Fan: Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Nearly the whole of Fan's remaining time before going to Kingston was
passed at Dawson Place. Her happiness was perfect, like the sunshine she
had found resting on that dear spot on her return to it, pure, without
stain of cloud. For into Mary's vexed heart something new seemed to have
come, something strange to her nature, a novel meekness, a sweetness that
did not sour, so that their harmony continued unbroken to the end. And,
oddly enough, or not oddly perhaps, since she was not "logical," she
seemed now greatly to sympathise with Fan's growing anxiety about the
lost Constance. Not one trace of the petty jealous feeling which had
caused so much trouble in the past remained; she was heartily ashamed of
it now, and was filled with remorse when she recalled her former unkind
and capricious behaviour.
At length Fan went on her visit, not without a pang of regret at parting
so soon again, even for a short time, from the friend she had recovered.
She was anxious to hear that "strange story" about her father which the
lawyer had promised to relate; apart from that, she did not anticipate
much pleasure from her stay at Kingston.
The Travers' house was at a little distance from the town, and stood well
back on the road, screened from sight by trees and a high brick wall. It
was a large, low, old-fashioned, rambling house, purchased by its owner
many years before, when he had a numerous family with him, and required
plenty of house-room; but its principal charm to Fan was the garden,
covering about four acres of ground, well stocked with a great variety of
shrubs and flowers, and containing some trees of noble growth.
Mrs. Travers was not many years younger than her husband; and yet she did
not look old, although her health was far from good, her more youthful
appearance being due to a false front of glossy chestnut-coloured hair,
an occasional visit to the rouge-pot, and other artificial means used by
civilised ladies to mitigate the ravages of time. In other things also
she offered a striking contrast to her husband, being short and stout, or
fat; she was also a dressy dame, and burdened her podgy fingers and broad
bosom with too much gold and too many precious stones--yellow, blue, and
red; and her silk dresses were also too bright-hued for a lady of her
years and figure. Her favourite strong blues and purples would have
struck painfully on the refined colour-sense of an aesthete. On the other
hand, to balance these pardonable defects, she was kind-hearted; not at
all artificial in her manner and conversation, or unduly puffed up with
her position, as one might have expected her to be from her appearance;
and, to put her chief merit last, she reverenced her husband, and
believed that in all things--except, perhaps, in those small matters
sacred to femininity, which concerned her personal adornment--"he knew
best." She was consequently prepared to extend a warm welcome to her
young visitor, and, for her husband's sake, to do as much to make her
visit pleasant as if she had been the lawful daughter of her husband's
late friend and client, Colonel Eden.
Nevertheless, after the days she had spent with Mary, Fan did not find
Mrs. Travers' society exhilarating. The lady had given up walking, except
a very little in the garden, but on most days she went out for carriage
exercise in the morning, after Mr. Travers had gone to town. At two
o'clock the ladies would lunch, after which Fan would be alone until the
five o'clock tea, when her hostess would reappear in a gay dress, and a
lovely carmine bloom on her cheeks--the result of her refreshing noonday
slumbers. After tea they would spend an hour together in the garden
talking and reading. Mrs. Travers, having bad eyesight, accepted Fan's
offer to read to her. She read nothing but periodicals--short social
sketches, smart paragraphs, jokes, and occasionally a tale, if very
short, so that Fan found her task a very light one. She had _The World,
Truth, The Whitehall Review, The Queen_ and _The Lady's
Pictorial_ every week; and in the last-named paper Fan read out a
little sketch--one of a series called "Eastern Idylls"--which she liked
better than anything else for its graceful style and delicate pathos. So
much did it please her, that she looked up the back numbers of the paper,
and read all the sketches in them, each relating some little domestic
East End incident or tale, pathetic or humorous, or both, with scenes and
characters lightly drawn, yet with such skilful touches, and put so
clearly before the mind, that it was impossible not to believe that these
pictures were from life.
