After the first shock of passionate grief had been lived through, and when Arthur was capable of calmly reviewing his position, he found that he could look forward to the future with something more than resignation. Nor will the reader be at a loss to account for this apparently strange condition. In constitution of mind eminently an idealist, he was yet, as we have had frequent opportunities of seeing, singularly dependent upon external influences for the shape which his idealism should for the time assume. The secret of his life lay in the fact that his was an ill-balanced nature, lacking that element of a firm and independent will which might at any moment exert its preponderance in situations of doubt. Hence it resulted that he was one of those men whose lives seem to have little result for the world save as useful illustrations of the force of circumstances — one of those who, had Fortune directed his path amid congenial scenes, might have developed a rich individuality. As it was, though noble impulse unmistakably constituted the soil of his mind, adverse circumstances forbade his giving to the implanted seeds that care which might have nourished them into flower and fruit. All the more sensible was he to the influence of those who, assuming the position of his own will, exerted themselves to direct the cultivation of his nature. Once he had possessed such a guide in William Noble; at present he was as clay in the hands of Helen Norman. In both of these friends he felt the presence of that which he himself lacked — a strong will; and in both cases he clung to the leadership of this will with a presentiment that it was his best resource. William Noble he had formerly followed from respect for his sterling character and admiration of his lofty aims. But both these feelings had yielded before the influence of Helen Norman, who established immutably, with the seal of passion, the power which her ideal character might only have exerted for a while. Thus it was that Arthur looked forward with a strange kind of pleasure to the strict pursual of the course which Helen had enjoined upon him. The fact that the injunction carried with it the infliction of fearful torture rather attracted than terrified him; he was about to suffer for her sake, in the pursuit of a noble ideal which she had set before him, and this consideration was to Arthur Golding an impulse stronger than that which any prospect of mere worldly ease could have afforded. Indeed, it was only in the pursuit of such ideals that he could ever hope to find ease. It was nothing to him that the way led through unheard-of suffering. Already he had suffered much more than falls to the lot of ordinary men, and he might reasonably hope that, by constant endurance, his torture would become his element.
To say that it was pure idealism which drove him onward to his dread task would not be the whole truth; there was also hope. To say that he hoped for an ultimate termination of his strife, that he hoped some day to be able to claim his reward, is but to say that he was a man. The hope was not one upon which he could permit himself to dwell, which, indeed, he could venture to contemplate as existing at all; but for all that it was there, no inconsiderable element of his determined courage. Instinctively he knew that Helen also was nursing the same hope. They were both young; both could wait, untroubled by the faintest distrust of each other’s purposes. What power could forbid them to hope?
Arthur’s first task was to rediscover Carrie. He could not tell whether she would again come to his lodgings, but it was possible, and he must not miss her in case she did. Accordingly, he took the resolution of telling Mr. Venning the facts concerning his marriage, and also his future intentions. This step taken, he began an active search. He knew that there was little chance of discovering Carrie in the day time, so through the day he applied himself steadfastly to his work, and at night went forth and wandered for hours about those districts where, as his former experience told him, women of Carrie’s class were most wont to congregate. Save such vague guidance as this, he had absolutely no clue to her whereabouts. He frequently inserted advertisements in the newspapers, but they remained without answer. Many a time when walking late at night along the Strand, or in the Haymarket, or about Regent Street or Oxford Street, he caught a distant glimpse of a form resembling that which he sought; then he would hurry in pursuit, and only when the approach of his quick step had caused the girl to look round would find that he had been deceived. At such times he was absolutely proof against all seductive arts; the sensual part of his nature seemed for the present subdued before the seriousness of his task. Night after night he frequented scenes of gaiety, of debauch of the most depraved licentiousness, but always with the same sad, fixed face, the same impatient eagerness of glance, which denoted something very different from the pursuit of pleasure. He had somewhat the air of a gambler, wandering about in feverish search of an opportunity to retrieve his ruined fortunes. He never spoke to any one, and, as he lived in unbroken Silence during the day time, his manner showed that nervous shyness peculiar to those who live much in solitude. Possibly the nature of his search may also have contributed to make him timid and shrinking, for he dreaded to meet with Carrie at least as much as he desired to do so. His feverish imagination exhausted itself in the picturing of horrible circumstances amid which he might find her. Every crowd in the street caused him a vague dread. He became by degrees nervously sensitive to unusual noises; sometimes an unexpected touch when he was passing along the street would cause him to start violently. Doubtless much of this was due to ill-health, caused by want of sleep and the constant mental trouble he endured. Soon he had not even the resource of wholesome work, for alas! art was becoming once more distasteful to him. He missed the cheerful energy which had lately urged him on whenever he took up the pencil, the ever-active imagination revealing to him worlds of glorious possibilities, the rapid heart-beat which was his reward when he had achieved a success. Now he was obliged to force himself to his easel, and the labour of an hour wearied him inexpressibly in body and mind.
