A Chapter of Accidents

Chapter I

July was far on its way. It had been a dry and hot month, hailed in its first week with joy by all the people who had summer frocks to show off, grumbled at in the second by melting dancers at belated balls, and now, in the third, cursed by weary, dust-choked pedestrians who were afraid to walk too close to the scorching walls of the houses lest they should get their clothes singed. London seemed like a vast ball-room after the daylight has been let in upon its faded flowers and chalky floor ; the dancers are fled, the lights and the music have died together, and the grimy cleaners, the deplorable charwomen, are in possession. If £ B CHAP. 2 one of last night's revellers looks in by chance he will hardly recognise the place. Mr. Harry Surtees appeared very lonely and very much bored as he sat on a chair in the Park watching the water-carts creeping along, wasting on dusty earth those cool showers of spray which, but for the trifling matter of clothes, would have been so welcome to parched humanity.

A few weeks ago this corner had been always crowded with the prettiest, if not the nicest, people in town, and a vacant chair no easy thing to find. To-day Mr. Surtees sat there alone, like a well-dressed waif cast up on a desert island of painted iron. As he was quite alone perhaps he might have been excused for addressing a remark to himself. Soliloquising is only unpardonable when there is some one at hand to hear it. Mr. Surtees leaned back in his chair, crossed his beautiful, shining boots, and looking very gloomy, remarked : " Oh, hang it all ! Why on earth did that poor chap die just now ? Could anything be more inconvenient ? " Harry had not had a successful season, and here he was, at the end of it, very hard up, with a heap of bills to pay, and no particular prospect of an income for at least six months to come.

Everything had gone badly with him. His usually persistent luck at play had deserted him ; an aged relative had survived an attack of influenza, such as would have killed any one who had not a fortune to leave to a devoted and deserving nephew ; the little American heiress had flirted encouragingly with him, as she did with a good many other men, but had finally married a Spanish Duke, of shaky legs and unmentionable morality ; and now, to underline and emphasise all his other misfortunes, poor Ebford Barton had died of fever at Nice. There were no Bartons among Harry's rela tives, and the death was not one which would entail upon him any outward mourning ; but it seriously altered certain circumstances of his life which held him in the firm though velvet grasp of pleasant habit. This must at all costs be shaken off now, and the shaking would hurt B CHAP. a good deal, and perhaps not only hurt himself.

He would have to appear both unkind and un grateful. He winced visibly as he realised the fact, and changed his position once or twice ; but the situation could not be changed, and there was no way out of it, but one. A few years before that warm July, Ebford Barton and his wife were living in London, with no less appearance of harmony than most of their friends and neighbours. People who have been married some ten years are not usually very expansive in their manner towards one another in public ; and if Mr. Barton did not always assist at his wife's tea-parties, or if she went abroad when he went to Scotland, there was nothing in that to excite comment. They were wealthy, and had no children to provide for, so it was considered natural enough that each should follow private tastes to a moderate extent.

But year by year the separation grew longer, and for some time now Ebford Barton had been forbidden by his physician to live in England at all ; at least, so his wife said. That she lived on in London was, as she also said, due to her own delicate health, which made it impossible for her to " go racketing about " in crowded hotels. She was a quiet, overfeminine woman, her friends thought, one of those gentle creatures who must live in a cosy, dainty home, or not at all. It was sad for her, they said, that her husband seemed to care so little about her society. Why could he not settle down somewhere abroad, and make a home for her there ? Lots of men had to do that sort of thing. Poor Ebford Barton had settled down at last, to rise no more, but not before he and his wife had outwardly agreed on one point at any rate, — that they would have a final and complete separation.

It had come to that very gradually ; but the hour struck at last, when no reconciliation, no forgiveness, could bring them really together again. Perhaps they never had been truly united. The nature of the woman was incapable of the self-effacement which makes such union easy, or of the passionate devotion which makes it heroic ; and CHAP. the man, who asked for the pure gold of trust and love, and for the bounteous daily bread of kindness, was too sad and sore, when denied, to stoop to accept poor crumbs of comfort or the common coin of mere politeness, which was all that the woman by his side could give him. She, poor soul, hardened by brooding over un intentional slights and petty humours, persuaded herself that she was taking up a strong position when she listened coldly to his few and bitter words, and choked down an impulse, the best in her heart, to say something about not wishing to be separated from him.

