The Way We Live Now

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  MR. BROUNE'S PERILS.

  Lady Carbury had allowed herself two days for answering Mr. Broune'sproposition. It was made on Tuesday night and she was bound by herpromise to send a reply some time on Thursday. But early on theWednesday morning she had made up her mind; and at noon on that dayher letter was written. She had spoken to Hetta about the man, andshe had seen that Hetta had disliked him. She was not disposed tobe much guided by Hetta's opinion. In regard to her daughter shewas always influenced by a vague idea that Hetta was an unnecessarytrouble. There was an excellent match ready for her if she wouldonly accept it. There was no reason why Hetta should continueto add herself to the family burden. She never said this evento herself,--but she felt it, and was not therefore inclined toconsult Hetta's comfort on this occasion. But nevertheless, what herdaughter said had its effect. She had encountered the troubles ofone marriage, and they had been very bad. She did not look upon thatmarriage as a mistake,--having even up to this day a consciousnessthat it had been the business of her life, as a portionless girl,to obtain maintenance and position at the expense of suffering andservility. But that had been done. The maintenance was, indeed, againdoubtful, because of her son's vices; but it might so probably beagain secured,--by means of her son's beauty! Hetta had said thatMr. Broune liked his own way. Had not she herself found that all menliked their own way? And she liked her own way. She liked the comfortof a home to herself. Personally she did not want the companionshipof a husband. And what scenes would there be between Felix and theman! And added to all this there was something within her, almostamounting to conscience, which told her that it was not right thatshe should burden any one with the responsibility and inevitabletroubles of such a son as her son Felix. What would she do were herhusband to command her to separate herself from her son? In suchcircumstances she would certainly separate herself from her husband.Having considered these things deeply, she wrote as follows to Mr.Broune:--

  DEAREST FRIEND,

  I need not tell you that I have thought much of your generous and affectionate offer. How could I refuse such a prospect as you offer me without much thought? I regard your career as the most noble which a man's ambition can achieve. And in that career no one is your superior. I cannot but be proud that such a one as you should have asked me to be his wife. But, my friend, life is subject to wounds which are incurable, and my life has been so wounded. I have not strength left me to make my heart whole enough to be worthy of your acceptance. I have been so cut and scotched and lopped by the sufferings which I have endured that I am best alone. It cannot all be described;--and yet with you I would have no reticence. I would put the whole history before you to read, with all my troubles past and still present, all my hopes, and all my fears,--with every circumstance as it has passed by and every expectation that remains, were it not that the poor tale would be too long for your patience. The result of it would be to make you feel that I am no longer fit to enter in upon a new home. I should bring showers instead of sunshine, melancholy in lieu of mirth.

  I will, however, be bold enough to assure you that could I bring myself to be the wife of any man I would now become your wife. But I shall never marry again.

  Nevertheless, I am your most affectionate friend,

  MATILDA CARBURY.

  About six o'clock in the afternoon she sent this letter toMr. Broune's rooms in Pall Mall East, and then sat for awhilealone,--full of regrets. She had thrown away from her a firm footingwhich would certainly have served her for her whole life. Even atthis moment she was in debt,--and did not know how to pay her debtswithout mortgaging her life income. She longed for some staff onwhich she could lean. She was afraid of the future. When she wouldsit with her paper before her, preparing her future work for thepress, copying a bit here and a bit there, inventing historicaldetails, dovetailing her chronicle, her head would sometimes seemto be going round as she remembered the unpaid baker, and her son'shorses, and his unmeaning dissipation, and all her doubts aboutthe marriage. As regarded herself, Mr. Broune would have made hersecure,--but that now was all over. Poor woman! This at any rate maybe said for her,--that had she accepted the man her regrets wouldhave been as deep.

  Mr. Broune's feelings were more decided in their tone than those ofthe lady. He had not made his offer without consideration, and yetfrom the very moment in which it had been made he repented it. Thatgently sarcastic appellation by which Lady Carbury had describedhim to herself when he had kissed her best explained that side ofMr. Broune's character which showed itself in this matter. He wasa susceptible old goose. Had she allowed him to kiss her withoutobjection, the kissing might probably have gone on; and, whatevermight have come of it, there would have been no offer of marriage.He had believed that her little manoeuvres had indicated love on herpart, and he had felt himself constrained to reciprocate the passion.She was beautiful in his eyes. She was bright. She wore her clotheslike a lady; and,--if it was written in the Book of the Fates thatsome lady was to sit at the top of his table,--Lady Carbury wouldlook as well there as any other. She had repudiated the kiss, andtherefore he had felt himself bound to obtain for himself the rightto kiss her.

