Once! A novel

Front matter

ON CE! COMPLETE LIST OF WORPvS BY CUHTIS YOf^E, Published by JAEEOLD & SONS. Crown %vo.. Cloth, 3/6 each. (Postage $\d.) HUSH ! 2nd Edition. " Is in many ways a remarkable novel, and from every p*vnt of view superior to the current fiction of the day.'1 — Morning Post. DUDLEY. 2nd Edition. " It it some time since such a fresh, pleasant book has come under our notice as 'Dudley.' " — Whitehall Review. WILD RUTHVENg^ and Edition. "An enchanting worV—ili^ >ry ru^s on with happy blithesome tread to the end, whipLis reached all too soon."-^V. Stephen's Review. *? A~G THAT LITTLE GIRL. 4U3 Edition. " A very charming and well-written story.*'— Queen. THE BROWN PORTMANTEAU, AND OTHER STORIES. "Th*. stories are all interesting, and the volume is sure of a welcome." — Literary World. ONCE. A ROMANCE OF MODERN LONDON. [/« the Press.]

LONDON: JARROLD & SONS, 3, Paternoster Buildings. , etc E.C ONCE! g BoM- BY CURTIS YOEXE, Avthor of " Ilvsh,'' " Dudley, " " The Wild Ruthvens," "A Romance of Modern London," "The Mystery of Belgrare Square," "Two on an Island," etc. "Other heights, in other lives — God willing ! " LONDON : JARROLD & SONS, 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, 1892. [All Sights St ser red]. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Mab ... ... ... ... 7 II. The Corner of the Curtain ... 14 III. Glimmerings ... ... ... 24 IV. The World of Cotsburn ... ... 31 V. "Ye Also." ... ... ... 43 VI. His Wife ... .. ... 50 VII. In the Firelight ... ... ... 58 VIII. The Skeleton ... ... ... 64 IX. Cupid ... ... ... ... 70 X. Creeds ... ... ... ... 77 XL Awake! ... ... ... ... 84 XII. One Little Fair Soul ... ... 91 XIII. A Malcontent ... ... ... 98 XIV.

A Broken Dream ... ... 100 XV. The Valley of Humiliation ... ... 113 XVI. Circe! ... ... ... ... 122 XVII. Moonbeams ... ... ... ... 130 XVIII. In which Hilda Writes a Letter ... 141 XIX. One Night ... ... ... ... 147 XX. Treats of Forgiveness and Fine Art 160 XXI. "One Maid's Mischief ' . . ... 170 XXII. The Dark Angel! ... ... CONTENTS. CHAPTRR PAGE XXIII. Bitterness ... ... ... ... Ib7 XXIV. Dishonoured ... ... ... 193 XXV. Chiefly Concerning Mark Railton ... 206 XXVI. Come! ... ... ... ... 218 XXVII. A Farewell ... ... ... 226 XXVIII. "Beyond these Voices!" ... ... 234 XXIX. In which Mab Makes a Discovery — and Sutherland does not ... ... 246 XXX. Free ... ... ... ... 258 XXXI. The Unknown Land ... ... ... 272 XXXII. And You?— ... ... ... ONCE!

Chapter I. Mab

"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's, Is, not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be— but finding firit What may be, then find how to make it fa'r, Up to our means." Robert Browning. SHE was a tall, slim, childish-looking creature ; and her heavy black garments made her look slimmer and more childish-looking still. Pretty ? No — she was not exactly pretty. She could look pretty upon occasion — most women can ; but that is a matter for after consideration. Her small colourless face was more like the face of a very intelligent child than that of a woman, in spite of its owner's twenty years. With the exception of the eyes, the features were absolutely insignificant. But the eyes would have claimed instant attention in any face. They were clear and brown and deep — their clearness and brown ness enhanced by the dark thickness of the lashes and eyebrows.

