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Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival

Chapter XXXIII. Rain and Fog

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Chapter XXXIII. Rain and Fog.

Randal had gone to town that night, with the conviction forced upon him that he must give up Mabel Ashley for the present; but he had no idea of giving her up for ever. He could not take her money now, though she so generously offered it. He must wait, and must fight on as best he could, get money on the easiest terms possible; if he was driven to that mortgage, it could not be helped. These difficulties would only last for a time, he thought. Mabel was already in a much better humour with him than she was a month ago; perhaps he had been foolish in urging her so eagerly then. There was something odd and independent in her manner, and her mind seemed to be made up very firmly. Yet Randal thought he must be a fool indeed if in the course of the next two years he could not bring himself to the right point again with a girl like her; that point where Captain Cardew had stepped in and spoilt all before.

Then came Mabel’s letter to put an end to all his plans.

‘Well, after all,’ said Randal to himself, ‘we might have been miserable. She would, I daresay. And her colouring was all wrong. But when there was seventy thousand pounds actually in the family, it seemed such folly to let it go out again, particularly under the circumstances. Dick has played his little game well. But I should think she would die on the voyage.’

On the whole Randal took it with philosophy. He was not a person from whom any black scheme of revenge might be expected, as he liked to be cool, and to page 311 feel like a gentleman. But the failure of his pet scheme was depressing. He earned through his mortgage business, though with a little regret at vexing his father; there seemed now to be no help for it. It struck him also, for he was anything but an imprudent man, that he had better try to draw in a little. The turf, billiards, &c., were very attractive, but he was unlucky, and they would most likely ruin him in the end. He thought he would try to live mostly at Pensand for the next year or two. The estate might be improved very much; his father, who had succeeded an elderly brother there, had taken no trouble with it. Also it was plain that his father could not live much longer, and in his present state he could hardly be left quite alone. Randal, with all his faults, was not a completely bad son.

These good resolutions marked out for him about as stupid a life as a young man with his tastes could well be compelled to live; but Randal satisfied himself that they were prudent, and that he must be prudent, as the silly little heiress had chosen to give herself to some one else—a great oaf who would not know how to spend the money when he had it, Randal added to this. It occurred to him once or twice that the business of pursuing a woman for her money was an unpleasant one, and that he was glad to be out of it; but still he was disappointed, and when his affairs in town were settled, he started on his journey home in a gloomy frame of mind. He arrived at Morebay on an afternoon of pouring rain, which blotted out all beauty, and made this Queen of the West as dark and dismal as any ordinary town. His train was late, and as he had something to do in Morebay which took him down near the quay from which the river steamers started, he decided to go home that way, and telegraphed to his groom to meet him at the St. Denys quay, instead of at the station. When his business was done the evening had quite closed in, wet and page 312 foggy and dark. He was the last to hurry on board the St. Denys boat, which was getting up steam. She whistled for the last time, and finally moved off, as he stood and looked round the wet deserted deck. No shelter was to be had there; it was still raining heavily, and the passengers, not caring to be wet through, had crowded down into the little saloon cabin. After one or two turns Randal came to the same conclusion, and followed them below.

Twenty or thirty people were sitting on red velvet sofas round the cabin, which was dimly lighted by a swinging oil-lamp. There were men in mackintoshes, women in waterproof cloaks, most of them poor and shabby, and carrying large baskets. Randal sat down at the end of one of the sofas, close to the companion, pulled his hat over his eyes, and wondered how long he should be able to endure the mixture of odours, wet clothes, smoke, fish, &c. These people, he supposed, were all seasoned to it; but it soon appeared that one of them, at least, was not. A woman at the farther end of the cabin, wrapped in a cloak, and carrying a basket like the others—but the cloak was pretty and the basket was refined—suddenly rose and sat down again, catching vaguely with her hand at the table.

‘Are you ill, ma’am?’ said a gruff man’s voice.

‘No. I am rather faint. Let me go on deck, please.’

‘To be sure you shall. Give us your hand. I’ll help you. Here, missus, lay hold o’ the basket,’ said the sturdy seafaring man beside her.

But the woman’s voice had startled Randal, for it was Flora Lancaster’s. He got up and stepped forward, as Flora, very pale, and leaning on the sailor’s arm, came towards the companion. Randal might easily have avoided her, for she did not see him, and as it was he hardly knew why he chose to interfere. But he stood at page 313 the foot of the stairs, and said to the sailor, with a slightly imperious nod, ‘I know the lady. I will take her on deck, and shelter her under my umbrella.’

Then he gravely took off his hat to Flora, and offered her his arm. She stared, as if she hardly knew who he was or what he meant; but she took his arm mechanically, as it seemed, and the sailor fell back, to wonder with his wife what was up between those two.

Standing on the streaming deck, under Randal’s umbrella, with fog and rain blowing in her face, Flora’s life and colour soon came back to her. The first thing she did was quietly to withdraw her hand from his arm.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Don’t stay here, pray, to get wet for nothing. I could not bear the atmosphere of that cabin, so I shall not go below again. I am wet already, so it does not signify.’

