His wife had recovered her breath, and was still hurling accusations and sneers at him. He had grown accustomed to let her rave, but now something she said caught his ear, and made him turn to her sharply.
"You are getting yourself pretty well talked of, I can tell you."
"Talked of? What"—sternly—"do you mean?"
"Right well you know. They are talking about your attentions to that minx at the Villa—that Miss Nesbitt."
Darkham's eyes suddenly blazed.
"Who has dared to talk of Miss Nesbitt with disrespect?" asked he.
"Oh, law! You needn't make such a fuss about it, even if she is your dearie-o. But I can tell you this Darkham, that people are talking about you and her, all the same. And why shouldn't they? Why, you never take your eyes off her."
"Be silent, woman!" said he savagely, coarsely; now and again his own birth betrayed him. "Who are you that you should speak to me like that?"
"I am your wife, any way," said she.
"Ay. My wife!"
The look that accompanied his tone should have frozen her, but she only laughed.
"I know, I know," she said, wagging her hideous fat head at him.
"You would undo it all if you could. You would cast me out, like Rebecca, and marry your Sarah instead; but"—with slovenly triumph—"you can't. You can't, you know. I"—with a hideous leer at him—"am here, you see, and here I'll stick! You wish me dead, I know that; but I'll not die to please you."
(If she had only known!)
She looked up at her husband out of her small, obstinate eyes— looked at the tall, handsome, well-dressed man whose name she bore, yet who was so different to her in all ways. And he looked back at her.
A strange smile curled his lips.
"Wishes don't kill," said he, slowly. Now his voice was soft, refined, brutal.
"Good for me," returned she, with a hoarse chuckle, "or I wouldn't be long above ground. I know you! And as for that girl down there"—she paused, then went on with malicious intonation: "you may as well cease your funning in that quarter. I hear she's as good as engaged to that young fellow who took up Dr. Fulham's practice three months ago—Dr. Dillwyn."
"A very suitable match for her," said Darkham, after a second's pause that contained a thousand seconds of acute agony. He spoke coldly, evenly.
"Yes." She looked disappointed; her spleen had desired a larger fulfilment of its desire. "Suitable indeed, for both are paupers. But, for all you're so quiet, I don't believe you like it, eh? Dr. Dillwyn, you know, and you—"
"I wish sometimes you would forget me," said he.
"Ha, ha, ha!" She flung herself back in her chair, and laughed aloud, her hideous vulgar laugh. "For once in our lives we are agreed. I wish that, too. But I can't, you see—I can't. You're always there, and I'm always there!"
"You! you!" Darkham took a step towards her; his face was convulsed. "You," he muttered, "always you!" His voice, his gesture, were menacing.
The idiot on the hearthrug, as though gathering into his poor brain something of what was going on between his father and his mother, here writhing round upon the rug, threw himself upon the latter. He embraced her knees with a close, soft clasp. He clung to her. Every now and then he glanced behind him at his father, his dull eyes angry, menacing. His whole air was one of protection; short barking cries came from him, hideous to hear.
Mrs. Darkham bent down to him, and caught the beautiful soulless face to her bosom, wreathing upon it sweet reassuring words. The idiot, mouthing, slaps her quietly, incessantly, on the shoulder. Darkham watches them—the mother's heavy, coarse endearments, the boy's vacant affection, with his mouth open—and from them presently Darkham turned away with an oath. A shudder of disgust ran through him. "Great heavens! what a home!"
His wife had looked up for a moment, and had seen the disgust. It was fuel to an already very hot fire.
"Go!" she cried violently. She had the boy's head pressed to her breast, keeping his eyes against her that he might not see her face, perhaps, which now was frightful. "Go! leave us! Go where you are welcome! Leave us! Leave your home!"
"My home!" he paused, but always with his eyes on hers. "My home is a hell!" said he.
He went out then, closing the door softly behind him.
But when he had stepped into his brougham he gave himself full sway. As the wheels rolled over the gravel his thoughts surged and raged within him.
That dull, illiterate creature, why had he ever married her? What cruel fate had driven him to such a marriage? And for ever that marriage would endure—trampling him down, destroying him, clogging his career.
Some men got rid of their wives. But that was when kindly Providence stepped in and Death took them away. But this woman, without feeling, sentiment or beauty, even Death would not deign to touch her.
Death—death! If he were only free!
All at once the face of a young girl rose before him. It stood out clear and tranquil from a detestable background—not like a dream, a thought, but sweetly, definitely. The eyes, the hair, the lovely mouth, all were there. They seemed to sit there before him, embodied in the brougham.
Darkham flings himself back and covers his eyes with his hand, as if to blot out the too, too lovely apparition. But it would not go. It stayed. The sweet eyes always smiling, the lips a little parted.
What was it that woman, that human devil, had said about her? That she was thinking of—that she was in love with that young Dillwyn? Pshaw!
Here the brougham stopped at the gate of a small if pretty entrance, beyond which a gravel path led to a small but perfectly appointed house. Dr. Darkham stepped out of his carriage, and, entering the hall, followed the servant into the drawing-room beyond, and into the presence of the gentle spectre who had possessed his thoughts during his short drive.
She stood at the end of the room, bending over some flowers she was arranging, and after a slight inclination of her small and charming head, took no further notice of him.
He passed up the room quickly to his quasi-patient, Mrs. Greatorex, an elderly but still pretty woman who sat lounging in a cosy chair.
The room was warm and sweet with flowers. It was exquisitely arranged, if not richly furnished. It spoke of refinement, though not of wealth, and was very charming and womanly. A few Persian rugs lay here and there, and jars full of early flowering branches were placed in the corners of the windows and against the tall screens that stood at the end of the room. All the place was sweet with little bowls full of honeysuckle and primroses.
Mrs. Greatorex held out her hand to him.
"How good of you to come!" said she, in her low, cultivated voice. "And after your hard day's work, too."
"I like work. How do you feel this evening—you are better? You look better. You will be out of my hands altogether soon, and I shall be left desolate."
His eyes wandered to the figure bending over the primroses, but she seemed engrossed with her pretty flowers.
She was tall, slender, graceful, with dark hair, and a mouth beautiful in its strength and purity. Her eyes were her chief feature, and shone like stars. They were a clear gray—soft and kind by day, dark and even kinder by night; and so full of expression, love and laughter, grief and quick delight, tenderness and anger: all things those perfect eyes could declare in their right season.
Just now they were lowered, so it was hard to see what lay within their shining depths; but a little line across her forehead showed that her thoughts were not altogether pleasant. She bent even more assiduously over the flowers, and