Part 20 (1/2)
Well, Milly, it was a dull life for two lively, affectionate lads like Joseph and me, wasn't it, and had it not been for all this, child, nature, you know, and the trees and the streams and the out-door sports I love so well, I could never have got on at all. Then when I was nineteen--just your age, love--came a change. I, being the elder and heir to the estate was sent off to town--I mean, London, my dear--and the Continent, with a tutor. Joseph--well, I believe I have never fully understood what became of Joseph during the four years I was away, but I suppose he amused himself. He has a knack of doing that I never had, except when I am in the country. Well, this tutor wasn't a bad sort of a fellow and at first we got on splendidly, living in town in chambers, going to the plays and the opera, and dining all over, just wherever I liked or he knew, and excursions oat of London, you know--oh! jolly enough for a little while! Then we went across to Paris--”
”Yes, dearest Dacre?”
Mr. Foxley stopped a moment to lift his wife's face closer to his own.
He kissed it--a long long kiss that entranced them both to the degree of forgetting the story.
”If you would rather not go on--” said Mildred.
”Oh! I must now. Well, we did Paris, and then the other capitals and Nice--Nice was just then coming into vogue, and ran down into Italy--I remember I liked Genoa so much--and then we came back to Paris, for Harfleur--that was the tutor's name, and it doesn't sound like a real one, does it--preferred Paris to any other European town and of course so did I. About this time, his true character began to show itself. He went out frequently without me, smoked quite freely, would order in wine and get me to drink with him, and was very much given to calling me fresh, green, and all that you know. I began to think he was right. I was past twenty-one, and I had never even had a glimpse into the inside of life. Women, now and all that kind of thing--I was positively ignorant of--but to be sure, one quickly learns in Paris.”
For one night, Harfleur asked me in his usual sneering tone how I was going to spend my evening.
”I am going out to a charming _soiree_ at the house of Madame de L'Estarre, the most charming woman in Paris,” said he.
”'Then I shall accompany you,' I said, fired by his insulting tone. And I went, Mildred. I suppose I was good-looking, eh, my child--and had sufficient air of distinction about me to impress Madame de L'Estarre, for she left the crowd of waxed and perfumed Frenchmen and devoted herself entirely to me. Although she was--beautiful--she was not tall, and I, standing at her side all that evening, never took my eyes off her dazzling face and her white uncovered bosom. In a week, my child, I had learnt to know and love every feature in that dazzling face and began to dream of the day when I should be allowed to kiss that bosom. Yes, I certainly loved her.”
”I am sure you loved her, Dacre my darling. And how could she help loving you, dear, in return?”
”Oh that is another thing entirely, quite another thing. After that night, Harfleur showed me more respect than he had done for some time previously and we began to hit it off again better. I went to her _hotel_--her house you know, every day. At first she would always receive me alone, sending anybody away who happened to be there and refusing to admit anybody who came while we were together.--It is difficult, even to my wife, to explain what kind of a woman she was. All that first time, when we would be alone, she would--make love, I suppose it must be called--with her eyes and her hands, and her very skirts and her fan, and the cus.h.i.+on, and the footstool. The room was always beautiful and always dim, and she would greet me with outstretched hands and a shy smile, making room for me beside her on the sofa--she always sat on a sofa. We would talk of nothing at all perhaps but look into each other's eyes, until the force of her look would draw me close, close to her till we were almost in one another's arms, and I could feel her breath coming faster every moment when just as I imagined she would sink upon my shoulder--she would draw herself up with a laugh and push me away, declaring somebody was coming. Then, if n.o.body came, she would go through the same farce again. This would happen perhaps two or three times a day. In the evening, I was again at her side, night after night regarding her with a devotion that amazed even my friend Harfleur.
”She treats you like a dog. It will kill you yet, George. Come away.”
