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Chapter XXIV. Madge Fitzroy.

'To begin with,' said Miss Fitzroy, 'my mother gave me away. That in itself is an embittering thought, is it not? To be considered so perfectly superfluous that one's own mother is glad to be rid of one! She was, I believe, very poor. It is likely also that she was very honest, and in that lies her excuse. If she had been poor and not honest, I think she would have stolen the wherewithal to feed her super-numerous offspring, rather than have parted with one of them. There is no doubt that her action in regard to me saved me from the gutter and the streets, and that again mitigates her apparent unnaturalness. There are moments when I like to think that she loved me—so well that she could sacrifice me, believing that she did so for my own good. The woman she gave me to was rich and childless. She adopted me because I was a pretty thing to look at and have about her, and useful to send hither and thither on small errands. She held me higher than her lapdog, in that I was the more useful animal of the two, and could take whippings more patiently; but I believe she liked the dog better than she liked me, because when it was ill—(it died, thank Heaven!)—she cried bitterly, and when I was nigh to death in scarlet fever she only said that unless children could be always healthy and good-looking, they ought to be dead and out of the way altogether.

'She was a woman utterly false and unprincipled. From her I learnt falsehood and insincerity rapidly and perfectly. Mind, I do not seek to lay all the blame on her. Doubtless my natural aptitude for evil made her lessons singularly facile of study. Doubtless selfishness was innate in me, and was therefore easily developed by her most perfect example and tuition. But she might have made me evil and yet have made me love her, if she had chosen; for I was a passionate little thing, craving fondness and caresses, and ready to return both with interest. But she snubbed and harassed and badgered me, with a per-page 165sistenceof cruelty that I think of even now with wonder. Everything that was natural in me she checked; everything that was childlike she ridiculed. She made me accessory in all her small meannesses and deception of her husband and friends, set me as spy upon her servants, made me bear the brunt of her violent temper; I was the victim of all her errors, and yet she had never a smile or kind word for me at any time that I might have taken as a reward. I was well fed, yet longed day and night for the old starvation-and-gutter life; I was handsomely clad, yet would have given my small right hand for the old, scant, ragged, frock and pinafore.

'Well, I grew to hate that woman with a fierceness almost inconceivable in a child. I used to pray for her death. I was compelled to be faithful to her in her petty intrigues in the little falsities that were quite unnecessary, but which she seemed to take a wanton delight in planning and carrying out. I was compelled to aid her faithfully in all these, because any failure on my part only resulted in my own punishment. I had no friends in the camp. Her husband neither liked nor disliked me. He simply ignored me, except when I got in his way, when he would thrust me aside much as he might an obtrusive kitten or puppy. The servants, one and all, detested me, and with good reason, since I was the ready reporter of all their small delinquencies. I was very lonely in those days, Miss Morven.'

The pathos in her voice just then brought tears to Philiberta's eyes.

'Did it never occur to you to run away, Miss Fitzroy?'

'Yes, often; but I was afraid.'

'Afraid of what?'

'You will smile when I tell you. I was afraid of bogies. I had been brought up in the fear of them, and the terror grew with my years. I was the most utter coward you can imagine. Darkness and loneliness were more awful than death to me. I must have been a subtle little knave to keep my weakness a secret from that woman as I did, feeling that if she knew it, she would use it to my torture.'

'Surely you exaggerate her cruelty a little.'

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'No, I do not. It would not be possible. But I do not expect you to quite understand or believe it all. No one could without experiencing it.

'When I was about sixteen years old, Mr. and Mrs. Whattulf made a trip to England. They took me, of course. Mrs. Whattulf was ill all the way, and I had to wait upon her. What a time I had! Fortunately I proved a good sailor, else my troubles had been worse, for I am satisfied that no unfitness on my part would have won me any respite from my constant duties. Of the whole voyage to, and sojourn in, England I have but the vaguest, most chaotic recollection. Everything was worry, tumult, noise, and ill-usage. But the return voyage to Australia was different. One of the passengers was an actor, coming Out under engagement to the Royal here. He was a very handsome man, at least in my eyes, and in the eyes of many other women who had the misfortune to know him. From the first day at sea he paid me attention—in a clandestine fashion, however, that I lent myself to with all the ease and willingness that could come of long practice in deceit. Before we had known each other a fortnight he told me that I was the one woman in his life that he had felt it possible to love with all his heart and soul. And I believed him. Is not that strange? It seems so to me. It seems the strangest thing to me that I, who had learnt to believe every human being a liar by nature, to listen with dubiousness and distrust to the most commonplace everyday speeches of people, to think that life was altogether made up of cross-purposes, manœuvring, and treachery, yet accepted every word that man uttered as purest truth. That he wished me to keep everything secret neither surprised nor vexed me. I was used to keeping things secret. Any fair, open action would have been unnatural to me. I suppose I loved him. Yet now, when I sometimes try to analyze what I felt then, I think it must have been joy in the prospect of emancipation through him rather than love for him. It is hardly possible that love could ever turn into such deadly, murderous hatred as I had afterwards for that man, and towards all men for his sake. But he was the first person in my life to page 167whom I could speak as I felt. He was the outlet for all my concentrated bitterness. He was the first to pity me and be kind to me; and, heaven, how I clung to him! The hours between our meetings seemed days. When we were together, and the time of parting came, it seemed as if I went suddenly out of light into darkness. He encouraged me always to talk of my troubles. He questioned me minutely about Mr. and Mrs. Whattulf: their position, monetary and social; their regard for each other, and all else. And I, for once in my life, told truth unreservedly. Mr. and Mrs. Whattulf never quarrelled, but they never spent more lime in each other's company than they could help. They were both rich, and Mrs. Whattulf had money in her own right; £4,000 I knew of for a certainty, because Mr. Whattulf had asked her one day in my presence "if she intended to leave that £4.000 to the child," and she had replied, "Yes, she supposed it would have to go to the brat ultimately, since there were no relatives living."

