Chapter I
, disagreements, " Man," she cried out, striking the table violently, and raising her voice to shrillness, " why did you marry me?" Bazil Brockworth, without making reply, lay wearily back in his chair. Dinner was over, and the argument they had sustained in a more or less desultory manner throughout the meal now rose to a climax. His silence, instead of averting her wrath, as he had hoped, served but to increase her passion ; and after a second's pause she repeated her question with additional vehemence. In place of letting his reply take the form of an un complimentary criticism on his mental capacities at the date of his marriage, as many another would have done, he said simply, truthfully, manfully, " Because I loved you." She broke into a forced, bitter, and derisive laugh that made his honest, affectionate nature wince.
" I don't believe it," she exclaimed, something of the virago in her tones, " for if you had ever loved me you would not grudge me the slight amusement which comes B my way, abuse my friends, shut me up in this dull house, cross me in every way you can, until I am almost driven melancholy mad by the dreariness and monotony of my life." " Look here, Hilda," he said, leaning across the table, his voice as calm and controlled as hers had been wild and passionate, "you know what you say is un just. For the first two years of our life together you made no complaint. You told me a thousand times you were perfectly happy, and you never regretted having married me. I have never abused your friends, though I do not approve of them, and am determined you shall break with them ; and instead of shutting you up, I have always striven to give you every amusement and recreation in my power."
" Recreation and amusement," shei repeated, tossing her small fair head back contemptuously, a sneer upon her short upper lip, " that is what you call a drive with you when you can spare the time from your patients ; a holiday once a year spent with your crotchety old uncle, or an occasional heavy dinner with your dull friends." " Who are at least respectable people," he said quietly. " And do you mean to say Mrs. Verney is not respectable ? " Basil Brockworth's wife cried out indignantly, extending one hand with a theatrical gesture. " I have nothing to say against her." " But you insinuate, which is worse. She is the widow of an English general officer ; isn't that good enough for you ? " "I make no insinuations," he responded, patiently, " but I object to my wife associating with the people Mrs. Verney receives at her house."
" Of course I must not speak to a man who is under seventy, or who has the use of his eyes and ears but Disagreements 3 be content with the blind, the deaf, and the gouty, who entertain their doctor with bilious dinners. Ah," she concluded with an expression of self-pity, " what a fool I was to marry you." He raised his heavy dark eyes to her flushed and angry face, and looked at her gravely, reproachfully, sadly, with out making reply. " Yes," she continued with brutal indifference to his feelings, and indignation at his self-command which she was unable to imitate, " I was a fool to have married you. I had my profession, I was ambitious, I was growing popular and I might soon have become a star, made a fortune, travelled as I have always longed to do, and enjoyed myself, if I hadn't had the ill-luck to marry you and spoil my life."
Her cheeks were flushed, her small blue eyes glittered, and her breast heaved with excitement. He waited some seconds before replying, unwilling that his words should further irritate and arouse her, yet determined she should hear what he had to say. " I didn't marry you under false pretences," he began. " When I asked you to leave the stage and become my wife, I told you that as a hard-working man I had little else to offer you except my affection and my protection, and you declared yourself satisfied with the love and the home I gave you. Then — " " I didn't know how soon they would change," she interrupted, evading the point of his argument. " It is you who have changed. Just think how happy we were — " " And how dull." " How happy we were until you made the acquaintance of that woman — " " You mean Mrs. Verney ?
" she said indignantly. "And her set. From that time you began to alter — " B " I began to see what a weary life I had been leading." "You grew restless, dissatisfied with your position, irritable, extravagant ; in every way unlike your former self. All this you must admit, Hilda, and you wiU see there is but one way to cure you and restore you to your better self. From this night you must give up Mrs. Verney and her set." She made an impatient gesture as if she would rise. " I shall allow you to see her once more and to go with her to the theatre to-night, simply and solely that you may have an opportunity of making what excuse you please for ending your acquaintance with her," he remarked. " It's impossible ! " she exclaimed. "It's quite possible that your friendship with her should end as suddenly as it began," he said, in calm, decisive tones.
She looked down at the table, her brows contracting, her full under lip twitching nervously. " You will make yourself ridiculous in the eyes of all Melbourne as a jealous fool ; and worse still, you will make me the laughing-stock of every woman of sense and spirit," she protested, angrily, spitefully. "If you do not take steps to break off your friendship with Mrs. Verney to-night, I will in the morning. I give you fair warning," he answered, as he rose from the table. She likewise stood up, flung aside her chair, and was about to rush from the room, when a servant entered to say Mrs. Verney was waiting in her carriage at the door. " My cloak," impatiently demanded Mrs. Bazil Brock worth, who was in evening dress. Tall and slight, her figure graceful, her fair complexion heightened and her blue eyes made brilliant by excite ment, the irregularity of her features and the narrowness Disagreements 5 of her forehead were forgotten in her general appearance, which was at once piquant and attractive.