‘So am I,’ said Randal. ‘Rather an unfortunate day to choose for shopping, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but I was obliged to go,’ said Flora.

Then they were both silent. The rain was going off a little, but Randal still held the umbrella, and the boat went cutting along through the dark water, under the hulls of great ships which loomed like castles through the fog.

‘I am on my way back from town,’ said Randal. ‘I went upon some rather disagreeable business. Money is a great plague, or rather the want of it. It cripples one at every turn.’

‘Yes,’ said Flora. ‘People who are independent of it must be very happy.’

‘Nobody is,’ said Randal.

He had the strangest feeling of impatience, as he stood there with Flora, and sheltered her from the rain. He felt as if it was her duty to sympathise with him in his failures and disappointments, to be a little curious about his affairs. Her indifference seemed to him un page 314 natural, and, being as blind as he believed himself sharp-sighted, he thought it was real.

‘You heard of Dick Northcote’s engagement?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Flora, in a tone as quiet as his own, certainly without a note of triumph in it. ‘I hope they may have better weather than this for their passage.’

‘I hope so. I would not go to those detestable colonies if there was gold to be. picked up in the streets. Rather accept my fate of staying at Pensand and being a beggar. That is about it, do you know.’

‘Is it? I am sorry,’ said Flora.

Randal was on the point of begging her not to say what she did not mean. But he checked himself, and went on to waste more information on this provoking woman.

‘My father is a little better,’ he said. ‘But he is just in that helpless state which may linger on for years without any change. He is tolerably happy in his mind, and I hope he will enjoy my company, as I shall spend the rest of his life with him. I have taken’ your advice in one particular.’

‘I do not remember giving you any advice,’ said Flora coldly.

‘On one occasion you told me it was not too late to stop certain expensive habits of mine. I have done it. I have pulled up in all directions. I am going to look after the Pensand property, and be a model squire.’

‘Indeed!’

‘You did not give me credit for such good sense?’

‘O, surely! You would always have sense enough to do what was plainly for your advantage.’

Randal felt the thrust, but he smiled.

‘One sometimes has false ideas of one’s advantage,’ he said. ‘This seems to be a true one—intensely disagreeable, as so many good things are. I look forward page 315 to a life of ceaseless boredom, spent in vain efforts to pay off my mortgage and other encumbrances, pitied by nobody, without a creature to care whether I go to the dogs or not—as I probably shall in the end. For human nature won’t stand Pensand in solitude. I have tried it before.’

Flora did not speak.

‘Don’t you pity me?’ said Randal at last.

‘No.’

‘I knew you would not, but you might, for I am miserable enough,’ said Randal.

She turned her face away from him. ‘It has stopped raining,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me keep you here.’

‘It is impossible ever to undo the past,’ said Randal. ‘Generally one wouldn’t wish it, bat I do. Those two years were the best and happiest time in my life, and since the day that ended them I have never known a happy moment. Do you believe that, Flora?’

She turned to him then with- a bright flush on her face, and spoke hastily and tremblingly.

‘I can believe it in one way, because any one who behaved so never could be really happy. But don’t speak to me like that, please; it is almost insulting.’

‘I know. We ought both to forget all about it,’ said Randal. ‘You seem to find that possible—at least, to forget everything but anger, I don’t; I am horribly miserable.’

‘How can you talk so!’ exclaimed Flora.

‘It makes no difference to you, of course. But I suppose people are allowed to repent, and are forgiven too, in a less rancorous world than this. You must take my repentance as the only amends I can make—and the knowledge that I am the most miserable fellow in the universe. Don’t think it is Mabel Ashley’s engagement that has brought me to this level. I am glad of that; I swear to you that I am.’

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At that moment, standing in the wet darkness by the side of the only woman he had ever loved, Randal meant what he said. His love was not worth having, of course; but Flora had never lost it; she had it still. Perhaps it was a little doubt of her own strength of resistance that made her say suddenly,

‘Will you go away, please? I cannot talk to you anymore. If you won’t leave me here by myself, I must go below again.’

‘No need for that. We are letting off steam, and the world is coming on deck,’ said Randal, in his quiet voice. ‘I must rescue your basket, and see you safe on shore.’

The worthy sailor and his wife came up at once with the basket. Flora thanked them earnestly for their care of it. Randal stood near her as the boat passed up to the landing-place; the light of a lamp fell on her face. Her eyes were wet, and there were two bright spots on her cheeks. She looked thin and worn; but somehow Randal thought she was as beautiful as ever, and the suffering in her face, which had so strangely deepened its expression, went straight to his heart; for he had one, if it was only an ’atom within a thick crust of worldly selfishness.

‘Will you allow me to drive you up the hill?’ he said to her, as the boat stopped, in a voice of respect and tenderness.

‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘My father was coming to meet me.’

Randal led her on shore, but did not venture so far as Captain Cardew, who was steering himself with some care across the slippery quay. He watched Flora safe to her father’s side, however, and then struck off to the corner where his dog-cart was waiting, took the reins from Jenkins, and drove off with the pleasant and unusual excitement of a good conscience.