The Way We Live Now (58 page)

Of course he was conquered for that night, and could only have that solace which a most injurious reprieve could give him. ‘I will not harass you, if you are ill,' he said.

‘I am ill. It was because I was afraid that I should be really ill that I went to Southend. The weather is hot, though of course the sun here is not as we have it. But the air is heavy – what Mrs Pipkin calls muggy. I was thinking if I were to go somewhere for a week, it would do me good. Where had I better go?' Paul suggested Brighton. ‘That is full of people; is it not? – a fashionable place?'

‘Not at this time of the year.'

‘But it is a big place. I want some little place that would be pretty. You could take me down; could you not? Not very far, you know – not that any place can be very far from here.' Paul, in his John Bull displeasure, suggested Penzance, telling her, untruly, that it would take twenty-four hours. ‘Not Penzance then, which I know is your very Ultima Thule; – not Penzance, nor yet Orkney. Is there no other place – except Southend?'

‘There is Cromer in Norfolk – perhaps ten hours.'

‘Is Cromer by the sea?'

‘Yes – what we call the sea.'

‘I mean really the sea, Paul.'

‘If you start from Cromer right away, a hundred miles would perhaps take you across to Holland. A ditch of that kind wouldn't do, perhaps.'

‘Ah – now I see you are laughing at me. Is Cromer pretty?'

‘Well, yes; – I think it is. I was there once, but I don't remember much. There's Ramsgate.'

‘Mrs Pipkin told me of Ramsgate. I don't think I should like Rams-gate.'

‘There's the Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight is very pretty.'

‘That's the Queen's place.
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There would not be room for her and me too.'

‘Or Lowestoffe. Lowestoffe is not so far as Cromer, and there is a railway all the distance.'

‘And sea?'

‘Sea enough for anything. If you can't see across it, and if there are waves, and wind enough to knock you down, and shipwrecks every other day, I don't see why a hundred miles isn't as good as a thousand.'

‘A hundred miles is just as good as a thousand. But, Paul, at Southend
it isn't a hundred miles across to the other side of the river. You must admit that. But you will be a better guide than Mrs Pipkin. You would not have taken me to Southend when I expressed a wish for the ocean – would you? Let it be Lowestoffe. Is there an hotel?'

‘A small little place.'

‘Very small? uncomfortably small? But almost any place would do for me.'

‘They make up, I believe, about a hundred beds; but in the States it would be very small.'

‘Paul,' said she, delighted to have brought him back to this humour, ‘if I were to throw the tea things at you, it would serve you right. This is all because I did not lose myself in awe at the sight of the Southend ocean. It shall be Lowestoffe.' Then she rose up and came to him, and took his arm. ‘You will take me down, will you not? It is desolate for a woman to go into such a place all alone. I will not ask you to stay. And I can return by myself' She had put both hands on one arm, and turned herself round, and looked into his face. ‘You will do that for old acquaintance' sake?' For a moment or two he made no answer, and his face was troubled, and his brow was black. He was endeavouring to think – but he was only aware of his danger, and could see no way through it ‘I don't think you will let me ask in vain for such a favour as that,' she said.

‘No,' he replied. ‘I will take you down. When will you go?' He had cockered himself up with some vain idea that the railway carriage would be a good place for the declaration of his purpose, or perhaps the sands at Lowestoffe.

‘When will I go? when will you take me? You have boards to attend, and shares to look to, and Mexico to regenerate. I am a poor woman with nothing on hand but Mrs Pipkin's baby. Can you be ready in ten minutes? – because I could.' Paul shook his head and laughed. ‘I've named a time and that doesn't suit. Now, sir, you name another, and I'll promise it shall suit' Paul suggested Saturday, the 29th. He must attend the next board, and had promised to see Melmotte before the board day. Saturday of course would do for Mrs Hurtle. Should she meet him at the railway station? Of course he undertook to come and fetch her.

Then, as he took his leave, she stood close against him, and put her cheek up for him to kiss. There are moments in which a man finds it utterly impossible that he should be prudent – as to which, when he thought of them afterwards, he could never forgive himself for prudence, let the danger have been what it may. Of course he took her in his arms, and kissed her lips as well as her cheeks.

