Chapter XXV: Warned

Paul Derinzy had indeed little reason to be satisfied with the treatment which he was experiencing at Daisy's hands; for though there had been nothing approaching to a final rupture between them, the new views of life which had opened upon her since her acquaintance with Colonel Orpington had afforded her a vast amount of matter for reflection. Of course the idea of the position which the Colonel had offered to her was by no means new to the girl's mind. Unhappily, too, the existence of such a position is unknown to a very small minority of innocents; and according to the present constitution of society, such a status is, it is to be feared, regarded by young women in Daisy's walk of life as one rather to be envied than shunned. But up to this time--perhaps partly owing to the severe training which she had received, which had had the effect of making her regard propriety as a sound commercial investment rather than as a duty to her conscience, partly to a real affection which she felt for Paul--she had resolutely refused to entertain any such ideas.

What had changed her? Not any diminution in the affection between her and her lover--not on his part, at least; for no man who did not worship her with all the depth of passion possible in his nature could have suffered so acutely as he did. Had she ceased to love him? No, she thought not; she could scarcely tell--the position was so unsatisfactory; that was all she could say to herself in thinking the matter over. She had not the least doubt that Paul would willingly make her such an offer as that which she had received from the Colonel; but then their circumstances were so different. Though Paul was undoubtedly a gentleman well connected, he was decidedly not rich, she knew that, or he would never have been content to remain in this office which he talked about; and to be rich, free from care, to have command of money and servants and dresses and carriages, that was what her mind was bent on just now. Then Paul would marry her too if she were to press it, she knew that; but what would be the benefit by their marriage? He would gain no more money; she would gain merely the name of a position. She would not be received into his society; and he, finding she was ignored, would either break with his own people and cleave to her, when he would be sulky and bored, always regarding her as the bar to his assumption of his proper status in society; or would give her up, and lead his life among his friends, merely treating her as his housekeeper, and his home as a place to return to when there was no other house to visit.

It would be dull and dreary either way with Paul, the latter condition worse than the former, for then she would be tied, and the bonds would be more difficult to break. And yet she could not bring herself to an open rupture with her lover. He was so kind, so attentive, so delicate, and above all, so passionately devoted to her. It must come, she thought; it would come some time or other, but not just yet. The evil day should be delayed as long as possible. And she had given no answer to Colonel Orpington. She did not mind about that; he was a man of the world, and would not expect one immediately. He would ascribe her delay either to modesty or calculation; under the sway of which of the two he might imagine her to be deliberating was quite indifferent to her.

To only one out of the three men who proposed to pay her their addresses had she conveyed her decision: that one was John Merton. There would be no more trouble with him, she thought. He could not misunderstand her words, and, above all, her manner, during that conversation in the street on her way to the chambers in the Temple. She knew he had not misunderstood it by the abrupt way in which he had taken his departure. Daisy felt a mild kind of pain at having hurt John Merton's feelings, as the details of that interview recurred to her. But, after all, it was better at an end. It was perfectly impossible that she could have led the life which he offered her. In company with him it would have been very respectable and very dull: in her then state of mind, Daisy considered that respectability and dulness generally went together. There would have been a bare sufficiency to live upon at first, and they would have had to have been supported by the hope of thriving on the inevitable progress of honesty, industry, and that kind of twaddle, which she had heard enunciated from pulpits, and seen set forth in the pages of cheap popular periodicals, in which, contrary to her experience of the world, the virtuous people got on wonderfully, besides being preternaturally clean in the woodcuts, while those who drank beer, and abstained from Sunday-afternoon service, were necessarily dirty and poverty-stricken.

It was not in her lodgings in South Molton Street that Daisy sat cogitating over these eventful circumstances, and deliberating as to her future. Madame Clarisse had gone away on business to Paris, and before she left she had requested her assistant to instal herself in the private rooms of the establishment in George Street.

"You will be better there, Fanfan, my child, than in the _mansarde_ where you have been so long. There are certain people--you know who I mean; I need not mention their names--who, I think, would particularly wish it, and it is as well for us to oblige them, particularly when at the same time we do a good thing for ourselves; besides, it is good for the business that I should leave you in charge of it. I will not disguise from you, my dear child, that I do not think of continuing in commerce very much longer. I have had enough of it myself; and though I thought there might be a chance of my giving it up to someone who would comprehend the delicate nuances of the details with which I have surrounded it, and the care and trouble which I have expended upon it, it shall not go to Augustine, or to any of those others who have copied me and my ways over here in this _pays barbare_. I shall find someone in Paris who would like to come and _exploiter_ her youth and her talent, and also, my faith! her money, amongst the _jeunes meess_ and the robust dames of England; and as for myself, when that is done, Fanfan, I shall be free, and then _vogue la galère_. Perhaps in those days to come, Fanfan, you will not mind seeing an old friend, who will not be so old but she will understand the life, and how to lead it." And here Madame Clarisse kissed her fingers and waved them in the air with an eminently-suggestive French gesture. "And you will give her a seat in your carriage, and tell her of all the conquests you are making."