Already he had begun to ask himself whether this search could endure for ever, and what course he should pursue if unable to attain his object, when, one night towards the end of April, his wanderings came to an end. It had been a severe night, bitter with alternating snow, hail and rain, and with a piercing wind which never ceased to rush along the muddy streets, setting at defiance every protection. Despite the weather, Arthur had wandered about as usual, partly from mere habit, partly because his own room was intolerable to him. Though he had scarcely any hope of recognising the face he sought, he never ceased to scan the features of every woman that passed him, feeding the melancholy in his heart upon the endless variety of woe which was thus exhibited to him. But about eleven the storm became so fierce that it was hardly possible to stand against it. At this moment he found himself near a lighted entrance into which several people were hastening, and hither he too repaired, in the intention of seeking shelter till the violent hail was over. It was a narrow doorway, situated in a very shabby back street, and, as he entered, he found himself in front of a second door, on which was a large placard, exhibiting the words, “Tableaux Vivants.” Hearing the sound of music within, he pushed the door open, and entered a moderate-sized room, lighted only by a jet of gas suspended from the low ceiling. Standing and sitting about the room were some thirty or forty men, engaged in watching the entertainment. Their eyes were directed to a small elevated platform, of circular shape, which was placed immediately under the gas-jet, the rays from which were concentrated upon it by means of a large shade. On the platform, which kept slowly revolving to the sound of a melancholy hand-organ, stood two women, at first sight apparently naked, but in reality clothed in tight-fitting tissue of flesh-colour. The fact that one was in the act of offering an apple for the other’s acceptance rendered it probable that the group was meant to represent Adam and Eve. As the platform revolved, the two engaged in a slow pantomime indicative of conversation. Such was the entertainment, watched in silence, only broken now and then by a coarse laugh or a whispered comment. Of course it was meant to be vicious, and certainly was indecent in character; but surely not the severest moralist could have devised a means of showing more clearly the hideousness of vice. The cold, bare room, swept through by a gust from the street whenever the door opened, the wailing hand-organ playing a waltz in the time of a psalm-tune, and with scarcely a correct note, the assemblage of gross and brutal-featured men, whose few remarks were the foulest indecencies, the reek of bad tobacco which was everywhere present, the dim light, save on the revolving platform where the shivering wretches went through their appointed parts, — surely only in England, where popular amusement is but known in theory, could so ghastly an ensemble attract a single spectator.
But to Arthur it was no opportunity for moralising. Scarcely had he taken half-a-dozen steps towards the end of the room where the platform was, before he suddenly stopped. As he entered, the backs of the women had been towards him, but now the revolution had brought their faces under the light, and that moment he knew that he had found Carrie. The one holding up the apple could be no other than she. Her features were paler and thinner than they had been even on the night when he last saw her. Her hair, which had always been wonderfully long and thick, now fell quite loosely upon her shoulders, and to below her waist. Her face was distorted with the semblance of a smile; but so intensely was she suffering from the cold that her parted teeth frequently chattered, and her hand trembled visibly.
On either side of the platform, green curtains shut off a portion of the room, and behind these the two performers disappeared as soon as their pantomime was at an end. Inquiry of the door-keeper informed Arthur that the payment of a shilling entitled the spectators to go behind the scenes, or, in other words, behind the green curtains. Almost throwing the money at the man, he hastened to avail himself of the privilege. Besides the two performers, who had cast over themselves a little extra clothing for the sake of warmth, he found two or three other women, evidently preparing to go upon the platform, and chattering the while with half-a-dozen low-looking men, who stood there with their hands in their pockets, smoking. At Arthur’s entrance, Carrie raised her hands, with an artificial smile of welcome; but, recognising him the same moment, she involuntarily gave utterance to a low scream, and rose to her feet, as if with some thought of escaping. Arthur made no sign in reply, but simply drew near to the wretched girl and addressed her in a low voice, inaudible to the others present.
“I have been seeking you for many weeks, Carrie,” he said, “and had almost given up in despair. Quick; dress, and come out of this horrible place.”
“Come?” she repeated, as if not understanding, while every limb trembled. “Where to?”
“With me, with me,” said Arthur. “I cannot explain. be quick.”
“But I can’t go,” she replied. “I’m engaged for an hour yet. won’t let me go,” she added, nodding towards the other of the curtains.
“Who? The man at the door?”
“Yes.”
“How much has he paid you?”
“He hasn’t paid me yet; but he’ll pay me five shillings at the end of the week.”
“Dress at once, then. I will go and speak to him.”
Half-a-crown to the man at the door removed all difficulties, and in a very few minutes the two issued together into the street.
The violence of the storm had by this time spent itself, but the rain still fell heavily. They hurried on together, side by side, in silence, till at length Arthur stopped before a small coffee-house.
“Are you hungry, Carrie?” he asked, turning and looking into her face.
She shook her head.
Beckoning her to follow, he pushed open the door and entered. In a few moments he had paid for a night’s lodging, and, accompanied by Carrie, was shown upstairs into a small and not too clean-looking bedroom. The waiter gave him a candle and retired. Arthur turned the key in the door, and then faced Carrie, whose eyes had followed his motions with wonder.
“Last time I saw you, Carrie,” he said, speaking in a low voice, lest he should be heard through the thin walls, “I behaved cruelly to you. You told me how anxious you were to return to a better life, and how you repented of the past, and yet I let you go away without a word of kindness or an offer of forgiveness. For a long time I have tried to find you, wishing to make amends for my unkindness. Now let us forget the past. Come and live with me again as my wife. Will you, Carrie?”