It was their expression, however, that chiefly dis tinguished them from other eyes — an expression more to be felt than described. What was it ? A certain searching ONCE! wistfulncss, perhaps — innocent and trustful, and yet half reproachful too. Such a look as you may have seen in the eyes of some wild bird too young to know fear — except incipiently. And when you had caught that first look, you directly became conscious of something deeper, and knew that you were in the presence of a rarely pure and tender woman's soul. Her name was Marjorie Lindon. But the Marjorie was almost forgotten. Her father had always called her Mab. On this bitter March afternoon she was standing at the window of a dingy room overlooking a street not far from Regent's Park. There was a desolate look in the sad dark eyes, in the scarcely perceptible trembling of the small straight lips, and in the droop of the dusky brown head.

And the girl's heart felt desolate too. As she watched the never-ending stream of hurrying human beings in the street below, she found herself speculating mournfully as to whether there were any place for her in all the world. It seemed so large ; and she, comparatively speaking, felt so small. She stood at the window for a long time — until the street lamps began to be lit, and the room grew full of dark and eerie shadows. Then she shiveringly turned towards the fire, which was smouldering sullenly. "Ah, you poor Mab!" she sobbed, in a burst of dreary sell-commiseration. "You poor, solitary Mab!" And she hid her face and cried bitterly. Footsteps echoed on the landing without. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman came in, whom no one could possibly have mistaken for anything but a Scotchwoman.

And indeed honest Janet would have been mightily offended had you have taken her for anything else. " Now don't fret, my bairn," she said, her hard face soften ing wonderfully, as she stooped over the slight figure on the hearthrug. " See here what I've brought ye. A letter. Aud if I'm no mistaken, it's from Mr. Geoffrey hiniscl'." MAD. 9 Mab sprang to her feet at once. "Light the lamp, please, Janet," she exclaimed, eagerly. Then a minute later — " Yes — it is from cousin Geoffrey. He must have written directly he got mine. Why, Janet," — running her eyes over the first sheet—" he is coming to-day — this evening. Oh, how glad I am ! " " There, now, Miss Mab— didn't I tell you ? " said the old Scotchwoman, surveying her young mistress triumphantly. " And he never got my letter from Berne," went on the girl, in a distressed voice.

" He did not know of — of my poor father's death until he got my letter yesterday." " Dear me, Miss Mab, and how was that ? Some of these onchristianized heathen of foreign postmen stole it, I'll be bound." " No, Janet. But you know when I wrote to him in January I sent the letter to that place in Norway where he was spending the winter. And he says he came back to England sooner than he intended, and never got my letter at all." " Now you see, Miss Mab — and you would have it that he was careless and unfeclin'," said Janet, as she swept up the hearth. "I am so glad I wrote again," murmured the girl, bo ginning to read the letter all over again. "Ah! And a nice work I had, Miss Mab, to get you to write. Do you mind how you kept' saying, 'No, no, Janet,' for days and days ? As if your old Janet, that's nursed you for twenty years, would advise you to anything onsensible !

You'll see Mr. Geoffrey '11 put everything straight when he comes," she added, nodding her head emphatically. And, having spread the cloth for tea with great precision and neatness, the old woman bustled out of the room. Mab folded up her cousin's letter, and put it carefully into its envelope again. Then she sat staring into the fire, her hands folded in her lap, her lashes still heavy with her undried tears. ONCE ! 10 "To-night! He is coming tonight!" she repeated softly to herself. She was passionately fond of this cousin Geoffrey. He was some fifteen years older than she, and had always represented to her the ideal of all manly perfection. An ideal, by the way, bearing much the same resemblance to the real man as women's ideals generally do bear to their earthly representatives. Years ago, she had confided to a certain small brass-bound diary that " she should never marry, because no one could ever be the same as Geoffrey."

She had written that on the evening of Geoffrey's wedding-day. He had been married now for nearly six years. But he was her ideal still. Even her father had always come second to Geoffrey. It was very pure and innocent, this childish love of hers. And I don't think it did her any harm. Geoffrey himself knew nothing of it. If he had, I suppose it would, perhaps, have dismayed him a little, and amused him a good deal. His wedding-day had been on Mab's fifteenth birthday. She was only a child then, to be sure, but she could not forget the old days when Geoffrey used to call her his little wife, and tell her she had " the prettiest eyes in the world." But Geoffrey, it seemed, had forgotten. His wife was very beau tiful, they said. Perhaps she, too, had " the prettiest eyes in the world." Mab, on the night of that sorrowful fifteenth birthday, had prayed earnestly for the happiness of the newly-wedded pair, and tried vainly to put Geoffrey out of her heart for ever.

