The Paying Guest - George Gissing (story read aloud txt) 📗

it to betray itself in words. Clarence seemed to her quite needlessly anxious in his inquiries concerning Miss Derrick’s condition. Until that young lady had disappeared from ‘Runnymede’ for ever, Emmeline would keep matronly watch and ward.

Mrs. Higgins declared at least a score of times every day that she could not understand how this dreadful affair had come to pass. The most complete explanation from her daughter availed nothing; she deemed the event an insoluble mystery, and, in familiar talk with Mrs. Mumford, breathed singular charges against Louise’s lover. ‘She’s shielding him, my dear. I’ve no doubt of it. I never had a very good opinion of him, but now she shall never marry him with my consent.’ To this kind of remark Emmeline at length deigned no reply. She grew to detest Mrs. Higgins, and escaped her society by every possible manoeuvre.

‘Oh, how pleasant it is,’ she explained bitterly to her husband, ‘to think that everybody in the road is talking about us with contempt! Of course the servants have spread nice stories. And the Wilkinsons’—these were the people next door—‘look upon us as hardly respectable. Even Mrs. Fentiman said yesterday that she really could not conceive how I came to take that girl into the house. I acknowledged that I must have been crazy.’

‘Whilst we’re thoroughly upset,’ replied Mumford, with irritation at this purposeless talk, ‘hadn’t we better leave the house and go to live as far away as possible?’

‘Indeed, I very much wish we could. I don’t think I shall ever be happy again at Sutton.’

And Clarence went off muttering to himself about the absurdity and the selfishness of women.

For a week or ten days Louise lay very ill; then her vigorous constitution began to assert itself. It helped her greatly towards convalescence when she found that the scorches on her face would not leave a permanent blemish. Mrs. Mumford came into the room once a day and sat for a few minutes, neither of them desiring longer communion, but they managed to exchange inquiries and remarks with a show of friendliness. When the fifty pounds came from Cobb, Emmeline made no friendliness. When the fifty pounds mention of it. The next day, however, Mrs. Higgins being absent when Emmeline looked in, Louise said with an air of satisfaction,

‘So he has paid the money! I’m very glad of that.’

‘Mr. Cobb insisted on paying,’ Mrs. Mumford answered with reserve. ‘We could not hurt his feelings by refusing.’

‘Well, that’s all right, isn’t it? You won’t think so badly of us now? Of course you wish you’d never set eyes on me, Mrs. Mumford; but that’s only natural: in your place I’m sure I should feel the same. Still, now the money’s paid, you won’t always think unkindly of me, will you?’

The girl lay propped on pillows; her pale face, with its healing scars, bore witness to what she had undergone, and one of her arms was completely swathed in bandages. Emmeline did not soften towards her, but the frank speech, the rather pathetic little smile, in decency demanded a suave response.

‘I shall wish you every happiness, Louise.’

‘Thank you. We shall be married as soon as ever I’m well, but I’m sure I don’t know where. Mother hates his very name, and does her best to set me against him; but I just let her talk. We’re beginning to quarrel a little—did you hear us this morning? I try to keep down my voice, and I shan’t be here much longer, you know. I shall go home at first my stepfather has written a kind letter, and of course he’s glad to know I shall marry Mr. Cobb. But I don’t think the wedding will be there. It wouldn’t be nice to go to church in a rage, as I’m sure I should with mother and Cissy looking on.’

This might, or might not, signify a revival of the wish to be married from ‘Runnymede.’ Emmeline quickly passed to another subject.

Mrs. Higgins was paying a visit to Coburg Lodge, where, during the days of confusion, the master of the house had been left at his servants’ mercy. On her return, late in the evening, she entered flurried and perspiring, and asked the servant who admitted her where Mrs. Mumford was.

‘With master, in the library, ‘m.’

‘Tell her I wish to speak to her at once.’

Emmeline came forth, and a lamp was lighted in the dining-room, for the drawing-room had not yet been restored to a habitable condition. Silent, and wondering in gloomy resignation what new annoyance was prepared for her, Emmeline sat with eyes averted, whilst the stout woman mopped her face and talked disconnectedly of the hardships of travelling in such weather as this; when at length she reached her point, Mrs. Higgins became lucid and emphatic.

‘I’ve heard things as have made me that angry I can hardly bear myself. Would you believe that people are trying to take away my daughter’s character? It’s Cissy ‘Iggins’s doing: I’m sure of it, though I haven’t brought it ‘ome to her yet. I dropped in to see some friends of ours—I shouldn’t wonder if you know the name; it’s Mrs. Jolliffe, a niece of Mr. Baxter—Baxter, Lukin and Co., you know. And she told me in confidence what people are saying—as how Louise was to marry Mr. Bowling, but he broke it off when he found the sort of people she was living with, here at Sutton—and a great many more things as I shouldn’t like to tell you. Now what do you think of—’

Emmeline, her eyes flashing, broke in angrily:

‘I think nothing at all about it, Mrs. Higgins, and I had very much rather not hear the talk of such people.’