Refusing to see the arm her husband offered her, she gathered up her skirts and hurried!}7 took her way through the narrow hall to the carriage, he walking behind. In a second she was seated beside her friend, he standing on the pavement. " How d' you do, doctor ? " a low, mellifluous voice said, and by the light streaming from the hall he could see, bending towards him from out a cloud of lace amidst which manjdiamonds sparkled, a smiling face, whose complexion was brdliant, whose large, well-shaped nose was heavily coated with powder, whose hair, the colour of a canary's wing, contrasted with her dark, delicately shaped eyebrows. " Quite well, thanks," he replied icily. " So glad," the sweet low voice said, its last tones melting into soft and gentle laughter. " Hilda," he said, leaning forward, " I wdl call for you at Mrs. Verney 's box at eleven."
His wife made no reply ; and almost suffocated by the strong perfume of cherry blossom which pervaded the carriage, he withdrew his head. The horses started at a sharp trot, and in another moment the carriage had turned the corner. Entering the house, the doctor went to his study, closed the door, and sat down to think. That he had made a mistake in the selection of his helpmate had for some time been plain to him, though no word or sign of his had betrayed his conviction. Nor did the fact that she had been a burlesque actress in any way influence this decision ; only with time it became evident she was wholly devoid of those qualities of companionship which, superseding love, convert it into friendship. Her pleasing appearance, vivacity and piquancy had fascinated him, and closing his eyes to her absorbing vanity, vacuity of mind, lack of education and occasional vulgarity, he had impetuously wooed and won her for his wife, believing she would always remain to him as he first had seen her — the pretty, winsome, happy-hearted girl who had confessed he had won her heart.
And for upwards of two years no serious break had come between them. For her tactlessness, which had jarred upon his sensitiveness, her errors of taste, ignorance of conventionalities and outrages on refinement he had no reproach, regarding them as the result of the upbringing of which she had always been unwdling to speak, but striving to correct them by suggestion and example, of which she was quick to avail herself. Proud of her new state as mistress of a home and wife of a professional man, she had been content and happy, and might have remained so much longer had not accident brought her into contact with a woman who from the first exercised an evil influence over her. Mrs. Verney, a well-known figure in Melbourne society, declared her self the widow of a general officer, whose father was a baronet ; statements which all but her intimate friends were too polite to contradict.
Whilst maintaining her claims to respectability she received as her guests a mingled company whose reputations were not invariably free from damage, and established a circle largely Bohemian and always brilliant. To surround herself with youth and beauty was the great desire of her life, for she imagined she could maintain her reputation for the possession of qualities which had once been hers by associating with those to whom such favours be longed. And having met the doctors's wife, whose vivacity and prettiness pleased her, Hilda was quickly introduced to a circle largely recruited from upper Bohemia, which as a fifth-rate burlesque actress it had not been her fate to Disagreements 7 enter before. Added to the showy talents and free dom of manners of those with whom the doctor's wife had associated previous to her marriage, Mrs. Verney's set likewise possessed a veneer of refinement and a savouring of fashion which helped to fascinate the ex burlesque actress.
The garish, noisy vivacity of this side of society, which outwardly kept within the bounds of decorum, dazzled her. Here, she thought, is life. That craving for excitement and pleasure which she had believed herself to have outlived, suddenly revived, and by contrast with Mrs. Verney's circle, she recognized and rebelled against the sober dulness of her home. The result was that she spent as little time as possible under her own roof and in her husband's company ; all her pleasures centred in Mrs. Verney's drawing-room, or jn those of that lady's friends, who welcomed Hilda into their midst ; until soon she became a personage without whom no party was complete. Her beauty, her dancing, her voice, had never received such open adulation. A sympathetic septuagenarian admirer, whose constitution and character were much injured, revealed to her by a sigh and a hint the sacrifice she had made in marrying, the brilliant future which might have stretched before her.
Ey degrees she became discontented, irritable, rebellious, and at the same time voraciously eager for excitement, admiration, and pleasure. To keep pace with her friends she rushed into extravagances, and had latterly contracted debts unknown to her husband. And Bazil Brockworth, working hard for small pay amongst the poorest and most miserable class in the city, had no time to share his wife's visits to her new friends, of whom he knew little or nothing. At first he felt glad that her life, which he frequently had feared was dull in his absence, was relieved of its monotony, and that she was receiving the social attentions which he felt were due to her talents. But her constant absence from home, day after day, and evening after evening, soon disturbed him, and her changed manner, loss of affection, and avowed weariness alarmed and distressed him.