As he regarded the girl’s suffering face, a deep feeling of compassion had by degrees awakened within his heart, and he nourished it eagerly, trusting that it might render his task easier to him.
“How can I be your wife, Arthur?” returned Carrie, sobbing. “You don’t know what I have gone through; you don’t know what a miserable wretch I am. I am not fit to be your wife.”
“Yes,” replied Arthur, “you are more fit than when we first met. You have suffered severely; you are better able to understand the pleasures of a quiet, virtuous life. You will no longer think me foolish when I urge you to improve yourself; you will feel that I was always anxious for your happiness, and could see more clearly than you how it was to be attained. I assure you I shall never think of the past, and you will soon forget it in the happiness of a better life. Have you still any love for me, Carrie?”
“I have always loved you,” she said, weeping bitterly. “It isn’t you as has been cruel to me, Arthur; it’s me as has behaved as if I hated you, though all the while I loved you better than I ever loved any one else. It was all the drink; it drove me to do things and to say things as I shouldn’t never have thought on, and as I didn’t mean — no, upon my word, I didn’t. If I can only keep from drink, Arthur, I could be a faithful and hard-working wife, indeed I could. I’ll do my best I will. But I feel I’m not fit to live with you. I never was fit.”
“We won’t talk any more about it, Carrie,” said the young pressing her hand kindly. “It is possible to begin again and correct all our mistakes; for I have made mistakes as well as you. Only promise me that you will do your very best, for, you know, it cannot be done without an effort.”
“Yes, yes, I will promise,” said Carrie. “I’ll do my very best, indeed I will. If I can only keep from drink you shan’t have nothing to complain of. Kiss me, Arthur! Oh, it’s so long since you kissed me, and I’ve always loved you, all the while.”
He bent his head, and she clung to him with a fervour resembling that of the early days of their love. There was no feigning in this outbreak of passion, it was a genuine gleam of womanly nature making itself visible amid the foul gloom of a desecrated humanity. When she said that she had always loved him, she spoke the simple truth, strange and incredible as it may seem. This feeling it had been which had alone preserved her from sinking into absolute brutality, as the majority of such women do; upon its development depended her only chance of rising to a purer life. And Arthur, though he could not persuade himself into a belief of reviving passion, yet experienced so intensely the emotion of pity, felt so keenly the full pathos of her broken words, was so profoundly touched by the sense of her helplessness, that the thought of once more being a providence to the poor suffering outcast melted his heart, and for the moment made him forget to compare her with Helen.
Already, in anticipation of this event, Arthur had realised in cash one hundred pounds out of his Three Per Cents., and with this he was enabled to take and furnish two rooms for himself and Carrie. In order to remove her as far as possible from the temptations of the town, he chose his lodgings in a quiet little street in Hampstead, at this time of year a delightful neighbourhood, where he hoped that the calmness of the surroundings, the fresh, healthful air, and the constant presence of nature, would likewise act beneficially upon his own mood and renew his artistic impulses. It was with strange sensations that he sat down to pass the first evening in his new home with Carrie at his side. For more than a week the latter had been engaged in purchasing articles of clothing for herself. Arthur had not attended her on these shopping excursions, being unwilling to arouse the suspicion of distrust, and he had been astonished at the moderation which Carrie had exhibited in the quality and number of her purchases. It seemed as though she had made up her mind to destroy at a blow all the extravagant propensities of her nature, and to demonstrate by the severe simplicity of her external appearance the change which had come over her mind. To-night she sat in a dress of her own making, an extremely plain print gown with no trace of adornment; her hair done up into a single plait behind her head, and fixed with merely a piece of black ribbon. Attired thus, she still retained much of her old beauty, though her eyes were dark and heavy and there was a woeful hollowness in her cheeks. In her behaviour she was extremely quiet, not often speaking, sitting most of her time with an absent, melancholy look, and often sighing deeply. Her health was utterly shattered; even the performance of the lightest household work taxed her strength almost beyond its endurance. Yet as he sat gazing at her in the evening twilight, pretending to be engaged with a book, Arthur felt his heart warm with a glow of delight, which was no other than the glad sense of having performed a just action. He had once more raised Carrie from the depths of wretchedness to comfort and respectability. His mind was almost at ease this evening. There was something like hope pictured before him in the warm hues of the western sky, a calm, sober hope, which should have its source in nothing but the steadfast performance of duty. When at length his look met Carrie’s by chance, he smiled upon her, with a kindliness which was scarcely distinguishable from affection.
In this way Arthur conscientiously did his best to adapt himself to his circumstances and render his life tolerable. His was a nature which ever found its amplest joy in the gratification of others, and during the first few weeks of his new life, he was even happy in watching Carrie’s delight at every fresh instance of his thoughtfulness and care for her. He had recommenced his work, too, and was constantly engaged in making studies for what he meant should be a great picture, the subject to be the Pleading of Portia. As was always the case when a new and strong idea suddenly possessed itself of his mind, Arthur worked with the utmost enthusiasm for several weeks. Carrie he used for his model of the female form, for male figures he secured the services of a good-for-nothing, but finely-built and handsome young fellow who was perpetually lounging about the door of a public-house hard by, and who was only too glad to earn a few shillings by means so admirably adapted to his constitutional indolence. Having made his first rough cartoon, he purchased at some expense a fine work on costumes, by means of which he was enabled to clothe his figures in appropriate raiment. The scene which he was illustrating had been a favourite one with Mr. Tollady, who had many a time made Arthur read it aloud to him, insisting on the utmost nicety of tone and expression; so that the eager artist had his zeal redoubled by the dear recollections amidst which he worked.