Then he, who had been hoping for that very protest, left her in anger and sorrow, and she was rather proud of having stood firm, as she told herself when a pang of regret would make itself felt. The greatest curse of weakness does not fall on weakness as such, but on the things it does when it is aping strength. So Ebford and Lily Barton had seen each other no more ; and she had gone on her way, content to appear something of a martyr in the eyes of the world, a martyr supported on her thorny road by the platonic affection of her dear Harry Surtees and one or two others, who, like him, found their advantage in calling themselves her friends. Harry had perhaps a little abused her favour, in that he had rather basely advertised himself as a more enthusiastic admirer than he really was. It was a great protection against piratical mothers and daughters, who in these bad times would have been willing to overlook Harry's present debts, and even his reputation for inconstancy, in con sideration of his good looks and of that solid provision in the future.

The elderly relative would not live for ever, after all. So Harry, whose intercourse with Mrs. Barton had been one of mere kindly fellowship, with only the slicrht necessary dash of sentiment here and there, had sometimes allowed people to think that he was more than a little in love with her ; and of late he had begun to have an uncomfort able suspicion that she thought so too. If not, why did she pour out so many confidences, why did CHAP. nobody else ever come in to interrupt his visits, why did she always seem so remarkably glad to see him ? He did not like these reflections at all ; poor Barton was dead, and Heaven only knew what Mrs. Barton might be expecting a man to do in a year or two. Here was heavy retribution for a harmless bit of fooling ! Therefore did Mr. Surtees swear a little to himself as he sat on the hard chair ; and life, which had been getting drier and drier for weeks past, appeared for the moment so stale and unprofitable that had there been any painless and gentlemanlike method of ridding himself of it at hand, he might have employed it on the spot.

But the innocuous carts went by and he did not ask them to crush him ; there was not enough water in the Serpentine to drown a thirsty cat ; and no friendly policeman would have consented to knock him on the head and put an end to his woes at once. No ; life must be faced, and that black-edged note in his pocket must be answered or obeyed. Habit was strong, and it seemed simpler to obey than to write an evasive reply which would conclude nothing. Of course he would have to go and see her in the end ; it was only decent ; but what, in the name of all that was reasonable, would he find to say ? Who could condole with a woman on losing an unkind husband whom she had not seen for years ? Who could congratulate a woman in widow's weeds on being free at last from bonds of which she had bitterly complained ?

The whole framework of society must be out of joint when this kind of thing could happen. If she had not written him that appealing note he might have hoped to leave a harmless card and get away decently, as he had done three weeks ago when he saw the news in the paper ; but since she had asked him to come — no, there was no way out of it ; go he must, and the sooner it was over the better for both parties. So he rose, gave his trousers the little regula tion pull down at the knees, flipped a speck of dust off his coat, and began to walk at a CHAP. leisurely pace towards the nearest gate which offered the best prospect of a cab. He was a good-looking man, rather small, but with fea tures of beautiful regularity ; the eyes were blue and brilliant with very dark pupils, the nose of that perfect kind which needs no ex planation and fears no change, the mouth arched and small, with a dark golden moustache curl ing away from the corners of the well-cut lips.

The head was covered with close rings of hair, golden too, but beginning to grow a little thin just where a bump, named unkindly that of self-conceit, rose into prominence. A few lines were becoming visible on his cheeks, but his nose was as fine as ever, and women in con fidential moments still told each other that he was " a perfect little darling." When it is added that Mr. Surtees had a smooth throat, a fresh colour, and a well-knit figure, a trifle fuller than it used to be, his portrait should be fairly complete to the discerning eye. He was fond of money and of good dinners, had reached the safe age when dissipation ceases to be attractive for its own sake, and needs to be daintily dressed up to tempt the experienced and dis criminating sinner ; the age when not to be bothered becomes the first law of existence, and amusement can take the second place.

Chapter II

Mrs. Barton lived in South Audley Street, in a very quiet and quite ruinous way ; that is to say, her small house was exquisitely furnished and decorated ; her favourite whim just now was the collecting of original etchings by great masters ; her establishment was brought as near perfection as high wages tempered with des potism could bring it, and her dressmaker lived in Mount Street. When anything belonging to her was admired she would shake her head and say with a sad little smile, " I can afford so few things that what I get must be good, you know." Whereby the more guileless of her friends believed that " poor Lily Barton " had been " paying debts again for that wretched husband of hers ; " whereas the wretched husband made her a generous allowance of about three quarters of his income, and lived abroad on the rest — poor and very lonely.

