The Child Wife

And thus Maynard was left without a vis-à-vis.

His thoughts also were strange. How could they be otherwise? Beside him, with shoulders almost touching, sate the woman he had once loved; or, at all events, passionately admired.

It was the passion of a day. It had passed; and was now cold and dead. There was a time when the touch of that rounded arm would have sent the blood in hot current through his veins. Now its chafing against his, as they came together on the cushion, produced no more feeling than if it had been a fragment from the chisel of Praxiteles!

Did she feel the same?

He could not tell; nor cared he to know.

If he had a thought about her thoughts, it was one of simple gratitude. He remembered his own imaginings, as to who had sent the star flag to protect him, confirmed by what Blanche Vernon had let drop in that conversation in the covers.

And this alone influenced him to shape, in his own mind, the question, “Should I speak to her?”

His thoughts charged back to all that had passed between them – to her cold parting on the cliff where he had rescued her from drowning; to her almost disdainful dismissal of him in the Newport ball-room. But he remembered also her last speech as she passed him, going out at the ball-room door; and her last glance given him from the balcony!

Both words and look, once more rising into recollection, caused him to repeat the mental interrogatory, “Should I speak to her?”

Ten times there was a speech upon his tongue; and as often was it restrained.

There was time for that and more; enough to have admitted of an extended dialogue. Though the mail train, making forty miles an hour, should reach London Bridge in fifteen minutes, it seemed as though it would never arrive at the station!

It did so at length without a word having been exchanged between Captain Maynard and any of his quondam acquaintances! They all seemed relieved, as the platform appearing alongside gave them a chance of escaping from his company!

Julia may have been an exception. She was the last of her party to get out of the carriage, Maynard on the off side, of course, still staying.

She appeared to linger, as with a hope of still being spoken to. It was upon her tongue to say the word “cruel”; but a proud thought restrained her; and she sprang quickly out of the carriage to spare herself the humiliation!

Equally near speaking was Maynard. He too was restrained by a thought – proud, but not cruel.

He looked along the platform, and watched them as they moved away. He saw them joined by two gentlemen – one who approached stealthily, as if not wishing to be seen.

He knew that the skulker was Swinton; and why he desired to avoid observation.

Maynard no more cared for the movements of this man – no more envied him either their confidence or company. His only reflection was:

“Strange that in every unpleasant passage of my life this same party should trump up – at Newport; in Paris; and now near London, in the midst of a grief greater than all!”

And he continued to reflect upon this coincidence, till the railway porter had pushed him and his portmanteau into the interior of a cab.

The official not understanding the cause of his abstraction, gave him no credit for it.

By the sharp slamming of the back-door he was reminded of a remissness: he had neglected the douceur!

Chapter Sixty Three.

“It is sweet – so sweet.”

Transported in his cab, Captain Maynard was set down safely at his lodgings in the proximity of Portman Square.

A latch-key let him in, without causing disturbance to his landlady.

Though once more in his own rooms, with a couch that seemed to invite him to slumber, he could not sleep. All night long he lay tossing upon it, thinking of Blanche Vernon.

The distraction, caused by his encounter with Julia Girdwood, had lasted no longer than while this lady was by his side in the railway carriage.

At the moment of her disappearance from the platform, back into his thoughts came the baronet’s daughter – back before his mental vision the remembrance of her roseate cheeks and golden hair.

The contretemps had been disagreeable – a thing to be regretted. Yet, thinking over it, he was not wretched; scarce unhappy. How could he be, with those tender speeches still echoing in his ears – that piece of paper in his possession, which once again he had taken out, and read under the light of his own lamp?

It was painful to think “papa would never sanction her seeing him again.” But this did not hinder him from having a hope.

It was no more the mediaeval time; nor is England the country of cloisters, where love, conscious of being returned, lays much stress on the parental sanction. Still might such authority be an obstruction, not to be thought lightly of; nor did Maynard so think of it.

Between the proud baronet and himself, he had placed a barrier he might never be able to remove – a social gulf that would separate them for ever!

Were there no means of bridging it? Could none be devised?

For long hours these questions kept him awake; and he went to sleep without finding answer to them.

During the same hours was she, too, lying awake – thinking in the same way.

She had other thoughts, and among them fears. She had yet to face her father!

Returning, as she had done to her own room, she had not seen him since the hour of her shame.

But there was a morrow when she would have to meet him – perhaps be called upon for a full confession.

It might seem as if there was nothing more to be told. But the necessity of having to comfort her father, and repeat what was already known, would of itself be sufficiently painful.

Besides, there was her after-action – in the surreptitious penning of that little note. She had done it in haste, yielding to the instinct of love, and while its frenzy was upon her.

Now in the calm quiet of her chamber, when the spasmodic courage of passion had departed, she felt doubtful of what she had done.

It was less repentance of the act, than fear for the consequences. What if her father should also learn that? If he should have a suspicion and ask her?

She knew she must confess. She was as yet too young, too guileless, to think of subterfuge. She had just practised one; but it was altogether different from the telling of an untruth. It was a falsehood even prudery itself might deem pardonable.

But her father would not, and she knew it. Angry at what he already knew, it would add to his indignation – perhaps strengthen it to a storm. How would she withstand it?

She lay reflecting in fear.

“Dear Sabby!” she said, “do you think he will suspect it?”

The question was to the coloured attendant, who, having a tiny couch in the adjoining ante-chamber, sate up late by her young mistress, to converse with and comfort her.

“’Speck what? And who am to hab de saspicion?”

“About the note you gave him. My father, I mean.”