The Fault of One

Front matter

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Chapter I

It was a glorious June afternoon, London was a blaze of sunshine and gorgeous colouring; the air was full of that indescribable essence of life, and the enjoyment of life, that is symbolical of the London season. Ascot was just over, and town was therefore more than usually full. In Piccadilly the block of traffic brought carriages, cabs, carts, and omnibuses to a standstill some times for a quarter of an hour together. To an idle person this delay had its share of amuse ment, no doubt, more especially as the difficulty of locomotion had been made greater by the fact that the road had been taken up in the most crowded part of the thoroughfare, and in con sequence provoked universal comment and grumbling. The top of an omnibus is by no means the worst place in the world to see the life of Loudon streets ; on a sunny afternoon in June it is decidedly pleasant up aloft, for if there be the faintest of faint breezes stirring the air, an " out side" passenger gets the benefit of ::.

On this particular afternoon the wind whispered occasionally through the hot sunshine in a soft fashion, and as the Park was neared it carried the fra grance of innumerable flowers on its wings. On the top of one of the Putney omnibuses a young man sat with his arms folded and his hat tilted a little over his eyes, looking straight ahead down the broad sunlit incline of Piccadilly. He was very, very grave; not even the humour of the 'bus driver, who flung cockney sarcasm gen erously at the local authorities in particular, and his colleagues in general, as his weighty vehicle was brought to anchor almost at every yard, could move George Thurso to a smile. The beauty of the day, the gaiety, the luxury of life that was spread about him, had no attraction for him. When a man has something bitter and sad in his heart, the sunshine is as night to him ; the fragrance, the laughter, the enjoyment of a summer day, something that carries hurt, not pleasure.

He had put himself on the top of this particular 'bus in a fit of deepest depression. It was immaterial to him where he went — what he did. Fortune had ebbed down to its lowest with him. He had faced the fight bravely ; against all sorts of odds he had struggled on, and now, when a final and unexpected blow had fallen, he felt suddenly as if he could struggle on no longer — as if life were for the moment done. He sat alone on the front seat of the omnibus. He gave no attention to others, and the last thought in his troubled mind would have been the idea that some one's attention was drawn to him. Therefore it was with a great start — a start that brought a wave of colour for an in stant into his pale, handsome face — that he felt the 'bus driver's whip touch his arm. " Beg parding, sir," the man said, respectfully, " but there's a lady as has been trying to catch your eye these five minutes past.

Oh ! I ain't made no mistake — look for yourself, sir. She's just alongside of us in that there victoria." George Thurso bent forward, and the next moment he had removed his hat in answer to a bright nod and smile of welcome. Then, as a little grey-gloved hand beckoned to him impera tively to come down, he found himself descending the steps mechanically, and the next moment he was in the road, standing beside the smart carriage with its graceful, delicately-dressed in mate. " Get in," Mrs. Crawshaw commanded, quickly. " You are a day-dreamer, George. Why, I saw you at once, and I have done all I could to attract your attention. Why do you hesitate? Are you busy ? Can't you come with me for a turn in the Park ? It is a century since I saw you. I was only wondering this morning where you were, and why you had forgotten me.

You have not been to pay me a visit for quite a year." " Society and I have parted company, dear Mrs. Crawshaw," the young man said, with a faint smile. He still hesitated to get into the carriage, but, as the traffic was beginning to move on again, and she refused to let him go, he had perforce to obey. Helen Crawshaw was neither a young woman nor an old one. She had seemed young at the distance, but the milliner's art, combined with that enduring perfection which is so characteristic of an English complexion, gave her a youth she had no right to claim. She was charming enough, however, to look at, and when she smiled at George Thurso there was an expression in her eyes that spoke of a heart as well as charm. " I asked Frank about you the other day, but he could give me no news. George, why have you banished yourself so completely from all your old friends ?

Those who loved your mother should surely have had a place in your memory." His face contracted as she spoke of his mother ; his colour had faded away again ; he looked grave, ill, weary. " Does absence mean forgetfulness ? I think not, dear friend," he answered her, then he began speaking more hurriedly. It was like a dream to feel himself in the luxurious carriage, bowling as on feathers down Piccadilly. " I think I went under altogether when my mother died," he said slowly, after a little pause. " You will understand what I mean. . . . Her death came so utterly unexpectedly. You will remember how brave and strong she seemed when our trouble came upon us — no, not even my father's shocking death, nor the ruin that followed, seemed to have had the power to shake her. She was my courage — my strength.