'"Aha!" said my lover, when I told him this, "not a bad little dower for my pretty bride;" adding gloomily, "but that old harridan is good for twenty years yet, at least."

'The baseness of the speech never struck me, so well had I been educated to suit this man, you see.

'Well, during the latter half of the voyage Mrs. Whattulf's health was better, and she came on deck daily. And my lover began to be most attentive to her, telling me that his motive was to be nearer to me. I never doubted that, and was as happy as the day was long, in thus seeing more of him. When we arrived in Melbourne, he and the Whattulfs were the greatest of friends; and through his influence, as it seemed to me, Mrs. Whattulf became unwontedly gracious, even to me. How and when I first learned the truth I cannot now remember, but I know that it came to me in one blinding, agonising flash that seemed to fill my being with seething gall. My lover was professing love for that woman for the chance of securing her £4,000. When I knew it beyond a doubt, I cast about for the means of their destruction. Had there been any honesty left in me, I should have wailed out my sorrow and indignation. page 168As it was, I held my peace and carried a smiling face, watched and spied, planned and schemed, and contrived to ruin their pretty little enterprise just when it was on the point of success. They were to elope together to England. I waited till everything was in train, until her money was almost within his grasp, and then I brought her husband in upon them.

'I remember how I hesitated at the last, not from any compunctious feeling, but because I could not decide which to punish most. Had I let them go, my revenge upon her for all the years of misery she had put me through would have been perfect. He would have ill-treated and deserted her, after having robbed her. But my sudden hatred of him mastered all the rest; I could not bear the thought of his success and gratification. I would thwart him, whatever else came of it. And I did.

'Mr. Whattulf stopped the withdrawal of his wife's money, and gave the actor twelve hours in which to quit the town. I shall never forget the scene. Mr. Whattulf had a revolver. He was a much smaller man than the actor, yet the latter looked the most miserable, contemptible coward before him.

'"Don't shoot, Whattulf," he cried, pitifully; "I'll go—but for heaven's sake don't shoot."

'"Off with you!" said Mr. Whattulf, as he might to some thieving beggar; "for my own sake I will let you go. It is not worth my while to risk hanging for such a toad. Get out of my sight now, for, by heaven, the sight of you sickens me. The Sydney mail starts at midnight; mind you do not miss it."

'The coward slunk out of the house, and Mrs. Whattulf began to scream, Hysteria, I suppose; but I did not wait to see. I packed up my few belongings, and left the house at once. I had no money beyond a few shillings; but I obtained lodgings, and wrote an appeal to Mr. Whattulf. He sent me five hundred pounds.'

'And did you accept it?' asked Philiberta.

'Yes, I did. I had earned more than that in my years of servitude to that woman.'

'What was the end of it?' inquired Philiberta.

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'Of the actor? He flourishes yet, I believe. Of Mrs. Whattulf? Her husband was very lenient to her; but still makes her live apart from him on a hundred and fifty pounds a year, which income is to cease with his life, so that she is debarred even the luxury of wishing for his death. As for me, Mr. Whattulf's money has enabled me, with hard toil and study, to educate myself, and attain a position as a clever burlesque actress. Also, to learn that I might have been a very different woman under different influences. But of that we will not even think. I am satisfied with everything as it is. I have revenged on many men the wrong that one man did me, and there is more for me to achieve in that way yet. I know all that you would say, Miss Morven. I know that a good woman would have acted quite differently—would have nobly forgiven that man and that woman. I make no pretensions to such nobility. I neither regret, repent, nor forgive; and I am satisfied.'

(There is always justification of a doubt about the real existence of any sentiment or feeling that requires much strong and frequent assertion.)

'I have had difficulties in fighting my way to where I am now. I have had hopes disappointed, ambitions thwarted; and I have known economy that was but one remove from starvation. But I have held on my way resolutely, taken what I could get when I could not get what I wanted, and, being pretty, have, I dare say, experienced less of difficulty than most girls similarly placed. Now, my position is assured—a good salary always a certainty. I surround myself with what I like best, and when I want anything that I cannot afford myself, I make some one else buy it for me. Empty heads and empty hearts I make no special objection to, but empty pockets I set my face against, except when there is something else to gain from the wearer of them, in the shape of amusement. As in the case of my scarlet-moustached hero, for example.'

'And do you never look ahead, then?' said Philiberta, 'to the time when all this may fail to satisfy?'

'There will be no such time for me,' said Madge Fitzroy. 'Yet I do look ahead sometimes, and plan my future.'

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'And what is it?' asked Philiberta.

'I will crown all the other evil of my life by marrying a rich good man, who will be glad to die when he learns thoroughly the kind of woman he has chosen.'