And then Madame Clarisse gave Daisy's ear a little pinch, and laughed shrilly, and betook herself to the cold fowl and half bottle of very excellent Bordeaux which constituted her luncheon.

So Madame Clarisse went to Paris, and Daisy was installed in her place. And it was in the cosy little low-ceilinged room that she was seated, gazing at, but certainly not seeing, the furniture in red velvet, the engravings, the nicknacks, and the statuettes by Danton, that all these reflections on the past, and speculations upon the future, passed through her mind.

She had had a busy day, and was feeling rather fatigued, and thought she might refresh herself with a nap before she went through the business accounts and wrote to Madame a statement of what had occurred, as was her regular nightly practice, when a knock came to the door, and the shiny-faced page, entering quickly, announced that a gentleman was below and wished to see her.

"He has grown impatient," Daisy thought, "and is anxious for his answer. I scarcely expected that of him. However, I suppose it is rather a compliment than otherwise. He must have heard from Madame that I was here. You can show the gentleman up, James."

When the page had gone, Daisy ran into the back room and passed a brush over her hair, and just gave her face one touch with the powder puff which Madame Clarisse had left behind on her toilet-table, and returned into the sitting-room to confront, not Colonel Orpington, as she had expected, but John Merton.

Daisy started, and did not attempt to conceal her displeasure.

"I have ventured once again to call upon you, Miss Stafford," said John; "but I had better commence by saying that this time I have not come on my own business."

"That at all events is good hearing, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, coldly.

"Exactly," said John. "I expected you to speak of it in that way. You may depend upon it you will never be further troubled, so far as I am concerned."

"To what, then, do I owe this----"

"Intrusion, you were going to say," interrupted he. "It is an intrusion, I suppose, so far as it is unasked and decidedly unwelcome."

"You speak bluntly, Mr. Merton."

"I speak strongly because I feel strongly, Miss Stafford."

"Perhaps you will be good enough to speak intelligibly at the same time," said Daisy. "You have enlarged upon what you have been pleased to call your unwelcome intrusion; but you have not explained the reason of it."

"You are right," said John. "I will proceed to do so at once. I am afraid I shall be a little lengthy, but that is unavoidable."

Daisy bowed, and tapped her foot impatiently. She felt that there was something horribly irritating in the calmness of this man's manner.

"I must begin at the beginning," said John, "and in doing so I must allude to matters which I have just promised should not again be mentioned by me. However, it is a necessity, and I will touch upon them as lightly as possible. You know that, ever since I first made your acquaintance through my sister, I took the greatest interest in you, and ended by being hopelessly in love with you."

Daisy bowed very coldly.

"I daresay it was very ridiculous, and I know you consider it highly presumptuous, though I am bound to confess I do not see any reason why I should have not felt an honest love for you, and should not have mentioned it to you. We are both members of the same class in society; and if it suited them in other ways, there was no reason why the milliner's first hand and the draper's assistant should not have been married."

He said these last words quietly; but there was a certain amount of bitterness in his tone, and Daisy flushed angrily as she heard them. She was about to speak, but refrained, and merely motioned him to proceed.

"However, that could not be," said John Merton in continuance. "The right of acceptance or rejection remained entirely with you, and you decided upon the latter."

He paused for a moment, and then said in a lower tone:

"If I had not been the besotted fool that I am, I should have accepted my dismissal as it was given--coolly, definitely, and without the slightest remorse; but, unfortunately, I am weak enough not to be able to take things in this way. I had too much at stake--my future happiness was too deeply involved--to permit of my bowing to my fate, and endeavouring to forget what had been the one sole excitement of many months in some new study or pursuit."

He paused again, as though expecting her to speak. But she was silent, and he continued:

"My sister, who was the cause of our first introduction, has been since the medium through which I have ascertained all my information about you. She was very chatty at first, and never was tired of talking to me of what you did and said, and where you went, and enlarging on the dulness of the life which you pursued. She little thought, I imagine, what intense interest I took in her voluble prattle. She thought me too much immersed in my own affairs to take any real heed of what she was saying, and imagined that I merely induced her to go on in order to distract my mind from graver subjects, and to fill up what would have been the tedium of my enforced leisure. It was not until the occasion of the little tea-party at that young lady's---- I see you smile; but from me the appellation is correct."

"I beg your pardon, I did not smile, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, almost savagely; "I am listening to you at your request. I am in no smiling humour; and I must beg you to make this interview as brief as possible."

