The Golden Calf - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (best books to read ever TXT) 📗

the contents of her small travelling bag, and she was going to her father's house, where her step-mother would, perhaps, contrive to provide what was absolutely necessary. Anything was better than to be under an obligation to this rich husband who so little understood her needs.

Could she have married that most detestable of all monsters, a miser? No, she could hardly believe that. It was not in a Wendover to be mean. And all that she had observed hitherto of Brian's way of acting and thinking rather indicated a recklessness about money than an undue care of pounds, shillings, and pence.

'If you don't object to this gown and hat, I can manage very well till we get to my father's house,' she said quietly.

'I adore you in that hat and gown,' replied Brian, eagerly, dropping the sovereigns back into his pocket; and so the question was settled.

An elderly lady came into the carriage at the next station, and there was no renewal of confidences between bride and bridegroom till they came to Waterloo, nor even then, for there is not much opportunity for confidential utterances in a hansom, and it was that convenient vehicle which carried Brian and his bride to the Temple.

They alighted at a gate on the Embankment, and made their way by a garden to a row of grave old houses, with a fine view of the river. Brian led his wife into one of these houses and up the uncarpeted stair to the third floor, where he ushered her into a room with two old-fashioned windows looking out upon grass, and trees, and old-fashioned buildings, all grave and gray, and having an air of sober peacefulness, as of a collegiate or monastic seclusion, while beyond the broad green lawn shone the broad blue river.

'What a nice old place!' said Ida, looking down at the garden. 'How quiet, how grave, how learned-looking! I don't wonder you like this _pied-à-terre_ in London, as a change from your grand old Abbey.'

Brian gave a little nervous cough, as if something were choking him. He came to the window, and put his arm round his wife's waist.

'Ida,' he began, somewhat huskily, 'I am going to tell you a secret.'

'What is that?' she asked, turning and looking at him.

'The Abbey does not belong to me!'

'What?' she cried, with wide-open eyes.

'You have been rather fond of talking about the Abbey; but I hope your heart is not too much set upon it. You told me the other day, you know, that you did not value me upon account of the Abbey or my position as its owner. I hope that was the truth, Ida; for Wendover Abbey belongs to my cousin. You have married the poor Brian and not the rich one!'

'What?' she cried. 'You have lied to me all this time--you have fooled and deluded me!'

She turned and faced him with eyes that flamed indignant fire, lips that quivered with unrestrained passion.

'It was not my doing,' he faltered, shrinking before her like the veriest craven; 'it was the girls--Urania and Bessie--who started the notion as a practical joke, just to see what you would think of me, believing me to be my cousin. And when you seemed to like me--a little--Bessie, who is fond of me and who adores you, urged me to follow up my advantage.'

'But not to cheat me into a marriage. No; it is not in Bessie to suggest such falsehood.'

'She hardly contemplated an immediate marriage. I was to win your heart, and when I was sure of that--'

'You were to tell me the truth,' said Ida, looking him straight in the eyes.

His head drooped upon his breast.

'And you did not tell me. You knew that I saw in you Brian Wendover, the head of the family, the owner of a great estate; that I was proud of being loved and sought by a man who stooped from such a high position to love me, who renounced the chance of a brilliant marriage to marry me, a penniless body! You knew that it was in that character I admired you and respected you, and was grateful to you! Not as the briefless barrister--the man without means or position!'

'You harped a good deal upon the Abbey. But I had some right to suppose you liked me for my own sake, and that you would forgive me for a stratagem which was prompted by my love for you. How could I know that you looked upon marriage as a matter of exchange and barter?'

'No,' said Ida, bitterly. 'You are right. You could not know how mean I am. I did not know it myself till now. And now,' she pursued, with flashing eyes, with a look in her splendid face that seemed to blight and wither him, with all her beauty, all her womanhood, up in arms against him, 'and now to punish you for having kept the truth from me, I will tell _you_ the truth--plainly. I have never cared one straw for you. I thought I did while I still believed you Brian Wendover of the Abbey. I was dazzled by your position; I was grateful in advance for all the good things that your wealth was to bring me. I tried to delude myself into the belief that I really loved you; but the voice of my conscience told me that it was not so, that I was, in sober truth, the basest of creatures--a woman who marries for money. And now, standing here before you, I know what a wretch I seem--what a wretch I am.'

'You are my wife,' said Brian, trying to take her hand; 'and we must both make the best of a bad bargain.'

