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Title: The Three Brothers; vol. 3/3
Author: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Language: English
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THE THREE BROTHERS.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’
‘SALEM CHAPEL,’ ‘THE MINISTER’S WIFE,’
ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1870.
_The Right of Translation is Reserved_
LONDON
STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS.,
28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME.
PAGE
I. ALICE’S FATE 1
II. A STRUGGLE 16
III. EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH 36
IV. WHAT IT COSTS TO HAVE ONE’S WAY 56
V. THE FALLING OF THE WATERS 73
VI. THE RAVEN 93
VII. THE DOVE 113
VIII. BEN 133
IX. THE NEXT MORNING 154
X. AUNT LYDIA 174
XI. ALL HOME 184
XII. SUSPENSE 199
XIII. THE WILL 220
XIV. THE END OF A DREAM 241
XV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 262
XVI. WHAT IT ALL MEANT TO LAURIE 283
XVII. CONCLUSION 304
THE THREE BROTHERS.
CHAPTER I.
ALICE’S FATE.
Alice Severn was very innocent and very young,--just over sixteen,--a
child to all intents and purposes,--as everybody thought around her. Old
Welby, who had taken to meddling in the padrona’s affairs, with that
regard which the friends of a woman who is alone feel themselves
entitled to display for her interests, had been pressing very earnestly
upon Mrs. Severn’s attention the necessity of preparing her child, who
had an evident and remarkable talent, to exercise it in public.
‘Few people, indeed, have their way so clear before them,’ he had said
repeatedly. ‘It is the finest thing in the world to have a girl or boy
with a decided turn. If you could but see the parents who come to me
with sons who don’t know what they would be at; and the idiots think
they may be made painters because they care for nothing in earth or
heaven. But here is this child with a talent. Of course, if it were a
talent for our own art, we might know better how to manage it; but such
as it is, it is a gift. Never undervalue a gift, my dear madam.
Providence itself points out the way for you. You have only got to train
her for her work.’
‘But, Mr. Welby,’ pleaded the padrona, ‘she is such a child. How could I
send my little maid out into the world to appear in public! I could not
do it! It would drive me out of my senses. My child! You forget what
kind of a creature she is.’
‘I don’t in the least forget,’ said the R.A. ‘She is very pretty, too,
which is a pity; but you should be above foolish notions in that
respect,--you who are so well known to the public yourself.’
‘Not so very well known,’ said the padrona, with a half smile; ‘and then
it is only my name, not me. And even if it were my very self, why it
would only be me still, not her. I am old, and what does it matter? But
my lily, my darling! Mr. Welby, you are very kind, but you do not take
the circumstances into consideration;--you do not realise to the full
extent what the consequences would be.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by the full extent,’ said Mr. Welby; ‘but
this I see as clear as daylight, that some time or other the child will
probably have her bread to earn. I say probably. She may marry, of
course, but the papers tell us people have given up marrying now-a-days.
You can’t live for ever, ma’am; and still more certainly you can’t work
for ever. And the child has actually something in her fingers by which
she could earn money, and provide for herself with the greatest ease.
Besides, a musician is not like a singer, or a dancer, or anything of
that sort. She comes on and sits down before her piano, and never pays
any attention to her audience. She need not even look at them unless she
likes. She has only a little curtsey to make, and so is off again. It is
positively nothing. She may marry, of course, but that would be no
protection against poverty. And what’s the alternative? A lingering,
idle sort of life at home; saving scraps, and making her own gowns and
bonnets; or, perhaps, giving music-lessons to tiresome children whom she
would hate. You should not, my dear Mrs. Severn, do such injustice to
your child.’
‘Indeed, I am the last person to do her injustice,’ said the padrona,
half angered, half saddened, with tears in her eyes. It was a very
trenchant style of argument. ‘If I were to die, or if I were to fail in
my work!’ Mrs. Severn said to herself, with one of those awful throbs of
dread which come upon a woman who is the sole protector and
bread-winner of her children. Such a thought was not unfamiliar to her
mind. It came sometimes at chance hours, stealing upon her suddenly like
an evil spirit, and wringing her heart. It set her now, for the
hundredth time, to count up the little scraps of resource they would
have in such a terrible contingency, the friends who would or might be
kind to them. ‘If I might but live till Edie is twenty!’ was the silent
prayer that followed. It did not seem possible that so long as she did
live she would be unable to work. This frenzy of dread was but
momentary. Had it lasted, so sharp and poignant was it, the life which
was so important might have been put in jeopardy; but fortunately Mrs.
Severn’s mind was as elastic as mind could be, and rose again like a
flower after the heavy foot had pressed it down. Yet, Alice,--could she
be doing injustice to Alice? These arguments had without doubt made a
certain impression upon her. Let but this summer be over, she said to
herself. It would be time enough certainly when the child was
seventeen,--one more year of sweet childhood and leisure, and
undisturbed girlish peace. And then the grateful thought came back upon
the mother of Mr. Rich’s commission which she was working at, and her
year’s work which was secure. Could there be comfort greater than that
thought? And the morrow would care for the things of itself.
While such discussions went on,--for they were frequent,--Alice moved
about the house, a soft, domestic spirit, with light steps and a face
like a flower. Every day it became more like a flower. The sweetness
expanded, the husks of the lovely blossom opened, the woman came gliding
noiselessly, so that nobody around perceived it, out of the silken bud
of the girl. She was clever at her needle, as her mother had boasted,
and made and mended with the homely natural satisfaction of a worker who
is conscious of working well; and she was housekeeper, and managed the
accounts, and ordered the dinners, proud of her importance and the
duties of her office; and she saw the children put to bed, and heard
them say their prayers. The homeliest, most limited life,--and yet what
could the world give that was better? Not Nelly Rich’s leisure, and
gaiety, and luxury; not Mary Westbury’s tedious comforts and
occupations. Alice for her part had everything,--and the piano, and the
talk of nights added to all. And yet her mind was not undisturbed, as
her mother fondly thought. A little secret, no bigger than a pin’s
point, had sprung into being in the virgin heart;--not worth calling a
secret,--not a thing at all, in short,--only a murmur of soft, musing
recollections,--dreams that were not half tangible enough to be called
hopes. As, for instance, what was it he meant when their eyes met that
afternoon as she played to him? how was it that he remembered so well
every time he had seen her,--even her dress?--questions which she asked
and then retreated from, and eluded, and played with, and returned to
them again. And would he go to India? Would he come back to Fitzroy
Square? So misty was the sphere in which all this passed that the one
question seemed to Alice as important as the other. What if he might
come again some afternoon, flushing all the fading sky with new tints?
What if he should go away and never be heard of more? All this was in
the child’s mind when her mother resolved that this summer at least
Alice should be left in undisturbed peace. The old story repeated
itself, as everything does in this world,--the everlasting tale of
individual identity, of isolation and separation of nature between those
who are dearest and nearest to each other. The mother would have given
her life cheerfully for her child, but could no more see into that
child’s soul than if she had been entirely indifferent to her. And
Alice, the most loving and dutiful of children, went sweetly on her way,
shaping out her own individual life, and never suspecting in that any
treason to her earliest loves, or any possible break in her existence.
It all turned on the point whether a young Guardsman, who,--with all
kindness towards Frank Renton be it said,--was not equal to either Alice
or her mother, should call, or should not call, next time he might be in
town. Certainly a very trifling matter, and almost concluded against
Alice beforehand, as may have been perceived.
I cannot take it upon me to say if he had never come that Alice would
have broken her heart. Her heart was too young, too fresh, too
visionary, to be tragically moved. She could have gone on looking for
him, wondering if he would come, quite as capable of expecting that he
would suddenly appear out of the depths of India as that he would come
from Royalborough. She had so much time to spare yet before beginning
life for herself that the fanciful delight of wondering what he meant by
a look or a word, was actually more sweet to her than anything tangible
could have been; but yet if he had never come again, a pathetic chord
would have sounded among the fresh harmonies of her being,--perhaps a
deeper note than any which had yet been awakened in her, at least a
sadder one. She would have looked for him and grown weary, and a certain
languor and melancholy would have come into her life. Already she had
more pleasure in thinking than she had ever been known to have,--or at
least she called it thinking,--and would sit silent for hours wrapped in
soft dreams, forgetting to talk, to the great disgust of little Edith,
and wonder of Miss Hadley, who was the sharpest observer in the
household, and guessed what it all meant. But still Alice could have no
reason to complain had Frank Renton never more made his appearance in
the Square. She would never have dreamt of complaining, poor child; she
would have sighed, and a ray of light would have gone out of her life,
and that would have been all;--and she had so many rays of light that
there might well be one to spare!
It was not thus, however, that things turned out. Not much more than a
week had elapsed when Frank again made his appearance in the Square. He
had not said much to himself about it. He pretended to himself, indeed,
that it was a sudden thought, as he had some time to spare. ‘One might
as well go and bid them good-bye,’ he said aloud, the better to persuade
himself that it was purely accidental. He had seen Montague, and had all
but concluded with him about the exchange, though he had still been
quite doubtful on the subject when he came up to town. Yet the sight of
the other side, and the reality given to the matter by the actual
discussion of it as a thing to be done, had an effect upon him which
nothing else had yet had. It was made at once into a matter of fact by
the first half-dozen words he exchanged with Montague of the 200th. And
now it was all but settled, whatever other conclusions might follow. The
suddenness with which this very serious piece of business had been
concluded, or all but concluded, had filled Frank with a certain
excitement. He did not know how he should announce it at home,--how he
should tell it to his friends. But he had done it. No doubt his mother
would weep, and other eyes would look on him reproachfully. Not that any
eyes had a right,--an absolute right,--to reproach him; but still----!
Frank’s mind had been very much agitated and beaten about for some days
past. That interview with Nelly had been hard upon him. He had not said
all, nor nearly all, that he had been expected to say; but still he had
said something which had drawn the indefinite bond between them a little
closer. He would owe to her, he felt, after what had passed, some sort
of embarrassing explanation of the reasons which had induced him all at
once to make up his mind and choose India and work, instead of what was
vaguely called his good prospects at home. These good prospects he knew,
and everybody knew, herself included, were,--Nelly and her fifty
thousand pounds; and it would be as much as saying, ‘I have given up all
thoughts of you,’ when he told her of his sudden determination. He had
said nothing about going to India in that last interview. On the
contrary, he had been rather eloquent on the subject of staying at home.
And now he would have to explain to her that India and freedom had more
charms for him than she had, even when backed by all her advantages. It
was not a pleasant intimation to make; neither was the thought pleasant
of telling his mother, who would have still more occasion to reproach
him. ‘Go to India, when you might have fifty thousand for the asking,
and heaven knows how much more!’ Mrs. Renton would say; and would feel
herself deeply aggrieved by her son’s backsliding. He had been beguiled
into all this by the talk of Montague of the 200th, and his own errant,
foolish inclinations. It had seemed to him like an escape from himself,
and he had taken advantage of the chance;--but it was terrible to
contemplate the immediate results. And he had an hour or two to spare,
and a little music had always so good an effect upon him! Besides, it
would not be civil to go away without taking farewell of Laurie’s
friends. The 200th were to go in three months. There would be little
further time for anything but the business of his outfit. Frank turned
his steps towards the Square with the resolution, declared,--to
himself,--that this should be the last time. He would see them once
more, as civility required, and then all would be over. He would put all
such nonsense from his mind, the folly of thinking of either;--for was
it not folly to entertain such an idea at his age?--and go away and
enjoy his freedom. He would be twenty-one before the regiment set sail,
which was no doubt a serious age, and the beginning of mature manhood;
but still few men without money married so early. And Frank did not want
a wife, though he had thus got himself into such difficulties with two
girls at once. The clear course was evidently to set himself free from
such premature entanglements, and take refuge in distance and novelty,
and rejoice in his escape.
By what strange chance it was that the padrona should have gone out that
special afternoon, taking Miss Hadley with her, is what I never could
explain. Things do occur so sometimes in this curious world, where
everything happens that ought not to happen. Alice was alone, all by
herself in that shadowy, silent drawing-room. It was a thing which did
not occur thrice in a year. And lo! Frank Renton’s visit to say good-bye
must happen on one of these rare occasions! Alice was not playing when
he was ushered in. She was sitting at work close to the piano, though
that too was not usual to her. She had gone in with the intention of
practising, but the charm of thinking had been too strong for her. Even
her work had fallen on her knee in the soft, profound stillness and
loneliness which of late had come to be so sweet to her. She was
thinking of him, asking herself once more those sweet, vague, fanciful
questions. It was so pleasant, in her new mood, to feel herself all
alone, free to think as she pleased, and lose herself in dreams for a
whole, long, enchanted afternoon. And just at that moment, as good or
evil fortune decided, Frank Renton was shown into the room. He himself
was struck dumb by the chance, as well as Alice. She looked up at him,
poor child, with absolute consternation. ‘Oh, I am so sorry mamma is
out!’ she said; and notwithstanding the stir and flutter of her heart at
the sight of him, she was quite in earnest when she said so. Mamma being
out, however, made all the difference between conscious safety and calm
and the uneasy dread which she could not explain. What was she afraid
of? Alice could not answer the question. Not of him, certainly, of whom
she believed every good under heaven. Of herself, then? But she only
repeated her little outcry of regret, and could give no reason for her
shy shrinking and fears.
‘Is she?’ said Frank; ‘but I must not go away, must I?--though your tone
seems somehow to imply it. Let me stay and wait for her. I have come to
say good-bye.’
‘Good-bye?’ said Alice, faltering. The child grew cold all over in a
moment, as if a chill had blown upon her. ‘Are you really, really going
to India, after all?’
‘After all? after what?’ said Frank, turning upon her so quickly that
she had no time to think.
‘Oh, I meant after----. I thought----. People said----. But, no, indeed;
I am sure I never believed it, Mr. Renton; it is such stupid talk; only
I was a little surprised,’ said Alice, recovering herself. ‘I mean, are
you really going to India,--after all?’
Frank laughed. He was at no loss now as he had been with Nelly Rich. ‘I
see that is what you mean,’ he said, looking at her with softened,
shining eyes, and that delicious indulgence for her youth and simplicity
which made him feel himself twice a man; ‘and you may say after all.
There are some things I shall be glad to escape from, and there are
other things,’ said Frank, rising and going close to her, ‘there are
other things----’
He did not mean it,--certainly he did not mean it,--any more than he had
meant going to India, when he came up that morning to town to talk the
matter over in a vague, general way; but, somehow, as he stood in front
of her, leaning over the high-backed chair on which she had placed her
work, gazing into the sweet face lifted to him, which changed colour
every moment, and was as full of light and shade as any summer sky, a
sudden sense of necessity came over him. Leave her?--Was there anybody
in the world but the two of them looking thus at each other? Did
anything else matter in comparison? ‘What is the use of making any
pretences?’ cried Frank; ‘if you will but come with me, Alice, going to
India will be like going to heaven!’
She sat and gazed at him with consternation and wonder and dismay;
growing pale to the very lips; straining her wistful eyes to make out
what he meant. Was he mad? What was he thinking of? ‘Go with, you?’ she
faltered, under her breath, incapable of any expression but that of
amaze. Her wondering eye sank under his look, and her heart began to
beat, and her brow to throb. The suggestion shook her whole being,
though she had not quite fathomed what it meant. And then the crimson
colour rose like a sudden flame, and flew over all her face. The change,
the trouble, the surprise, were like so many variations in the sky, and
they combined to take from the young lover what little wits he had left.
‘Would it be so dreadful?’ he said, bending down over her. ‘Alice, just
you and I. What would it matter where we were so long as we were
together? I know it would matter nothing to me. I would take such care
of you. I should be as happy as the day was long. I want nothing but to
have you by me, to look at you, and listen to you. I do not care if
there were not another creature in the world’, cried the youth; ‘just
you and I!’
‘Oh, don’t speak so!’ cried Alice, trembling in her agitation and
astonishment. ‘Don’t, oh, don’t! You must not! How could I ever, ever
leave mamma?’
‘Then it is not me you object to?’ cried the lover, in triumph, taking
her hands, taking herself to him in a tender delirium.
This was how it came about. With no more preparation on either side,
with everything against it,--friends, prudence, fortune, Nelly,--every
influence you could conceive. And yet they did it without any intention
of doing it,--on the mere argument of being left for half-an-hour alone
together. True, it took more than half-an-hour to calm down the
bewilderment of the girl’s mind, thus launched suddenly at a stroke into
the wide waters of life. She looked back trembling upon her little
haven, the harbour where she had lain so quietly a few minutes before.
But we can never go back those few minutes. The thing was done, and
nobody in the world could be more surprised at it than the two young,
rash, happy creatures themselves, holding each other’s hands, and
looking into each other’s faces, and asking themselves,--Could it be
true?
CHAPTER II.
A STRUGGLE.
There are moments in life which are so sweet as to light up whole weeks
of gloom; and there are moments so dreadful as to make the unfortunate
actors in them tremble at the recollection to the end of their lives.
Such a moment in the life of Frank Renton was that in which he suddenly
heard the padrona’s knock at her own door. He had been as happy as a
young man could be. He had felt himself willing, and over again willing,
to give up everything without a regret, for the sake of the love he had
won, and which was, he said to himself, of everything in earth and
heaven the most sweet. This he had said to himself a hundred times over
as he hung over Alice in the first ecstasy of their betrothal. He could
not imagine how he ever could have doubted. Going to India would, as he
had said, be going to heaven. Where he went, she would be with him. He
should have her all to himself, free from any interference. They would
be free to go forth together, hand in hand, like Adam and Eve. What was
any advantage the world could give in comparison to such blessedness? He
was in the full flush of his delight when that awful knock was heard at
the door.
At the sound of it Alice started too. She clung to him first, and then
she shrank from him. ‘Oh, it is mamma!’ she cried, with sudden dismay.
Then there was a pause. Frank let go the hand he had been holding.
Nature and the world stood still in deference to the extraordinary
crisis. He turned his face, which had suddenly grown pale, to the door.
And they heard her talking as she came up the stairs, unconcerned,
laughing as if nothing had happened! ‘It will be a surprise to Alice,’
she said audibly, pausing in the passage, at the dining-room door. And
Alice shuddered as she listened. A surprise! If the padrona could but
know what a terrible surprise had been prepared for herself!
And then she came in upon them, smiling and blooming, her soft colour
heightened by a little fresh breeze that was blowing, bright from the
pleasant unusual intercourse with the outside world. ‘I am sorry you did
not come with us, Alice,’ she said. ‘It is not so hot as we thought it
was. Ah, Mr. Renton!’ and she held out her hand to him. Upon what tiny
issues does life hang. If Alice had not thought it too hot to go out,
all this might never have happened. And the mother to speak of it so
lightly, thinking of nothing more important than the walk, ignorant
what advantage had been taken of her absence! To the two guilty
creatures who knew, every word was an additional stab.
‘I came up again to-day about the same business,’ said Frank, faltering.
Alice bent trembling over her work, and said nothing. She did not go, as
was her wont, with soft, tender hands, to untie the bonnet and take off
the shawl, taking pride in her office as ‘mamma’s maid.’ She put on an
aspect of double diligence over her work, though her hands trembled so
that she could scarcely hold her needle.
Even Mrs. Severn’s unsuspicious nature was startled. She turned to Miss
Hadley, who had come in behind her, and said, half in dumb-show, with a
certain impatience, ‘What does he mean by coming so often?’
‘No good,’ answered Miss Hadley, solemnly, under her breath; which
laconic utterance amused the padrona so much, that her momentary
uneasiness flew away. She sat down smiling, turning her kind face upon
the trembling pair. ‘Poor Laurie’s brother!’ she said to herself. That
was argument enough for tolerating him and showing him all kindness.
‘Alice, how is it you are so busy?’ she said. ‘I think you might order
some tea. Though it is not so very hot, it is pleasant to get into the
shade. I hope your business has made progress, Mr. Renton,’ she added,
politely. As the padrona looked at them it became slowly apparent to
her that something was wrong. Alice had not liked the task of
entertaining a stranger all by herself; or----! But of course it must be
that. It was ill-bred of him, even though he was Laurie’s brother, to
insist on coming in when there was nobody but the child to receive him.
Mrs. Severn began to feel uncharitably towards the young man. Alice
flushed one moment, and the next was quite pale. She was reluctant to
raise her eyes, and neglected all her usual _petits soins_. When she had
to get up to obey her mother, it was with a shy avoidance of her look,
which went to the padrona’s heart. What could be the matter? Was she
ill? Had he been rude to her? But that was impossible. ‘Is there
anything wrong, my darling?’ she said, half rising from her seat.
‘Oh, no, mamma!’ said Alice, breathlessly, in a fainting voice.
The padrona gave Miss Hadley a look which meant,--Go and see what is the
matter; and then with a very pre-occupied mind turned towards Frank to
play politeness and do her social duties. ‘I hope your business has made
progress,’ she repeated, vaguely; and then it became apparent that he
was agitated too.
‘Yes,’ he said; and then he came forward to her quite pale and with an
air of mingled supplication and alarm which filled her with the
profoundest bewilderment. ‘Oh, Mrs. Severn, forgive us!’ he cried. He
would have gone down on his knees had he thought that would have been
effectual; but he did not dare to go down on his knees. He stood before
her like a culprit about to be sentenced; and she looked at him with
eyes in which alarm and suspicion began to glow. There was something
wrong; but even now the mother to whom her child was indeed a child did
not guess what it was.
‘Us!’ she said; and somehow a thought of Laurie struck into the maze of
her thoughts. He could not have done anything, poor fellow, in his
exile, to call for forgiveness in this passionate way. ‘I cannot tell
what you mean,’ she cried. ‘What have I to forgive? And who are the
sinners?’ and she tried to laugh, though it was difficult enough.
‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘I would not, believe me, have taken advantage
of your absence, not willingly. She is so young. I know I ought to have
spoken to you first. I did not mean it when I came----’
‘She?’ cried the padrona, with a little cry. Not yet did she see what it
was; but instinct told her what kind of a trenchant blow was coming, and
all the blood seemed to rush back upon her heart.
‘Yes,’ said Frank, rising into the calm of passion, ‘I found her all by
herself. And I loved her so! From that first moment I saw her,--when you
called her, and she came and stood there,’ he cried, pointing vaguely at
the door; ‘and I had come to tell you I was going away. And she was
sorry. It all came upon us in a moment. How could I help telling her? I
loved her so! Forgive me for Alice’s sake.’
The padrona sat gazing at him for some moments with dilated eyes; then
suddenly she hid her face in her hands, and uttered a low, moaning cry
as of a creature in pain. All at once it had come upon her what it
meant. Frank standing there, full of anxiety, yet full of confidence,
was bewildered, not knowing what this meant in reference to himself. But
the truth was that Mrs. Severn was not thinking of him, had no room in
her mind for him at that terrible moment. It was her child she was
thinking of,--Alice, who was here half an hour ago, and now was not
here, and could never again be, for ever. It all burst upon her in an
instant, not anything remediable, as a thing might be which was
independent of the child’s own will, but voluntary, her own doing, her
choice! Something sung and buzzed in her ears; her eyes felt hot and
scorched up; sharp pulsations of pain came into her temples. ‘My
child!--my baby!--my first-born!’ she said to herself. It was as if the
earth had shaken beneath her feet, and the house had crumbled down about
her. Her whole fabric of happiness seemed to shrink up; and yet it was
not so much--not so much that she asked; not anything for herself, not
the ease, the comfort, the leisure, the pleasures, so many had. Was she
not content, more than content to work late and early, to spare herself
in nothing, to labour with both hands, as it were, never grudging? Only
her children, that was all she asked to have! And here was the first of
her children, the sweetest of all, her excellency and the beginning of
her strength, her companion, and tender consoler, and sweet
helper--gone! She gave a cry, a half-smothered moan, such as could not
be put into words. And all this time Frank stood before her, pale,
somewhat desperate, but courageous, knowing that however the mother
might be against him, the daughter was for him,--and trusting in his
fate.
When the padrona at last withdrew her hands from her face it struck her
as with a sense of offence that he should still be standing there. Why
did he, a stranger, stand and gaze at her misery? What right had he? And
then she remembered that it was this boy whom her child had chosen out
of the world, to give up her home for him. In her heart, at that moment,
the padrona hated Frank. She raised her head, and even he, though he had
no love in his eyes to enlighten him respecting the changes in her face,
saw that the lines were drawn and haggard, the colour gone, and that a
look of age and suffering had fallen upon her. But she commanded
herself. She spoke after a minute with an effort. ‘Mr. Renton, this is
a very serious matter you tell me.’ she said; ‘my daughter is a child,’
and then she had to stop and take breath, and moisten her dry lips. ‘She
is too young,--to judge what is best,--for her life. And so are you,’
she added, looking at him with a certain pity for the boy who was so
young too, and Laurie’s brother to boot; ‘you are both too young to know
what you are doing. You should not have disturbed my Alice!’ she cried,
suddenly, unable to keep in the reproach. ‘Such thoughts would never
have come into my darling’s mind. You had no right to disturb my child!’
She got up as she spoke in a blaze of momentary excitement,--anger,
grief’s twin brother, rising sudden into the place of grief. She made a
step or two away from him, and began to collect Alice’s work and fold it
up with her trembling hands, turning her back upon him, as if this
sudden piece of business she had found was the most important matter in
the world. Then she turned round, raising her hand, with an outburst of
natural eloquence. ‘She was only a child,’ she cried; ‘as much a child
as when she sat on my lap. She had not a thought that was not open to
me. I have worked for her almost all her life, watched over her, nursed
her, smiled for her when my heart was breaking,--and all in a moment,
for a young man’s vanity, my child is to be mine no longer. Why did you
not come to me fairly, like an honest enemy, and warn me what you meant
to do?’
As she spoke, standing before him with her arm lifted in unconscious
action, almost towering over him in the greatness of her suffering and
indignation, Frank stood lost in astonishment. Mothers, so far as he
knew, were glad to get their daughters off their hands. Such was the
tradition in all regions he had ever frequented. He had expected
difficulties, no doubt, but not of this kind. It was with a certain
consternation that he gazed at her, asking himself what it meant. It was
all real, there could be no doubt of that. But yet,--he was in Fitzroy
Square. It was not a duke’s daughter he had ventured on engaging to
himself, but a humble artist’s, who everybody would have thought would
have been glad enough to have her child provided for. This Frank knew,
or, at least, he believed he knew, was the light in which the matter
would have been regarded by sensible people. And he, though Belgravia no
doubt might have scorned him, was no such contemptible match for the
daughter of the painter. He stood surprised and discomfited, not knowing
how to reply to a woman who addressed him so strangely. Perhaps it would
be best to let her have it all her own way, and exhaust her indignation
without contradicting or opposing her; but then the passion in her face
moved the young man.
‘I never thought of coming as an enemy,’ he said, with some heat. ‘I
have loved her ever since I saw her. I am not to blame for that.’ How
could he be to blame? He had done naught in hate, but all in honour. And
thus the mother and the lover stood confronting each other, rivals; but
in a conflict which for one of them was without hope.
Then there was an interval of silence,--a truce between the foes. Frank
mechanically turned over and over the books which lay on a little table
against which he was leaning, and the padrona threw herself into her
chair trembling in her agitation. Again and again her lips forced
themselves to speak, but the effort was a vain one. She had not the
heart to speak. What was there to say? If Alice’s heart was gone from
her, then everything was gone. It was not as in old days, when she could
have forbidden an unsuitable indulgence with the certainty that after
the pain of the first few minutes the smiles would come back, the little
heart melt, and the child be herself again. Here was a serious trial
now, and the padrona’s heart was sick. She sat, not even looking at him,
with her head turned to one side, and her mind full of bitter thoughts.
This silence was worse than anything for Frank. He bore it as long as he
could, standing with his eyes fixed upon her, expecting the verdict
which was to come. Then, as she did not speak, he summoned up all his
courage. He made a few steps forward, so as to bring himself before her
eyes, and thus addressed her, with as much steadiness and calm as he
could command;--‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘could you not put yourself in
my position? I did not mean to betray myself. I meant to say good-bye,
and go away, and never trouble you more. But she was sorry, God bless
her! She looked at me, and pitied me, and I did not know what I was
saying. I will not tell you a lie, and say I regret,’ cried Frank, with
excitement; ‘but I will say I am sorry I had not the chance of speaking
to you first. Surely, surely, you will not refuse her to me for that!’
‘Refuse her to you!’ said the padrona, with an unconscious contempt;
‘refuse her to you! You cannot think it is you I am thinking of. Oh,
young man, how little you know! There is the sting of it! I would give
everything I have in the world she had never seen you; but you make me
work out my own sorrow. Can you believe I would hesitate a moment if it
were only refusing you?’ she cried, with a gesture unconsciously full of
scorn, throwing, as it were, something from her. Frank had never been
spoken to in such a tone before. He had been an important personage at
Richmont. Not so would his prayer have been received there. The wounded
_amour propre_ of his youth made itself felt in his displeasure. He went
to the nearest window, and stood staring out into the street, disgusted
with himself, and half disgusted, if the truth must be told, with all
the circumstances. He had been a fool in thus committing himself. He had
behaved like a fool in every way, and this was his reward;--not
rejection even, but scorn!
‘But I can’t refuse her anything!’ the padrona said with a sigh, that
came out of the very bottom of her heart. There was the sting of it. She
could not turn away, as impulse would have made her, the lover whom she
felt to be her enemy. There was the child to be considered. It was no
plain and easy matter to be decided upon in an arbitrary way. Fathers
and mothers have refused their children’s wishes before now for their
good. Daughters have been even shut up in their rooms, starved,
imprisoned, bullied into giving up the undesirable suitor, as everybody
knows. But these courses were not open to the padrona. She could no more
have stood by and seen her child suffer than she could have flown. The
one was as much an impossibility of nature as the other. She could not
refuse Alice the desire of her heart. Oh, gentle heavens! to think it
could be the desire of that tender creature’s heart to go away from her
home where she had been cherished since ever she was born,--from her
mother, who had loved and shielded her for all her sixteen years,--away
to the end of the world with a young man, whom six months before she had
never seen! And she not a woman with any weariness in her heart, nor a
girl of adventurous instincts, curious and longing for the unknown, but,
on the contrary, the purest womanly domestic child, caring little about
all the noises of the great world without,--only sixteen, a soft,
contented creature, happy in all the little business of her limited
life! There was the wonder,--a thing not new, familiar every day;--and
yet ever miraculous, a wonder and a portent to the padrona, as if it had
never happened before.
It was just then that Alice came faltering into the room. She had cried
and leaned her head on Miss Hadley’s breast when she was questioned what
was the matter; but she would not tell even that faithful friend until
mamma knew. Her faithful friend, indeed, was at no great loss. Her eyes
were sharp enough to make up the lack of all suspicion in the innocent
household. She divined the truth, and she also divined the scene that
must be going on in the drawing-room. ‘I knew this was what would come
of it,’ she allowed herself to say,--which was but natural; and she led
Alice back to the door, though it was against her will. ‘My love, these
two will never agree without you.’ she said, and stayed outside with
that purest self-denial of the secondary spectator, burning with
curiosity and interest, yet giving way to the chief personages
concerned, which is so often seen among women. She would not even go
into the dining-room, where she might have seen or heard something, but
stayed outside in the passage, having carefully closed all the doors. So
far as she herself was concerned, Miss Hadley was not Frank’s enemy.
When a man spoke out she respected him, as she always said. It was only
when he shilly-shallied that she had a contempt for him;--and to have
one of them provided for would no doubt be a great matter. Such, taking
Frank’s theory of what was proper and natural, was Miss Hadley’s way of
thinking; but she knew only too well how impracticable Mrs. Severn could
be.
Alice went in faltering, changing colour, ready to sink to the ground
with innocent shame-facedness, but as much unaware of the struggle going
on in her mother’s mind as if she had been a creature of a different
species. When she had made a few steps into the room, she paused, and
gave a quick timid glance at the two, who were both stirred by her
approach. The padrona rose, and gazed at her child, who had thus left
her side, while Frank started forward to place himself by her. This was
the last touch, which the mother could not bear. She darted to Alice’s
side, put him away with her hand, took the girl into her arms, and
holding her fast, gazed into her face. ‘Alice,’ she said, ‘is it true?
Never mind any one but me. Look at me,--at your mother, Alice. Tell me
the truth,--the truth, my darling! Can it be? Do you want to go with
him, and leave us all,--the boys, and Edith, and all that love you? Is
it true? Do you want to leave me, my child?’ cried the mother, in a
voice of anguish. And she stood holding her fast, reading the answer
before it came in her eyes, in the modulations of her lips,--elevated to
such a height of passionate feeling as she had never known before in all
her life.
Nor was it a less trial for the young inexperienced creature, knowing
nothing of passion, who was held thus in the grip of despair.
Fortunately, Alice could not understand the full force of the tempest in
her mother’s heart. ‘Oh, mamma, how can you think I want to leave you?’
she cried, with tears; and Frank, listening, felt with a pang that he
was cast aside. Then she paused. ‘But, oh, mamma, dear!’ said Alice,
with a soft, pleading, breathless tone, melodious like the cooing of a
dove,--‘oh, mamma, dear!’--and she slid her tender arm round her
mother’s neck, changing her attitude to one of utter supplication,--‘you
have Edie and the boys, and my dearest love for ever and ever. And he
has nobody; and he says,---- Will you only hear what he says? It is not
fancy. He wants me most.’
It was not more than a minute that they stood thus clinging together,
but Frank thought it an hour. He was left out of the matter. It was they
who had to decide a question so momentous to them. And then he became
aware that the padrona had cast her arms round her child to support
herself, and was weeping wildly upon Alice’s shoulder. No need for any
further questions. They had changed characters for the moment. The
girl’s slight figure tottered, swayed, steadied itself, supporting with
a supreme effort the weight of the mother’s yielding and anguish; and
Alice gave him a look over that burthen,--a look of such pain and
sweetness and confidence, that Frank’s heart was altogether melted.
‘Look what I have to bear,--what I have to give up for you!’ it seemed
to say;--a pathetic glance; and yet there was in it the triumph of the
new love rooting and establishing itself upon the ruins of the old.
When the padrona came to herself she called Frank Renton to her. It was
not that she had fainted or become unconscious; but that, when a
woman,--or a man either for that matter,--is suddenly called upon to
sound the profoundest depths of suffering within her,--or his,--own
being, a mist comes upon external matters, confusing place and fact, and
above all, time, which goes fast or slow according to our consciousness.
It might have been years, so far as she could tell, since she came in
cheerfully from her walk, fearing no evil. She had been engaged in some
awful struggle against her spiritual enemies, principalities and powers,
such as she had never yet encountered; and all unprepared, unarmed for
the conflict! She came to herself, lying back in her chair exhausted as
if with an illness, without strength enough left to feel the full force
of any calamity. She called Frank Renton to her, holding out her hand.
‘Sit down here and let me speak to you,’ she said. ‘I am to listen to
what you have to say. And I will listen,--but not now. Such a thing had
never entered into my mind. I thought the child was safe for years. I
thought she was all mine,--my consolation. I have had so much to do, it
seemed but fair I should have a consolation. But there is nothing fair
in this world. And now it is you who have her heart, and not me,--and I
don’t know you even. To be sure you are Laurie’s brother. Mr. Renton, if
you will come back to me another time, when I have got a little used to
it, I will hear everything you have to say.’
‘Thanks!’ said Frank, not knowing what answer to make, being utterly
confused in his own mind, and as much out of his depth in every way as a
young man could be. And he would have taken the hand she held out to him
in token of amity,--but Mrs. Severn was not equal to any such signs of
friendship.
‘It will be for another time,’ she said, sitting upright in her chair,
and drawing back a little. ‘If I had received any warning;--but you
have only met two,--three times;--is that all?’ she said, with a sudden
spasm in her voice.
‘And at Richmont,’ said Frank, divided between offence and humility.
Alice had left the room again, and the two were alone.
‘And at Richmont,’ the padrona repeated with a heavy sigh. ‘I might have
known. But you don’t know my child,’ she added, with sudden energy. ‘You
have seen her pretty face and heard her music, and it is those you care
for,--that is all. And there are others as pretty, and who play as well.
You cannot know my child.’
‘Look here, Mrs. Severn,’ cried Frank, driven wild in his turn; ‘I have
loved her since the first moment I saw her under those curtains. Was it
my doing? I was listening to the music, not thinking of any one; and you
called Alice, and she came. And I have been struggling against it ever
since. I will tell you the truth. I was to marry money,--everybody had
made up their minds to it. I was to have a rich wife and give up India,
and live a life that would suit me much better at home. That is the
truth. And I tried,--tried hard to carry it out. But I had seen Alice,
and I could not. To-day when I came I meant to try to say good-bye. I
meant it honestly, upon my life. And that other girl is prettier, if you
will speak so,’ cried the young man, with a kind of brutality, ‘than
Alice. Judge if it is only for that----’
‘Then you will repent,’ said the padrona, blazing up into an
inconsistent jealousy and resentment. ‘Believe me, Mr. Renton, it is far
better to carry out your intention, and leave my penniless girl alone.’
The young man started up with a muttered oath. The moment of passion was
over, but that of mutual exasperation had come. The light of battle
kindled in the padrona’s eyes. She would have been glad to be rid of him
at any price; and yet,--inconsistent woman,--though she hated him for
loving Alice, the thought that he had struggled against that love, the
thought that her child had been put in competition with another, set her
all a-flame. ‘By heaven, you do me injustice!’ cried Frank. ‘Why will
you misunderstand what I say? Let me tell you everything from the
beginning. Is it just to judge me unheard? I am Laurie’s brother, whom
you are fond of; and Alice is mine as well as yours. She has no doubt of
me. Why cannot we be friends, we two? I should be your son----’
‘It must be for another time,’ said the padrona, letting her voice
relapse into languor.
The sense of exhaustion had been thoroughly real when she expressed it
before; but now, it must be allowed, it was exasperating. The elastic
soul had touched the ground, and rebounded ever so little. But she had
rebounded in a perverse, and not an amiable way. It was not the calm of
despair, but an active wretchedness in which there was hope. And Frank,
too, got set on edge, as she was, and left the house with but one soft
word from Alice to console him as he went, flaming with opposition and
resentment. He could turn the tables on her yet, if he were to try. He
could make her regret her interference, if he would. And then a
visionary Alice glided into the young man’s imagination, holding out her
soft arms. Vex her because her mother was vexatious to him? Ah, no! not
for the world!
CHAPTER III.
EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH.
Frank was not in spirits to go to his club, or anywhere else, after the
events of the afternoon. He made a rush for the train instead, thirsting
for the quiet of his quarters, in which, at least, he could lock himself
in, and be free from intruders. With the same desire for solitude, he
ensconced himself as usual in a corner of a railway-carriage, hoping
there, at least, to be able to indulge his thoughts in peace. But it was
a summer’s day, not yet dark, so that he could not hide himself; and his
consternation may be imagined when, in two or three minutes, he heard
the voice of Mrs. Rich asking for the Royalborough carriage. ‘Bless us,
there is Mr. Renton, Nelly!’ she said, a minute after, for Frank had
given a start at the sound of her, and probably caught her eye by the
movement, though he had sunk the next minute into the profoundest shade.
But, after this, there was nothing to be done but to jump out, and make
himself useful to the ladies, and give up his hoped-for solitude.
Nelly, of all people in the world, to face him at such a moment! To
Frank it seemed as if fate were against him. He had to go through the
usual round of salutations, and express his satisfaction at meeting
them, while all the time he fretted and fumed. It was not even as if
they had been three, which is a safe party. Mrs. Rich had a companion, a
lady of about her own age, who was going to Richmont with them, so that
Nelly was left to Frank. Neither her mother nor she thought it a bad
arrangement. She made her way to the farther window, and seated herself,
leaving Frank no alternative but the seat beside her. And she was very
lively and full of animation,--a bright, smiling creature, pleasant to
look upon. It would be impossible to describe Frank’s feelings as he
seated himself beside her, with a gap of two vacant seats between him
and the elder ladies at the other side, and the noise of the train to
favour a _tête-à-tête_. ‘Come and tell me what you have been about,’
said Nelly. ‘Are you always running up and down to town, you idle
Guardsmen? I never go but I see heaps of you. Tell me what you have been
about.’
‘You had better tell me what you have been about,’ said Frank; ‘that
would be more interesting. Shopping? or picture-seeing? or,--oh, I
perceive, the flower-show. I had forgotten that.’
‘You were not there,’ said Nelly, quickly,--‘for I looked. There was
Lord Edgbaston, and I don’t know how many more, who are always to be
seen everywhere,--but not you.’
‘I was engaged on much less pleasant business,’ said Frank, to whom it
suddenly occurred that here was an opportunity to tell some portion of
his news. It could not be told too soon, especially considering all that
had happened since.
‘Less pleasant!’ repeated Nelly. ‘They are very slow and stupid, I
think, unless one has some one to talk to one likes. As for the flowers,
one can see them anywhere. I had Lord Edgbaston, your charming friend,
Mr. Renton; and he was not lively. I don’t suppose his talents lie in
the way of talk.’
‘He is a very good fellow,’ said Frank, with a certain tenderness,
thinking how soon he should have left all these pleasant companions. His
heart melted to them, and his voice took a lugubrious tone.
‘How doleful you are!’ cried Nelly, laughing; ‘one would think you were
going to cry. What has been going on? Tell me; has some one been unkind?
And I declare you are quite pale. I am getting very, much
interested;--do let me know.’
‘I don’t know that you will be at all interested when you hear,’ said
Frank, with a certain desperation. ‘I have just been settling matters
about my exchange into the 200th. They are to sail for India in three
months, and it is not cheerful work.’
‘To sail for India in three months!’ said Nelly. The change that came
over her face was indescribable. A half-amused incredulity, then the
startled pause, with which she might have said, This is too serious a
matter to joke about; and then consternation, anger, mortification. She
grew pale, and then brilliantly crimson, till the colour dyed as much as
could be seen of her clear, dark skin. She had a right to look at him
with eyes of keen inquiry;--not a right to interfere or find fault,--but
yet a right to ask the question. He had gone so far that she had, at
least, that claim.
‘Yes,’ he said, with an exquisite discomfort, such as would have been
punishment enough for worse treachery than he had perpetrated, ‘I have
been putting it off and wasting my time, beguiled by pleasanter things.
But to-day matters became urgent, and I settled it. I could delay no
longer,’ he said, with apology in his tone; ‘it is not a cheerful piece
of work, as I say.’
Nelly did not answer a word. She was struck dumb. That other day, under
the lime-trees, he had certainly said not a word about India. He had
not, indeed, said all which the opportunity might have justified him in
saying. He had been unsatisfactory, and had made a very poor use of the
opportunity. But still he had not so much as hinted at anything which
could explain this. She sat in her corner, bending towards him a little,
as she had been before he made this startling intimation. What could it
mean? Could he intend to ask her to go there with him? Nelly’s heart
gave a sudden bound at the thought. She was so adventurous and eager for
change that India itself would not have frightened her. Could that be
what he meant? She did not change her position, but sat still, turning
towards him in a listening attitude, with her eyes cast down, and a
certain sharpness of expectation in her face. The idea was quite new and
startling, but it was not unpleasant. She waited, with a tingling in her
ears, a sudden sense of quickened pulsation and tightened breath, for
the next words he should say.
But at that moment dumbness, too, fell upon Frank. His lips grew dry;
his tongue clave to his mouth. He turned a little away, and began to
play unconsciously with the little cane in his hand, flicking his boot
with it. It seemed to him as if all his powers of speech were exhausted
and not a word would come. If only there might be a stoppage at some
station, or an accident, or anything! He would have welcomed any
incident that would have interrupted this horrible pause. And not a word
would come to his lips. He tried to make up some ordinary question
about the flower-show, but it would not do. He sat in a frightful
consciousness,--afraid to look at her, wondering what she was thinking
of it, how she would receive it. And the train was one of those nice,
quick express trains, which stop only at Slowley junction. The poor
young fellow thought he would have gone mad with that awful pause and
stoppage of talk, and the everlasting iron murmur and clank of the
wheels.
It was full five minutes before any one spoke, and that at such a time,
of course, seemed as a year. Then it was Nelly who resumed the
conversation, in a tone clear and distinct, with a modulation of
contempt in it which set Frank’s nerves on edge. ‘I do not see why it
should not be cheerful work,’ she said; ‘no doubt you like it or you
would not have done it; but it is sudden surely, Mr. Renton?’ And Frank,
who did not look at her, who was busy still with his cane and his boot,
felt that she was looking steadily at him.