The statement made by Ruby as to her connection with Mrs Pipkin was quite true. Ruby's father had married a Pipkin whose brother had died leaving a widow behind him at Islington. The old man at Sheep's Acre Farm had greatly resented this marriage, had never spoken to his daughter-in-law – or to his son after the marriage, and had steeled himself against the whole Pipkin race. When he undertook the charge of Ruby he had made it matter of agreement that she should have no intercourse with the Pipkins. This agreement Ruby had broken, corresponding on the sly with her uncle's widow at Islington. When therefore she ran away from Suffolk she did the best she could with herself in going to her aunt's house. Mrs Pipkin was a poor woman, and could not offer a permanent home to Ruby; but she was good-natured, and came to terms. Ruby was to be allowed to stay at any rate for a month, and was to work in the house for her bread. But she made it a part of her bargain that she should be allowed to go out occasionally. Mrs Pipkin immediately asked after a lover. ‘I'm all right,' said Ruby. If the lover was what he ought to be, had he not better come and see her? This was Mrs Pipkin's suggestion. Mrs Pipkin thought that scandal might in this way be avoided. ‘That's as it may be, by-and-by,' said Ruby. Then she told all the story of John Crumb – how she hated John Crumb; how resolved she was that nothing should make her marry John Crumb. And she gave her own account of that night on which John Crumb and Mr Mixet ate their supper at the farm, and of the manner in which her grandfather had treated her because she would not have John Crumb. Mrs Pipkin was a respectable woman in her way, always preferring respectable lodgers if she could get them – but bound to live. She gave Ruby very good advice. Of course if she was ‘dead-set' against John Crumb, that was one thing! But then there was nothing a young woman should look to so much as a decent house over her head – and victuals. ‘What's all the love in the world, Ruby, if a man can't do for you?' Ruby declared that she knew somebody who could do for her, and could do very well for her. She knew what she was about, and wasn't going to be put off it. Mrs Pipkin's morals were good wearing morals, but she was not strait-laced. If Ruby chose to manage in her own way about her
lover she must. Mrs Pipkin had an idea that young women in these days did have, and would have, and must have more liberty than was allowed when she was young. The world was being changed very fast. Mrs Pipkin knew that as well as others. And therefore when Ruby went to the theatre once and again – by herself as far as Mrs Pipkin knew, but probably in company with her lover – and did not get home till past midnight, Mrs Pipkin said very little about it, attributing such novel circumstances to the altered condition of her country. She had not been allowed to go to the theatre with a young man when she had been a girl – but that had been in the earlier days of Queen Victoria, fifteen years ago, before the new dispensation had come. Ruby had never yet told the name of her lover to Mrs Pipkin, having answered all inquiries by saying that she was all right. Sir Felix's name had never even been mentioned in Islington till Paul Montague had mentioned it She had been managing her own affairs after her own fashion – not altogether with satisfaction, but still without interruption; but now she knew that interference would come. Mr Montague had found her out, and had told her grandfather's landlord. The squire would be after her, and then John Crumb would come, accompanied of course by Mr Mixet – and after that, as she said to herself on retiring to the couch which she shared with two little Pipkins, ‘the fat would be in the fire.'