Well, Ebford Barton was dead now, and Harry Surtees was going to try and condole with his widow. The widow's friend comforted himself with thinking that, at any rate in this first interview, nothing would be so out of place as a demonstration of feeling on his part. A few kind words, a question or two to show his interest in all that touched her, the announcement of his own departure for the first of a round of country visits, then the hope that they would meet somewhere soon, and he could slip away, — for good. Nothing should induce him to set foot on those fatal stairs, to run his head into that softly tinted lion's mouth of a drawing-room, after the regulation limit for silence was past. It would even be worth while to go abroad, to cultivate a weak chest consequent on influenza, and spend a year at Davos Platz, rather than be shot down in cold blood by that middle-aged, tiresome woman.

How queer she was going to look in weeds, and what a comfort that for once he would get away without having had to tell her that her gown was lovely ! But a little surprise awaited him in the small sitting-room to which he was as usual, shown. Mrs. Barton had not thought it fitting or necessary to put on weeds, and she was sitting in her favourite corner, in her favourite black tea-gown, all over ribbons and lace. The blinds were closed, and the room smelt strongly of flowers and scented leathers and White Rose. Lily Barton made occasional mistakes in per fumes. She turned as Harry Surtees advanced, and held out her hand with a bright confiding smile. At once his nicely arranged little speech of sympathy melted away in the back of his head, and he found himself sitting beside her on the sofa in his usual place, as if Ebford Barton had never lived, or died.

She was a pretty woman still, although Surtees had profanely called her middle-aged and tiresome in his own mind. Her hair was of a delicate mouse-colour, with changing lights in it. She had small features, a straight nose, rather a thin mouth, and large grey-green eyes. The lashes and eyebrows were admirably done, a shade or two darker than they had any right to be ; unfortunately, she was a little given to the abuse of powder, but was careful about the rouge still, having only taken to it lately. One must keep something in reserve. " It was like you to come," she said, leaning back and looking at Harry over the top of a black fan. He was reaching out towards a chair on which to put his hat and stick, and did not answer immediately. She went on, " But it was not like you to stay away so long.

Why did you make me write to _ " you r "Well, you see," said the man slowly, having recovered his presence of mind, " I thought, perhaps, you wouldn't care about visits just now, don't you know ? Bad news, (so awfully sorry to hear it ! ) very sudden— people generally would rather be left alone, wouldn't they ? " " Well, perhaps," replied Mrs. Barton ; " only cases differ so much. You see it depends on many things, and on the nature of the bad news. This was a deliverance, of course." " Is not that rather a — a cynical way of looking at it ? " inquired Harry, almost sur prised into taking the dead tyrant's part. Lily glanced at him coldly. " I meant for him," she said ; " there had been long bad health, you know. For me it is different. There is so much more in it than you can possibly understand.

You have never been married, you see." "Oh, of course ; but all the same " and then he stopped, finding himself thinking what he could not say, namely that the news of a poor fellow's having died alone, in a hotel, without a soul to care for him, ought to have been bad news ; and that the woman's failure to look a little sorry about it came under the head of bad form. Mrs. Barton was disappointed. She had heard him inveigh persistently against people who made scenes, and now he was evidently shocked because she had not indulged in one. Inexplicable contrariety of man ! She looked away from him towards the window, while her long white fingers played with the slats of her fan. Harry was wonder ing what to say next, when she turned and spoke with great seriousness. " Much more than you can possibly under stand," she repeated ; " and after all these years, knowing me as you do, it is odd that you should accuse me of being cynical, as you call it, though that is not a word to use to a >» woman.

" I beg your pardon," said Harry ; " it was the first that came to my mind, and, you know — you've always let me talk pretty frankly, haven't you ? " " Yes, I have ; young men will not talk at all now unless they are allowed to say everything," replied Mrs. Barton ; " but that is c CHAP. no reason for telling me that I am a heartless wretch." " I never said you were a heartless wretch," protested Surtees, pleased to be called a young man still. He was too kind hearted to wish to hurt her feelings, and was above all things anxious to avoid a quarrel which would have its result in a peacemaking, and a peacemaking that would rivet his invisible fetters for ever. " I never said you were a heartless wretch. You ought to know by this time what I think of 11 you. " I am afraid I do not care what you think of me, after all," said Mrs. Barton.