Thinking and hoping these were but signs of a passing phase, he forbore to place restrictions on her actions, or hinder her pleasures, until an old friend dropped some hints into his ears regarding the dubious character of his wife's closest friend, and of those who frequented her house. Aroused and determined, Bazil Brockworth had therefore, during dinner on the evening when this story opens, assured his wife in gentle but firm words that she must renounce Mrs. Verney and her set. In vain Hilda had protested, complained, and rebelled ; with infinite patience and self-control he maintained his decision. By an agreement of long standing Mrs. Verney was that evening to call for his wife, and take her to the theatre, and this he decided not to interfere with, chiefly, as he explained to Hilda, that she might have an oppor tunity of making known his wishes to her friend.
He sat in the little study, with its shabby furniture, shaded lamp, shelves of medical books, surgical instru ments and specimens of anatomy, dwelling on the interview just ended with his wife, realizing now more clearly than before the alteration in her character, the gulf which parted them, and wondering if the future would bring them together again, if they would ever be as they had been. With characteristic manfulness and chivalry he took the blame for what had happened on himself. He was at fault in not having made inquiries regarding the frivolous, foolish, venal set in which his wife had passed so much of her time, and in having indulgently permitted her to absent herself so frequently from home. But that was now to end, and his endeavour Disagreements 9 should be to win her back with kindness and gentleness, to make her realize the emptiness, heartlessness, and danger of a life of continual pleasure and excitement ; the value of unswerving honest affection ; the safety, peace, and happiness of home.
As the clock struck nine he hurriedly rose to visit some patients who especially interested him : a little con sumptive child who invariably hailed him with delight ; a young husband stricken with paralysis ; the mother of a family dying of cancer. And thinking of these, he dismissed from his mind his own cares and concerns, for being a man of wide sympathies, unselfishness, and deep feeling, his heart went out to the suffering, in whose interests his life was spent.
Chapter II
bereavement. It was past ten when Bazil Brockworth returned. Letting himself in with his latch-key he went straight to the study, where the greater part of his time had latterly been spent. The house was as silent as if deserted ; a feeble flicker of gas half revealed and half concealed the principal features of the dingy room ; an unusual sense of depression stole upon him. Turning up the light his eyes fell upon an official looking blue envelope addressed to him, which had arrived during his absence. Fearing it might be a bill, or thinking it might prove a prospectus, he unfolded the letter and read its contents, re-read them thoughtfully and gravely, then sank into a chair, whilst he dwelt upon and strove to realize the news imparted to him. His uncle had died suddenly, leaving behind him enormous wealth, every penny of which was bequeathed to Bazil Brockworth.
The doctor knew the old man was rich, but that he had accumulated half the sum mentioned in this letter Bazil had never suspected. Nor had he ever accounted himself his uncle's heir, believing that the greater part, if not all, that his kinsman possessed would be left to his late wife's niece, who for many years had kept house for him. Bazil Brockworth was therefore what he had never dreamt of being or desired to be, a rich man. His life was Bereavement 11 now his own to shape, unhampered by necessity for work. His first thought was for the dead, for the kindly, cheerful old man he would see no more ; his second was for the immense relief his wealth would bring the suffering poor amidst whom he had worked for years and whose claims upon his sympathies had bound them to his heart ; his third thought was for his wife.
His riches had come at an opportune moment, enabling him to compensate her for the sacrifice he was compelling her to make in obedience to his wishes. She need no longer complain of the dull home, the economy he was obliged to enforce, the monotony of days spent apart from Mrs. Verney and her friends. He would take Hilda abroad ; this and every other reasonable desire of hers should be gratified ; travel would ripen and cultivate her mind ; a wider view of the world would make her acquainted with dangers of which she was now ignorant ; they would be drawn together again ; begin life once more, wiser for what had happened, more tolerant, more companionable, and with fuller friendship and deeper affection for each other. He joyously pictured to himself the surprise and satisfaction with which she would hear of his good fortune ; how her discontent would disappear, her face brighten.
He would not tell her until they were safe at home, were face to face, when they would agree to ignore the past and lay plans for their future. He looked at his watch ; it was almost time for him to call for her at the theatre. As he rose from the chair a heavy, dull, deafening sound suddenly fell upon his ears, making the ground tremble and the windows shake. He held his breath whilst, alert, fearful, and wondering, he waited for a repetition of the sound ; but only profound silence followed. He could not imagine what had caused the report, but concluded it was the discharge of a cannon in the docks or on board some frigate in the harbour. Immediately after, on opening the door of his study, he caught the sounds of footsteps rushing down the street ; they had not died away before they were followed by others ; a dozen people at least must be hurrying forward.