But for her I don't think — nay, I am sure I should never have done all I did do in those days, never have made even a faint effort to retrieve, in some degree, my dead father's honour; but mother carried me through all — till her strength went, and I was left alone. I am not going to depress you by telling you what my life has been since that time." There were tears in Helen Crawshaw's eyes. " But, my dear, dear boy," she said, almost ten derly, "you should not have cut yourself adrift from all of us — from me. Remember I loved your mother. My Frank and you were boy mates together. These things constitute a claim." He just touched her outstretched hand. " When one's own kith and kin disown one, one is apt to be sceptical even of such friendship as yours," he said bitterly, most bitterly. " Ah !'-' Mrs. Crawshaw leaned forward a little eagerly.

" Tell me, George, has Sir Richard Thurso never helped you, never " The young man's face flushed; his voice was not very steady as he answered her : " I did not want help from my uncle. All I wanted was the knowledge that his enmity was ended when my father died." Mrs. Crawshaw looked at him in silence a moment. " He has been against you, then ?" she asked. George Thurso just bent his head. " In every way possible." He paused a moment. " I am his heir, you see. At least, I learn he has no children. He would be glad, I think, if he could hear that I was dead." "Oh, hush!" Mrs. Crawshaw looked most troubled. She felt as though she had suddenly left the radiance of the summer behind. In sympathy she was standing in the gloom of a sorrow too deep for words. She suddenly gave a new order to her footman.

" Tell Myatt to take me home again," she said; then, turning to the young man beside her, she added, " I cannot lose a chance of a long, long chat with you, George, my dear. You are not busy, you see; so you can come home with me and we will have tea, and be cool and cosy in my own pet room." George hesitated only a moment, then yielded. Her interest, her tender womanliness, wooed him out of himself. A thousand happy recollections of his boyhood flashed in his mind as he listened to her voice, and eventually followed her in through the doorway of her splendid house. She seemed to bring back a touch of his mother's beloved living presence. Tired, anxious, troubled as he was, he felt at rest almost when with this gracious, sympathetic woman. She pushed him into a chair and hovered about him, noting with a pang how shabby his clothes were, and how worn and thin his hand some face had grown.

" And this is Grace Thurso's darling child, the boy who had the childhood of a prince," she said to herself as she made him a cup of tea, and insisted on his eating some of the dainty sandwiches that were arranged so prettily on the tea table. She was aghast to realise he was actually hungry. " You will tell me all about yourself, George," she said, in a little while : " I want to know everything — everything, remember." " I can tell my all in a few words," he said, giving her a smile that made his grey eyes beautiful. " I am a disappointment, a failure" — he caught his breath sharply — " a man who cannot earn a penny, try as he will. The world is big — there is plenty of work, and money, and success in it, but not for me, dear friend, not for the son of William Thurso, fraudulent banker and suicide !"

Before she could utter one pained word, he had risen, and standing beside the window, his face averted, had gone on speaking : " To-day when you saw me I had just come from my last situation ; I was discharged this morning. Trade has slackened, there is no work for an extra clerk; they called me an extra clerk, so I am turned off. My uncle," he looked backward an instant, " wrote me, nearly two years ago, that my only chance lay in emigration. I think I begin to see now he was right. I shall leave England at once, and, perhaps, in another country I may find it easy to buy my daily bread. I am alone, thank God ! Were it otherwise, I do not think I could endure my life another hour." Mrs. Crawshaw rose and went to him affec tionately. "You are worn out with trouble, dear George," she said, " and life is bitter to you, whichever way you turn.

I am glad indeed I met you to-day, if only to take away at least one terrible burden from you. Do you really think that people are so cruel as to cast so dark and lasting a stain on your father's memory? Unfortunate poor William Thurso was, but never fraudulent. My husband always declares that had your uncle, your father's brother, chosen to come forward in that hour of need, there never would have been a check to the fortunes of the bank; but Sir Richard refused bluntly, coldly, to do anything, and when the crisis came, it broke your father's heart, and ended as — as — we know. You must let me comfort you, my poor boy," Helen Crawshaw went on, more hurriedly, as she felt him grasp her hands, and bend his head over them, trembling with agitation in every limb as he stood ; " you have lived alone with sorrow so long you see things in distorted form — as they never have been, never will be.

