The Parting of the Ways. A novel

Part I Chapter Rage

I. DREAM-DAUGHTER AND DREAM-FATHER ! - I II. THE LURID STREAK 8 III. MR. RAPHAM'S VIEW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY - 1 3 IV. ' AND ONE OTHER !' - - - - 2 1 V. A DEPARTURE IN HOUSEKEEPING - - 27 VI. LAUGHTER AKIN TO TEARS - - "35 VII. MR. MORROW - - - - - 41 VIII. INITIATORS - - 48 IX. WHAT IMAGINATION WILL DO - - -56 X. A GIRL PHILOSOPHER - - - 64 XI. NORRICE'S EXTRA - ' - 73 XII. CHARON AND MENIPPUS - - - So XIII. HOME LIFE BY CONTRACT - - - go XIV. ESAU'S MESS AND ROBIN GRAY - - - 99 XV. A GOOSE FOR A FORTUNE - - - I08 XVI. MR. RAPHAM'S DEBUT IN SOCIETY - 1 14 XVII. THE VANISHING-POINT - - - - 125 XVIII. VEERING ROUND - - - - - 133 XIX. A DEPARTURE IN FLIRTATION - - I -J. I XX. HALCYON DAYS - - - - - 149 XXI. THE CRUCIAL TEST - - - - l6l XXII. WHAT ROBESPIERRE IS ANSWERABLE FOR - I70 XXIII. MODERN LOVE-MAKING - - - - l8l XXIV.

THE RUMBLING OF THE TEMPEST - - CONTENTS. VIII CHAFTEK fAGF XXV. DISILLUSION - 2°° XXVI. THUNDER-CLOUDS- - - - 2°9 XXVII. STRAWTON EN FETE - - - 2ig XXVIII. AWAKENING _•---- 228

Part II

I. AT CROSS PURPOSES - 238 II. THE JOYS OF WEDLOCK - 244 III. NEMESIS ------ 253 IV. TAKING COUNSEL - - - - - 261 V. BRIDE AND BRIDE ELECT - - - 269 VI. HELPED OUT OF A DILEMMA - - - 276 VII. THE DEMON OF WRATH - - - - 283 VIII. HOMELY MIRACLES - - - - 29 1 IX. A BRIDE ON APPROVAL - - - - 299 X. THE VISION - 307 XL AN ANXIOUS DINNER - 316 XII. THE CRISIS ----- 723 XIII. FROM FLOWERY VALLEY TO ICK-BOUND REGION 331 XIV. FLEEING FROM— WHAT ? - - - - 341 XV. AN IDEA IN SEARCH OF A PURCHASER - - 347 XVI. AN ENGLISH GALA - 356 XVII. ANNEALED !----- 364 XVIII. A REVELATION ----- 373 XIX. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL - 380 CONCLUSION ---__ 3g5 I THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

PART I. CHAPTER

I. DREAM-DAUGHTER AND DREAM-FATHER ! How much more do we ofttimes seem to know of strangers jostled against in a crowd, than of our friends and familiars ! These may remain lifelong riddles ; but one face fascinates us amid countless multitudes — a single glance of eyes un known, now beheld for a moment only, reveals to us an entire character, a complete existence. We hurry on, our circle of ideal acquaintances enlarged, richer by another romance, none the less vivid because it wants a name. And who knows ? As we journey through life, we in our own turn may have suggested a similar train of thought. By a look, a word, a gesture, we too, for one brief moment, may have lifted some sympathetic soul out of the common world, have been accredited with gifts and graces that do not belong to us. So true it is that the half of life, often the better portion of it, appertains to mystery as night to dreams !

A young, bright, richly dressed girl, with a withered, elderly man, evidently her father, were traversing one end of Europe to the other by express train. It was easy to see that this relation existed between them, although wide the difference as between one sweet apple-blossom and some hoary, corrugated stem upon which it bloomed. Equally self-evident the fact that they were all but strangers to each other : a marked, exaggerated, almost lover-like solicitude, not unmixed with nervousness on the part of the father — a timid, appealing tenderness on the part of the daughter, showed that they had as yet been very little together. An English merchant, he had very likely spent the best part of his existence in the East, leaving his daughter to be reared and educated at home. Parent and child could hardly be less alike as far as expression went.

