At Love's Cost Part 62

After a time Mrs. Heron came down again, and Ida heard her and her husband talking together--you couldn't whisper in one room of Laburnum Villa without being heard in another one--and presently the drawing-room door opened and John Heron entered; Ida had waited, for she had expected him. He was red and swollen with pomposity and resentment, though he a.s.sumed a "more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger" air, and threw a deeply grieved tone into his harsh, raucous voice.

"I am deeply grieved and shocked, Ida," he began, "to hear from your cousin so deplorable an account of your conduct. I am not so unwise as to look for grat.i.tude in this world, but I did not think you would repay our kindness and consideration by attempting to wreck the happiness of a quiet and G.o.dly home. Of course, I make all allowances for your bringing-up; I am aware that in the state of life from which we rescued you, the spiritual and the religious were entirely absent; but I had hopes that our precept and, I may say, example, the influence of a deeply religious family--" by this time his voice had slid into the nasal whine and growl which it a.s.sumed in the pulpit; and Ida, notwithstanding her wretchedness, again felt an almost irresistible desire to laugh.

"Please tell me, Cousin John, what it is I have done, what it is you complain of?" she broke in.

Angered by the interruption, for there is nothing a man like John Heron hates worse, he snapped out:

"You have been trying to snare the affections of my son; you have even cast lascivious eyes at the stranger within our gates."

The blood rushed to Ida's face; then she laughed outright, the laugh of desperation; for indeed, she despaired of convincing these stupid people of her innocence. The laugh naturally exasperated John Heron, and his gaunt face grew pallid for an instant.

"I understand!" he said. "You treat our remonstrances with scorn, you scoff at our rebuke."

"Yes; I am afraid I can't help it, Cousin John," said Ida. "I am sorry that you should think me so wicked and so--dangerous, and I quite agree with Isabel and her mother that if I am as bad as you say, I am not fit to live in a respectable house and with--decent people. It would be useless for me to a.s.sure you that you are all ridiculously mistaken."

"My wife and daughter saw with their own eyes. I am informed that my son is at this very moment in bed, prostrated by your heartless conduct; you have trifled with that most delicate and sacred of things, a human heart. Go to your chamber, Ida, and there I trust you will seek repentance on your knees."

There was silence for a moment, then Ida said, very quietly:

"Have you anything more to say to me?"

"Not to-night," said John, sternly. "I am wearied with well-doing. I have been preaching, calling sinners, like yourself, to a better life.

To-morrow I will speak with you again, I will endeavour to s.n.a.t.c.h a brand from the burning."

"Good-night," said Ida. She paused with her hand on the door. "Cousin John, you came to me when I was in great trouble; you offered me a home when I was homeless; I think you have been as kind as you knew how to be, and I want to thank you. I daresay it is my fault that I have not got on better with you all. I am not so bad as you think--but we will say no more about that. I do not want you to consider me ungrateful; for indeed, I am grateful for the shelter you have given me, and I shall always remember that you came to my aid when I was in sore need.

Will you please ask my cousin and Isabel to forgive me--for having unwittingly caused them so much trouble? Good-night."

"Good-night," said John Heron, grimly. "I should be comforted if I could think that you were speaking from your heart; but I fear that you are not--I fear that you are not! Oh, may that heart be melted! may you be brought to see the peril of your evil ways!" Followed by this devout prayer, Ida went up to her room. As she paced up and down she tried to tell herself that the whole thing was too ridiculous, was too much like a farce to make her wretched; but she felt unutterably miserable, and she knew that she could no longer endure Laburnum Villa and the petty tyranny and vindictiveness of these relations.

Poverty, hards.h.i.+p, she could have borne patiently and without complaining; but there are some things more intolerable to a high-spirited girl, such as Ida, than poverty or physical hards.h.i.+p--there are some things which hurt more than actual blows. She felt stifling, choking; she knew that, happen what might, she could not remain under her cousin's roof, eat the bread of his charity, for another day. She shuddered as she pictured herself meeting them at the breakfast-table, facing Mrs. Heron's spiteful face, Isabel's tear-swollen eyes, and her cousin John's sanctimonious sermon.

She would have to go.

She thrust a few things into a bag and took out her purse and counted the contents. They amounted to six pounds and a few s.h.i.+llings; but small though the sum was, she thought that it would maintain her until she could find some way of earning a livelihood, though at the moment she had not the least idea what she could find to do. Without undressing, she threw herself on the bed and tried to sleep; but her heart ached too acutely and her brain was too active to permit of sleep; and, try as she would, her mind would travel back to those brief days of happiness at Herondale, and she was haunted by the remembrance of Stafford and the love which she had lost; and at times that past was almost effaced by the vision of Stafford seated beside Maude Falconer at the concert.

As soon as she heard the servants moving about the house she rose, pale and weary, and putting on her outdoor things, stole down-stairs with her bag in her hand. The servants were busy in the kitchen, and she unfastened the hall door and left the house without attracting any attention. The fresh, morning air, while it roused her to a sense of her position, revived and encouraged her. After all, she was young and strong and--she looked up at the house of bondage which she was leaving--she was free! Oh, blessed freedom! How often she had read of it and heard it extolled; but she had never known until this moment how great, how sweet a thing it was.

She waited at the mean little station until a workmen's train came up, and, hustled by the crowd of sleepy and weary toilers, got into it.