Poor little Ariadne of fifteen summers ! Her trouble reads oddly to you, perhaps. But it was all very real to her. She had only seen him once since his marriage— just after she and her father had gone to live under the shadow of the dimly-blue Swiss mountains. He had looked older and graver, she thought. And in some vague way she knew that something was wanting in his life, and that he was not happy. That was five years ago. MAD, 11 But at this point in her meditations the door opened, and she saw that Geoffrey himself had come. She sprang towards him with a strange little cry, and bent her head on his arm. " Geoffrey ! " she uttered, in a dry sobbing whisper. "Oh, my dear, dear Geoffrey ! " He took her hands in his without speaking, and held them closely. Then he led her to the sofa, and seated himself beside her.

" My poor little girl," he said huskily. After that there was a silence, broken only by Mab's heavy sobs. " You would have come if you had known — wouldn't you ? " she whispered at last, sitting up and pushing back her heavy hair. " My dear — yes. But you understand why I did not ? You had my letter — to-day ? " " Yes, yes — I understand. And very likely you wouldn't have been in time. It was all so sudden — so terrible." " I know— I know," he said unsteadily. " Don't try to tell me of it now. I know what a sad weary time it must have been for you." " And oh, Geoffrey," she broke out suddenly, " I thought, when no answer came to my first letter — I thought you didn't care — that it didn't matter to you." " Well, dear, no wonder you thought so," he made answer soothingly. "But you know now, and we won't speak of it any more.

How long have you been in London ? " " Oh, a long, long time," was the weary answer. " At least, it seems long. He — he died in January ; and Janet and I left Berne a week later. I meant to make my own way, without troubling anybody," she went on, looking up at him wistfully. " I thought it would be so easy for me to get something to do in London, and that Janet and I could get along very well with the little money I had until I did get something to do. But everything is so cruelly dear here. Even these melan choly rooms," looking round with a pathetic little smile, ONCE ! " cost so much more than I expected. And no one seems to want a daily governess— or any kind of governess. So Janet thought (she never would believe you had neglected my first letter), she thought if I wrote to you, that perhaps you might know of something I could do.

I could teach music and French and drawing, you know," she added. "And I should not mind a small salary, so long as Janet aud I could be together." Her cousin rose, and took a turn across the room. Then he said in an odd voice, " Don't talk like that, Mab. I can't bear to .hear you. I promised your father once, that if — if anything happened to him, I would take care of you until you had a home of your own And — in short, my dear, I mean to do so. As soon as you can be ready — to-morrow or next day — I shall take you down to the Grange with me. Your home — and Janet's too — must be with us in the meantime. And you must try to make yourself happy 'Kith us." " Oh, Geoffrey, I couldn't let you" — " My dear little Mab, it is all arranged ; so please don't say any more." The girl looked at him silently, her eyes brimming with a passionate adoring gratitude.

But she could not trust herself to speak. And for a time he was silent too. He understood all that she would say, and she knew that he did. A curious sense of rest and security stole over her lonely young heart. The old fascination of Geoffrey's presence took possession of her like a happy dream. He looked so strong, so kind, so gentle, she thought. He had hardly changed at all, except that he was graver than he used to be, and that more than a few grey threads shone in the brown of his hair. He was standing leaning against the mantelpiece, looking down into the now brightly-blazing fire, with a grave, half-troubled look in his usually indolent grey eyes. The heavy, drooping moustache, straight features, and closely-cropped, well-set head, all belonged to that type of outward personality which MAB. 13 aristocratic England seems to turn out by the score — a type that may be the home of any soul and any cluster of vices or virtues, and therefore conveys no index of character to the uninitiated.

Most young girls admired Geoffrey Chilcote. His tall athletic figure gave that idea of latent strength which women love ; and his face, though it boasted no particular beauty, was manly and refined, and could look sufficiently tender. It had always looked tender to Mab. What she did not see there — -what no young girl would be likely to see — was the subtle indications the face gave of strong animal passions, held in check by civilization, an innate fastidiousness of temperament, and an abnormally strong will. But what will you ? If our world saw us all as we are, hero-worship, nay, love itself, would I fear, siguify but empty words.