Her face, so fair, ingenuous, and full of eager inquiry, had not the faintest trace of worldliness, much less of conscious wrong doing in it; his wore an occasional look almost shocking to the acute observer. Shrewdness carried to a pitch of cunning, unscrupulousness that might possibly verge on cruelty, indomitable perseverance in the pursuit of his own objects, objects certainly neither noble nor worthy — such at least must have been the reading of the physiognomist. A certain resemblance was nevertheless there ; hair, eyes, complexion bespoke near blood-relationship, all beautified. transformed by the girl's youth, joy, and innocence. Meantime, the hard, wrinkled face showed indications of real feeling, an almost passionate desire to please this new found darling, this dream-daughter, this fondly cherished object of long, absent, laborious years.

AVhenever the train made a halt, he alighted and tried to find something to please her — fruit, sweetmeatsa book DREAM-DAUGHTER AND DREAM-FATHER ! 3 with pictures in it ; one might have supposed his amply filled purse were only good for such trifles as these. There was something touching in the timidity with which he offered his gifts. No suitor could have been more deferential, more easily elated or discouraged. Was she really gratified or no ? He could hardly tell ; the reception was always the same — a smile, a bright look of affection and gratitude, accompanied the same words : ' You are too good, much too good, papa !' Strange words to fall on ears like his, yet they seemed full of music for him. When the maid and the courier, who had accompanied the girl from London to Trieste, were not present, he would kiss and fondle her in a shy, awkward way ; and his eyes followed her looks and gestures as if to divine every thought.

He would have been better satisfied had she occasionally uttered a wish. Her quiet, passive con tentment disconcerted him. Truth to tell, the girl was in much the same frame of mind as himself. He was not more anxious to testify his paternal devotion than she her filial love. At home, she said to herself, the task would be easy enough ; a hundred opportunities must surely occur in a day. Shut up within the narrow confines of the railway carriage, there was little to do but smile acquiescence. A halting-place brought welcome relief to both. The homeward journey from Trieste to London was made by way of Venice, Innsbruck, and several attractive German cities, at each of which they stopped for a few hours or a night's rest. They had now reached the last, and after a stroll and dinner, were to sleep there, proceeding next morning to Ostend.

It was a place worth getting a glimpse of; one of those historic German towns beside a beautiful river, with a sign I here and there, and a sign only, of the olden time — all else bright, bustling, airy. The spire of noble minster, a street of mediæval houses, or hoary gateway still remain to tell of bygone days, just as in commonplace nineteenth-century households some bit of family plate, furniture or jewellery indicates ancestry dating from the Crusades. Just now, however, the town was travestied and hemmed round by a great toy-fair, still so popular an amusement in Germany. Between the city and the outer belt of suburban gardens and villas was a circle of gingerbread stalls, peepshows, and other penny merriments, all abundantly patronized by the townsfolk and the peasants. The sight diverted the two naive travellers, as, followed by obsequious courier and maid, they made slow way through the crowd. ' Is there nothing you would like here ?' asked the father again and again to no purpose.

The Nuremberg gingerbread, the carved woodwork from Berchtesgaden, the amber trinkets from Riigen, the orna ments in stag's horn made at the city itself, the thousand and one knickknacks captivating other fair-goers, seemed to have no charms for this one, who now beheld them for the first time. The girl, young as she was, inexperienced as she was — could it be by instinct or by inheritance ? — already evidently understood the value of money. She examined the pretty gewgaws with interest ; nothing apparently escaped her observation. But it was clear that she did not care to spend for spending's sake. On a sudden, however, a cry of genuine enthusiasm did escape her lips, and the father's hand was once more feeling for his purse. At last she coveted a fairing — he was to have the pleasure of gratifying a wish.