And he was aggravated at the tone. It was the second time that afternoon
in which he had been contemptuously spoken to;--by Mrs. Severn, first of
all, who had certainly no right to do it, and who had taken pains to
make him understand how little importance he was to her, what small
hesitation she would have had in cutting him off from all good offices.
And now Nelly, who might have an excuse, adopted the same tone.
Naturally, it was the one who had some justification for her scorn who
bore the brunt of both offences. He looked up at her, and met full, as
she had not expected him to meet, the look of restrained resentment,
indignation, and wounded feeling, with which she regarded him. Though he
was in the wrong, he met her eyes with more fortitude than she could
exercise in meeting his. He it was who had been the traitor, and
therefore he took the upper hand. ‘I am surprised you think it sudden,’
he said, fixing his eyes upon her so resolutely that Nelly’s could not
bear the gaze. ‘I have been in negotiation about it more or less since
ever I knew you. The opportunity has been sudden, but not the
intention.’ Thus the man, being unmoved by anything but a passing
compunction which he had overcome, got the better of the woman whose
heart had been touched ever so little. He looked full at her, and he
looked her down.
‘But I thought you had changed your mind,’ said Nelly softly, with an
effort to preserve her calm.
‘Oh no, never!’ answered Frank, in his majestic way. And then she turned
her face round to the window, and gazed steadily out. It was not that
she was in love with him,--not much. But she was a girl who had had
every toy she ever longed for in all her life, and now for the first
time she was denied. She turned to the window, and sudden tears sprang
into her eyes. Her own impression was that she was struck to the heart.
Her lip quivered; there was a painful feeling in her throat. She had
been so bright, so lively, so full of enjoyment,--and now the revulsion
came! But she was proud enough not to make any very distinct
self-betrayal. She did not mind showing him that she was offended. Even
had it come to a little outbreak of passion and tears, she would not,
perhaps, have very much minded. But all she did now was to turn away her
face. Turning round and gazing very fixedly out of a window after a
short interval of very lively and friendly conversation, is a
sufficiently marked sign that something is wrong. But Nelly did not
utter any reproach. He had faced her, and intimated to her, almost in so
many words, that it was a matter she had nothing to do with; and she
accepted the intimation. But she did not think it necessary to put an
amiable face upon it, as so many girls would have done. She had turned
almost her back upon him before they got to Slowley, where the gorgeous
carriage of the Riches,--much the most splendid in the county, with a
coat-of-arms as big as a soup-plate upon the panel,--was waiting for
them. And when Frank got out and gave her his hand to alight, Nelly
sprang past him without taking any notice. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Renton; I
suppose we shall see you before you go,’ she said, without looking at
him. Mrs. Rich thought her daughter must be out of her senses when she
heard the news, which it cost Nelly an effort to tell with composure.
She had lost all her colour, and looked black, and pale, and gleaming,
and dangerous, when the Royalborough train glided on; and Mrs. Rich
after an affectionate farewell to Frank, leisurely ascended into her
carriage. ‘Have you quarrelled with Frank Renton, my dear?’ she said,
with a little alarm.
‘Oh, dear no!’ said Nelly. ‘I told him to come and see us before he went
away.’
‘Before he went away!’ said Mrs. Rich, surprised.
‘Yes. He has exchanged into the 200th, and they are going to India,’
said Nelly, following the train, as it swept along the curves, with an
eye which was far from friendly. And Mrs. Rich’s conclusion was that the
young man must be mad.
Nor must it be supposed that Frank Renton’s thoughts were particularly
comfortable as he pursued his way. He was not vain enough to be
gratified by Nelly’s mortification, and he could not conceal from
himself the fact that he had not behaved quite as he ought to have done.
He had not gone any great length, but still he had said and done enough
to justify these kind people in thinking badly of him. He had made them
an ungracious return for their hospitality and kindness. And when they
should come to know that he was going to be married before he left, and
that it was Alice Severn who was to be his bride, what would they
think? Would it not look as if lie had gone to Richmont and pretended
to pay court to Nelly for the sake of their visitor? Would it not be
supposed that both he and his innocent Alice had been traitors;--his
innocent Alice, to whom the very thought of evil was unknown? And then
there was Alice’s mother,--though she did not like him,--who might be
injured by this misconception. Mr. Rich was her patron, he had heard.
All this maze of humiliating contingencies made Frank half frantic. He
was angry with Mrs. Severn for being a painter,--angry with the Riches
for buying her pictures,--angry that there should be any connexion, and
that, above all, a connexion as of patron and dependant between the
family of the girl he might have married and that of the girl he loved.
Thinking it over, his very soul grew sick of the imbroglio. If he could
but rush up to town and take his Alice to church, and be off to India
the very same day,--seeing nobody, making explanations to nobody,--that
was the only way of managing matters which could be in the least degree
satisfactory; and that was impossible. Mothers of far higher pretensions
than Mrs. Severn would, he knew, have received his suit much less
cavalierly. He would have her susceptibilities to _ménager_ as well as
those of everybody else. There was not a point in the whole business,
except Alice herself, upon which he could look with the least
satisfaction; and indeed it said a great deal for Frank’s love that
Alice herself retained his allegiance unbroken through it all.
Next morning Frank hurried over to Renton at an hour so early as to
startle himself and everybody concerned. He met his cousin Mary as she
made her habitual round of the flower-beds before breakfast. It had
always been hard work to get him to be ready for breakfast at all, not
to speak of sauntering in the garden. And yet he had come all the way
from Royalborough. Mary held out her hand to him with a little cry of
surprise.
‘Is it you, Frank, or your double?’ she asked in her amaze. ‘It does not
seem possible it can be you.’
‘I wish I had a double who would be so obliging as to do half my work
for me,’ said Frank, dolefully. ‘It is me, worse luck! and if you don’t
stand my friend, Mary, I don’t know what I shall do.’
‘Of course I will stand your friend. But, Frank, what is it?’ cried
Mary, gliding her arm within his with sisterly confidence. And he took
breath for a few minutes without saying a word, leading her from the
front of the house out of sight under the shadow of the trees.
‘I may as well tell you at once,’ he said, after this pause. ‘I could
not stand it any longer. I have settled all about my exchange, and I am
going to India in three months.’
‘To India!’ said Mary. But she had a brother in India, and perhaps it
was not quite so appalling to her as Frank expected it to be. She made a
little pause, however, and then she said, ‘Poor godmamma!’ with as much
feeling as he could desire.
‘Well,’ said Frank; ‘could I help it? It is my father you must blame.
How was it to be expected that I could get on in the most expensive
regiment in the service after what has happened? It was my duty to do
something, and this was the only thing I could do.’
‘I am not blaming you, Frank; I only said, “Poor godmamma!” she will
feel it so,’ said Mary; ‘especially after what you gave us to understand
last time, that--that there might be another way----’
‘That was folly,’ said Frank hotly; and then he added with humility,
‘But I have not told you half all. You must do more for me yet. Mary, I
am going to get married before I go.’
‘To get married!’ Mary repeated with a start; and then she clasped his
arm tight with both her hands, and looked up joyfully in his face. ‘Then
you must have been fond of her after all,’ she cried. ‘It was not her
money you were thinking of. Oh, Frank! don’t be angry. It made me so
unhappy to think you were going to marry her for her money.’
‘Good heavens! this girl will drive me mad!’ cried Frank. ‘What
nonsense are you thinking of now? Money! She has not a penny, and you
never heard of her in your life.’
‘It is not Nelly Rich then?’ said Mary, faltering and withdrawing the
clasping hands from his arm.
‘Nelly Rich! that was all your own invention, and my mother’s,’ said
Frank,--‘not mine. I said she would have suited Laurie. If you chose to
make up a story, that was not my fault.’
There was a pause after this, for Mary remembered but too distinctly the
conversation about Nelly, and could not acknowledge that the story was
of her invention. But she could hold her tongue, and did so steadily,
making no remark, which Frank felt was as great an injury to him as if
she had enlarged on the subject. He went along under the trees,
quickening his pace in his agitation, without much thought of Mary, who
had to change her steps two or three times to keep up with him.
‘I suppose you have no further curiosity?’ he said at length; ‘you don’t
want to know who it really is.’
‘Yes, Frank,--when you will tell me,’ said Mary, holding her ground.
‘You are very provoking,’ said her cousin;--‘if it were not that I had
such need of you! You should not aggravate a poor fellow that throws
himself as it were on your assistance;--I will tell you who it is
whether you care to hear or no. It is Alice Severn,--Mrs. Severn’s
daughter, who was Laurie’s great friend.’
‘Laurie again!’ said Mary, amazed,--‘Mrs. Severn! Are we never to have
an end of Laurie’s friends? You told me she had no daughters. You said
something about a little girl. Ah, Frank! I am afraid it is some widow
coquette that first made a victim of Laurie and now has done the same to
you. I knew there was something mysterious about his going away.’
‘I wish you would talk of things you understand,’ said Frank,
indignantly. ‘Alice is only sixteen. She is, I believe, the purest,
simplest creature that ever lived. As for Laurie, she was a child to
him;--he treated her like a child.’
‘Sixteen! Of course she is only a child,’ said Mary; ‘and the daughter
of Mrs. Severn the painter! Frank, you must be mad.’
‘I think I shall be, unless you help me,’ said the young soldier. ‘Her
mother is furious against me, Mary; and so will my own mother be, I
suppose. But what does it matter when we are going to India? We shall be
able to live on what we have. She has no expensive tastes, nor have I.’
‘You,--no expensive tastes?’ cried Mary. ‘Oh, Frank! do pause and think.
I did not care for Nelly Rich, but this is far worse. Nelly Rich was of
no family, but she had money; whereas this girl is----’
‘The creature I love best in the world,’ said Frank, interrupting her
hastily, with a sudden glow upon his face. ‘It is of no use speaking. If
I have to give up mother, and home, and friends, and all I have in the
world, I shall still have Alice,--and Alice means everything. It is
because you don’t know her. But I tell you there never was any one like
her. And, Mary, if you don’t stand by us, I will throw up everything
else I care for in the world.’
‘But not her?’ asked his cousin, raising her eyes to his face.
‘Never her!’ cried the young man. ‘Give up my Alice! Not for twenty
mothers! I don’t mind what people choose to say. We are going to India,
and it will not matter to us,--nor your objections, nor mamma’s
objections, nor anything in the world. She shall go with me if I run
away with her. You understand me now?’
‘Is she the kind of girl to run away with you?’ said Mary, still looking
earnestly in his face.
‘No,’ said Frank, with a little outburst of impatience, ‘I wish she
were. You may think how unpleasant it is to me to put myself at that
woman’s feet, and plead as if I were a beggar. And she hates me; but
Alice stands fast, bless her! And her mother can refuse her nothing,’
he added, with a sudden breath of satisfaction. He was flushed and
excited with his story. Mary had never seen him look so manful, so
bright, and full of energy. He had made up his mind;--that was something
gained, at least.
And then there was another pause. Mary did not know how to reply. Frank
was in love, and that was a great, the greatest recommendation in his
favour. But this Alice, this creature of sixteen, a girl altogether out
of his sphere! It was impossible for his cousin, brought up in the
prejudices of her class, not to feel that there must have been some
‘artfulness,’ some design upon the innocent young Guardsman, some
triumphant scheme, to lead away so guileless a member of society; and
what if it were the same scheme which had wounded Laurie too, and sent
him away with, perhaps, a broken heart! Such were Mary’s thoughts as she
listened. And what could she do? Make herself a party to this artful
plan? Countenance the girl, and help Frank to ruin himself? How could
she do it? And there were all the speculations about Nelly Rich which
had thus fallen to the ground,--and all her godmother’s hopes of the
money Frank was to marry! Her mind was full of perplexity. ‘I do not see
what I can do,’ she said, faltering. ‘I don’t understand it at all.
There was first Miss Rich, and we had made up our minds to that; and
now, all at once, it turns out not to be Miss Rich, but a girl no one
ever heard of. I don’t know what to make of it, Frank. How can I stand
your friend? You are scarcely one-and-twenty. You don’t want a wife at
all, that I can see; and going to India too! And a girl of sixteen! I
think you are quite unreasonable. As for poor godmamma, I don’t know how
she is to bear it. I see nothing but folly in it myself, and what can I
say?’
Frank made no answer. He turned with her towards the house, from which,
some time before, they had heard the sound of the breakfast-bell. The
old butler stood at the window with his napkin in his hand, looking
anxiously about the flower-garden for Miss Mary, and much puzzled to
divine whose was the figure which he saw in the distance by her side.
Mary had dropped her cousin’s arm, and the two walked onward, side by
side, like people who have quarrelled, or between whom, at least, some
difficulty has arisen. ‘My mother does not get up to breakfast?’ Frank
had said, and Mary had answered ‘No,’ and they had gone on again without
further communication. But yet Frank was not so cast down as he might
have been supposed to be. He was sure of Mary, though Mary was so
doubtful of him. When they sat down together to breakfast in the
sunshiny quiet of the great brown dining-room, they went over and over
the subject again, and yet again. Frank was not aware that he had any
skill in description, but, all unawares, he placed before his cousin
such a picture of Alice and her curls as touched Mary Westbury’s heart.
‘If my mother once heard her play, she would never ask another
question,’ Frank said, in his simplicity; and he confided to Mary more
of his troubles in respect to Nelly Rich than he had ever thought to
tell. ‘It is a sneaking sort of thing for a man to say,’ Frank admitted,
with a flush on his face, ‘but it wasn’t all my doing. I declare I
thought old Rich meant to offer her to me the first hour I was in the
house. I should never have thought of it myself. And I met her to-day,
Mary, and told her plainly I was going to India. She is sharp enough.
You may be sure a fellow would never need to make long explanations to
her.’
‘And did she understand this too?’ said Mary, from her judicial seat.
‘No, by Jove, I could not tell her that,’ said Frank. ‘That is the worst
of it. They will think it was all made up then, and that Alice and I
were laughing at them. They are sure to think that, but it is not true.
Such an idea had never come into her innocent head; and as for me, I
tried never to look at her, never to speak to her, to think of Nelly
only,--like a cur,--for her money,’ said Frank, with a novel fervour of
self-disgust. ‘And she’s not a bad sort of girl, I can tell you, Mary.
I’d like her to know there was no treachery meant.’
‘I am glad you have so much feeling, at least,’ said Mary, the Mentor,
looking at him with more charitable eyes.
‘Oh, feeling!’ cried Frank, ‘I wish you would not speak of feeling. And
then there is her mother. She will consent for Alice’s sake; but she
hates me. And mamma will go out of her senses, I suppose,’ said the
young man, disconsolately. He looked so discouraged, so anxious, so
boyish, amid all the serious complications he had gathered round him,
that it was all Mary Westbury could do to restrain a momentary laugh.
And yet there were few cases less laughable when you come to think of
it. To be sure, there always remained the question,--a question which
every sensible person might ask,--Why was it needful that a young man of
one-and-twenty and a girl of sixteen should marry at all? Seven years
later would be quite time enough. They had set their hearts upon it; but
why should they more than other people have the desire of their hearts?
Mary, for her own part, had set her heart repeatedly on things that had
not come, and were very unlikely to come to her. And why Frank and his
Alice should have their will at once out of hand she could not see. But,
after all, it might be the best way of cutting the knot. It was better
in her opinion that he should marry any how for love, than in the most
favourable way for wealth. And before Frank quitted Renton, Mary had
undertaken this all but impossible task.
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT IT COSTS TO HAVE ONE’S WAY.
Space forbids the historian to attempt any description of the
difficulties which Mary had to encounter in her benevolent undertaking.
By Frank’s urgent desire,--for his courage had altogether failed
him,--nothing was said on the subject till he was gone; and the
consequence was a very uncomfortable day, in which even Mrs. Renton
perceived that there was something more going on than was revealed to
her. ‘What are you always talking to Frank about?’ she said, pettishly.
‘I never turn my head but I find you whispering, or telegraphing, or
something. If there is anything I ought to know, let me know it.’
‘Wait a little,--only wait a little, dear godmamma,’ Mary answered,
pleading; and then, when the hero was gone, the tale was told.
‘Going to India,--going to be married!’ said Mrs. Renton, in her
bewilderment; ‘but why should he go to India if he marries? Of course he
will be provided for if he makes up his mind to that. Or why should he
marry if he goes to India?--one thing is bad enough. Is he out of his
senses? Fifty thousand pounds will give them, at least, two thousand
a-year.’
‘But, godmamma, you are making a mistake,’ said Mary. ‘It is not Miss
Rich Frank is going to marry. It is a young lady,--whom he met at
Richmont.’
‘Not Miss Rich!’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Another girl! The boy must be mad to
go on making acquaintance with such people. And how much has she?’ the
mother added, with plaintive submission to a hard fate, folding her
patient hands.
Mary, thus driven to the last admission of all, grew quite pale, but
made a brave stand for her client. ‘Oh, godmamma,’ she cried, ‘you must
not be hard upon him. He is so young; and isn’t it better he should
marry her because he loves her than because she is rich? She has not a
penny, he says.’
When this awful revelation was made, Mrs. Renton was excited to the
length of positive passion. Words failed her at first. Her eyes, though
they were worn-out eyes, retaining little lustre, flashed fire. Her
faded cheeks grew red. She was inarticulate in her rage and indignation.
It was Mary who received the first brunt of the onslaught, for
encouraging a foolish boy in such nonsense, and for taking it upon her
to defend him against all who wished him well. You would have thought
it was Mary who had inspired him with this mad fancy, put it in his
head, encouraged him in it, urged him to commit it, and compromise
himself in the face of the strenuous, steady, invariable opposition of
‘all who wished him well.’ The poor lady made herself quite ill with
indignation, and had to be taken to bed, and comforted with more tonics
and arrowroot than ever. She lay there moaning all the evening, refusing
to allow poor Mary to read to her, or to perform any of her usual
ministrations. If it had not been that Frank had left his boat, having
himself returned to Royalborough by the railroad, and thus afforded Mary
the opportunity of getting easily across the river, and running all the
way to the Cottage to be comforted by her mother for half-an-hour before
returning to her charge, I don’t know what would have become of her.
Mrs. Westbury did not look the sort of woman to seek comfort from, but
she was Mary’s mother, which makes all the difference, and she had never
got over her compunction about her nephews. This trial they were all
going through was her doing, and though she sympathised much more with
her sister-in-law than with Frank in the present case, she was not
without a certain pity for the boy. ‘He must be mad,’ she said; ‘but if
it can’t be put a stop to, it must be put up with; and your aunt will
have got a little used to it by to-morrow.’ Thus comforted Mary went
back, not without a little wondering comparison in her own mind between
the people who could do rash things and have their will, and those who
had ‘to put up with’ everything that might chance to come in their way,
and never had it in their power to please themselves. She was a very
good girl, full of womanly kindness and charity; but it is not to be
supposed that close attendance upon a weariful invalid like her aunt,
not ill enough to move any depth of sympathy, but requiring perpetual
_pettis soins_, and endless consideration in every detail of life, was a
kind of existence to be chosen by a lively girl of twenty. Poor Mary was
the scapegoat and ransom for the sins of her family. The three ‘Renton
boys’ were all going away on their own courses, comforting themselves
about their mother,--when they thought of her at all,--by the reflection
that Mary was with her. They could go away, but Mary could not budge. It
was rather hard, when you came to think of it. And that Frank, not three
months older than herself, should marry and set out in life, and go
blithely off to all the novelty and all the brightness, and no one have
any power to stop him; while she stayed at home, making excuses for him,
and doing duty for all three! Mary was a comfortable kind of young
woman, and went into no hysterics over her fate; neither did she rave to
herself about the awful blank of routine and the want of excitement in
her life. But she did feel a little envy of Frank, and pity for herself,
as she glided across the silvery river in the summer twilight. Doing
must be a pleasanter thing than ‘putting up with,’ even to a
philosophical mind.
The next day Mrs. Renton had got a little used to it. She exerted
herself to the unusual extent of writing Frank a letter, conjuring him
by all his gods to repent ere it was too late, and to return to the
paths of common sense and discretion; and when she had done this, she
called Mary to her, and asked a hundred questions about ‘the girl.’ ‘Her
mother was one of Laurie’s great friends,’ Mary said, trying to make the
best of it.
‘All the doubtful people one knows of seem to be Laurie’s friends,’ said
his mother, pathetically. And thus the crisis was over at Renton, for
the moment at least.
At Richmont, however, affairs took a much more serious turn when the
whole truth was known. Nelly’s intimation that Frank was going to India
had not very much affected that sanguine household. ‘It will bring
things to a point,’ Mrs. Rich had said to her husband. ‘He has done it
in some little spirit of independence, not to be obliged to his wife,
you know; but if he comes to an understanding with Nelly, we’ll make him
exchange again.’
‘Ah! if he comes to an understanding with Nelly. But she shall never go
to India with him,’ said the father. ‘No young fellow shall blow hot
and cold with my daughter. I’d have done with him at once.’
‘Nonsense! It has been some little tiff between them,’ said the more
genial woman. And even Nelly got by degrees to believe that it was not
yet finally over. But when the whole truth was whispered at
Richmont,--as it soon was by one of the officers who had learned the
fact, no one knew how,--the family in general became frantic. Nelly kept
her temper outwardly at least, and held her tongue, having some regard
for her own dignity; but the father and mother were wild with rage.
People whom they had patronised so liberally!--a woman to whom they had
just given such a commission! When this thought occurred to them, they
exchanged glances. Next day, without saying a word to any one, Mr. and
Mrs. Rich went up to town. They bore no external signs of passion to the
ordinary eye, but in their hearts they were breathing fire and flame
against every Renton, every Severn, every creature even distantly
connected with either. There was very little conversation between the
two indignant parents as they made their way solemnly to Fitzroy Square.
A certain judicial silence, and stern restraint of all the lighter
manifestations of feeling, alone marked the importance of their mission.
They were shown up to Mrs. Severn’s studio by their own request,--having
peremptorily refused any such half-way ground as the drawing-room, as
if they had come to treat with their equals. The workshop of the woman
who was, as it were, in their employment, working to their order, was
the more appropriate place.
They found the padrona standing at her work with looks very different
from her usual aspect. Something spiritless and worn was in the very
attitude of her arm, in the fall of her gown, and dressing of her hair.
It was not that she was less neat, less carefully dressed, less busy.
But the woman was in such unity with herself, that her unusual
despondency communicated itself to every detail about her. She had no
heart for Cinderella,--the little loving figure triumphing in its new
life,--the sour, elder women standing by who were grudging,--what were
they grudging? The child’s happiness, or her triumph, or the loss of
her? She had not even heart enough to rouse her to the heights of
artist-passion, and to work in her own heart into the picture, as
doubtless she would yet do, some time when all was over. She stood with
her sketches hung round the walls, and the whole room full of this
commission of her rich patron,--the commission which made her living
quite secure and above the reach of chance, and her mind easy for the
year,--but listless, spiritless, mechanical, her heart gone out of her
life.
Mrs. Severn was so much pre-occupied that she did not even notice, what
at another time she would have been so ready to notice,--the changed
tone of the Riches as they came in. Luckily for her own comfort, she had
never heard that there was ‘anything between’ Nelly Rich and Frank
Renton. Such a reason for having nothing to say to him would have been
very welcome to the padrona. But she could not refuse to have anything
to say to him without breaking her child’s heart; and, accordingly what
did it matter? It was to Alice, not to him, that she had yielded.
Therefore, she received very much as a matter of course Mrs. Rich’s
pretended congratulations. ‘We hear that great things have been
happening with you,’ she said. ‘I am sure I had no idea, when Alice was
at Richmont, that she was such an advanced young lady. I suppose it was
going on then, though we knew nothing about it.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the padrona. ‘I cannot give you any information. It
is not a pleasant subject to me; but I don’t suppose it was going on
then.’
‘Not a pleasant subject!’ cried Mrs. Rich, with not unjustifiable
virulence. ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Severn, you must not tell me that. We all
know what a mother feels when she has succeeded in securing a charming
_parti_ like Mr. Frank Renton for her favourite child.’
‘Is he so?’ said the padrona. ‘Indeed, I should not have thought it. But
I am not in charity with Mr. Frank Renton. I wish we had never seen
him. I am like Cinderella’s sisters,’ she said, with an attempt at a
smile;--‘I am spiteful;’ and there was a something in the droop and
languor of her aspect which began to melt the hearts of the avengers.
She looked so unlike herself.
‘Nay, nay,’ said Mrs. Severn’s patron. ‘Of course it is a fine thing for
you to have your daughter settled so soon. And a fine thing for her
too,--a girl without any fortune. Not many men, I can tell you, would
have been so rash.’
‘Then I wish Mr. Frank Renton had not been so rash,’ cried the padrona,
with rising spirit. ‘I would have thanked him on my knees had he kept
away from this house. I cannot see any good in it. Forgive me! I have no
right to trouble you with my vexations. I will show you my sketches,
which are more to the purpose.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Rich, with hesitation. ‘It was principally about
them,--we came to speak.’
The padrona, in her unsuspiciousness, became half apologetic. ‘I should
have written to ask you to come and see them,’ she said; ‘but this
business has put everything else out of my mind;’ and she began to
collect her drawings in their different stages, and to rouse herself up,
and show her work, as became her. The avengers, meanwhile, looked at
each other, recruiting their failing courage from each other’s eyes.
‘Pray don’t give yourself any trouble,’ said Mr. Rich. ‘The fact is,
Mrs. Severn,--I am very sorry,--my wife and I have been talking things
over, and she,--I,--I mean we,--are not quite sure----. What I would say
is, that if you could make a better bargain with any one,--a dealer,
perhaps, or any of your private friends,--for these pictures,--why, you
know I would not stand in your way.’
‘A better bargain!’ said the padrona in amaze, not perceiving in the
least what he meant; ‘but I never should dream of a better bargain. I am
painting the pictures for you.’
‘Yes; I know there was some understanding of that kind,’ said the uneasy
millionnaire. ‘Some sort of arrangement was proposed,--but, you know,
circumstances alter cases. I,--I don’t see,--and neither does my
wife,--that we can go on with that arrangement now.’
The padrona had been standing by her great portfolio, taking some
drawings out of it. She stood there still, motionless, as if she were
paralysed. Every tinge of colour left her face; her eyes gazed out at
them for one moment blankly, with a sudden pang which made itself
somehow dimly apparent, though she did not say a word. It was a cruel
blow to her. For a moment she could not speak, or even move, in the
extremity of her astonishment. Before the echo of these extraordinary
words had died in her ear, Mrs. Severn’s rapid mind had run over in a
moment all there would be to do in the dreadful year which was
coming,--Alice’s outfit, and the marriage which was such pain to think
of, but which, nevertheless, must be planned and provided for, so that
her child should have all due honour. As she stood and gazed at the two
faces which were looking at her, it was all she could do to keep down
two bitter tears that came to her eyes.
‘I thought it was more than an arrangement,’ she said; ‘perhaps because
it was of more importance to me than it was to you. I thought it was a
bargain. The price was settled, you know, and everything.’
‘Yes, oh yes,’ said both together. ‘I know there was a great deal said.’
‘Mr. Rich was in a buying humour that day,’ said the wife. ‘But
circumstances alter cases,’ said the husband. They had done their work
more completely than they meant to do it; but yet they were not going to
give in.
Mrs. Severn bowed her head. She could not speak. It was the cruellest
aggravation of all her other troubles! ‘If that is the case,’ she said,
after a long pause, ‘of course I must arrange otherwise;’ and then she
came to a dead stop, turning over the drawings unconsciously with her
agitated hands.
‘Oh, you will find no difficulty about it,’ said Mr. Rich, rubbing his
hands; ‘you are so well known. There is Lambert will take as many of
your pictures as you can give him, and there is that man in
Manchester----’
‘Thanks,’ said the padrona. ‘I shall find a purchaser, I hope.’ And then
there was a dead silence; and the two avengers felt inclined to drop
through the floor and hide themselves. They were not cruel. They had
taken no thought of what they were doing, and when they perceived the
reality of it, could have bitten out their tongues for saying such
words. And yet what were they to do? They could not unsay what they had
that moment said.
As for Mrs. Severn, she was too much occupied with her own thoughts to
exert herself to set at their ease the dealers of so cruel a blow. But
yet, after a while, the instinct of courtesy, which is so strong in some
natures, came to the surface. Those two tears which had wanted to come
had been reabsorbed somehow, and she gave herself a little shake; and,
with a curious smile about her mouth, went forward to the two
embarrassed, uncomfortable people. ‘Perhaps you will look at the picture
all the same, and tell me if you like it,’ she said. And then the
startled pair, feeling very small and very angry with her for her
magnanimity, made a few steps forward, huddled together for mutual
support, and gazed in grave silence at Cinderella. She set it in the
best light for them, and showed them how much was complete, and how much
was still to do. The arrow they had sent at her was still sticking,
quivering, in her heart. And she had not time to pluck it out, but she
had time to be very civil, and smile upon the discomfited pair. Perhaps
she overdid it just a little; but to such a brave spirit, confronting
all the world, as it were, and standing alone in the fight, it is
difficult to keep a certain glimmer of contempt out of the lofty
forgiveness which it awards to its enemies. There was a touch of scorn
in the padrona’s smile. But when Mr. and Mrs. Rich had crept down-stairs
to their carriage, it is impossible to describe the state of downfall in
which they found themselves. ‘She did not feel it a bit,’ said Mrs.
Rich, trying to console herself. ‘And she has many friends among the
dealers,’ said the millionnaire, a little ruefully. ‘I shouldn’t wonder
if some fool gave a hundred or two more for the series,--and my idea!’
he added, with a certain indignation. And they went home very
uncomfortable. He might be free to withdraw from his bargain, according
to the letter of the law, but he could not charge his fee-rent for the
idea, having rejected the pictures in which it was to be carried out.
When she had seen them safely out, the padrona dropped softly into her
big chair, and hid her face in her hands. Alice’s outfit, and the
wedding, and all the year’s expenses, which she had thought safely
provided for, and her little triumph in being free of the dealers for
once,--they were all gone! It was not such a moving spectacle, perhaps,
as if she had been a young girl weeping for her lover. But those two
tears that forced themselves out, womanish, against her clasped hands,
what concentrated pain was in them! They were more bitter than many a
summer torrent out of younger eyes. And then she sprang to her feet, and
snatched at her palette, and went to work with flaming cheeks and a
headache, and all her old fire in her eyes. She had been listless enough
before, but she was not listless now.
When Nelly Rich, however, heard of this wonderful proceeding, their
grand house became too hot to hold the unhappy pair. ‘Withdraw your
commission! for what reason, in heaven’s name?’ cried Nelly, blazing at
them in thunder and lightning. The girl was half crazy with shame and
disgust. She brought her father almost to his knees before the day was
over, and flew to London, post haste, by herself, in spite of
everybody’s remonstrances, to make up the matter. ‘Papa had gone out of
his senses, I suppose,’ she said, dissembling her fury, to Mrs. Severn.
‘Padrona mia, for the sake of old times, you will not mind? He is so
sorry. They were both mad, I suppose.’ If Mrs. Severn had followed her
first impulse, she would have held by the dealers, who were not liable
to such madness; but she was her children’s mother, and had the bread
and butter to think of, and was not able to afford such luxuries as
revenge or pride. So that nobody was the worse for the patron’s
ill-temper except himself; and two people were the better,--to wit,
Nelly and Cinderella, the latter of whom had been undoubtedly
languishing under the weight of Mrs. Severn’s heavy heart, until this
violent pinch of apparent evil fortune came to sting her into life.
As for Nelly, setting her foot into the studio did her good. The smell
of the pigments, and the sight of the rubbish about,--all the sketches,
and unused bits of canvas, and bursting portfolios, were balm to the
impetuous but not ungenerous girl. ‘I don’t want to see Alice,’ she
said; ‘it was sly of her not to tell me. No, I don’t want to see her;
but she is very happy, I suppose;’ and it was not possible that this
could be said without a certain bitterness, considering all that had
come and gone.
‘Nelly dear, don’t speak of it,’ said the padrona, who was ignorant of
all the complications; and she went and gave the little messenger of
consolation a kiss, and suffered herself to shed a tear or two out of
her full heart. ‘I thought it would have killed me at first,’ she said,
going back to her work with trembling hands. And the hand that shook so
made a dreadful business of Cinderella’s white dress, and then the
mother put away her tools, and sat down and cried. Nelly had been poor
Severn’s pupil in the old, old days, and the sight of her brought
nothing but softening thoughts to the padrona’s mind; and the fountain
was opened that she kept so bravely shut. As for Nelly herself, every
moment in that room was good for her. She cried too, and washed all her
bitterness away in those tears, and turned Frank Renton and all his
misdoings courageously out of her imagination. I doubt whether he had
ever got so far as her heart.
‘I only want you to tell me one thing,’ she said, somewhat fiercely, to
Alice, who came in, all unconscious, after the tears were dried, glad
and wondering. ‘Was it going on when you were at Richmont?’
‘It?--what?’ said simple Alice, and then the child’s ready blush covered
her face. ‘Oh, no, no! It never came on at all; it came into our minds
in a moment, when we knew he was going away.’
And Nelly Rich was so magnanimous as to kiss Alice too.
‘Tell him I did it,--and that I bear no malice,’ she said, with a laugh;
and then went away with Miss Hadley, who saw her safely to the railway
station, and made the story still more plain to her. The governess
thought it strange of Mrs. Rich to permit her daughter to run about
alone in this way, but reflected that it might be one of the strange
customs of ‘those sort of people,’ and did her duty by the young lady,
putting her under the care of the guard, and keeping an eye on the
carriage till the train started. The journey might be slightly
indecorous, but it did more good than any tonic in the world.
And so it came about that in September Frank Renton sailed from
Southampton to join his regiment, with his young wife,--the only one of
the brothers who made anything like a practical conclusion to the little
romance of their beginning. Though he had hesitated for some time as to
whether he should follow interest or inclination, Frank was not the sort
of man, when his choice was made, to care very much what he might tread
upon in his way. He would have given no one pain willingly, but to have
his way was the most important matter, and he had it accordingly. They
were a couple of babies to set forth thus together, to face the
world,--one-and-twenty and sixteen! but their very youth kept them from
any consciousness of the gravity of the undertaking. They went forth
with the daring ignorance of two children, hand in hand. There were
several hearts that ached over the parting, and one had almost broke in
the effort. And the bride shed a few soft tears, and the bridegroom
kissed his hand to the people who stayed behind; and thus the last of
the three Rentons carried out his father’s will, and launched himself
upon the world.
CHAPTER V.
THE FALLING OF THE WATERS.
The readers of this history must be prepared to pass over an interval of
something less than seven years from the end of the last chapter. I
allow that it is a most undesirable break, but yet it has been involved
from the beginning as a necessity of the narrative.
Nearly seven years had elapsed since Mr. Renton’s death at the moment
when we again approach Renton Manor. He died in September, and it was
the beginning of August when Mrs. Renton received a note from Mr.
Ponsonby, the lawyer, announcing his intention of arriving at the Manor
the next day. Mrs. Renton had not improved much in health, but she had
laid aside her mourning, and wore grey and violet, and pretty caps, once
more. Her existence had known very little change during all these years.
Now and then the tonics had been changed, and she had substituted for a
whole year the Revalenta Arabica for the arrowroot; but the difference
was scarcely perceptible except to the maid and the cook, and I
believe, on the whole, the arrowroot was found to agree with her best.
She had taken her drive almost every day with a feeling that she was
doing her duty. ‘My dear husband always made such a point of my drive,’
she said, plaintively, though for her own part she would have preferred
her sofa; and so had lived on, very punctual in taking her medicine, a
woman humbly conscious of fulfilling all the duties of her life. Mary
Westbury had been generally her companion in these drives; and as she
was younger and not so settled in mind, had sometimes, it must be
allowed, felt as if life was no better than a leisurely promenade
between two rows of hedgerows, sometimes green and sometimes brown. The
carriage was very comfortable and the horses were very fat, and there
were a great many charming points of view within a radius of fifteen
miles round Renton; but still there were moments in which Mary was such
an infidel as to wish herself jogging to market in the passing cart, or
carrying a basket along the road, or anywhere rather than in that
luxurious corner. If anything had happened to make Mrs. Renton ‘put
down,’ as people say, her carriage, she would have regarded it as a
calamity altogether immeasurable; but I think that both she and her
niece would have felt a burden taken off their minds. She would have
been left at peace on her sofa, and Mary could have taken needful
exercise in her own way. But such a blessing in disguise was beyond
praying for. Mr. Renton, though he had been so hard upon his sons, had
provided very tenderly for his wife’s comfort.
Renton had been hers for these seven years, and had been kept precisely
as it was when it was the home of the whole family,--not a servant
dismissed nor a change made; and thus the height of comfort had been
secured. Mary, too, was very comfortable,--no young woman could be more
so. She had a maid of her own, which would have been an impossible
luxury at home, and a liberal allowance for her dress, and a fire in her
room, if she chose, from October to May, or indeed all the year through,
if such was her pleasure; and the freedom of various libraries, and an
excellent piano, and any amount of worsted work she chose. And then the
drive every afternoon, wet and dry, ‘so that she has the air and the
change, when we poor people, who have no carriage, must stay indoors,’
Mrs. Westbury said when she described her daughter’s happiness. And this
felicity had gone on for nearly seven years.
‘I wonder what Mr. Ponsonby wants,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘He might have
come without any intimation. I am sure he generally does. Why he should
send word like this, as if he had some news to bring, I cannot conceive.
I do hope it is nothing about the boys.’
‘It cannot be anything about them,’ said Mary. ‘Consider, godmamma, you
had a letter from Ben just the other day, and Frank and Alice wrote by
the last mail.’
‘That is all very true,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but how can I tell that they
may not have telegraphed or something? And then there is Laurie always
wandering all over the world. He may have gone off, as he did the first
time, without letting any one know.’
‘But he would never have dreamed of sending Mr. Ponsonby to tell you,’
said Mary; ‘he would have written direct. Laurie is the best
correspondent of them all.’
‘Or he may be going to be married,’ said Mrs. Renton,--‘he or Ben. By
the way, he says something about Ben; but all those business people
write such bad hands. Perhaps you can make it out. I am sure it is too
much for me.’
After this little introduction, Mary took the lawyer’s letter with some
slight tremulousness. She was nearly seven-and-twenty by this time, and
ought, she said to herself, to have been quite steady about such
matters. Of course some day Ben would marry, and so long as it was any
one who would make him happy she could only be glad. Many a wandering
thought about Millicent Tracy had come into her mind. Had she been
faithful to him? Had there been any intercourse between them? Had he
kept steadfast to his imagination of her for all these years? For it
was only an imagination, as Mary felt sure. Every letter that came from
Ben had caused her a certain tremor,--not, as she said to herself, that
it would make any difference to her; but if he were to bind himself to a
woman unworthy of him! And now that he was coming back so soon, it was
with a thrill of more intense expectation than usual that she took Mr.
Ponsonby’s letter in her hand. But there was nothing about marrying or
giving in marriage in that sober epistle. It intimated to Mrs. Renton,
in the first place, that the time specified in her husband’s will had
nearly expired; that he had received a letter from her son Ben,
informing him that he intended to meet him at the Manor, along with the
other members of the family, on the 15th of September; and that,
accordingly, Mr. Ponsonby was coming to Renton next day to go over the
property with the bailiff, and see with his own eyes the condition in
which everything was, that there might be no delay, when the time came,
in making everything over to the heir. All that Mrs. Renton had made of
this very distinct letter was the fact that the lawyer was to pay her a
visit, and that there was something about Ben. But indeed Mr. Ponsonby
did not write a legible hand.
‘Then it is just what Ben told us about coming home,’ said Mrs. Renton,
‘though he was not so particular to me in naming the day. He said the
beginning of September, if you recollect, Mary; and Frank and his wife
are coming by the next mail. I am afraid the children will make a
dreadful commotion in the house, and altogether it will be so odd to see
Renton full of people again. Of course, Laurie is coming, too. I don’t
know what I shall do with them all. They can’t expect me to have parties
and that sort of thing for them, Mary, in my state of health?’
‘No, dear godmamma,’ said Mary, soothingly, ‘they will not expect
anything of the kind; and you will never think of the trouble when you
have all the boys at home. Fancy Frank having boys of his own!’ she
cried, with a little laugh. The choice lay between laughing and crying,
and the first was certainly the best.
‘I hope his wife has kept up her practice,’ said Mrs. Renton, still with
a cloud on her brow, ‘since that was what he married her for.’
‘Godmamma!’ cried Mary, with consternation.
‘Well, my dear, I don’t know what else she had to recommend her. No
family, nor connexions; not a penny,--not even expectations! If it was
not for her music, what was it for? And so many women give up practice
when they marry. I always forget,--is it three or four children they
have?’
‘Two, godmamma,’ said Mary, gently; ‘don’t you remember the poor, dear,
little baby died?’
‘Well, it is quite enough,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘with nothing but their
pay to depend upon. And there will be a black nurse, you may be sure,
driving the servants out of their senses. But if she has kept up her
practice, it will be an amusement for the boys. And things might have
been worse. There might have been three families instead of one, you
know, Mary; and then I think I should certainly have run away.’
‘Yes,--perhaps it is selfish,’ said Mary; ‘but I am glad, too, that they
are not all married. It will be more like old times.’
‘Selfish!’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t see how it can be selfish. Of
course Ben will have to marry some time or other, for the sake of the
property. But I never can make out why young men marry, for my part.
Haven’t they everything that heart can desire? and no care, and much
more petted and taken notice of in society than if they were dragging a
wife about with them everywhere? A girl is quite different. She has
everything to gain, you see. I often wondered whether I have been doing
my duty by you, Mary, keeping you out of the way of a good establishment
in life.’
‘Pray don’t speak so, godmamma,’ said Mary, with a blush of indignation;
‘not to me at least.’
‘But I do, my dear. And I am sure no one ever deserved to be comfortably
settled better than you do. However, I have always found, in my
experience,’ said Mrs. Renton, with a profound look of wisdom, ‘that
when these things are coming they come, however quietly you may be
living; and, if they are not to come, they don’t, however much you may
go into society. Look at Jane Sutton, who never was seen out of her
father’s house, and now she’s Lady Egmont! I suppose we must expect Mr.
Ponsonby to lunch.’
‘I should think he would come early,’ said Mary, with a smile; and, as
it was Mrs. Renton’s hour for taking something, she went away to tell
the housekeeper of the guest. And then she made a little tour of the
house; peeping into the rooms, in some of which preparations had already
begun. The west wing, in which the ‘boys’ rooms’ were, was all in
commotion,--carpets taken up, women with pails and brooms in every
corner. The only one as yet untouched was the little sitting-room, or
dressing-room, attached to Ben’s chamber, where his old treasures were
still hanging about,--his books and his pictures, and all his
knicknacks. Into this oasis Mary strayed, with a strange thrill of
expectation creeping over her. Seven years! what a slice it was out of a
life; and how much had happened to the others and how little to herself!
Mary felt as if she had done nothing but drive all these years in that
most comfortable of family coaches, with her aunt by her side, and a
bottle of medicine in the pocket of the carriage. And now they were all
coming back! To what? What change should she find in them? and ah! what
changes would they find in her? Ben must be thirty-two by this time; and
Mary was seven-and-twenty, which, for a woman, is about twenty years
older, as all the world knows!
As for ‘the Frank Rentons,’ they were not to be placed in the west wing
at all, but in a suite of rooms over the great doorway, the
guest-chambers of the house, as became their dignity as married people
with children and nurses to be accommodated. How funny that was! Frank,
who had always been the youngest in every way, whom they all,--even Mary
herself in a manner,--had bullied and domineered over,--and here had he
attained a point of social dignity to which none of the others had yet
approached! Mary laughed to herself, and then she dried her eyes. It was
an agitating crisis altogether, to which she looked forward with the
strangest mixture of feelings. Laurie, it was true, had come home long
since; and came to the Manor now and then, and had not drifted out of
knowledge. But, then, one always knew exactly how Laurie would be, and
it did not matter if he were in London or at the end of the world, so
far as that went; but Ben---- And to think everything was going to be
settled, and they were all coming home!
Mr. Ponsonby arrived next day; not, as they expected, to luncheon, but
in the evening. He was an old friend of the family, and Mr. Renton, as
people say, had no secrets from him. But that was a figure of speech,
for the Ponsonbys had managed the Rentons’ affairs for generations, and
there were no secrets to keep. ‘I shall want the whole day for what I
have to do,’ he told Mary when he arrived; ‘so I thought it best to come
overnight.’ And he dined with the two ladies, and did his best to make
himself agreeable. His coming and his talk were the most tangible sign
that they had yet had that their long vigil was over, and that the tide
of life was about to flow back to them. He spoke in a very guarded way,
betraying nothing of the secret he had kept those seven years; but when
Mrs. Renton spoke of one thing and another which she wanted to have
done, Mr. Ponsonby made answers which infinitely piqued Mary’s
curiosity. ‘We must see what the will says about it,’ said the lawyer.