Another incitement, too, he had, perhaps of a somewhat perilous character, but which he had persuaded himself was innocent. Ever since his love for Helen had unmistakably declared itself in his heart, her image had become for him the ideal of female excellence. So, whatever book he read, whatever fancies he meditated upon, as often as the figure of a noble woman was called up before his mind’s eye, it inevitably appeared in Helen’s shape, looked forth from Helen’s eyes, and spoke in Helen’s tones. Thus, in depicting Portia, it was Helen who sat for the likeness. An exquisitely graceful, yet tall and commanding, form; a firm, lithe neck, connecting head and trunk with ideal aptitude; features of classical purity, wherein every line spoke character, mobile, expressive of the finest shades of subtle thought and feeling, ravishing when lighted with a gleam of tenderness and joy, awe-inspiring when moulded to the utterance of rebuke, at all times the incarnation of lofty purity; such was the idea which Arthur had conceived of Portia, and which his heart held embodied in the shape of Helen Norman. Unable to wait for the completion of the subsidiary details of the picture, as soon as he had designed the main groups he threw himself upon the canvas with a desperate ardour, and scarcely laid down his pallet till, as it were, the ghost of Portia looked out upon him from the midst of still more ghostlike shapes. For the arrangement of the drapery Carrie stood as his model.
“Is it the Queen, Arthur?” she asked, one morning, when her eye was able to discern something of the commanding shape.
“Yes,” replied Arthur, in a low voice, adding to himself — “My queen.”
“But you must put the crown on her head,” urged Carrie, with an overwhelming sense of the importance of the symbol.
“Perhaps I may do; but I am not sure.”
“Oh, but how can it be the Queen without a crown?” asked Carrie. “Nobody will know who it’s meant for, Arthur.”
“Perhaps not, Carrie, I must think of it.”
With all sincerity, Arthur believed himself innocent in thus dwelling upon the memory of Helen’s loveliness. He convinced himself that she was no longer a woman to him. She was now a mere personification of a principle, the bodily presentment of the high spirit she had breathed into his life, of unshakable consistency and aspiring effort. He felt that it was good for him that he should have her image ever present in his mind; it constantly reminded him of his promise to her, urged him not to falter for a moment in the path of self-sacrifice upon which she had bidden him enter. She was his patron saint, his divinity; he would scarcely have esteemed it folly to pray before her effigy.
When his hand sunk in weariness from its perpetual task, and his mind irresistibly craved relaxation from its intense toil, it was the occupation of hours to sit and dream of the time when his picture would be completed. He would send it to the Academy; it would be received, he felt sure it would be received; and there Helen would see it. Perhaps it would make him famous — who could tell? Perhaps she would read glowing eulogies of him and his work. Oh, it was Heaven to wander through long summer evenings about the country lanes, feeding the fire of his imagination from the warm, rich sunsets, chastening the conceptions of his passionate heart in the calm, cool light of the rising moon.
At first he had always taken Carrie with him when he went on these evening walks, but by degrees her commonplace chatter, her vulgarisms of thought and language, her utter insensibility to the impressions of the season and the hour, rendered her company at such times intolerable to him. He could not bear that the deepest joys of which his nature was capable should be vexed and sullied by these wretched admixtures of vulgar inappreciativeness. Carrie had not the faintest conception of the beauties of nature; when amid delightful country scenes she yearned for the lights of the shops and the coarse tumult of the pavement. Though country-born and bred, the fresh air of the fields, the glad light of a cloudless heaven, the odour of flowers, the verdure of tree and meadow, awoke not a single tender reminiscence within her heart. She was emphatically a child of the town, dreaming of nothing but its gross delights, seeing in everything pure and lovely but a sapless image of some town-made joy. One evening Arthur endeavoured to make her appreciate the grandeur of a sunset scene from the Heath. After looking at it for some moments, she exclaimed, “It’s almost as pretty as the theatre, isn’t it?”
Comfort had a demoralising effect upon Carrie. In the midst of physical suffering she seemed to become somewhat finer natured, manifesting sensibilities worthy of respect, and, thanks to her personal beauty, exciting deep compassion and sympathy. But as the recollection of her pain began to lose its edge, she became perceptibly coarser; her language, her very features seemed to bear witness to the reviving animal within. Arthur observed this only too well; it made him shudder for the future. Scarcely had this genial life endured two months, before occasional words and actions on Carrie’s part began to remind him of that hideous period in his life which preceded her desertion of him. Once more she showed signs of becoming headstrong and wilful; her temper was being aggravated by her constant ill-health. At first Arthur turned aside her impatience by the softest of answers, resolved to endure anything rather than be unfaithful to his task. He reflected that she had at least successfully struggled with her main vice for his sake; and it would be ungrateful to forget that. Everything was tolerable, compared with this ghostly phantom, which, though inactive, still seemed to sit by his fireside, brooding over horrors fatal to his peace.
