Too Fair to go free. A novel

Front matter

TOO FAIR TO GO FREE. % label. BT HENEY KAY WILLOUGHBY. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. Srmbon : SAMUEL TINSLEY, 10, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 1876. [ All rights reserved.^ TO S. A. R. AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM. CONTENTS TO VOL. I. CHAPTER PAGE I. MAUD FIELDING 1 II. KATE FIELDING 15 III. LIFE AS IT IS 26 IV. THE RAILWAY ACCIDENT . . . .38 V. ARTHUR WILLYAMS 60 VI. SEPARATION 68 VII. A PHILOSOPHER 85 VIII. AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING AND ITS RESULT . 93 IX. CHRISTIAN CHARITY 112 X. WARNING 124 XI. THE SERMON 134 XII. THE ANTIDOTE 144 XIII. A SUMMARY PROCEEDING .... 152 XIV. TEMPTATION 162 XV. HESITATION 172 XVI. CONSUMMATION CONTENTS. IV CHAPTER PAGE XVII. A CHARMING COMPANION . . . . 198 XVIII. A MISOGYNIST . . . . - 205 XIX. A RUDE ATTACK 219 XX. A STOLEN KISS , . . . . . 234 XXI. A SICK BED 244 XXII. GAUDIA FALSA 252 XXIII. A FORGOTTEN HYMN 262 XXIV. EXPLANATION . . . . . . 269 XXV. THE TWO SISTERS

Chapter I. Maud Fielding

Reader, if you will accompany me, we will, by the power which all authors possess, and many use with boundless prodigality, step into the sitting-room of a small house, in one not of the most aristocratic streets of a small town in the north of England, by name Stanton. It is twilight and the shadows are rapidly gathering, but the girl, the only occupant of the room, still remains absorbed in the book she is reading, still strains her eyes over the fascinating pages of her novel. While she is thus engaged, and het face hidden from us, let us look round the room and try to guess from the sur roundings the character of the inmate. There are no signs of wealth, not even of easy circumstances in the furniture of the room ; none of those superfluous articles scattered about, which evidence the possession of means : the ornaments on the chimney piece are evidently permanent fixtures, and household gods ; the frames of the pictures on the walls have all \ VOL. I. the same dim tarnished appearance, that betokens equality of age and standing; the books in the book case to the right of the fire-place are all well-thumbed familiar friends, not bright-coloured volumes, the toy of a moment, to be glanced at and then thrown aside to make way for the latest novelty.

Altogether a cursory glance would give the impression of a fixed income and that not a large one, of a bare sufficiency without luxury. And now let us turn from the room to its occupant. As yet one cannot see her full face, intent as it is on the book she is reading. If we spoke it is doubtful whether she would hear us ; her world is at present centred in the world that the novelist has created. She is seated on a low stool, with her book turned so that the blaze from the fire may illumine the page. It is too early for gas in their economical household, but she cannot drop the story yet. Her dress is in keep ing with the room, plain and inexpensive. It is not until, her eyes refusing to be wearied any longer, she throws down the book with a look half of disdain, and half of regret, and so presents her face to your gaze, that you perceive the vast incongruity between the room and its occupant.

Almost instinctively you look around for the low velvet easy chair, for the silks and furs, for the toy dog, for the flowers which ought to breathe a glad perfume to such a divinity, for the different articles of luxury which ought to possess such a 'queenly creature for their owner. For she is indeed divinely beautiful. Hair, in the abundant luxuriance of which one would fain enfold the hand, eyes in whose liquid depths one would fain read the language of love, a mouth that you MAUD FIELDING. can fancy so bewitchingly curling up for a kiss, an ex quisitely moulded shell-like ear, into which one would fain pour the passionate language of love and adoration, She is about twenty-two years of age. A hot-house plant to be reared with, and worthy of, the greatest care, to be treated and petted, and caressed, and fondled, and shielded from every rude wind, to be indulged in every caprice, to be surrounded with every luxury.

Surely this will be her fate; surely, if one could look into the glass of the future, one would expect to see her the bride of a happy proud husband, the centre of a smiling home with blooming children, fair blossoms of herself around her; surely that other picture cannot be true, of hot scalding tears, bitter groans, a look of agony, and loathing of life I Yet who shall say what is awaiting that young life, what the future will bring to her ? She cannot pierce it, it is hidden in gloom. Beauty is not a passport through all the troubles of life, — nay, rather it is often the letter of introduction to them. Suffering has as often been enamoured of beauty as man has been. But her life has been prosaic enough hitherto. She is the daughter of a minister of a dissenting chapel. Her father is the Rev. Charles Fielding.