‘It is not worth while doing anything now till he is here to decide for
himself. All that is the heir’s business, not mine.’
‘Do you mean Ben?’ said Mrs. Renton; for even she was moved to a little
surprise.
‘I cannot tell whom I mean until the will is read,’ he said; ‘but, of
course, whoever is the heir will be but too happy to do what you wish,
my dear Mrs. Renton. It must be a great pleasure to you to have all your
boys at home.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but when one does not know whether they are
coming to disappointment or to satisfaction! If they should have had to
travel all this way for nothing, what a thing it would be,--if it were
only for the expense!’
‘But I trust it will be satisfaction this time, and not disappointment,’
said the lawyer. ‘I am heartily glad, for my part, that the seven years
are over. I hear the boys have all done so well, which is immensely to
their credit, and, of course, is just what their excellent father
meant.’
‘I never could think what he meant,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Lydia always
says it was her fault; but he was not a man to follow anybody’s opinion
but his own. As for doing well, I am not so sure about that. Ben has
become a railway man;--think of that, Mr. Ponsonby! I never even
approved of the railroad myself. I don’t see what use there is for so
much hurry. I am sure I went a great deal oftener to town when we used
to drive our own horses than now that there is a railway close to the
gates. But he has pleased himself, which is always something. And Laurie
has pleased himself, too. He paints very pretty pictures sometimes; but
I don’t believe he will ever earn enough to keep him in gloves. And as
for Frank,--a poor soldier with nothing but his pay and a family of
little children! It is very different from what I had once hoped.’
‘But probably this is all over now,’ said Mr. Ponsonby,--‘or at least,
we have every reason to believe so; and in the meantime they have had
their struggles, and know what they are capable of. Let us hope, my dear
madam, that everything will prove to have been for the best.’
‘I don’t doubt that everything is for the best,’ Mrs. Renton answered in
plaintive tones. And then Mr. Ponsonby was left to his wine in the great
old dining-room, which he had not been in since that dismal day when he
read the will,--or rather the preface of the will,--to the startled
family. It was a bright room enough in the morning when the sunshine
came in, or on winter nights when the fire sparkled and glimmered in the
wainscot; but it was very sombre in the dimness of a summer night, with
one lamp on the table and the windows open, admitting the night with all
its ghosts of sound and profound soft glooms. The family solicitor was
not an imaginative man, and yet he could not help feeling that his old
friend might come in any moment through the curtains, which hung half
over the open window, and dictate to him some new condition in the will
which had already wrought so much mischief. ‘Not a word more,’ Mr.
Ponsonby caught himself saying; and then he roused up and went to Mary
in the drawing-room, where she was seated alone in much the same magical
half-darkness as that he had left.
‘I suppose it is the instinct of a Londoner,’ he said; ‘but I declare I
don’t think this is safe. Sitting with windows open to the lawn, all
alone at this hour! Suppose some one should walk in upon you before you
had time to give an alarm?’
‘Who could walk in upon me?’ said Mary, laughing. ‘We are at Renton, you
know, and not in Harley Street.’
‘Sure enough,’ said the townsman. ‘No, thanks; I prefer to face that
window. Let me not be approached from behind; let me see what is coming,
at least.’
‘How odd to think of such a thing!’ said Mary. ‘I sit here every evening
after godmamma has gone to bed, and one cannot live unless all the
windows are open. But oh, Mr. Ponsonby, do talk to me a little! Do you
think,--do you really think,--that now, at last, things will be
comfortable for the boys?’
‘Let us hope so,’ said the man of law, arranging himself comfortably in
an easy-chair. ‘I suppose Mrs. Renton has gone to bed. Let us hope so,
at least.’
‘Hope!’ cried eager Mary,--‘of course we all hope; but what do you
think?’
‘My dear, I can’t tell you what I don’t know, and I must not tell you
what I do know,’ said Mr. Ponsonby. ‘Do you never have any change from
Renton? It is very fine air; but I don’t think it is exhilarating for
young people. Do you ever go out?’
‘We drive every day,’ said Mary, with the faintest little grimace; and
then she looked at her old friend, and permitted herself the relief of a
laugh. ‘It is dismal sometimes,’ she said; ‘but when the boys are back I
shall be free again, and go home.’
Mr. Ponsonby looked at her in silence as she spoke. ‘Home’ was a
cottage, instead of a great house; but otherwise, in the eyes of the man
accustomed to the world, there was not much difference between the one
widow’s house and the other. ‘How do these women live?’ he said to
himself. When the boys came home there might be a little movement,
perhaps, and feeling of life about the old place,--and then she would go
home! ‘That is just the time you ought to stay, I think, and see if they
cannot make it a little more amusing for you,’ he said. ‘Do you never
ride now?’
‘I have no one to ride with me. I could not go out alone, you know,’
Mary answered, without raising her eyes.
‘Well, I am not much of a man to ride with a young lady, but you shall
come out with me to-morrow and go over the estate,--if there is anything
you can ride in the stables. It will do you good. I must see that
everything is in order for the heir. And you will not mind giving up the
drive,--not for one day,--for the sake of an old friend?’ said the
lawyer. ‘Good Lord! there’s a fellow coming in at the window, as I
said. Ring the bell, my dear! Quick, and leave the rest to me!’
‘Why, it is Laurie!’ cried Mary, springing up, as Mr. Ponsonby seized
the gilded stick which supported a little screen, and brandished it in
the face of the new-comer. ‘That is just his way, frightening people out
of their wits. Come in quickly, Laurie, if it is you, and not your
ghost.’
‘It is not my ghost,’ said the figure at the window, advancing to shake
hands with Mr. Ponsonby, who was still a little excited. ‘A ghost was
never so dusty nor so thirsty. I have walked down from town all the way,
to get a breath of air, and very much mystified I was to see a man in
the dining-room from the end of the avenue as I came along. I thought at
first it must be Ben.’
‘So there was some one about!’ said Mr. Ponsonby; ‘that explains my
sensation. I had just been giving your cousin a lecture upon sitting
alone with the windows open. Yes, Laurie, my boy, here I am, come to
look over the ground for the last time, before it is given up to the
heir.’
‘Ben will not be hard upon you,’ said Laurie, with a laugh; but as he
spoke he looked fixedly at the solicitor, hoping,--which was like
Laurie,--to beguile that astute practitioner into self-betrayal.
‘I don’t know any thing about Ben,’ he answered, smiling at the simple
artifice; ‘but I know I must set my affairs in order, and be prepared
to give up my trust. I want Mary to go with me over the estate. She is
moping and pale, and a brisk canter will do her good. Will you see if
there is anything she can ride?’
And then there ensued a little consultation as to whether Fairy was up
to it. Fairy was a pet pony, as old as the hills, who had been eating
herself into a plethoric condition for years; but Mary, who was not a
very bold horsewoman, believed in the venerable animal, as did every
soul about Renton. ‘She’s hold in years, but she’s young at ‘art, Miss;
she’ll carry you like a bird,’ was the coachman’s opinion when he was
called into the consultation. And then Laurie had a vast tankard brought
to him, and refreshed himself after his long walk. When Mr. Ponsonby
retired, the cousins stepped out again on to the lawn, and Mary looked
on and talked while Laurie had his cigar. The moon, which was half over
and late of rising, began to lighten slowly upwards, shining upon the
river far below, while they were still left in darkness on the higher
bank. ‘It is so strange to think we are all on the brink of a new life,’
Mary said, as she gazed down through an opening in the trees upon that
silvery gleam, which was framed in by the dark, rustling branches. ‘Are
we?’ said Laurie, with a kind of echo in his voice. Somehow he had taken
his life awry, by the wrong corner, and there did not seem vigour
enough left in him to care for a new beginning,--at least for himself.
‘Laurie,’ she said, encouraged by the darkness. He had thrown himself
down in a garden-chair, and was visible only as a shadow, with a red
point of cigar indicating his face; while she stood leaning on one of
the lower branches of the lime-tree which framed in that glimpse of the
light below. Their voices had the softened, mysterious sound which such
a moment gives, and as neither of them was happy enough to draw new
delight out of the influence of the night, both of them, by natural
necessity, grew a little sad. ‘Laurie,’ Mary said, and faltered.
‘Sometimes I think I should like to know a little about you. I do know
something about the others,--even Ben,--but you have always been a
mystery to me since you first went away.’
‘I don’t think I am much of a mystery,’ said Laurie, not moving from his
chair.
‘But you are a mystery,’ Mary repeated, with a little eagerness. ‘I
don’t know what has come to you,--whether it is love, or whether it is
loss,--don’t be angry, Laurie.’
‘It might be love and loss too,’ he said, with a little laugh, which was
not cheerful, and then he rose and tossed away his cigar. ‘What if I
were to say you were a mystery, too?’ he continued, not knowing how
Mary’s cheeks burned in the darkness. ‘We all are, I suppose; and my
poor old father that meant to do so well for us, and tossed us all
abroad to scramble anyhow for life,--what do you say to that for a
mystery, Mary? and here is the moment coming to prove which of us is
preferred and which condemned. I am the poor fellow with one talent, who
laid it up in the napkin. If he had not been so mean as to abuse his
master, I think I should have sympathised with that poor wretch.’
‘I cannot say I sympathise with him,’ cried Mary, woman-like. ‘To be
able to do, and not to do, that is what I cannot understand. But you
have not hid your talent in a napkin, Laurie. I wish you had a better
opinion of yourself.’
Upon which Laurie laughed, and drew her hand through his arm, and the
two strayed together, silent, down under the shadow of the trees towards
the opening which looked on the river. The moon creeping higher every
moment, began to thread through the bewildering maze of branches with
lines and links of silver; and there was always that one brilliant spot
in the midst of the river, far below them, shining like burnished
silver, scarcely dimpling under the moonbeams, which seemed to swell as
well as glorify the rather scanty water. Their hearts were full of
wistfulness and dreams. The world lay all as dark before them as those
rustling, breathing woods, with, for one, a brightness in the future
which might or might not,--most probably should not,--ever be attained;
and for the other, only some fanciful, silvery thread twining through
the sombre life. They paused, arm-in-arm, by that beech-tree at the
corner where Ben and Mary had paused when he was last at home, and where
he had shot that arrow at her,--as she said to herself,--of which she
could still feel the point. But Laurie was very different from Ben. No
spark of emotion went from one soul to the other as they stood so close
and so kindly together. They were the parallel lines that never
meet,--each thinking their own thoughts, each with a sigh that was not
all pain, contemplating the well-known road behind them, the invisible
path before;--and all the world around lying dark and light, stirring
softly, breathing softly, in the long speechless vigil which we call
night.
Next day Mr. Ponsonby went over the home-farm, and all the neighbouring
land, inspecting everything, looking to farms, farm-buildings, drainage,
timber,--all the necessities of the estate. Mary rode by his side on
Fairy, who verified the coachman’s verdict, and carried her mistress
like a bird,--at least as nearly like a bird as Mary wished. Laurie had
gone back to town that morning by the train. When his cousin returned to
luncheon, freshed and roused by her ride, it seemed to her almost as if
the new life had already begun. The work-people who had been sent for
from town had arrived with a van full of upholstery,--bales of fresh,
pretty chintz for ‘the boys’ rooms,’ and new furniture for the extempore
nursery. An air of movement was diffused about the whole house. The
flood which had swept over Renton, almost engulfing the peace of the
family, was almost over,--the waters were going down,--the household ark
standing fast, and the saved ones beginning to appear at the long-closed
windows. Such were Mary’s feelings as she went with her aunt for that
inevitable drive. To-day the hedgerows were not so monotonous, the dust
less stifling; and when they met Mr. Ponsonby on his cob, with the
bailiff in attendance, the returning life rose into a sparkle and glow
in Mary’s face. ‘Her ride has done her no end of good,’ Mr. Ponsonby
cried, waving his hand as he rode past. ‘Good?’ said Mrs. Renton: ‘was
there anything the matter with you, Mary? I am sure, if there is any
good in riding, I wonder Dr. Mixton has never recommended it to me.’ And
then the two drove on, as they had been driving, Mary thought, all these
seven long years.
CHAPTER VI.
THE RAVEN.
Some days after Mr. Ponsonby’s visit, Mary Westbury saw from her room,
where she happened to be sitting, a carriage drive up the avenue. It was
only about twelve o’clock, an unusual hour for visitors; and the
carriage was of the order known as a fly, with just such a white horse,
and coachman in white cotton gloves, as had made an important feature in
the landscape to Ben Renton seven years before in Guildford Street,
Manchester Square; but there was not, of course, any connexion in Mary’s
mind between such a vehicle and her cousin’s brief romance. She watched
it, with a little surprise, as it came up. Who could it be? There was
somehow, a greater than ordinary attempt to look like a private carriage
about this particular vehicle, with, as might have been expected, a
failure still more marked. And flys of any description were not well
known at Renton. The lodge-keeper had looked at it disdainfully when she
opened the gate; and the butler, who was standing at the door, received
the card of the visitors with a certain mixture of condescension and
contempt. ‘For Miss Westbury,’ he said, giving it to a passing maid to
carry up-stairs, and only deigning, after an interval, to show the
visitors into the drawing-room. The card which was brought to Mary had a
very deep black border, and the name of Mrs. Henry Rich printed in the
little square of white. Who was Mrs. Henry Rich? There had been very
little intercourse between the Riches and the Rentons since Frank’s
marriage; but Mary recollected with an effort, when she turned her mind
that way, that one of the sons had died some time before, and that he
turned out to have been married, and to have left an unknown widow to be
provided for after he died. These facts came quite dimly to her mind as
she pondered the name. But she had never heard who the widow was, and
could not think what a stranger in such circumstances could want with
her. ‘I don’t know them well enough to do her any good,’ Mary said to
herself. The border was so black, and the fly had impressed her with
such a feeling of poverty,--wrongly, to be sure, for of course had Mrs.
Henry Rich possessed a dozen carriages she could scarcely have brought
them with her to Cookesley,--that the idea of a weeping widow seeking
something very like charity, was suggested to Mary by the name, and the
deep mourning, and the hour of the visit. Civility demanded of her that
she should see this unexpected visitor. ‘But I must tell her we see
very little of them, and that I can do nothing,’ Mary said to herself as
she went down-stairs. She was dressed in one of her fresh, pretty
muslins, pink and white, with all the pretty, crisp bits of lace and
bows of ribbon that makes up that toilette _fraîche et simple_, which is
one of the greatest triumphs of millinery, and next to impossible to any
but the rich. And a pleasant figure to behold was Mary amid the
sunshine, in the calm of the stately, silent house which was so familiar
to her, and in which her movements were never without a certain grace.
The most awkward being in the world has an advantage in her own house
over any new-comer. And Mary was never awkward. The worst that could be
said of her was that she was in no way remarkable. You could not
specially distinguish her among a crowd as ‘that girl with the bright
eyes,’ or ‘with that lovely complexion,’ or ‘with the fine figure.’ Her
eyes were very nice, and so was her colour, and so was her form; but, as
she herself said, her hair was the same colour as everybody else’s; she
was just the same height as other people; her hands and feet the same
size; her waist the same measure round. ‘I have never any difficulty
about my things,’ Mary would say, half laughing, half annoyed;
‘everybody’s things fit me;’ and though she had preserved a great deal
of the first fresh bloom of youth, still it was a fact quite known and
acknowledged by her that the early morning and the dews were over with
her. Such was the pleasant household figure, full of everything that
makes a woman sweet to her own people, and yet not beautiful, which went
softly into the great Renton drawing-room, in the morning sunshine, to
see her visitor, not having the least fear of the stranger, or anything
but pity, and a regretful certainty that her own ministrations, which
she supposed were going to be appealed to, could be of no use.
Mary went in so softly that she surprised the ladies,--for there were
two of them,--in an investigation into some handsome cabinets which were
in the room, and which, indeed, were perfectly legitimate objects of
curiosity. But to be discovered in the midst of their researches
discomposed the strangers. They stood still for a moment between her and
the window,--two tall, sombre, black figures,--draped from head to foot
in the heaviest mourning. They had their backs to the light, and Mary
could not for the moment distinguish their faces. She went forward with
her soft smile and bow; and then she made a bewildered, involuntary
pause. It was many, many years since she had seen that face, and she
could not remember whose it was; but yet it struck her, even in her
ignorance, a curious paralysing blow. It was the kind of blow said to be
given by that mysterious monster of the seas, which the great French
novelist has introduced into literature. It jarred her all over, and
yet seemed to numb and take all power from her. ‘Mrs. Rich?’ she
faltered, with a wonderful mingling of recollection and ignorance; and
then stood still, too much startled to say more.
‘Dearest Mary, have you forgotten me altogether?’ said the youngest of
the two ladies, coming up to her with both hands outstretched. Still
Mary did not remember whose face it was, and yet she grew faint and
sick. The tall figure towered over her middle-sized head; the lovely
blue eyes looked appealing into her heart. ‘Don’t you remember
Millicent?’ said the sweet voice; and then her reluctant hand was taken,
and those softest rose-lips touched her cheek. Mary was glad to point to
a chair, and shelter her own weakness upon one beside it. ‘It is so
unexpected,’ she said, making a feeble apology for her consternation;
and then Mrs. Tracy came and shook hands with her, and they all sat down
in a little circle, poor Mary feeling the room go round and round with
her, and all her courage fail.
‘You did not know me under my changed name,’ said Millicent; ‘and I am
so changed, dear Mary, and you are exactly as you were,--you are not a
day older;--that is the difference between living such a quiet life and
being out in the world.’
‘I should have known you anywhere, my dear,’ said Mrs. Tracy, coming a
little closer to Mary’s chair.
‘That is very strange,’ said Mary, recovering herself, ‘for I think I
only saw you once. But I am very much surprised. Millicent, was it you
that married Mr. Henry Rich?’
‘Who else could it be?’ said Millicent, slowly shaking her head with a
soft pity for herself, and then she pressed her handkerchief lightly to
her eyes. She was dressed in profound black, in what it is common to
call the most hideous of garbs--a widow’s mourning dress. Her bonnet was
of crape, with a veil attached to it, which was thrown back, showing the
lovely face, just surrounded by a single rim of white. Though it goes
against all ordinary canons of taste to say so, I am obliged to add that
her melancholy robes were very becoming to Millicent, as indeed they are
to most women. Her dazzling whiteness of complexion, the soft rose-flush
that went and came, the heavenly blue of her eyes, came forth with
double force from the sombre background. Poor Mary was overwhelmed by
her beauty, her quiet consciousness of it, her patronage, and tone of
kindness. And to come here now, at such a moment, when the world was
about to begin again! It was so much her natural instinct to be
courteous, that she could not make any demonstration to the contrary,
but her manner, in spite of herself, grew colder and colder. The only
comfort in the whole matter was that Mrs. Renton had not yet come
down-stairs.
‘Her happiness lasted but a very short time,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking
up her parable; ‘such a young man, too! But my poor dear child has been
very badly used. It was not only that; he died just when he ought to
have been making some provision for her.’
‘Oh, mamma dear, that was not poor Harry’s fault!’
‘But we found out afterwards,’ continued Mrs. Tracy, ‘that he had not
anything like what he had given himself out to have. He had squandered
his money in speculation,--that was the truth; and now his family,
instead of appreciating the position of a poor young creature thus
deprived of her natural protector----’
‘Oh, please,’ said Mary, interrupting her; ‘I know the Riches a little,
and I’d rather not hear anything about their affairs.’
‘I am speaking of our affairs, my dear,’ said Mrs. Tracy, solemnly; ‘of
Millicent’s affairs; for, alas! I can scarcely say I have any of my own.
Since my poor boy died, seven years ago, I have not cared much what
happened,--to myself.’
‘Poor mamma worries about me more than she ought,’ said Millicent. ‘But
we do not come to trouble you about that, dear Mary. How nice you look
in your pretty muslin! I wonder if I shall ever wear anything pretty
again. I feel such an old woman in those hideous caps. Don’t I look like
a perfect ghost?’
‘I think you look more beautiful than usual,’ said Mary, with a certain
spitefulness. She intended no compliment. It was rather a reproach she
meant, as if she had said, ‘You have no right to be beautiful. Why
shouldn’t you look a perfect ghost like other people?’ It was sharply
said, not without a touch of bitterness, though it sounded pleasantly
enough; and Millicent shook back her veil a little further, and laid her
fingers caressingly upon Mary’s hand.
‘Ah, it is you who are partial!’ she said, while Mary boiled with secret
wrath. ‘But tell me about Thornycroft, and if it is still kept up; and
our old Gorgon, you know, and all the people. There was that poor Mr.
Thorny, too,’ said Millicent, with a little laugh; ‘tell me about them
all.’
‘Mr. Thorny died,--as you must have heard,’ said Mary; ‘and it was your
doing, everybody said; and then poor Miss Thorny gave up. I wonder you
like to think of it. It might have been going on like old times but for
you----’
‘Could I help it?’ said Millicent, with a little shrug of her shoulders.
‘If a man is a fool, is it my fault? You must know by this time, Mary,
as well as I do, what fools they will make of themselves; but it is too
bad to call it our fault.’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Mary, fiercely, and then there
was a pause.
‘This is such a lovely place,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘we have heard so much
about it. We used to know your cousin, Mr. Benedict Renton, Miss
Westbury,--at one time. I suppose he is still abroad?’
‘Yes, he is still abroad.’
‘What a sad thing for him, with his prospects! It must have upset all
your calculations. But the time is up now, is it not?’ Mrs. Tracy said,
with her most ingratiating smile.
Mary perceived in a moment what was their object, and hoping it might be
but a voyage of inquiry, shut up all avenues of intelligence in her, and
faced the inquisitor with a countenance blank of all meaning--or so at
least she thought. ‘What time is up?’ she said.
‘Oh, the time,’ cried Millicent, breaking in impatiently,--‘the time,
you know, for the will. As if you did not know all about it! Oh, you
need not be afraid to trust us. Ben Renton was not so careful; he told
me everything about it. I must tell you that we saw a great deal of Ben
at one time,’ Millicent added, with one of her vain looks. Mary says it
might have been called an arch look by a more favourable critic. ‘He
was, in short, you know, a little mad--but you will say that was my
fault.’
‘I have no more to do with my cousin’s private affairs than I have with
Mr. Rich’s,’ said Mary; ‘indeed, I wish you would not tell me. My
cousin is not a man to like to have his affairs talked about. I would
rather not hear any more.’
‘Miss Westbury is quite right, Millicent,’ said Mrs. Tracy, ‘and shows a
great deal of delicacy. She is always such a thoughtless child, my dear.
She never stops to think what she is going to say. The harm it has done
her, too, if she could only see it! Millicent, my darling, if you would
but learn some of Miss Westbury’s discretion! But it will be pleasant
for you to have your cousins home again, I am sure.’
To this artful question Mary gave no answer at all. Indignation began to
strengthen her. She sat still, with an air which any well-bred woman
knows how to assume when necessary,--an air of polite submission to
whatever an unwelcome visitor may choose to say. It neither implies
assent nor approbation, but,--it is not worth while to contradict you.
Such was the expression on Mary’s face.
‘Ah, mamma, Mary has not such a warm heart for old friends as I have,’
said Millicent at last. ‘I have been raving about coming to see her for
weeks back, but she does not care to see me. She is indifferent to her
old friends.’
‘Were we ever old friends?’ said Mary. ‘I don’t remember. You were older
than I was. I thought you were very pretty, as everybody did, but----’
‘But you did not like me. Oh, I am used to that from women,’ said
Millicent, with a mocking laugh; and she actually rose to her feet to go
away.
And the colour rushed into Mary’s face. Used to that from women! because
of her beauty, which transcended theirs! The ordinary reader will think
it was a self-evident proposition, but Mary was of a different opinion,
being thus directly and personally accused.
‘I don’t know about women,’ she said, indignantly; ‘but I have never had
any occasion,--to be jealous of you.’ This was said with a fierceness
which Mary never could have attained to had it been simply true. ‘I
admire you very much,’ she added, with a little vehemence. ‘I did so at
school; but that does not alter the truth. We were never great friends.’
‘Well, it is kind of you to put me in mind of that,’ said Millicent.
‘Mamma, come. You see it is as I told you. We shall find no nice
neighbours at Renton. It is best to go away.’
The word ‘neighbours’ made Mary start, and she had not time to realise
that she was about to get rid of them, when the door was suddenly pushed
open, and Mrs. Renton’s maid appeared with her shawls, and her cushions,
and her knitting. ‘Mrs. Renton is coming down immediately,’ said the
woman; and on this, to Mary’s bewilderment, her visitors sat down again.
She was driven to her wits’ end. To leave them to encounter poor Mrs.
Renton was like bringing the lamb to an interview with the wolf.
‘May I ask you to come to the library?’ she said, hurriedly. ‘My aunt is
a great invalid, and sees no visitors. Pray forgive me for asking
you;--this way,’ and rushed to the door before them. But the fates were
against poor Mary on that unfortunate day.
‘We have made quite a visitation already,’ said Mrs. Tracy, and got up
again to shake hands. As for Millicent, though she had been so angry,
she took Mary’s two hands again; and, stooping over her, gave her
another kiss. And all these operations took time, and, before they had
made any progress towards their departure, Mrs. Renton came in, and
received with some astonishment the curtsies and salutations of the
unknown guests.
‘Pray don’t hurry away because I have come. I am always so glad when
Mary has her friends to see her,’ Mrs. Renton said, with the sweetest
amiability; ‘do sit down, pray.’ The mother and daughter waited for no
second invitation. They put themselves on either side of Mrs. Renton, as
they had done off Mary; and thus a kind of introduction had to be
performed most unwillingly by the victim, who felt that her cause was
lost.
‘Mrs. Rich!’ said the lady of the house, gathering up her wools,--‘that
must be a relation of the Riches of Richmont. Oh, yes; we know them
very well,--that is, they are very good sort of people, I am sure. When
my son Frank was at Royalborough, he used to go to see them. All the
officers do, I believe; and he made me call. Oh, yes, of course, I
understand,--the son who died. Poor thing! your daughter is a very young
widow.’ This was aside to Mrs. Tracy, who had already volunteered to
arrange the cushions in Mrs. Renton’s chair.
‘Not much more than a child,’ said that astute mother; ‘and left so
poorly off, after all! You may suppose, Mrs. Renton, if I had not
thought it would be a very good marriage in point of money, I should
never have sacrificed my child to the son of a man in the City. I would
rather have starved. And then it turned out he had not half what he was
supposed to have. People that do those sort of things should be
punished,’ Mrs. Tracy said, with fire in her eye.
‘Indeed, that is my opinion,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but I always thought
the Riches were rolling in money.’ And then she made a little internal
reflection that, perhaps, on the whole, Frank had not done so very much
amiss.
‘So we thought,’ said Mrs. Tracy, confidentially; ‘or rather, so I
thought, for my poor child is as innocent as a baby. But poor Harry had
speculated, I believe, or done something with his money; and his father
is as hard,--oh, as hard---- If I could but see justice done to my
Millicent, I care for nothing more.’
‘And, dear me, we had thought they were such liberal kind of people!’
said Mrs. Renton, thinking more and more that Frank, on the whole----
‘And your daughter is so very prepossessing,’ she added, in a lower
tone. ‘Of course they knew all about it,--before----’
‘That is just it,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘the marriage took place abroad, and
we were both so ignorant of business, and I fear the settlements were
not quite _en règle_; I am so foolish about business; all I trust to is
the heart.’
‘Dear, dear, what a sad thing! But I should always have looked over the
settlements,’ said Mrs. Renton, who knew as much about it as her
lap-dog, shaking her head and looking very wise. Millicent had pretended
to talk to Mary while this was going on, but principally had employed
herself in gazing round the room, noting all its special features.
Furnished all anew, in amber satin, it would look very well, she
thought; and, oh, what a comfort to have such a home, after all the
wanderings of her life! And then she wondered what the house was like in
Berkeley Square. Poor, dear Ben! what a surprise it would be to him to
find that she was established at the Willows! She wondered whether he
would be very angry about her marriage, or whether he would think, as a
great many men did, that a young widow was very interesting; and how
long a time it would be before they had made up their quarrels and he
was at her feet again! These questions were so full of interest that
Mary’s taciturn manner did not trouble her. ‘I daresay she would like to
have him herself,’ Millicent said; and the desire seemed so natural that
her respect for Mary rather increased than otherwise. If she had let
such a prize slip through her hands without so much as an attempt to
secure it, then Millicent would have thought her contemptible indeed.
At length there came a moment when it seemed expedient that she too
should strike in to the conversation with Mrs. Renton. There was an
audible pause. Millicent was not so clever as her mother; but in such a
crisis as the present she was put upon her mettle. So long as there were
only men to deal with there was no need for much exertion. Nature had
provided her with the necessary weapons to use against such
simpletons,--her eyes, the turn of her head, her smile, a soft
modulation of her voice; but with a feminine audience it was a different
matter. There, wit was more needful to her than beauty,--mother
wit,--adroitness,--the faculty of adapting herself to her part and her
listeners. Mrs. Tracy looked at her with an anxiety which she could not
disguise. A statesman looking on while his son made his first speech in
Parliament, could scarcely have experienced a graver solicitude. As it
was, Millicent addressed herself to her mother with the softest of
voices. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘does it not seem strange to find yourself
here, after all Mr. Ben Renton used to tell us? How fond he was of his
beautiful home!’
And then came the expected question from his mother,--‘Ben? my son Ben?
Did you meet him abroad? Is it long since you saw him? Dear, dear, why I
am looking for my boy home every day. They are all coming home
about,--about----’ Here Mrs. Renton caught Mary’s warning eye, and
paused, but immediately resumed again. ‘Why, of course, everybody knows!
Why should not I say what it is about? It was an arrangement of my poor
dear husband’s. They are coming to read the will. We don’t know how we
are left, none of us, for it was a very odd arrangement; but I am sure
he meant it for the best. We shall be together next month, and I am sure
Ben will be charmed to resume his acquaintance with you. What a nice
thing you should be in the neighbourhood! The only thing is, that I am
afraid you will find The Willows damp.’
‘But what a pleasure for you to have all your family with you!’ said
Millicent; ‘and oh! what a delight to your sons to return to you!’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Of course I shall be very glad to see them.
And then, to be sure, shooting will have begun, and they will be able
to amuse themselves. I am such an invalid, I tremble at the thought of
any exertion.’
And when Mrs. Renton said this, Millicent rose, and declared she knew
that she could put one of those cushions more comfortably in the chair.
It was quite late in the afternoon when they left the Manor at last, for
Mrs. Renton insisted that they should stay to luncheon. She was
distressed beyond measure when she heard of the fly which had been
waiting for so long. ‘It will cost you a fortune,’ she cried; ‘and we
could have set you down when we went for our drive.’
‘We are not very rich,’ Mrs. Tracy said in reply; ‘but to have made
acquaintance with you is such a pleasure. And it is not often we indulge
ourselves.’
Mrs. Renton declared, when they were gone, that it was years since she
had seen any one who pleased her so much. ‘As for the daughter, she is
perfectly beautiful!’ she cried, in rapture; ‘and to think that such a
lovely creature should have married Harry Rich!’
‘But we don’t know anything about Harry Rich,’ said Mary, who was
disposed to be misanthropical; ‘perhaps he was a lovely creature too.’
‘I don’t understand what has come to you, Mary,’ said her aunt. ‘Why
should you be so disagreeable? Such a nice, pretty creature; one would
have thought she was just the very companion you want. And your own old
schoolfellow, too! I never like to give in to what people say of girls
being jealous of each other, but it really looks more like that than
anything else.’
‘Yes; I suppose I must be jealous of her,’ said Mary; and Mrs. Renton
took the admission for irony, and read her a long lecture when they went
for their drive. It is hard upon a young woman to be lectured when she
is out driving, and can neither run away nor occupy herself with
anything that may make a diversion. Poor Mary had to listen to a great
many remarks about the evils of envy and self-estimation, and the
curious want of sympathy she showed.
‘Poor thing!--a widow at such an early age, and badly left, and with
such very sweet manners. And the mother such a very judicious person,’
said Mrs. Renton. ‘I am so glad they are at The Willows. It will be
quite a resource to the boys.’
Then indeed something very like bitterness rankled in Mary Westbury’s
heart. Envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. Yes, very
likely it would be a resource for the boys. In all her own long and
tedious fulfilment of their duties, Mary had never once proposed to
herself any reward ‘when the boys came home,’ and yet, perhaps, there
had been in her heart some hope of appreciation,--some idea that they
would understand what abnegation of herself it had been. They would
know that this long, monotonous stretch of duty,--which was not, after
all, her first natural duty,--was not less, but perhaps more hard, than
their own wanderings and labour. And now all at once a cloud had fallen
over this prospect. One soweth and another reapeth. Mary had laboured
and denied herself for their sakes; but it was this stranger who would
be the great resource for the boys. And Ben! Mary’s heart contracted
with a secret, silent pang as she thought of Ben coming defenceless,
unprepared, to find the syren who had,--she did not doubt,--bewitched
and betrayed him, seated at his very gates. Her last conversation with
him rose up before her as clear as if it had but just occurred. Ben,
too, had ventured to suggest that she,--that all women,--would be
envious of Millicent. Her heart rose with an indignant swell and throb.
Was there nothing then in the world better than blue eyes and lips like
rose-leaves, and the syren’s voice and smile? If that was all a man
cared for, was he worth thinking of? She had gone and married Henry Rich
when Ben was poor. And now that the man whose name she bore had
opportunely vanished from her path, she had returned now Ben was about
to regain his fortune, to lie in wait for him, with a miserable pretence
of old friendship and tender regard for his cousin, who was to be the
victim, and scapegoat, and sacrifice for all! Perhaps it was not much
wonder that Mary was bitter. And she had all a woman’s natural distrust
in the man’s powers of resistance. It never occurred to her that the
syren of his youth might now have no attraction for him. ‘They are like
that,’ she said to herself, with a true woman’s feeling of
half-impatient tolerance, and pity, and something like contempt,--not
blame, as if he were a free agent. It was not he, but she, upon whom it
was natural to lay the blame.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DOVE.
About a week after the arrival of the visitors from The Willows, an
arrival of a very different kind happened at Renton;--and yet it could
not be called an arrival. There had been no further news, and the Manor
was still in the same state of pleasant confusion and preparation,--the
maids sitting and chatting over their work in the west wing, and a
roomful of seamstresses working at the new carpets and curtains for ‘the
boys’ rooms,’--when one morning Mary was mysteriously called out from
Mrs. Renton’s room, where she was reading the newspaper, her usual
morning occupation. ‘It was a lady who wanted to see her,’ the maid
said; and was stolid, and refused all further particulars. ‘A lady,--any
one who has been here lately?’ Mary asked, stiffening into sudden
offence. It could be nobody but Millicent, she thought, though Millicent
had been at the house repeatedly since her first visit, and was already
known. ‘I never saw her before, miss,--not at Renton,’ was the reply;
and Mary, annoyed, went to see for herself who the unknown visitor was.
She had been set on edge by the events of the last few days.
‘Wheresoever the carrion is, there will the eagles be gathered
together,’ she said to herself, with a kind of spiteful misery. So long
as nothing was going to happen in the family, no mysterious visitors,
neither men nor women, came near Renton; and now here was the second in
a week! Perhaps some other syren to put herself in Ben’s way; perhaps
somebody who possessed Laurie’s secret, whatever that might be. As for
Frank, he was a married man, and had his wife to take care of him, and,
heaven be praised! could have no secrets,--at least, none in which Mary
could be compelled to interfere.
She went to the drawing-room door discontented, with no comfortable
expectation. But when she had opened it, the most unexpected scene burst
upon her eyes. The first thing she saw was a Hindoo ayah holding in her
arms one of those milk-white, blue-veined children whose delicacy of
tint contrasts so strangely with the dusky arms that carry them,--the
kind of child of which one says involuntarily that it is an Indian
child. Her first glance was at that pearly, blue-eyed creature, and then
she turned round with a start and cry of joy upon a lady who stood by
smiling.
‘Is it Alice?’ she cried. The comfort it was to her, the relief and
satisfaction and sense of strength it gave her, would be difficult to
describe. Mary was not given to enthusiasm, but she clasped her arms
about the new-comer with a warmth which brought tears to her eyes. ‘I
thought it was some one disagreeable, and it is you!’ she cried in her
delight. She had been looking for an enemy, and here was a natural
assistant and ally.
And then ensued a flutter of explanation and welcome, as was natural. It
was Alice who had thus come unaccompanied and unexpected,--or, rather,
it was Mrs. Frank Renton, a young matron of six years’ standing, with
one wistful, bright-eyed, wondering little girl by her side, and the
child on the nurse’s knee.
‘We came to give mamma a surprise,’ said Alice; ‘not to keep her anxious
till the last moment, thinking everything impossible must have happened
to us. I know how she watches every day and thinks. And this was such a
good opportunity for coming! We came when she had not the least
expectation of us, and saved her all that. It was Frank’s idea,’ said
the young wife, with a happy smile.
‘And where is Frank?’
‘Coming next mail. Yes, that is the worst of it; but, as he said, we
could not have everything; and I came with Lady Sinclair, the
Governor-General’s wife, you know. Think what an honour it is! And she
was so kind to us. She has quite taken a fancy to us, which is odd. I
don’t mean it is odd that they should all be fond of Frank, for
everybody is. Don’t you think baby is like him? Come and look at baby. I
am sure you have not had a good look at him yet. Mamma has done nothing
but carry him about in her arms. It is so funny to see my baby in
mamma’s arms,’ cried Alice, with a sudden gush of bright tears; ‘and,
oh! so nice! I love him the more for it. She thinks he is rather pale.
Well, perhaps he is a little pale. I suppose Indian babies generally
are,--and then the journey, you know. Renton is not a bit changed. I
stood just now, when you came in, on the very same pattern of the carpet
that I stood on when Frank brought me here first; and I was so
dreadfully frightened; and then you came and put your arms round my
neck----’
‘You were such a child,’ said Mary; and the two kissed each other once
more.
‘It was so good of you to put your arms round my neck. Not just a
regulation kiss, as Frank says. I put myself on the very same square
this time to see what you would do.’
‘Why you are a child still!’ said Mary, looking at her with that curious
mixture of amusement and wonder and respect with which an unmarried
woman looks upon the matron who is younger than herself. How many
experiences Alice had gone through of which the home-dwelling girl knew
nothing! And yet she was a child still!
‘So mamma says,’ said Alice. ‘But, oh! how nice and fresh and bright you
look! Is that how dresses are made now? Am I a dreadful fright in my old
things? For money does not go so far in India as one thinks; and what
with the children and everything, I have had to be very economical.
Mamma says I am about fifty years behind other people; and they all
laugh so at poor baby’s things. But he has got on his new pelisse
to-day, and I think he looks very nice. Is grandmamma up yet? Do you
think she would like the children to go and see her in her room?’
‘I must let her know first,’ said Mary.
But she lingered, and this babble ran on, which was so pleasant; and the
children’s hats were taken off, and Alice exhibited little Mary’s hair,
which was pale gold, of the softest, silkiest kind; but would not
_crêper_, nor stand out, as ‘the fashion’ was, to her despair.
‘You would not think she had half so much as she has,’ the mother said;
‘it is so soft. Look here, how thick it is! but it will not hang as it
ought. Should I take her to Truefitt, or somebody? Frank thinks it is
pretty as it is, but then he did not know what was the fashion; and he
is silly,--he likes curls.’
‘And, by-the-bye, where are your curls?’ said Mary.
Alice laughed and shook her head with the pretty movement that these
same curls had made habitual to her.
‘I put them up to come out,’ she said. ‘Fancy coming out with the
children, and without Frank, with those things bobbing about my
shoulders like a baby! I wish you would speak to him about it, Mary.
Mamma agrees with me that I ought to put them up when I go out; but he
is such an old goose. Don’t you think we ought to go to grandmamma? She
may think that it is unnatural of us not to go to her at once.’
‘It will do by-and-by,’ said Mary. ‘You know what an invalid she is. How
good the children are, Alice! I am sure she will be delighted with them,
after all.’
‘After all?’ cried Alice, amazed. ‘But you must not think they are
always good; you should see mamma with them. Mamma looks as if it was
natural to her to have a baby in her arms. Wasn’t it good of Frank to
make up the plan for me to come over and save her all the anxiety? I did
not want to come till he was ready myself. It was all his consideration.
And then Lady Sinclair wanted me so much to travel with her. Of course
it was more comfortable. And as I am not a great lady myself, nor
anybody particular, it was nice to have Lady Sinclair to take me up, you
know, for Frank’s sake.’
‘Why, you are quite a little woman of the world!’
‘That is what mamma says; but so would you, if you were asked about your
people, and all sorts of questions put to you. I always used to feel so
ashamed, when the colonel’s wife began to talk to me, that I had not an
uncle an earl, or even a baronet. That would have been better than
nothing, for Frank’s sake. I do think he felt it sometimes, and was
angry that his wife was a nobody; but then when Lady Sinclair took me
up,’ Alice said, with a sparkle in her eyes,--‘and the Governor-General
is baby’s godfather,--that made all the difference. It was quite absurd
the difference it made.’
‘And I hope you have kept up your music,’ said Mary, thinking of Mrs.
Renton. But to Alice the question had another meaning, and covered her
soft face with a sudden blush.
‘I am so glad! Lady Sinclair does not care for music,’ she cried; ‘not
one bit! She does not know Beethoven from Verdi. It was me she liked,
and not my playing. Oh, if you knew how impertinent they used to be!
saying I must have been professional, and such cruel things;--not that
there would have been any harm in being professional,--but only you know
men have such prejudices, and it made Frank furious. But it was me Lady
Sinclair liked, though I dare say you are surprised,’ Alice added, with
a laugh of pleasant girlish vanity. Her heart was thrown wide open by
the excitement of the home-coming; all its envelopes of shyness and
strangeness having been forgotten for the moment. Except with ‘mamma,’
she had never chattered so freely to any one in her life.
‘Very much surprised,’ Mary said, kissing the bright face which had come
upon her like a revelation. They had jumped all at once into the
tenderest intimacy. Frank’s bride had been a timid little stranger the
last time she was at Renton, afraid to speak, carrying herself very
gingerly among her unknown relations; but she was flushed by the delight
of being among her own people this time, and confident of everybody’s
regard.
‘I think really I ought to go to grandmamma now,’ she added, after that
pleasant laugh. And Mary hastened to her godmother to prepare the way.
Mrs. Renton had just finished dressing, and was lying on her sofa, to
recover from the exertion, sipping her cup of arrowroot. She was in a
pale grey dress, which, she flattered herself, was slightly mourning,
but had some pretty pink ribbons in her cap, to which that description
could scarcely be applied. They were not perhaps very suitable to her
widowhood, but then they were very becoming; and when the sun is shining
brightly, even an invalid lady upon a sofa is apt to feel an inclination
towards such innocent vanities.
‘My mistress has taken a biscuit with her arrowroot this morning,’ said
the maid, in a tone of exultation. ‘I always said as a little bit of
company was the thing that would do her most good.’
Mrs. Renton gave a soft smile in acknowledgment of this commendation.
She was aware that it was good of her to eat that biscuit, and a gentle
self-approval filled her heart. ‘I quite enjoyed it,’ she said; and Mary
had to pause and hear an account of what kind of biscuit it was, and to
express her delight at the feat. ‘And I have something else to tell you,
dear godmamma,’ she said; ‘if you are quite sure you will not be upset
by the surprise. Some one has just arrived,--Alice and the children! She
had an opportunity to come by this last mail, with Lady Sinclair, the
Governor-General’s wife, who has taken a great fancy to her. Frank would
not let her miss the opportunity. She arrived the day before yesterday,
and she is with the children, looking so nice! I am sure you will be
delighted to see them. Shall I bring them up here?’
Mary’s nervousness betrayed itself in the haste with which she delivered
this long explanation, never pausing to take breath. And Mrs. Renton put
down her arrowroot and sat upright on the sofa. ‘Bring them here!--Alice
and the children! Good heavens, Mary! are you out of your senses?’ said
the invalid, ‘when I have just this moment got out of bed!’
‘But she will wait as long as you please,’ said Mary, anxiously.