'Your wife?' she echoed, in a mocking voice.

'Yes, my very wife, Ida. The knot that was tied to-day can only be loosened by death--or dishonour.'

'You have married me under a false name.'

'No, I have not. You married Brian Walford Wendover. There is no other man of that name.'

'You have cheated me into a miserable marriage. I will never forgive that cheat. I will never acknowledge you as my husband. I will never bear your name, or be anything to you but a stranger, except that I shall hate you all the days of my life. That will be the only bond between us,' she added, with a bitter laugh.

'Come, Ida,' said Brian, soothingly, feeling himself quite able to face the situation now the first shock was over, 'I was prepared for you to be disappointed--to be angry, even; but you are carrying matters a little too far. Even your natural disappointment can hardly excuse such language as this. I am the same man I was yesterday morning when I asked you to marry me.'

'No, you are not. I saw you in a false light--glorified by attributes that never belonged to you.'

'In plain words, you thought me the owner of a big house and a fine income. I am neither; but I am the same Brian Wendover, for all that--a briefless barrister, but with some talent; not without friends; and with as fair a chance of success as most young men of my rank.'

'You are an idler--I have heard that from your uncle--self-indulgent, fond of trivial pleasures. Such men never succeed in life. But if you were certain to be Lord Chancellor--if you could this moment prove yourself possessed of a splendid fortune--my feelings would be unchanged. You have lied to me as no gentleman would have lied. I will own no husband who is not a gentleman.'

'You carry things with a high hand,' said Brian, with sullen wrath; and then love prevailed over anger, and he flung himself on his knees at her feet, clasping her reluctant hands, urging every impassioned argument which young lips could frame; but to all such prayers she was marble. 'You are my wife,' he pleaded; 'you are my snared bird; your wings are netted, darling. Do you think I will let you go? Yes, I was false, but it was love made me deceive you. I loved you so well that I dared not risk losing you.'

'You have lost me for ever,' she cried, breaking from him and moving towards the door; 'perhaps, had you been loyal and true, you might have taught me to love you for your own sake. Women are easier won by truth than falsehood.'

'It seems to me they are easier won by houses and lands,' answered Brian, with a sneer.

And then he followed her to the door, caught her in his arms, and held her against his passionately beating heart, covering her angry face with kisses.

'Let me go!' she cried, tearing herself from his arms, with a shriek of horror; 'your kisses are poison to me. I hate you--I hate you!'

He recoiled a few paces, and stood looking at her with a countenance in which the passionate love of a moment ago gave place to gloomy anger.

'So be it,' he said; 'if we cannot be friends we must be enemies. You reveal your character with an admirable candour. You did not mind marrying a man who was absolutely repulsive to you--whose kisses are poison--so long as you thought he was rich. But directly you are told he is poor you inform him of your real sentiments with a delightful frankness. Suppose this confession of mine were a hoax, and that I really were the wealthy Brian after all--playing off a practical joke to test your feelings--what a sorry figure you would cut!'

'Despicable,' said Ida, with her hand on the handle of the door. 'Yes, I know that. I despise and loathe myself as much as I despise and loathe you. I have drained the cup of poverty to the dregs, and I languished for the elixir of wealth. When you asked me to marry you, I thought Fate had thrown prosperity in my way--that it would be to lose the golden chance of a lifetime if I refused you.'

'Not much gold about it,' said Brian, lightly.

He had one of those shallow natures to which the tragedy of life is impossible. He was disappointed--angry at the turn which affairs had taken; but he was not reduced to despair. To take things easily had been his complete code of morals and philosophy from earliest boyhood. He was not going to break his heart for any woman, were she the loveliest, the cleverest, the noblest that ever the gods endowed with their choicest gifts. She might be ever so fair, but if she were not fair for him she was, in a manner, non-existent. Life, in his philosophy, was too short to be wasted in following phantoms.

'You must have thought me a mean cad this morning, when I offered you a couple of sovereigns,' he said; 'yet they constituted a third of my worldly possessions, and I was sorely puzzled how we were to get to Dieppe on less than four pounds. I have been living from hand to mouth ever since I left the university, picking up a few pounds now and then by literature, writing criticisms for a theatrical journal, and so on--by no means a brilliant living. Perhaps, after all, it is as well you take things so severely,' he added, with a sneer. 'If we had been well disposed towards each other, we must have starved.'

'I could have lived upon a crust with a husband whom I loved and respected; but not with a man who could act a lie, as