"It was on the occasion of the tea-party at Miss Manby's then," continued John Merton, "that I think Bella saw for the first time that all my queries about you had been put with deliberate intention, and had a definite aim. Previously to that she had once or twice joked me in her light way about my admiration of you, but nothing more; but you may recollect--I do perfectly--that on that night she took delight in teasing me about that portrait which Mr. Kammerer had taken of you, and about the man--I beg your pardon, the gentleman--who came to the place and insisted upon buying it."

John stopped here, and looked at her so pointedly that Daisy could not restrain the rising blush in her cheek. She said quietly:

"I do recollect it perfectly."

"Of course you do; no woman ever forgets any occasion on which she sees a man piqued or jealous at her preference of another."

"There was no question of preference in the matter," said Daisy. "I knew nothing about the gentleman who wished to purchase the portrait; I had only seen him once; and there can be no great crime, even in the category of sins proscribed by the severe doctrine which I presume you hold, and which, at all events, you teach, in a girl's finding pleasure at admiration bestowed upon her."

"I must get back to my facts," said John Merton, quietly. "I suppose I showed that I was annoyed that night, and from my annoyance Bella judged that I was in earnest about you. We don't meet very often, and we have very little in common, for she is younger than I am, and does not take quite the same view of the world that I do--she has not seen so much of it, poor girl; and for a long time you were not mentioned between us. During all the time that I was in suspense, before I had made up my mind to express my feelings to you, and ask you to be my wife, and after that in the short period before I met you walking in the street, we seemed mutually to avoid any mention of your name. It seemed to me too sacred to be bandied about with such jests and light talk as Bella would probably have used concerning it; and she seemed to understand my feeling and to humour it. At all events, during that time nothing was said about you; but since then--since I heard from your own lips what was equivalent to my dismissal--we have frequently reverted to the theme. You will understand, please, that in mentioning what I am going to tell you, I am by no means endeavouring to harrow your feelings, or to work upon your compassion; it simply comes in as part of what I have to say; and I must say it."

John might have spared himself this digression, for Daisy was in no melting mood, and sat listening, half-sternly contemptuous, half-savagely irate. All the notice she took of these remarks was to give a very slight bow.

"I was completely upset by your decision," John continued; "and though I ought never to have expected anything else, that came so suddenly upon me, the pleasing path in dreamland was so abruptly ended, the visions which I had indulged were so ruthlessly chased away----"

Here Daisy tapped her foot very impatiently. John started, and said, "I beg your pardon," so comically, that Daisy could scarcely refrain from smiling.

"I mean, it was all over so quickly that I took it to heart like a fool, and became moping and low. I sent for Bella then, and got her to come and see me constantly in the evening, when our work for the day was over; and I began again to talk to her about you, not telling her anything about what had happened, but talking just as I used in the old days, only a little more passionately perhaps; for my usual quiet nature was aroused at the thought of the way in which you had treated me, and at the idea of what might have been--what might be yet, I suppose I thought to myself; for one night I told Bella all about my coming to you in South Molton Street, the declaration that I made, and the way in which you received it. Then I told her of that horrible interview, when we met in the street, and when you treated me as though I had been a servant. She was naturally angry about this, and talked the usual stuff which people do in such cases, advising me not to think of you any more; that you could not appreciate my worth; that there were plenty of other women who--you know the style of condolence on such occasions. I seemed to agree with her; and I suppose I actually did so for some little time; but then the what-might-be feeling took possession of me, and I began idiotically to buoy myself up with a hope that you might have spoken hurriedly and without thought, that I might have been proud and hasty; and, in fact, that there might yet be a chance of future happiness for me. Bella must have discovered this almost as soon as I felt it; for she seemed to discourage my questions about you, and my evident inclination to forget what had passed, and to endeavour to renew my acquaintance with you. She was very quiet and kind at first--she was kind throughout, I suppose I ought to say; but when she found that my feverish longing to see you again was coming to a height, that I was bent upon imploring you to reconsider your determination, she spoke openly to me, and told me what I would sooner have died than have heard."

Daisy looked up quickly and angrily at him.

"And what," she said scornfully, "may this wonderful communication have been?"

"I suppose you do not know Bella's share in all that has taken place, or you would not ask the question," said John.

"I am not aware that Bella Merton has any share in anything that concerns me," said Daisy. "It is useless speaking any further in riddles. You promised you would speak out; hitherto you have done so, and you must continue to the end."

"I will," said John Merton; "I came to do it, and I will carry it through at whatever pain it may be for me to speak, for you to hear. My sister Bella, then, has informed me that a man--one of those whom you call gentlemen, but from whom I withhold the name--has ventured to make dishonourable proposals to you; in plain terms, to ask you to live with him as his mistress."