At half-past six Mr. Travers would return from town, and at seven they
dined, sitting long at table; and afterwards, if there were friends,
there would be a rubber of whist. It was a quiet almost sleepy existence,
and Fan began to look forward with a little impatience to the end of her
fortnight, when she would be able to return to her friend. For Mary's
last words had been, "I shall not leave London without you." But she
first wished to hear the "strange story" Mr. Travers had promised to
tell, but about which he had spoken no word since her arrival. Every day
she was reminded of it, for in the dining-room was the portrait of her
father, painted, life-size, by a Royal Academician, and showing a
gentleman aged about thirty-five years, with a handsome oval face, grey
eyes, thin straight nose, and hair and well-trimmed moustache and Vandyke
beard of a deep golden brown, the moustache not altogether hiding the
pleasant, somewhat voluptuous mouth. And it seemed to Fan when she looked
at it and the grey eyes gazed back into hers, and the pleasant lips
seemed to smile on her, that she had never seen among living men a more
beautiful and lovable face.
The sixth day of her visit was Sunday. Mr. Travers breakfasted alone with
her, his wife not having risen yet, and after breakfast he asked her if
she wished to go to church.
"Not unless you are going or wish me to go," returned Fan.
"Then, Miss Eden, let us stay at home, and have a morning to ourselves in
the garden. We have not yet had much time to talk, as I am generally
rather tired in the evenings. And besides, what I wish to talk to you
about is one of _my_ secrets, and it could not be mentioned before
another."
They were out in the garden sitting in the shade, when he surprised her
by saying, "Are you at all superstitious, Miss Eden?"
"I am not quite sure that I understand you," replied Fan, with a little
hesitation. "Do you mean religious, Mr. Travers?"
"Well, no, not exactly. But superstition is undoubtedly a word of many
meanings, and some people give it a very wide one, as your question
implies. I used the word in a more restricted sense--in the sense in
which we say that believers in dreams, presentiments, and apparitions are
superstitious. My belief was--I am not sure whether I can say _is_--
that your father was infected with superstitions of this kind. But I must
tell you the whole story, and then you will understand what I mean when I
say that it is a strange one. He was one of several children; and, by the
way, that reminds me that--but let that pass."
"Do you mean--have I--has my brother many relations--uncles, aunts, and
cousins, Mr. Travers?" said Fan, a little eagerly.
"Well," he answered, smiling a little and stroking his chin, "yes. Your
half-brother's mother had two married sisters, both with large families;
but I do not think that Mr. Arthur Eden is intimate with them. I think I
have heard him say as much."
Fan, noting that he cautiously confined himself to her brother's
relations on the mother's side, grew red, and secretly resolved never to
ask such a question again, even of Arthur.
The other continued: "Being one of several children, and not the eldest,
his income was a small one for a young man of rather expensive habits and
in the army. He was in difficulties on several occasions, and it was at
that period that our acquaintance ripened into a very close friendship--
as warm a friendship as can exist between two men living totally
different lives, moving in different social worlds, and with a
considerable difference in their ages.
"When about thirty-eight years old he married a lady with a considerable
fortune, which was not in any way settled on herself, and consequently
became his. It was not a happy marriage, and after the birth of their
son--their only child--and Mrs. Eden not being in good health, she went
to live at Winchester, where she had relations and where her son was
educated; and for several years husband and wife lived apart. His wife
died about fourteen years after her marriage, and, I am glad to say, he
was with her during her last illness, but afterwards he returned to his
old life in London, and went very much into society. Finally his health
failed; and when he discovered that his malady, although a slow, was an
incurable one, his habits and disposition changed, and he grew morbid, I
think--possibly from brooding too much on his condition.
"Up to this time he had paid no attention to religion; now it became the
sole subject of his thoughts. He attended a ritualistic church in the
neighbourhood of Oxford Street, and gave up the house he had occupied
before, and took another only a few doors removed from the church, so as
to be able to attend all the services, one of which was held daily at a
very early hour of the morning. In this church, confession and penances,
and other things in which the ritualists imitate the Roman Catholics, are
in use, and the vicar, or priest as he is called, gained a great
influence over Colonel Eden's mind.
"He had at this time entirely given up going into society, but his
intimacy with me, which had lasted so many years, continued to the end.
Shortly before he died, and about three years and a half to four years
ago, he told me that he had had a strange dream, which he persisted in
regarding as of the supernatural order. This dream came to him on three
consecutive nights, and after several conversations with his priest and
confessor on the subject, and being encouraged by him in the belief that
it was something more than a mere wandering of the disordered fancy, he
consulted me about it. It was then that for the first time he told me the
story of Margaret Affleck, a girl in a humble position in life who had
engaged his affections some fourteen years before, and from whom he had
parted after a few months' acquaintance. He assured me that he had all
but forgotten this affair; that when parting from her he had given her
some money as a compensation for the trouble he had brought on her;
while, on her side, she had told him that she would not be disgraced, but
that she would marry a young man in her own class, who was willing and
anxious to take her.