‘And you know I hate surprises,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It may be all very
well for you robust people who are never ill; but such a thing upsets my
nerves altogether; and nothing is ready, you know; and why did Frank not
come with her? But it just shows how dreadful it is to have to do with
people who are out of society!’ cried Mrs. Renton, putting one foot to
the ground. ‘I suppose I must go and see to things myself.’
‘Missis will make herself quite ill!’ cried the maid, in alarm. ‘Oh,
please, ma’am,--if you would be so good, ma’am,--Dr. Mixton would never
forgive me if you went and walked about after you’ve took your
arrowroot.’
‘Don’t worry me, Davison!’ cried Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘as if I had
not enough to worry me! Couldn’t she write? or keep to her proper time?
I don’t understand how you can countenance such a thing, Mary! As for
walking about, I can’t do it. If all the house goes to sixes and
sevens,--and there is no place for anybody to sleep in,--I can’t help
it; I cannot do it. I have my duty to my children to think of, and I am
not going to kill myself.’
At this moment Alice, who had become impatient, knocked at the door.
Nobody conceived that such an invasion was possible, and therefore
Davison opened the door, cautious, but unsuspecting, while Mrs. Renton
put up her foot again, and lay back, the image of exhaustion, on the
sofa. Davison gave a little cry of mingled horror and delight, if such a
mixture may be. Alice stood in the doorway with a child in each hand.
They were all lightly clad in white summer dresses, the young mother and
the two children. Little Laurence tottered forward a step or two,
holding by his mother’s hand, and Mary held back, gazing, with wistful
blue eyes, at the strange scene. Mrs. Renton, as long as she was by
herself, was an invalid given up to all sorts of indulgences; but when
she was brought face to face with the outside world she was a lady, and
knew how to adopt that gracious _rôle_. Before Mary Westbury could
recover from her astonishment and consternation, the mistress of the
house held out her hands to her daughter-in-law. ‘Ah, Alice, come in,’
she said; ‘bring them to me. I am not able, my dear, to go to you.’
And in five minutes more, the chatter and the laughter, the tumult of
pleasant explanations and questions, and all the talk that belongs to an
arrival, was in full course by the side of Mrs. Renton’s sofa. As for
Alice, it had never occurred to her to be afraid of her mother-in-law.
She was afraid of nobody in the present felicitous state of her affairs.
She had forgotten altogether how little she had been at Renton, how
small her personal knowledge was of the household there. Somehow,
through those six years of correspondence, the Manor and the Square had
got jumbled together in the mind of Mrs. Frank Renton. Had she come with
any doubt of her reception, the chances were that things would not have
gone so pleasantly. But she had not the least doubt of her reception.
She could not be kept away even so long as was necessary to get
grandmamma’s reply. She took it for granted that her husband’s mother
belonged to her almost as much as her own. Who should go and ask
admission for Frank’s children into the room their father was born in,
but she? And this fearlessness vanquished the invalid, who felt all her
tremors of anticipation quieted in a moment. The children did not
scream, but only gazed at her in silence, with big, wide-open eyes,--and
baby was like his father. And Mrs. Renton, though she had been so long
accustomed to think of herself first, and watch over her own peace and
comfort, was still Frank’s mother. After awhile old recollections came
over her, and she cried a little over Frank’s boy. ‘I remember when his
father was just like him,’ she began to tell Alice, and ran into a
hundred little nursery stories, which roused her heart within her. ‘I
might have talked to her for a hundred years before she would have
thought of telling them to me,’ said Mary, with again an unmarried young
woman’s admiration, and soft half-envy of the young mother’s
privileges. Alice drew a low chair to the side of the sofa, and put the
baby--most daring proceeding of all--on the very couch itself, that
grandmamma might give her opinion of his little dimpled arms and legs,
and say if she did not think he was stout enough, though perhaps not so
fat as an English baby ought to be. ‘But mamma says she does not care
for those very fat babies,’ Alice said, with eyes intent upon the face
of the critic. ‘And neither do I,’ Mrs. Renton said with solemnity,
holding her grandson’s little pink foot in her hand. ‘If I had done it,
poor godmamma would have been quite ill all day,’ Mary said afterwards,
describing the meeting to her mother. And for an hour or two there was
nothing to be heard but that soft feminine talk, all full of bits of
private history, and interspersed with every kind of digression, which
women love. Alice gave them no narrative of her six years’ absence; but
_apropos_ of everything and nothing, there would come a little chapter
out of the heart of it. ‘It was that time when I was rather ill--that
Frank wrote to you about. He took me up to the hills, and we had to
leave little Mary at the station. We went along with the General and his
wife, and they were so friendly; and it was he, you remember, who
recommended Frank for that appointment he has held ever since. To tell
the truth, we had got into debt,’ said Alice, with a blush; ‘it was that
that made me ill, as much as anything. We were determined not to tell
you, but struggle out of it as best we could, and you can’t think how
glad we were of that appointment. I thought you would all think me such
a wretched little creature to have brought Frank nothing, and yet have
let him get into debt. It was there I first saw a lady with a chignon. I
could not tell what to make of it at first, and Frank thought it
hideous; but then it was too big--it was as big as her head.’
‘Depend upon it, my dear, it was false hair; they say everybody wears
false hair now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton, who was still holding in her
hand the baby’s little dimpled foot.
‘But I don’t believe that,’ said Alice. ‘I like you in the chignon,
Mary; it suits you much better than the other fashion; and what a
comfort it must be not to have any curls to do when you are sleepy!
Grandmamma dear, I wish you would tell me what to do with little Mary’s
hair. It is so soft it will not _crêper_, nor anything. Lady Sinclair’s
niece’s little girl looks to have a perfect bush of hair, and Mary has
just as much, but it will not stand out.’
‘It must be plaited every night before she goes to bed,’ said Mrs.
Renton, ‘and just damped a little before it is plaited. Have you an
English nurse? Of course your ayah must be sent back. And, Alice, I hope
you are quite sure about that debt.’
‘It was all paid, every penny! Don’t be afraid. I could never have come
home and looked you in the face if it had not been paid. And I have
taken such care ever since! Frank is,--too generous, you know. He asks
people, and does not think. And then everybody that pleases comes and
stays with you. India is such a funny place for that. When we were at
Goine Ghurla, the Fentons lived with us for six weeks; they could not
get a house to suit them, and we had a larger one than we wanted, and of
course they came to us as if it were the most natural thing in the
world. It is very nice, but it is rather expensive. Of course we could
have gone to them in return had we wanted to go, but we never did. How
nice it is to see you in your pink ribbons, grandmamma, after that
dreadful widow’s cap!’
‘My dear, I am only in my own room; it is only something Davison made up
for me,’ said Mrs. Renton, confused. ‘I never wear colours down-stairs.
Indeed, my spirits will never be equal to it again.’
‘But they are so becoming to you,’ said Alice. And thus the talk ran on.
And the children, awed by the novelty of everything, behaved themselves
like little angels, not uttering a cry, nor shedding a tear. When the
time of the afternoon drive came, little Mary, inspired by her good
genius, made a petition to go in the carriage with grandmamma. And that
day the marvellous sight might have been seen of Mrs. Renton with the
ayah and the baby seated opposite her, and little Mary, in great state,
by her side, perambulating the lanes. Mrs. Renton made the coachman stop
when they passed the rector’s pony carriage, and explained, ‘My son
Frank’s children, just come from India,’ with such pride as she had
scarcely felt since Frank had been the baby. Already these sweet
_avant-couriers_ of return and restoration had loosened the prison bonds
for the invalid in her unconscious selfishness. She forgot all about her
medicine, and even her cup of tea, when she went in, and demanded to
know instead if her favourite biscuits had been provided for the
children. On the whole, it was pleasanter thus taking thought for others
than thinking only of herself.
When they were left alone, Mary and Alice went out together to stray
about the lawn and down the favourite haunt of the Rentons,--the path to
the river. And they had a great deal of talk and consultation,
confidential and serious, which was comforting to both. ‘Don’t you know
in the very least how things are to be?’ Alice asked, with a certain
wistfulness. ‘I don’t care about money, indeed; but, oh, it would be so
nice to stay at home!’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Mary; ‘not even Mr. Ponsonby, I believe. It makes
one very anxious when one thinks of it. If poor, dear uncle’s mind was
touched, as some people think, he may have made some other stipulation.
I don’t know,--but Renton ought to come to Ben.’
‘I have heard Frank say often that if the will did not do that, Laurie
and he had both agreed to settle it so,’ said Alice. ‘Of course they
could not take it. But if it is not wrong to say so,--and as poor Mr.
Renton is dead I don’t think it can be wrong,--I should like if there
was some money for us.’
‘There must be some money for you,’ said Mary; and thus speaking they
moved down the bank, and, coming to the beech-tree at the corner, which
was associated in Mary’s mind with so many tangles of the tale, stopped
short to contemplate the view. A little to one side from that famous
point of vision a peep could be obtained, through some branches, of a
house close by the water’s edge,--a little house, with its trees dipping
into the stream, lying under the shadow of a high, wooded bank. Mary’s
mind was full of her special griefs and apprehensions, and she could not
keep her eyes from that peaceful little place, which lay full in the
afternoon sunshine. ‘That is The Willows,’ she said, pointing it out.
‘It looks very nice, but what is The Willows?’ said Alice. ‘I never
heard Frank speak of it,’ which was her standard of interest for
everything within her vision.
‘I dare say Frank never remembered it,’ said Mary; ‘it is not a place of
any consequence; at least, it never was before. But two ladies have come
to it now. They are a mother and a daughter, and they are both widows.’
‘Poor things! but that does not sound very important still. Are they
nice?’ said Alice, in her ignorance. And Mary began to regret the
suddenness of her confidence.
‘The daughter is very beautiful. She was a schoolfellow of mine once,’
said Mary; ‘and I’m afraid they are not very nice. If I tell you
something, will you never, never say a word to any one,--not even Frank?
Oh, it is nothing wrong. I think Ben met her once, and was fond of her.
Beauty goes so far, you know, with men. I think he was very fond of her,
and she must have deceived him. And think what it will be to him, poor
fellow, if he finds her there when he comes home!’
‘But how did she deceive him?’ cried Alice. ‘Oh, tell me! It must be
quite a romance.’
‘I don’t care for such romances,’ said Mary. ‘He loved her, I am sure,
and she went away abroad, and must have married somebody else, for she
is a widow I told you; and fancy what he will feel when he finds her
here!’
‘Well, perhaps he might like it,’ said Alice. ‘Men are so queer. They
are not the least like us. I know by Frank; when something happens that
I think he will be in a dreadful way about, he takes it quite calmly;
and then for the least little thing, that nobody in their senses would
pay the least attention to, he will blaze up! Is Ben nice? Perhaps he
will be quite pleased to find her here, to show her he does not care.’
‘I don’t know if you would think him very nice; but to us, you know,’
said Mary, turning away her head, ‘he is Ben: and, of course, there is
no more to be said.’
‘Yes, of course, you are all fond of him,’ said simple Alice; and they
went on, relapsing into other channels of talk. But though she
understood so little the full meaning of what she had heard, Alice was
such a relief and comfort to Mary as she had not had for years. Even to
have said so much as this relieved her; and to nobody else could she
have ventured to say even so much. Not to her own mother, who was too
energetic, and might have thought it her duty to come into the field,
and break a lance with Mrs. Tracy in defence of her nephew; not to
Laurie, who might have seen deeper still, and detected certain secrets
of Mary’s heart which she would not whisper even to herself. But Alice,
who was ready to listen, and give her ignorant, shrewd opinion, was a
comfort to speak to. Mary was exhilarated and consoled by her walk, as
much as her aunt was by the drive, in which the soft pride and sense of
property in Frank’s babies had warmed her dried-up soul. When the mother
and her babies went back to town by the evening train, Mrs. Renton felt
herself able to walk almost to the end of the avenue to see them off, a
thing she had not been known to do for years; and Mary drove with them
to the station, anticipating joyfully the time when ‘Frank’s family’
should come back to take possession of the apartments prepared for them.
The family ark was settling upon the top of the mount. But a few days
more, and the doors would open, and the wanderings be over, and the
family fate be known.
CHAPTER VIII.
BEN.
The first who arrived of the family party was the eldest son.
It was on the 15th of September that Ben came home. The day appointed
for reading the will was a week later, and none of the others had
arrived when Ben’s letter came announcing his return for the next
morning. Fortunately, the ‘boys’’ rooms were quite ready, and the house
was so wound up to the height of excitement, that the first actual
arrival was a godsend. The flutter and commotion of that day was
indescribable. As for poor Mary she did not know what she was about. It
was cruel on her that he should come alone,--that there should be nobody
to break their inevitable _tête-à-tête_ at breakfast and during the
hours when Mrs. Renton would certainly be invisible. Busy as she was,
looking after everything, she found time for a hurried note to Laurie,
telling him of his brother’s coming. ‘He has been so long away that I
feel as if it were a stranger who was coming,’ Mary wrote, in a panic
quite unlike her usual character;--‘do come at once and help me to
entertain him.’ ‘Help you to entertain Ben!’ was Laurie’s reply, with
ever so many notes of interrogation. Perhaps the helplessness and fright
which were visible in this demand threw some light to Laurie upon the
state of affairs, but he either could not or would not help her in her
trouble; and with a heart which beat very loudly in her breast, but with
an outward aspect of the most elaborate quietness and composure, Mary
stood on the lawn in the September sunset watching for the dog-cart to
come from the station. The ladies from The Willows had been calling that
very morning, and of course had heard what was going to happen, and a
glance had passed between the mother and daughter when Mrs. Renton had
hoped she would see a great deal of them while the ‘boys’ were at home.
‘I should think Mr. Renton must have forgotten us,’ Millicent had said,
with a little pathos. Mary took very little part in all this, but noted
everything, the most vigilant and clear-sighted of critics. It made her
heart ache to look at that beautiful face. Was it possible that those
blue eyes which looked so lustrous, and the smiling lips that were so
sweet, could obliterate in Ben’s mind all sense of falsehood and
treachery? And, indeed, Mary only took the treachery for granted.
Perhaps there had been nothing of the kind; perhaps he was coming
without any grievance against her to fall into this syren’s snares. How
cunning it was of her to post herself there, on the edge of the river,
where ‘the boys’’ boats would be passing continually, and where they
could not escape her! And how deep-rooted the plan must have been which
preserved the date for seven years, and made Millicent aware exactly
when her victim was coming home! Mary’s thoughts were severe and
uncompromising. She could not think of any possible tie between
Millicent and her cousin but that of enchantress and victim. She did not
know how good the adventuress had resolved to be if at last this last
scheme of all should be successful; nor what a weary life of failure,
and disappointment, and self-disgust, poor Millicent had gone through.
Mary could not have believed in any extenuating circumstances. There
could be no trace of womanly or natural feeling in the creature who thus
came, visibly without the shadow of a pretext, to lie in wait for Ben.
She thought her heart would have stopped beating when the dog-cart
dashed in at the gates. But her outward aspect was one of such fixed
composure that Ben, as he made a spring out of it, almost without
leaving the horse time to stop, and caught his cousin precipitately in
his arms, felt as if he had committed a social sin in his sudden kiss.
‘I am sure I beg your pardon, Mary,’ he cried, half laughing, half
horrified. ‘I forgot I had been away so long, and you had grown out of
acquaintance with me; but still you need not look so shocked.’
‘I am not shocked,’ said Mary, who had scarcely voice enough to speak;
‘it was only the surprise; and, good heavens, what a beard!’
‘Well, yes, it is an alarming article, I suppose,’ said Ben, looking
down with complacency upon one of those natural ornaments which men
prize so much. It was an altogether new decoration. And it seemed to
Mary that he had grown even taller while he had been away, so changed
was the development of the mature man,--brown, bearded, and
powerful,--from that of Ben, the young man of fashion, who had been as
dainty in all his ways as herself. His frame had broadened, expanded,
and acquired that air of activity and force which only occupation gives.
His eye had no languor in it, but was full of active observation and
thought. The change was so great that it took away her breath, and after
the second glance Mary was not quite sure that it was so very
satisfactory. He was more like the Rentons than he had been,--his lip
curled a little at the corner, as if it might sneer on occasion. His
manner had grown a little peremptory. ‘Where is my mother?’ he said
immediately, without giving even a spare moment to look again at the
companion of his childhood;--‘in her own room?’
‘Yes, she is waiting for you,’ said Mary. And he went off from her
without another word. Of course it was very right he should do so, after
an absence of six years and a half, and very nice of him to be so
anxious to see his mother. But yet---- Mary went in after him, in two or
three minutes, feeling somehow as if she had fallen from an unspeakable
height of expectation; though she had not expected anything in
reality,--and Ben had been very kind, very frank, and cordial, and
cousinly. What a fool she was! And while she could hear the unusual roll
of the man’s voice in Mrs. Renton’s room, running on in perpetual
volleys of sound, Mary, in the silence of her own, sat down and
cried,--folly for which she could have killed herself. Of course his
first hour belonged to his mother. And what did she, Mary, want of him
but his kindly regard, and,--esteem,--and,--respect! Respect was what a
man would naturally give,--if she did not betray herself, and show how
little she was deserving of it,--to a woman of her years.
Seven-and-twenty! To be sure Ben was nearly five years older; but that
does not count in a man. Moved by these thoughts, Mary went to the
extreme of voluntary humility, and dressed herself in one of her
soberest dresses for dinner. ‘I laid out the pink, ma’am, as Mr. Ben
has come home,’ said her maid. ‘No, the grey,’ said Mary, obstinately.
He should see at least that there was no affectation of juvenility about
her,--that she fully acknowledged and understood her position
as,--almost,--middle-aged. Poor Mary was considered a very sensible girl
by all her friends, and she thought to herself, while committing this
piece of folly, that she would justify their opinion. Sense as her grand
quality,--and esteem and respect as the mild emotions which she might
hope to inspire,--such were the reflections that passed through Mary
Westbury’s mind as she put on her grey gown.
‘It don’t look so bad, Miss Mary, after all,’ said her maid
encouragingly, as she gave the last twitch to the skirt. And certainly
it did not look bad. The sensible young woman who wished her cousin Ben
to respect her, had a little rose-flush going and coming on her cheeks,
and a lucid gleam of emotion in her eyes, which might have justified a
more marked sentiment. Her hand was a little tremulous, her voice
apt,--if the expression is permissible,--to go into chords, the keys of
half-a-dozen different feelings being struck at the same moment, and
producing, if a little incoherence, at the same time a curious
multiplicity of tone. The dining-room had more lights than usual, but
still was not bright; and when Ben came in with his mother on his arm,
he protested instantly against the great desert of a table, which, in
deference to old custom, was always spread in the long-deserted place.
‘I can’t have you half-a-mile off,’ he said. ‘You must sit by me here,
mamma, and you here, Mary. That is better. We are not supposed to be on
our best behaviour, I hope, the very day I come home.’
‘Why, this is very nice,’ said Mrs. Renton, as she sipped her soup at
her son’s right hand, and stopped from time to time to look at him. ‘And
one does not feel as if one had any responsibility. I think I shall keep
this seat, my dear; it will be like dining out without any of the
trouble. And then, Ben, I shall not feel the change when you bring home
a wife.’
Mary, who had been looking on, suddenly turned her eyes away; but all
the same, she perceived that Ben’s obstinate Renton upper lip settled
down a little, and that he grew stern to behold.
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ he said.
‘But it must be,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘it must be some time. I don’t say
directly, because this is very pleasant. And after being left seven
years all alone, I think I might have my boy to myself to cheer me up a
little. But it must be some time,--in a year or two,--when you have had
time to look about you and make up your mind.’
‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ said Ben, with a short
laugh; ‘if I am to judge of my effect upon English ladies by the
impression I made on Mary,--it is not encouraging, I can tell you. I was
afraid she would faint.’
‘Oh, Ben!’ Mary exclaimed, looking up at him with her lucid, emotional
eyes; and the rose-flush went over all her face. It was a very pleasant
face to look at. And, perhaps, even beauty herself is not more
attractive than a countenance which changes when you look at it, and a
voice full of chords. Yes; no doubt he had some respect for her, and
even esteem, if you went so far as that.
‘Mary and I have been living so much out of the world,’ said Mrs.
Renton. ‘We have been quite alone, you know, my dear. My poor health was
never equal to the exertion. It is always best for such an invalid as I
am to give up everything, I believe. And except just our drives,--your
poor dear papa always made such a point of my drives.’
‘But Mary was not an invalid,’ said Ben, and he looked full at her for a
moment, lighting up once more the glow in her face. ‘I don’t know what
you have been doing to yourself,’ he said. ‘Is it the way she has her
hair, mother? It cannot be her dress, because I remember that gown. I
suppose she has been asleep all these seven years, like the beauty in
the wood.’
‘I think I have,’ said Mary; but her voice was scarcely audible. After
all, the pink gown had not been necessary, and virtue had its reward.
‘Asleep for seven years? Indeed, you are unkind to Mary,’ said Mrs.
Renton. ‘You can’t think what a comfort she has been to me, Ben. She has
always read to me, and driven with me, and talked when I could bear it,
and got my worsted work straight, and given the housekeeper her orders.
If she had been my own child she could not have been nicer. And never
cared for going out or anything. I am sure it is not necessary for me to
say it; but if anything should happen to me, I hope you will all be very
kind to Mary. You can’t think what a good child she has been.’
‘Kind to Mary!’ said Ben, holding out his hand to her. Well,
perhaps there might be something more than even respect and
esteem,--affection,--that was the word:--family affection and
brotherly-kindness. And what could a woman of seven-and-twenty desire or
dream of more?
And when they retired to the drawing-room Mrs. Renton was very eloquent
about the change of affairs. ‘Not to say that it is Ben, my dear,--whom
of course it is a great happiness to see again,--there is always a
pleasure in knowing that there is a man in the house,’ she said. ‘It
rouses one up. I am sure there were many days that it was a great bore
to go down to dinner. I should have liked a cup of tea in my own room so
much better; but a man must always have his dinner. And then they have
been about all day, and they have something to tell you, if it is only
what is in the evening paper;--and there is always most news in the
evening paper, Mary. I have remarked that all my life. And even now, you
know, one feels that he will come in by-and-bye,--and that is something
to look forward to. It is a great advantage, my dear, to have a man in
the house.’
‘It is very pleasant, at least, to have Ben in the house,’ said Mary;
but she quaked a little while she spoke; for what was she to do with him
for the rest of the evening after Mrs. Renton went to bed? And if the
world was coming to an end, it would not prevent Davison’s appearance at
half-past nine to take her mistress up-stairs. And there was not much
chance that Ben would be inclined for bed at that early hour. Mary tried
hard to brace herself up for the evening’s work, as she made the tea,
pondering whether she might retire in her turn about half-past ten or
so, that being a proper young ladies’ hour,--though with Laurie she
would not have minded how long she sat talking, or letting him talk; and
yet Ben had been seeing more, doing more, and had more to tell than
Laurie. Thus it sometimes happens that the greater the love the less is
the kindness,--though such a word as love had not been breathed in the
inmost recesses of Mary Westbury’s mind.
But when Ben joined them he was very talkative, and full of his own
concerns, and was so interesting that his mother put Davison off, and it
was ten o’clock before she actually left the drawing-room. After a
little conflict with herself Mary prepared to follow. She would have
liked to stay, but felt herself awkward, and uncomfortable, and full of
a thousand hesitations.
‘Are you going too?’ Ben said, as he saw her gathering up her work; and
there was a tone of disappointment in his voice that went to her heart.
‘I thought you might be tired,’ she said, faltering.
‘Tired! the first night at home! I suppose the poor dear mother has
stayed as long as is good for her; but you are not an invalid, Mary,’
said Ben; ‘you don’t mean to say ten o’clock is the end of the evening
for you? And I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask you. Put on
your shawl, and come out for a breath of fresh air. The moon always
shines at Renton. I’ll ring for somebody to bring you a shawl.’
‘I’ll run and get one,’ said Mary; and she stayed up-stairs for a few
moments to take breath and compose herself. It was very silly of her, of
course, to be excited; but she reflected that it was not simply the
innocent stroll with her cousin in the moonlight for which she was
afraid, but the possibility of a return to the subject of Millicent, of
which he had spoken to her last time he was at Renton. He was standing
outside the window waiting for her when she came down, and they wandered
away together, instinctively taking that path towards the river. So many
moonlight walks on that same path glanced over Mary’s memory as they
walked,--childish ones, when the cousins played hide-and-seek behind the
great, smooth, shining boles of the beeches,--merry comings-home from
water-parties when they were all boys and girls together. And then that
walk, which was the last she had taken with Ben.
He did not say much for some minutes. Perhaps he, too, was thinking of
all those old recollections. ‘When I went away the moon was shining,’ he
said at last abruptly, ‘and I suppose it has been shining and the river
running and the branches rustling all this time. How strange it seems! I
wonder if I have been dreaming all these seven years?’
‘I daresay you have for a great part of the time,’ Mary said, with an
effort to be playful. ‘I am sure I have at least----’
‘I hope so, considering my mother’s account of what you have been
doing,’ said Ben. And then he made a pause, and said, as if he did it on
purpose to stir up every possibility of discomfort in her, ‘Do you
remember our last talk here?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, and then they went on, stumbling in the dark places,
and now and then coming out like ghosts,--two weird figures,--into the
silver light. Though he had brought her out on the pretence of having so
much to say, in reality he scarcely talked at all. And she kept by his
side, with her heart giving irregular thumps against her breast. She had
not breath enough to bid him not to go any farther, and the sound of her
own foot-steps and his in the utter stillness seemed to wake all kinds
of curious echoes in the dark wood. Mary was half frightened, and yet
rapt into a curious mysterious exaltation of feeling. What was he
thinking of? Were they two the same creatures who had come down that
same path together,--was it six years or six hours ago? The darkness
among the trees around was not more profound than was the darkness in
which Ben’s life had been enveloped during his absence. He had written
home, it is true, and they had known where he went, and what, as people
say, he was doing all the time; but of his real existence Mary knew as
little,--just as little and as much, as he of hers. Thus they went on,
until they came to the opening, and the green bank upon the river-side,
which lay in a flood of moonlight all shut and bounded round by the
blackness of the woods.
‘What a pity there is no boat!’ said Ben. ‘I might have taken you up the
reach as far as the moonlight goes. We must have a boat. I did not
think it was so sweet. And there is Cookesley Church across the fields.
I remember so well looking at it the last time through the branches of
the big beech. How high the river is! Whose boat is that, I wonder, on
the other side?’
‘Oh, it is from The Willows, I suppose,’ said Mary, with a kind of
desperation.
‘The Willows? that is something new. Is it old Peters and his sister?
But you told me he was dead. What sort of people are at The Willows
now?’
‘Two ladies,’ said Mary, succinctly. Was not this like the very hand of
fate? Why The Willows should thus thrust itself quite arbitrarily into
the conversation without any word or warning she could not tell. It was
like the work of a malicious spirit.
‘Two ladies!’ said Ben. ‘You are very terse,--terser than I ever knew
you. And who may the two ladies be who venture on the river in the
moonlight?’
‘Oh, I do not think they are in the boat.’
‘But whether they are in the boat or not, who are they?’ said Ben, and
there was a sound as of laughter in his voice.
Then there followed a dead pause. The boat lay in the fullest moonlight,
and already they could hear the soft plash of the oars and distant sound
of voices. It was not coming down the stream, but floating softly on
the silvered water, just kept in its place against the current by the
oars. Some one was out enjoying the beauty of the night in that magical
fashion; and opposite was visible the little margin of lawn which
belonged to The Willows, the trees dripping into the water, and the
lights in the open windows. A subtle suggestion of happiness, and love,
and rest, was in the scene. Was it a pair of lovers, or a young husband
with his wife, or----
‘Tell me,--this becomes mysterious,--who are they?’ said Ben.
‘Oh, only some people,’ Mary said, with some breathlessness, ‘whom I
think you once knew. Do you remember speaking to me, the last time we
came down here together, about,--some one,--a school-fellow of mine?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is a very strange coincidence,’ Mary said, with a miserable attempt
at a laugh. ‘It is Millicent, who has gone there with her mother for the
summer. We are neighbours now.’
And then silence came again,--silence deeper than before. He started a
little, that it was easy to see; but his face was quite in the shade.
And after a while he said, with a steady and decided voice, ‘You mean
Mrs. Henry Rich?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary; and then they both stood on the rustling grass and
watched the boat, which lay caught, as it were, and suspended in the
blaze of white radiance. No doubt she was there, enjoying that beautiful
moment, not thinking what silent spectators were looking on so near. As
for Mary, she stood spell-bound, and gazed full of a thousand thoughts.
Since her cousins had been gone, Mary had had no one to row her about
the shining river, every turn of which she knew so well; but Millicent
had her boatman at once. And who was he? And what could Ben be thinking
of that he stood thus on the brink of the full stream, filled more than
full by the overflowing of the moonlight? All at once he turned on his
heel, as if rousing himself, and drew Mary’s hand within his arm.
‘Let me help you up the bank,’ said Ben. ‘After all, the night grows
cold. Have you ever walked as far before, so late as this?’
‘Never, I think,’ said Mary, going with him up the hill at a pace very
unusual to her. Though he carried on some pretence at conversation, she
was too breathless with the rapid ascent to answer otherwise than by an
occasional monosyllable. But when they reached the great beech he
permitted her to breathe. Perhaps he paused there only from habit, or
perhaps he was curious to look back upon that picture on the river, and
gain another glimpse in this strange, unlooked-for, unsuspected way into
the life of the woman he had once loved. The boat had disappeared while
they were mounting the bank, and on the lawn, before The Willows, stood
a white figure, dwarfed by distance into the size of a fairy, but
blazing white in the intense moonlight. No doubt Ben saw her, for his
face was turned that way; but he went on again without a word. It was
only when they had reached the lawn, and were approaching the lights and
the open window by which they had come forth, that he alluded to what he
had seen. Then he asked sharply, all at once, in the very middle of some
other subject which had nothing to do with it, ‘How long have these
people been here?’
‘Three weeks,’ said Mary. Not another word was said; but a certain
constraint and embarrassment,--at least so she thought,--had come over
him. When she lit her candle this time he made no attempt to detain her.
She thought even that he gave a sigh of relief as he opened the door for
her, and said good-night; and it was hard for Mary to think with any
charity of the woman who had thus waylaid him,--waylaid his very
imagination,--on the night even of his return. Possibly she was quite
wrong in her estimate of Ben’s feelings. When she was gone he threw
himself heavily into a chair, and sat for an hour or more, doing
nothing, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. But no doubt he had
enough to think about without that. It would have been strange had the
coming home,--the approach of certainty after his long suspense,--the
familiar life that seemed to have taken him up again after casting him
out of its bosom,--produced no excitement in his mind. And then there
was that curious sense of unreality which comes upon a man when, after
an active life of his own, he returns to his father’s house, and finds
everything, down to the minutest particular, just as it used to be. Is
not this life such stuff as dreams are made of? To Ben, who was not a
man of thought, this sentiment was bewildering; and the quiet of the
house weighed upon him with an irritating heaviness. Talk of noise!
There is no such babel as that of silence when it surges round you, when
no living thing stirs, and the mysterious air rustles its wings in your
ears, and the earth vibrates under your feet. The flutter of moths and
invisible insects attracted by the light, the rustle of the leaves
outside, the curtains waving in the night air, the mysterious thrills
which ran through the furniture, the wavering of the flame of the
lamp,--all affected Ben when he was left alone. His life had been so
busy and full of action,--and now he had left that existence which was
his own, and come back into the midst of those shadows to await the last
sentence of a dead man’s voice, and have his whole destiny, perhaps,
thrown once more into mistiness and darkness. Had there been any need
for that boat softly rocking on the curve of the silvered water,--for
that white solitary figure in the moonlight,--to complicate matters
further? But whether that last incident did count for anything in the
multiplicity of his thoughts, or whether it affected him as Mary
supposed,--and as Millicent meant it to affect him,--who can tell? He
sat a long time thinking, but he uttered none of his thoughts in the
shape of soliloquy, which is unfortunate for this narrative; and I am
obliged to wait, as most people are compelled to do, for the slow
elucidation of events, to show the turn taken by Ben Renton’s thoughts.
Mary’s mind went more rapidly to a conclusion, as may be supposed. She
could no more tell than I can what Ben was really turning over in his
thoughts; but one thing was clear to her, that he had not heard of the
neighbourhood of Millicent with indifference. It might be indignation,
it might be disgust, it might be concealed and suppressed delight; but,
at all events, the information had moved him. And at the same time, he
had been very nice to herself,--very friendly, almost more than
friendly--affectionate; not forgetting to help her even when she had
just thrown that bombshell into the quiet. To be sure, he had hurried
her up the hill, unconscious of the rapidity of his pace; but that was
little in comparison with his kindness in remembering her at all when he
had just heard such news. So Mary said to herself, thinking, like a
romantic young woman, that Ben must have straightway forgotten
everything but Millicent. Well! She was like a sister to him: he was
ready to trust her, ready to rely upon her, ready even to admire and
praise her in that frank, affectionate way as a brother might. Why
should there be any heaviness or sense of disappointment in her heart?
Mary said to herself that it was only because of its being Millicent,
who was not worthy of him. If it had been almost anybody else,--if it
had been half-a-dozen girls she could name to herself, who were good
girls, and would have made him happy--but Millicent was no mate for Ben!
That was the only reason of the blank, sense of pain and vacancy in her
heart. For herself, she was more than content.
And thus the old house closed its protecting doors upon the first
instalment of the restored family; and with that received agitation,
disquiet, unrest, into the bosom of the stillness. Renton had been lying
high and dry, like a stranded vessel, for all those years, and peace had
dwelt in it; but now that the tide was creeping up, and life stealing
back, the natural accompaniment returned. Sighs of impatience,
disappointment, pain,--eager desires for the future, which came so
slowly, counting the minutes,--a sense, overmastering everything, of the
hardness and strangeness of life. Nobody had thought of life as hard, as
troublous, or full of fatal mistakes, during all those years when Mrs.
Renton had driven about the lanes, and taken care of her health. The
blessed bonds of routine had kept things going, and nobody was either
glad or miserable. But as soon as the bigger life came back with chances
of happiness in it, then the balancing chances of pain also returned. As
soon as it becomes possible that you may be blessed, it also becomes
possible that you may fall into the lowest depths of anguish. This was
the strange paradox which Mary Westbury contemplated as she heard Ben
Renton’s unaccustomed step going to his room after midnight, through the
profound stillness of the sleeping house.
CHAPTER IX.
THE NEXT MORNING.
Rising full of anxious thoughts of the excitement which must have taken
possession of Ben from the revelations of the night, Mary was much taken
aback to meet her cousin, in, to all appearance, an extremely cheerful
state of mind, next morning. He had been up early, and had taken a long
walk, and renewed,--he told her,--his acquaintance with the country. ‘If
one had it in one’s own hands one could do a great deal more with it
than has been done yet,’ he said, looking more like the portraits of the
old Rentons than Mary liked to see.
‘I am sure I hope nobody will ever try to improve it as long as I am
here,’ she said, with a little heat,--for Renton as a parish, and Berks
as a county, were to Mary the perfection of the earth.
‘You don’t like stagnant ponds, I hope,’ said Ben, laughing at her
vehemence,--‘nor cottages falling to pieces,--nor fields that are
flooded with every heavy rain.’
‘But I like the broad turf on the roadsides, and the old hedges, and
the old trees,’ said Mary, ‘and everything one has been used to all
one’s life. Ah, Ben, whatever you do, don’t spoil Renton! I should break
my heart----’
‘Probably I shall never have it in my power to spoil Renton,’ he said,
with a short sigh of impatience. ‘I wish I had not come home until the
very day fixed for this reading of the will. It is hard work hanging
about here and kicking one’s heels and waiting. My father was very hard
upon us, Mary. It was too much to ask from any set of men.’
‘I don’t think it has done you much harm,’ said Mary, whose natural
impulse was to defend the ancient authorities, however much she might
sympathise with the sufferers in her heart.
‘Don’t you?’ said Ben, walking away from the breakfast-table to the
window, where he stood drawing up and down the blind with preoccupied
looks. After a few minutes she, too, moved and went up to him. Her mind
was full of anxiety to say something,--to give him to understand that
she could enter into his feelings; but it was so difficult to enter upon
such a subject with a man, and especially with such a man as Ben.
‘Ben, I think I know,--a little,--what you mean,’ she said, faltering;
‘and I can see how, in some things, it must have been very
hard,--preventing you from,--often,--doing what you wished; but now
that is over. You need not wait now----’
He turned round and looked at her with some surprise in his eyes. ‘You
don’t know what you are saying, Mary,’ he said. ‘I am like most men,
very glad now to have been prevented doing things which at one time I
would fain have done. And you are right, too,--I am my own master
now,--not because the will is to be read this day week, but because I
have found a trade and can work at it;--but that was not what I meant.’
Mary sat down patiently and raised her eyes to him that he might tell
her what he did mean. She was in the way of listening to a great many
explanations, and thought them natural. Ben, for his part, stood and
looked at her for a minute, and then turned away with a laugh.
‘Poor Mary!’ he said. ‘What wearisome talk you must have listened to all
these years,--going into everything! You must have a special faculty for
that sort of thing, you women; how have you managed to live through it
all and keep your youth and your bloom?’
‘There has been nothing dreadful to live through,’ said Mary; ‘but as
for the youth, I don’t pretend to that any longer. It is gone, like so
many other pretty things; and I am not thinking of myself.’
‘Not now, nor ever,’ said her cousin; ‘but I don’t feel disposed to give
up the matter as you do. I don’t feel very aged----’
‘But you are a man,’ said Mary, interrupting him, ‘which makes all the
difference; and, besides, this sort of talk is quite nonsense. I must go
and read the paper with godmamma. Have you done with it?’ And she took
the “Times” from the table, and was about to leave the room.
‘I have not done with it,’ said Ben, ‘I have not begun it even. I am
going to read it to my mother, and you shall come and listen, if you
like. You have done our duty long enough. It is but fair I should take
my spell now.’
Mary made a little protestation, but Ben was not disposed to give in. He
was _ennuyé_ for one thing, and did not want to be alone and give
himself up to troublesome thoughts. There are times when it is better to
do even the most humble of domestic duties than to be left to yourself.
Mary thought, as she took her work and sat down near the window of her
godmother’s room, at some distance from the reader and listener, that
affairs were wonderfully changed indeed, and that Ben’s dutifulness was
beyond all the traditions of good behaviour she had ever known. Mrs.
Renton herself was a little overpowered by so sublime an act. Ben did
not read steadily through as Mary did. He read not the bits of news
which were her favourite study, but leading articles and speeches, which
were not in her way. And then he would pause and talk in the middle of
them, often turning his chair round towards Mary, and defrauding his
mother both of the paper and his attention. It was pleasant, no doubt,
to have a man in the house, and still more pleasant to have Ben at home;
but the great and unexpected condescension of his morning visit to read
the papers was not by any means so great a pleasure as it looked. But
for the name of the thing she would really have preferred Davison; and
Mary’s reading was infinitely more satisfactory. When Ben wound up by
saying, as it is the proper formula to say, that there was nothing in
it, Mrs. Renton could not but echo the words with a little querulousness
in her tone. He threw the paper carelessly on to the bed, and the poor
lady drew it towards her, and made a feeble search after her spectacles.
‘Indeed there seems very little,’ she said, ‘much less than on most
days; but it was very kind of you to think of coming and reading to me,
Ben.’
‘I mean to come ever morning, mother,’ he replied,--at which Mrs. Renton
shivered,--‘and relieve Mary a little. By-the-bye, I want to know
whether you will mind if I have Hillyard here. I told him he was to come
on Saturday, if he did not hear from me to the contrary. He is not quite
in your way, but he is a very good fellow. I thought you would not mind
if I had him here.’
‘My dear boy, the house is yours,--or at least it will soon be yours,’
said Mrs. Renton. ‘It is very nice of you to consult me, and you know I
am not very able to receive strangers; but still Mary is there to do
all that is necessary, and of course you must have your friends.’
‘Mother, I should like you to understand that it is not at all of
course,’ said Ben. ‘The house is not mine,--I am not calculating that it
will ever be mine. I want Hillyard, not so much because he is my friend,
as because he is with me in business. He is my right-hand man----’
‘It was Mr. Hillyard you went to America with at first?’ said Mary, from
her distant seat.
And Ben, relieved, walked across the room, finding she was easier to
talk to than his mother. ‘Eh? Yes, it is the same Hillyard,’ he said,
with a laugh which had some pleasure in it. ‘I was his right-hand man
then, and now he is mine. That is all the difference; but we have always
hung together all the same.’
‘Then you have done better than he has,’ said Mary, looking up at him
with a smile.
And Ben came and stood by the side of the table she was working at, and
looked down upon her as he spoke. ‘He’s a very good fellow,’ he said,
‘but he does not stick to his work. There are some people who do best to
be masters, and some who do best to be subordinate. And when he is not
master, poor fellow, he is worth a dozen ordinary men.’
‘When some one else is master?’ said Mary, with natural female
gratification.
‘No compliments,’ said Ben. ‘A man needs to be as hard as iron, and as
bold as brass;--though why brass should be the emblem of unpleasant
boldness, by the way, I don’t know.’
When there had been as much of it as this, Mrs. Renton began to stir
uneasily. ‘I cannot hear what you two are saying,’ she said. ‘You have
light enough for your work generally at this window, Mary. Why should
you go away so far to-day? And, Ben, I can see there are two or three
things here you did not read to me. There is a dreadful burglary
somewhere, in a country-house like this. It is dreadful to think we
might be killed in our beds any nights,--and gives it such an
interest;--and there is a great deal out of “Galignani” in the French
article. “Galignani” is always amusing. But Mary will read it to me when
you go out.’
‘I was not thinking of going out,--at present, mother. When is Laurie
coming? He ought to be here,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t understand how a man
can choose to shut himself up in London at this time of the year.’
‘But he is working at something,’ said Mary.
‘He is always working at something, and I don’t know what it is ever to
come to. Laurie ought to be the eldest son,--if there is to be an eldest
son among us,’ said Ben. ‘I think that would be the best solution. He
could muse about his fields, and paint the trees, and make a very good
country gentleman,--don’t you think so, Mary?--and marry and make
everybody comfortable;--that is how it ought to be.’
‘Ben,’ said his mother, solemnly, ‘I hope you have not been led astray
into Radical principles since you have been away. How could Laurie be
the eldest son? Your poor dear papa did everything for the best. He
thought it was good for you to wait, and no doubt it must have been good
for you. But to speak as if he did not care for your rights! Why, you
were called Benedict because you were the eldest son. I said to Mr.
Renton, “I hate the name,--it is the ugliest name I know.” But he always
said, “My dear, we can’t help ourselves; the Rentons have been Laurence
and Benedict for hundreds of years,--and Laurence and Benedict they must
continue to be; but you can call him Ben, you know,--or Dick, for that
matter.” I had a good cry over it,’ Mrs. Renton said, dropping back
fatigued upon her pillows; ‘for, if there is anything I hate, it is
those short names like Ben and Dick; but he had his way. And now to
think you should talk as if it had been all in vain!’
‘Miss Mary,’ said Davison with decision, ‘my missis has talked a deal
more than she ought, and I don’t hold with excitement. If you and Mr.
Ben was to go out for a walk now,--or something as would take him off
his poor dear mamma,’ said the careful nurse, lowering her voice. Ben
was too much for his mother. After seven years of soft, feminine
glidings about her room, softened voices, perpetual consideration of her
ailments, this ‘man in the house,’ thought pleasant at first, was too
much for her powers. ‘And I don’t know how we’ll ever do when they’re
all here,’ the faithful Davison murmured to herself, as she sprinkled
eau-de-Cologne about the pillows, and mixed some port with the
arrowroot. And Ben was banished forthwith from the room. ‘He is very
nice at dinner, my dear,’ Mrs. Renton herself said, ‘but men never
understand. And they should always have something to do, Mary. They are
never happy without something to do.’
‘But poor Ben, this is his first day at home!’ said Mary, when she had
read all about the burglary, and calmed the patient down.
‘But, my dear, they are always wretched themselves,’ said Mrs. Renton,
‘when they are quite unoccupied. You must find him something to do.’
Thus it will be seen that Mary’s labours were not much lightened by the
arrival of the eldest son. When she went down-stairs after her
newspaper-reading, she found him in the library yawning somewhat over a
book. ‘Come and talk,’ he said, setting a chair for her; and then
laughed a little over his unsuitableness in the hushed and soft-toned
house.
‘It is because you have been so long away,’ said Mary. ‘You have gone
off on one current, and we on another. I suppose it is always so when
people are long parted. Is it not sad?’