Your ill luck in your employment has been the working of chance, nothing more. Believe me, this is so, for even were your trouble over, your father's memor}- true — there is the task your mother ful filled, the noble sacrifice she and you both made, to remain a monument of honour to you as long as j'ou shall live." She stood beside him as he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. " You will see my husband this evening — he will advise you for the best in every way," she said, softly, after a little pause. Her hand rested in motherly fashion on his head. In such a moment, all the feminine follies and weaknesses of which Helen Crawshaw, in ordinary circumstances, might be capable, were swallowed up in the burst of motherhood she felt for this young, sorrow-laden creature. " Your uncle — you know we are friends with him — it may not be impossible ," she began, hesitatingly, a moment later; but George lifted his head proudly at the words.

" If I were dying of starvation," he said, griml}-, " I would not let my name be carried to my uncle or to his wife." Mrs. Crawshaw interrupted him. " You know Sheila ? You dislike her ?" she asked ; her tone had something eager, half incredulous in it. He got up wearily, his hand pressed to his eyes ; he felt very ill, quite worn out with this last burst of agitation. Suffering with him so rarely had the opportunity to pass into words. " I have never met Lady Thurso," he said, Bpeaking with difficulty, " but she is my uncle's wife; no more is needed;" he leaned a little heavily on a chair. "I— I think I must leave you, clear Mrs. Crawshaw," he said, faintly. " I am ashamed to have fatigued you with my small worries. You have been very, very kind. I — I beg you to forgive me. I must go now.

I " Mrs. Crawshaw was just in time to guide him to a chair. He dropped into it, white, mute, unconscious. She gave a little cry, and went to touch a bell, but before she could reach it the door had opened, and a girl, a tall, slender, sweet-faced girl, entered. She wore something white, something soft and clinging, and had on a white, close-fitting bonnet. There was the air of a child about her, she looked so simple, so young. " I came up unannounced !" she began, half laughingly, but as she saw that silent, pallid face resting quietly in the chair, and Mrs. Crawshaw's hurried ministrations with salts bottle and eau de Cologne, she stopped instantly. " Something has happened ; you are troubled, dear," she said, involuntarily. She put down her sunshade and moved forward quickly. " Let me help you," she whispered.

Mrs. Crawshaw's face had a set look. " Please ring the bell, Sheila ; there is work here, I fear, THE FAULT OF ONE for a doctor." She rose as the other, in a startled, silent way, moved to the bell and rang it ; then she called Lady Thurso back to her in a low voice. "Perhaps there is work here for you also, Sheila," she said. " This is George Thurso, your husband's nephew, the son of the man whom he could, and should, have saved from ruin and death three years ago."

Chapter II

The June day had faded slowly, reluctantly almost, into night — a soft, tender, grey night jewelled with stars, and freshened by a delicious wind from the west. It was a night to woo one out of the house. At the doors and windows, and narrow balconies of hundreds of small Lon don houses, people were gathered to breathe the soft, cool air of night, and dream perchance of country fields or murmuring seas with that un conscious longing for space and nature which the summer always brings. In one of the smallest and most conventional of such London houses, a girl was standing leaning over the balcony, her eyes fixed on the passers-by in the street below with an expression that was half irritation, half nervousness. The twilight had deepened into night since she first went there to watch for some expected arrival.

Inside the room at her back the gas had been lit, and a few odds and ends of people were scattered about, some reading, others playing cards. It was the shabby, well-used drawing-room of a cheap boarding-house, and there was an air of poverty, of struggle, about each one of its inmates. The mistress of the house was a woman pre maturely aged, and with every trace of having been handsome, if not quite beautiful, in her girlhood. She looked careworn and peevish now, as if the burden of life had fretted her be yond all endurance. She was one of the card players, and every now and then she would sigh and glance at the girl's form seen vaguely in the balcony beyond. A second girl was lounging in a chair close to the card table, reading a tossed and soiled-looking book. She lifted her head dreamily as her mother suddenly spoke to her sharply.

