The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

spend his days in some half-barbarous country for her alone? She knew it all and was hardly angry with him in that he had decided against her. But treated as she had been she must play her game with such weapons as she possessed. It was consonant with her old character, it was consonant with her present plans that she should at any rate seem to be angry.

Sitting there alone late into the night she made many plans, but the plan that seemed best to suit the present frame of her mind was the writing of a letter to Paul bidding him adieu, sending him her fondest love, and telling him that he was right. She did write the letter, but wrote it with a conviction that she would not have the strength to send it to him. The reader may judge with what feeling she wrote the following words:⁠—

Dear Paul⁠—

You are right and I am wrong. Our marriage would not have been fitting. I do not blame you. I attracted you when we were together; but you have learned and have learned truly that you should not give up your life for such attractions. If I have been violent with you, forgive me. You will acknowledge that I have suffered.

Always know that there is one woman who will love you better than anyone else. I think too that you will love me even when some other woman is by your side. God bless you, and make you happy. Write me the shortest, shortest word of adieu. Not to do so would make you think yourself heartless. But do not come to me.

Forever,

W. H.

This she wrote on a small slip of paper, and then having read it twice, she put it into her pocketbook. She told herself that she ought to send it; but told herself as plainly that she could not bring herself to do so. It was early in the morning before she went to bed but she had admitted no one into the room after Montague had left her.

Paul, when he escaped from her presence, roamed out on to the seashore, and then took himself to bed, having ordered a conveyance to take him to Carbury Manor early in the morning. At breakfast he presented himself to the squire. “I have come earlier than you expected,” he said.

“Yes, indeed;⁠—much earlier. Are you going back to Lowestoft?”

Then he told the whole story. Roger expressed his satisfaction, recalling however the pledge which he had given as to his return. “Let her follow you, and bear it,” he said. “Of course you must suffer the effects of your own imprudence.” On that evening Paul Montague returned to London by the mail train, being sure that he would thus avoid a meeting with Mrs. Hurtle in the railway-carriage.

XLVIII Ruby a Prisoner

Ruby had run away from her lover in great dudgeon after the dance at the Music Hall, and had declared that she never wanted to see him again. But when reflection came with the morning her misery was stronger than her wrath. What would life be to her now without her lover? When she escaped from her grandfather’s house she certainly had not intended to become nurse and assistant maid-of-all-work at a London lodging-house. The daily toil she could endure, and the hard life, as long as she was supported by the prospect of some coming delight. A dance with Felix at the Music Hall, though it were three days distant from her, would so occupy her mind that she could wash and dress all the children without complaint. Mrs. Pipkin was forced to own to herself that Ruby did earn her bread. But when she had parted with her lover almost on an understanding that they were never to meet again, things were very different with her. And perhaps she had been wrong. A gentleman like Sir Felix did not of course like to be told about marriage. If she gave him another chance, perhaps he would speak. At any rate she could not live without another dance. And so she wrote him a letter.

Ruby was glib enough with her pen, though what she wrote will hardly bear repeating. She underscored all her loves to him. She underscored the expression of her regret if she had vexed him. She did not want to hurry a gentleman. But she did want to have another dance at the Music Hall. Would he be there next Saturday? Sir Felix sent her a very short reply to say that he would be at the Music Hall on the Tuesday. As at this time he proposed to leave London on the Wednesday on his way to New York, he was proposing to devote his very last night to the companionship of Ruby Ruggles.

Mrs. Pipkin had never interfered with her niece’s letters. It is certainly a part of the new dispensation that young women shall send and receive letters without inspection. But since Roger Carbury’s visit Mrs. Pipkin had watched the postman, and had also watched her niece. For nearly a week Ruby said not a word of going out at night. She took the children for an airing in a broken perambulator, nearly as far as Holloway, with exemplary care, and washed up the cups and saucers as though her mind was intent upon them. But Mrs. Pipkin’s mind was intent on obeying Mr. Carbury’s behests. She had already hinted something as to which Ruby had made no answer. It was her purpose to tell her and to swear to her most solemnly⁠—should she find her preparing herself to leave the house after six in the evening⁠—that she should be kept out the whole night, having a purpose equally clear in her own mind that she would break her oath should she be unsuccessful in her effort to keep Ruby at home. But on the Tuesday, when Ruby went up to her room to deck herself, a bright