"At all events, during those fourteen years he had never seen nor heard
anything of her. Then comes the dream. He dreamt that he was in the
church for early matins, and that he heard a voice calling 'Father,
father!' to him, and on looking round saw a poor girl in ragged clothes,
and with a pale, exceedingly sad face, and that he had no sooner looked
on her than he knew that she was his child, and the child of Margaret
Affleck. She was crying piteously, and wringing her hands and imploring
him to deliver her from her misery; and in his struggling efforts to go
to her he woke.
"This dream, as I said, returned to him night after night, and so preyed
on his mind that he interpreted it as a command from some Superior Power
to seek out this lost child and save her. I tried my best to argue him
out of his delusion, for I was convinced that it was nothing more; but
seeing him so determined, and so fully persuaded in his own mind that
unless he made atonement his sins would not be forgiven, I gave way, and
had inquiries made in various directions. I advertised for Margaret
Affleck; for I could not, of course, advertise for a child of whose
existence there was not any evidence. But though we advertised a great
many times both in the London and Norfolk papers--Colonel Eden remembered
that the girl belonged to Norfolk--we could not find the right person.
Colonel Eden, however, still clung to the belief that the daughter he
believed in would eventually be found, and he even contemplated adding a
clause to his will, in which everything was left unconditionally to his
son, to make provision for her. This intention was not carried out, but
shortly before his death he told me that he had left a sealed letter for
his son, who was abroad at the time, informing him of the dream, or
revelation, and asking him to continue the search, and to provide
generously for the child when she should be found. He never for a moment
seemed to doubt that she would be found; but his belief was that we would
find in her not, my dear girl, one like yourself--fresh and unsullied as
the flower in your hand, beautiful in spirit as in person."
"What did he believe you would find? Will you please tell me, Mr.
Travers?" said Fan, a tremor in her voice.
"He believed when he had that dream that you were in the lowest depths of
poverty--in misery, and exposed to all the dangers and temptations which
surround a destitute young girl, motherless perhaps, and friendless, and
homeless, in London. Dear child, I cannot tell you all or what he
feared," he finished, putting his hand lightly on her shoulder.
There were tears in her eyes, and she averted her face to hide the rush
of crimson to her cheeks.
Mr. Travers continued: "The news of Colonel Eden's death reached Arthur
in Mexico, and he came home at once. He showed me the letter I have
mentioned, and asked me to advise him what to do. But from the first he
had taken the same view of the matter which I had taken, and which I
suppose that ninety-nine men out of every hundred would take, and I must
say that he did not do much to find the girl, nor was there anything to
be done after our advertisements had failed. The rest of the story you
know, Miss Eden. When I last saw your brother I told him that after
making your acquaintance, if I found you what he had painted, I should in
all probability tell you this story, and he made no objection. I fear it
has given you pain, still it was best that you should know it. And
perhaps now you will not think that your brother was wrong in opening his
heart to me."
"No, I think he was right, and I am very, very grateful to you for
telling me about my father." After a while she continued: "But, Mr.
Travers, I hardly know what to say about the dream. I have heard and read
of such things, and--I was just what he imagined--just like the girl he
saw in his dream. And when my life was so miserable, if I had known where
to find him--if mother could have told me--I should have gone to him to
ask him to save me. But--how can I say it? Don't you think, Mr. Travers,
that if dreams and warnings were sent to us--if good spirits could let us
know things in that way and tell us what to do, that it would happen
oftener? ... There are always so many in distress and danger, and
sometimes so little is needed to save one--a few pence, a few kind words
--and yet how many fall, how many die! Even in the Regent's Canal how many
poor women throw their lives away--and nothing saves them.... I am not
glad to hear that it was a dream that first made my father wish to find
mother--and me. I should have preferred to hear that he thought of her--
of us, before he fell into such bad health, and when he was strong and
happy.... Do you think his dream was sent from heaven, Mr. Travers?"
