The Paying Guest - George Gissing (story read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: George Gissing
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Mumford, despite his most uneasy frame of mind, betrayed a passing amusement. He looked into the girl’s face and saw its prettiness flush with pretty confusion, and this did not tend to restore his tranquillity.
‘What shall you do in the meantime?’
‘Oh! go into the town and have something to eat, and then walk about.’
‘You must be dreadfully tired already.’
‘Just a little; but I don’t mind. It serves me right. I shall be so grateful to you, Mr. Mumford. If you won’t let me come, I suppose I must go to London and ask one of my friends to take me in.’
‘I will arrange it. Come about half-past eight. We shall be in the garden by then.’
Avoiding her look, he moved away and ran up the stairs. But from the exit of the station he walked slowly, in part to calm himself, to assume his ordinary appearance, and in part to think over the comedy he was going to play.
Emmeline met him at the door, herself too much flurried to notice anything peculiar in her husband’s aspect. She repeated the story with which he was already acquainted.
‘And really, after all, I am so glad!’ was her conclusion. ‘I didn’t think she had really gone; all the afternoon I’ve been expecting to see her back again. But she won’t come now, and it is a good thing to have done with the wretched business. I only hope she will tell the truth to her people. She might say that we turned her out of the house. But I don’t think so; in spite of all her faults, she never seemed deceitful or malicious.’
Mumford was strongly tempted to reveal what had happened at the station, but he saw danger alike in disclosure and in reticence.
When there enters the slightest possibility of jealousy, a man can never be sure that his wife will act as a rational being. He feared to tell the simple truth lest Emmeline should not believe his innocence of previous plotting with Miss Derrick, or at all events should be irritated by the circumstances into refusing Louise a lodging for the night. And with no less apprehension he decided at length to keep the secret, which might so easily become known hereafter, and would then have such disagreeable consequences.
‘Well, let us have dinner, Emmy; I’m hungry. Yes, it’s a good thing she has gone; but I wish it hadn’t happened in that way. What a spitfire she is!’
‘I never, never saw the like. And if you had heard Mrs. Higgins! Oh, what dreadful people! Clarence, hear me register a vow—’
‘It was my fault, dear. I’m awfully sorry I got you in for such horrors. It was wholly and entirely my fault.’
By due insistence on this, Mumford of course put his wife into an excellent humour, and, after they had dined, she returned to her regret that the girl should have gone so suddenly. Clarence, declaring that he would allow himself a cigar, instead of the usual pipe, to celebrate the restoration of domestic peace, soon led Emmeline into the garden.
‘Heavens! how hot it has been. Eighty-five in our office at noon—eighty-five! Fellows are discarding waistcoats and wearing what they call a cummerbund—silk sash round the waist. I think I must follow the fashion. How should I look, do you think?’
‘You don’t really mind that we lose the money?’ Emmeline asked presently.
‘Pooh! We shall do well enough.—Who’s that?’
Someone was entering the garden by the side path. And in a moment there remained no doubt who the person was. Louise came forward, her head bent, her features eloquent of fatigue and distress.
‘Mrs. Mumford—I couldn’t—without asking you to forgive me—’
Her voice broke with a sob. She stood in a humble attitude, and Emmeline, though pierced with vexation, had no choice but to hold out a welcoming hand.
‘Have you come all the way back from London just to say this?’
‘I haven’t been to London. I’ve walked about—all day—and oh, I’m so tired and miserable! Will you let me stay, just for to-night? I shall be so grateful.’
‘Of course you may stay, Miss Derrick. It was very far from my wish to see you go off at a moment’s notice. But I really couldn’t stop you.’
Mumford had stepped aside, out of hearing. He forgot his private embarrassment in speculation as to the young woman’s character. That she was acting distress and penitence he could hardly believe; indeed, there was no necessity to accuse her of dishonest behaviour. The trivial concealment between him and her amounted to nothing, did not alter the facts of the situation. But what could be at the root of her seemingly so foolish existence? Emmeline held to the view that she was in love with the man Cobb, though perhaps unwilling to admit it, even in her own silly mind. It might be so, and, if so, it made her more interesting; for one was tempted to think that Louise had not the power of loving at all. Yet, for his own part, he couldn’t help liking her; the eyes that had looked into his at the station haunted him a little, and would not let him think of her contemptuously. But what a woman to make ones wife! Unless—unless—
Louise had gone into the house. Emmeline approached her husband.
‘There! I foresaw it. Isn’t vexing?’
‘Never mind, dear. She’ll go to morrow, or the day after.’
‘I wish I could be sure of that.’
Louise did not appear again that evening. Thoroughly tired, she unpacked her trunks, sat awhile by the open window, listening to a piano in a neighbouring house, and then jumped into bed. From ten o’clock to eight next morning she slept soundly.