" Do, for goodness' sake, go and tell Zillah to come in from that window, Marian; she has been there for this hour or more." Marian rose with a yawn. She was a pretty girl, exceedingly untidyT. She went up to her sister on the balcony. " Mamma says you are to come in. They want you to sing." Marian looked at the other a little curiously as she spoke, " Why, I believe you have been crying!" she exclaimed. Zillah Westlake turned upon her sister half fretfully. "I am not going to sing; lam sick and tired of singing or doing anything in this horrible dirty old hole. I did think for once I was going to escape out of it, if only for an even ing, but even that is taken from me." Marian leaned against the window lazily. " Oh, I forgot," she said, half sneeringly, " this was the night that your grand Mr. Thurso was to take you to the exhibition.

So much for his promises ; and you worked precious hard to get him to make even that promise. I cannot imagine why you trouble yourself about him, Zillah. I call him conceited and stuck up, always living in the clouds, far too grand to mix with us — only living here because he can't afford to go anywhere else." " I know perfectly well what you think of him," Zillah retorted, sharply. " You have never taken any pains to hide your feelings. One would have thought you would have been glad to think we had one gentleman at least in the house." She paused a moment. " If he is stuck up with you, he is not with me," she said then, defiantly. Marian laughed. "You are making a mis take, Zillah," she said ; then, not without good nature, " I know you are dying to get away from this house. You fancy you see an escape through George Thurso.

I advise you to put him out of your head. He is certainly a gentle man, and he is very handsome, but he is a pauper, and moreover, I believe," Marian added, " he will always be what he is — a poor and an unhappy man. He is kind to you because he ia sorry for you. You know you have the trick of making people sorry for you, Zillah. 3Iy life is just as dull and hopeless as yours ; but people never pity me as they do you. Listen, there ia mamma calling again ; do come in." " I am coming," Zillah answered, and she turned and followed her sister into the room, not pausing to seat herself, however, but passing quickly through the doorway and down the nar row stairs in eager haste. Her eyes had caught sight of a tall, familiar figure coming slowly up the street. She hastened to meet it. She was standing in the entrance, a dark, strikingly' handsome young creature, with the gas falling full upon her, as George Thurso mounted the steps, almost weakly.

" You are late," she said to him, plaintively. There were tears in her voice and in her dark, soft eyes. "I — I thought you were coming early this evening." Thurso looked at her half tenderly. He was worn out with his eventful day. He had been too weak to move for a couple of hours after his fainting fit. Mrs. Crawshaw had, in fact, refused to let him move. She had kept him a prisoner till her husband had come home ; and then there had been a long conversation which had left George more weary, yet more hopeful than he had been for many a day. With so much new thought pressing his mind, he had completely forgotten Zillah and his promise to her. His heart smote him suddenly. He had no feeling for the girl save a pitying kindness. He could not but feel sorry for this young, brilliant creature, who seemed made for life and life's pleasures, not for the shabby, sordid, monotonous fate that was hers.

He had been sorry for Zillah ever since she had come home from a cheap suburban boarding-school, and had made one of the usual party in Mrs. West lake's dingy house. He treated her as a child, accepted her pretty attentions as from a child, and had fallen into the habit of breaking his customary sad silence to exchange some words with her. She had no place whatever in his thoughts yet. Each night when he had come home from business he had felt a wave of faint pleasure in the realisation that some one watched for him, some one greeted him. Beyond this his feelings never went. He could hardly have described Zillah Westlake had he been asked to do so. lie was conscious of her beauty in the same way that he realised the beauty of a flower, of the sunshine, of a glorious summer night. It never touched him or appealed to him.

He was only sorry for Zillah as he would have been sorry for any one whose demand for pity was put so cleverly and so constantly before him. Now he was more than sorry — he was hurt. The day before he had been moved — how he hardly knew — into making a promise that he should give Zillah one evening away from the dreary home life. He had had a passing pleasure in acqui escing: when he saw what delight this save the girl, and her tears were a reproach to him now. " Forgive me," he said, most sincerely, and he held out his hand. " Forgive me, Miss Zillah. I am so sorry to have disappointed you, but I have been detained. I could not get here before. I do not know how to tell you how sorry I am." Zillah let her hand rest in his confidingly. " Come into the garden," she said, almost gaily. Now that he was returned she was content.