His life has not been what at the commencement he might have expected. He is a disappointed man. Till eighteen years of age, he had lived surrounded with every com fort and luxury, and with the prospect of succeeding to a large property. But reverses had overtaken his father. A time of panic and failure had arrived, and thrown its dark cloud over many families, and his among the number. And he who had every prospect of affluence was now obliged to earn his daily bread. His father suc cumbed to the blow, sat all day long, dejected and crushed into a state of semi-idiocy, and could offer no counsel to his son at the most important juncture of his life, and he, impelled by the necessity of toiling for his subsistence, at length accepted a situation in a school as assistant master, that blind-alley among the professions of life that leads nowhere.

Do you know what that life may be, how shut out from intercourse with almost all mankind, and quite all womankind, unless surreptitious and dangerous ? What parent seeks to know anything about the man to whose care his son is entrusted ? He knows something about the head master perhaps, but of the man on whom may depend to a great extent the whole future of his son, he hardly knows the name, and if he does, it is nothing but a name. Do you know, fair reader, how secluded a man may be, even in this busy merry England ? Most men of the middle classes go to a town without any letters of introduction, leaving to chance what acquaintances and friends they may pick up, and if such a man is of a retiring disposition, if he frequents not the haunts of pleasure, if he spends his time with the past rather than with the present, with the dead rather than with the living, he may pass his life in a seclusion from the outside world almost equal to that of the grave.

And yet such a man may possess the keenest sensibility. His soul may throb for human, especially for womanly sympathy ; to him it may seem Paradise to watch the varying landscape of a woman's face, to see the musical motion of her walk, to evoke her laughter and smiles p 5 MAUD FIELDING. and merriment, to be anything more to her than merely a mute moving shadowy being. But he will be perpetually seeing others drink a deep draught of that pleasure which he so much craves. In the streets, in the homes he daily passes, in the theatre he sees this familiar intercourse between man and woman. To him it seems that such intercourse, were it his, would be the fruition and completion of his happiness, but it is not for him; he sees others basking in the light of their presence, laughing, smiling, whispering, but to him it is impossible; he envies it at first, but at last he begins to conclude that it is not for him : a something as invisible as air, as impregnable as brass, seems to him to bar him from it ; he is powerless to overleap the barrier — as powerless as the netted lion to leap into the sheep-fold.

The inevitable consequence of this seclusion is that he exalts woman into a divinity which he worships, and indeed the object of his fondness and veneration is an abstraction, — not poor feeble sinning woman, but the pure stainless creation of his own fancy. And another consequence as inevitable is this, that the first woman whose acquaintance he forms is invested by him with all the attributes of the ideal woman — the fashioning of his own brain ; and if the delusion lasts long enough, he marries her, possessing, as he fondly thinks, every virtue and grace. And though the dis illusion may come at last, and he may have to mutilate the statue of his mind's carving before he recognize in it any likeness to the reality, yet he will alway-s believe in his heart's core, that the dream of his imagining is a reality : the idol of his dream is never utterly destroyed, unless indeed some mighty act of faithlessness shatter it into a thousand pieces, and then in place of his dream he invests woman witn all the attributes of a fiend.

In such a retirement had our tutor lived. When his work in the school-room was over, a long ramble in the country, or the reading-room, or his books in his own study occupied his attention. Did he study woman, it was the heroine of antiquity — the ill-fated Polyxena, the hapless Antigone, the unfortunate Iphegenia, — and these strengthened his admiration, increased his love. But living, moving, breathing woman was a closed page for him. He was beginning almost to deny himself the right to expect any such pleasure, when a single event changed the whole current of his life. He became tutor to the sons of a gentleman, of noble family but in im poverished circumstances, and a resident in the family, which consisted of father, mother, and three children — two sons and a daughter. The father had succeeded to a diminished inheritance.

The vices of his ancestors, who had gambled and drunk away many a fine acre, made their effects felt on him, their descendant. Yet he never blamed them ; they had upheld the honour of the family ; they had shed their blood for their king, and he was as proud of their numerous vices as of their few virtues. Not a tittle had been diminished from the family pride. The same haughtiness that his ancestors, old feudal barons, evinced to their vassals, he, their almost bankrupt descendant, extended to the whole world. His wife he treated with cold respect; she was his wife, and that alone, in his opinion, raised her above every other woman. MAUD FIELDING. 7 But the very fact that he had made her his wife was in his opinion sufficient distinction for any woman. His sons were his sons : the elder must be treated with the respect due to the heir apparent of his estates, and these, in his eyes, were bounded by their former not by their present limits ; the younger must win his way in the world as he could.

