Evelyn Everett-Green - Monica, Volume 2 (of 3)

Randolph did not hurry her. He took off his overcoat leisurely, and laid his whip down upon the table. He looked once or twice at her as she sat pale and wan in the arm-chair whither he had led her. Then he came and stood before her.

“Monica, what have you to say to me?”

She looked up at him with an expression in her dark eyes that moved and touched him. Something of the severity passed from his face; he sat down, too, and laid his hand upon hers.

“You poor innocent child,” he said quietly, “I do not even believe you know that you have done wrong.”

“I do, Randolph,” she answered. “I do know, but not as you think – I could not help that. I hated it – I hate him; but to-night I could not help myself. Where I was wrong was in not doing as you asked – persisting in judging for myself. But how could I know that people could be so cruel, so unworthy, so false? Randolph, I should like to-night to know that I should never see one of them again!”

She spoke with a passionate energy that startled him. He had never seen her excited like this before.

“What have they been saying to you?” he asked in surprise.

“Ah! don’t ask me. It is too hateful! It was Cecilia. She seemed to think it was amusing – a capital joke. Ah! how can people be so unwomanly, so debased!”

She put her hands before her eyes, as if to shut out some hideous image. “Yes, I will tell you, Randolph – I will. I owe it to you, because – because – oh, because there is just enough truth to make it so terribly bitter. She said that people knew it was not an ordinary marriage, ours – she called it a mariage de convenance . She said everybody knew we had not fallen in love with one another.” Monica’s hand was still pressed over her eyes; she could not look at her husband. “She said I showed it plainly, that I let every one see. I never meant to, Randolph, but perhaps I did. I don’t know how to pretend. But oh, she said people thought it was because I cared – for some one else – that I had married you whilst I loved some one else – and that is all a wicked, wicked lie! You believe that, Randolph, do you not?”

She rose up suddenly and he rose too, and they stood looking into each other’s eyes.

“You believe that at least, Randolph?” she asked, and wondered at the stern sorrow visible in every line of his face.

“Yes, Monica, I believe that,” he answered, very quietly; yet, in spite of all his yearning tenderness there was still some sternness in his manner, for he was deeply moved, and knew that the time had come when at all costs he must speak out. “I, too, have heard that false rumour, and have heard – which I hope you have not – the name of the man to whom your heart is supposed to be given. Shall I tell it you? His name is Conrad Fitzgerald.”

Monica recoiled as if he had struck her, and put both her hands before her face. Randolph continued speaking in the same concise way.

“Let me tell you my tale now, Monica. I left Scotland early this morning, finishing business twelve hours earlier than I expected. I wired from Durham to you; but you had left the house before my telegram reached. In the train, during the last hour of the journey, some young fellows got in, who were amusing themselves by idle repetition of current gossip. I heard my wife’s name mentioned more than once, coupled with that of Sir Conrad Fitzgerald, in whose company she had evidently been frequently seen of late. I reached home – Lady Monica was out for the day with Mrs. Bellamy – presumably with Sir Conrad also. I dined at my club, to hear from more than one source that the world was gossiping about my handsome wife and Sir Conrad Fitzgerald. I came home at dusk to find the groom just returned, with the news that Sir Conrad was bringing my lady home, that he was dismissed from attendance; and in effect the man whose acquaintance I repudiate, whose presence in my house is an insult, rides up to my door in attendance upon my wife. Before I say any more, tell me your story. Monica, let me hear what you have been doing whilst I have been away.”

Monica, roused to a passionate indignation by what she heard – an indignation that for the moment seemed to include the husband, who had uttered such cruel, wounding words, told her story with graphic energy. She was grateful to Randolph for listening so calmly and so patiently. She was vaguely aware that not all men would show such forbearance and self-control. She knew she had wounded him to the quick by her indiscretion and self-will, but he gave her every chance to exculpate herself. When she had told her story, she stood up very straight before him. Let him pronounce sentence upon her; she would bear it patiently if she could.

“I see, Monica,” he answered, very quietly, “I understand. It is not all your fault. You have only been unguarded. You have been an innocent victim. It is Fitzgerald’s own false tongue that has set on foot these idle, baseless rumours. It is just like him.”

Monica recoiled again.

“Just like him! but, Randolph, he is my friend!”

A stern look settled upon Randolph’s face.

“Oblige me, Monica, by withdrawing that word. He is not your friend; and he is my enemy.”

“Your enemy?”

“Yes; and this is how he tries to obtain his revenge.”

Monica was trembling in every limb.

“I do not understand,” she said.

“Sit down, then, and I will tell you.”

She obeyed, but he did not sit down. He stood with his back against the chimney-piece, the light from the chandelier falling full upon his stern resolute face, with its handsome features and luminous dark eyes.

“You say you know the story of Fitzgerald’s past?”

“Yes; he forged a cheque. His sister told me.”

Randolph looked at her intently.

“Was that all she told you?”

“Yes; she said it was all. He deceived a friend and benefactor, and committed a crime. Was not that enough?”

“Not enough for Fitzgerald, it seemed,” answered Randolph, significantly. “Monica, I am glad you did not know more, since you have met that man as a friend. Forgiveness is beautiful and noble – but there are limits. I will tell you the whole story, but in brief. The Colonel Hamilton of whom you heard in connection with the forgery was Fitzgerald’s best and kindest friend. He was a friend of my mother’s and of mine. I knew him intimately, and saw a good deal of his protégé at his house and at Oxford. I did not trust him at any time. It was no very great surprise when, after a carefully concealed course of vulgar dissipation, he ended by disgracing himself in the way you have heard described. It cut Hamilton to the quick. ‘Why did not the lad come to me if he was in trouble? I would have helped him,’ he said. He let me into the secret, for I happened to be staying with him at the time; but it was all hushed up. Fitzgerald was forgiven, and vowed an eternal gratitude, as well as a complete reformation in his life.”

“Did he keep his promise?” asked Monica in a whisper.

“You shall hear how,” answered Randolph, with a gathering sternness in his tone not lost upon Monica. “From that moment it seemed as if a demon possessed him. I believe – it is the only excuse or explanation to be offered – that there is a taint of insanity in his blood, and that with him it takes, or took, the form of an inexplicable hatred towards the man to whom he owed so much. About this time, Colonel Hamilton, till then a bachelor, married a friendless, beautiful young wife, to whom in his very quiet and undemonstrative way he was deeply and passionately attached, as she was to him. But she was very young and very inexperienced, and when that man, with his smooth false tongue, set himself to poison her life by filling her mind with doubts of her husband’s love, he succeeded but too well. She spoke no word of what she suffered, but withdrew herself in her morbid jealous distress. She broke the faithful heart that loved her, and she broke her own too. It sounds a wild and foolish tale, perhaps, to one who does not understand the mysteries of a passionate love such as that; but it is all too true. I had been absent from England for some time, but came home, all unconscious of what had happened, to find my friend Hamilton in terrible grief. His young wife lay dying – dying of a rapid decline, brought on, it was said, by mental distress; and worse than all, she could not endure her husband’s presence in the room, but shrank from him with inconceivable terror and excitement. He was utterly broken down by distress. He begged me to see her, and to learn if I could, the cause of this miserable alteration. I did see her. I did get her to tell her story. I heard what Conrad Fitzgerald had done; and I was able, I am thankful to say, to relieve her mind of its terrible fear, and to bring her husband to her before the end had come. She died in his arms, happy at the last; but she died; and he, in his broken-hearted misery for her loss, and for the treachery of one he had loved almost as a son, did not survive her for long. Within six months, my true, brave friend followed her to the grave.