‘I don’t think that it ought to be so,’ said Ben.
‘And Laurie has his current, too,--quite different. I should like to
find out about Laurie. It is he I know least about,’ said Mary, with a
little sigh.
And then Ben smiled. ‘I should like to hear,’ he said, ‘what you know
about me?’
What did she know about him? Nothing,--and yet everything, Mary thought.
‘Sometimes one divines,’ she said.
‘And sometimes one divines all wrong,’ said Ben.
Then there followed a pause. It was a very exciting game of fence so far
as she was concerned. But she felt instinctively it was not safe to keep
it up.
‘Godmamma will not come down to luncheon,’ she said, ‘but in the evening
I hope she will be all right again. And when Alice is here and the
children they will be a great help. Alice is not clever, you know, but
she harmonises things somehow. I wonder if it is because she is
musical.’
‘You harmonise things, too, and you are not particularly musical,’ said
Ben.
‘Oh, me!’ Mary turned away, not caring to discuss that subject. He was
always so nice to her,--so frank and affectionate. ‘If he were to marry
Ruth Escott now, or Helen Cookesley, how nice it would be to be a sister
to her!’ Mary thought! but Millicent! Could he be thinking of Millicent
now? He had got up from his chair, and was looking out with a certain
wistfulness--or at least what would have been wistfulness in a woman,
who has always to wait for any one she particularly wishes to see. A man
can go forth and seek, and has no call to be wistful; but then it was
only according to feminine rules that Mary, so long unaccustomed to
anything else, could form her thoughts.
‘I have ordered up a boat from Cookesley,’ he said; ‘and remember, I
mean to row you to the Swan’s Nest this afternoon. It is clearing up----
’ for it had become cloudy, and rain had fallen during that period of
newspaper-reading in Mrs. Renton’s room. And then Ben went out abruptly
and left her. He stood upon no sort of ceremony, as if she were anything
but his natural sister, but went away without any explanation. Going to
the Swan’s Nest it would be necessary to pass The Willows; and at this
moment he was taking the path to the river. Could he be going the very
first morning to lay himself again at the syren’s feet? Could it be the
mere pleasure of passing her house, being in the neighbourhood, that
moved him? Mary, without pausing to think, flew up-stairs,--up beyond
the servants’ floor to a little turret-room which commanded a view of
the river. And when she had waited long enough to recover her breath,
there, sure enough, was a boat shooting out from the green bank at
Renton with one figure in it, which must be Ben. And the course he took
was up the river. She covered her face for a moment when she saw it, and
a hot, sudden tear brimmed just over, wetting her eyelashes. Mo more.
Was it her business that she should weep over Ben’s folly? No man can
redeem his brother, much less any woman, alas! However dreadful it might
be, the man must go his own way.
Mrs. Renton rallied sufficiently that afternoon to go for her drive, and
Mary’s services were wanted accordingly. But when she had got through
that duty, there was still time for the Swan’s Nest, to which she had
been looking forward with an excitement which was almost feverish. Ben
was waiting for them at the door. He took his mother up to her room,
subduing his big pace as best he could to quietness, and put her into
Davison’s hands for her rest before dinner. It was an arrangement very
grateful to all parties. While Mrs. Renton was taking her favourite
refreshment and being comfortably tucked up on her sofa, the young
people were making their way down to the bank with something of the
gaiety of former days. ‘I once beat you, Ben, running down,’ Mary said,
for a moment forgetting The Willows and all that was involved in it. ‘I
defy you to beat me now,’ her cousin said, and Mary’s heart for one
moment felt so light that she made a woman’s wild dash down one wind of
the path, and stopped short breathless, catching at the great beech to
support her. But between the branches of the beech Mary saw a sight
which quickly sobered her. Could it be by previous arrangement, or was
it by chance? A boat lay at the little steps before The Willows, and
some one,--there could be no difficulty in guessing whom,--was getting
into it. Mary’s heart sank away down to the lowest depths,--a sudden
sickness of the light, and the brightness, and the river, and the day,
came over her. She turned even from Ben, feeling sick of him too. A
certain contempt of him rose up in her tender soul. Yes; there are many
pangs in the sensation with which a woman recognises that another less
worthy is preferred to herself; but not the least penetrating is that
instinctive, involuntary contempt. He had gone and arranged with
Millicent no doubt, and then he thought to please all parties by taking
her, Mary, to meet the woman he loved. Ben, for his part, with the
stupidity of a male creature, saw that some shadow had come over her,
and thought she had struck her foot in her rapid descent against the
roots of the beech. ‘Ah, you should not have gone in for it,’ he said in
not triumph, but sympathy;--‘take my arm. I hope you have not twisted
your foot.’ I twisted her foot!--when it was he who wrung her heart!
But to be sure, Mary did not wish him to divine what was her real
ailment; and it was so like a man! But the laughter and the fun were
over. The two descended soberly to the river-side and got into the boat.
And Mary gathered the cords of the little rudder into her hands, and Ben
took up the sculls. They were face to face, and it was difficult for one
to hide from the other what emotions might rise or what change come over
them. ‘I am afraid you have hurt your foot badly,--you look quite pale,’
Ben said, bending forward to her with absolute anxiety. ‘Oh, no, I am
all right,’ Mary replied, saying in her heart, What fools men are! How
stupid they must be!--a threadbare sentiment which does not bear
expression. And then she cried, ‘Remember I am strong,’ with a certain
gleam of wicked glee. She could run him into the weeds if he showed too
much interest in that other boat. She could keep him out of speaking
distance to baulk Millicent’s wiles, or she could run into them to give
her a fright. Mary began to feel herself when she pulled that cord which
put some power into her hands, and saw the little skiff turn and dart
about at her will from one side to another. ‘Take care what you are
doing,’ cried Ben in dismay, thinking his coxswain had lost her wits;
but she was only getting possession of them, and beginning to remember
that there was no need to be passive, and that she, too, had arms in her
hands.
And for a little they shot silently, vigorously, each attending to his
work, up the shining river. Mary could not speak, and Ben did not, being
moved by a thousand associations. The first break in the silence was
made by voices not their own, coming from the boat which Mary kept her
eye on with the fixedness of enmity. Distant sounds of conversation and
laughter came first, at which Ben pricked up his ears. ‘Don’t run into
any one,’ he said. ‘I hear voices;--there is somebody coming, and I hope
you are keeping a look-out ahead----’
‘You need not fear for me,--I see them,’ said Mary, with emphasis, and
he made no sign as if he knew what she meant, but kept on rowing so
quietly that he either did not know who was coming, or thought she was a
most accomplished hypocrite. On the contrary, he too began to talk
softly like a man absorbed in thoughts and preoccupations of his own.
‘The last time you and I were here together was one of my last days in
England,’ he said;--do you remember? I was full of my own affairs, and
indifferent to everything; and, good life, what a fool I was!’ he added
to himself,--and then paused and sighed. Mary, for her part, saw all,
noted all, and in her rashness felt anxious to test his meaning.
‘You made me very curious,’ she said; ‘I was so anxious to know what
you meant----’ And there was no telling how much further she might have
gone had not the other boat suddenly glanced alongside, and some one
called her by her name. Some one! Millicent, looking more lovely than
she had ever seen her, she thought, with a scarlet cloak lightly thrown
over her black dress, lying back upon the cushions, holding gingerly in
her hands the steering cords.
‘Mary!’ Millicent called, softly,--‘is it you? Oh, I am sure one of your
cousins must have come home! Stop and tell me! What a happy thing for
Mrs. Renton! And are not you all in the seventh heaven?’
The picture was one which neither of the cousins ever forgot. She was in
the full bloom of her beauty, increased rather than diminished, by the
severity of her mourning dress. The river sparkled like a mirror all
round the gay little painted boat in which she reclined. An unusual
flush of colour was on her cheek, and the young Guardsman who was rowing
her gazed with eyes of worship on the lovely creature. No doubt she was
excited. It seemed to Mary that even the boy who was with her was part
of a plan, the _mise en scène_ which she had perfected for Ben’s sake;
and that her cheek was flushed with the excitement of the meeting and
with her unusual anxiety that success might follow. For the first time
for seven years Ben and she looked each other in the face. The
Guardsman had run the other boat so close that she was almost as near to
him as Mary was, confronting him, in a position in which she could watch
his face and all its changes. When he looked up her eye was upon him. It
was the most curious meeting for those two, who had parted so
differently. Was it possible she had forgotten how they parted? She
looked at him with an unabashed, smiling, gracious countenance, while
Ben, with some agitation, took off his hat.
‘Is it Mr. Ben Renton?’ Millicent said, softly. And Mary, looking on,
saw the colour flash all over Ben’s face at the sound of her voice.
Then, in her heart, his cousin acquitted him of having arranged this
interruption. On the contrary, he was so moved by it that he did not
seem capable of finding his voice.
‘Mr. Renton, Mrs. Henry Rich,’ Mary said, mechanically, attempting an
introduction, though she knew how unnecessary that was.
‘Ah, we have met before!’ said Millicent. ‘Did I not tell you, Mary? We
used to know each other, though your cousin seems to have forgotten me;
but, to be sure, I had then a different name.’
‘No, I have not forgotten,’ said Ben; ‘that would be difficult under any
name.’
And then there was a dead pause. Millicent put her arm over the edge of
the boat and dipped her pretty hand into the water. She had a certain
air of embarrassment, either real or assumed; and Ben looked at her with
a curious openness and fixedness of gaze. ‘You have just come?’ she said
at last, not raising her eyes.
‘Just come,’ said Ben; ‘and only for a few days.’
Then Millicent’s eyes rose, and turned to him curiously; and Mary, too,
bewildered, gave him a frightened, anxious look. There was a whole drama
in their glances, and yet the words were very constrained and very few
which passed between them. ‘So soon?’ Millicent said, with a surprised,
half-sorrowful tone.
‘So soon!’ he repeated, with a kind of decision, always looking at her,
till Mary, hard-hearted as she thought herself, felt that he was
uncivil, and was moved to interfere; but Millicent bore it bravely
enough. Her colour grew higher, her composure was a little shaken, but
yet she did not betray any symptoms of mortification or fear.
‘My mother would be glad to see you before you go,’ she said, faltering
slightly. ‘We cannot forget our obligations to you,--though perhaps you
have forgotten;’ and then she tried another half-supplicating, anxious
look.
‘I have forgotten nothing,’ said Ben. ‘We Rentons have extraordinary
memories. I will call on Mrs. Tracy if I can before we go.’
‘Then I will not detain you longer,’ Millicent said, with a look of
relief. ‘What a pleasure it must be to you, Mary, to have your cousin to
row you about! I am quite grateful to Mr. Horsman, who is so good as to
bring me out. How delicious the river is, to be sure! Mr. Renton, it was
you who used to tell me of it--first.’
‘Then I am glad to have added something to your pleasures,’ said Ben. He
had adjusted his sculls, and did not manifest the least inclination to
stay longer. On the contrary, Mary felt that he was anxious to go on, to
get clear of this interruption. And not less anxious was the young
Guardsman,--almost a boy,--who had taken his hat off sulkily, and waited
his orders with eagerness. Millicent was the only one of the four who
had any desire to linger. She gave Ben another long, searching look, to
which he made no response, being busy, or appearing to be busy, with his
sculls; and then she gave a little nod to her waterman.
‘I dare say we shall meet again,’ she said, gaily, ‘unless you are going
a very long way;--_au revoir_.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Mary. And in another moment, with one pull of the
steerage and one sweep of the oars, the Renton boat had shot wide of the
other, darting off to one side with a nervous motion, for which Mary
alone was responsible. Ben made no remark, which was symptom enough of
his agitation too. Had he been as calm as he affected to be, Mary knew
well that her illegitimate energy would not have passed without remark.
And they went up the river for some time at a tremendous pace, devoting
themselves to their work with the energy of professional people. Mary
steered beautifully all the way to the Swan’s Nest. She steered as if
her life depended on it, keeping the due course in every turn, avoiding,
as she ought, the side where the current was strongest, which a
steerswoman seldom remembers to do, and in every way justifying the old
training which had been disused so long. And scarcely a word was spoken
between them until they reached the end of their expedition. It was a
sheltered little elbow of the river, a very bed of water-lilies in the
season. And the green leaves still spread all round like a thick carpet
upon the water. Then Ben took breath for the first time. He lay upon his
oars and wiped his forehead, and drew a long breath. ‘That was hard
work,’ he said, with a sigh. But which it was that was hard
work,--whether the encounter with Millicent, or their long, breathless
sweep against the current, Mary could not tell.
CHAPTER X.
AUNT LYDIA.
‘Let us run to the Cottage for five minutes, and see mamma,’ said Mary,
as they made their way back. ‘Fancy, Ben, she does not know you have
come home!’
‘Shall we have time?’ Ben asked, making for the bank as he spoke. The
path that led to the Cottage struck off from the river-side above The
Willows. And it was always gaining time to make this little diversion.
He had been so silent, saying nothing,--and a sense of disappointment
had crept over Mary after the intense sympathy with which she felt she
had been entering into all his thoughts.
But when he thrust the boat into the flowery bank, and helped her to
jump out, Ben replied to her, though she had said nothing. ‘You are
quite right,’ he said. ‘It is best in every way not to meet them again.’
‘Ben! I did not say a word----’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘you did not, and it was very, very kind of you,
Mary. I am more obliged to you than I can say. There are some things
which it is impossible to talk about. I thank you with all my heart.’
What did this mean? Mary was accustomed to a great deal of talk about
everything,--more talk than meaning, indeed. And she was a little
bewildered by this absence of all explanation. She would have been
comforted had he opened up a little and told her how it all was. But she
submitted, of course, concluding it was his mannish, unsatisfactory way.
And as they went hurriedly up the lane, in the kindness of her heart she
slid her hand through Ben’s arm. It was the softest, kindly touch, such
as his sister’s hand might have given. Was not she his sister, nearer to
him than any one else, and, little as she did understand, yet knowing
more of what was in his heart,--she thought,--than any other creature in
the world?
And Ben was not indifferent to that mute token of sympathy. He drew the
timid hand closely through his arm. ‘My good little Mary!’ he said; but
even then he said no more. No explanation came, whatever she might do or
say, which was hard, but had to be borne.
And this is how it was that Mrs. Westbury, to her very great amazement,
saw her daughter and Ben Renton approaching the Cottage
arm-in-arm,--‘like an engaged couple,’ she said afterwards,--which gave
her a curious thrill of admiration and satisfaction at the first
glance. When her nephew came up to her, however, nature prevailed, and
the recollection of her own agency, which nobody but herself believed
in, in sending all the boys away.
‘Ben!’ she cried, and then kissed him, and held both his hands, and shed
some tears of surprise and joy, ‘I am so glad to see you! I cannot tell
how glad I am to see you! Have you all come home?’
‘Only I,’ said Ben; ‘but the others are coming, and Mary and I have come
to fetch you, Aunt Lydia, to dine with my mother. She does not
understand my noise and uncouthness, after the long spell of quiet she
has had. After dinner Mary and I will bring you back.’
‘Mary and you seem to be--full of business,’ said Mrs. Westbury, more
and more astonished. She had intended to end her sentence differently,
but had met Mary’s eye, and paused, not quite knowing what to make of
it. But she went up-stairs for her best cap, calling her daughter with
her. ‘What is the meaning of all this, Mary?’ she said. ‘What does Ben
mean by it? For my part, I cannot tell what to think.’
‘About what, mamma?’ said Mary; but there was a little flutter in her
heart which belied her composure. ‘Ben has come home, as you see, and he
came to see you, as he ought to do, and he wants you to go to dinner. I
think it is all very visible what he means.’
‘It does not seem to me at all plain,’ said Mrs. Westbury; but then she
put her hand into her wardrobe to get out her cap, and decided that it
was best not to spoil sport by any premature remarks. It was startling
to see Mary leaning so confidentially on her cousin’s arm. And Ben’s
talk of ‘Mary and I’ was very peculiar; and if the will was all right,
such an arrangement would be a most sensible, most admirable one. But if
things were going on so well of their own accord, it might be best to
let them alone, and suffer the affair to take its own course. When she
found herself walking down to the river a quarter of an hour afterwards,
with a maid behind carrying her cap, and Ben and Mary on each side of
her, Mrs. Westbury freely expressed her surprise at the whole business.
‘I was just going to have tea,’ she cried. ‘One can’t dine late when one
is alone, and Laurence has gone over to Cookesley to see some of his
friends. I never thought of seeing any of you, nor of Ben at all, though
I knew he was expected. And now to find myself on my way to Renton!
Laurence will be struck dumb when he comes home.’
‘So Laurence is a parson now,’ said Ben. ‘How droll it will be to see
him so! but pleasant for you. You can keep hold of a parson and keep
him at home.’
‘Yes. I expect you to give him Renton, you know, Ben, when old Mr.
Palliser dies.’
‘Well, I suppose one of us is sure to have Renton to give,’ said Ben;
‘so that Laurence will be safe anyhow. But I have no confidence that it
will be me.’
‘It must be you,’ said Mrs. Westbury, indignantly. And then there came a
pause, and she was helped into the boat. ‘Who are those new people at
The Willows?’ she said, as she settled herself. ‘That is their boat;
they are always on the water. They say she is a young widow; but I don’t
think that is much like a widow. Somebody told me you knew them, Mary.
Was it yourself?’
‘She was at Thorny croft at school for a little,’ said Mary, giving her
mother a look. The look put a stop to the conversation; but it had to be
explained afterwards, which was done somewhat at the expense of truth.
The Willows’ boat had been drawn close to the bank before they passed,
and Mary was less particular in steering wide of it. Millicent stood on
the lawn, having just landed, with her scarlet cloak dropping off her
shoulders, and waved her hand to them. ‘Good-night! How pleasant it has
been!’ she cried, her voice falling softly through the summer air, still
full of the slanting sunshine. ‘Good-night!’ Mary cried across the
water. Ben never said a word; he did not even pause in the slow,
vigorous, regular stroke which made the boat fly down the shining
current. They were yards below The Willows before Millicent had finished
speaking her two or three words. “Was he afraid?--was he indifferent?
And while Mary’s mind was busy about this question, Aunt Lydia was
forming her little theories of a very different kind. When a young man
passes by a very pretty woman without so much as raising his head, it
means,--what does it mean?--that some one else has secured his
attention, and taken up all his thoughts. Mrs. Westbury felt as if
Providence itself was heaping coals of fire on her head. She it was who
had brought about the banishment of the boys, and yet no sooner had the
first of them come home than he set about fulfilling her dearest wish.
But no doubt it was for Mary’s sake. Mary, who had never harmed any one,
who had helped and served everybody from her cradle. How bright she had
become all at once!--how she had learned to chatter like the rest! It
seemed curious to Mrs. Westbury that an important event should be coming
about in her child’s life in which she herself had not been the chief
actor,--especially that Mary should have had the sense to acquire for
herself an eligible lover without any assistance. Ben did not look very
much like a lover it is true, but Aunt Lydia was aware that a man in
such a position is not always possessed with an insane delight, but
often has a great deal to think of. She, too, was silent with the stress
of her own thoughts. It was Mary who entertained them,--talking as she
had never been heard to talk before,--full of wild spirits and fun. Her
mother, who knew nothing of the story, did not perceive that Mary’s
gaiety came on suddenly after they passed The Willows, nor that her eyes
had the humid and dilated look which signifies emotion. One finds things
out so much more readily when one has an inkling of the _fin mot_ of the
enigma. Mrs. Westbury did not even know there was an enigma to solve,
and set down her daughter’s high spirits to what seemed to her the most
natural and the most likely cause.
‘I congratulate you, my dear, upon having Ben back again,’ she said to
Mrs. Renton as she kissed her. They were not very fond of each other,
the two ladies; but yet, by dint of connexion and contiguity, had come
to a certain habit of mutual dependence, though the support was chiefly
on one side.
‘Yes,’ Mrs. Renton said, with an under-tone which was slightly
querulous. ‘He is a very good boy; but a stranger in the house makes
such a difference in one’s life.’
‘You don’t call Ben a stranger, poor fellow! And he is so nice. It is
quite a pleasure to see him back,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I thought you
would have been out of your wits with joy.’
‘And so I am,’ said Ben’s mother, with a little indignation; ‘but there
is nobody that has any real consideration for my weakness except Mary.
She knows just how much I am able to bear. I suppose it is difficult for
people in health to realise how weak I am.’
‘Well, my dear, you know I always said that if you would but make an
effort to exert yourself it would do all the good in the world,’ said
Mrs. Westbury; and then she went up-stairs to put on her cap. ‘I have no
patience with your aunt,’ she said to Mary,--‘thinking of her own little
bits of ailments, half of which are mere indulgence, when her poor boy
has just come home.’
‘Poor godmamma! I don’t think she can help it,’ said Mary.
‘Nonsense, child! I have said to her from the first that she ought to
make an effort. How do you think I should ever have managed had I given
in? And now tell me, please, what you meant by looking at me so, twice
over, when I was speaking to Ben.’
‘I did not want you to talk about Mrs. Rich,’ said Mary, turning away as
the exigencies of her own toilette required. ‘He used to know her, and
I was afraid you might say something----’
‘You might have left that to my own discretion,’ said Mrs. Westbury,
with some offence.
‘But, dear mamma, how could your discretion serve when you did not
know?’ said Mary. ‘And, poor fellow! he is so,--so----’
‘So very devoted to some one else that he could not even take the
trouble to look at Mrs. Rich,--such a pretty woman, too!’ said Mrs.
Westbury. ‘It seems to me, my dear, that you have made the very most of
your time.’
‘Oh, mamma, how dreadful that you should say so!’ cried Mary, turning
round again with flaming, crimson cheeks. ‘Surely, surely, you know me
better! And Ben, poor fellow! has so much to think of. Nothing could be
further from his mind. I have been their sister all their lives; it
would be hard if I could not try to be a little comfort to him now.’
‘My dear, if he needs comfort, I am sure I have no objection,’ said Mrs.
Westbury, with a smile; and just then Mary’s maid came into the room,
and the conversation came to an end. It was this dreadful practical
turn, which was in the old Renton blood, which bewildered the less
energetic members of the family. But it was wonderful to see how Ben and
Aunt Lydia got on at dinner. He told her more about his work, and what
he had been doing, in half-an-hour than the others had extracted from
him in twenty-four. And the Renton spirit sparkled in Mrs. Westbury’s
eyes as she listened. ‘Even if you had not made a penny, Ben,’ she said,
in her energetic way, ‘I should be so much more pleased that you had
been making some use of your talents than just hanging on in the old way
at home.’
‘But I have made a penny,’ Ben said, with a kindred glance;--he was
pleased with the thought, which gave Mary a momentary disgust;--‘though
it has cost more than it is worth in the making,’ he added, in a lower
tone. And then his cousin forgave, and was sorry for poor Ben. It was
dangerous work for Mary, especially as there was still the excitement of
the return expedition across the river, to convey Mrs. Westbury home to
look forward to. But, fortunately, there was no one visible about The
Willows when that moment came;--nothing but serene moonlight, white and
peaceable, unbroken by any shadow or voice but their own, was on the
gleaming river. And the Rev. Laurence Westbury standing on the bank in
his clerical coat,--who had been at school when Ben left Renton,--to
take his mother home, and bid the new-comer welcome; and then the silent
progress back down the stream in the moonlight. It surprised Mary
afterwards to think how little Ben and she had said to each other, and
yet what perfectly good company he had been. And thus they went on,
those curious, rapid days.
CHAPTER XI.
ALL HOME.
Laurie arrived on the Friday, coming in, in his usual unexpected way,
through the window, when they were all in the drawing-room after dinner.
The brothers had met in town, where Ben had paused for a day on his way
to Renton, so that their greeting was not mingled with any of those
remarks on changed appearance and unexpected signs of age which are
general after a long absence. But when they stood thus together for the
first time for seven years, the difference between old things and new
became more perceptible to the bystanders. The surroundings were so
completely the same as of old that any variation from the past became
more clear to them. The same lamps, shaded for their mother’s sake; the
same brilliant spot of light upon the tea-table, where the china and
silver glittered; Mrs. Renton lying on the same sofa, in the same
attitude, covered with the same Indian shawl; the same soft odour of
mignonette and heliotrope, and earth and dew, stealing in at the great
open window; even the same moths, or reproductions of the same, making
wild circles about the lamp. ‘And Mary, I think, is the very same,’
Laurie said, looking at her with true brotherly kindness. But ‘the boys’
were not the same. Of the two it was Laurie who looked the elder. He was
just thirty, but the hair was getting thin on the top of his head, and
his face was more worn than it had any right to be. Ben had broadened,
almost imperceptibly, but still enough to indicate to the bystander that
the first slim outline of youth was over. But Laurie, though he had not
expanded, had aged even in the lines of his face; and then he had grown
a little careless, like the society into which he had cast himself. He
was dusty with his walk, and his velvet morning-coat looked strange and
wild beside Ben’s correct evening costume. Lazy Laurence still; but with
all the difference between sanguine youth and meditative manhood. Mary,
however, was the only one of the party who was troubled by the mystery
of Laurie’s subdued tone. Mrs. Renton was not given to speculation, and
Ben was occupied by his own affairs to the exclusion of all inquiry into
those of others. Both mother and brother took it for granted that Laurie
was just as it was natural he should be. Only Mary,--sisterly, womanly,
anxious always to know how it was,--watched him with a sympathetic eye.
‘Well! here we are at home once more, old fellow,’ said Laurie,
throwing himself into an easy chair near the window, when the mother had
been safely conveyed up-stairs.
‘Yes, a home that always looks the same,’ said Ben. ‘I am not so sure as
I used to be of the good of that. It makes one feel doubly the change in
one’s self.’
‘These are his Yankee notions,’ said Laurie. ‘I suppose he has given up
primogeniture, and Church and State, and everything. But Mary is an
orthodox person who will set us all right.’
‘As if women might not think about primogeniture and all the rest as
well as you others!’ said Mary. ‘We are the only people who take any
time to think now-a-days. Ben has done nothing but make railways,--and
money,--and he likes it;--he is a real Renton,’ she cried, pleased to
let him know her mind on that subject.
‘And very right, too,’ said Laurie. ‘If there were not Rentons to be had
somewhere how should the world get on?’
‘But I don’t care for the world,’ said Mary; ‘and I would much rather
you were not fond of money, like everybody else, you boys.’
‘I am very fond of money, but I never can get any,’ said Laurie. ‘I say
to myself, if I should happen to come into reputation next century, what
a collection of Rentons there will be for somebody to make a fortune
of,--Ben’s heirs, most probably; or that little Mary of Frank’s, who is
a darling. Now that I think of it, as she is a painter’s descendant, it
is she who shall be my heir.’
‘I think much the best thing would be for you to have Renton, Laurie,
and heirs of your own.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘my brothers are very kind. Frank took the
trouble to write me a long letter ever so many years ago, adjuring me by
all I held dear to marry a certain Nelly Rich.’
‘It was very impertinent of him,’ cried Mary, ‘and very conceited. Nelly
Rich would no more have looked at you----’
‘Showed her sense,’ said Laurie, quietly. ‘I am only telling you what
actions have been set on foot for my benefit. But I never saw Nelly Rich
except once, so I am not conceited; and as for Renton, no such iniquity
could ever be, as that it should go past you, Ben.’
‘You speak strongly,’ said the elder brother.
‘That is one result of time, you know. One can see now, without
irreverence, how wrong my poor father was. Of course we would have been
wretches had we been capable of anything but obedience at the time,’
said Laurie; ‘but, looking back, one can see more clearly. He was
wrong,--I don’t bear him any malice, poor dear old father! but he did us
as much harm almost as was possible. And if Renton is left out of the
natural succession, I shall say it is iniquity, and oppose it with all
my power.’
‘It would be iniquity,’ Ben said, gravely. And then there was a pause.
The three sat, going back into their individual memories, unaware what
devious paths the others were treading. But for that Laurie might never
have fallen into the temptation which had stolen what energy he had out
of him, and strengthened all his dreamy, unpractical ways. But for that
Ben might have given the Renton force and strength of work to his
country, and served her,--as is the citizen’s first duty,--instead of
making American railroads, which another man might have been found to
do. As for Mary, the paths in which she went wandering were not her own.
It did not occur to her to think of the seven years, which for her had
been simple loss. Had she been living at home, no doubt, long before
this she would have married some one, and been like Alice, the mother of
children. But such were not Mary’s reflections. She was thinking if this
had not happened Ben would have married Millicent seven years ago, and
that, on the whole, everything was for the best.
They had but one other day to themselves; but during that day the house
felt, with a bewildered sense of confusion and uncertainty, that old
times had come back. Mr. Ben and Mr. Laurie had gone back to their old
rooms; and their steps and voices, the peremptory orders of the eldest,
the ‘chaff’ of Mr. Laurie, ‘who was a gentleman as you never could
understand whether he was in earnest or in joke,’--turned the heads of
the old servants. They, like their mistress, were upset by the new
_régime_; the dulness of the house had been a trouble to them when her
reign of utter seclusion commenced; but if it was dull, there was little
to do, and the house had habituated itself to the monotonous round. And
now they felt it a hardship when the noise and the work recommenced, and
dinner ran the risk of having to wait ten minutes, and breakfast was on
the table from half-past eight to half-past ten. ‘All along o’ that lazy
Laurie, as they calls him, and a very good name, too,’ said the
affronted cook. Mary had much ado to keep them in working order. ‘There
may be further changes after a while,’ she said to the old butler, who
had carried them all in his arms, and knew about everything, and who
would as soon have cut his throat as leave Renton;--‘you must have
patience for a little, and see how things turn out.’ Thus it will be
seen that if the return of her cousins brought any happiness to Mary it
brought a great increase of anxiety as well. And there was always the
sense of Millicent’s vicinity to weigh upon her mind. She had been
looking forward for years to the family reunion as the end of
tribulation and beginning of a better life; but up to this time her
anticipations had not been fulfilled. Anxieties had increased upon
her,--one growing out of another. Instead of comfort, and certainty, and
the support which she had always been taught to believe were involved in
the possession of ‘men in the house,’ Mary found that these tenants had
rather an agitating than a calming effect upon herself and the community
in general. That she should have more trouble about the dinners was
natural; but that even their mother should require to be let softly down
into the enjoyment of their society, and that circumstances in general
required double consideration on account of their presence, was a new
idea to Mary. And then it turned out that Mrs. Renton had spoken very
truly when she said a man must have something to do. Both ‘the boys’
were in a state of restlessness and excitement, not disposed to settle
to anything. There was capital shooting to be had, and the partridges
were everything a sportsman could desire; but somehow even Ben felt that
partridges were not congenial to the occasion. And as for Laurie, he was
too indolent to make any such exertion. ‘Wait till Frank comes,’ he
said. ‘Frank has energy for two. If we were on a Scotch moor, indeed,
where you want to move about to keep yourself warm; but it’s too hot, my
dear fellow, for stumping about through the stubble. I’ll take Mary out
after a bit for a row.’ And Ben’s activities, too, culminated in the
same idea. Laurie lay in the bottom of the boat, sometimes puffing
gently at his cigar, doing simply nothing, while Ben pulled against
stream, and Mary steered him dexterously through the weeds; and then the
three floated slowly down again, saying little to each other, lingering
along the mid current with scarcely any movement of the languid oars.
They were not very sociable in this strange amusement; but still its
starts of momentary violent exercise, its dreamy charm of movement, the
warm autumnal sun overhead, the delicious gliding water that gurgled on
the sides of the boat, and all the familiarity and all the novelty of
the scene, chimed in with their feelings. Ben was pondering the future,
which was still so dark,--his unfinished work at the other end of the
world,--what he would do with Renton if it came to him,--what he would
do if it did not come to him,--all the range of possibilities which
overhung his way as the trees overhung the river. Laurie, for his part,
wandered in a field of much wider fancy, and did not take Renton at all
into account, nor the chances which a few days might bring to him. What
did it matter? he could live, and he had no more to think of,--no future
which interested him particularly,--no hope that would be affected by
the tenor of his father’s will. Sometimes his eye would be caught by a
combination of foliage, or a sudden light on the water, or the turn of
Mary’s arm as she plied her cords. ‘How did Mary keep her steering up
while we were all away?’ he would say between the puffs of his cigar,
and made up his mind that she should sit to him next day in that
particular pose. Mary, for her own part, during these expeditions, was
too much occupied in watching her cousins to have any thoughts of her
own. What was Ben thinking of? Was it The Willows his mind was fixed on
as he opened his full chest and sent the boat up against the stream with
the force of an arrow out of a bow? Was it the image of Millicent that
made his eyes glow as he folded his arms, and let the skiff idle on the
current? And what were Laurie’s thoughts occupied about as he lay, lazy,
in the bottom? Mary gazed at them, and wondered, not knowing what to
think, and said to herself how much more difficult it was now to
prognosticate what would become of them than it would have been seven
years ago, at their first entering upon life. And thus the long day
glided to its end.
On the Saturday Frank and his belongings arrived, and all was altered.
Frank, so far as personal appearance went, was the least changed of all.
His moustache had grown from the silky shadow it used to be into a very
decided martial ornament, and he was brown with the Indian sun. Laurie
had the presumption to insinuate that he had grown, which touched the
soldier to the quick; but though he was the father of a family, the
seven years had affected him less than either of his brothers. To be
sure, he was but seven-and-twenty, and had lived a comparatively happy
life. But it must be allowed that the Sunday was hard to get through.
The three brothers, who were all very different men to begin with, had
each got into his groove, and each undervalued,--let us not say had a
contempt for,--the occupation of the other. What with India, and what
with youth, and what with the training of his profession, Frank had all
the unreasoning conservatism which was natural to a well-born,
unintellectual soldier. And then he had a wife to back him, which
strengthens a man’s self-opinion. ‘Depend upon it,’ he would say, ‘these
Radicals will land us all in perdition if they get their way.’ ‘Why
should I depend upon it, when my own opinion goes directly contrary?’
Ben, who had been in America, and all over the world, drawing in
revolutionary ideas, would answer him. As for Laurie he would ask them
both, ‘What does it matter? one man is as good as another, if not
better,’ and smile in his pococurante way. The children were a godsend
to them all, and so was Alice with her youthful wisdom. For Mary by this
time, with three men to keep in order, as it were, and Mrs. Renton to
hold safely in hand all the time, and all unsuitable visitors to keep at
a distance, and the dinner to order, was about as much overwhelmed with
cares, and as little capable of the graces of society, as a woman could
be. She had to spend with her aunt the hour of that inevitable Sunday
afternoon walk, and saw her flock pair off and disappear among the trees
with the sensations of an anxious mother, who feels her nursery for the
moment in comparative safety. Ben with Alice and little Mary went one
way, and Laurie and Frank took another. When she had seen them off Mary
turned with a satisfied mind to read to her godmother the Sunday
periodical which took the place of the newspaper on this day. It was
very mild reading, though it satisfied Mrs. Renton. It was her principle
not to drive on Sunday, and the morning was occupied by the Morning
Service, which Davison and she read together before she got up, and that
duty being over the Sunday periodical came in naturally to take the
place of the drive. It was very rarely that she felt able to go to
church; and of all days this day, which followed so closely the arrival
of her sons, was the one on which she could least be supposed capable of
such an exertion. So Mary read a story, and a sermon, and a missionary
narrative, and was very tired of it, while the slow afternoon lingered
on and the others had their walk.
Ben and Alice, though they were in the position of brother and sister,
and called each other by their Christian names, had met for the first
time on the day before, and naturally were not very much acquainted with
each other’s way of thinking. The woods were their great subject of
discourse. ‘Frank has talked of them wherever we were,’ said Alice. ‘I
am so glad to bring the children here. If we should have to go to India
again it will be nice for them to remember. But I need not speak like
that,’ she added, after a moment’s pause, with a sudden rush of tears to
her blue eyes; ‘for if we have to go to India we must leave little Mary
behind,--she is too old to go back. And I suppose if I were prudent,
baby too--but I could not bear that.’
‘Why should you go back to India?’
‘Ah, we must, unless there is some money coming to us,’ said Alice: ‘you
know I had no fortune. I did not think that mattered then; but when one
has children one learns. Do you think there will be some money for Frank
in the will?’
‘I am certain of it,’ said Ben.
‘Enough to make us able to stay at home,’ said Alice, clasping her
hands. ‘It is not that I care for money, nor Frank either.’
‘But it is quite natural you should care. And I promise you,’ said Ben,
‘if there is anything I can set right, that you shall not go back to
India. Whichever of us is preferred, you may be sure of that. I can
answer for Laurie as for myself.’
‘Oh, I know Laurie,’ cried Alice; ‘but I did not know you,--and then
perhaps Frank would not be willing;--but anyhow, since you say you are
sure, I will keep up my heart.’
And in the meantime Frank and Laurie by the river-side were having their
confidences too. ‘If it should come to me,’ Frank was saying, ‘I hope I
shall do what is right by Ben in any case--but it will be a struggle for
that little beggar’s sake.’
‘I would let the little beggar take his chance,’ said Laurie; ‘there is
time enough. I don’t think you need begin to consider him yet.’
‘I should do my duty, of course,’ said Frank, ‘by Ben, who has been
badly used; but I don’t deny it will cost me something, Laurie. A man
does not get ties about him for nothing. If I had the chance of a home
for Alice and the little ones,--even if it were not a home like this, by
Jove! it would be an awful temptation,--a temptation one would scarcely
know how to resist.’
‘Then it is to be hoped it will never come,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t see
how we could stand in doubt for an instant. I don’t speak of natural
justice. But Ben was brought up to be the heir. There was never a doubt
of his being the heir till my poor father’s will had to be read.
Therefore he must be the heir now. I don’t care whether it falls to you
or me. It’s as clear as daylight, and I can’t believe you would find the
least difficulty in doing what was right.’
‘I should do it,’ said Frank, but he made no further protestation. In
his heart he could not but say to himself that it was easy for Laurie, a
man with nobody dependent on him, with no question before him such as
that of returning or not returning to India, and with,--so far as any
one knew,--no prospects of future happiness which depended on this
decision. And Ben, too, was unmarried, and likely to be unmarried.
‘Unless he marries Mary,’ Frank said to himself. Of course if Renton
fell to him he would marry, and they had all pledged themselves that
Renton must fall to him, and Ben accordingly would sit down in his
father’s seat, and bring in some stranger to rule over the place, and
Alice and the children would have to go away. Back to India! If that
were the only alternative Frank felt as if it would be impossible to do
his duty by Ben. The excitement of the moment, and the fundamental
simplicity of his mind, thus brought him to the strange notion that all
secondary justice must have been set aside, and that it would be a
question of everything or nothing to the victor. Thus the Rentons
awaited, with thoughts often too deep for words, with a restrained
excitement wonderful to behold, with hopes and sinkings of heart, the
revelation of their father’s will; and that was to take place next day.
CHAPTER XII.
SUSPENSE.
When the Rentons were all seated together in the drawing-room after
dinner, doing their best to get through the Sunday evening, a note was
brought to Mrs. Renton, to the amazement of all the family assembly.
Mrs. Westbury and her son Laurence, who was curate of Cookesley, had
joined them at dinner; and they were all seated in a circle round the
room drinking their tea and trying to talk, and suppressing an
occasional yawn with the true decorum of a family party. Sometimes there
would get up a little lively talk between Mary and her mother and
brother touching the gossip of the district, or Alice and Laurie would
brighten into a familiar discussion of something belonging to Fitzroy
Square; but then they would suddenly remark that the others were
uninterested and taking no part, and the talk would come to a stop, and
Mrs. Westbury would make a commonplace remark to one of her nephews, and
Alice would ask the curate if he went often to the Opera, and a
uniformity of dulness would fall upon the party. The Rentons were all
well-bred people, and it was certainly not well-bred to enjoy one’s self
in an animated way in a corner with two or three, while the rest of the
company sat blank and did not know what one was making merry about. To
be sure, there was Alice’s music to fall back upon; but, except to two
or three of the company, that would not much mend matters; so that when
the note was brought to Mrs. Renton there was immediately a little
movement of interest. Ben brought one of the shaded lamps to his mother
that she might read it, and Mary drew near in case her services should
be wanted to write the answer, for which the butler stood solemnly
waiting erect in the midst of the fatigued group.
‘It must be something very urgent indeed to write about to-day,’ Mrs.
Westbury said. ‘I am old-fashioned, and I don’t think the family quiet
should be disturbed on Sunday unless it is something of importance.’
‘My dear, I can’t read these dreadful hands that people write
now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t get the light on it, and I am
too tired to sit up. If you would read it aloud, Ben----’
Ben took the little note in his hand, and put the lamp down on the
nearest table. His face was in shade, and it was impossible to tell what
his feelings were. He glanced over the note for a second, and then read
it aloud as his mother bade. It was a prayer to be allowed to visit the
woods next morning with a friend who was going away, and it was signed
‘Millicent Rich.’ ‘I would not have dreamt of asking, knowing that you
have all your people about you, and do not want to be troubled with
strangers,’ she wrote; ‘but our friend is going off by the three o’clock
train. We shall keep strictly to the woods, and not come near the house
to worry you, when your attention must be so occupied with other things;
but please let me come.’ This was what Ben read out with a perfectly
expressionless voice, not even faltering over the name.
‘Of course she must come,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Mary, you must write a
note for me. Say that the boys being here makes no difference, and that
if she will come to luncheon and bring her friend----’
‘But, godmamma, Mr. Ponsonby is coming,’ said Mary, while Ben took up
the lamp, and stood like a monument, holding it in his hand.
‘Mr. Ponsonby will not eat her, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Renton; and then
there was a pause.
‘But, godmamma,’ Mary resumed after that interval, ‘don’t you think so
important a day as to-morrow is,--and so much as there will be going
on----’
‘Any stranger would be a bore,’ said Frank. ‘How are we to go and talk
and be civil, when an hour more may see us set up or ruined----’
Here Alice plucked at his sleeve, indicating with a look of warning the
stolid countenance of old Willis, who stood listening to everything. ‘If
it would be any pleasure to grandmamma, I would attend to them,’ she
said.
‘And I think it would be a very good thing for you all,’ said Mrs.
Westbury, ‘and take your minds off yourselves a little. It is a blessing
to have a stranger for that,--you are obliged to exert yourselves, and
kept from brooding over one subject. I think your mother is quite
right.’
‘Let us have them,’ said Laurie. ‘What does it matter? Old Ponsonby is
always late.’
‘He will surely never be late on an occasion of such importance,’ said
Laurence Westbury.
Mrs. Renton looked from one to another with an anxious countenance, and
they came round the sofa, glad of the little interruption to that family
quiet which was almost too much blessedness. Ben, who said nothing,
lighted up the circle in a curious Rembrandtish way, holding his lamp so
as to screen his mother; and outside stood old Willis, erect as a
soldier, with unmoved countenance, waiting for the answer.
‘Ben, what do you say?’ said Mrs. Renton, with all the earnestness of a
last appeal.
‘That you must do just what you like, mother,’ said Ben.
Upon which she wrung her hands in despair. ‘How can I tell what I shall
like if none of you will advise me?’ she said.
‘I will attend to them, if grandmamma would like it,’ said Alice, coming
to the head of the sofa. ‘And I am sure you would like it, dear
grandmamma; it would give you something else to think of.’
‘So it would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘and how I am to
get through to-morrow without some assistance is more than I can tell.’
‘It will take all your minds off the one subject,’ added Mrs. Westbury;
‘and of course there must always be luncheon. Mary, go and do what your
aunt tells you. It will be good, my dears, for you all.’
And Ben gave a little gesture with his hand, Mary caught his eye over
the glowing darkness of the shaded lamp, and went and wrote her note
without a word. Ben’s face had said, or seemed to say, ‘Let them
come,--what does it matter?’ And if it did not matter to him, certainly
it mattered nothing to any one else. When the note was despatched, Alice
sat down at the piano and played to the entire satisfaction of her
husband, his mother, and Laurence Westbury. Ben settled down in a
corner and took a book, till his aunt Lydia went and sat beside him,
when an earnest conversation ensued; and Laurie stood idling by the
window, beating back the moths that came in tribes to seek their
destruction in the light, and sometimes saying a word to Mary, who, half
occupied by the music and more than half by her own thoughts, sat near
him within the shadow of the curtains.
‘What sort of people are those that are coming to-morrow, and why don’t
you like them?’ said Laurie, under cover of a fortissimo.
‘I never said I did not like them,’ said Mary.
‘No; but I know you don’t. Who are they?’
And then the music fell low into tremulous, dying murmurs, and all was
silent in the room except for a shrill ‘s’ now and then of Mrs.