When she left the terminus, she walked with a portion of the throng which turned up Bishopsgate Street, though any other direction would have suited her as well--or as little; for she had no idea where to go, or what to do, beyond seeking some inexpensive lodging. She knew well enough that she could not afford to go to a hotel; that she would have to be content with a small room, perhaps an attic, and the plainest of food, while she sought for work. It was soon evident to her that she was not likely to find what she was looking for in the broad thoroughfare of shops and offices, and, beginning to feel bewildered by the crowd, which, early as it was, streamed along the pavements, she turned off into one of the narrower streets.

The long arm of Coincidence which thrusts itself into all our affairs, led her to the Minories, and to the very quay which Stafford had reached in his aimless wanderings; and, mechanically she paused and looked on dreamily at the bustle and confusion which reigned there.

Perhaps the presence of the sheep and cattle attracted her: she felt drawn to them by sympathy with their hustled and hurried condition, which so nearly resembled her own.

With one hand resting on a rail, and a bag in the other, she watched the men as they drove the cattle up the gangways or lowered huge casks and bales into the hold. A big, fat man, with a slouch hat on the back of his head and a pipe in the corner of his mouth--which did not prevent him shouting and bawling at the men and the animals--lurched here and there like one of the casks, and in the midst of his shouting and bawling, he every now and then glanced at a watch of the frying-pan order.

It was evident even to the inexperienced Ida, that the vessel was about to start; the sailors were rus.h.i.+ng about on deck in the haste and excitement of ordered disorder, chains were clanking, and ropes and pulleys were shrieking; and a steam whistle shrieked at intervals and added to the mult.i.tudinous noises.

"Poor sheep, poor bulls!" murmured Ida, as the last of the beasts were driven up the gangway and disappeared. "Perhaps you have come from another Herondale! Do you remember, do you look back, as I do?"

She drew back, for the big man suddenly lurched in her direction, and, indeed, almost, against her.

"Beg pardon, miss," he said, touching his slouch hat. "Anything I can do for you, anybody you're looking for?"

"No, oh, no!" said Ida, blus.h.i.+ng and turning away. Mr. Joffler, for it was that genial Australian, nodded and stretched his moon-like face in a smile.

"Thought you'd come to say 'good-bye' to someone, p'raps. Wish it was me! Though, if it was, I've an idea that I should stay on--air or no air--and I'm blest if there ain't precious little about this morning!

Hi, there! All ready? Bless it all, we'll be too late for the tide if he don't come," he said to the captain, who stood with one foot on the taffrail, an expression of impatience on his weather-beaten face.

"Like enough he ain't comin', Mr. Joffler," he said. "Them kind o'

gents is always slippery."

"I dessay. Though I didn't think as this one was one of that kind. Too much grit about him--ah, and I was not mistaken! Here he is! Get ready there!"

He turned, and Ida, instinctively turning with him, saw a tall figure clad in a serge suit making its way quickly through the crowd of busy dock-men and idly lounging spectators. He came straight to the big, fat man, who greeted him jovially and loudly, and they pa.s.sed side by side on to the vessel.

Ida drew a long breath and pa.s.sed her hand over her brow. It was absurd, of course, it was a trick of the imagination, of a wearied and overstrained brain--but the tall figure in the blue serge--ah, how like it was to that of Stafford!

It disappeared with that of the big man into the vessel, and, with a sigh, she was coming away when she saw the two men coming along the deck and mount to the quarter. The fat man was talking and laughing, but the man in the blue serge was grave and silent, as if he was lost in thought and not listening.

Suddenly, as she paused, the younger, slimmer figure turned in her direction and uttered a cry, a cry almost of terror. Was she demented?

Had her longing, her aching longing for a sight of him called up this vision of Stafford? Unless she were out of her mind, the victim of a strange hallucination, it was he himself who stood there, his face, pale and haggard, turned towards her.

"Stafford!" she cried, unconsciously, and her hand gripped the iron rail in front of her.

As if he had heard her--though it was impossible that her voice could reach him through the shouts of the sailors, the lowing and bleating of the cattle--he raised his head and looked in her direction. Their eyes met and were enchained for a moment, which seemed an eternity; then the blood flew to his face, leaving it the next moment paler than before.

He swung round to the fat man by his side and clutched his arm.

"Wait! Stop the vessel! I want to go ash.o.r.e!" he said, hoa.r.s.ely.

Mr. Joffler stared at him, then laughed.

"Hold on, sir!" he said, not unsympathetically. "Hold on! Took queer like! Lor' bless you, I know how the feelin' is! It catches at you right in the middle of the waistcoat. It's the thought of the land going back from you--we're moving, we're well away. Here, take a sip of this! You'll get over it in a brace o' shakes."

He thrust a flask into Stafford's hand, but Stafford put it away from him.

"Let me go ash.o.r.e! I'll join you later," he said, breathlessly.

Mr. Joffler caught his arm as he was about to jump for the quay.

"Steady, steady, sir!" he admonished, soothingly. "We can't stop--and you'd break your neck trying to jump it! And all for a fancy, too, I'd stake my life! Hearten up, man, hearten up! You're not the first to feel sick and sorry at leavin' home and friends."

Stafford bit his lip and tried to pull himself together; but his eyes were still fixed on the pale face, the girlish, black-clad figure, and his voice was shaky, as he said:

"You're right, Mr. Joffler. It is too late now. I--I thought I saw someone on the quay there. But it must have been fancy; it is impossible, quite impossible!"

"That's it," said Mr. Joffler, with a sympathetic wink. "Lor' love you, I've had them kind o' fancies myself, especially after a hot night on sh.o.r.e. If you'd only take a pull at this, you'd be all right directly.

It don't do to come aboard too sober, 'specially when you're leavin'

old England for the first time. Do you see 'em now?"