George went with her to the narrow, smoke grimed plot of grass christened, by courtesy, a garden. Had he yielded to his own feelings he would have gone straight up to his own room to rest and ponder over all that the Crawshaws had said to him. His meeting with his mother's old friend was not merely a pleasure, it was a turning point to him, and from this his fortunes might mend, and mend rapidly. He was in no mood to listen to Zillah's chat ter; but he had disappointed her, and his natural kindness of heart made him put self on one side for a moment. Besides, the future suggested to him by Mr. Crawshaw would take him far away from Zillah and this shabby little London house where he had lived and suffered these past two years. He could afford to spare her one short half-hour now. He had a thrill of some thing like joy as he pictured the pathway that his new duties would open out to him.

The hope that his good, kind friends had poured once more into his heart had given a new touch of beauty to his eyes. Zillah Westlake saw that expression in his eyes, and her poor, selfish, narrow heart took also a thrill of hope from his unconscious hope. She had never seen him wear so bright an air before. "Have you had important business to-day? Has something happened ?" she asked him, eagerly. All that happened to him was indirectly her business also, since she had determined to be his wife, — determined through him to reach that higher, brilliant world which was the proper place for such beauty as hers. She knew he was poor, but she knew more than that, and she set the keenest value on the Thurso name and con nections. "Has something good happened to you, Mr. George ? Oh ! tell me about it," she said, and the witchery of a living sympathy stole to his veins for the first time.

He was nearer to her in this moment than even Zillah was aware. His reticence, his seal of silence slipped from him. He had told her all that had happened that day, pacing slowly up and down the little garden with her hand cling ing to his arm. "And to-morrow I leave for Paris, from thence to make my way to Egypt, to take up the post Mr. Crawshaw has offered me," he said, at the end. There was enthusiasm as well as hope in his voice now. Zillah had listened in silence till these last words came, then self washed itself about her like a mighty flood. Breaking into violent weeping, she cast herself upon his breast, everything forgotten in this mighty unexpected disap pointment. " Oh, you will take me with you. I love you, I love you, George !" she cried, wildly. "You will not leave me here ; I — I shall die if you leave me here.

I am so unhappy !" A whirl of hot emotion blinded George Thurso for an instant; he half staggered as Zillah flung her arms about him, then his senses returned. He tried to put her from him gently, and as he did so he was conscious that another voice was breaking through the sound of Zillah's sobs. It was Zillah's mother who spoke; she stood on the little iron steps a witness to this scene. " Bring her indoors, George," Mrs, Westlake said, hurriedly; then, as neither Thurso nor Zillah moved, she advanced clown the steps towards them. "You should have spoken to toe first," she said, reprovingly, to the young man, " Zillah is so excitable. But there, I for give you," she went on ; " only come in, both of you. This is much too public a place for love making ; and you are wanted indoors." Thurso stood motionless, bewildered beyond all description.

Words gathered themselves hotly together, but when he would have spoken his throat seemed closed. All he was conscious of doing was putting Zillah coldly from him, with all the repugnance of which his nature was capable. Mrs. Westlake put her arm about her daugh ter. " I was coming to find you, George," she said, her tone a mixture of excitement and affa bility. " A messenger has just arrived ; he brings you great news, George. You are wanted at once ; the cab is waiting. Your uncle, Sir Richard Thurso, died suddenly this evening!"

Chapter III

The news of the sudden death of Sir Richard Thurso received prominent attention in most of the leading journals of the day. The dead man had never been popular, but his wealth had given him a place in the political and social world which signified a kind of celebrity. His marriage two years previous to the opening of this story had occasioned much comment, since his aversion to matrimony had almost passed into a tradition ; and, truth to say, although there were many women ready enough to share the power of his wealth, there were very few who were sufficiently brave to face the prospect of domestic life with such a man. There had been such an element of churlishness, a grim, dogged objec tion to the sunshine or gaiety of human nature, stamped indelibly upon Richard Thurso, that despite his money he was a man whom society shunned and disliked — a man who lived utterly apart and alone till he took unto himself a wife.