As he paused to listen he could hear voices shouting to each other words and snatches of sentences in tones of alarm, whilst he was unable to gather what was said. Hastening to the front door, in another second he stood on the flags outside. " What's the matter ? " he asked of the first man who passed. " Fire somewhere," came the answer shouted over one shoulder. At that instant a fire engine tore past the bottom of the street, the firemen shouting vigorously. Bazil Brockworth put on his hat, closed the door, and joined the crowd, thinking he would see the fire on his way to the theatre. Reaching the thoroughfare at right angles with his own, he saw scores of people making for the same direction. The impulse which directed others seized upon him, and he broke into a run. A long line of policemen were quickly tramping in single file through the centre of the street ; a second and a third fire engine rushed furiously through a neighbouring thoroughfare ; the pale excited faces of women and children roused from sleep looked down from various windows ; he began to get the smell of burnt wood, and to hear distant, confused noises ; the throng increased in numbers as he pressed forward ; a sense of alarm was in the air.
" When I heard it, I said to myself there's been a big explosion somewhere," a working man was saying to his friend as Bazil Brockworth overtook them. " Where has it happened ? " he asked. " At the Queen's Theatre," replied the first speaker. Bereavement 13 " My God ! " exclaimed the doctor. "Is there someone there belonging to you ? " the man inquired. Without answering, Bazd Brockworth dashed wddly forward, pushing those who stood in his way to right and left, outstripping all others, until, wild and breathless, he gained a street leading directly into that where the theatre stood. Here the crowd was so densely packed that passage through it seemed impossible ; but with desperate energy and physical force, he pushed and gained his way inch by inch, agonized by suspense, stricken by terror, until he reached the limit of the throng and encountered a strong cordon of police who stood solid and immovable, keeping the people from nearer approach to the fire.
Through them he likewise sought to burst his way, but was thrust roughly back again and again. " Let me pass," he shouted, enraged by his failure and determined to succeed, " let me pass. My wife is there." " No one can pass this way, sir," answered one of the force, an Irishman, who seeing his look of wild despair, pitied him. " But I tell you I must," Bazd Brockworth shouted. " 1 must obey me orders. And maybe your wife is not there at all ; she may have got away safe enough." " Where are those who have escaped ? " he demanded, grasping at the hope this idea conveyed. Before reply could be made a sudden surge from the crowd behind forced the policemen momentarily out of line, and by the time they regained their position the doctor had been shifted a considerable distance from where he formerly had stood.
" Some have escaped, some have escaped," he said by way of reassuring himself, quite unconscious that he spoke aloud. " Ay, but scores haven't," answered, in an indifferent tone, a man beside him. The doctor, with dumb agony in his eyes, looked at the speaker. " The explosion must have killed numbers on the spot,'' the man continued, unconscious of the pain his words were giving. "Those near the stage where it took place, must have been kiUed at once, and in trying to get out, others were trampled to death. It's a bad business altogether." These words kdled Bazil Brockworth's short-lived hopes ; Mrs. Verney, he knew, had taken a box for the evening, and the boxes were close to the stage. With the fury of despair he strove again to break through the cordon of police at various points, but without success.
Then facing the crowd, he tore his way through its ranks with the intention of approaching the theatre from another thoroughfare, and in the hope of hearing some news of those who had escaped. After half an hour's exertion he gained the outskirts of the throng, his coat half torn from his back, his body bathed in perspiration, his mind bewildered. Hurrying down one street, he turned into another and broader, which directly faced the theatre. The mass here was more dense than it had been in the thoroughfare he had left, and seemed, if possible, in a greater state of excite ment owing to the terrible sight here obtainable. Bravely and determinedly he made his way with increas ing difficulty, until suddenly he felt unable to advance further, or move from the spot where he was wedged as in a vice.
And moreover the scene before him held him motion less and terror-stricken. The flames had not yet gained complete mastery of the building or reached the outward walls ; and he could see firemen mount the high ladders Bereavement 15 placed in front, and hurriedly pass the windows, their dark figures thrown into relief by the red glow from within. Interspersed with occasional showers of sparks, clouds of smoke rolled upwards, through which the pale stars might be seen, serene in the pitiless sky_ Streams of water from innumerable hydrants were poured into the building and on the adjoining houses. A south east wind was driving the fire from rear to front. The excited voices of those around were as the roar of the sea ; and above the din was heard the regular sound of manuals and hydrants, the puffing of the engines, and the occasional wading cry of some stricken woman.