But the phantom could not for ever remain inactive. One evening it began to stir — very slightly, but very perceptibly. Carrie’s health had rendered it necessary that she should be seen by a physician, and for several weeks she obtained from the latter bottles of medicine, which she kept on the top shelf of a cupboard in the bedroom. One evening when Carrie was out making purchases, Arthur had occasion to look for something on this top shelf. In front of the bottles of medicine, of which there were some half dozen, stood the wine-glass which served as a measure. This appeared to have been recently used, and in the bottom of it a little liquid still remained. Out of idle curiosity, Arthur took up the glass and smelt it. The smell seemed to inflict a sudden shock on his frame; he started and almost dropped the glass. He smelt again, then tasted the drop which the glass contained, and he could not doubt that it was pure brandy. With a trembling hand he took out each of the medicine bottles from the dark recess, and the last he took, which was also the largest, he found to be half full of spirits.
It was, of course, possible that the physician had ordered the use of brandy, but, in that case, why had not Carrie informed him of it? How slight a chance there was of such a supposition being true, when put face to face with that dark dread which ever sat by his hearth, which seemed to whisper a fearful contradiction in the silence of the room. At first he decided that he would affect an unrestrained manner, and ask Carrie plainly whether the spirits had been prescribed; but his very soul shrank from the possibility of hearing a shameless lie, which subsequent enquiry could at once expose. No, he could not speak to her about it; but he would adopt a plan just as sure. He would take the bottle, throw away the contents, and then replace it, empty, amongst the others; then await the result, if any.
This was on a Saturday. On Saturday evenings Carrie was always out a long time, owing to the number of purchases she had to make for the week. As a rule, Arthur welcomed this absence, enjoying the quietness it secured, and working at his easel as long as it remained light. But this evening he was once more a prey to that terrible mind-canker which robs of all delight in existence. For the first time he turned away from his picture in distaste, and paced the room in wretchedness of spirit. Was he, then, about to undergo once more those fearful tortures which had already once ended in all but his total ruin? He regarded his daily life with a bitterness which he had long succeeded in keeping aloof, and his heart nourished the seeds of anger against her who once more threatened to be his curse. “It is vain! It is vain!” he cried to himself, with the voice of his thoughts. “All my efforts are vain! I cannot raise her to my level; but I feel only too well that she has the power to drag me down to hers. It is my fate to suffer, to conceive plans and hopes which time only shatters, like a child its playthings.”
Carrie had left the house at five o’clock, and it was nine before she returned. Arthur received her on her entrance with an angry face.
“How is it you are so late?” he asked impatiently.
“Late!” she repeated, with a careless tone. “I don’t know as I’m late. I’ve been far enough to find something for your dinner, anyhow.”
And, as she spoke, she flung her basket on to the floor. She had not gone out in the best of tempers, and apparently had returned not at all improved.
“You have been out about four hours,” said Arthur, doing his best to speak calmly. “It is impossible for you to spend all that time in shopping.”
“Is it?” she retorted. “Then do your own shopping next time, and see, that’s all!”
And she straightway walked into the bedroom, banging the door behind her.
Arthur was left in that distressing state of body and mind which he knew only too well. His throat, tongue and lips parched and burning, his heart pressed down by a terrible weight, a sickness of the soul crushing his whole being. For the first time he tasted the full bitterness of the task he had taken upon him, and looked forward to the future as if into the very jaws of despair. Utterly unable to fix himself to any work, he took up a volume of poetry and tried to lose himself thus, but not a word impressed itself on his mind, and, after staring for an hour at a blank page, he turned out the light and went into the bedroom. Carrie was in bed, but not asleep. He addressed a few words to her, but, receiving no answer, he lay down in silence by her side, and tried to sleep. Hour after hour went by, finding him still wakeful, his forehead burning, his whole frame oppressed by the first onset of a fever. Carrie had soon fallen asleep, but into a sleep which was perpetually broken by tossings, mutterings, and occasional cries. Already the earliest morning light had penetrated through the blind when Arthur forgot his sufferings in a dreamless slumber.
Carrie awoke about ten o’clock, complaining bitterly of a severe headache. She evidently remembered nothing of what had occurred the evening before, but she was sullen, and, for the most part, silent. The morning was gloomy, threatening rain, but about noon it began to clear, and by two o’clock the sun was shining brightly. Carrie had declared herself too ill to rise, and had refused breakfast, which Arthur was obliged to prepare for himself as well as he could. As soon as the sunshine gave promise of endurance, he gladly seized on the chance of breathing fresh air, and prepared to go out. When he was ready, he went, after a moment’s hesitation, to the bedroom door, and asked Carrie if she cared to accompany him. He received no reply, though he could see she heard him, and at once left the house alone.
For two or three hours he drank deep of the healthful summer air, refreshing body and mind in a wander over the Heath and out into the country beyond, thanking Heaven for the blessing of solitude. As was always the case when the fit of irritation had passed away, he thought of Carrie with pitying tenderness, accusing himself as the cause of all their misunderstandings, reproaching himself for lack of consideration towards her, in short, longing to return and ask her forgiveness for wrong he had never committed. In this mood he hastened homewards, arriving towards six o’clock. He hoped to find Carrie waiting for him, with a comfortable tea. Instead of that he found her still in bed, her face disfigured with signs of long weeping, her eyes red with meaningless passion. Mastering his disappointment, he approached the bed and said calmly —
“Don’t you feel better, Carrie?”