Chapter II. The Corner Of The Curtain

"I have been on the wrong side of the moon; I have seen the other face of it— a visage scored with regrets, dead dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the like !— sunless, waterless, without a flower ! " — George Meredith. TWO days later, Geoffrey Chilcote took his cousin down into Yorkshire. The faithful Janet accompanied them, her face a perfect encyclopædia of triumph and satisfaction. It was dusk when they arrived at Lartby, where a com fortable brougham awaited them, into which Chilcote carefully helped Mab, consigning Janet and the luggage to the care of a smart groom and dog-cart. Some two miles of hedgebound road lay between the villages of Lartby aud Cotsburn. Then yet another mile, where the road was narrower and the hedges higher. Then the lodge-gates of Alder Grange, the residence of Geoffrey Chilcote, usually known among his tenants as " t' yoong Squire."

" T' oud Squire" had been dead for many a long year, but Geoffrey was " t' yoong Squire " still. The Grange was a picturesque and ancient building standing among old-world trees, and looking away over hills and dales towards Riddleton and Redesdale. Its windows — ■ latticed for the most part and deeply-set — were luxuriantly garnished with ivy. Trimly-kept shrubberies and lawns and flower-beds stretched on the west side to the river Alder, which a mile or two further down lost itself in the broadbosomed Tees. The park lay to the east, liberally studded and bordered with the finest wood in the county. To Mab, however, straining her eyes through the fast falling darkness, nothing was visible but a rather forbidding looking pile of buildings, a few lights twinkling here and there, and then — as the carriage swept round to the en trance — a great open doorway, and in the flood of yellow light that poured down the broad low flight of steps, a tiny dancing child's figure.

"Father — father!" screamed this little figure ecstatically, as the travellers alighted. " Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " A wonderfully gentle look came into Geoffrey Chilcote's eyes as he stooped to kiss the gleeful upturned face. " This is my little son," he said, turning to Mab, as he laid his hand on the boy's brown hair. " Roy, this is your cousin Mab. Kiss her, and tell her she is welcome to Alder Grange." The child looked up at her with grey, long-lashed eyes, very like his father's. Then he put his hand confidingly into hers. "I like you," he said, with a quaint little .compression of his baby lips. "You have a nice face. My name's Roy Desmond Chilcote, and I'm five years old. How old are you ? " "More than four times five," Mab answered, laughing as she kissed her frank little kinsman. " Where is your mother, Roy ?

" asked Chilcote, rather abruptly. They were by this time standing before the hall fire, which was roaring a red subdued welcome. " In the drawing-room," was the nonchalant answer. With a slight frown Chilcote led the way across the hall, and pushed open the drawing-room door. It was a charming room, Mab thought — long and low ceiled, and lit by shaded lamps and a blazing coal fire. "Are you there, Hilda?" said Geoffrey, in a tone in which his cousin detected a chilly inflection not previously noticeable. ONCE ! A tall slender woman rose from a recumbent position on a couch near the fire, and advanced across the room to meet them. "How late you are," she said in her slow, sweet, drowsy voice, when the first greetings were over. " I had almost given you up. I'm afraid I've been asleep." Then, after a swift but exhaustive survey of Mab's plain travelling-dress, she added, " Should you like to go to your room now ?

We dine in half an hour or so. I am just going to dress, so we can go upstairs together." Mab followed her hostess across the hall, and up the broad oak staircase to a cheerful room at the end of a wide corridor, where she found Janet awaiting her. "Eh! but she's a bonnie leddy!" exclaimed that honest handmaid enthusiastically, as Mrs. Chilcote left the room. " My word, but Mr. Geoffrey knows what he's about. He always did, bless him." But Mab was silent. She had an undefinable, nncom fortable conviction that her childish intuition had been right — that Geoffrey's marriage was not a happy one. Nevertheless she could not deny that Hilda Chilcote was a most beautiful woman — beautiful with such beauty as Mab had never seen, and hardly even imagined ; a low-browed, auburn-haired beauty, with melting, misty violet eyes, looking dreamily out of au exquisitely-coloured and faultlessly-featured face, that might have inspired any artist to genius.