He turned round and glanced towards his daughter and the nearest booths, but she was stopping, DREAM-DAUGHTER AND DREAM-FATHER ! 5 caressing something for a moment hidden from his view. He moved a step or two nearer and saw that, greatly to the amusement of the courier and the maid, she was fondling a little negro boy ; a prettier live toy it were indeed hard to find. The child's jet-black face, all chubbiness, healthful ness and gaiety, and close-cropped ebon curls, were set off by a little coat of rose-coloured satin, gala dress for the occasion ; nothing could be prettier, more picturesque than his appearance, as, standing before a panorama, he offered programmes to the passers-by, receiving, as may well be supposed, many a small coin. He was perhaps seven years old, and his plump, well-cared for appearance showed that, no matter what his origin or his history, he had now a home and kindly protectors. ' Is he not a darling, papa ?' exclaimed the girl, patting the little rose-coloured satin coat, pressing sweetmeats into the little black hands. ' And how intelligent he looks I I wonder where he came from !' A curious expression, that she did not see, came over the old man's face.

He glanced at the boy for a minute, scrutinized him even, much as if he were looking at some chattel offered for sale. Then, with the air of one who had satisfied himself with regard to the worth of [the wares he was about to purchase, quick as lightning his purse was opened, and his fingers fumbled at the gold pieces. 'Would you like to have him?' he asked eagerly. 'To take home with you, I mean.' If fortunate for the girl that she did not see her father's face as he made this offer, fortunate also for him that he did not see her own as she deprecated it with a gesture almost of horror. Her face flushed crimson, painful tears started to her eyes as she put the child away ; then trying to recover herself, and to feel that the proposal was natural from one accustomed to Eastern life, she simulated playfulness and made answer : ' What would be thought of us if we even proposed such a thing ?

No, papa ; when we get back you shall buy me a poodle or a cockatoo.' With a crestfallen air, conscious apparently of a breach of good manners, or of the etiquette of every day, he pocketed his purse, and the little party quitted the fair. The incident had been noticed by no one, perhaps was not worth dwelling on, yet on the girl's mind it left more than a passing cloud. She could not recover her spirits, do what she would. The bare suggestion called up by her father's words was dreadful to her, the action of the proffered gold appalling ; and with the alertness of a naturally quick mind aculeated and quickened by strong sympathies and womanly instincts, she immediately accounted for the look, the speech, and the deed. But no, daughterly love im mediately did battle with the base supposition !

Her father could never for one brief moment have dreamed of barter ing for the child, purchasing a human soul by way of giving her a toy. He had been carried away by excessive desire to please her. Without her intervention he would, a second later, have retracted the offer. Thus she endeavoured to reason away her misgivings, and to get rid of the disagreeable incident. The table-a 'hole dinner, at one of the best hotels in Europe, came by way of distraction. It was pleasant to see this cosmopolitan board, spread for strangers from all quarters of the globe, at which was heard a very Babel of tongues and was seen a variety of nationalities, not without a sprinkling of costume. The spectacle engrossed and animated. The unaccustomed DREAM -DAUGHTER AND DREAM -FATHER ! 7 dishes afforded dinner-table talk.

The vexatious incident of the fair escaped from her memory. When the pair, how ever, retired to the luxurious little sitting-room assigned to them, and tea was served, it came back. A fire blazed on the hearth. Home-life seemed to have begun already ; if not now, when should they begin to know and trust each other ? Youth is naturally fearless, hence its charm ; and this young girl had more than her share of downright impetuous initiative and daring. It was easy to see that, in spite of a certain superficial timidity, the timidity that belongs to little things, she did not in the least stand in awe of her unknown father ; she was, perhaps, over-anxious to please him in trifles ; she was longing to make him happy, as far as a daughter's affection could do so. But all the while she belonged to herself; her life, her individuality were her own to do with as she would.