Suddenly he noticed a hurried movement on the part of the firemen in front of the budding. Rapidly and daringly, like those who fled for their lives, he saw them cross the windows, and slide down the ladders. Whistles sounded wddly, furiously ; a warning shout went up, the crowd was forced backward, and a second later came a fearful crashing sound as the roof fell in, when a shudder went through the vast throng as they thought of the bodies living or dead which were yet within that fiery furnace. A moment afterwards, and the flames, with a triumphant roar, burst through the windows, and above the massive coping, until the theatre looked like a vast volcano ; myriads of sparks shot upwards, the sky was filled with an angry red light, the fiercely hot air resound ing with the crackling of timber and the fur}7 of flames, and smelling of charred wood, escaped gas, and a yet keener, insupportable odour, whose suggestion made the heart grow sick.
Half dazed, unable to escape, tortured by suspense and stricken with terror, Bazil Brockworth watched the fire rage and blaze, defying all efforts to quench its flame and conquer its strength, until having devoured ah within reach, it gradually and slowly, with now and then a fresh outburst of violence, began to subside. The fierce red of the sky faded to fainter hues ; a poor pale pink light crept timidly up the eastern horizon, and the dawn with a cold shudder saw the night's fell work. Then the grey-faced crowds began to move and disperse in melancholy groups, and the doctor was enabled to escape. Coming to the corner of the street, he stood bewildered and undecided as to where he should turn. If his wife had made her escape she would now be found at home or in Mrs. Verney's house ; if she were injured she would have been taken to the nearest hospital ; but if indeed the worst had happened, he must seek her body amidst the charred ruins or on the slabs of the mortuary.
With some faint hope stdl fluttering in his heart, with hurrying steps he sought his home. CHAPTER HI. searching. On reaching his home, with its grey front, drawn blinds, and air of baselessness, it seemed already to wear an air of desolation. One glance at the scared-looking maid who opened the door was enough to teU Bazd Brockworth what he sought to know ; yet, mechanically he put the question : " Has your mistress come back ? " " No, sh," the girl answered, fixing her eyes on him in a wdd stare, and anticipating a tragedy that was not without an enjoyable element of sensation. " Perhaps," he faltered, " perhaps she is at Mrs. Verney's," and quitting the hall, he set forward on his search, not daring to imagine how it would end. Before reaching Mrs. Verney's house he saw a couple of her servants standing on the steps talking to a dark military-looking man, who was hurriedly making inquiries of them.
He turned away whdst Bazd Brockworth was stdl approaching, but the domestics remained, gossiping amongst themselves and the servants of the adjoining house, theh accustomed demureness absent, a certain air of importance in theh manner, their appearance dis hevelled. They regarded him with an interest he had never before possessed in theh eyes ; one vieing with the other in their eagerness to give the information which caused c him to consider the worst had happened. Neither Mrs. Brockworth nor their mistress had returned, nor had any message been received from the latter ; several friends had already called to inquire. Without waiting to hear the surmises they were willing to express, he moved away, hurrying towards the hospital nearest the scene of the accident, to where he supposed the injured would be conveyed.
Early as it was, the streets were full of people, though the vivacity generally associated with crowds was missing, and an air of constraint, awe, and melancholy was every where recognizable. Men and woman, wild-eyed and pale-faced, tore past in their eager search for the living or the dead : scarce a famdy that had not some member, relative, or friend to seek for or to mourn. Now and then the doctor caught sound of a sharp, bitter, rebellious cry from some bereaved woman. At the corner of a street he encountered a couple of men carrying a rigid burden outlined under its cover ing ; further on a young girl, to whom certainty of her lover's death had just been revealed, was laughing hysterically, her eyes terrible with the tragedy of a broken heart. The sun had risen on a city of gloom. In the wide, cheerless, flag-paved hall of the hospital a crowd of distracted people had gathered, each impatient to hear if those they sought had been brought within its walls.
So far as could be ascertained the names of the sufferers admitted had been taken down, and a couple of officials were answering as best they could the ceaseless tremulous and eager questionings of those around them. Some women, without covering on head or shoulders, their hair unbrushed, their cheeks tear-stained, turned away with joyous faces and words of gratitude, because those they loved were yet amongst the living ; others, fear-haunted and desperate, refused to believe Searching 19 that relative or friend was not included in the number, who, unable to give their names, had not yet been identified ; hope dying hard in anxious souls. Bazil Brockworth being quickly recognized by one of the doctors in connection with the hospital, the sheets of names were promptly searched for that which with des perate longing he trusted to see there ; but it was not to be found.
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