“A great deal you care!” was the reply, in a fiercely passionate tone. “Better indeed! Ain’t you sorry as you haven’t found me dead? It ‘ud a’ been a good riddance, wouldn’t it?”
“How can you say such things, Carrie?” asked Arthur, studiously maintaining a mild tone. “What has made you so angry with me?”
“Angry, indeed!” she pursued, her voice rising, though she still lay with her head motionless upon the disordered pillow. “What do you mean by going out and leaving me alone here for five or six hours? A deal you care what I suffer. Leaving me, too, without a mouthful to eat all day.”
“Now, Carrie, don’t talk foolishly,” returned Arthur. “You know very well you indignantly refused to take any breakfast, and would not answer me when I asked you afterwards to have something to eat. And as to my going out, didn’t I ask you before I went whether you cared to go with me? If you are not disposed for a walk, must I also remain moping at home?”
“You know very well,” broke in the girl, “that I’ve not had a mouthful to eat all day. What do you mean by neglecting me as you do? What right have you to go out and leave me alone here, hour after hour?”
Arthur paused for a moment before speaking. It was only by a fierce internal struggle that he suppressed an angry reply to such inconsequent reproaches. At last he said —
“You are out of temper, Carrie, and don’t know what you are saying. In a short time you will see how unjust you have been to me. Don’t let us talk any more of it. Shall I make you a cup of tea?”
“Make tea for me, indeed!” she retorted. “It ‘ud be something new for you to do anything for me!”
“You really think what you say?”
“Yes, I do, so there you have it straight. I’ve seen it day after day, how you neglect me more and more. Do anything for me, indeed! Not you! You only wish I was dead.”
Stung to madness by the cruel injustice of these taunts, Arthur bit his tongue to keep down an angry reply, and at once left the room. But the air of the house stifled him; he could not remain indoors. In a few minutes he was once more pacing quickly along the quiet street, heedless where he went, only driven perpetually onward by a devouring fire within his breast. Oh, he knew the meaning of the scene just enacted only too well. Despite his precautions, Carrie had once more fallen beneath the power of her old vice; most likely she had been drinking all the time of his absence. Certainly it was foolish to be made angry by the senseless clamour of a drunken woman, but human nature contains a far greater portion of passion than of philosophy, and only after an hour’s violent bodily exercise did Arthur regain something of calmness. Till the moon and stars were bright above him, he wandered about the fields and lanes, pondering with a dogged persistency, the result of hopelessness, on the means of rendering his life at least tolerable. It was clear to him that he must have more society, that he must create for himself some more definite and immediate aim than that which his higher purposes in art afforded. If he could not conquer the terrible evils of his domestic life, the only course left for him was to flee from them. When at length he returned home, he had conceived a plan which he resolved the following day should be enacted.
Carrie slept soundly throughout the night, and in the morning awoke vastly improved. With true womanly logic she refused to acknowledge that she had been wrong, but yet asked Arthur to forgive her. With a smile and a sigh Arthur accorded the desired forgiveness. He did not venture to hint at the true cause of what had happened, for, indeed, at the moment he dreaded more a repetition of Carrie’s violence than the results of leaving her vice unreproved. The same morning he wrote a letter to the editor of a well-known popular weekly journal, stating that he was an artist, and very much wanted to find employment in the illustration of works of fiction and the like. He requested that the editor would grant him an interview, for the purpose of exhibiting specimens of his workmanship. In a day or two he received a brief reply, merely stating that the editor had no vacancy at his disposal, and that therefore the desired interview would be useless. Not discouraged, Arthur addressed himself by turns to several other papers, and, after some three weeks, was fortunate enough to find occasional employment in beautifying the pages of a weekly paper, the character of which was, however, far below what he had aimed at. But his main object was gained, for he was thus enabled to form a few acquaintanceships, and so break, in some degree, the intolerable monotony of his life.
For, in the meantime, things had become steadily worse. Shortly after the outbreak just described, Carrie one day threw aside all concealment, and was found by Arthur, on his return from a sketching excursion, mad with drink. For several hours during the night, he had to restrain her by force from making her way out of the house, and her yells and shrieks were plainly audible by passengers out in the street. On the day after, they received notice to quit from their landlady, and within a week removed to a lodging in Highgate. But change of locality made no alteration in Carrie’s habits. Having once more surrendered herself, body and soul, to the passion for drink, it seemed as if no earthly power could check her course to utter ruin. Entreaties, arguments, adjurations, menaces, all were tried by the wretched man whose wife she called herself, sometimes with momentary effect, never with enduring benefit. Her character underwent a sensible and rapid change for the worse. She seemed to have lost all sense of shame, and, in the brief moments when she could converse peaceably with Arthur, took endless delight in describing to him the horrors of her life in the interval of her separation from him, relating details which a woman of the least sensibility would have shrunk from ever recalling to mind. More and more did Arthur absent himself from her, passing his time either in the company of such acquaintances as his connection with the paper had secured him, and who were, on the whole, miserable creatures, or else in wandering about the town alone, nursing his despair, and brooding over all manner of desperate thoughts. Sometimes a revival of the old enthusiasm would lead him to spend a whole day in the National Gallery, or among the antiques of the British Museum, but very rarely now did he conceive an impulse sufficiently strong to call him back to his easel. He visited the theatres frequently, and at one time suddenly conceived the idea of turning his thoughts to literature and writing a play. But even in his imagination this work never got beyond the first act, and not a word was ever written. By degrees he came to exhibit very much the appearance of a listless, idle man about town. He even paid more attention to his external appearance than of old, a sure sign that his mind was ceasing to furnish him with occupation. Yet, amid all this rapid degeneration, he never sank into absolute vice. From that he was withheld by the ever present aspect and voice of that pure being whose effigy still graced the undefiled sanctuary of his soul. Helen’s parting words were as loud in his ears today as they had been when spoken, months ago. These alone could supply him with courage to live, these alone forbade him to utterly relinquish the task they had imposed.