And yet, with all its physical loveliness, the face was not a lovable one. Something in the expression — in the eyes — Mab hardly knew what or where it was— repelled her, and would not be explained away. Dinner was hardly a pleasant meal. Chilcote himself was looking pre-occupied and annoyed. He ate little, and spoke hardly at all. His wife, however, talked incessantly. She did not once address her husband, Mab noticed, but she plainly "talked at" him — which made the girl feel very uncomfortable. When the servants had left the room there was a prolonged silence. Then Mrs. Chilcote said in a somewhat sarcastic voice, "Are you not well, Geoffrey? You look as if you either had a very bad fit of indigestion, or were in a very bad temper. Which is it ? " "I am well enough, thank you," was the curt answer.

" And I am not aware of being particularly out of temper." His wife shrugged her shoulders, and turned languidly to Mab. "I hope you are of a cheerful disposition, my dear Mab," she said. " If not, I'm afraid this dreary old barrack of a place will qualify you for a lunatic asylum before you have been here a couple of months. Even Geoffrey himself can't stand it all the year round. His health," — with a little laugh — "required that he should spend last winter iu Norway, or thereabouts. I, however, have to do without these little changes. My health is of less consequence." Mab did not answer. Nor did Chilcote take any notice of his wife's speech. He was cracking walnuts (with a man's reckless liberality in such matters) for his little son, who sat perched in a high chair close to his father's left hand.

There was a short pause. Then Mrs. Chilcote said in a sharp high voice, " How much fruit are you going to give that child, Geoffrey? We shall be having him laid up, and then the whole household will be in an uproar. It is ridiculous that a boy of his age should be allowed to sit up to dinner at all." Chilcote glanced at the timepiece. " Come, Roy, old fellow," he said. " It's almost bedtime. Finish what you have on your plate, and run away to nurse." When the child had gone, Mrs. Chilcote said suddenly, "Did you arrange nothing about taking a house in town, then, Geoffrey?'1 b B ONCE ! 18 " I thought we had discussed that before dinner, Hilda," said her husband, coldly. " But as you seem to have mis understood me, please understand now that I do not intend taking a house in town this season."

For a minute there was a dead silence. It was broken by Mrs. Chilcote giving way to a perfect storm of hysterical crying. Chilcote's face flushed darkly. He looked embarrassed and annoyed, for he had all an Englishman's innate horror Of a " scene." "Hilda — for Heaven's sake control yourself," he said im patiently. " Remember we are not alone." " Oh, I don't care — I don't care," sobbed his wife wildly. And at this point Mab quietly rose and went out of the room. She lingered for a few minutes in the dusky, many shadowed hall, where a great fire leaped and danced invitingly, lighting up with its fitful gleams the tapestried " Groups of gods and goddesses, Without their skirts and bodices, which adorned the walls. Not being a connoisseur in tapestry, she surveyed these art-treasures with half-scandalized amusement, and thought them very ugly, and not altogether proper. ' Then she found her way to the dimly-lit, flower-scented drawing room, where a great black cat rose solemnly from the hearth to greet her, and climbed into her lap as she seated herself in a low chair near the fire.

She had been there for some time, thinking deeply, when Chilcote came in, alone. He looked jarred and worried, and came slowly across the room to the fire, where he stood for a minute or two without speaking — leaning his arm on the mantelpiece, and seemingly forgetful of Mab's presence. At last he said abruptly, " Hilda hopes you will excuse her, Mab. She has gone to bed. She is very nervous — and something had vexed her. I was to blame, 1 believe, and — er — " He stopped, and tugged at his moustache with the em barrassed air common to men when apologizing for unaccountable behaviour on the part of their women-kind. Mab did not speak — simply because at the moment she could think of nothing particularly suitable to say. Chilcote drew a chair to the fire, sat down, and appeared once more lost in thought.

