more than she ought, and I don’t hold with excitement. If you and Mr.
Ben was to go out for a walk now,--or something as would take him off
his poor dear mamma,’ said the careful nurse, lowering her voice. Ben
was too much for his mother. After seven years of soft, feminine
glidings about her room, softened voices, perpetual consideration of her
ailments, this ‘man in the house,’ thought pleasant at first, was too
much for her powers. ‘And I don’t know how we’ll ever do when they’re
all here,’ the faithful Davison murmured to herself, as she sprinkled
eau-de-Cologne about the pillows, and mixed some port with the
arrowroot. And Ben was banished forthwith from the room. ‘He is very
nice at dinner, my dear,’ Mrs. Renton herself said, ‘but men never
understand. And they should always have something to do, Mary. They are
never happy without something to do.’
‘But poor Ben, this is his first day at home!’ said Mary, when she had
read all about the burglary, and calmed the patient down.
‘But, my dear, they are always wretched themselves,’ said Mrs. Renton,
‘when they are quite unoccupied. You must find him something to do.’
Thus it will be seen that Mary’s labours were not much lightened by the
arrival of the eldest son. When she went down-stairs after her
newspaper-reading, she found him in the library yawning somewhat over a
book. ‘Come and talk,’ he said, setting a chair for her; and then
laughed a little over his unsuitableness in the hushed and soft-toned
house.
‘It is because you have been so long away,’ said Mary. ‘You have gone
off on one current, and we on another. I suppose it is always so when
people are long parted. Is it not sad?’
‘I don’t think that it ought to be so,’ said Ben.
‘And Laurie has his current, too,--quite different. I should like to
find out about Laurie. It is he I know least about,’ said Mary, with a
little sigh.
And then Ben smiled. ‘I should like to hear,’ he said, ‘what you know
about me?’
What did she know about him? Nothing,--and yet everything, Mary thought.
‘Sometimes one divines,’ she said.
‘And sometimes one divines all wrong,’ said Ben.
Then there followed a pause. It was a very exciting game of fence so far
as she was concerned. But she felt instinctively it was not safe to keep
it up.
‘Godmamma will not come down to luncheon,’ she said, ‘but in the evening
I hope she will be all right again. And when Alice is here and the
children they will be a great help. Alice is not clever, you know, but
she harmonises things somehow. I wonder if it is because she is
musical.’
‘You harmonise things, too, and you are not particularly musical,’ said
Ben.
‘Oh, me!’ Mary turned away, not caring to discuss that subject. He was
always so nice to her,--so frank and affectionate. ‘If he were to marry
Ruth Escott now, or Helen Cookesley, how nice it would be to be a sister
to her!’ Mary thought! but Millicent! Could he be thinking of Millicent
now? He had got up from his chair, and was looking out with a certain
wistfulness--or at least what would have been wistfulness in a woman,
who has always to wait for any one she particularly wishes to see. A man
can go forth and seek, and has no call to be wistful; but then it was
only according to feminine rules that Mary, so long unaccustomed to
anything else, could form her thoughts.
‘I have ordered up a boat from Cookesley,’ he said; ‘and remember, I
mean to row you to the Swan’s Nest this afternoon. It is clearing up----
’ for it had become cloudy, and rain had fallen during that period of
newspaper-reading in Mrs. Renton’s room. And then Ben went out abruptly
and left her. He stood upon no sort of ceremony, as if she were anything
but his natural sister, but went away without any explanation. Going to
the Swan’s Nest it would be necessary to pass The Willows; and at this
moment he was taking the path to the river. Could he be going the very
first morning to lay himself again at the syren’s feet? Could it be the
mere pleasure of passing her house, being in the neighbourhood, that
moved him? Mary, without pausing to think, flew up-stairs,--up beyond
the servants’ floor to a little turret-room which commanded a view of
the river. And when she had waited long enough to recover her breath,
there, sure enough, was a boat shooting out from the green bank at
Renton with one figure in it, which must be Ben. And the course he took
was up the river. She covered her face for a moment when she saw it, and
a hot, sudden tear brimmed just over, wetting her eyelashes. Mo more.
Was it her business that she should weep over Ben’s folly? No man can
redeem his brother, much less any woman, alas! However dreadful it might
be, the man must go his own way.
Mrs. Renton rallied sufficiently that afternoon to go for her drive, and
Mary’s services were wanted accordingly. But when she had got through
that duty, there was still time for the Swan’s Nest, to which she had
been looking forward with an excitement which was almost feverish. Ben
was waiting for them at the door. He took his mother up to her room,
subduing his big pace as best he could to quietness, and put her into
Davison’s hands for her rest before dinner. It was an arrangement very
grateful to all parties. While Mrs. Renton was taking her favourite
refreshment and being comfortably tucked up on her sofa, the young
people were making their way down to the bank with something of the
gaiety of former days. ‘I once beat you, Ben, running down,’ Mary said,
for a moment forgetting The Willows and all that was involved in it. ‘I
defy you to beat me now,’ her cousin said, and Mary’s heart for one
moment felt so light that she made a woman’s wild dash down one wind of
the path, and stopped short breathless, catching at the great beech to
support her. But between the branches of the beech Mary saw a sight
which quickly sobered her. Could it be by previous arrangement, or was
it by chance? A boat lay at the little steps before The Willows, and
some one,--there could be no difficulty in guessing whom,--was getting
into it. Mary’s heart sank away down to the lowest depths,--a sudden
sickness of the light, and the brightness, and the river, and the day,
came over her. She turned even from Ben, feeling sick of him too. A
certain contempt of him rose up in her tender soul. Yes; there are many
pangs in the sensation with which a woman recognises that another less
worthy is preferred to herself; but not the least penetrating is that
instinctive, involuntary contempt. He had gone and arranged with
Millicent no doubt, and then he thought to please all parties by taking
her, Mary, to meet the woman he loved. Ben, for his part, with the
stupidity of a male creature, saw that some shadow had come over her,
and thought she had struck her foot in her rapid descent against the
roots of the beech. ‘Ah, you should not have gone in for it,’ he said in
not triumph, but sympathy;--‘take my arm. I hope you have not twisted
your foot.’ I twisted her foot!--when it was he who wrung her heart!
