in society at last; the one she had dreamed of but never thought to attain, and for the time she was happy, drinking the brimming cup, and the past was blotted out. She had often said to herself, “It is good to be rich and somebody,” and she said it now with great unction as the people crowded around her and vied with each other in paying her homage. Among them was Lady Hyer, who, proud of her countrywoman, invited her with her husband to spend the Christmas holidays at her house in Surrey, where she was to entertain a large party.

“Oh, I should like it so much, if my husband thinks best,” Fanny said, her eyes dancing with delight as she anticipated the pleasures of a visit in an English country house where she knew she would be the queen.

Yes, it was good to be rich and somebody, and as the Colonel, although non-committal on the subject, seemed to favor the plan, she felt sure that she should go, and began to think of other dresses which would be necessary if a week were spent at Grey Gables, Lady Hyer’s country seat. She might perhaps have gone there if it had not been for the undue attentions of Tom Hyer, Lord Hyer’s younger brother, who made no attempt to conceal his admiration, and who, when the gentlemen were left alone with their cigars, urged the Colonel to accept his sister-in-law’s invitation.

“You’ll meet no end of swell people there and in the neighborhood,” he said. “Cream of society, and madame will be in the swim at once, don’t you know: The Prince occasionally visits at some of the houses, and, by Jove, I heard he was coming this winter. If so, Lou, that’s Lady Hyer, will nab him if she can; and let him once see madame, her success is sure, don’t you know.”

“Yes, I know,” the Colonel replied, bowing stiffly and longing to thrash the cad who thought that the notice of the Prince could add to his wife’s reputation.

On the contrary it would detract from it, and he wanted to tell him so. But the shallow young man would not have understood him, if he had. He had finished his cigar and joined the ladies, and when the Colonel returned to the drawing room he found him seated by Fanny and filling her ears with the gay times she would have at Grey Gables, where he hoped to meet her again. But the festivities of Grey Gables and its neighborhood, with the Prince of Wales as a possible central figure, were not for Fanny, and when she asked her husband why he declined the invitation, he answered curtly, “Because I choose to do so.”

Two days after the dinner party Fanny wrote another letter to her sister very different from the first. There was no regret in it for what she had done,—no mention of homesickness, or Jack; nothing, in short, that the most jealous and exacting husband could not read. She offered it to the Colonel when it was finished, but he declined, saying in much the same tone a father might adopt towards a child who had been punished for some misdemeanor, “I think I can trust you now that you know what my wishes are. I will direct it for you, if you like.”

Fanny handed him the envelope, and while he was addressing it added the few words which embodied so much love and longing for news from home and Jack and told Miss Errington that the bending process had begun as she had predicted it would begin. There were one or two more dinners with lunches and calls and drives, and then the Colonel began to talk of the continent and Paris. There he intended finding a maid for Fanny and a valet for himself. Both were necessary adjuncts and would add to his importance, he thought. To Fanny the idea of a maid was very pleasing, but she preferred one who spoke her own language as well as French.

“If I could only find Julina Smith, I should like it,” she said, “and I think she would be glad to see me. I suppose, though, she is married by this time, or is too fine a person to be a maid. But she might know of some one who would be trusty, which is a great thing to be considered. Her aunt, whose name was Du Bois, kept a French pension, and Julina lived with her. Perhaps Madame Felix might know the place, as she lives in Paris. I wish I dared ask her. I know she is here yet, but she avoids me as if I were the plague.”

For answer to this the Colonel laughed derisively at the idea of consulting Madame Felix with regard to a _pension_. There were ways of finding Du Bois and Julina, too, if necessary, he said, without interviewing Madame, who never heard of either. He, too, knew that she was still in the hotel, although he seldom saw her. The little old man was ill and she took her meals in her room with him. Occasionally, however, the Colonel came upon her walking up and down the hall as if for exercise. At such times she always gave him a nod of recognition, with a lighting up of her eyes which interested him more than he cared to confess. She was very aristocratic in her feelings and very exclusive he was sure, and this did not at all detract from his desire to know her. Meeting her in the hall the day after his conversation with Fanny he lifted his hat a little more deferentially than usual, and begging her pardon for the liberty, ventured to inquire for her husband who he had heard was ill.

Instantly Madame’s fine eyes became humid, and her voice full of pathos, as she replied that Monsieur, although better, was still too ill to continue their journey to Paris where she so desired to be, or rather to Passy, where they had a chateau full of servants waiting impatiently for them.

The Colonel was naturally very much concerned about Monsieur and very sorry for Madame, who was most artistically dressed and looked very handsome as she stood in the shadow with her back to the light. The Colonel knew that she was artificial and Frenchy through and through, but she attracted him as she did every man, and he went on to speak of the weather and Paris, where he was soon going, and then he rather awkwardly dragged in Julina Smith and the Du Bois Pension, which his wife was anxious to find. It was hardly probable, but just possible that Madame, who knew Paris so well, might have heard of the Du Bois Pension and could direct him to it. Not that he expected to stop there, or at any other pension. He was going to the Grand, he hastened to say, as even in the shadow he saw the light kindling in Madame’s eyes and mistook its meaning. His wife was very anxious to get on the track of Julina Smith, who had once lived in her family, and might be of some service to her in selecting a maid.

For an instant Madame Felix was silent; then, with an outward gesture of her hand, as if thrusting from her something obnoxious, she said in a hard, sarcastic tone, “Monsieur the Colonel does me great honor to enquire of me for the Du Bois Pension and Julina Smith, but I know neither one nor the other, I never kept an intelligence office. Good morning, Monsieur.”

With a haughty shrug of her shoulders she swept down the hall, leaving the Colonel discomfitted and abashed, and a good deal ashamed of himself. What should a superb creature like Madame Felix know of Du Bois and Julina Smith, and what a fool he had been to speak of them to her and incur her contempt. He did not tell Fanny of his adventure, which he knew was prompted not so much by a desire to learn of Julina Smith’s whereabouts as to talk with Madame, who had rebuffed him as he deserved. The little old man, as Fanny always called Monsieur, must have recovered strength rapidly, for the next morning, when the Colonel went to the office he found him sitting there wrapped in furs and shawls, waiting for the carriage which was to take him to the Victoria Station. Putting out his wrinkled, withered hand, he bade him good morning cheerily. He was feeling better, he said, and as Madame had suddenly taken it into her head to go home, they were going, as far as Paris at least. He had an incurable and painful disease, and should probably never see England or Monsieur again, he said; but he spoke very cheerfully, as if the next world would be quite as pleasant as he had found this. Then he inquired for Fanny and sent his best compliments to her.

“She has a bonny face, which interests me,” he said. “She has smiled pleasantly upon me. I like her. I thank her. Tell her so. If I live, and you stay long in Paris, come to the Hotel Felix in Passy. _Au revoir_, Monsieur. Here is Madame.”

She came bustling in, muffled to her chin in her wraps and followed by her maid and her husband’s valet, who took possession of his master and almost carried him to the carriage outside. Madame’s adieus were politely made, but she did not second her husband’s invitation to Passy, or inquire for Fanny. She had not forgiven him for Du Bois and Julina Smith, but her hauteur relaxed a little when he conducted her to the carriage and stood with uncovered head as it drove away. Three days later he followed in the same direction, and for a time fades from our canvas and is lost sight of in the mazes of Continental travel.