She was not moulded out of the soft stuff that easily lends itself to another's shaping. ' Papa dear,' she said, as he put down his newspaper and dropped into an arm-chair beside her — ' Papa dear, I want you to tell me something.' She paused and glanced at him ; his look was very en couraging, and no wonder. Who, indeed, could have resisted such an appeal ? The autumn was chilly, and she wore a sumptuous pelisse of fur-bordered velvet, which, rich as it was, lent no heavi ness to that erect, slender figure. Her bright hair, candid blue eyes, and fair complexion tinted with the wild rose of health, made up a very impersonation of the lovely Saxon maiden. Fairness, grace, and purity here reached their acme, and without a trace of sentimentality, much less schoolgirlish weakness. The father's eyes sparkled with pride as he returned her glance.

Here was indeed a daughter worth the toil of a lifetime, an heiress to be proud of. Dazzling visions flitted before his mind. He saw this beautiful, high-spirited girl wedded to some member of a noble house, bearing a noble name, mother to be of children lovely and gifted as herself. And although a wife, she would remain his daughter all the same. He did not wish her to marry a rich man ; he wished himself to be the architect of her fortunes, the family fortunes. Wealth enough and to spare he had to give ; all he asked from a son-in-law was position. This reverie was abruptly broken by the words she now put to him. ' Papa,' she said in that sw*eet yet firm girlish treble, as she laid her cheek to his and put one arm lovingly within his own — ' Papa dear, now tell me. How came you by your large fortune ?'

Chapter II. The Lurid Streak

The question, natural and harmless as it might seem, was hardly uttered than repented of. As the girl looked up into her father's face awaiting an answer, she was startled at his changed expression ; the withered cheeks, before colourless as vellum, were dyed with scarlet blushes ; a lurid light, as of some dark, thinly veiled storm-cloud of passion, flashed from his eyes. He rose, and standing with his back to THE LURID STREAK. 9 the fireplace and the lights, seemed on the point of making a sharp rejoinder. But the hasty speech, evidently just upon his lips, found no utterance. That beautiful apparition of girlishness, affection, and joy checked his angry mood. He waited for a moment in order to recover himself. 'How do other men come by large fortunes in such countries ?' he asked, affecting a tone of easy banter. ' By trade, of course.' ' What kind of trade ?' asked Rapha, with quiet persis tence.

In the first instance she had wished her words unsaid. A daughter ought not to put her father to the blush. Might not the indiscretion in itself cause his vexation and embar rassment ? On the other hand, the more they were to be to each other in the future, the greater the confidence that should exist between them ; and stronger far, much more intense than these feelings actuating her with passionate fervour, was the desire to think well of him, to have no hesitancy about her daughterly love. ' What kind ?' answered Mr. Rapham, with a rough laugh ; 'as if a girl could understand ! All kinds, then.' She looked still curious and unconvinced. This jesting mood, following an expression of real concern and annoyance, made her feel uneasy. Already the convic tion was dawning on her mind, how hard for this dream father to become her friend !

She was beginning to measure the gulf that separated them. Whilst she was longing to communicate every hope, almost every thought, to this new found protector, at the slightest invitation to a confidence from herself he shrank back, refusing to be interrogated even by the one being in the world who belonged to him, to whom he was dear, his only child. Seeing the look of doubt in her face, and anxious to get the disagreeable little scene over, he added, still jestingly : ' Why, you must have learned in the nursery that gold-dust and elephants' tusks come from the heart of Africa.' ' So you traded in those things ?' she said wistfully, as one rather hoping than expecting to get at the truth, feeling all the while that she ought not to doubt her father's word. The statement, moreover, was in accordance with pro babilities.

There could hardly be any reasonable ground for questioning it, even had she here to do with an entire stranger. Yet she was conscious of a lurking uneasiness. Separated from him as she had been from early childhood, all that concerned his doings remained matter of mystery. He had superabundantly supplied her with money, he had done his best to have her well cared for and well educated, he had written and sent her presents from time to time. There the intimacy began and ended. ' In these, and more besides,' he replied, and again a little half suppressed rasping laugh grated on her ears. Then he said sharply and decisively : ' The question for you is not how my money was made, but how it is to be spent. Have you thought much about that, my girl ?' He looked at her keenly, as much as to say, ' Am I understood or no ?