But, in truth, it was an utterly hopeless task, one which, if persevered in, could only lead to death, first of the soul, then of the body. Though there occurred lucid moments in which Carrie gave way to passionate weeping and wailing over her misdoings, entreating forgiveness with an almost fierce persistency, and vowing reformation in the name of all conceivable sanctities, yet these were but moments, and were followed, as they had been preceded, by whole days, sometimes weeks of disgusting debauch. Owing to her disreputable conduct, Arthur was compelled to change his abode repeatedly, coming at each time nearer to the town, for the sake of the increased privacy which — paradoxical as the assertion seems — a crowded neighbourhood secured for them. At each of these removals Arthur made a fresh desperate endeavour to check her madness, but always with a result so utterly disheartening, that he was obliged to content himself with being as much away from home as possible. All the terrible scenes which had been so familiar to him during the old life in Huntley Street were now reenacted, though with more terrible earnestness, and against a background of the deepest gloom. All the old tricks to obtain money were once more resorted to, and, since the furniture of the room was now Arthur’s own, it now was easier to find the means of procuring drink than it had been before. Arthur noticed day by day that articles disappeared, but remonstrance, angry or gentle, was utterly vain; he was obliged to submit to the inevitable.
Early in December an event occurred which was destined to bring about the end of this terrible conflict. One evening Carrie had strayed out of Camden Town, where the two were then living, as far as Tottenham Court Road. Though the wretched girl had been powerless to resist the temptations of her master-vice, she had hitherto continued to preserve sufficient regard for Arthur’s feelings to keep her from renewing her associations with the old companions of her abandoned life, though the inducements to do so had often been strong and the opportunities manifold. To-night she was in a despondent mood, resulting from a long period of debauch, and was beset with an overpowering desire to find some kind of companionship. She well knew where this companionship was to be had; she well knew that a quarter-of-an-hour’s walk would place her in the old sphere of licentious gaiety; and she asked herself what it was that withheld her from satisfying her longing. Carrie never reasoned about anything; to apply that term to her mental processes would be a hopeless error of nomenclature; but even now, as the temptation rose in her mind, a vague species of emotion rose to oppose it, a flickering shadow of that feeling which, in a purer being, would have been gratitude to a benefactor. Brought to a pause in this faint involuntary reaction, she stood and gazed into a shop window, a jeweller’s, such a window as had always exercised a baneful influence over her. Already she had begun to reflect how easily she could procure the means and the opportunity of decking herself in some of the gaudiest trinkets exposed for sale, when a voice sounded in her ear, a voice which she knew well, and which made her start. Turning, she met the look of no less a person than Mistress Polly Hemp.
“Well, I’m blest!” exclaimed Polly, who had not perceptibly changed in appearance since Carrie last parted from her. “And is it really you! Why, I never thought to see you again.”
“And I don’t know as ever I thought to see you, Polly,” replied the other, after a hesitation of a second or two. “How do you do?”
“Pretty middlin’. And what are you up to here, eh? But come, talking’s thirsty sort o’ work. I don’t like to be shabby when I meet a old friend. Come and liquor.”
Again a hesitation, this time perceptible.
“What!” pursued Polly, “You’ve growed proud, have you, Carrie. Above drinkin’ with me, eh?”
It was decided. Carrie turned and accompanied her tempter, following the voice of Fate.
About a week after this meeting, Carrie took advantage of a day when she knew Arthur would be absent till late in the evening to invite Polly Hemp to visit her in her own lodging in Camden Town. There was something of vanity in this invitation, as well as a desire for companionship, for she was not sorry to show to one who had known her in her most miserable days the comparative luxury amid which she now lived. Fortified by the inevitable bottle of spirits, the two discussed each article of furniture, went over Carrie’s wardrobe, and even ransacked the drawers containing Arthur’s apparel, Polly Hemp all the time exhausting herself in eulogies.
“All I can say is,” she exclaimed at length, “you may think yourself deuced lucky, Carrie, to have dropped into such a crib. And your ‘usband a hartist, is he? I’ll go bail he makes a bloomin’ sight of tin out of it, too. Now don’t he, eh?”
Carrie shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know as he does,” she replied. “At all events I don’t get much out of it.”
“Then it’s a cursed shame, that’s all I’ve got to say!” affirmed Polly, after tossing off some half-quartern of raw whiskey at a gulp. “And you say he even grumbles at your having a drop o’ something comfortable now and then? I’m blest if it isn’t a shame!”