‘Who do you think was at our place yesterday?' said Ruby one evening to her lover. They were sitting together at a music-hall – half music-hall, half theatre, which pleasantly combined the allurements of the gin-palace, the theatre, and the ball-room, trenching hard
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on those of other places. Sir Felix was smoking, dressed, as he himself called it, ‘incognito', with a Tom-and-Jerry hat,
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and a blue silk cravat, and a green coat. Ruby thought it was charming. Felix entertained an idea that were his West End friends to see him in this attire they would not know him. He was smoking, and had before him a glass of hot brandy and water, which was common to himself and Ruby. He was enjoying life. Poor Ruby! She was half-ashamed of herself, half-frightened, and yet supported by a feeling that it was a grand thing to have got rid of restraints, and be able to be with her young man. Why not? The Miss Longestaffes were allowed to sit and dance and walk about with their young men – when they had any. Why was she to be given up to a great mass of stupid dust like John Crumb, without seeing anything of the world? But yet as she sat sipping her lover's brandy and water between eleven and twelve at the music-hall in the City Road, she was not altogether comfortable. She saw things which she did not like to see.
And she heard things which she did not like to hear. And her lover, though he was beautiful – oh, so beautiful! – was not all that a lover should be. She was still a little afraid of him, and did not dare as yet to ask him for the promise which she expected him to make to her. Her mind was set upon – marriage, but the word had hardly passed between them. To have his arm round her waist was heaven to her! Could it be possible that he and John Crumb were of the same order of human beings? But how was this to go on? Even Mrs Pipkin made disagreeable allusions, and she could not live always with Mrs Pipkin, coming out at nights to drink brandy and water and hear music with Sir Felix Carbury. She was glad therefore to take the first opportunity of telling her lover that something was going to happen. ‘Who do you suppose was at our place yesterday?'

Sir Felix changed colour, thinking of Marie Melmotte, thinking that perhaps some emissary from Marie Melmotte had been there; perhaps Didon herself. He was amusing himself during these last evenings of his in London; but the business of his life was about to take him to New York. That project was still being elaborated. He had had an interview with Didon, and nothing was wanting but the money. Didon had heard of the funds which had been intrusted by him to Melmotte, and had been very urgent with him to recover them. Therefore, though his body was not unfrequently present, late in the night, at the City Road Music-Hail, his mind was ever in Grosvenor Square. ‘Who was it, Ruby?'

‘A friend of the squire's, a Mr Montague. I used to see him about in Bungay and Beccles.'

‘Paul Montague!'

‘Do you know him, Felix?'

‘Well; – rather. He's a member of our club, and I see him constantly in the City – and I know him at home.'

‘Is he nice?'

‘Well; – that depends on what you call nice. He's a prig of a fellow.'

‘He's got a lady friend where I live.'

‘The devil he has!' Sir Felix of course had heard of Roger Carbury's suit to his sister, and of the opposition to this suit on the part of Hetta, which was supposed to have been occasioned by her preference for Paul Montague. ‘Who is she, Ruby?'

‘Well; – she's a Mrs Hurtle. Such a stunning woman! Aunt says she's an American. She's got lots of money.'

‘Is Montague going to marry her?'

‘Oh dear yes. It's all arranged. Mr Montague comes quite regular to
see her – not so regular as he ought, though. When gentlemen are fixed as they're to be married, they never are regular afterwards. I wonder whether it'll be the same with you?'

‘Wasn't John Crumb regular, Ruby?'

‘Bother John Crumb! That wasn't none of my doings. Oh, he'd been regular enough, if I'd let him; he'd been like clockwork – only the slowest clock out. But Mr Montague has been and told the squire as he saw me. He told me so himself. The squire's coming about John Crumb. I know that. What am I to tell him, Felix?'

‘Tell him to mind his own business. He can't do anything to you.'

‘No; – he can't do nothing. I ain't done nothing wrong, and he can't send for the police to have me took back to Sheep's Acre. But he can talk – and he can look. I ain't one of those, Felix, as don't mind about their characters – so don't you think it. Shall I tell him as I'm with you?'

‘Gracious goodness, no! What would you say that for?'

‘I didn't know. I must say something.'

‘Tell him you're nothing to him.'

‘But aunt will be letting on about my being out late o' nights; I know she will. And who am I with? He'll be asking that.'

‘Your aunt does not know?'

‘No; – I've told nobody yet. But it won't do to go on like that, you know – will it? You don't want it to go on always like that – do you?'

‘It's very jolly, I think.'

‘It ain't jolly for me. Of course, Felix, I like to be with you. That's jolly. But I have to mind them brats all the day, and to be doing the bedrooms. And that's not the worst of it.'

‘What is the worst of it?'

‘I'm pretty nigh ashamed of myself. Yes, I am.' And now Ruby burst out into tears. ‘Because I wouldn't have John Crumb, I didn't mean to be a bad girl. Nor yet I won't. But what'll I do, if everybody turns against me? Aunt won't go on for ever in this way. She said last night that –'