Westbury’s half-whispered energetic conversation with Ben. When the
strain rose and swelled into passion, the talk at the window was
resumed.
‘It is not they,--it is she I don’t like;--one of my old school-fellows,
and the most beautiful woman you ever saw.’
‘Hallo!’ said Laurie, ‘is that the reason why?’
‘Yes, of course. We should all like to strangle her because she is so
pretty,’ said Mary, with a certain rancour in her voice.
Laurie sent a great night-moth out with a rush, and then he stooped
towards his cousin’s hiding-place. ‘Granted in the general,’ he said,
‘but there is something particular about this.’
What could Mary say? Her heart was quivering with that poignant sense of
weakness and inability to resist fate which sometimes overcomes a woman
in those secret machinations for somebody else’s good, which are so
seldom successful. ‘I have done,’ she said; ‘I will try no more.’ And
that was all the answer that was given to Laurie’s curiosity.
Alice had not fallen off in her playing. The piano, under her fingers,
gave forth such sounds as wiled the very hearts out of the bosoms of the
three who were listening. Mrs. Renton lay back on her sofa, with the
tears coming to her eyes and a world of inarticulate, inexpressible
feeling in her heart. Had it been poetry, the poor lady would have
yawned and wished herself in bed; but now she had floated into a serene
Eden,--a Paradise full of all vague loveliness, and sweetness, and
unspeakable, indistinct emotions. As for Laurence Westbury, he dared
scarcely draw breath, so entirely did the witchery seize him. The music
to him stormed and struggled like a soul in pain, and paused and sank to
give forth the cry of despair, and swelled into a gathering hope, into a
final conflict, into delicious murmurs of sweetness and gratefulness and
repose; there was a whole drama in it, moving the real listener with
such a rapid succession of feeling as the highest tragic efforts of
poetry call forth in others. While in the meanwhile Ben and Aunt Lydia
talked quite undisturbed in their corner of railways and investments,
and of how much Renton might be improved, and how fast Dick Westbury was
making his fortune out in India; and Laurie was driving out the moths,
and moralising over their eagerness to enter, and thinking of anything
in the world rather than the music. Such were the strange differences of
sensibility and feeling among half-a-dozen people, all of one race.
A forlorn hope that it might rain next morning, and so prevent the
threatened invasion, was in Mary’s mind up to the last moment. She felt
as if, having thus failed in her own person, Providence must aid her to
save her cousin, the head of the house, who was of so much importance to
the family, from such a snare. But Providence refused, as Providence so
often does in what seems the most heart-breaking emergency, to aid the
plans of the schemer. As lovely a September morning as ever shone
brightened all the park and the trees under her windows as she gazed
out, unable to believe that she was thus abandoned of Heaven. But there
could be no mistake about it. It was a lovely day, enough to tempt any
one to the woods had there been no purpose of the kind beforehand; and
as if to aggravate her sense of the danger of the situation, Ben
himself was visible from her window, coming up the river-path in boating
costume, though it was only half-past seven in the morning. Had he been
on the river already at this ridiculous hour? Passing The Willows no
doubt, gazing at the closed windows, pleased with the mere fact of being
near her, though at such an hour no one, Mary assured herself with a
little scorn, had ever seen Millicent out of bed; and on such a day as
this, when all his prospects for life hung in the balance! But,
strangely enough, it never occurred to Mary in her womanish
pre-occupation to think that it might be the feverish excitement of the
crisis, and not any thought of Millicent, which had roused Ben and
driven him to try the tranquillising effects of bodily exertion.
Notwithstanding the atmosphere of family anxiety by which she was
surrounded, the fact was that Millicent’s visit was ten times more
important in Mary’s eyes than that of Mr. Ponsonby. The one did not cost
her a tenth part of the anxious cogitation called forth by the other. No
doubt the will would be read and everything settled, ill or well. Ben
would have Renton, as he ought; or Frank would have it, or it would be
settled somehow; but the effect of Millicent’s appearance would be to
unsettle everything. It would rouse up those embers of old love which
she felt were smouldering in Ben’s mind. Smouldering! How could she tell
that they were not blazing with all the warmth of present passion?
Else, why had he sallied out in the dawn of the morning only to pass by
the sleeping, shut-up house which contained the lady of his dreams? For
that he had gone out for this purpose, and no other, Mary felt as
certain as if she had watched him every step of the way. But there was
nothing now to be done but to submit, and to put the best face that was
possible upon it. Perhaps, indeed, if anything should occur so as that
Ben should not have Renton, it would no longer be an unmixed misfortune,
for it would take him out of Millicent’s way.
It was hard to tell whether it was a relief or an annoyance to find a
stranger at the breakfast-table when they all met down-stairs. ‘What a
nuisance!’ Frank said to his wife, feeling that Ben’s right-hand man was
not the sort of person to be admitted to familiar intercourse with the
family at such a moment. But Mary felt, on the whole, that Hillyard’s
unexpected appearance was a good thing for Ben. The stranger, who ought
to have arrived some days before, had been detained, and got down to
Cookesley on Sunday night, from whence it appeared Ben had gone down
early to fetch him, thus explaining, to the great consolation of his
guardian and watcher, his early expedition. Hillyard was very carefully
dressed, too carefully for the morning, and a little impressed by the
house and the circumstances. His beard had been trimmed and his
wardrobe renewed before he would follow his once _protégé_, and now
patron, to the Manor, and he was very anxious to make himself agreeable,
and justify his presence.
‘I know I should not have come at such a time,’ he explained to Mary; ‘I
told Renton so. Of course we have been so much together that I could not
but know why he was coming home.’
‘I do not think it makes any difference,’ said Mary. ‘I am sure my aunt
will always be glad to have any of Ben’s friends.’
‘It is very good of you to say so,’ Hillyard answered gratefully. And
then he began to tell her what a fine fellow her cousin was, and what a
head he had, and how he had mastered his profession while other men
would have been gaping at it. ‘He is master and I am man now,’ he said,
unconsciously using Ben’s words, ‘though I was brought up to it; and I
should just like you to see the beautiful work he puts out of his
hands.’
‘I daresay I should not understand it if I saw it,’ said Mary, smiling
behind the urn; but she lent a very willing ear, and thought Hillyard a
very nice person. Unquestionably he was a relief to the high strain of
suppressed feeling which appeared in every face at the table, except,
perhaps, Laurie’s, who, late as usual, came in, carrying the baby in his
arms, and did not mind.
‘Here is a little waif and stray I found wandering about the passages,’
he said. ‘Little Laurie, your mamma does not care about you to-day; you
had better stay with me.’
‘Doesn’t mamma care for him, the darling!’ cried Alice. And then the
child was picked up, having made a rush to her arms, and set up beside
her at table.
‘The heir-presumptive, I suppose?’ Hillyard said behind the urn; and
Mary began to think he was not quite so nice as she had thought him
before.
Then the members of the family dispersed, to kill this lingering, weary
forenoon as they best could. Ben and Hillyard went out together in
earnest conversation, and Laurie established himself in a shady corner
of the lawn, and made a group of Alice and her children, and began to
draw them; while Frank started off, as he said, for a long walk. Mr.
Ponsonby had announced that he was to come by the one o’clock train; but
there was another three-quarters of an hour later, and nobody who knew
him expected him to arrive by the first. And at half-past one Millicent
and her friend would come to luncheon. Such a conjunction of events was
very terrible to think of; though, perhaps, not so alarming to any one
as to Mary, who alone knew of the motives of the latter visit. She had
to go about her usual occupations all the same. She could not cheat the
sick expectations of her heart by joining the group on the lawn and
chatting with the children, nor could she rush forth to still her
anxieties by bodily exertion, like the boys. A woman, she thought to
herself, is always tied to the stake. She had to fulfil all her little
peaceful household occupations as if her heart was quite at ease, and
had not even any sympathy to support her, for what was it to her any one
could have said? They were all three her cousins, and it could not
matter very deeply to her which of them got Renton; and as for
Millicent, that was mere feminine jealousy, and nothing else,--so Mary
had to lock up her troubles carefully in her own breast.
It was only about a quarter past one when Millicent arrived at Renton,
and with her came her mother and her ‘friend,’ who was the young soldier
they had seen rowing her on the river. Mrs. Renton had just come
down-stairs, with Davison carrying her shawls and her worsted work, and
it was to her the visitors made their way. ‘Mr. Horsman is a connexion
of my poor husband’s,’ Millicent said with a decent sigh. ‘He is a
brother of Sir George Horsman, whom Nelly married. Nelly is my
sister-in-law, Mrs. Renton; but I suppose you know?’
‘Indeed I know very well,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It was she who we once
thought would have married Frank. Not that I am not perfectly satisfied
with Frank’s wife. She is certainly nice, and suits him admirably, which
of course is the great thing. But she had no money. And there was once a
time when he saw a great deal of Miss Rich.’
‘She was quite a catch,’ said Mrs. Tracy,--a word which wounded Mrs.
Renton’s ear.
‘I cannot say I looked upon it in that point of view; but the young
people were thrown in each other’s way a great deal,’ Mrs. Renton said
with some stateliness; and Millicent immediately rushed into the field.
‘I thought the Mr. Rentons had all arrived,’ she said, ‘and yet you are
alone;’ and cast an angry glance at Mary, as if demanding of her where
they were.
‘What has become of the boys?’ said Mrs. Renton, looking round her. ‘I
have only just come down. The fact is, it is a very exciting day for
them; we expect Mr. Ponsonby down immediately to read the will.’
Millicent and her mother exchanged glances. ‘Then the time is up?’ Mrs.
Tracy said meditatively, and bent with increasing solicitude over the
invalid on her sofa. ‘What a trial for you!’ she said, clasping her hand
in sympathy. And Mrs. Renton raised to her eyes that said unspeakable
things.
‘Ah! yes,’ she murmured; ‘but nobody thinks of me;’ and this balm of
consolation was sweet to her heart.
They all came dropping in a few minutes later to luncheon, and Ben and
Hillyard were among the first. ‘Ponsonby has not come by this train,’
said Ben, ‘but Frank is waiting at the station for the next.’ It was
hard not to feel as if Frank was doing the rest an injury by waiting to
have the first word with the lawyer; such, at least, was Mary’s
instinctive feeling. But her heart was weighted now with a more painful
anxiety still. She saw Ben give a brief, contemptuous glance at young
Horsman, whose position was not a comfortable one, and her heart sunk.
But then he turned away from Millicent,--avoided seeing her, indeed, in
a curious, visible way, and that was a consolation. Mrs. Tracy, however,
got up with effusion to shake hands with dear Mr. Renton, begging that
she might have a good look at him, to see if he was changed. ‘Not at all
changed,’ was her verdict. ‘Just the same generous face that once came
to our help in our troubles. Mr. Renton, do you know I may say you saved
my life?’
Then Millicent, too, rose, and, with a whole drama in her eyes, held out
her hand to him. There was regret, remorse, and a tender appeal for
pardon, and a sweet self-pity in those blue, shining eyes. They seemed
to say, ‘Be kind to me! Be sorry for me! I am so sorry for myself!’ But
it was hard to make out whether there was any answer in Ben’s looks.
She stood so turned towards him, holding out her hand, that he had no
choice but to draw near, and then she turned meaningly towards a vacant
chair at her side. He could not have gone away without rudeness, and Ben
was not disposed to be rude to anybody at such a moment of fate. He took
the seat accordingly, though with grave looks, and then there came a
gleam of triumph into Millicent’s eyes.
‘How curious we should have chanced to come here on this day of all
others,’ she said, her voice sinking to its softest tones. ‘You told me
of it the very last time we met; but, perhaps, Mr. Renton, you forget?’
‘Did I tell you of this?’ said Ben. ‘What a good memory you must have!
but there are some things I do not forget.’
‘Ah! something unkind about poor me, Mr. Renton! but if you knew what I
have had to go through since, you would not think anything unkind.’
‘I suppose we have all had a great deal to go through since,’ said Ben.
‘Seven years! it is a large slice out of one’s life; one’s ideas about
most things change immensely in seven years.’
‘Do they?’ said Millicent, looking at him with soft, appealing eyes.
‘Very much,’ said Ben, with a smile; ‘so much that one looks back with
amazement upon the follies one has been guilty of. A man says to
himself, “Is it possible I could have been such an ass?” Are ladies not
subject to the same effect of time?’
‘No;--ladies are more constant,’ said Millicent. ‘When our thoughts have
turned one way, it does not matter what happens, they always keep the
same. We may be obliged to change in outward appearance. We are not so
free as you gentlemen are. One’s friends or one’s circumstances sway one
sometimes, but in the heart we never change,--not half, oh! not a
quarter so much as you.’
‘That may be. I have no experience,’ said Ben.
‘But I have,’ said Millicent, ‘and I do so want to tell you. You know I
never was very happy in my circumstances, Mr. Renton. Mamma is very
kind, but she does not understand one’s feelings; and when she got me
abroad, she had me all in her own hands. Yes, you are quite right about
the change time makes. When I look back I cannot think how I could have
done it. But I was so young, and so used to obey mamma.’
‘And a very laudable principle, I am sure,’ said Ben, with a polite
little bow. ‘I beg your pardon--I thought I saw my brother and Mr.
Ponsonby coming up the avenue. You were saying,--something about
obedience,--I think?’
‘You do not think it worth while to listen to me,’ said Millicent.
‘Oh, yes, surely,--pray go on. I am full of interest,’ said Ben.
And then the poor creature looked at him with eyes which were pitiful in
the eagerness of their appeal. She was a mercenary, wretched woman,
ready to barter her beauty for comfort and wealth, and a fine house and
a good position; and yet there was still in Mrs. Henry Rich the same
redeeming possibility that there had been in Millicent Tracy. If he
would have taken her out of that slough of despond, she would have been
good, have made him a true wife, have grown a gentle lady, so far as it
was in her. To the bottom of her soul Millicent felt this,--just as many
a poor criminal feels that in other circumstances he would have been a
model of all virtue. And for her the matter was not one without
hope;--marriage to a woman may always be a new life,--and the seven
years had not dimmed her eyes, nor taken the roses from her cheeks. And
by those roses and bright eyes and lovely looks are not a woman’s fate
determined continually? Again, it was her last hope. For though
admiration was always sweet, yet to be troubled with a boy like this
young Guardsman, was irksome to Millicent in her maturity. And to go
through a round of such boys,--flattering, wooing them, being
wooed,--good heavens! was this all that fortune had in store for a
woman? Therefore she made one more effort before she yielded to fate.
‘You were more interested, Mr. Renton,’ she said, with soft reproach,
‘when we talked together last,--oh, so much more interested! If I did
not know you so well, I could scarcely think it was the same.’
‘That is true,’ said Ben; ‘but you taught me some things, Mrs. Rich, and
I profited by the lesson. I doubt whether but for your assistance I
could ever have been the man I am.’
‘Ah! then I have at least something to do with you?’ said Millicent.
‘Come and tell me, will you? It is not like London, where one was always
being interrupted. In the country there is so much time for talk.’
‘But I have no time,’ said Ben. ‘After to-morrow I shall probably go
away again; and when I tell you I have profited by your instructions, I
think that is all I have to say.’
‘You are angry with me because of,--because of,--poor Henry,’ said
Millicent, with tears coming to her eyes. ‘But ah, Mr. Renton!--ah, Ben,
if you only knew!’
Ben sprang impatiently to his feet. To him, as to any other generous
man, it felt like a personal pang and shame to see a woman thus
humiliate herself. He made a long step towards the window, with a flush
on his face. ‘Here they come!’ he said, though at the moment he was not
thinking much of their coming. And then there ensued a sudden
inevitable flutter in the family which affected the guests. Alice, who
had been charitably talking to the Guardsman, jumped up with a little
cry of excitement, and sat down again, ashamed of herself, but with all
possibilities of conversation quenched out of her; and Mrs. Renton, whom
Mrs. Tracy had been occupying to the best of her ability to leave
Millicent free for her important interview with Ben, was suddenly
overcome, and cried a little, lying back on her pillows. ‘Oh Ben, my
dear! I don’t know how I am to bear it,’ she said, holding fast by her
son’s hand. Laurie was the only one who was perfectly steady. He came
forward immediately from the background, and raised his mother up,
supporting her on his arm. ‘You will bear it beautifully, mamma, as you
always do,’ said Laurie. ‘Come and give us our luncheon. You forget we
are not alone.’
And he supported her into the dining-room, holding her hand caressingly
in his. As for Ben, he turned and gave his arm to Millicent, ‘As if I
had been a cabbage,’ she said afterwards, indignantly. None of her
pathetic glances, not the soft little pressure of her hand upon his arm,
gained the slightest response. His face was set and stern, full of
thoughts with which she had nothing to do. Mrs. Tracy ventured to
whisper as she followed, ‘Ah, how sweet it is to me to see you two
together again!’ But Ben did not even hear what she said. He waved his
hand to Mr. Ponsonby in the distance as he went across the hall. The
beautiful face at his side had no more effect upon him than if it had
been a hideous mask. He was absorbed in his own business, and careless
of her very existence. Millicent, in her fury, could have struck him as
he took her into the dining-room. Was this to be the end?
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WILL.
It was Hillyard’s behaviour at this meal which gained him the regard of
the various members of the Renton family. He took such pains to attend
to the strangers, and give to the agitated group the air of an ordinary
party, that all of them who were sufficiently disengaged to observe his
exertions felt grateful to him. Millicent sat next to Ben on one side,
but Hillyard had placed himself between her and Mary Westbury on the
other, and in all the intervals of his general services to the company
Mrs. Rich had his attention, for which Mary blessed him. She herself,
overcome by many emotions, was but a pale spectator, able to take little
part in what was going on, saying now and then a languid word to the
unfortunate Guardsman, but capable of nothing more except watching,
which she did with a sick excitement beyond all description. Mary was so
pale, indeed, and watchful and excited, that her mother was alarmed, and
made signs to her across the table which she did not feel capable of
understanding. ‘She will cry if she does not mind, and make a scene,’
Mrs. Westbury said to herself; and set it all down to the score of Ben,
which was true enough, but not as she thought. As for Ben, he inclined
his ear specially to Mrs. Tracy, who was at his other hand, and hoped
she liked The Willows, and that her rheumatism was better, and a hundred
other nothings. There was, it is true, nothing very remarkable about
this party, looking at it from the outside. They were well-dressed
people, gathered round a well-appointed table, getting through an
average amount of talk, smiling upon each other like ordinary mortals;
but yet underneath how different it was; Mrs. Renton was consoled, and
ate her luncheon, sustained by her son Laurie’s attentions; but Mrs.
Frank Renton trembled so that she could scarcely keep up the fiction of
eating, and grew pale and flushed again six times in a minute, and
nervously consulted the countenance of her husband, who, very silent and
self-absorbed, drank his sherry, and more of it than he wanted at that
hour, taking little notice of any one; then, at the other end of the
table, there was Mrs. Tracy, hanging with ostentatious, artificial
interest on every word uttered by Ben; and Millicent, very pale, with an
excited gleam in her eyes, casting tender, wistful looks at him, which
he never saw; and Hillyard talking enough for six, helping everybody,
introducing a hundred indifferent subjects of conversation, which ran a
feeble course half-way round the table and then died a natural death.
Mrs. Westbury, one of the few people who was calm enough to remark upon
the appearance of the others, concluded within herself that, after all,
the strangers were a mistake. If the family party had been alone, their
excitement would have been nothing beyond what was natural; but her own
child, Mary, who ought at least to have been one of the calmest of the
party, sat by that unhappy Guardsman pale as a ghost, once in ten
minutes saying something to him, and looking as if she were about to
faint; and all the others were equally under the sway of agitation and
self-restraint. When this uncomfortable meal came to an end, everybody
rose with an alacrity which showed how glad they were that it was over.
And then there ensued another moment of supreme embarrassment. If the
strangers had any sense of the position they would go away instantly,
the family felt; but instead of that, Millicent moved at once to the
upper end of the room, where there stood upon a crimson pedestal a bust
of the last Benedict Renton, and humbly begged of Ben to explain to her
who it was; and while the others stood about waiting, he had to follow
and describe his grandfather, and fulfil the duties of showman, Mrs.
Tracy rushing to join the group.
‘Benedict Renton--your name!’ Millicent said, with again another attempt
upon his feelings, while Ben stood angrily conscious of the effort and
contemptuous of the fooling, scarcely concealing his eagerness to be at
liberty. ‘And this portrait, Mr. Renton? I can trace the family
resemblance,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And all this while Mr. Ponsonby’s blue
bag waited outside, and the family murmured, standing round in agonies
of suspense to know their fate. Then once more Hillyard stood forth,
vindicating his claim to be called Ben’s right-hand man.
‘Let me be cicerone,’ he said, ‘Renton, I know you are anxious to see to
your business. Mrs. Rich will take me for her guide to the pictures for
the moment. You know Mr. Ponsonby cannot wait, and you are losing time.’
‘If Mrs. Rich will excuse me,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, please don’t think of excuses; we can wait,’ said Millicent.
‘Mayn’t we wait to learn the news?’ and she clasped her hands softly,
unseen of the bystanders, and gazed into his face. ‘Nobody,’ she
murmured, lowering her voice, ‘can be more interested than I.’
‘So long as you can find anything to amuse you,’ said Ben, half frantic.
‘Hillyard, I confide it to you;’ and he had turned away, before any
further dart could be thrown at him. Then there was a hurried
consultation between Mrs. Renton and her sister-in-law. ‘I shall stay
with them; never mind. Of course I am anxious too; but half-an-hour more
or less don’t matter,’ Mrs. Westbury said, with the voice of a martyr;
and when Millicent looked round she found herself standing alone with
her own special party, Hillyard at her right hand, and Mrs. Westbury,
with a smile of fixed politeness, behind. Ben was gone. He had made no
answer to her appeal,--he had shown no inclination to linger by her
side. She had put forth all her strength for this grand final _coup_,
and it had failed.
‘I don’t think Mr. Renton has improved in politeness in his travels,’
she said to Hillyard, unable altogether to restrain the expression of
her despite.
‘He has not been in polite regions,’ said Hillyard; ‘and everything, you
know, must give place to business, now-a-days, even the service of
ladies. You must forgive him, when you consider what it is----’
‘I have nothing to do with him,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘I hope I
never shall have anything to do with so rude a man;’ and then she
paused, thinking she had gone too far. ‘You know it is not a way to
treat an old friend----’
‘Poor Renton!’ said Hillyard. ‘He is so unlikely to be any the better
for this anxiety, you know,--that is the worst of it; and I don’t think
he has any hopes to speak of. He has made all his arrangements for going
back to his work----’
‘You don’t say so!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, with a look at her daughter. ‘And
I can’t believe it!’ cried Millicent.
‘But I assure you it is true. No one can know better than I, for I go
with him,’ said Hillyard; ‘all our arrangements are made. But let me
show you the pictures. This was Sir Anthony Renton, who was a--Master in
Chancery in Queen Elizabeth’s time,’ pointing to a respectable merchant
in snuff-coloured garments of the days of Queen Anne. But the visitors
cared nothing for the family portraits, and Hillyard’s last shaft had
told. If Ben was unlikely to have Renton, it was of no use spending more
trouble upon him. They consulted together hastily for a moment, and then
they turned their backs upon the pictures. ‘I have the pleasure to wish
you good morning, Mrs. Westbury,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘Since our friends
are so much occupied we will take our leave. Pray give Mrs. Renton my
best sympathies.’
‘It is to be hoped some one will get the money at the end,’ said
Millicent, with less civility, sweeping towards the door. And thus the
strangers were got rid of at last.
‘I flatter myself I did that,’ said Hillyard, with a chuckle of
satisfaction. And then he, too, took his departure, and left Aunt Lydia
free to join the party in the library, where the great revelation of the
future fate of the family was about to take place.
The air of restrained excitement in this room was such that it would
have communicated itself to the merest stranger who had entered. It was
a dark room by nature; and a cloud had just passed, as if in sympathy,
over the brightness of the day. The window was open, and the blind beat
and flapped against it in the wind, which was a sound that startled
everybody, and yet that nobody had nerve enough to stop. Mrs. Renton had
been placed in an easy chair near the vacant fireplace. Alice and Mary
sat formally on two chairs against the wall; and the three brothers
stood up together in a lump, though they neither spoke nor looked at
each other. Mr. Ponsonby was seated at the writing-table, arranging his
papers and holding in his hand a large blue envelope, sealed. There was
complete silence, except now and then the rustle of papers, as the
lawyer turned them over. The members of the family scarcely ventured to
breathe. When Aunt Lydia entered they all turned round with a look of
reproach; their nerves were so highly strung that the least motion
startled them. In the midst of this silence, all at once Mrs. Renton
began to sob and cry, ‘I feel as if you had just come home from the
funeral!’ she said, with a wail of feeble grief. There was a little
momentary stir at the suggestion, so true was it; and Alice, being at
the end of her strength, cried too, silently, out of excitement. As for
the brothers, they were beyond taking much notice of the interruption.
They were now so much wiser, so much more experienced, since the day of
the funeral, the last time they had all met together in this solemn way.
Now they did not know what they were to expect: their confidence in
their father and the world and things in general was destroyed. By this
time it had become apparent to them that things the most longed for were
about the last things to be attained. Had they been all sent away again
for another seven years, or had the property been alienated for ever and
ever, the brothers would not have been surprised. Whether they would
have submitted, was a different question. Their opinions about many
things had changed. Their unhesitating resolution to obey their father’s
will seven years ago, without a word of blame, appeared to them now
simple Quixotism. They were scarcely moved by their mother’s tears. He
had done them harm, though they had been dutiful to him. He might now be
about to do them more harm for anything they could tell. The
uncriticising anxiety and expectation which filled the women of the
party was a very different sentiment from the uneasy, angry
anticipations of ‘the boys.’ Few dead men have ever managed to secure
for themselves such a vigorous posthumous opposition. In short, he was
not to them a dead man at all, but a living power, against which they
might yet have to struggle for their lives.
Mr. Ponsonby looked round upon this strange company, with the big
envelope in his hand and an excitement equal to their own. He looked at
them all, after Mrs. Renton’s crying had been quieted, and cleared his
throat. ‘Boys,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘I don’t know what’s in this any more
than you do. He did it without consulting me. If it is the will of ‘54
that is here, it is all just and right; but if it is any new-fangled
nonsense, like what I read to you here seven years ago, by the Lord I
will fight it for you, die or win!’
This extraordinary speech, it may be supposed, did not lessen the
excitement of the listeners. Alice crossed over suddenly to her husband,
and clung to him, taking it for granted that disappointment and downfall
were involved in these words. ‘Dear, if there is nothing for us, I shall
not mind!’ she cried, gazing at Mr. Ponsonby with a kind of terror.
‘Quickly, please; let us wait no longer than is necessary,’ said Ben,
with a certain peremptoriness of tone. Mr. Ponsonby had settled down in
a moment, after this outburst, to his usual look and tone.
‘I need not trouble you with many preliminaries,’ he said; ‘you all
remember how everything happened. He sent for me a week before his
death, and gave me this,’ holding up the envelope, ‘and this letter,
which I have also here. When I remonstrated his answer was, “If the one
harms, the other will set right.” My own impression now is, I tell you
frankly, that his mind was affected. Have patience one moment. Nothing
in the shape of a will, even in draft, was found among his papers, so
that there is nothing whatever to set against this, or explain his
intention. If it is that of ‘54 it is all right----’
‘No more!’ cried Ben; ‘let us know what it is at once.’
Then the lawyer tore open the envelope. Not a sound but the tearing of
the paper and crackling sound of the document within was to be heard in
the room, except one sob from Mrs. Renton, which seemed to express in
one sound the universal thirst of all their hearts. Mr. Ponsonby rose up
as he unfolded the paper; he stopped and gazed round upon them blankly,
with consternation in his eyes. Then he opened the sheet in his hand,
turned it over and over, shook out the very folds to make sure that
nothing lurked within,--then caught up the torn envelope and did the
same. And then he uttered an oath. The man was moved out of himself,--he
stamped his foot unconsciously, and clenched his fist, and swore at his
dead antagonist. ‘D---- him!’ he cried fiercely. This pantomime drove
the spectators wild. When he held up the paper to them they all crowded
on each other to see, but understood nothing. It was a great sheet of
blue paper, spotless--without a word upon it. Mr. Ponsonby in his rage
tossed it down on the floor at their feet across the table. ‘Take it for
what it is worth!’ he shouted, almost foaming with rage. Frank, at whose
feet it fell, picked it up, and held it in his hands, turning it over,
stupid with wonder. ‘What does it mean?’ cried Ben, hoarsely. Surprise
and excitement had taken away their wits.
‘Give it to me!’ said Mrs. Renton, from behind; and her son, upon whom
the truth was beginning to dawn, threw it into her lap. It flashed upon
them all at once, and a kind of delirium, fell on the party,--flouted,
laughed at, turned into derision, as it seemed, by the implacable dead.
‘It means that there is no will. I have been keeping a blank sheet of
paper for you,’ said Mr. Ponsonby bitterly, ‘for seven years.’
And then there was another pause, and they all looked at each other, too
much bewildered to understand the position, as if the earth had been
rent asunder at their very feet.
‘We never did anything to him to deserve this!’ said Laurie suddenly,
with a voice of pain. ‘Is there no mistake?’
As for Ben, he said nothing. His eyes followed the gleam of the paper,
which his mother was turning over and over in her helpless hands, as if
the secret of it might still be found out. But by degrees his eyes
lighted up. Almost unconsciously he made a step apart, separating
himself, as it were, from the audience, placing himself by Mr.
Ponsonby’s side as a speaker. There was a certain triumph in his eye.
After all, he was but a man, like other men, and the heir; and his
rights had been debated and questioned by everybody, himself included.
There was a flush and movement of satisfaction about him,--a sudden warm
blaze out of the absorbing disappointment, baffled hopes, and bitter
resentment which were rising round him.
‘If there is no will,’ he said, with a deep flush on his face, and
nervous gesture of his hand, ‘Renton is mine, as it ought to be. I am in
my father’s place; and what has been done amiss, it is my place to undo.
I cannot believe that there is any one here who doubts me.’
While he was speaking, Alice uttered a little cry. She had turned to him
her white face, but without seeing him or any one. ‘Must we go back to
India?’ she said, with a voice of anguish. That was the shape it took to
the young pair. She was pale as marble, but Frank’s face was blazing
red.
‘Hush, Alice!’ he said, fiercely; ‘that is our own affair.’
Ben made a movement towards them in his impatience. ‘I have told you you
should not go back!’ he cried. ‘I am here in my father’s place to set
all right.’
‘Stop a little,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, suddenly coming forward with a chair
in his hand, which he placed in the midst of them, sitting down upon it,
amid the agitated group. ‘You have not done with me yet. We have not
come to such simple means yet. Mrs. Frank, my dear, don’t be angry, and
don’t give way to your feelings. Things are not so bad as you suppose. I
lost my head, which is inexcusable in a man of my profession. It was a
dirty trick of him, after a friendship of thirty years. My dear young
people, sit down, all of you, and listen to me.’
No one made any change of position, but they all turned their eyes upon
him with looks differing in intensity, but full of a hundred questions.
Frank was defiant; Alice wild with despairing anxiety; Mrs. Renton
crying; Laurie soothing her; Ben very watchful, eager, and attentive.
Mr. Ponsonby, however, had entirely recovered his composure, which
unconsciously had a calming effect upon them all.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lost my head, which I had no right to do; but I am
coming to myself. Now, listen to me. There is no will; and Ben from this
moment is master of Renton, as he says. But stop a little. The personal
property remains, which is worth as much as Renton. I don’t know what I
could have been thinking of to forget that. After all, there is really
nothing to find fault with but the look of the thing. The money has been
accumulating these seven years;--it has been as good as a long
minority;--and some of the investments have done very well. The land, of
course, goes to the eldest son; but the personality, as some of you
ought to have known, is divided. It comes to just about the same thing.
God forgive me if I said anything I ought not to have said in the
excitement of the moment. It is shabby to me, but it won’t harm you,
thank God! I lost my head, that was all, and more shame to me. The will
of ‘54 would have come to much about the same thing.’
‘Oh, Mr. Ponsonby,’ cried Alice, with streaming eyes, thrusting herself,
unconscious of what she was about, in front of them all; ‘tell me, will
there be enough to keep us from going to India again?’
‘There will be twenty thousand pounds, or more,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘if
you can live on that; and I could, for my part.’
Alice, like the lawyer, had lost her head. She was too young to bear
this wonderful strain of emotion. She threw her arms about his neck in
her joy, and wept aloud, while they all stood by looking on, with such
feelings as may be supposed.
She was the only one who spoke. Her husband drew her back at this point,
half angry, half sullen, with his disappointment still dark in his face.
‘You had better go,’ he said to her, almost harshly; ‘you have heard all
that there is to be heard. It is best we should discuss the real
business by ourselves.’
‘Yes, come along,’ said Laurie, ‘all you ladies. You have heard it is
all right. You don’t want to hear the accounts, and all that legal
stuff. We will manage the business. I will take you back to your sofa,
mother, now you know all’s right.’
‘But is it all right?’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I don’t seem to understand
anything. Ben, will you come and tell me? Have they all got their
money,--all the boys? And what is Frank to have for his children? Till
you have children of your own, it is his boy who is the heir. Laurie is
always telling me it will come right. I would rather hear it from the
rest. Oh, boys! your poor father meant it for the best.’
‘It is all right, mother,’ said Ben; ‘better than we thought.’
‘Ah, but Frank says nothing,’ said the mother. ‘I will not go away till
I am satisfied about Frank.’
‘You heard Alice, I suppose,’ said Frank, somewhat sulky still. ‘I do
think it is a shame there is no will; but if we are to have our shares,
as Mr. Ponsonby says, I suppose, mother, it is all right.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Laurie. ‘Come, and I’ll see if the carriage is
round for your drive. You know how important it is you should have your
drive.’
‘Your dear papa always made such a point of it, Laurie,’ Mrs. Renton
said, holding her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘or else I am sure I never
could have the heart to go out on such a day.’
And thus the ladies were dismissed, and the brothers held their meeting,
and settled their business by themselves. It would be vain to say that
they were satisfied. Frank, whose mind had been vaguely excited,--he
could not tell why,--and to whom it had begun to seem inevitable that
some special provision should have been made for the only one of the
three who had ‘ties’ and a family to provide for, had experienced a most
sharp and painful downfall. And it took him a long time to accustom
himself to the idea that after all he was not wronged. It was a personal
offence to him, as it had been to his wife, that Ben should look
satisfied. ‘When he has Renton, I do not see the justice of Ben having
his share of the money too,’ he said, with a little bitterness in his
unreasonable disappointment. And Ben was half displeased to feel that it
was not to be his magnanimous part to provide for his brothers, but that
their own right and share remained to them as indisputably as Renton was
his. His proposal was that they should return to the will of ‘54, of
which Mr. Ponsonby still possessed the draft, and a great deal of
discussion took place between them. It was half-past six o’clock before
any of the party emerged out of the dark library, where they had spent
between three and four hours. Mr. Ponsonby came out, declaring that he
was tired and thirsty and half dead, and demanding sherry from the
butler, who was preparing the table for dinner. They all went in and
stood by the sideboard, and swallowed something to refresh themselves.
‘And, my dear boys, give me the satisfaction of hearing you say you are
contented,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘before dinner comes on; for I should
like to be jolly, if I may.’
‘I am perfectly satisfied,’ said Laurie; ‘and Ben is happy for the first
time for some years. As for Frank, he must speak for himself; he has
been dreaming, and it is sometimes unpleasant to wake up.’
‘If I have been dreaming, it was not for myself,’ said Frank; ‘a man
with a family is so different from you fellows; but if it will be any
satisfaction to you, I think I may say I am content, since better can’t
be.’
And then he went up-stairs abruptly to dress. Alice had been waiting for
him long, trembling a little, and not daring to believe anything till
her authorised expositor of external events came to deliver the judgment
to her. It did not seem right to Alice that Frank should not be the
first in any distribution of prizes or honours. And yet she was not
insensible to the claims of natural justice. ‘We should never have been
able to give it up if it had come to us,’ she said to herself; ‘and it
would have been contrary to all traditions of the family to disinherit
Ben.’
‘You always told me he was to have it,’ she said, when Frank came in,
with the remnants of his sulkiness still hanging about him. ‘You used to
say if it came to you, you would give it up to Ben.’
‘And so I should, of course,’ said Frank; ‘the thing is, the fellow was
so self-satisfied,--with a kind of look of pleasure that we were all cut
out. That was what I could not stand.’
‘But don’t you think he meant to be good to us?’ Alice said, trying hard
to smoothe her savage down.
‘Good to us, by Jove! but fortunately that’s all over,’ said Frank. ‘We
are safe enough. No need to worry yourself over those blessed children
any more. Poor little beggar! he won’t have much to look forward to; but
still you may bring him up at home, and that is all you care for, you
little goose,’ the young husband said, softening over the happiness in
Alice’s eyes.
‘How much shall we have, Frank?’ she asked, with a sudden relapse into
prudence.
‘Let me dress now,--and go and make yourself pretty,’ he said. ‘We shall
not be so badly off; there will be something like a thousand a-year.’
And thus Frank Renton too acknowledged to himself that things might have
been worse, and that he was content.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Westbury withdrew
into her daughter’s room, and locked the door, and had a cry, in which
Mary, over-worn and over-excited, was quite disposed to share, though
for a different reason. ‘I cannot understand your uncle Laurence,’ said
Mrs. Westbury. ‘I am sure I am not mercenary. I have given you up to
your aunt, and never grumbled, much though I wanted you; and you have
given up seven years of your life to her, and he has not left you so
much as a gown. I do feel it, my dear, for you.’
‘I am sure, mamma, I don’t feel it for myself,’ said Mary, with a smile.
‘One does not mind so long as all is right with the boys.’
‘The boys are all very well,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘but he might have
left something, my dear, to you.’
‘I did not want anything, mamma,’ said Mary. ‘But godmamma will not want
me so much when she has Ben, and oh, I do so long to get home!’ Poor
Mary was over-done, over-worn, excited by so many diverse feelings that
her power of self-command failed her at last. She put her arms round her
mother’s neck, and threw, as it were, all her weight of unexpressed
cares and griefs upon her. ‘Take me home, mamma!’ she said, and wept in
the abandonment of weariness and disappointment, and that overwhelming
despondency for which one can give no reason, on her mother’s neck.
Mrs. Westbury was a woman fond of explanations from other people, but
she understood her child by instinct, ‘Yes, yes, you shall go home, my
darling!’ she said, soothing her, but without any intention of carrying
out her promise. It was early days, as she said to herself. Before any
change was made, it must be made plainly apparent what the rest of the
family meant to do.
On the whole, the dinner-table was more cheerful that night. They were
all worn out with excitement, it is true, and signs of tears were about
the women’s eyes; but still there was the sense that, after all, justice
was once more in force, and natural law ruling their affairs. One man’s
will, fantastic and unaccountable, was no longer supreme over them. Ben
took his place at the head of the table with a certain glow of
satisfaction. ‘I know none of you would have seen me wronged,’ he said
when they were sipping over their wine. It was the first time that he
had taken any notice of the often-repeated declaration of his younger
brothers.
‘Not if the prize had been Great Britain, instead of Renton,’ said
Laurie; ‘though, to tell the truth, the one would have been as great a
bore as the other, had it come to me.’
‘Of course I should have given it up to Ben,’ said Frank; ‘but it would
have been a struggle; therefore I’m very glad things have been settled
as they are without my help.’
‘Bravo!’ cried Mr. Ponsonby, ‘that is the best sentiment I have heard
to-night.’
‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ said Ben, holding out his hand. Laurie
somehow did not count. The world would indeed have been coming to an end
had he been out of temper about his rights. It was the younger and the
elder who exchanged the grasp of peace and mutual amity. ‘And, remember,
Renton is home to us all,’ Ben said, with moisture in his eyes. ‘Of
course my mother remains here; as it has always been, with room for
all.’
‘Bravo, bravo!’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘now is the time for generous
feelings! My dear fellows, prosperity is the thing that opens men’s
hearts. Don’t talk to me of the benefits of misfortune! Let a man feel
he has his thousand a-year, or his five thousand a-year, safe in his
pocket, and then is the time his heart warms. But I’d have Mrs. Frank
come to an understanding with Mrs. Ben before I would take the
invitation in too literal a sense,’ said the old lawyer, with a chuckle
over his own wit.
‘I do not expect there will ever be a Mrs. Ben,’ said the heir, with an
impatient movement of his head.
‘Tell me that this time twelvemonths,’ said Mr. Ponsonby; and then they
all went out to the lawn to smoke their evening cigar.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF A DREAM.
If I do not enter very particularly into the family arrangements which
were made after this settlement, it is because, in the circumstances, so
much detail is unnecessary. Had Ben been in Frank’s position, a married
man with a family, it would of course have been needful that some
arrangements should have been made about Mrs. Renton’s future
habitation. She herself was provided for by her marriage settlements,
and had a little fortune of her own, settled on herself, which was
something for the babies to look forward to; and there was a
jointure-house on the estate, known by the name of the Dovecote, a
pretty, small house, with a view on the river, and only a mile’s drive
from Cookesley, where there can be no doubt Mrs. Renton, had there been
any need for it, would have been very comfortable. But as Ben was not
married, what did it matter? It was better his mother should keep house
for him, as she said in her innocence, than leave him to servants. There
was a consultation held in her room next morning, to the interruption
of the newspaper-reading; but as this was a crisis, full of events, for
once in a way she did not mind.
‘I would go to the Dovecote, my dear boy, if you thought I should be in
your way,’ she said; ‘but I think I had much better stay and keep house
for you, till you have a wife of your own to keep your house.’
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ said Ben. ‘Of course you
will keep house for me. And I think you should give the Dovecote to
Frank,--that is one thing I wanted to speak to you about. I will have it
fitted up, and do what I can to make it comfortable, and then you can
have the children always at hand to amuse you while I am away.’
‘But you are not going away?’
Mary was quite at the other end of the room, working by the window. It
was only her aunt’s worsted-work she was doing--not a very serious
occupation--but it always wanted a remarkable amount of light when Ben
was in the room. She was sitting there by herself, listening eagerly,
with a sore feeling in her heart, as of being excluded,--she who had
sacrificed so much to the comfort of the family. After all, though she
was so nearly related, and had spent her life with them, she was not a
Renton. Not like a daughter of the house, whose opinion would have
weight and whose comfort had to be consulted. Talk of Mrs. Renton
keeping the house! The meaning of that of course was that Mary was to
keep house. But of Ben’s house she never would be the honorary
housekeeper,--of that she was sure. When she heard her aunt’s frightened
exclamation, she too looked up a little,--of course it must be only a
figure of speech about his going away. Or he meant going to London
perhaps, or to the moors, or something temporary. Ben came to the
window, with his hands in his pockets, before he answered. Not as if he
were coming to Mary. It was only the restless habit men have of
wandering about a room. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking out, and addressing
nobody, ‘I am going away. Of course I must go back to my work. You
forget that when I came home I had not the least idea of what was to
become of me. And to throw away the work I had been making my bread by
for six years, would have been a great piece of folly. Indeed, the fact
is,--and I hope you won’t be vexed, mother, I assure you it is quite
necessary,--I am going to-morrow. I must finish what I’ve got to do.’
‘Going to-morrow!’ said Mrs. Renton, with a little shriek. Mary did not
even lift up her head from her work. She kept on bending over the
worsted roses as if they were the most important things in the world;
but her heart suddenly had taken to flutter in the wildest way against
her quiet breast.
‘Yes, Mary,’ said Ben, suddenly, ‘don’t you see that it is necessary? I
must finish my work.’
Mary made him no answer, being intent on the shade of a pink, and he
took a few turns about the room in his impatience; for his mother had
begun to cry softly in her bed.
‘That is always the worst of talking to you women,’ he said. ‘Mother,
can’t you understand? You can’t go breaking off threads in life, as you
do it in your sewing. I must wind up my affairs. There are some things I
must see after for myself.’
‘Oh, Ben, after I had made up my mind to something so different!’ said
his mother. ‘I did not sleep a bit last night for making up how it was
to be. I had quite settled in my mind what parties it would be necessary
to give. We have not entertained since your poor dear father died, not
once,--but now I had been thinking there ought to be a series of
dinners, and perhaps a ball, to give Renton its proper place again in
the county, and prove that everything is settled. And now you come and
break my heart, and tell me you are going away!’
‘But, dear godmamma, he will soon come back,’ said Mary, coming to the
rescue. ‘He does not mean he is to go on making railways all his life.
He is going to finish his work,--that is what he said; though it is
disappointing of course.’
