“Who brought this?” asked Frere, hastily tearing it open to read. “The groom, sir. He said that there was a gentleman at the ‘George the Fourth’ who wished to see you.”
Frere smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had dictated such a message, and then frowned in anger at the contents of the letter. “You needn’t wait,” he said to the man. “I shall have to go back again, I suppose.”
Changing his forage cap for a soft hat, and selecting a stick from a miscellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his steps. “What does she want now?” he asked himself fiercely, as he strode down the moonlit road; but beneath the fierceness there was an under-current of petulance, which implied that, whatever “she” did want, she had a right to expect.
The “George the Fourth” was a long low house, situated in Elizabeth Street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the narrow panes of glass in its windows, and the ostentatious affectation of red curtains and homely comfort, gave to it a spurious appearance of old English jollity. A knot of men round the door melted into air as Captain Frere approached, for it was now past eleven o’clock, and all persons found in the streets after eight could be compelled to “show their pass” or explain their business. The convict constables were not scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of Frere, clad in the blue serge which he affected as a summer costume, looked not unlike that of a convict constable.
Pushing open the side door with the confident manner of one well acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and made his way along a narrow passage to a glass door at the further end. A tap upon this door brought a white-faced, pock-pitted Irish girl, who curtsied with servile recognition of the visitor, and ushered him upstairs. The room into which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows looking into the street, and was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly from a table between the windows. As Frere entered, a little terrier ran barking to his feet. It was evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman; and Frere, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face with Sarah Purfoy.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Pray, sit down.”
This was the only greeting that passed between them, and Frere sat down, in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that twinkled with rings.
The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and her hand as white as of yore. Her hair, bound close about her head, was plentiful and glossy, and her eyes had lost none of their dangerous brightness. Her figure was coarser, and the white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed an outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The most noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned no longer that delicate purity which they once boasted, but had become thicker, while here and there showed those faint red streaks–as though the rich blood throbbed too painfully in the veins–which are the first signs of the decay of “fine” women. With middle age and the fullness of figure to which most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual absence of moral restraint never fails to produce.
Maurice Frere spoke first; he was anxious to bring his visit to as speedy a termination as possible. “What do you want of me?” he asked.
Sarah Purfoy laughed; a forced laugh, that sounded so unnatural, that Frere turned to look at her. “I want you to do me a favour– a very great favour; that is if it will not put you out of the way.”
“What do you mean?” asked Frere roughly, pursing his lips with a sullen air. “Favour! What do you call this?” striking the sofa on which he sat. “Isn’t this a favour? What do you call your precious house and all that’s in it? Isn’t that a favour? What do you mean?”
To his utter astonishment the woman replied by shedding tears. For some time he regarded her in silence, as if unwilling to be softened by such shallow device, but eventually felt constrained to say something. “Have you been drinking again?” he asked, “or what’s the matter with you? Tell me what it is you want, and have done with it. I don’t know what possessed me to come here at all.”
Sarah sat upright, and dashed away her tears with one passionate hand.
“I am ill, can’t you see, you fool!” said she. “The news has unnerved me. If I have been drinking, what then? It’s nothing to you, is it?”
“Oh, no,” returned the other, “it’s nothing to me. You are the principal party concerned. If you choose to bloat yourself with brandy, do it by all means.”
“You don’t pay for it, at any rate!” said she, with quickness of retaliation which showed that this was not the only occasion on which they had quarrelled.
“Come,” said Frere, impatiently brutal, “get on. I can’t stop here all night.”
She suddenly rose, and crossed to where he was standing.
“Maurice, you were very fond of me once.”
“Once,” said Maurice.
“Not so very many years ago.”
“Hang it!” said he, shifting his arm from beneath her hand, “don’t let us have all that stuff over again. It was before you took to drinking and swearing, and going raving mad with passion, any way.”
“Well, dear,” said she, with her great glittering eyes belying the soft tones of her voice, “I suffered for it, didn’t I? Didn’t you turn me out into the streets? Didn’t you lash me with your whip like a dog? Didn’t you put me in gaol for it, eh? It’s hard to struggle against you, Maurice.”
The compliment to his obstinacy seemed to please him–perhaps the crafty woman intended that it should–and he smiled.
“Well, there; let old times be old times, Sarah. You haven’t done badly, after all,” and he looked round the well-furnished room. “What do you want?”
“There was a transport came in this morning.”
“Well?”
“You know who was on board her, Maurice!”
Maurice brought one hand into the palm of the other with a rough laugh.
“Oh, that’s it, is it! ‘Gad, what a flat I was not to think of it before! You want to see him, I suppose?” She came close to him, and, in her earnestness, took his hand. “I want to save his life!”
“Oh, that be hanged, you know! Save his life! It can’t be done.”
“You can do it, Maurice.”
“I save John Rex’s life?” cried Frere. “Why, you must be mad!”
“He is the only creature that loves me, Maurice–the only man who cares for me. He has done no harm. He only wanted to be free–was it not natural? You can save him if you like. I only ask for his life. What does it matter to you? A miserable prisoner–his death would be of no use. Let him live, Maurice.”
Maurice laughed. “What have I to do with it?”
“You are the principal witness against him. If you say that he behaved well– and he did behave well, you know: many men would have left you to starve– they won’t hang him.”
“Oh, won’t they! That won’t make much difference.”
“Ah, Maurice, be merciful!” She bent towards him, and tried to retain his hand, but he withdrew it.
“You’re a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover–a man who left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he cared,” he said, with a galling recollection of his humiliation of five years back. “Save him! Confound him, not I!”
“Ah, Maurice, you will.” She spoke with a suppressed sob in her voice. “What is it to you? You don’t care for me now. You beat me, and turned me out of doors, though I never did you wrong. This man was a husband to me– long, long before I met you. He never did you any harm; he never will. He will bless you if you save him, Maurice.”
Frere jerked his head impatiently. “Bless me!” he said. “I don’t want his blessings. Let him swing. Who cares?”
Still she persisted, with tears streaming from her eyes, with white arms upraised, on her knees even, catching at his coat, and beseeching him in broken accents. In her wild, fierce beauty and passionate abandonment she might have been a deserted Ariadne–a suppliant Medea. Anything rather than what she was–a dissolute, half-maddened woman, praying for the pardon of her convict husband.