But all the love in his nature the father lavished on his daughter. Niggardly to all others in his love, towards her he was prodigally spendthrift. She was petted and caressed by him. While to others his brow was black and lowering, at sight of her he forgot his anger and smiled. Whilst others durst not approach him, not even his wife, the daughter came to the caged lion and found him gentle as a lamb. And, indeed, who could help loving such a darling winsome thing, so gentle and so quiet, and withal so beautiful — who never crossed his will, nor pestered him with bills, nor caused him the slightest annoyance — who followed him like a pet lamb ? Nay, the man would have be lieved in his own surliness and ill-temper, so much did others fear him, had it not been for this little one. When the tutor entered the family she was fifteen vears of age, giving promise of a glorious womanhood, ripening and swelling into the perfection of the beauty of woman.

She had hitherto had a governess, and her brothers had been at school ; but now they were to be taught at home till ready for college, and she was enjoying her holiday-s, roaming about the house and grounds, reading the paper to her father, or playing chess with him in the evening. And then by degrees the girl began to come into the school-room, at first timidly and furtively. She would stand in some corner and pretend to be looking for some book, but all the while listening with all her .ears. Then one of her brothers would pounce upon her, and in punishment for entering the room during their study (though of course she had knocked, she said, but they had been so busy, or both talking, rude boys, at the same time, so that they had not heard her, and the door had not been properly fastened and she had crept in) would condemn her to stand near him — his arm round her waist as security for her presence during the rest of the lesson.

And well worthy her attention was what she heard, for the tutor had both thought and read much ; and while busy with some Greek play, and he translated some fine passage, she would ask for the whole story, and he would narrate the salient points and knit them into a graceful story. And by degrees it became a regular custom for the girl to come and join her brothers in the lessons suitable for her. The mother, indeed, objected at first, and even hinted to the father that it might not be wise to brino a tutor, who was after all only young (he was twenty four), into such constant intercourse with a young sus ceptible girl. But the arrangement suited the father, who wished to have his daughter always with him, and would not hear of her being sent away to school, and who in his almost 'brutality of mind would not for an instant admit the thought that the tutor (a beggar in his eyes) would dare presume to the love and affection of his daughter.

And so she became a regular attendant in the class-room, and would, when MAUD FIELDING. the weather was fine, accompany her brothers ; and of course the tutor was with them in their long walks and rides. A strange influence had the presence of the young girl on the man. He who had never known what it was to associate with any of her sex, now thrown into continual friendly intercourse with so young and beautiful a girl. As he stooped over her shoulder in examining what she had written, as he felt her warm breath on his cheek, as he saw her face flush with anger, pity, or indignation at the subject of her study, as she behaved towards him with a mingled feeling of reverence and tenderness, he felt a strange pulsation in his nerves, a strange bounding in his heart. Was he falling in love with his pupil ?

Oh no ! surely not. She was the dearest darling girl in the world — he was O O very fond of her. What a splendid wife she would make some one. But for him to think of her, it was madness, frenzy, lunacy. Yet still the tide gained ground surely and irre sistibly. Now this thought devoured all others — How he loved her ! His days were spent in a delirium of delight ; her presence lightened every toil ; he never wearied of talking, if she were listening. The hours of teaching that once dragged so slowly, now flew like lio-htning. As he read of this or that heroine in the ■O O Creek tragedians, or in Shakspeare's plays, one like ness came between him and the page, one form was always conjured up. What other shape could any thing that was beautiful assume but hers? But did she love him ? How often had he discussed that question in the silence of his chamber, pacing up and down with thoughtful brow and hot cheek.

What thousands of conflicting emotions had it not cost him ! She love him? She so beautiful, so fair, mistress of every grace, the embodiment and outward shape of poetry, love him, a poor tutor whose hair was already turning grey from study, who possessed nothing whereby to win her love. And yet, had he not taught her ? Did she not respect him? And might not this respect ripen into love? No, no, no ; a thousand times no. Love was not so base-born as that. His love for her was like the rush of many waters — a soul-absorbing passion, which he could neither control nor direct ; and her love for him, if it were ever to exist, must be a love worthy of his love as a mate. The eagle mates with the eagle and not with the dove. And then what would her father say? — with whom a tutor held the same rank he did with our ancestors a hundred years ago — a tutor who came with testimonials, who had no ancestry, no friends, no con nections at all, whose salary was only that of a coach man, if as good, to aspire to the hand of his daughter.