“Yes, and him with so much money, too, he don’t hardly know what to do with it,” put in Carrie, with a wink.
“Has he, though?” asked the other, sharply, the old evil light gleaming in her little pig-eyes. “Has he, though?”
“Never you mind,” returned the other. “He don’t know as I know of it. But I know if the money was mine, I wouldn’t be so mean with it.”
Carrie’s voice stammered somewhat as she spoke. At present she was in that maudlin condition which with her always preceded a period of hopeless intoxication.
“But how much has he got, eh, Carrie?” asked Mrs. Hemp, in an insinuating voice. “No secrets ‘tween friends, you know.”
“No more there shouldn’t be, Polly,” returned the girl. “You look here, and hold your eyes tight for fear they drop out of your head — ha, ha!”
As she spoke she staggered up from her chair, and leading the way into the bedroom, with some difficulty unlocked one of the top drawers in a chest. At first sight this appeared to be filled with drawings of all kinds, but Carrie, lifting up these, drew from underneath a large leather pocket-book. Out of this she took a folded piece of paper, and, holding it still in her hands, allowed Polly to glance at it. The paper was a printed form, headed “Consolidated ￡3 per Cent. Annuities,” after which, on the same line, were written the figures ￡5,000.
“Do you know what that means, eh, Polly?” asked Carrie, her face distorted in a grin of foolish glee.
“No fear,” returned the other. “‘Tain’t the first time as I’ve seen that kind o’ thing. My God! What a heap o’ tin! And he don’t know as you’re up to this, eh?”
“Trust him,” said Carrie, winking. “And he’s got more than this. He has a bankbook, too. I see it wunst, but I don’t know where it is now. Ain’t I in for a good spree some day?”
“I believe you,” agreed the other, leering hideously.
Shortly after this, the two went out together, and, after visiting sundry favourite haunts, ultimately bent their steps to Polly Hemp’s own abode. Throughout the day Polly had continued to urge her companion to drink, and now that they took their seats one on each side of the fireplace, in the kitchen with which the reader is already familiar, they had still glasses on their laps, from which they solaced themselves unstintingly.
“I believe you, Carrie,” said Polly, resuming a subject she had constantly harped on through the day. “You are a lucky wench, if ever there was one. I s’pose your ‘usband’s made his will?”
“I don’t know,” replied Carrie, giggling.
“You take my advice, and find out,” remarked Polly bending forward, with one eye closed. “If he was to go and kick the bucket, and hadn’t made no will, I s’pose you know as you wouldn’t have all that tin?”
“Who says I shouldn’t?” asked Carrie, defiantly, making a motion with her hand which spilled half the liquor from her glass.
“Why, I say so,” pursued Polly, “and what’s more, the law says so. I say, Carrie, what a kick up we would have if you was to come in for that tin, eh?”
Carrie made an expressive gesture.
“My God! Wouldn’t we!” continued Polly; then added, in a lower and impressive voice, “But, I say, if your ‘usband was to go and make his will and leave it all to somebody else? How then, Carrie?”
Carrie’s countenance fell for a moment.
“I don’t believe as how he’d do that,” she replied, with a shake of the head.
There was a silence of some minutes, during which the fire crackled loudly in its efforts to seize firm hold of an obstinate piece of coal, and at length, achieving the victory with a miniature explosion, which scattered pieces of glowing slate upon the hearth, flared up and illumined vividly the faces and figures of the two women. There was an unusually wicked expression in Polly Hemp’s eyes as they looked alternately at the glass on her lap and the face of her companion. Apparently she was meditating.
“Now tell the truth, Carrie,” she said at length, with a low laugh, “you wouldn’t cry your eyes out if your ‘usband was to kick the bucket tomorrow.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the girl, raising the glass to her lips, “I don’t know as I should — quite.”
“Well,” pursued the other, consolingly, “there’s worse things than that happens every day. And more unlikely things, too. My God! What a lark we would have. Nobody to put a stop on your drink then, Carrie. Nobody to say as you shouldn’t go here, or shouldn’t go there. Eh?”
She had drawn her chair a little nearer to her companion’s, and was looking significantly into her face.
“Yes, yes; we’d have a lark, if it was the last!” muttered Carrie, who appeared to be thinking.
“Do you know what I should think, Carrie,” pursued Polly Hemp, with devilish insinuation, “if I was in your shoes?”
“What’s that?”
“Well — I don’t say as I should, you know — but I might p’raps think as how there was other helps to widow’s caps besides the fever, and the small-pox and sich like.”
“Eh?” said the girl, looking into the speaker’s face as if she had not understood her meaning.
“Why, I might p’raps think as there’s other deaths besides nat’ral deaths, Carrie; d’ye see? And I shouldn’t be the first as had thought that either — no, nor the first as has done more than think it, too, and lived happy ever after, as they say.”
Polly’s face had approached very near to Carrie’s as she spoke, and a gleam of something like pleasure had risen to it as she noticed at length her hint was understood. But her pleasure was only short-lived. For a moment Carrie turned her head away, as if to think over what had been said, then, with a movement as sudden as unexpected, she dashed the contents of her glass full in the eyes of her tempter, exclaiming as she did so —
“Not so bad as that neither. Take that, Polly Hemp, and good-night to you!”