But of course I would not go. I accompanied her to the theatre, to the Bois, to the shops, to church--yes, even to church, Mildred, think of that--and she was very careful and circ.u.mspect and all that. I even believe as far as direct actions go, she may have been a virtuous woman, for she certainly, had no other lover when I knew her. She was a widow, enormously rich and nothing to do. Therefore, I suppose she went in for the torturing business as a profession. Her Frenchmen did not mind; that was the secret of her charm with them--so clever, they called her, but it nearly killed me, her cleverness. I grew pale and worn--sleep--I never slept. All my life I had lived without natural affection, and now I was pouring forth upon this woman the love I might have rendered friends, sister, brother, mother, as well as the pa.s.sion of a young man.
I say to you now, Mildred, my wife, that the woman who tramples on the pa.s.sion of a young man is as bad as the man who slays the innocence of a young girl. And that's what she did. Finally, when this had lasted for a year and a half, and Harfleur had gone back to England, one day, when I was perfectly desperate and could have killed her, Milly, as she lay at full length on her d.a.m.ned sofa--pardon, my dear, no, don't kiss my hand, child, don't--dressed in some rose-colored stuff all trailing about her and her hands clasped under her head, I fell by her on my knees and besought her to tell me what she meant and if she ever could care for me. I give you my word, my dear, and with my hand over your innocent heart, you know I dare not lie--in all that year and a half I had not even touched her lips. You cannot, happily imagine the torture of such a position.
Well, that day, she bent over to me on her side and said ”What do you want, is it to kiss me? Chut! wait for that till we are married.”
”Do you mean to marry me?” I gasped out. ”She said 'yes,' Mildred, and brushed my cheek with her lips. What do you think I did then, Mildred?”
”How can I tell, dearest Dacre!”
”I fainted, dearest. Think of it. But I believed her, you see, and the revulsion was too great. In a moment or two I came to myself with the sounds of laughter in my ears. I was on her sofa--that d.a.m.ned sofa--pardon again, my dear--and she was standing with three of her cursed Frenchmen around her all laughing fit to kill themselves. I saw through it all in a moment. They had been on the other side of the curtains. I went straight up to her and said 'Did you say that you were ready to become my wife?' She only laughed and the men too with her.
Then I struck her--on her white breast, Milly--and struck the three Frenchmen on the face one after the other. They were so astonished that not one of them moved, and I parted the curtains, and left the house.”
”Did you never see her again?”
”Never. I left Paris considerably wiser than I had entered it and avoided society generally. I had one year's life in London, and was considered no end of a catch by the mammas, I believe, but you can imagine I did not easily fall a victim. No. That is all my story, my dear, all at least that has been unguessed at by you. My health was very bad at home and beyond my love of sport I cared for nothing. I grew to hate my life in England, even England, though she had done me no harm.
Finally, I quarrelled with my father who married again, a woman we both disliked, Joseph and I, and so we turned our backs on the Old World and came out to Canada and to--you.”
Mildred still lay, crying softly, in her husband's arms. ”I had sometimes dreamt,” continued Mr. Foxley, ”of meeting some young girl who could love me and on whose innocence and sweetness I could rest and whom besides I should really love. It did not dawn upon me when I first saw you, that _you_ were the one I wanted, for we must confess, dear, that you were very plump and rather pink and spoke--”
”Why, Dacre, how can you? I was only fifteen! Cruel!”
”Yes, I know. And how you changed! Now, you are so different that it is not the same Mildred at all. Such is the power of a true love, my child, and we must always be happy,--ours is one of those marriages.”
Theirs was indeed one of those marriages. Mr. Foxley took to farming and enriched his purse as well as his health. Mr. Joseph had an interview with Miss Dexter the nature of which I am not going to reveal, but which resulted in a placid intimacy between the two to the surprise of all save Milly who always said that ”she thought she knew why.” Miss Dexter frequently accompanied blind Mr. Joseph on his lonely walks or would sit with him when the others were out, as none but he cared to meet her.
Towards his death which occurred in about four years time, she was with him constantly, and died herself in a fortnight after, having left in her will, all her maiden belongings to her ”good friend, Farmer Wise.” The farmer was not much moved when informed of this fact, so incomprehensible to the rest of the village. He had always kept the little bottle with its cruel label, and had always feared and avoided poor, proud, foolish, wicked Charlotte Dexter since that Sat.u.r.day night.