‘Because of the ball?’ said Ben, looking at her across his mother; but
Mary was not able at that moment to take her part in any encounter of
wit.
‘No,’ she said, almost angrily, ‘not because of the ball. I am not young
enough now to care very much for balls; but because I thought it was
your turn now to take care of godmamma, and----’ Mary could trust
herself no further. She went back abruptly to her work, leaving both
mother and son in a state of the utmost surprise and consternation.
‘I think you are all bent on driving me wild,’ said poor Mrs. Renton.
‘It seemed as if everything was over yesterday; but now here is Ben
going away, and Mary is disagreeable. And who have I to fall back upon?
Laurie is very kind, but he will be going too; and Alice is nice, but I
am not used to her. If Mary is to be sharp with me like this, what am I
to do?’
‘I will never be sharp with you, godmamma,’ said Mary, who for the first
time in her gentle life felt herself driven further than she could bear.
‘But you must remember sometimes that I have a home and people of my
own. You have wanted me very much for these seven years, and you know I
have never said a word,--but now that the boys have all come home, I did
hope----’
She would not break down and cry,--not for the world, while Ben kept
gazing at her from his mother’s bedside. But she stopped short abruptly,
in the middle of her sentence, which was the only alternative, and
applied herself with a kind of fury, with trembling fingers, and eyes
blind with unshed tears, to the worsted work. Calculating upon her
services as if she were a piece of furniture! Making all these
arrangements without any reference to her! It was more than Mary could
bear.
‘Ben, speak to her,’ said Mrs. Renton, faintly. ‘Oh, my dear, the boys!
Of course I am fond of the boys; but what can boys do for a poor woman
like me? Oh, Ben, speak to her! You would not go and forsake me, Mary,
when I want you most?’
Ben did not speak, however. He was startled, and out of his reckoning.
He went to the window again, and stood opposite to his cousin, and gazed
down upon her, with his hands in his pockets and a look of profound
concern and uncertainty on his face.
‘I won’t forsake you, godmamma,’ said Mary, with a trembling voice; ‘but
surely you might think,--plan out something,--make some arrangement.’
How hard it is for a woman to assert herself, to speak out of a heart
sore with the consciousness of being made no account of, and not to cry!
It would have been easier for Mary to put herself down under their feet
and allow them to walk over her,--as, indeed, it seemed to her she had
been doing. And they did not know it! They had endured their seven
years’ bondage, and it had come to an end, and all was right again; but
for her the same round was to go on for ever, and nobody even was aware
for what poor hire she had sacrificed her life and her youth.
‘Davison, Miss Mary says she is going to leave us,’ said Mrs. Renton, as
the maid came in. ‘No, no; take it away. I could not swallow it. I am
sure if I thought there was anything in the world she wanted, I would
have got it for her, Davison. And I always thought she was so happy with
me. No, it would choke me, I tell you. And if she was not happy with me,
there are years and years that I might have got used to it; but to go
and tell me now, just when I want her most----’
‘You’ll take your arrowroot, ma’am,’ said Davison, soothingly. ‘It’s
just as you like it, neither too hot nor too cold. Miss Mary agoing
away! That’s a fine joke. Miss Mary couldn’t stay away, ma’am, not if
you was to send her. She’s a deal too fond of you. It’s just nice now,
just as you like it. It’s all her fun, that’s what it is!’
‘I don’t see any fun in it,’ said Mrs. Renton, feebly. But she was
consoled by the fuss, and the re-arrangement of her pillows, and the
arrowroot. ‘You’ll speak to her, Davison, won’t you?--and tell her I
couldn’t bear it. I am sure it would cost me my life.’
‘To be sure, ma’am, I’ll tell her,’ said the maid.
While this little scene was going on, Ben stood by the window, always
with his hands in his pockets, gazing at his cousin, who worked with
fury, with hands that trembled, and eyes blind with tears. She kept them
from falling with a superhuman effort, but she could not see anything
but great blurs of mixed colour on the piece of embroidery before her,
harmless bits of worsted all dilated and magnified through the tears.
‘Do you really mean it, Mary?’ he said, looking down upon her with a
look of grief, which she did not see, and yet knew of, and was stung by
to the bottom of her heart.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘Ben. I can’t tell. I don’t want to give you
more trouble. I don’t know what I am saying. It has all been too
much,--too much!’
‘Come out into the air,’ said Ben. ‘I see it has been too much. We are
all such selfish wretches, thinking only of our own concerns. Come out
into the air.’
‘I think I am more fit to go to bed,’ said Mary, and the tears fell in
spite of her. ‘Never mind me. I have got such a headache,--and,--a bad
temper. Never mind! I think I shall go to bed.’
‘Come out to the woods instead,’ said Ben, with a brother’s tender
sympathy. ‘Never mind, mother,--she will come round. It is only that she
is worn out and over-done. I am going to take her out into the air.’
And so he did, though there was nothing she less desired. He took her
out, giving her his arm, and suiting his steps to hers as if she had
been ill. She was moved to a weary laugh, half of exasperation, when she
had been thus led forth. ‘There is nothing the matter with me, Ben.
Don’t make all this fuss. You make me ashamed of myself,’ she said.
‘There is something the matter with you,’ said Ben. ‘Come and sit down
here, where we can have a good talk. I see now, though I was such a
selfish ass as not to think of it before. You see, Mary, you have always
been so much one of ourselves, that it never occurred to me to think of
the sacrifice you were making in living here.’
‘It was no sacrifice!’ cried Mary. ‘Don’t make me wretched, Ben. I lost
my temper, that was all. I thought you were making all your plans, as if
it were to go on for ever and ever; and that I was only a piece of
furniture that nobody thought of. Don’t pay any attention to me.’
‘My poor little Mary!’ said Ben, taking her hand into his. He made her
sit down on the root of the beech, and bent his eyes wistfully on her,
holding her hand in one of his, and with the other stroking his
moustache, as is the wont of men in trouble. He saw there was something
in it, more than met the eye; and he looked at her with a certain blank
wistfulness. What did Mary want? If it had been anything he could fetch
for her from the ends of the earth, he would have done it. If he had
only known what it was!--or what would please her,--or how to soothe the
nerves, which were evidently all ajar. Mary could not bear that gaze.
Shame, and a sense of humiliation, and all the sensitive pride of a
woman, overwhelmed her. Was there something in her heart which she would
not have him discover? She put up her other hand and covered her face
with it, turning away from him; and whether any sort of enlightenment
might by degrees have penetrated the blank anxiety of his gaze, I cannot
tell; for at that moment they were interrupted in such a way as Mary
remembered to the end of her life.
All at once a rustle was audible as of some one coming,--indeed, of some
one quite near; and then there was a little, light laugh. “Oh, good
gracious! we have come at an unlucky moment,’ said Millicent’s voice,
close at their side. Mary sprang to her feet, drawing her hand away from
Ben’s, raising her flushed face in a kind of desperation. Mrs. Tracy and
her daughter had just turned the corner round the beech-tree, from which
Ben rose, too, with more surprise than delight. Millicent had put on a
white dress, with no sign, except in the black ribbons, of her mourning.
She was in the full splendour of her beauty, excited into more
brilliancy than usual. ‘I am sure I am very sorry if I have interrupted
anything,’ she said, with the colour rising into her cheek, and a
laughing devil of malice in her eyes.
‘Yes, you interrupted a serious discussion,’ said Ben. ‘Mary is worn
out, and I have been questioning her about her health. She has been
shutting herself up a great deal too much, and she denies it, as all
women do.’
‘How sorry I am! and you were feeling her pulse, I suppose?’ said
Millicent. ‘It looked the prettiest scene imaginable, seen through the
trees. You did not hear us coming, you were so pleasantly,--I mean
seriously,--occupied. And have you found out what is the matter with
her, Mr. Ben?’ This was said with the air half-malicious, half-friendly
of the discoverer of a secret. And on the score of this pretended
confidence, Millicent approached him closely, and used all her weapons
against the man who had once knelt at her feet. She looked him in the
face with eyes as much brighter than Mary Westbury’s as they had been in
the earlier days,--with the sweet tints of her complexion increased by
exercise, and by, perhaps a little excitement over this supposed
discovery,--with the morning air puffing out the white frills and
trimmings of her dress, and ruffling a curl which, after the fashion of
the day, fell over her shoulder. The mother had immediately appropriated
Mary, who, wild with shame and confusion and anger, stood at bay, and
was now with difficulty restraining her inclination to burst away from
the intruder, and go home and bury herself in her room, where nobody
could see her hot blushes and angry tears. Ben was moved by a certain
confusion, too, against his will. It was an awkward attitude, certainly,
in which to be seen by any stranger eye.
‘I am not much of a physician,’ he said; ‘but we have all had a great
deal of excitement lately, and Mary is worn out. I trust it is nothing
more.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Millicent. ‘I know that; indeed, I had thought I might
come and inquire this morning as an old friend. You forget that you told
me all about it,--once. I thought I might ask, for the sake of old
times, if all was right at last.’
‘You do me a great deal of honour to remember anything about my
affairs,’ said Ben. ‘Are you going to the river?’ and he turned with her
to go down in the direction she had been taking. ‘Have you a boat?’
‘Yes; the old gardener put us across,’ said Millicent. ‘You do not give
me credit for any friendly feeling, and you always try to get rid of me,
Mr. Renton. Oh, indeed, I can see it very well. I do not feel angry, for
perhaps you have had provocation; though I can see it very well. But it
would not do you any harm, nor me much good--except for old friendship’s
sake,--if you were to answer my question. Is it all right?’
‘It is perfectly right,’ said Ben, with a little bow. ‘I don’t know that
there was ever any doubt on that subject. I must thank you for taking
so much interest in us and our affairs.’
‘That is all you say now,’ cried Millicent, with ready tears springing
to her eyes; and tears come as readily from mortification and the
passion of anger as from any other cause. ‘You would not have answered
me like that once. Ah, Ben Renton, how much you are changed!’
‘I think it is very natural I should be,’ said Ben. ‘You are changed,
too, Mrs. Rich; though not in anything external,--unless it may be for
the better, if that were possible,’ he added, with a certain grudge in
his words. The man was but a man, and they were extorted from him by the
beauty which could neither be mistaken nor overlooked.
‘If I am not changed in externals, you may be sure I am changed in
nothing else,’ said Millicent, turning upon him with a smile of such
eager sweetness and hope, that it almost reached his heart. She, poor
creature! believed she was winning him back. The thought quickened all
her powers, quickened the very springs of being in her. She forgot Mary,
and the attitude which for a moment had driven her to despair. So much
the better if he had been Mary’s lover,--a touch of triumph the more! ‘I
have had a great deal to endure since we parted,’ she went on. ‘Oh, you
cannot tell all I have had to bear! And I thought time had worn me and
aged me, and that you would scarcely have known me again. But nothing
has ever changed me at heart.’
‘Mrs. Rich, you forget that this conveys very little information to me,’
said Ben, moved with sudden vindictiveness. ‘In those days of which you
speak,--and I don’t know why you should speak of them, the recollection
cannot be a pleasant one,--I remember clearly enough what a fool I made
of myself. My heart was open enough,--ass as I was,--but I don’t know
now, and I did not then, what were the sentiments of yours,--if
indeed----’
‘I had one!’ cried Millicent. ‘Oh, that you should say this to me! And
yet I feel that I deserve it. I acted as if I had none. What can I say
or do to make you know how sorry I am? Sorry is too poor a word. Oh,
Ben, I know I ought not to say it; but if either then or now you could
have seen into my heart----’
Her eyes were shining through her tears; her cheeks glowed with soft
blushes; her look besought, implored, entreated him. Poor soul! she said
true. If he could have seen into her heart, then or now, this is what he
would have seen there:--If Ben Renton will lift me out of all the
necessities of my scheming, wretched life,--if he will give me plenty,
money, luxury, comfort, what my soul sighs for,--then I will do my best
to love him. I will be a good wife to him,--I will be good in my way,--I
will,--I will,--I will! She had said all this to God many a time saying
her prayers, and this is what her heart would have said to Ben, with a
kind of desperate ingenuousness,--innocence in the midst of guile. And
he looked at her, and the man’s soul was shaken within him. Something of
the truth became visible to him;--not the ineffable charm of love. If it
had been very love that shone in her eyes,--however his finer sense had
been revolted by its over-frankness,--no doubt he would have fallen a
victim. For he had loved her once, and she had never been more
beautiful, perhaps never so beautiful in her life. He was touched by her
loveliness, by her eagerness, by the pitiful intensity of expression in
her eyes. Take me,--save me!--she seemed to be crying to him: and, good
heavens! to think what one gleam of this fire, one such look, would have
been to him once! Ben grew confused in himself, half with recollections,
half with pity; and the softness of success and restoration was in his
mind,--even of triumph,--for had not he won a victory, and silenced all
opposers? His voice faltered as he answered her, if answer it could be
called.
‘It is a long time ago,’ he said; ‘one’s very body and being alter you
know, they say, completely in seven years.’
‘But one’s heart never changes,’ murmured Millicent. And that was the
moment when Mrs. Tracy, feeling that the conflict was not progressing,
chose to come in like a watchful goddess, who sees that her champion’s
arms do not prevail.
‘My dear, we are taking Mr. Renton away from his cousin,’ she said, ‘and
from talking over family matters; but since we have done so, could you
not persuade him, Millicent, to come over to us to luncheon? You might
go on the water a little; you are so fond of it; and then lunch would be
ready. Mr. Renton, you must not think it strange that we are anxious to
see a little of such a kind friend as you are. I always say your ready
kindness saved my life.’
Millicent turned sharp round, and involuntarily clenched her hand, as if
she would have struck her mother. ‘It is all over now!’ she said to
herself; and never had the battle been so nearly won. As for Ben, the
sound of the new voice woke him up in a moment. He gave himself a little
shake, and recovered his self-command. Good heavens! to think how near a
step it had been to falling helpless into the syren’s snare!
‘Thanks; but we must turn back when we have seen you to your boat,’ he
said; and lingered to let Mrs. Tracy join them. ‘I have no time for any
such pleasures. My mother thinks it hard enough already, and I must give
her what little time remains. I am going away to-morrow.’
‘To-morrow!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a half-sneer and a look at her
daughter, to which Millicent, flushed, and pouting, and angry, made no
reply. ‘Then is it a mistake, after all? I thought I heard you say all
was right. I beg your pardon, I am sure----’
‘About the property it is all right,’ said Ben; ‘but I am not the idle
fellow you once knew me. Those were the only six months I ever
absolutely threw away in my life. And I can’t give up my work in a
moment because I have got back my rights.’
‘It was a pity you threw away those six months you speak of,’ said
Millicent. ‘Come, mamma; why should we trouble Mr. Renton to go with us
to the boat? Of course he must have a great deal to talk of,--to his
mother,--and to Mary,--his own people. We are strangers, and have no
claim upon him.’
‘There are some things which one gives all the more freely because there
is no claim,’ said Ben, with good-nature. ‘The path is rather rough
here. Mrs. Tracy, give me your hand.’
‘Thank you, I want no help!’ Millicent cried, when he turned to her, and
she sprang over the gnarled mass of roots, and ran down the path to the
green river-bank. She stood there, framed in by the thick foliage, her
white figure standing out against the light of the river,--a picture not
to be easily forgotten. Emerald green below,--green, just touched with
points of autumnal colour, here and there a yellow leaf above;--gleams
of blue sky looking through;--one long line of light reflecting all the
darker objects, the river, with one boat lying close to the grassy
margin; and in the midst the beautiful, flushed, brilliant creature,
full of passion, and mortification, and an angry despair. She did not
think it worth while now to hide the strong emotions in her mind, but
stood with her face turned to them as they followed, humiliated, yet
defiant,--the crown of all the scene, and the only discord in it. Poor
Millicent! her eyebrows lowered, her eyes shone; her colour was high
with the shame of her defeat; and yet, beyond the angry glance in her
eye, there was a tear, and the corners of her mouth drooped; and,
scarcely concealed by the hard, little laugh of artificial gaiety, a sob
was sounding in her throat.
‘Good-bye,’ she said, almost roughly, ‘Ben,--I will never call you so
again! I wish you luck of your good fortune. It makes a great difference
to most people in this world.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Ben, taking her hand almost against her will. ‘It makes
little difference to me. What has been done has been done by nature and
years. If you should ever want help or counsel that I can give---- Well,
let us say nothing about that. Good-bye----’
‘For a time,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with her bland smile, taking his hand in
both hers,--‘till our meeting again.’
And Mary, whose feelings all this time had been more overwhelming than
can be described, and who had followed mechanically, with an instinct
of being there to the last to see what direful harm might happen, stood
passive by his side, not knowing if she were in a trance or a dream; and
saw the boat push off into the shining river. Mrs. Tracy turned and
waved her hand to them, bland to the last. But Millicent never turned
her head. Once only, just as the boat shot past the long drooping
branches of the willow which closed in the view, she looked round
sharply and saw them; and the rowlocks sounded hollow and loud, and with
another stroke the boat was gone. Neither of them have ever seen that
beautiful face again.
Ben stood for some time after they had disappeared on the same spot,
forgetting everything, gazing out upon the vacant stream and vacant
sunshine, in a curious vacant way. If it had been put to him, he would
never have confessed how much moved he had been. Perhaps he was himself
unconscious of it. But nature made a pause in him, manifesting the
convulsion, in her own way, when this woman, who had influenced it so
strangely, passed for ever out of his life.
‘Are you fond of Coleridge, Mary?’ he said to her without any preface,
quite suddenly, as they went up the steep bank.
‘Of Coleridge, Ben? What an odd question! Why do you ask?’
‘Do you remember what he says? And what a curious sense he had of the
things that are inexpressible,--
‘How there looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright,
And how he knew--‘
‘No, I don’t mean that,--not so bad as that!’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mary, with a little shiver; and she
took hold of his arm with an instinctive desire to show him her
sympathy. Very well did she know what he meant; or at least thought,
hoped she did; but denied it with characteristic readiness. He pressed
the soft, sisterly hand to him when he felt it on his arm. Certainly,
there was a great sympathy between them, though nothing more. And he did
not say another word to her of the subject of the conversation which
this last meeting had blotted out as if it had never been. They did not
talk of anything, indeed, but went home together, with a silent
understanding of each other in which there was certainly some balm.
Understanding each other! which meant that the
woman,--partly,--understood the man, and had it in her heart to be a
little sorry for him in respect to the conflict through which he had
come; and a little, a very little,--which was more remarkable,--sorry
for the other woman thus finally foiled and done with; but that the man
had no comprehension at all of the woman, and gave no particular thought
to her, except so far as was conveyed in a tender, kindly sympathy for
poor little Mary. Her life must not be made a burden to her any longer
by his mother’s drives and her worsted work. That was all the progress
Ben had made in the comprehension of his cousin’s heart.
CHAPTER XV.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
On the next morning Ben went away without a word, no repentance of his
intention or lingering desire to postpone it having apparently crossed
his mind. He took leave of his mother the night before, for he was going
away early. ‘It will not be for seven years this time,’ he said, as he
kissed her, and was going to kiss Mary, too,--a formula which his
cousin, with a pang of mortification in her heart, felt might be better
dispensed with. ‘Nay; I shall see you in the morning,’ she said, half
terrified lest the blood which she felt to be scorching her cheek might
‘make him think anything.’ What should it make him think? She puzzled
him a little, it must be allowed; but he was not the kind of man who can
think of many different things at one time. His mind had been absorbed
with the business which brought him to Renton. It was absorbed now with
thoughts of what he had to do in the winding-up of his own affairs. Now
and then it flitted vaguely across his perception that Mary had
something on her mind which, one time or other, it would be his
business to see into. Dear little Mary! Ben was very fond of his cousin.
If she had wanted a hair from the beard of the Cham of Tartary, or a
golden apple from the Tree of Bliss in the gardens of the Enchanted
Isles, he would have done all a man could do to get it for her. But he
did not know now what she wanted, or if she wanted anything,--and that
was one of the matters which could wait till he came home.
Laurie, too, was going away with Ben, though only to town; and the night
before they left was a night of talk and recollections more than the
separated family had yet permitted themselves. It was true that Hillyard
put himself singularly in their way. Perhaps he had not had all the
advantages of the Rentons; but still he was a gentleman, though much
knocking about the world had taken some of the outside polish off him,
and he had never shown any inclination to intrude upon their private
talk, or make himself a sharer in the family communings,--never till
now. Perhaps it was because they were just setting off again, and Ben’s
family came in for the _attendrissement_, which might have been more
justly bestowed upon his own. But it was ridiculous that he should plant
himself by Mary, occupying her attention, and pouring forth his
confidences upon her, as it seemed to him good to do. They were all
gathered together in the drawing-room as they had been so many times
before, after Mrs. Renton went to bed, with the windows open as usual,
the lights shaded, the languor of the night and its wistfulness and soft
content and melancholy stealing in; the half-darkness and the soft
breathing of the night air, and the fluttering moths about the lamp,
were all accessories of the picture which nobody could forget. And there
was a mysterious gloom about the walls and the roof, owing to the shades
on the lamps, which gave a more distinct character to the half-visible
faces, each in its corner, and to the brilliant circles of illumination
round every light. They had begun to talk of their father, and this last
event in the story of his will, which was so strange, and so unlike all
his previous life.
‘One would like to know what he meant by it,’ said Laurie. ‘Poor, dear
old father! If there had been something dependent on the issue of our
probation; if there had been a reward for the man that had used his
talent best, like you, Ben; or for the man who had given him an heir,
like Frank; but all to end in this aimless way! We have always thought
ourselves very sound in the brain, we Rentons, or I know what one might
be tempted to think.’
‘That is what I have thought all along,’ said Frank.
‘It is not for us to say so, at least,’ said the elder brother. ‘I
believe illness coming on had confused his mind. They say it does. I
don’t think he can have been quite clear what he was doing. And then he
remembered at last, and was sorry,--don’t you recollect?’
‘My poor father!’ said Laurie. And then there was a pause; and in this
pause, through the dimness and the stillness, came the sound of
Hillyard’s voice, too low to be distinguishable, coming from Mary’s
corner, addressed to her with a volubility and eagerness which struck
them all with amazement. He had not meant to be so audible; and when,
after the first silence, a little laugh burst from Alice at the one
voice thus brought into prominence, he faltered and stopped too, as
people do under such circumstances. What could he be finding to say to
Mary? and what could Mary be thinking of to listen to him? were the
half-angry thoughts that flashed over Ben’s mind. Of course he was a
guest here, and everybody’s equal. Yet still, it seemed to Ben as if, on
the whole, this was bad taste, to say the least, on Hillyard’s part.
But Alice, though she had laughed at the sound of the solitary voice
which continued when they all dropped, was eager to let loose her
opinions, too, on the other subject. ‘I cannot see what other will could
have been just, now,’ she said. ‘If he had told you something to do, it
would have been different. But he gave you nothing to do; and how were
you to know what he wanted? It was not Laurie’s three princes, after
all.’
‘And, now I come to think of it, I don’t believe in my three princes,’
said Laurie. ‘I have not a doubt they fought it out when papa was out
of the way. Fancy two elder brothers giving in to a fellow because he
had the marvellousest little dog that ever was seen! It came to natural
justice, you may be sure, at the end, and the strongest had it. And it
has come to a kind of natural justice with us, so far as law allows.
Poor old father! One used to feel as if he must be so much wiser than we
were. And it proves he was as confused as the rest, and saw just as
short a way before him, and stultified himself, half-knowingly, like one
of his own sons.’
‘Don’t!’ said Ben, with a voice of pain. He was more angry with his
father than soft-hearted Laurie ever could have been, and consequently
was less able to talk of it. ‘Thank heaven!’ he cried, suddenly, ‘I
don’t suppose it has done any of us any lasting harm.’
‘No,’ said Laurie, out of the silence, after a pause, ‘no more harm than
we should have done ourselves, anyhow, for our own hand.’
And somehow, in the room, there was the sound of a sigh; whom it
proceeded from it would be hard to tell--six people all gathered
together of a soft autumn evening, and not too much light to betray
them, it would be strange if there was not more than one who sighed. But
Alice, in the shade, slid her hand through her husband’s arm, and said
joyously, ‘It has done us no harm, Frank!’ ‘Because we would not let
it,’ he whispered back again, brushing her soft cheek with his
moustache. Yes, that was the secret. Have your will, anyhow, whether
fortune permits or no; and in the long run the chances are you will come
out just as well as your neighbour, who allowed fortune to constrain
him, and will have had your will and your happiness into the bargain;
bad social morality, perhaps, but just as good fact as any other. The
young soldier and his wife had their little triumph unsuspected by the
others, who heard but a momentary whisper in that corner, which was
drowned by Hillyard’s more forcible whisper, always conversing with
Mary. What did the fellow mean by it? Ben was so disgusted by this ‘bad
taste’ of his friend, that he got up and stepped out on the lawn, with
some murmur about a cigar. And the other men all rose and joined him,
though not with any enthusiasm. When they had all trooped out, he
stepped back for a moment, and held out his hand to his cousin.
‘Is it really the case, Mary, that I am not to bid you good-bye
to-night?’
‘No,’ Mary said, drawing back, with a shy hesitation which he did not
understand; ‘do you think I would let you go away,--so far,--and not
make your breakfast for you the last morning? This is only good-night.’
‘Good-night, then,’ he said, but held her hand still. ‘What was that
fellow, Hillyard, so voluble about?’
‘That fellow!’ said Mary. ‘I thought he was your great friend. Indeed,
it was mostly you he was talking about.’
‘A poor subject,’ Ben said, only half satisfied; and then she drew her
hand away from him, and he went off with a half-suspicious glance at
her, and a certain sense of uneasiness, to join the men outside.
A parting in the morning is of all things in the world the most
detestable. He who would have a tender farewell, and leave a soft
recollection behind him, let him depart by the night train,--the later
the better,--when there is no inquisitive light to spy out, not only the
tear, but even that humidity of eye which tells when tears are coming.
Mary’s eyes were in this condition when Ben rose from his hurried
breakfast, and came up to her in the full light of day, and of Mr.
Hillyard, who lingered, though nobody wanted him. She had kept behind
the urn, feeling that, after all, had she stayed up-stairs and watched
him going away from her window, it would have been less unsatisfactory.
‘You’ll write and let me know how things are going on,’ Ben had said,
not feeling particularly cheerful himself, but yet approaching the best
part of the wing of a partridge to his mouth. ‘Oh, yes, of course I will
write, as usual,’ Mary said, and he gave a nod of satisfaction as he
ate. To be sure, he had to eat before he started. And then she added,
‘You’ll let us know as soon as you arrive.’ And he nodded again over
his coffee-cup. It was to give him his breakfast she had got up,--and
what else was there to be expected? And when the dog-cart was at the
door, Ben wiped the crumbs carefully from his moustache, and went up to
his cousin, and took her hand, and bent over her. ‘Good-bye, Mary,’ he
said, kissing her cheek, ‘take care of yourself. I’ll write a line from
town before we start. I’m very sorry, now it has come to the last.
Good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, Ben!’ she said, unable to articulate another word. The blood
seemed all to stagnate about her heart. Up to this moment there had
always been a possibility of something happening,--something being done
or said. But now it was all over. A certain haze came over her eyes, and
yet she could see him looking back at her as he went to the door, with
an indefinable expression. She stood and held by the back of the chair,
looking out of the window before which the dog-cart was standing,
forgetting for the moment that there was any one else in the world.
‘Good-bye, Miss Westbury,’ said a voice at her ear.
Mary turned round with an impatience it was scarcely possible to
disguise. ‘Oh, Mr. Hillyard, I beg your pardon! I thought you were gone.
Good-bye!’ she said. He was standing holding out his hand with his eyes
bent on her, and a glow in them such as even a woman agitated with
feelings of her own could scarcely mistake.
‘Good-bye, Miss Westbury. I shall never forget the days I have spent
here,’ he said, and stooped over her hand, as if----
‘Hillyard! do you mean to stay all day?’ cried Ben from the dog-cart, in
a tone which was not sweet.
‘Indeed, you will be late for the train; you have not a moment to lose,’
cried Mary, withdrawing her hand.
He muttered something, she could not tell what,--nor, indeed, did she
care. ‘Not farewell yet,’ was it he said? But what did it matter? The
interruption had so far roused her that she felt able to go to the
window and smile and wave her hand to Ben. Hillyard was still holding
his hat in his hand, trying to attract her attention, when the dog-cart
disappeared down the avenue. Then Mary sat down and gazed straight
before her, with that poignant sense of unreality which such a moment
gives. Five minutes ago he was there; and now here was vacancy,
silence,--a blank in which life lost itself. Five minutes, and all the
world changed! Her brow was burning and heavy with tears unshed,--an
ache which seemed physical, so hard the strain and pain it produced in
her, went through her heart. And a whole long day to go through, and the
birds singing merrily, and the sun shining, and old Willis on his way to
remove the remains of Ben’s breakfast, and to spread the table for the
family that remained! ‘It don’t seem no good, do it, Miss Mary, to have
master home so short, and he been so long away?’ Mary started to her
feet at the words. No good indeed?--perhaps harm, if one dared say
so!--deeper blank and silence after the momentary movement and the
light!
And now to think it was all over, and that there remained nothing but
the old life to be taken up again and gone on with just as before! If it
had been night, when one could have shrouded one’s-self in one’s own
room, and cried or slept, and forgotten one’s-self! But it was
day,--early morning,--with a whole heap of duties to be performed, and
people to look on while she was performing them. And Mary felt sick of
it all,--the duties, and the daylight, and the life. Laurie, who thought
early rising idiotic, went by a much later train, at what he called a
rational hour. And then the house was left in its old quiet, but for the
presence of Frank and Alice and the children, which no doubt made a
great difference. When Mary went to her godmother with the newspaper she
was questioned minutely about Ben’s departure and his looks. ‘Did he eat
any breakfast, Mary?’ Mrs. Renton said, putting her handkerchief to her
eyes.
‘He ate a very good breakfast,’ said Mary, with a slight sense of
humour, but on the whole, a greater sense of something like displeasure.
Yes, he had been quite able to eat breakfast, though he was going away!
‘And enjoyed it, poor fellow?’ said his mother. ‘Ah, if one only knew
when he would eat his next meal at Renton? And was he cheerful, my dear,
or did he feel it very much? Poor Ben! None of you think how hard it is
upon me!’
‘You have Frank, godmamma,’ said Mary, ‘and if he settles in the
Dovecote it will be very nice for us all. And there is Laurie close at
hand whenever you want him, and no one could be more kind than
Laurie----’
‘But neither Laurie nor Frank is Ben,’ said Mrs. Renton with decision,
drying her eyes--which, alas! as her niece felt to the bottom of her
heart, was most true. And then Mary read the papers, all the bits of
news, as she had done any day these seven years. Had there been any
break in the endless round, or had she only dreamed it? It seemed so
hard to know: for the interruption, with all its agitations and
pleasures, had vanished, and everything was as it had been before.
Except, indeed, that Frank and Alice made the dinner-table cheerful, and
took the heavy duty of the drive off Mary’s hands, which was a relief
for which she should have been more grateful. But even that showed the
difference between her own life and that of Frank’s wife, though Mary,
had she not been driven to it, was not given to such comparisons. For
her there was but the usual monotonous promenade over the well-known,
too well-known country; but Alice was taken to the Dovecote, and even
the invalid grew interested about the changes necessary, and the
furnishing and decorations of that abode. ‘The Frank Rentons’ had all
the pleasant excitement of settling down before them. And Mary felt that
it was very wicked and unwomanly of her to desire any excitement, or to
feel so wearily conscious of the want of interest in her own existence.
Would it be much better in the cottage with her mother, who in all these
years had learnt to do without her, and whose whole mind was absorbed in
her curate-boy? Perhaps that would not be any better. And, anyhow, it
was evident that there was nothing to do in the meantime but to submit.
There was, however, an excitement awaiting Mary much nearer than she had
any expectation of. It came to her just two days after Ben’s departure,
in the afternoon, when once more Alice and the children had gone to
accompany Mrs. Renton in her drive, and she was alone in the
drawing-room, with the window open as usual,--that window by which
everybody went and came,--everybody, that is to say, belonging to the
family. Mary was reading, seated in her favourite chair, half buried in
the curtains, when it seemed to her that a shadow fell on her book,--a
very familiar accident. It must be Frank, she thought, looking up; but
to her great amazement she saw it was Hillyard standing with a
deprecating, anxious look before the window. She made a spring from her
seat with that one thought which fills the mind of a preoccupied woman
to the exclusion of all personal courtesy and consideration. Something
must have happened to Ben! ‘What is it? for God’s sake, tell me! tell
me!’ she said, rushing out upon him, dropping her book, and holding up
her clasped hands.
‘Nothing, Miss Westbury,’ he said, putting out his hand to take hers,
with the humblest, softest tone,--a tone amazing in its gentleness from
such a big-bearded, unpolished man. ‘I was only waiting to ask you
whether I might come in.’
‘But you are sure there is nothing wrong with--my cousin?’ Mary cried;
and then recollected herself, and was covered with confusion. ‘I beg
your pardon; but seeing you so suddenly it was natural to think of Ben.
I felt as if you must have brought bad news, Mr. Hillyard; don’t think
me very silly--but godmamma may come in any moment from her drive--you
are sure there is nothing the matter with Ben?’
‘Nothing at all. I left him a few hours ago, very well and very busy,’
said Hillyard; and then once more he added in the same soft, subdued,
disquieting tones, ‘Will you let me come in?’
‘Yes, surely,’ said Mary, though she was trembling with the sudden
fright. ‘But it is so strange to see you. Is there any change in your
plans? I thought you were to go to-day.’ And then a wavering of light
and colour came over her face suddenly in spite of herself. This man,
who had no possible business at Renton, surely could not have come
alone!
‘I begged for another day,’ said Hillyard, following her into the room.
‘I daresay I was a fool for my pains. It may be years before I return
again. I asked for another day.’
‘I am sure godmamma will be very glad,’ said Mary, courteously; ‘but
somehow it was very startling to see you, and not Ben.’
And she gave a momentary glance out, as if still she expected the other
to appear. Such a reception to a man who had come on Hillyard’s errand
was like frost to a brook. It bound him, shrank him up within himself.
He stood looking at her with a half-stupefied, wistful gaze, saying
nothing. Ben; always Ben! Was that the only thought in her mind? Was it
possible she could see him thus, and meet his eye, and not see his
errand was altogether apart from Ben?
Mary, however, was so much occupied with her tremor and start, and
curious little flutter of expectation, that it did not occur to her as
strange for some minutes that her present companion said no more. She
took his silence with the composure of perfect indifference. She was not
even curious about him, further than concerned her cousin. Why should
she be curious about Mr. Hillyard? But at last it did strike her that
politeness required that she should speak to him. And, looking up, she
caught the expression of his face and of his attitude all in a moment,
and the ardent light in his eyes. Such a look is not to be mistaken.
With a sudden rallying of all her blood to her heart, and steadying of
her nerves for an utterly unforeseen but unmistakable emergency, Mary
faltered and stopped in her intended speech, waiting for what was to
come.
‘Miss Westbury,’ he said, ‘I might as well tell you at once that I see
what a fool I am. I have my answer before I have spoken. You think no
more of me than if I were Ben Renton’s horse, or his dog, or anything
that belonged to him. I see it quite plain, and I might have seen it
before I went away on Wednesday; but there are things in which a man
cannot be anything but a fool.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Hillyard?’ said Mary. ‘I hope I have
not been rude. You are a stranger to us all. It is only through Ben we
have known you; and it was natural when I saw you that I should think of
my cousin. If I have hurt your feelings I am sure I beg your pardon.’
In all this she was talking against time, hoping that Frank or somebody
would come in.
‘No,’ he said; ‘I know I had no right to think of anything else. Of
course I am a stranger. Ben’s dog,--that is about it! I am not sneering,
Miss Westbury. I should not have minded your calling me so when I
came.’
And there he stood, turning his eyes away from her, a big strong man of
the woods as he looked, abashed and disconcerted, like a chidden child.
He gazed out blankly, pulling his beard, with a flush of such quick
mortification and downfall as a boy might feel when he sees his hasty
projects fall to nought, and yet a deeper pang underneath than any boy
could bear. Altogether the man looked so humbled and sore and sad,
silenced in the very moment of effusion, that Mary’s heart was moved.
She was sorry for him, and remorseful for her own indifference. It
seemed almost needful to let him say out his say by way of consolation.
‘We all called you Ben’s friend,’ she said; ‘his best friend, whom we
have heard of for years. Nobody else could have come among us at such a
time. You must not think I mean anything disrespectful or unkind.’
Then there came a great burst of words from him. ‘That was what I
thought,’ he said; ‘that you had been used to hearing of me; that I
might have been to you as an old friend. I too have heard of you for
years. And look here, Miss Westbury; you may scorn me, but I must say
it, I have been in love with you for years. I used to see your letters,
and think there was a woman, if one could ever hope to get within speech
of her! And then I came here. I ought never to have come. My heart was
full of you before, and you may think what it was when I saw you. Don’t
stop me, please; it is better now that it should all come out. You were
kind to me, as you would have been to any stranger; but you did not know
what was in my mind, and I did, and went on fire like a fool. There now,
I see how it is. I won’t grieve you by asking anything. Only give me
your hand and say you forgive a rough fellow for taking it upon him to
love you, before he ever saw you; and behaving himself like an ass when
he did.’
‘Mr. Hillyard, I am so sorry,’ said Mary, with tears in her eyes. ‘I did
not mean,--I never thought,--It is me whom you must forgive,--if you
can.’
‘You!’ said the strange man. ‘God bless you! that’s what I say. You and
forgiving have nothing to do with each other.’ And then he took her hand
between both his, and gazed down upon her with a fond, lingering,
sorrowful look, as if he were getting her face by heart. ‘I don’t know
why I came,’ he said, muttering to himself; ‘I knew it would be exactly
so,--just so. And yet I wanted you to know----’
And then the man seemed suddenly to forget her presence altogether.
Standing there, holding her hand, he might have fallen into a dream so
perfectly still was he. But her hand was lost, buried between both his,
held fast, while she stood perforce by him. And yet there was no force
in it, no rudeness, but only a profound melancholy silence,--a sacrifice
of the hidden sweetness he had been cherishing in his life.
‘Mr. Hillyard,’ she said, softly, ‘you must say good-bye to me and let
me go.’ And then he woke up and came to life.
‘The other hand too,’ he said, ‘for this once. Good-bye, and God bless
you! It’s all I’ll ever have for my love. God bless you! Good-bye!’
He did not even kiss her hands, but held them fast; and then let them
drop, and turned, stooping his tall head through the white curtains, and
went out as he came in. Mary stood looking after him with an
indescribable sensation. Was he really gone, this man who had been
nothing to her barely an hour since, and now was part of her life? or
was it a dream altogether, an invention of her fancy? His heavy foot
ground upon the gravel for two or three steps while she stood in her
amazement looking after him; and then he stopped, and turned round, and
came back. But he did not attempt to come in. She on the one side of the
white curtains, and he on the other; stood for another moment and looked
at each other, and then he cleared his throat, which was husky. ‘I am
not coming back,’ he said, ‘I have just one word to say. If there should
ever be a time when you might think,--not of me, I don’t mean of me,
for I’m a stranger as you say,--but that a man’s love and support might
be of use to you,--they say women feel that sometimes, if things don’t
go altogether as they wish,--then let me but know, hold up only your
little finger, Mary,--there! I’ve said it for once,--and I’ll come if it
were from the ends of the earth!’
And then, without another word or look, he went away.
Was this the excitement she had been wishing for, and blaming herself
for wishing? Mary ran up to her room in terror of meeting any one, with
her heart beating wildly in her breast. Here was an incident indeed, to
diversify a dull afternoon, a dull life with! She was so touched and
excited, and moved by compassion and surprise and regret, that the
effort upon her was not much less than if Hillyard’s extraordinary suit
had been that of a man to whom her heart could have responded. She sat
down and hid her face in her hands, and got rid of some of her
excitement in tears, and went over the strange scene. How strange a
scene! For all these seven years,--her best and brightest,--Mary had
never heard the voice of love. Now and then a tone of that admiration
and interest which might have come to love had just caught her ear from
the outside world, but she had been drawn back into her retirement and
the deeper tone had never followed. And now, all at once, here was
passion of such a kind as seldom startles a woman’s ears in these days.
An utter stranger an hour ago, and now,--happen what might, should she
never see the man again,--a bit of her life! Mary’s head swam, and the
world went round with her. ‘They say women feel that sometimes, if
things don’t go altogether as they wish.’ What did he mean? Had he read
in her heart more than others could? Was she one to fall into a longing
for some love and support, some awakening and current of activity in her
life, after all youthful dreams were gone? The suggestion moved Mary
with a humbling sense of her own weariness and languor, and senseless
disappointment, and longing for she knew not what. She was not one of
those women to whom somebody’s love is indispensable,--if not one, then
another. With a cheek burning with shame, and eyes hot with tears, she
rose up and went down again to her duties, such as they were.
Henceforward she was determined she should suffice to herself. This,
after the first shock of emotion, was all the effect poor Hillyard’s
sacrifice upon her altar had on Mary. That he should have seen that all
was not going altogether as she wished! After all, what better had most
women to do with their lives, than to tend a real or imaginary invalid,
to order dinners, to read newspapers, to go out every afternoon for a
drive? And she had perfect health, and a beautiful country, and plenty
of books, and all the poor people in Renton parish, to occupy her. To
think with all that, there might come a time when she would want a
man’s,--any man’s,--love and comfort! The counter-proposition, that a
man should some time in his life long to have a woman by him, does in no
way shock the delicacy of the stronger creature. But what woman is there
who would not rather die than acknowledge personally for herself that a
man is necessary to the comfort of her existence? In the abstract, it is
a different matter. Poor Hillyard! the immediate result of his
pilgrimage of love, and hopeless declaration, was to move Mary Westbury,
in a wild flame of indignation at her own unwomanliness, to the task of
contenting herself, energetically and of set purposes, with all the
monotonies of her life.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHAT IT ALL MEANT TO LAURIE.
When Laurie Renton arrived in town, he went with the story of his
family’s fortune and his own, as was natural, to the padrona, who had
now a double interest in the tale. She had already heard of it in a
letter from Alice; but such a narrative is naturally more full and
satisfactory by word of mouth.
It was in the same house, up the same stairs, in the same studio, that
Laurie sought his friend. Everything was seven years older, and the hair
growing thin on the top of Laurie’s head, and Alice the mother of
children; but neither Mrs. Severn nor her studio was much changed. She
had attained, when we saw her first, to that table-land which lies in
the centre of an innocent and healthful life, and on which Time, if he
does not stand still, moves with such equal and steady steps, that it is
difficult to trace his progress; and as many more years were probably
before her ere there would appear in the padrona any such marked signs
of the passage of years as those which had already left their stamp on
Laurie in his youth. There might be a few white threads among her hair,
at least she said there were; but for all that any one could have told,
she might have been wrapped in some enchanted sleep for all those years,
instead of working, and thinking, and sorrowing, and taking such simple
pleasures as came to her. The pleasures had been less and the sorrows
greater since Alice left her; but now Edie had grown, as everybody said,
a great girl, and the mother’s heart was stirring into life in her
development, to prepare for herself another crisis and sacrifice. It was
years now since Laurie had returned from his first self-banishment to
Italy. He had come back and he had been away again from time to time,
but he had always returned here,--‘home’ as he liked to call it,--and
for a long period there had been nothing in the character of his
feelings which made it painful to him to come. How this was he could not
tell. When he went away on that forlorn journey to Rome he had felt as
if he never could look again upon the woman whom he loved with all his
heart, but who, as nature herself indicated, could never be more to him
than a friend. She could not be his,--never,--though everything in
heaven and earth were to plead for him,--and the only thing for him to
do was to rush away from her, and bury himself and his unhappy love out
of sight for ever. These had been his feelings when he went away;--but,
somehow, they did not last. Slowly, by degrees, he and his heart came
back to her without any anguish or despair in them. When he returned,
and went half-tremblingly to see if he could bear the sight of her,
Laurie found, somewhat to his astonishment, that the sight, instead of
driving him wild with disappointed affection, soothed and consoled and
softened him as nothing else could do. Perhaps, had it been possible
that she should become any other man’s wife the sensation would have
been different; but there had long ago ceased to be any strong wish on
the matter in Laurie’s mind. The old custom of hanging about her house
came back upon him. He would come and talk to her of all his own
concerns, and of a great many of hers, by the hour together; and not of
realities only, but of fancies,--everything that came into his head.