‘I don’t wonder it aggravates you, Mrs. Mumford. Did anyone ever hear such a scandal! I’m sure nobody that knows you could say a word against your respectability, and, as I told Mrs. Jolliffe, she’s quite at liberty to call here tomorrow or the next day—’

‘Not to see me, I hope,’ said Emmeline. ‘I must refuse—’

‘Now just let me tell you what I’ve thought,’ pursued the stout lady, hardly aware of this interruption. ‘This’ll have to be set right, both for Lou’s sake and for yours, and to satisfy us all. They’re making a mystery, d’you see, of Lou leaving ‘ome and going off to live with strangers; and Cissy’s been doing her best to make people think there’s something wrong—the spiteful creature! And there’s only one way of setting it right. As soon as Lou can be dressed and got down, and when the drawing-room’s finished, I want her to ask all our friends here to five o’clock tea, just to let them see with their own eyes—’

‘Mrs. Higgins!’

‘Of course there’ll be no expense for you, Mrs. Mumford—not a farthing. I’ll provide everything, and all I ask of you is just to sit in your own drawing-room—’

‘Mrs. Higgins, be so kind as to listen to me. This is quite impossible. I can’t dream of allowing any such thing.’

The other glared in astonishment, which tended to wrath.

‘But can’t you see, Mrs. Mumford, that it’s for your own good as well as ours? Do you want people to be using your name—’

‘What can it matter to me how such people think or speak of me?’ cried Emmeline, trembling with exasperation.

‘Such people! I don’t think you know who you’re talking about, Mrs. Mumford. You’ll let me tell you that my friends are as respectable as yours—’

‘I shall not argue about it,’ said Emmeline, standing up. ‘You will please to remember that already I’ve had a great deal of trouble and annoyance, and what you propose would be quite intolerable. Once for all, I can’t dream of such a thing.’

‘Then all I can say is, Mrs. Mumford’—the speaker rose with heavy dignity—‘that you’re not behaving in a very ladylike way. I’m not a quarrelsome person, as you well know, and I don’t say nasty things if I can help it. But there’s one thing I must say and will say, and that is, that when we first came here you gave a very different account of yourself to what it’s turned out. You told me and my daughter distinctly that you had a great deal of the very best society, and that was what Lou came here for, and you knew it, and you can’t deny that you did. And I should like to know how much society she’s seen all the time she’s been here—that’s the question I ask you. I don’t believe she’s seen more than three or four people altogether. They may have been respectable enough, and I’m not the one to say they weren’t, but I do say it isn’t what we was led to expect, and that you can’t deny, Mrs. Mumford.’

She paused for breath. Emmeline had moved towards the door, and stood struggling with the feminine rage which impelled her to undignified altercation. To withdraw in silence would be like a shamed confession of the charge brought against her, and she suffered not a little from her consciousness of the modicum of truth therein.

‘It was a most unfortunate thing, Mrs. Higgins,’ burst from her lips, ‘that I ever consented to receive your daughter, knowing as I did that she wasn’t our social equal.’

‘Wasn’t what?’ exclaimed the other, as though the suggestion startled her by its novelty. ‘You think yourself superior to us? You did us a favour—’

Whilst Mrs. Higgins was uttering these words the door opened, and there entered a figure which startled her into silence. It was that of Louise, in a dressing-gown and slippers, with a shawl wrapped about the upper part of her body.

‘I heard you quarrelling,’ she began. (Her bedroom was immediately above, and at this silent hour the voices of the angry ladies had been quite audible to her as she lay in bed.) ‘What is it all about? It’s too bad of you, mother—’

‘The idea, Louise, of coming down like that!’ cried her parent indignantly. ‘How did you know Mr. Mumford wasn’t here? For shame! Go up again this moment.’

‘I don’t see any harm if Mr. Mumford had been here,’ replied the girl calmly.

‘I’m sure it’s most unwise of you to leave your bed,’ began Emmeline, with anxious thought for Louise’s health, due probably to her dread of having the girl in the house for an indefinite period.

‘Oh, I’ve wrapped up. I feel shaky, that’s all, and I shall have to sit down.’ She did so, on the nearest chair, with a little laugh at her strange feebleness.

‘Now please don’t quarrel, you two. Mrs. Mumford, don’t mind anything that mother says.’

Thereupon Louise’s mother burst into a vehement exposition of the reasons of discord, beginning with the calumnious stories she had heard at Mrs. Jolliffe’s, and ending with the outrageous arrogance of Mrs. Mumford’s latest remark. Louise listened with a smile.

‘Now look here, mother,’ she said, when silence came for a moment, ‘you can’t expect Mrs. Mumford to have a lot of strangers coming to the house just on my account. She’s sick and tired of us all, and wants to see our backs as soon as ever she can. I don’t say it to offend you, Mrs. Mumford, but you know it’s true. And I tell you what it is: Tomorrow morning I’m going back home. Yes, I am. You can’t stay here, mother, after this, and I’m not going to have anyone new to wait on me. I shall go home in a cab, straight from this house to the other, and I’m quite sure I shan’t take any harm.’

‘You won’t do it till the doctor’s given you leave,’ said Mrs.