He could fancy the scene that would ensue, if ever he was so mad as to make a declaration of his love — the torrent of reproaches and epithets that would be hurled at him — the passion that would whiten her father's face — his summary expulsion from the house, with doubtless his box carried into and left in the road by the servants. No ! he must sternly curb his passion, steel his breast against it ; look upon the girl as a statue — living, moving, breathing indeed, but to him nothing but a statue. MAUD FIELDING. And then again his love gained the mastery, for what so omnipotent as love ? Was he not a man ? Was not the world open before him ? Could he not win wealth and fame and a name, and render himself worthy of her? Yes, he would restrain his passion, but it should burn within him and become the motive pow-er that should urge him on to work and strenuous exertion.

To receive the meed of honour from the fair hand of some queen had stimulated many a man to valour on the field of chivalry ; much more should the hope of winning her hand spur him on to industry and toil. Were there not dark rumours flying about that her father's affairs were getting more inextricably into confusion : that he had recently suffered heavy losses in mines ; and that his creditors were daily becoming more threatening. He almost prayed that it might be so in his selfishness, and that he might be able to rescue her from poverty and shield her in his strong loving arms from the cold charity of the world. The gods heard and answered that prayer. When the tutor had lived in the family three years, the father died suddenly : the creditors pounced upon the estate with merciless rapacity ; it was found that nothing could be rescued from their clutches.

The brothers were obliged to relinquish the design of going to Oxford, and went abroad. The mother and daughter would have to go and live in dingy lodgings. God alone knows 'how they will support themselves. No friends came forward to aid and counsel them. Then the tutor pleaded his cause, and found that his love was returned ; the mother, with whom the tutor was a favourite, gave her consent. How supremely happy the young man felt as he for the first time imprinted a kiss on the lips of his fair pupil, and called her his own sweet darling. What a tale he told of his many hopes and fears, of his resolves and determinations. They were married, but life was a hard struggle, and after vainly endeavouring to obtain a livelihood as tutor, he became the minister of a small dissenting chapel. But his wife gradually drooped and died.

He lived only for her, and she was devotedly attached to him, and never regretted her choice. She left him three children— two daughters and one son ; and with these our story will be interested. The love which he had concentrated on his wife was now centred on his children. For himself he had given up all hope of advancement in life, but for his children he cherished swelling hopes, built lofty castles in the air. But we must now return to our narrative. The shades of evening have been gathering fast, but the girl still sits absorbed in thought, and from the smile that flickers every now and then across her face you would fancy they were happy thoughts. And so they are, but they all lie in one groove, and concern one person, and that is herself. Her days are spent in reading novels, her mind is continually busy in weaving a never-ending tale.

From whatever point her thoughts start they always converge to one centre. She is aware of her beauty : she knows not that it may be as dangerous and deadly a possession as ever was Deianira's present. She only thinks that by it she will attain luxury and riches. Yes, she had read many and many a novel ; they were written by men acquainted with life, MAUD FIELDING. and was it not always the same tale? The brilliant ball-room, the lights, the flowers, the company, the supper, the ices, the wines, the belle of the evening, (that was herself,) the centre of the gayest throng of young men, the pretty nothings and flatteries poured into her ear, the flirtations, the impassioned glances of love, the declaration, the acceptance, and then — the future was lost in an endless maze of pleasures and delights.

Poor girl, she knew no better : her present life was dull and gloomy, with little change or gaiety in it, but she felt it was only the ante-room to the brilliant future that must await her. Men, ah yes, they did certainly find it a hard struggle to succeed in life ; but woman, armed with beauty, who could resist her? Her voluptuous nature could not have endured the monotony and gloom of her present life, had it not been relieved by these constant dreams. Was not everything favourable? Was not her brother an undergraduate at Oxford Would he not become acquainted and associated with the hio-hest in the land, and would she not go up to Commemoration, and turn the heads of all the residents at the Universities? Yes. Even if nothing happened before tbat event, it at least should be the beoinninoof a brilliant life.

