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!’