" What ever happens, I must be true ; and the truth is that I have suffered so much in past times that I am never very sorry for anything now." " I know you must have no end of trouble from all you used to tell me, and " again he stopped, wishing that she would speak. They were drifting in the wrong direction, but she was silent, and he thought himself obliged to go on. "And, you really do know that I have always been awfully sorry for you. Only, don't you see, it — it gives a fellow a kind of shock ; we always expect women to be so angelic, and forgiving, and all that sort of thing." " I said something quite untrue just now," murmured Lily ; " I said I could not be sorry for anything. That is false ; I should be horribly sorry to lose your good opinion, — Harry." It was not often that she called him by his Christian name, and her using it now seemed a little out of place.

Unluckily he had once, in a sentimental moment, asked her to do so. He thought he had better go now. " Well," he said, rising and reaching for his hat, " I suppose you won't stay in town any longer than you can help. I am off to-morrow, I am thankful to say, — lots of visits, — do the stupid ones first ! " Mrs. Barton did not want him to go yet, so she choked down her anger at his not answer ing her pretty speech, and asked playfully in what direction the " stupid ones " lay. c CHAP. " Oh, right away in the wilds," he said, smiling and relieved to have got the conversation into everyday channels again. " I am going to see some old cousins of mine in Devonshire ; deadly dull, all cream and roses and local boards and penny readings." " Why do you go ? " inquired Lily, raising her eyebrows. " To recruit a bit," he replied ; " my nerves are all over the place, and the dinners this year (except yours) have been simply infamous.

Do you know, I've had people offer me Australian wines, and in smart houses too ! " " One sometimes gets the worst dinners in the smartest houses," said Lily ; " there's no personal interest taken in them." " I suppose that is the reason," he replied, laughing and showing all his white teeth. How much pleasanter it was to talk in their usual way on their usual subjects ! Ebford Barton was buried for ever now. "You don't look very ill," remarked Lily, glancing at him critically, and wishing that she had such a complexion as that ; " but I dare say the country will do you good. What is the name of the place you are going to ? " " Oh, Ryestock, near Ottery. I don't suppose you would know the Marston s ; they hardly ever come to town, — regular rural sort. Well, good-bye." He rose, radiant at having got off so easily.

" Good-bye," she said, and held out her hand. He shook it warmly, but tried to avoid meeting her eyes, which, he felt sure, were looking reproaches at him. Suddenly she withdrew her hand, and, covering her face, burst into tears. Harry hesitated for a few seconds, and then the instinct of self-preservation carried the day ; he turned, ran down stairs, out of the front door, and rattled away as fast as his driver would take him. He did not feel safe until he had found shelter in the familiar fortress of his club. There, at any rate, Mrs. Ebford Barton could not follow him. Her sobs came to a sudden end when she heard the door close. Perhaps the crying was not very genuine ; but she cared, in a rather undignified way, for this man ; and it was a bitter disappointment to her to find that her new freedom, which she had hailed as smoothing away the obstacles between them, seemed like to turn into an obstacle itself.

Harry Surtees was obviously afraid of her. What was the matter ? Until a month ago he had been coming to see her almost every day, had been in the habit of spending hours in this very room, talking of everything under the sun, pouring out apparently his whole heart to her, and offering her daily the exact amount of delicate flattery, trust, and admiration without which she could not live. That was the worst of it. She could not do without it now. He had filled up all the empty spaces in her life for the last three years, and the pleasure she took in his society had led her into neglecting her other friends, both men and women. He was younger than she by a year or two, and that had added a good deal to the charm of their friendship, for on occasions, when A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 23 she knew that she was really looking fresh and pretty, she would give herself little motherly airs with him, which made him feel safe and her vir tuous.

But she knew that she was not young ; she knew bitterly that if he turned from her no other man would seek to fill his place. She had nursed this sensitive plant of the man's regard with self-denying care, believing that the future would make it always more valuable and personal ; and now, when she would have reached out to gather and garner it, its place was empty and she grasped the air. She moved uneasily about the room, frightened and irritated, unwilling to face the fact. She had looked forward with eagerness to this first interview ; she had missed Harry's visits sorely during those weeks of seclusion, and while she was sitting alone and often thinking of him, something had come between them. What was it ? No man could really change in so short a time, she argued, unless some new and potent influence had come into his life.