  The offer had no sooner been made than he met her son reeling in,drunk, at the front door. As he made his escape the lad had insultedhim. This, perhaps, helped to open his eyes. When he woke the nextmorning, or rather late in the next day, after his night's work, hewas no longer able to tell himself that the world was all right withhim. Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, thatfirst matutinal retrospection, and pro-spection, into things as theyhave been and are to be; and the lowness of heart, the blankness ofhope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done,some word ill-spoken, some money misspent,--or perhaps a cigar toomuch, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have leftuntasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comfortshimself among the bedclothes as he claims for himself to be whole allover, teres atque rotundus,--so to have managed his little affairsthat he has to fear no harm, and to blush inwardly at no error! Mr.Broune, the way of whose life took him among many perils, who in thecourse of his work had to steer his bark among many rocks, was in thehabit of thus auditing his daily account as he shook off sleep aboutnoon,--for such was his lot, that he seldom was in bed before fouror five in the morning. On this Wednesday he found that he could notbalance his sheet comfortably. He had taken a very great step and hefeared that he had not taken it with wisdom. As he drank the cup oftea with which his servant supplied him while he was yet in bed, hecould not say of himself, teres atque rotundus, as he was wont to dowhen things were well with him. Everything was to be changed. As helit a cigarette he bethought himself that Lady Carbury would not likehim to smoke in her bedroom. Then he remembered other things. "I'llbe d---- if he shall live in my house," he said to himself.

  And there was no way out of it. It did not occur to the man that hisoffer could be refused. During the whole of that day he went aboutamong his friends in a melancholy fashion, saying little snappishuncivil things at the club, and at last dining by himself with aboutfifteen newspapers around him. After dinner he did not speak aword to any man, but went early to the office of the newspaper inTrafalgar Square at which he did his nightly work. Here he was lappedin comforts,--if the best of chairs, of sofas, of writing tables, andof reading lamps can make a man comfortable who has to read nightlythirty columns of a newspaper, or at any rate to make himselfresponsible for their contents.

  He seated himself to his work like a man, but immediately saw LadyCarbury's letter on the table before him. It was his custom when hedid not dine at home to have such documents brought to him at hisoffice as had reached his home during his absence;--and here wasLady Carbury's letter. He knew her writing well, and was aware thathere was the confirmation of his fate. It had not been expected, asshe had given herself another day for her answer,--but here it was,beneath his hand. Surely this was almost unfeminin
e haste. He chuckedthe letter, unopened, a little from him, and endeavoured to fix hisattention on some printed slip that was ready for him. For some tenminutes his eyes went rapidly down the lines, but he found that hismind did not follow what he was reading. He struggled again, butstill his thoughts were on the letter. He did not wish to open it,having some vague idea that, till the letter should have been read,there was a chance of escape. The letter would not become due to beread till the next day. It should not have been there now to tempthis thoughts on this night. But he could do nothing while it laythere. "It shall be a part of the bargain that I shall never have tosee him," he said to himself, as he opened it. The second line toldhim that the danger was over.

  When he had read so far he stood up with his back to the fire-place,leaving the letter on the table. Then, after all, the woman wasn't inlove with him! But that was a reading of the affair which he couldhardly bring himself to look upon as correct. The woman had shownher love by a thousand signs. There was no doubt, however, that shenow had her triumph. A woman always has a triumph when she rejects aman,--and more especially when she does so at a certain time of life.Would she publish her triumph? Mr. Broune would not like to have itknown about among brother editors, or by the world at large, that hehad offered to marry Lady Carbury and that Lady Carbury had refusedhim. He had escaped; but the sweetness of his present safety was notin proportion to the bitterness of his late fears.

  He could not understand why Lady Carbury should have refused him! Ashe reflected upon it, all memory of her son for the moment passedaway from him. Full ten minutes had passed, during which he had stillstood upon the rug, before he read the entire letter. "'Cut andscotched and lopped!' I suppose she has been," he said to himself. Hehad heard much of Sir Patrick, and knew well that the old general hadbeen no lamb. "I shouldn't have cut her, or scotched her, or loppedher." When he had read the whole letter patiently there crept uponhim gradually a feeling of admiration for her, greater than he hadever yet felt,--and, for awhile, he almost thought that he wouldrenew his offer to her. "'Showers instead of sunshine; melancholyinstead of mirth,'" he repeated to himself. "I should have done thebest for her, taking the showers and the melancholy if they werenecessary."

  He went to his work in a mixed frame of mind, but certainly withoutthat dragging weight which had oppressed him when he entered theroom. Gradually, through the night, he realised the conviction thathe had escaped, and threw from him altogether the idea of repeatinghis offer. Before he left he wrote her a line--

  Be it so. It need not break our friendship.

  N. B.

  This he sent by a special messenger, who returned with a note to hislodgings long before he was up on the following morning.

  No;--no; certainly not. No word of this will ever pass my mouth.

  M. C.

  Mr. Broune thought that he was very well out of the danger, andresolved that Lady Carbury should never want anything that hisfriendship could do for her.