His cousin, from her shadowy corner, studied his face critically as the firelight fell upon it — studied it as we do sometimes study critically a dear and familiar thing, wondering how it might strike an utter stranger. She idealized his body, of course — just as she idealized his soul. As I have said, Chilcote's appearance was neither better nor worse than that of fifty other thorough bred, well-set-up Englishmen. And his characteristics ? Well — they were those of the average civilized male. He was neither saint nor devil. Perhaps he veered somewhat toward the latter. Most of us do, I'm afraid. But Mab did not dream of that. Our women — bless their hearts ! — regard us, for the most part, through diminishing glasses as to our faults, and magnifying-glasses as to our virtues, until — they find us out.

Ah well, poor souls — experientia docet. And it would be none the worse for a few of us, I think, if we came somewhere nearer the ideals we represent to these loving trusting hearts that cling so pathetically to their broken gods, refusing to see, and daring others to say they see, that the creatures they worship are clay — coarsest clay. There was at times a certain gentleness about Chilcote's mouth and eyes, an almost womanish gentleness, which curiously contradicted the somewhat hard outlines of the clean-shaved chin and jaw. But to-night the mouth had a bitter, almost hopeless expression, and the eyes held a tired and yet restless look — as though with seeking for something they had never found, and never hoped to And. And seeing, though only half-comprehending that look, Mab felt very sorry for him.

Suddenly he roused himself and sat up. ONCE! " I'm treating you in a shamefully unceremonious way," he said contritely. " But do you know, little Mab, that it seems to me quite an ordinary thing that you should be sitting there in that dusky corner, with the cat upon your knee ? — that you should be one of the household ? I can hardly believe you have only been here a few hours." Mab answered with a swift silent smile. She was not a gushing young woman, and thought more than she spoke. "How you have grown," he went on, half-drcamily. "I remember you such a tiny child. And now — there is nothing of tho child Mab left, except the eyes. Though there was a straugely child-like expression in your small grave face just now. What were you thinking of? " "I was wondering" — was the half-hesitating answer — "I was hoping that your wife — may like me."

A swift sudden shadow passed over Chilcote's face — or Mab fancied so. " I hope you will mutually like each other," he said. Then after a pause he continued, " I trust you will be happy here, little woman. I'm afiaid you will find it dull enough. We are not a particularly lively or united household," he added grimly. " I am not often dull," she said, absently stroking the cat's black fur. " No ? " he questioned, looking at her with the indulgent smile he usually kept for Roy. " I remember you used to be a contented, sunny-hearted little thing." Then his voice deepened aud grew grave, as he went on, " Your father had that bright, even temperament, I remember. Poor Uncle Dick!— what a fine old fellow he was! How you must miss him, child." Mab said nothing. But her lip quivered, and two lar^e bright tears gathered in her eyes, and fell upon her little hands.

Seeing them, Chilcote was conscious of an almost brotherly tenderness towards this lonely young kinswoman of his. Nevertheless for the life of him he couldn't think of anything comforting and sympathetic to say. So he only leaned forward and took one of her hands in both his. Mab let it remain there. The strong tender touch comforted her. She quickly dried her tears, however, and said with a shaky little smile as she met his anxious eyes, " Don't be afraid, Geoffrey — I am not going to cry. I have cried so much — since he left me, that I feel sometimes as if I should never cry any more — " But her voice faltered and broke. " Poor child — poor lonely child," he murmured, somewhat unsteadily, as he stroked with gentle compassionate fingers the little hand he held. "Life is an awful puzzle, Mab," he said, after a brief silence — " an awful puzzle."

" Yes," she answered, lifting her misty brown eyes to his — " if we make it a puzzle — or let it be a puzzle." " We can't help it, most of the time," ho said, in a moody voice. " It's all the old story — ' vanity and vexation of spirit ' We hear of men shaping their own lives. But no man does shape his own life — no man can — nor woman either. We are all, more or less, the victims of the inexorable Juggernaut we call Circumstance. We have no chance. And if we had, we should probably throw it away, and spend the last half of our lives as we spent the first — straining and striving after some fancied good or coveted possession, chasing it madly until we got it — only to find it a will-o'-the wisp, a shadow, as like and yet as unlike the thing we desired as the Elle-maidens of old." He dropped her hand, and stared into the fire again, leaning his elbow on his knee, and biting his moustache almost savagely.