"I am not prepared to express an opinion as to that, Miss Eden," he
replied, with a grave smile. "But I have been listening to your words
with great interest and a little surprise. Most young ladies, I fancy,
would have been deeply impressed with such a narrative, and they would
readily and gladly have adopted the view that some supernatural agency
had been concerned in the matter. You, strange to say, do not seem to
look on yourself as a special favourite of the powers above, and think
that others have as much right as yourself to be rescued miraculously
from perils and sufferings. Well--you have not a romantic mind, Miss
Eden."
"No, I don't think I have--I have had the same thing said to me two or
three times before," replied Fan na�vely. "But I wish you would tell me
more about my father when he was healthy and happy. Was he really as
handsome as he looks in the portrait? It seems so life-like that when I
am looking at it I can hardly realise that he is not somewhere living on
the earth, that I shall never hold his hand and hear his voice."
The old lawyer was quite ready to gratify her curiosity on the point, and
told her a great deal about her father's life. "There is one thing I
omitted to mention before," he said at the end. "Your brother would
gladly do anything in his power to make you happy; at the same time he
wishes you to understand that in providing for you he is only carrying
out his father's intentions, and that you will owe it to your father, and
not to him."
"But I shall still feel the same gratitude to my brother, Mr. Travers."
"Well, no harm can come of that, and--we cannot help our feelings. Just
now it is your brother's fancy to leave you in ignorance of the amount of
your income, which I think you will find sufficient. For a year or so you
have as it were _carte blanche_ to do what you like in the way of
spending, and if you should exceed your income by fifty or a hundred
pounds I don't think anything alarming will happen. And now, Miss Eden,
is there nothing I can do for you? Nothing you would like to ask my
advice about?"
"Oh yes, thank you, there is one thing," and she told him all about her
friend Constance, and her anxiety to find her.
Mr. Travers made a note of the matter. "There will be no difficulty in
finding them," he said. "I shall have inquiries made to-morrow. I hope,"
he added with a smile, "you are not going to become a convert to Mr.
Merton Chance's doctrines."
"Oh no," she replied laughing. "My only wish is to find Mrs. Chance. Mrs.
Churton once said, when she was a little vexed with me, that it was like
pouring water on a duck's back to give me religious instruction. I am
sure that if Mr. Chance ever speaks to me about his new beliefs I shall
have my feathers well oiled."
Meanwhile Mrs. Travers had been keeping the luncheon back, and watching
them engaged in that long conversation from her seat at the window. The
good woman had been the wife of her husband for a great many years, but
she had not yet outlived that natural belief that a wife has to "know
everything" her husband knows; and she had guessed that those two were
discussing secret matters which they had no intention of imparting to
her. A woman has a faculty about such things which corresponds to scent
in the terrier; the little mystery is there--the small rodent lurks
behind the wainscot; she is consumed with a desire to get at it--to worry
its life out; and if it refuse to leave its hiding-place she cannot rest
and be satisfied. It was her nature; and though she asked no questions,
knowing that her husband was not to be caught in that way, he did not
fail to remark the slight frost which had fallen on her manner and her
polite and distant tone towards their guest. Well aware of the cause, and
too old to be annoyed, it only gave him a little secret amusement. He had
warned the girl, and that was enough. The little chill would pass off in
time, and no harm would result.
It did not pass off quickly, however, but lasted three or four days,
during which time Mrs. Travers was somewhat distant in her manner, and
declined Fan's offer to read to her; and Fan remarked the change, but was
at a loss to account for it. But one day, after lunch, when they rose
from the table, she said, "Oh, Mrs. Travers, do you know that the
_Pic_. is in the drawing-room? I have been anxiously waiting since
Saturday to know what the last 'Eastern Idyll' is about."
"And why have you not read it, Miss Eden?" said the other, a little
stiffly.
"I thought that you would perhaps let me read it to you--I did not wish
to read it first."
The good woman smiled and consented. Her sight was not good, and the
sketches were always printed in a painfully small type; and besides, they
seemed different to her when the girl read them; her low musical voice,
so clear and penetrating, yet pathetic, had seemed to interpret the
writer's feeling so well. And so the frost melted, and she became more
kind and friendly than ever.
Mr. Travers, much to his own surprise, failed to discover Fan's lost
friends. One thing he had done was to send a clerk to the office of the
paper with the singular title to ask for Mr. Chance's address. The answer
he received from a not over-polite gentleman he met there was, "We don't
know nothing about Mr. Merton Chance in this horfice, and don't want to,
nether."
Mr. Travers had to confess that he could not find Merton Chance.