There was the strangest transposition of ordinary rules in their
intercourse. While he lounged about, and talked and poured out all his
mind, she would be working on steadily, pausing to note her
effects,--now and then calling him into counsel on some knotty point,
responding to his thoughts, understanding him even when he but
half-uttered his meaning, giving him a certain proof of perfect sympathy
and friendship, more soft and tender than ordinary friendship,--and yet
never stopping in her work. Had they been of the same age, such a thing
of course could not have been possible; but on the vantage-ground of a
dozen additional years the woman stood calm and steadfast, and the man
too, his boyish fit of passion over, was calm. No doubt there was a
whisper at one time in the artists’ quarter that Mrs. Severn was going
to make a fool of herself and marry a man young enough to be her son.
But as time disproved that matter, the world, which after all is not
such a stupid world, but acknowledges, after due probation, the
privileges that can be safely accorded to the blameless, held its
tongue,--or only jeered innocently by times at the friendship. ‘Such
things are impracticable generally, and dangerous, you know, and all
that. It is all very well to talk of friendship; but one knows it always
falls into love on one side or the other. I really do believe an
exception ought to be made for the padrona and Laurie Renton,’ was what
was said in Fitzroy Square. And as the two took matters with perfect
composure, and never looked as if they supposed either the world or the
Square to have anything to do with it, the unusual bond between them
soon came to be considered a matter of course. It was not such a bond
that the man was always at the woman’s apron-strings. He went away,
sometimes for months together, and travelled about in that
half-professional, half-dilettante way that suited Laurie; and then he
wrote to her, and next after Alice’s, Laurie’s letters were looked for
in Mrs. Severn’s house. And I will not say that there was not now and
then just a word in them which the padrona passed over when she read
these epistles to the boys, and which made her half smile, half sigh
with a curious mingled sense of regret, and amusement, and pleasure. He
would say, when he was describing something to her, ‘If you were but
here, padrona mia, I should want no more.’ Foolish fellow! as if she
ever could be with him, as if it would not be the height of folly and
weakness, and overturn of the whole rational world and all the modesties
of nature. But yet, so long as it evaporated in a harmless sigh like
this, it hurt no one,--not Laurie, who perhaps loved his wanderings all
the better for that soft want in them; and not her, as she doubled down
the page at that point with a half-laugh. And when he came home the
first place he went to was the Square. To be sure, such a friendship put
all thoughts of marrying out of Laurie’s head, as Mrs. Suffolk, who
thought everybody should marry, sometimes deplored. ‘Unless you send him
away, padrona, he will always be just as he is. He will never think of
any other kind of life,’ she would say to her friend. ‘My dear, he has
no money to marry on,’ the padrona would say,--and so Laurie’s heart had
always found a home and every kind of support and consolation and
sympathy in Fitzroy Square.
And, to tell the truth, the money had been rather a difficult point with
him now and then. To live upon two hundred a-year when you have been
brought up a Renton of Renton, is a matter which requires a great deal
of consideration. But Laurie, fortunately for himself, had no expensive
tastes, and he painted some pictures, and, what was more remarkable,
sold some; and even found himself on the line at the Academy, thus
carrying out his highest dreams. But it did not give him the
gratification, nor cause the stir he had once anticipated. It was a
small picture, a little bit of Italian air and sunshine, and Slasher
gave it a little paragraph all to itself in the ‘Sword;’ but the people
whom he had once pictured to himself finding out his name in the
catalogue, and calling heaven and earth to witness that Laurie Renton
had done something at last, had by this time forgotten all about Laurie
Renton, or he had forgotten them, which came to the same thing. And
candidly in his soul, Laurie allowed, that had not old Welby been on the
hanging committee, probably it never would have reached ‘the line;’ and
had not Slasher been a friend of his, would never have been noticed in
the ‘Sword.’ But it sold for a hundred pounds, which was always an
advantage. The picture was called ‘Feliciello, on Tiberio,’ and was the
picture of a dark-faced Capriote guide, on one of the highest points of
his island, pointing out to a fair English girl the points in the
wonderful landscape round. It was Edie Severn, who had never been there,
with her golden hair streaming round her, who was the English girl. But
handsome Feliciello had been studied on the spot. And Mr. Rich of
Richmont,--always a great patron of the fine arts,--gave Laurie a
hundred pounds for it, and thought it one of his greatest bargains.
‘This picture has a story,’ he would say to his guests; ‘it was painted
by a gentleman, the son of one of my neighbours in the country, a man
who had never been brought up to make his living by art. It is quite a
romance; but I hear matters are settled, and that he has come into his
share of the money, and will paint no more, and I think I was very lucky
to secure this. My daughter, Lady Horsman, will tell you all about it.’
‘About the picture painted by a gentleman?’ Nelly would say, on being
questioned. ‘Most painters that I know are gentlemen. Papa means to
infer that he is not much of a painter, I suppose.’ For Lady Horsman was
not fond of the Rentons, and had never cared to cultivate their society.
‘If you get my lady on painters she’ll talk till midnight,’ Sir George
said out of his moustache. He did not know the difference between a
sign-post and a Titian, and thought the one quite as pretty as the
other; but he was the head of one of the oldest families in Christendom,
and Master of the Hounds in his county, and a great many other
grandeurs; and, so far as I know, Nelly had the full value for her fifty
thousand pounds.
This, however, is a digression a long way out of Fitzroy Square. Laurie
went to the padrona with his story, and found her still in a state of
excitement over Alice’s letter,--the second since the event,--with
something in it about Dovecote, which was the last new possibility. She
had just been taken to see it, and her letter was full of an
enthusiastic description of its beauties. ‘Think, mamma, of a lovely
little house close to Renton, with a lawn sloping to the river, and a
cow, and a pony-carriage, and I don’t know what,’ the young wife wrote
in her delight. ‘And Frank thinks he may afford himself a hunter, and
there is the sweetest honeysuckle room for Edie and you!’ The padrona,
being mother to the being upon whom this glorious prospect was opening,
was more interested at first in the Dovecote than in anything Laurie had
to say.
‘To think one has only to take the train and be with her in an
hour,--after being so far away for,--a lifetime!’ the padrona said, with
tears in her eyes.
‘Only six years,’ said Laurie; ‘but never mind; after Alice has had her
turn perhaps you will think of me.’
‘When you know I always think of you!’ said Mrs. Severn, ‘it becomes you
to be _exigeant_, Laurie! and you are not going to have a cow, and a
pony-carriage, and everything that is most delightful on the face of the
earth. Think of Alice having a cow! You are so terribly _blasé_, it does
not seem to strike you. And Edie is out, the child, so that there is no
one to be glad but me.’
‘It does not strike me at all,’ said Laurie. ‘If she had a dozen cows, I
think I could bear it. But some day I must take you to see Dovecote,
padrona, since you like it so much.’
‘I wish they had had Feliciello,’ said Mrs. Severn, ‘if one had known
you were all to be so well off,--it would have pleased Frank.’
‘Frank will like some of those vile chromos just as well,’ said Laurie.
‘I’ll buy him a few, I think. And I mean to bring Ben to see you
to-night; then you will know us all. Not that there will be any intense
gratification in that; but you’ll like Ben. He is made of different
stuff from the rest of us. There is more in him. He is not so cheeky as
Frank; and he is another sort of fellow, to be sure, from a
good-for-nothing like me.’
‘Laurie, there is something the matter,’ said the padrona, turning upon
him with her palette in her hand. She knew all his tones like the notes
in music, and heard the far-off quiver of one of his fits of despondency
already vibrating in the quiet. ‘Is not this as good for you as for the
rest?’
‘Oh, yes, quite as good,’ he said abruptly, with his eyes on her work.
‘You are putting too much yellow in that light.’
‘Am I? but that is not the question. Laurie, never mind the light, but
tell me what is wrong.’
‘I must mind the light,’ he said. ‘If I can’t put you right when you get
into a mess, what is the good of me? It’s all wrong and it’s all right,
padrona mia, and I don’t know that it matters much one way or another;
but I don’t quite like your shadows. With that tone of light they should
have more blue in them,’ he went on, gazing at the picture and shading
his eyes with his hand.
‘But it will make a great difference in your life,’ said Mrs. Severn,
putting down her tools and drawing a chair near to where he sat.
‘That is just it,’ he said; ‘it will make no difference to speak of. It
is a great thing for Ben; and for Frank, too, it will be everything. You
can see that clearly. But what difference will it make to me? More money
to spend, perhaps, and better rooms to live in; but no sort of expansion
or widening-out of life. That’s not possible, you know. It was put a
stop to once, and no change that I know of can effect it now.’
‘You cannot mean to reproach me, Laurie?’ said the padrona.
‘No,’ he said, still fixedly gazing at the picture; ‘I don’t reproach
you. Being you, perhaps you could have done nothing else. I am not
complaining of anybody; but this is how it is,--you see it for
yourself.’
‘Laurie, listen to me,’ she said, with eagerness, laying her hand on his
arm. ‘I have wanted to speak to you for long, and never liked to begin
the subject. You must make an effort to break this spell. I did not say
a word as long as you were poor,--for what could you do?--and I thought
I was always some consolation to you; but now that you have money
enough, and can make a new beginning,--Laurie, do you know, I think it
would be better for you to go away from me.’
‘What, go away again?’ he said, with a half-smile, ‘as I did when I went
to Rome? No, there is no such occasion now.’
‘Of course there is no such occasion now,--that dream has passed away,
as all dreams do,--but, Laurie, for that very reason I speak. Even what
you were so foolish as to wish then you don’t wish now.’
She made a momentary pause, but he gave no answer. It was quite true. He
was not in love with her any longer,--though she was the creature
dearest to him in the world. Nor did he any longer want to appropriate
or bind her closer to himself. He would not have admitted this change in
words, but it was true.
‘I don’t think in the least that you have ceased to care for me,’ she
continued; ‘but it is different,--it is not in that way. And you are
getting not to care much what happens. We talk over it, and come to our
conclusions; and after that, good and evil are much the same to you.
That is why I think you should go away,--not to Italy, as you did
before, but out of this neighbourhood, to some place like the one you
used to live in, and go back into the world.’
‘Why, I wonder?’ said Laurie. ‘The world and I had never much to say to
each other. And at least I have some comfort in my life here.’
‘Too much, a great deal,’ said the padrona, with a smile. ‘You know you
can always come to me, whether it is a pin that pricks, or a storm that
overtakes you. I am fond of you; and you can always reckon on my
sympathy.’
‘Always!’ said Laurie, stooping to kiss the hand she had laid on his
arm.
‘Yes; but that is not good for you,’ said Mrs. Severn, hastily
withdrawing her hand. ‘Now is the moment to preach you Helen Suffolk’s
little sermon. She says you will never marry so long as you are
constantly here.’
‘Marry!’ said Laurie, looking at her, and then turning his head away
with a half-contemptuous impatience.
‘Well, marry. Why should not I say so? If I have stood in your way,
unwillingly, unfortunately, once, why should that shut up all your life?
Laurie, if I were to ask you to reconsider all this, and make a
difference,--for my sake?’
‘I could not marry even for your sake,’ he said, turning to her with a
sudden laugh; ‘though there is no other inducement I would do so much
for. Tell me something else to do to show my devotion, and let
everything go on as it was before.’
‘Not as it was before,’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘This atmosphere might be good
enough for you when you were poor. At least, it did you no harm; but now
I want you to go back into the world.’
‘You want me to be wretched, I think,’ said Laurie. ‘I have got used to
this atmosphere, as you call it; and it suits me. But I have forgotten
all about the world. What have I done that I should be sent back among
people who have forgotten me, to mix myself up with things in which I
take no interest? Padrona, in this you do not show your usual wisdom.
Let us return to the question of the light.’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘It is because I am anxious about you that I speak.
This is such a point in your life; a new beginning,--anything you please
to make it,--and you feel yourself how hard it is to think that it will
make no difference. Laurie, what I want you to do is to break this
thread of association, and turn your back upon the past.’
He turned and looked at her as she spoke, and their eyes met;--hers
earnest and steady; his with a smile, which was full of tenderness, and
a kind of playful melancholy dawning in them. ‘But that is not what I
want you to do,’ he said, the smile growing as he met her gaze. She
turned away with a little impatient exclamation. It was not the kind of
reply she had looked for.
‘You are provoking, Laurie,’ she said. ‘You have regained the ground you
stood on seven years ago, and why should you refuse to recall the
circumstances too?’
‘And make the seven years as if they had never been?’
‘I think you might, in a great measure,’ said the padrona, with a little
flush on her cheek, ‘though you laugh. Nothing has happened in those
seven years. Yes, I grant you, you have felt some things as you never
did before, and learned a great many things. But nothing has happened,
Laurie. Nothing has occurred either to tie up your freedom in any way,
or to leave rankling recollections in your mind. There has been no fact
which could fetter you. Indeed,--for all that has come and gone,--your
life might be safer to begin anew than that of any man I know.’
‘Well, that is hard!’ said Laurie, with more energy than he had yet
shown; ‘the present is not much, the future I take no particular
interest in, and you ask me to agree that there is nothing in the past!
What has been the good of me altogether, then? Nobody will say that it
has been worth a man’s while to live in order to produce ‘Feliciello.’
Padrona, this is very poor consolation,--the poorest I ever knew you to
give.’
‘I did not mean it so, Laurie.’
‘No, you did not mean it,’ he said; ‘you did not think that the
past,--such as it is,--is all I have. Of course I might now go back to
Kensington Gore, as you tell me, or somewhere else; and go to a few
parties next season, perhaps. Fine fate! Didn’t I tell you how I used
to anticipate people finding my name in the Academy catalogue, and
standing and staring at Laurie Renton’s picture? and now I can’t, for
the life of me, remember who the people were I so thought of! That’s
encouraging for a return to old ways. Let’s say no more about it,’ said
Laurie, getting up and following his friend to her easel. ‘After all,
the boys and Edie shall have some pleasure out of the money, and then it
will not be quite lost.’
‘The boys and Edie must not get into the way of looking to you for
pleasure,’ said the padrona, quickly; ‘neither for you nor them would
that be good.’
‘There it is now!’ cried Laurie, ‘proof upon proof how little I am the
better for what has happened. You cannot work for ever, padrona; but if
I had all the gold-mines that ever were dreamt of you would not take
anything from me; and what is the good of my having it, I should like to
know?’
‘No, I would not take anything from you,’ she said, with a momentary
smile; but it was a suggestion that made her tremble in her fortitude
whenever it was made. ‘Laurie,’ she said, with a little gasp, turning to
him for sympathy, ‘when I cannot work I hope I shall die.’
‘But one cannot die when one pleases, that is the worst of it,’ said
Laurie. ‘I hope you will, padrona mia,--and I too,--and then, perhaps,
one might have a better chance for a new life.’
This was not cheerful talk for a new beginning; but the amusing thing
about Laurie, and, indeed, about the pair thus strangely united, was,
that after all this had been uttered and done with they both became
quite cheerful; and, a quarter of an hour afterwards, were planning an
expedition to Dovecote, taking Renton by the way, with all that
enjoyment of the idea of a country excursion which is so strong in the
laborious dweller in towns. The vision of gliding rivers and autumnal
trees swept over Mrs. Severn’s mind like a refreshing wind, carrying
away all the vapours. For a time, she thought no more either of that
twilight life which Laurie had chosen for himself, and of which she felt
herself partly the cause, nor of her own anxieties, but went on
painting, reducing the yellow tone in her light, and modifying her
shadows, and full of cheerful discussion of the day and the way of
going. To the moment its work or its thought; and to the next, why,
another thought, another piece of work; and so forth, as pleases God.
This blessing of temperament,--special gift of heaven to its
beloved,--belonged more or less to both. The artist-woman had it in its
perfection, which was the reason why she had got through so much hard
labour and so many struggles with eye undimmed and spirit unbroken; and
Laurie had it in a degree which had done much to lead to the
unsatisfactoriness and imperfection of his life, which is a strange
enough paradox, and yet true. For in the padrona, this power of
dismissing care and living in the hour was accompanied, as it often is,
by the strongest vitality and energy of constitution, by a natural
delight and pleasure in exertion, and by the perpetual, never absent
spur of necessity. Whereas in Laurie’s case it was associated with the
meditative, contemplative soul; the mind that is more prone to thinking
than to doing; a slower amount of life in the veins, and an existence
disengaged from necessities and responsibilities. Temperament had more
to do with the matter than had that early blunder in his life for which
the padrona never forgave herself. ‘If I had not stood in his way he
would have made a life for himself, like other men,’ she would say to
herself, with an ache in her heart, yet with that touch of tender
gratitude to the man who had it in him to pour himself out like a
libation on her path, which a woman cannot but feel, however undesired
the sacrifice may be. I am afraid to acknowledge it, but the truth is
that such a libation is very grateful to a woman. There is in it the
most exquisite, tragical, heart-rending pleasure. Not that one would not
regret it with all one’s heart and soul, and do everything that one
could, like Lancelot, to turn aside the rising passion. But even to
Lancelot was not that self-offering of the lily-maid, though he would
have given his life to prevent it, an exquisite sweetness and
sorrowfulness, a combination of the deepest pain and gratification of
which the soul is capable? Such an act raises the doer of it,--be it man
or woman,--out of the level of ordinary humanity, and envelopes the
receiver of the offering in the same maze of tenderest, most melancholy
glory. Something of this feeling the padrona had for her Laurie, who had
given her his life like a flower, without price or hope of price in this
world. And yet, I think, temperament was at the bottom of it, and the
sacrifice, and the sweetness of it, and all the subdued tones of his
existence which had followed, were more to him than the brighter
daylight colours of ordinary existence, even though he might feel the
absence of those fuller tones now and then, once in a way.
But to some extent Laurie acted upon Mrs. Severn’s advice. As luck would
have it, his old rooms at Kensington Gore, having passed through many
hands in the interval, proved to be vacant about this time. And Laurie
secured them, and fitted up all his old fittings, his carved brackets
and velvet hangings, and all the contrivances that had been so pleasant
to him; and had his bow-window once more full of flowers, and looked out
once more upon the gay park and the stream of carriages as from an
opera-box. But the ladies who looked up at his window once had passed
away and given place to others, who knew not Laurie, or had forgotten
him, and asked each other who was the man who stared so from that
window? And from Kensington Gore to Fitzroy Square is a very long walk
to be taken every day. And though, to be sure, there are plenty of
studios about Kensington, into which an amateur may drop, yet these are
grand studios, flanked by drawing-rooms, with ladies to be called upon,
and the flavour of society about. It is true that Suffolk lives in that
refined neighbourhood now, having made very rapid progress since the
days when Mr. Rich bought ‘The Angles,’ and Laurie put the studio in
order for the reception of the patron, and got cobwebs on his coat.
‘They were very nice, those old days, after all!’ Mrs. Suffolk says,
when they talk it over; but they have now a spruce man-servant,--more
spruce, though not so well instructed as old Forrester, Mr. Welby’s
man,--to move a picture that has to be moved, and open the door to the
patrons and patronesses. And Laurie for one, to whom a man-servant is
not the badge of grandeur and success which it is to Mr. Suffolk, rather
preferred, I fear, the state of things in the old days, when they all
clustered about Fitzroy Square.
But the padrona has not removed from No. 375, though she has been
tempted and plagued to do so on all sides. Frank, who would prefer to
have a mother-in-law (since such a thing he must have) in a habitable
part of the town, is very energetic as to the advantage it will be to
Edie when she grows up. And Alice recommends it with wistful eyes, as so
much nicer for the air, not liking to say a word against the home of her
youth. Mrs. Severn thinks it would be unkind to Mr. Welby to withdraw
from him; and it would cost a great deal of money; and then there would
be new carpets wanted for new rooms, and quantities of things; and, last
of all, would not it be a still greater clog upon Laurie and hindrance
to him, in the possibility of his heart disengaging itself from all the
pleasant bonds of the past? I think, however, that the thing which will
finally resolve the point will be Frank’s success in the competition for
a Foreign Office clerkship, for which he is going in. None of his people
have any doubt of his success; and, in that case, the boy may be trusted
to make his mother’s life a burden to her so long as she remains in
Fitzroy Square. But what is to be done with Mr. Welby, and Forrester, to
whom it would now be impossible to live out of sight of Edie and the
boys, and withdraw themselves from the gradually increasing authority of
the padrona, I don’t know.
Laurie’s sketch of the ‘Three Fairy Princes’ turned up out of a
packing-box when he took back his belongings to Kensington Gore; and he
hung it in the placer of honour over his mantelpiece. There anybody may
see young Frank pushing forth towards the Indian towers and minarets,
with a coronet hanging in a haze over the distant prospect; and Laurie
himself, with his goods and chattels hung about him, and his lay-figure
gazing blank over his shoulders, trudging towards the pepper-boxes of
the National Gallery; and Ben scaling the rocks, like Mr. Longfellow’s
Alpine hero, with the nymph on the summit beckoning him,--not to eternal
snows and supernatural excellence, but to Renton and the House of
Commons. Frank has not got the coronet; nor Laurie, except in the very
mildest accidental way, the glories of the Academy. But who is to tell
what is waiting for Ben? At least, there is only another chapter to do
it in, and the story is all but told.
CHAPTER XVII.
CONCLUSION.
The day of Hillyard’s visit was full of trial and excitement to Mary. To
live in a household where everything is talked of freely, with the
consciousness of having various matters of the deepest interest entirely
to yourself, is not an agreeable position in any case; and to feel
yourself thrilling through every vein with the concussion of a recent
shock, while yet you are compelled to put on the most commonplace
composure, is more trying still. Mary, however, had been used to it for
some time back, if that was any alleviation. She only had known, or
rather suspected, the ancient connexion between Ben Renton and the
beautiful Millicent. She alone had had the excitement of watching their
meeting after so long an interval. She only had understood the passage
of arms between the two; and she had witnessed their parting, which to
her was of ten-fold more interest than even the great interest which the
family had in common. And now, her spectatorship in Ben’s romance being
over, here had suddenly sprung up a romance of her own, so completely
beyond all expectation that even now she could scarcely believe it had
been real. Mary could not have betrayed Ben’s secret to any one; but had
her mother been at hand, or even had her godmother been less
pre-occupied, I doubt whether she could have kept poor Hillyard’s to
herself. For it was her own, and in the excitement of the moment she
might not have remembered that it was the man’s also, and a humiliation
to him. But, as it was, poor Mary had not the opportunity of relieving
her mind. Mrs. Westbury was away, and Alice took her share in nursing
Mrs. Renton, entering into it with a certain enjoyment of the task.
There were even moments when she thought Mary unsympathetic, and was
sorry for ‘poor grandmamma,’ bringing with her a fresh interest in the
ailments and the alleviations, such as was scarcely possible to the
nurse who had been going through it all for seven years. Mary
consequently at this extraordinary moment of her existence had lost all
her habitual quiet, and all those possibilities of communication which
had ever been open to her. She herself and her personal being was
floated away, as it were, on the current of ‘the Frank Rentons.’ They
had come into the house like an inundation, and left no room for
anything but their own cheerful beginning of life,--their arrangements,
their new house, their children, what they were going to do. The two
women who had lived there so long in the silence were carried away by
the vigorous young tide; and Mary, hiding her individual concerns in her
own mind, lived for the rest of that evening a strange, abstracted,
feverish sort of existence, like a creature in a dream, hearing the
cheerful voices round her, and the lights shining, and figures flitting
about, but only awaking to take any part in it when she was called upon
energetically to come out of her abstraction. The position altogether
was so strange that she kept asking herself which scene was real and
which was a dream;--either this was the reality,--this evening picture,
with Frank talking to his mother on the sofa, and Alice working in the
golden circle of the lamplight, and the urn bubbling, and gleams of
reflexion shining from the tea-table in the corner; or else the other
scene, with Hillyard standing sunburnt, and bearded, and impassioned,
telling her he had loved before he even saw her,--saying, if some time,
any time she should want a man’s love and support---- One thing was
certain, they could not both be real; she had been dreaming them,--or
else she was dreaming now.
Nor yet was Mary’s excitement over for the night. When the evening post
came in, a letter was brought to her, which at the first glance she saw
was in Ben’s handwriting. Well! there was nothing surprising in that. Of
course Ben would write, though she had not expected it so soon. But the
contents of the note were such as to raise to a climax her sense of
being in some feverish dream. This is what Ben said:--
‘DEAR MARY,--I want to speak half-a-dozen words to you before I go.
I have heard something to-day which has taken me very much by
surprise, and I cannot leave England without seeing you. But I
don’t want to disturb my mother with a hurried visit and another
parting. If you will be at the beech-tree on the river-walk
to-morrow morning at eight, I will come down by the first train and
meet you there. Don’t refuse me. It is of great importance. In
haste,
‘Yours, B. R.’
Mary’s head went round and round as she sat,--hearing Frank’s voice
talking all the while, and Alice pouring out the tea,--and read this
note. The question changed now, and seemed to be,--they or Ben; which
was the phantom? But the paper and the writing were very real,--so real
that she could see it had been written in excitement, and was blurred,
and betokened a scratching and uncomfortable pen, which is a thing that
no imagination would be likely to invent. When she had put the
extraordinary note away in her pocket,--fortunately she had not said out
loud, ‘Here is a letter from Ben,’ as on any other day she would have
done,--Mary’s mind went hopelessly into abstraction. She gave up the
tea-making to Alice gratefully and without an effort, though in general
she did not like her prerogatives invaded. She never uttered a word to
help on the conversation. She had to be recalled as from a distance,
when anybody spoke to her. Things had come to such a pitch that she
seemed to lose her individual consciousness altogether. To have violent
love made her one day by a man whom she scarcely knew, and to meet her
cousin Ben clandestinely the next morning by the great beech, to talk
over something of importance, which concerned only her and him, and
nobody else in the family,--the earth seemed to be going off its pivot
altogether to Mary. She felt that now nothing would surprise her. If
Mrs. Renton had suddenly proposed to her to walk to town, or Frank that
she should swim across the river, it would have seemed to her perfectly
natural. But to meet Ben by stealth at the great beech at eight o’clock!
Could she have mistaken the words? For one moment a sort of gleam of
eldritch fear came across her, and a reminiscence of the amazing manner
in which the familiar forms of the nursery arranged themselves in the
mind of little Alice in Wonderland in the story. Could it be that Ben
was to start on his long journey to-morrow by the first train, and could
the great beech be the name of the ship? Mary was so completely thrown
off her balance, that this idea actually occurred to her. And then she
felt that they must all have remarked that she had got a letter, and had
thrust it stealthily into her pocket. Altogether, the evening swam over
her somehow, she could not tell how. And then there was the stir of
Davison’s entrance, and Mrs. Renton’s going to bed. And then Frank
disappeared to smoke his cigar, and Alice, finding her companion
uncommunicative, sat down at the piano, and began to play softly to
herself, as she had been wont in the old days at home; and silence,
broken only by sounds which helped to increase all the mists, and made
her feel a safety and comfort in the retirement of her thoughts, fell
upon the quiet house.
Next morning Mary was awake and up before any one was stirring. She did
not herself think that she had slept all the night; but she was still
young enough to consider an hour or two’s wakefulness a great matter.
And she was as much afraid of Ben’s visit being found out, as if he had
been the most illegitimate of visitors. She was out soon after six,
while the grass was still quite wet with dew, and went wandering up and
down the river-walk like a ghost, under the cloistered shade of those
great trees which, as yet, let no sunshine through. There was something
in the air at that early hour which told that summer was waning, and
Mary was chilly with nervousness, which had all the effect of cold. She
went all the way down to the river-side, and basked in the sunshine
which lay full on the open bit of green bank, by way of overcoming the
shivering which had seized her. The world was so still, the birds so
noisy,--which rather heightens than impairs the stillness,--the paths so
utterly vacant and suggestive, that fancy continually caught glimpses of
something disappearing behind the trees. Now it would seem a gliding
dream-figure, now the last sweep of a robe just getting out of sight.
The ghostliness of the early morning is different, but not less
profound, than that of the night; and at six o’clock the Renton woods
were as mysterious, as dim under the great shadows of the trees, as any
enchanted wood. The sunshine went all round them, drying up the dew on
the open bank, and chasing the mists and chills of night; but the
river-walk was all brown and grey, and full of clear, mystical distances
and windings, broken by upright shafts of trees. Any one might have
appeared suddenly at such an hour in such a place. People out of books,
people out of one’s own straining fancy, people from the other world.
And though it was Ben, and no other, for whom Mary Westbury was waiting,
yet her imagination, over-excited, was ready to see anything. And she
was alarmed by every waving leaf or bough that swayed in the morning
air. If anybody should discover this tryst! If it should be known that
Ben had come in this sweet inconceivable sort of way to see her! Had he
been a tabooed lover, whose discovery would have involved all sorts of
perils, Mary could not have been more afraid.
It was half-past seven before he came,--as indeed she might have
known,--since that was the earliest moment at which any one could come
by the first train. She could see him coming for a long way, making his
way among the trees. He had not come in by any gate, but through some
illegitimate byway known to the Renton boys and the poachers, so lawless
were all the accessories of this extraordinary stealthy meeting. He came
along rapidly, making himself audible by, now and then, the sound of the
gravel sent flying by his foot, or the crackle of a fallen branch on the
path. And then he came in sight, walking very quickly, with a look of
abstraction, wrapped in his own thoughts. He was close upon the bank
before he caught sight of Mary, whose grey gown was easily lost sight of
among the branches,--then he quickened his pace, and came forward
eagerly.
‘You here,’ he said, ‘Mary? I thought I should be too early for you,’
and held out both his hands for her.
‘I was so much surprised,--so anxious to know what it was. I have been
out for nearly an hour, I think,’ said Mary. ‘I could not sleep.’
‘Did I startle you?’ said Ben. ‘Not half so much, I am sure, as I was
startled myself. But if I have made you uneasy I will never forgive
myself,’ he went on, looking closely into her face.
What could have made that difference in his look? He had always been
kind,--certainly he had always been kind,--but he had never looked at
her before in that wistful, anxious way. He had been protecting,
superior, affectionate; but such was not his expression now.
‘Oh, it does not matter!’ said Mary; ‘but, of course, since it is
something important enough to bring you from town like this,--and at
this hour---- Tell me, please, and put me out of pain.’
What he did was to draw her arm closely through his own. ‘Come this
way,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to be seen or interrupted. There is a
corner down here where we shall be quite safe. It was very good of you,
Mary, to come.’
‘Oh, Ben,’ she cried, ‘don’t talk so, you frighten me! You never were so
gentle, so soft to me before. Tell me what it is. It must be something
terrible to make you look like this. What is wrong?’
‘I don’t know if there is anything wrong,’ he said. ‘It depends upon
your feelings altogether, Mary; only I never had thought of,--anything
of the kind,--never! It came upon me like a thunder-clap. To be sure. I
might have known. You could not but be as sweet and as pleasant in the
eyes of others as you were in mine----’
‘Ben, don’t talk riddles, I entreat of you,’ said Mary. ‘I cannot make
this out to-day. A shadow would frighten me to-day. I have had too much
to bear,--too much,--‘
‘Sit down here,’ he said, tenderly; ‘you must not be frightened. There
is nothing to hurt you. It is only me that it can hurt. Mary, Hillyard
came to me yesterday, and said,--I suppose by this time you must know
what he said?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, first with a violent blush, and then growing
suddenly hot.
‘Of course, I ought to have known it,’ said Ben. ‘I used to read him
your letters, like an ass, never thinking. I was furious yesterday; I
thought it presumption and insolence. But, of course, that was nonsense.
The man is as good as I am. The fact is, I suppose I thought that no
other man but myself had any right to think of you.’
‘Ben!’ Mary cried, trembling with a sudden passion, ‘you never thought
of me! How can you say so? or what is it you would have me understand? I
feel as if you were mocking me,--and yet you would not come all this
way, surely, to mock me!’
‘Then, I did not think at all,’ he went on, without any direct answer.
‘I felt that no man had any right,--and I was a fool for thinking so.
Mary, the fact is, it ought to be you and I.’
‘What ought to be you and I?’ she faltered, lost in confusion and
amazement.
He was standing before her, not lover-like, but absorbed, pressing his
subject, and paying no special regard to her. ‘It ought to be you and I
to build up the old house. No. I cannot think any man has a right to
come in and interfere. But only just there is this one thing to be said.
Whatever is for your happiness, Mary, I will carry out with all my
might. If you should set your heart on one thing or another, it shall be
done; but still that does not affect the question,--it ought to be you
and me.’
‘For what?’ she asked again.
‘For what? Oh, for more than I can tell,’ said Ben; ‘to build up this
old house, as I told you,--to get through life. I must always have felt
it, though I did not know. And here is this fellow come in with his wild
backwoods way, and thinks he can win you off-hand. I don’t say a word if
it is for your happiness; but I know it should be you and me.’
And then there was a pause, and Ben walked up and down the little vacant
space in front of the seat he had placed her in, with his eyes bent on
the ground, and his face moody and full of trouble. As for Mary, she sat
and gazed at him, half-conscious only, worn out by excitement and
wonder, and the succession of shocks of one kind and another which she
had been receiving, but with a soft sense of infinite ease and
consolation stealing over her confused heart. It was that relief from
pain which feels to the sufferer like positive blindness. She had not
even known how deep the pain in her was until she felt it stealing in
upon her,--this ineffable ease and freedom from it, which is more sweet
than actual joy.
‘Ben,’ she said at last, when she could get breath. ‘It is very
difficult for me to follow you, and you confuse me so that I don’t know.
But, about Mr. Hillyard you are all wrong. I never saw him till Monday.
I never thought about him at all. I was very sorry. But it is not as if
I could blame myself. I was not to blame.’
‘To blame! How could you be to blame?’ said Ben, and he came and stood
before her again, gazing at her with that strange look which Mary did
not recognise in him, and could not meet.
‘I should never have mentioned it to any one,’ she said. ‘I would not
now, though you question me so. But only it is best you should not have
anything on your mind. Is,--that,--all?’
It was not coquetry which suggested the question; it was her reason that
began utterly to fail her. She did not seem to know what it was he had
said besides,--though he had said something.
‘Ah!’ he cried vehemently, and then paused and subdued himself, ‘all
except my answer, Mary,’ he said, softly stooping over her.
‘Your answer? You have not asked me anything. Oh, Ben,’ she cried,
suddenly getting up from her seat, with her cheeks burning and her eyes
wet, ‘let there be no more of this. It was all the feeling of the
moment. You thought something had happened which never, never could
happen, and you felt a momentary grudge. Don’t tell me it was anything
else. Do you think I forget what you told me once up at the beech about
her?’ Mary cried, waving her hand towards The Willows. ‘You did not mean
to tell me; but I knew. And the other day---- When you say this sort of
thing to me it is unkind of you; it is disrespectful to me. I have my
pride like other women. Let us speak no more of it, but say good-bye,
and I shall go home.’
‘Then you do not even think me worthy of an answer?’ said Ben; and the
two stood confronting each other in that supreme duel and conflict of
the two existences about to become one, which never loses its interest;
she flushed, excited, suspicious; he steadily keeping to his point,
refusing to be led away from it. And why Mary should have resisted,
standing thus wildly at bay,--and why, when she could stand no longer,
she should have sunk down on the seat from which she had risen, in a
passion of tears, is more than I can tell. But that finally Ben did get
his answer, and that it was, as anybody must have foreseen, eminently
satisfactory to him at last, is a matter about which there can be no
doubt. I do not know even whether he offered any explanations, or
justified himself in the matter of Millicent. I am inclined to think,
indeed, that at that moment he took no notice of it whatever; but only
insisted on that reply, which, when nature was worn out and could stand
against it no longer, came. But the victor did go into certain
particulars, as with Mary’s arm drawn closely through his he led her
again up that bank which, in so much excitement and uncertainty,
half-an-hour before he had led her down.
‘I can’t tell you the fright I was in yesterday,’ he said. ‘It suddenly
flashed upon me in a moment how mad I had been. To leave you here so
long, open to any assault, and to be such an ass as to bring a man down
who had eyes in his head, and was not an idiot?’
‘I wish you would not swear,’ said Mary. ‘The strange thing is that you
should like me, and yet think me of so small account that any man,--a
man I had only known for three days----’
‘Hush!’ he said, drawing her to him. ‘When a man’s eyes are opened first
to the thought that another man has gone off express to rob him of his
jewel, do you think he pauses to be reasonable?’ and then they looked at
each other and were silent, there being more expression in that than in
speech.
‘But the jewel was no jewel till yesterday,’ said Mary, making the kind
of objection which women love to make, ‘and who knows but it may be
paste to-morrow?’
‘My dear,’ said Ben, ‘my only woman in the world! might not a man have
been beguiled to follow a Will-o’-the-wisp till he cursed and hated
such lights, and chose darkness instead,--and then all at once wake up
to see that his moon had risen, and that the night was safe and sweet as
day?’
I suppose it was the only bit of poetry which Ben Renton was ever guilty
of in his life; and it was perfectly successful. And they went on and
continued their walk to the beech-tree. Mary’s eyes were blind with
sweet tears; but then, what did it matter? was not he there to be eyes
to her, through the winding of the tender morning path? And as they
reached the trees, the sunshine burst into the wood all at once with
something like a shout of triumph. If it was not a shout, it came to
precisely the same thing, and caught a branch here and a twig there, and
made it into burnished gold, and lit up the far distance and cloistered
shade into all the joyous animation and moving stir of life.
‘Must you go now?’ Mary said, clinging to him a little closer, ‘must it
still be secret? is no one to see you now?’
‘I must still go away,’ he said, ‘no help for that, Mary; but in the
meantime I am going home with you to tell them all about it. I shall
still catch my ship if I go by the next train.’
He was received with subdued consternation by the household, which
jumped instantly to the conclusion that something had happened; but
there is an instinct in the domestic mind which is almost infallible in
such matters; and before Mrs. Renton had even been told of the
unexpected arrival of her son, Davison had said to the housekeeper,
‘He’s come down at the last to settle it all with Miss Mary. Now didn’t
I tell you?’ and Willis had recorded his opinion that, on the whole,
there wasn’t nothing to say again it. ‘A little bit of money never comes
amiss,’ he said; ‘but she was used bad in the will, never to have no
compensation. And, on the whole, I agrees with Ben.’
Such was the decision of the house, conveyed in language, kind, if
familiar, just five minutes after the entry by the window into the
dining-room, where the breakfast-table was prepared for the family, of
the betrothed pair. Mary’s gown was wet with the dew, and she ran
up-stairs to change it, leaving Ben alone to receive the greetings of
his brothers, who appeared at the same moment. ‘I thought you couldn’t
resist coming down again, old fellow, before you left for good,’ Frank
said in her hearing, as she rushed to the covert and sanctuary of her
own room. He was not so discriminating as the intelligent community
below stairs.
And then, in that strange golden forenoon, which seemed at the same time
one hasty moment and a long day, full of events, Mrs. Renton, amazed,
found her son again stooping over her, and received the astonishing
news. It was some time before she could take it in. ‘What,’ she said,
‘Mary? I will never believe it is Mary. You are making fun of me, Ben.’
‘It is a great deal better than fun, mother,’ he said. ‘I could not go
till it was settled; and now there is only ten minutes or so to kiss us
and bless us, and thank me for giving you such a daughter. She has been
a daughter to you already for so long.’
‘Of course she has,’ said the bewildered woman. ‘Mary! it’s like your
sister. I can’t think it’s quite right, do you know, Ben. I should as
soon have thought of you marrying Alice, or----’
‘Frank might object to that, my dear mother,’ said Ben.
‘But, Mary--you are sure you are not making one of your jokes? And after
all, I can’t think what you see in her, Ben,’ Mrs. Renton said, with a
little eagerness. ‘She was never very pretty,--not like that beautiful
Mrs. Rich, you know, or those sort of women,--and not even very young.
She must be seven-and-twenty, if she is a day. Let me see, Frank was
born in July, and she in the December after. She will be
seven-and-twenty on her next birthday. And nothing to make up for it----
’
‘Except that there is nobody else in the world,’ said Ben, smiling at
Mary, who had just come into the room.
‘Nobody else in the world! I don’t know what you mean. Not to say a word
against Mary, but you might have done a great deal better, Ben.’
‘And so he might, godmamma,’ said Mary, with the gravity of happiness,
though Ben had her hand in his.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, in perfect good faith, ‘a great deal
better. You always have the sense to see things. If I were you, I would
reflect a little longer before I announced it, or did anything more in
the matter, Ben.’
The answer Ben made to this proposal was to draw his betrothed close to
his mother’s bedside within his own supporting arms. ‘Give her a kiss,
mamma, and say God bless you,’ he said, bending down his own face close
to Mary’s. And the mother, quite confused and bewildered, did as she was
told, crying a little, and not knowing what to think. And before any one
knew, Ben was gone again, off by express to join the steamer which
sailed from Liverpool that night. He had just time; everything belonging
to him having gone on before with poor Hillyard, who knew nothing about
this morning’s expedition. And before noon the episode was all over, and
the Frank Rentons once more in the foreground, and Mary reading the
newspaper as if such a wild inroad of romance into the midst of reality
had never been.
‘My dear, it is not that I am not as fond of you,--fonder of you than of
anybody,’ Mrs. Renton said, when poor Mary, for one moment, owing to a
paragraph about a shipwreck, fairly broke down; ‘but it does not seem
somehow as if it were quite proper. And we can’t shut our eyes to it
that he might have done better. It feels as if there was never to be
any satisfaction in the boys’ marriages. I had a fortune of my own, and
so had your grandmother; but everything now is going to sixes and
sevens----’
‘Don’t say anything more about it, godmamma,’ said Mary, with an
outburst of pent-up agitation, and the nervous panic that seizes a
weakened mind. ‘Oh, how can we tell what may happen in the meantime? Let
us say nothing more till he comes home.’
‘Well, to be sure, he might change his mind,’ said Mrs. Renton, as
Davison came in with her arrowroot. And for half-an-hour or so that
satisfactory conclusion, and the adding of another teaspoonful of port,
on account of the excitement she had been going through, put a stop to
the conversation, and gave Mary time to draw breath in peace.
But if the reader of this history hopes to be humoured by a shipwreck at
this late period of the narrative, it is a vain expectation. The winds
blew, and the sea rose, but Ben Renton got safely out to Canada, and
came safely home. I am sorry to have to say that his last great piece of
work did not pay nearly so well as he had expected it to do; and the
business, which he made over to Hillyard, was, owing to the state of the
colony at that moment, of less value than had been anticipated; but at
the same time patience alone was wanted to realise all possible hopes. I
have been obliged to ask the reader to take Ben’s success for granted
all along, as it would have been simply impossible to introduce details
of engineering enterprise into a work of this description; and, indeed,
to tell the truth, I fear I should not have sufficiently understood them
to set them forth with any distinctness. But whether Hillyard will have
patience, and keep up the energy which Ben put into the business, is a
very doubtful matter; and it is just as likely as not that he may turn
up again at the old club, which is the only luxury he keeps up, as
rough, as _insouciant_, as careless what becomes of him, as on the first
day Ben met him, after the weird of the Rentons had begun. Mary might
have made another man of him perhaps; but who knows? Temperament is
stronger than circumstance,--stronger than fortune,--stronger even than
love.
Ben Renton came home, as I have said, as safely as most men come home
from Canada. And everything occurred as it ought to have occurred. I
would add that they lived happy ever after, if there had been time to
make such a record. But the fact is, that it is too early yet to be
historical on that point; and for anything anybody can tell, the Rentons
may yet come to be very wretched, and give occasion for other chapters
of history; though, in common with all their friends, I sincerely hope
not. Benedict Renton of Renton stood for the county of Berks, in the
late election, with politics perhaps slightly tinged by his life in the
other world, but failed by a few votes, notwithstanding the interest
attaching to him,--Berks, like many other counties, being of the opinion
that a good, steady, reliable bumpkin, who will do whatever he is told,
is a more satisfactory legislator than a man who has spent his youth in
objectionable exercises, such as writing, and thinking, and moving about
the world. Frank Renton, true soldier and constitutional Tory, is one of
those who hold this opinion. But I do not despair of seeing Ben in
Parliament yet.
And thus the story ends; being like all stories, no history of life, but
only of a bit out of life,--the most amiable bit, the section of
existence which the world has accepted as its conventional type of life,
leaving all the profounder glooms and the higher lights apart. As in
heaven there can be no story-telling of the present, for happiness has
no story,--there, perhaps, for the first time, the mouth of the minstrel
may be opened to say or sing what is untellable by the frankest voice on
earth. But till then we must be content to break off after the fairy
chapter of life’s beginning, the history of Youth.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN, Castle St. Leicester Sq.
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