How could she help knowing she was beautiful ? Was it not through her beauty she held her sway in her father's house ? Did not her brother pay her a silent homage ? Did not her entrance into chapel on a Sunday cause quite a stir and excitement ? Were not stories told that strangers had entered the chapel, attracted not by her father's fame, but her face ? A great future must await her ; the present was dull and cheerless, very different to the sunlit future of her imagination. She wore plain dresses, no jewellery but her mother's gold watch and a simple ring ; she had very little pocket-money, and that she was almost ashamed to take from her father, so small she knew his income to be ; but what splendid dresses and jewellery, and servants, and livery, and carriages, and a country seat, with grounds and hothouses, and all the appendages of wealth she would have when she was married.

She knew better than to encourage the addresses of any young man whom she knew at present, though many were dying of course for a glance of encouragement from her. They might call her cold and proud, and haughty, but that should make no differ ence. But now she rose, for the servant was bringing in the tea-tray, and she must make haste and infuse the tea.

Chapter II. Kate Fielding

And now her brother and sister came in, soon followed by her father, a tall man, of about fifty years of age, but looking older, with traces of disappointment and grief in his prematurely grey hair, in his slightly stooping shoulders, and in the furrows of his brow, but mild and gentle and contented now that he is sur rounded by his family, whom he loves so well. The brother Charles was about twenty years of age, had already been a year at Oxford, where he had gained scholarships almost sufficient to maintain him there, if he exercised economy, and was looking forward w-ith well grounded expectation to a first-class degree, to be rewarded with a fellowship. He had early looked at life from a serious point of view, had imbibed from his father an eager desire to get on in the world, and was without the shortcomings which had retarded his father's career, and rendered it comparatively a failure.

He was resolute, determined, persevering, without vices, and making little allowance for them in others ; he was tall, and had a handsome bold face, but these advantages he hardly regarded in his eagerness to win a mental supe riority and not a physical one. Next came his sister, whom we must spare a short time to describe. If you had seen her first, you would have expatiated on her beauty with as much enthusiasm as on that of her sister. Perhaps she would suffer somewhat in the opinion of some, by comparison with her, but many would award the palm to her. Yet it was a very different style of beauty, and this difference was not greater than that of character : the elder had a voluptuous air about her, which was totally absent in the other. You would instinctively choose the one as a model for a Phryne, a Cleopatra, or a Venus ; the other for a model of Faith, or Polyxena, or Diana.

The features of both were alike perfect, both rejoiced in a wealth of thick golden hair, both had lustrous sparkling eyes ; but in one there was an indolence, a drowsy languor, which was replaced by vigour and vivacity in the other. The one dreamt, the other thought ; the one simply existed, the other lived ; the one floated idly down the tide of circumstance, careless where it might lead, the other endeavoured to direct her course to some definite goal, even by means of the obstacles that met and thwarted her ; the one stayed at home and read novels, would never willingly leave the fire-side, neglected household duties, or performed them carelessly, and with indifference ; the other wras quick and eager and active, had just returned from a miserable rainy afternoon's shopping, and was shaking the rain from her cloak and hair, and exchanging her wet boots for dry comfortable slippers, preparatory to rendering effective aid in the completion of the arrangements for tea.

But the contrast was most manifest in the aspirations of the two girls : the elder never gave a thought to obtaining her livelihood by her own exertions. It is true the father always ob jected to any proposals of this kind, but even had he been willing, the result would have been the same : while the younger chafed at the idea that she was doing nothing for her maintenance, and was always proposing to go out as governess, though the proposal was always negatived unanimously by the other members of the family conclave. But this afternoon, during her shopping, she had been more than usually exasperated by remarks and ques tionings, and having seen in a paper an advertisement of a situation which she considered suitable for herself, had fully determined to obtain her father's consent to her applying for it, and had been marshalling, under the shelter of her umbrella, her arguments which were to gain the required result.

She knew by instinct rather than by reasoning that if she would gain her sister to her side, she must use such arguments as would appeal to the selfish side of her nature. She loved her sister very dearly, and would have indignantly scouted the idea that she was selfish ; and yet, almost unconsciously, the arguments she meant to press home to her were selfish ones. Tea was over : the father had retired to his study ; the son to another room where he might work in quiet, undisturbed by the girls' chat; and the two girls sat alone over their work, or rather, one working and the other sitting cosily over the fire and doing nothing, as the third volume of her last novel had now been con cluded, and she must wait till the town library was open before she could obtain another. Therefore she is disposed to listen to the news of the town, to the gossip which her sister may have collected in her after noon rounds, and Kate intends, during this conversation, VOL. I. skilfully to introduce her own subject and gain her own point.