Must I put it still plainer to you, that I cannot be cross-questioned even by my daughter ?' Rapha, with her quick woman's instinct, understood the look but too well. It indicated to her so many delusions to come, delusions and conflicts ! She saw in the future in evitable misunderstandings between her father and herself, a harshness in him that even his only child might call into play. But she felt bound to hold her peace. The incident of THE LURID STREAK. 11 the little rose-coloured satin coat ought not, perhaps, to have disturbed her at all. She was fanciful to dwell upon it. Yet what could have induced him to propose such a thing as the purchase of the child? Under what conditions could his past life have been spent, so as to render the bare suggestion possible ? These were questions she dared no longer dwell upon.

Her present duty was to try to love her father and make his new life happy. As yet they had been only a few days together, and his anxiety to please her knew no bounds. The least she could do was to make a similar effort, and, Heaven help him, he had been lonely enough ! 'Look you,' said Mr. Rapham, now taking a tone of almost artful insinuation, ' I want you to do exactly as you like, and be happy as the day is long, Rapha. But to each his own concerns. Your business is to be a great lady, and some day or other to make a fine marriage.' Again Rapha felt a little shock. Under the rough exterior of the trader she might discover the devoted father, the acute man of the world ; hardly the educated gentleman, much less the sympathetic friend. ' It seems to me that my business is to stay with you, papa,' she said affectionately.

She was trying hard to love him. ' So you shall, till you are spirited away by a lover. You have already had hangers-on, I'll be bound, although nobody knew you to be an heiress.' She smiled and blushed. Her dreams and ideals were her own. Could she con fide these to the hard-featured, rough stranger, although he was her father ? His speech brought her face to face with a new difficulty. Just as she had sought his confidences the moment before, so he sought her own now; but she could not summon courage to speak of dreams and ideals to-day. ' We must get our money's worth, that is all,' he said, evidently alluding to the suitors to come. Once more he scrutinized the sweet, candid face, thinking to himself, ' I see how it is plain enough. Rapha has her admirations, like any other boarding-school miss.

Some curate or other has been making love to the chit. But a round of gaieties will soon put bread-and-butter courtships out of her head.' He was not quite easy in his mind nevertheless, in his turn beginning to foresee difficulties in their future intercourse. This fair, high-spirited daughter of his was no pliant creature to be bribed into acquiescence, but a strongly marked in dividuality, a will. Tenderness, devotion he felt he could count upon ; blind compliance and abnegation of self, never. Rapha also was full of misgiving, almost inclined to regret the years whilst as yet they had been strangers to each other, father and daughter of dreams. In her present mood — perhaps, as she said to herself, to pass on the morrow — dreary possibilities already clouded the once radiant future. It was as if she gazed upon a sunlit landscape, in itself heavenly fair ; but from the distant horizon seemed to issue a lurid streak, herald of storm-cloud to break over the sweet summer world.

Chapter III. Mr

RAPHAM'S VIEW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. Nightmares, however, pass with the darkness that gives them birth. Next morning both father and daughter awoke to a cheerful aspect of things. There was the going home to begin with, the first real home of their lives ; then the journey, with its thousand and one little incidents, amused these inexperienced travellers. Mr. Rapham, exiled for the better part of his existence from European civilization, showed as naive an interest in everything as Rapha. Whilst the steamer glided gently from Ostend to Dover, he grew more and more talkative. What a good thing, he said to himself, that this daughter of his had a quick understanding ! She saw the gist of a matter at once ; no occasion for beating about the bush, or roundabout explanations. There would be little difficulties to get over at first ; hardly likely that a delicately reared girl of twenty, and a man who had been knocking about in semi-savage countries as many years, should understand each other to begin with.