Had he seen some one whom he was going to like better than poor Lily Barton ? Was her last bit of romance dead ? Had he fallen in love ? A sudden light came to her. Harry had mentioned the Marstons ; and a little while ago some girls, who were staying with a friend of hers, had done the same. They and the Marstons were neighbours in Devonshire, and Cissy Harcourt had said that the Marstons would come up next year for their daughter to be presented, and that she was " awfully pretty," and would have lots of money. Lily had not replied to Harry's supposition that she did not know the " dull old cousins." It was not worth while just then, but, as a matter of fact, she had known them long ago, and finding them unprofitable had dropped them. That was very easy to do, for they hardly ever came to town.

They must be picked up again now, that was all. An hour or two later she wrote the following letter : — Dear Lady Marston, — As it is some years since I had the pleasure of meeting you, I fear it is only too likely that you may have quite forgotten me. It would be more difficult for me to forget you and all the kindness you showed me that winter in Cairo, — the mere remembrance of it gives me courage to ask a great favour of you now. As you will probably have seen by the papers, a heavy sorrow has come to me, and I am anxious to sind some place in the country where I can spend a few months very quietly. Is there any small house in your part of the world where I could take refuge ? If so, it would be so kind of you to tell me of it. I should like it to have pretty grounds if possible, but nothing too big to manage easily ; and it must of course be furnished, so that I could take possession at once.

I really long for a little peace somewhere, and should be so grateful if you would help me, though I am ashamed to give you so much trouble. Here Mrs. Barton hesitated as to whether she should ask about the children, a tiresome couple whom she remembered in Cairo eight years ago, and finally decided not to do so. The girl she knew was alive, but the little boy might be dead, and then Lady Marston would hate her for not knowing it ; so she finished her letter without any reference to the family, and posted it at once.

Chapter III

The answer reached her on the next day but one, and met her wishes most completely. "Lady Marston perfectly remembered dear Mrs. Ebford Barton, had been deeply grieved to hear of her loss, and would do everything possible to help her in finding what she wanted. There were one or two empty houses in the neighbourhood ; would she come and see for herself? Lady Marston and Sir Francis would be delighted to put her up for as long as she liked to stay. Towards the I2th they would be having the house full, but for the next ten days there would be hardly any one stopping with them, and Mrs. Barton could be as quiet as she liked. Their cousin, Mr. Surtees, was coming down for a little while, but she would not mind meeting him ? " chap, iii A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 27 Lily Barton thought that she could resign herself to that, and wrote back a charming letter full of thanks, accepting the invitation, and fixing her coming for Friday, this being Wednesday.

She was so anxious to lose no time about finding her little house. There was less satisfaction at Ryestock when Lady Marston announced at breakfast on Thursday that Mrs. Ebford Barton, in the black halo of new widowhood, was to come and stay for some days. Sir Francis, who had been hospitably cited in the note of invitation, raised his head sharply from where it was sunk between wide-stretched arms in his newspaper, and said : " Mrs. Ebford Barton ! What on earth do you want to have her here for ? " Lady Marston explained. Mrs. Barton was in trouble, wished to find a house, — why, he knew all about it, she had told him yesterday. "You did nothing of the sort," said Sir Francis. " Ugh ! " and down went his head into the newspaper again. "Papa always says one hadn't told him, whatever happens, don't you, Daddy dear ?

It gives you a chance to be so jolly disagreeable." This remark came from Miss Kitty Marston, who was sitting beside her father, and who accompanied the speech by a little rub of her head against the hand nearest to her. Sir Francis said nothing, but pinched her ear and went on reading. Kitty's sayings and doings were al ways accepted on the " favoured nation basis." " How you do cheek the Governor, Kit ! " protested her brother, a large-limbed youngster of fifteen, with a freckled smiling face. "If I began to talk like that, you would stop my pocket-money for a year, wouldn't you, Sir ? " " I would spend it all on a whangee stick to lick you with," growled Sir Francis, looking over the top of The Western Morning News with amusement in his eyes. " I am not sure I won't do it now, you unconscionable cub !