At breakfast her behaviour was marked with excessive decorum. To the ordinary civilities of her host and hostess she replied softly, modestly, in the manner of a very young and timid girl; save when addressed, she kept silence, and sat with head inclined; a virginal freshness breathed about her; she ate very little, and that without her usual gusto, but rather as if performing a dainty ceremony. Her eyes never moved in Mumford’s direction.
The threatened letter from Mrs. Higgins had arrived; Emmeline and her husband read it before their guest came down. If Louise continued to reside with them, they entertained her with a full knowledge that no payment must be expected from Coburg Lodge. Emmeline awaited the disclosure of her guest’s project, which had more than once been alluded to yesterday; she could not dream of permitting Louise to stay for more than a day or two, whatever the suggestion offered. This morning she had again heard from her sister, Mrs. Grove, who was strongly of opinion that Miss Derrick should be sent back to her native sphere.
‘I shall always feel,’ she said to her husband, ‘that we have behaved badly. I was guilty of false pretences. Fortunately, we have the excuse of her unbearable temper. But for that, I should feel dreadfully ashamed of myself.’
Very soon after Mumford’s departure, Louise begged for a few minutes’ private talk.
‘Every time I come into this drawing-room, Mrs. Mumford, I think how pretty it is. What pains you must have taken in furnishing it! I never saw such nice curtains anywhere else. And that little screen—I am so fond of that screen!’
‘It was a wedding present from an old friend,’ Emmeline replied, complacently regarding the object, which shone with embroidery of many colours.
‘Will you help me when I furnish my drawing-room?’ Louise asked sweetly. And she added, with a direct look, ‘I don’t think it will be very long.’
‘Indeed?’
‘I am going to marry Mr. Bowling.’
Emmeline could no longer feel astonishment at anything her guest said or did. The tone, the air, with which Louise made this declaration affected her with a sense of something quite unforeseen; but, at the same time, she asked herself why she had not foreseen it. Was not this the obvious answer to the riddle? All along, Louise had wished to marry Mr. Bowling. She might or might not have consciously helped to bring about the rupture between Mr. Bowling and Miss Higgins; she might, or might not, have felt genuinely reluctant to take advantage of her half-sister’s defeat. But a struggle had been going on in the girl’s conscience, at all events. Yes, this explained everything. And, on the whole, it seemed to speak in Louise’s favour. Her ridicule of Mr. Bowling’s person and character became, in this new light, a proof of desire to resist her inclinations. She had only yielded when it was certain that Miss Higgins’s former lover had quite thrown off his old allegiance, and when no good could be done by self-sacrifice.
‘When did you make up your mind to this, Louise?’
‘Yesterday, after our horrid quarrel. No, you didn’t quarrel; it was all my abominable temper. This morning I’m going to answer Mr. Bowling’s last letter, and I shall tell him—what I’ve told you. He’ll be delighted!’
‘Then you have really wished for this from the first?’
Louise plucked at the fringe on the arm of her chair, and replied at length with maidenly frankness.
‘I always thought it would be a good marriage for me. But I never—do believe me—I never tried to cut Cissy out. The truth is I thought a good deal of the other—of Mr. Cobb. But I knew that I couldn’t marry him. It would be dreadful; we should quarrel frightfully, and he would kill me—I feel sure he would, he’s so violent in his temper. But Mr. Bowling is very nice; he couldn’t get angry if he tried. And he has a much better position than Mr. Cobb.’
Emmeline began to waver in her conviction and to feel a natural annoyance.
‘And you think,’ she said coldly, ‘that your marriage will take place soon?’
‘That’s what I want to speak about, dear Mrs. Mumford. Did you hear from my mother this morning? Then you see what my position is. I am homeless. If I leave you, I don’t know where I shall go. When Mr. Higgins knows I’m going to marry Mr. Bowling he won’t have me in the house, even if I wanted to go back. Cissy will be furious: she’ll come back from Margate just to keep up her father’s anger against me. If you could let me stay here just a short time, Mrs. Mumford; just a few weeks I should so like to be married from your house.’
The listener trembled with irritation, and before she could command her voice Louise added eagerly:
‘Of course, when we’re married, Mr. Bowling will pay all my debts.’
”You are quite mistaken,’ said Emmeline distantly, ‘if you think that the money matter has anything to do with—with my unreadiness to agree—’
‘Oh, I didn’t think it—not for a moment. I’m a trouble to you; I know I am. But I’ll be so quiet, dear Mrs. Mumford. You shall hardly know I’m in the house. If once it’s all settled I shall never be out of temper. Do, please, let me stay! I like you so much, and how wretched it would be if I had to be married from a lodging-house.’
‘I’m afraid, Louise—I’m really afraid—’
‘Of my temper?’ the girl interrupted. ‘If ever I say an angry word you shall turn me out that very moment. Dear Mrs. Mumford! Oh! what shall I do if you won’t be kind to me? What will become of me? I have no home, and everybody hates me.’
‘Tears streamed down her face; she lay back, overcome with misery. Emmeline was distracted. She felt herself powerless
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