"Mr. Merton!" cried Daisy, in a wild access of rage, "how dare----"

"Pardon me," said John, raising his hand; "we decided, if you recollect, that we should go through this matter to the end. You will not deny the accusation, I know, for you are too proud to stoop to any such mean subterfuge; and even if you did, I could not believe you, for I have the confession of one whom this scoundrel has made an accomplice. You see it is not entirely on your account that I have to bring this man to book, Miss Stafford," said John, who had turned very white, and whose hands were clenching nervously. "He has debased my sister into becoming a participator of his wretched work, a tool to help him to his miserable end. All the time that Bella was intimate with you, she was, unknown to you, fetching and carrying between you and this man, feeding your vanity with accounts of his admiration, giving him information as to your movements, playing the wretched part of half go-between, half spy."

"You know that I knew nothing of this!" Daisy broke out.

"Perfectly," said John Merton; "but that only makes it the worse for her. However, it is not of her I came to speak, but of you."

"I think you may spare yourself the trouble," said Daisy, looking steadily at him; "you have no position giving you the slightest claim to interfere with me or my actions, and in forming conjectures, in coming to conclusions about my future movements, you have already taken a most unwarrantable liberty. I desire that you say no more, and leave me at once."

"Ah, for God's sake, no!" cried John Merton, in a tone so shrill and startling that it went to Daisy's heart--"Ah, for God's sake, no! Give up this outside crust of stoicism and conventionality, and let me plead to the woman that you really are. Have you for an instant thought of what you are doing? I know that you have temporised without giving any answer. Bella told me that; but have you thought how even this delay may compromise you? Are you, so lovely as you are, so bright and clever and graceful, going to sacrifice your whole life, to place all those charms at the mercy of a man who will use them while he chooses, and fling them away when he is tired? I don't want to preach; I only want to put matters plainly before you. Suppose you consent to this infernal proposal which has been made to you. The man is old; he has not even the excuse of a mad passion, which is deaf to the calls of conscience, or even to the common feelings of humanity. He has not that excuse; he is old, and jaded, and fickle; the life which he is leading requires constantly new excitement; and after a little time your novelty will have passed away, and you will be thrown aside to shift for yourself. Could your high spirit brook that? Could you bear to see yourself pointed at as deserted, or, worse than all, find yourself compelled to become subject to some venal bargain--Oh God, it is too horrible to think of!"

"I will not bear this from anyone; certainly not from you. What right have you to interfere?"

"What right have I to interfere! The right of having loved you with all my whole soul and strength; the right of one whose future has been bittered by your refusal to share it with him. I don't pine," he cried, "about a broken heart; I can bear to contemplate the lonely life which I shall have to lead; I could bear"--and the words here came very slowly through his set teeth--"to see you happily married to a man who appreciated and loved you, as I should have delighted in doing; but I will not stand patiently by to see the woman I have loved held up to the world's scorn, or deliberately dragged down to the depths of infamy."

He spoke so strongly and so earnestly, his rude eloquence came evidently from the depths of his troubled heart, that even Daisy's stubborn pride seemed a little touched.

"I know you mean this kindly towards me, Mr. Merton," she said, in a low voice; "and I fear I have shown myself scarcely sufficiently grateful, or even civil, to you; but, believe me, I appreciate your motives, and I thank you for coming here. Now you must go."

"You will not send me away without assurance that this cruel thing shall not be; that you will say No to this horrible proposal, and never give it another moment's thought. Ah, do not think I am pleading for myself; do not think I am cherishing any vain hope that, this once put aside, I may come forward again and urge my suit. It is not so, I swear. I have accepted my fate, and shall--well, shall struggle on somehow, I daresay. It is for you, and you alone, that I am interested. Let me go away with the assurance that you are saved. Ah, Fanny, it is not much I ask you. Let me go away with that."

"It would be easy for me to give you that assurance, and then to do as I pleased," said Daisy; "but you have shown yourself so true a friend that I will not deceive you."

"And you will give me the assurance?"

"No; I did not, I cannot, say that."

"Then I will get it," cried John, "from Colonel Orpington."

Daisy started. It was the first time the name had been mentioned during the interview.

"You see I know him, and know where to find him. I will make him promise me to give up this pursuit."

The tone in which he spoke had worked a wonderful and immediate change in Daisy's feelings.

"Make him!" she cried. "You will not find the gentleman of whom you speak so easily forced to compliance with your desires."

"I did not mean to force him," said John; "I----"

"If it were not for the fear of compromising my name," said Daisy, now thoroughly roused, her eyes flashing, and her lip trembling, "he would hand you over to the police. We have had enough of this folly," she said, stamping her foot; "and as it is impossible to get you to go away, I must retire and leave you."

As she spoke she rose from her seat, and giving him a very slight bow, she passed into the bedroom, the door of which she closed behind her.

John Merton waited for a moment, then turned on his heel, and silently left the house.