But she had her wits about her ; she was fully alive to the advantages of her position ; she would see that it was to her own interest to humour him as he intended to humour her. 'I will tell you what it is,' he began, as they settled themselves in easy chairs on deck, ' we shall do things handsomely, of course. I have not come back to England to lead a beggarly life ; but we will begin where we mean to leave off — we will draw a line. Now there is one thing I want you to understand, Rapha : no charities.' She looked rather diverted than shocked, this time. The incongruity of her father's speech tickled her fancy. Al though so young she knew something of the world, and the thought at once struck her that it was no more possible to repudiate charities in England than rates and taxes ! Indeed, just as Mr. Rapham looked down upon her from the height of his heterogeneous experiences, so in many respects this hard-featured father was a child in her eyes. ' No charities, I say.

What else is the life of a rich man who spends his money but one unbroken series of charities ?' continued Rapham, warming to his subject. ' Suppose, instead of spending a certain sum of money every year upon eating and drinking, servants, carriages, and so on, I keep my money in my pocket ; suppose nobody else spends as much in my place, then it stands to reason there would be so many butchers, bakers, flunkeys, and the rest of 'em, wanting bread to eat Depend on it, to give away money without getting something by way of return is neither common-sense nor benevolence.' ' Spending money on one's self is an agreeable kind of charity,' Rapha answered, still inclined to treat the disquisi tion as playful. ' Don't you see with your own eyes what charity and doing good, so-called, lead to ?' he continued. ' They just fill the world with prigs and paupers, and that is all.

The charitable man sets himself up for a Brummagem saint, and the good for-nothing is well pleased to breed beggars for others to maintain. I don't pretend to be better than I am, my dear. I am not going to whitewash myself with twopenny-halfpenny godliness to please the world. My own is my own to do with as I choose.' Seeing the look of discomposure in her face, he added encouragingly : ' But if you like to fool away yours, that is no business of mine either. Your allowance the charity-mongers may worm out of you for aught I shall interfere. Women must always be doing good as they call it, or my belief is they would go clean mad.' Could her father be really serious ? She hardly knew. He went on, evidently anxious that she should know his view of things in general. ' Your case, you see, is quite different to my own.

A young lady's pin-money, however handf.ome, does not bring about her ears a host of lickspittles, speculators, and philan thropists, who have ever the best of reasons for putting their hands into other people's pockets. I am not going to say that I shall refuse a trifle in the parish — subscription for Christmas coals, old women's flannel petticoats, and the like. We must keep on good terms with the parson. That is as regular a tax on civilization in England as ground-rents and water-rates. But you are not a business man ; you have no idea of the way in which money draws — flies buzzing round a treacle-tub are nothing to it.' With quick intuition, Rapha divined what her father was going to say next. She had, indeed, seen the drift of his discourse almost from the beginning. ' Before I have been at home a week, I shall be pestered with these gentry — up to my neck with them — people who want me to do this, and the other, for the public good, as they call it.

Now I should like to know, what is the public good to me ? Is not every man his own public good ? One day I shall be asked to build a church, as if there were not churches enough already ; another, to help a man into Parliament— much good would that do me either ; then I shall be expected to help in emigration schemes, as if it were my fault that folks can't earn their living at home. And so on, for ever and ever, amen. I can deal single-handed with the whole lot ; I am not such an addlepate as to let others make ducks and drakes with the money I have been slaving all these years for. But do you, like a girl with a head on her shoulders, hold aloof from these schemers. Don't let them think they can get in the thin end of the wedge by talking you over. We should be beggared in no time if we once began to listen to these busybodies.' ' Of course I will do as you wish, papa,' she replied, with heightened colour and an ill-concealed look of vexation.

To all generous causes then, pleaded in her hearing, she must turn a deaf ear. All kinds of delightful dreams were dis pelled by her father's blunt explanation. Already this vast fortune ceased to wear its first bright look of enchantment. She was prohibited for once and for all from w*ooing life in a shower of gold. Nothing further on the subject was said at the time, and the next day they arrived home. How fortunate for the millionnaire sprung from the ground like a grasshopper, no more able to arrange his new mode of existence than Sancho Panza to govern an island, that the nineteenth-century Ariel — in other words, the universal agent — is at his beck and call ! A man may have only just scholarship enough to write his name ; his literary accomplishments may be said to begin and end with the signing of a cheque.