But to be sure, Mary did not wish him to divine what was her real
ailment; and it was so like a man! But the laughter and the fun were
over. The two descended soberly to the river-side and got into the boat.
And Mary gathered the cords of the little rudder into her hands, and Ben
took up the sculls. They were face to face, and it was difficult for one
to hide from the other what emotions might rise or what change come over
them. ‘I am afraid you have hurt your foot badly,--you look quite pale,’
Ben said, bending forward to her with absolute anxiety. ‘Oh, no, I am
all right,’ Mary replied, saying in her heart, What fools men are! How
stupid they must be!--a threadbare sentiment which does not bear
expression. And then she cried, ‘Remember I am strong,’ with a certain
gleam of wicked glee. She could run him into the weeds if he showed too
much interest in that other boat. She could keep him out of speaking
distance to baulk Millicent’s wiles, or she could run into them to give
her a fright. Mary began to feel herself when she pulled that cord which
put some power into her hands, and saw the little skiff turn and dart
about at her will from one side to another. ‘Take care what you are
doing,’ cried Ben in dismay, thinking his coxswain had lost her wits;
but she was only getting possession of them, and beginning to remember
that there was no need to be passive, and that she, too, had arms in her
hands.
And for a little they shot silently, vigorously, each attending to his
work, up the shining river. Mary could not speak, and Ben did not, being
moved by a thousand associations. The first break in the silence was
made by voices not their own, coming from the boat which Mary kept her
eye on with the fixedness of enmity. Distant sounds of conversation and
laughter came first, at which Ben pricked up his ears. ‘Don’t run into
any one,’ he said. ‘I hear voices;--there is somebody coming, and I hope
you are keeping a look-out ahead----’
‘You need not fear for me,--I see them,’ said Mary, with emphasis, and
he made no sign as if he knew what she meant, but kept on rowing so
quietly that he either did not know who was coming, or thought she was a
most accomplished hypocrite. On the contrary, he too began to talk
softly like a man absorbed in thoughts and preoccupations of his own.
‘The last time you and I were here together was one of my last days in
England,’ he said;--do you remember? I was full of my own affairs, and
indifferent to everything; and, good life, what a fool I was!’ he added
to himself,--and then paused and sighed. Mary, for her part, saw all,
noted all, and in her rashness felt anxious to test his meaning.
‘You made me very curious,’ she said; ‘I was so anxious to know what
you meant----’ And there was no telling how much further she might have
gone had not the other boat suddenly glanced alongside, and some one
called her by her name. Some one! Millicent, looking more lovely than
she had ever seen her, she thought, with a scarlet cloak lightly thrown
over her black dress, lying back upon the cushions, holding gingerly in
her hands the steering cords.
‘Mary!’ Millicent called, softly,--‘is it you? Oh, I am sure one of your
cousins must have come home! Stop and tell me! What a happy thing for
Mrs. Renton! And are not you all in the seventh heaven?’
The picture was one which neither of the cousins ever forgot. She was in
the full bloom of her beauty, increased rather than diminished, by the
severity of her mourning dress. The river sparkled like a mirror all
round the gay little painted boat in which she reclined. An unusual
flush of colour was on her cheek, and the young Guardsman who was rowing
her gazed with eyes of worship on the lovely creature. No doubt she was
excited. It seemed to Mary that even the boy who was with her was part
of a plan, the _mise en scène_ which she had perfected for Ben’s sake;
and that her cheek was flushed with the excitement of the meeting and
with her unusual anxiety that success might follow. For the first time
for seven years Ben and she looked each other in the face. The
Guardsman had run the other boat so close that she was almost as near to
him as Mary was, confronting him, in a position in which she could watch
his face and all its changes. When he looked up her eye was upon him. It
was the most curious meeting for those two, who had parted so
differently. Was it possible she had forgotten how they parted? She
looked at him with an unabashed, smiling, gracious countenance, while
Ben, with some agitation, took off his hat.
‘Is it Mr. Ben Renton?’ Millicent said, softly. And Mary, looking on,
saw the colour flash all over Ben’s face at the sound of her voice.
Then, in her heart, his cousin acquitted him of having arranged this
interruption. On the contrary, he was so moved by it that he did not
seem capable of finding his voice.
‘Mr. Renton, Mrs. Henry Rich,’ Mary said, mechanically, attempting an
introduction, though she knew how unnecessary that was.
‘Ah, we have met before!’ said Millicent. ‘Did I not tell you, Mary? We
used to know each other, though your cousin seems to have forgotten me;
but, to be sure, I had then a different name.’
‘No, I have not forgotten,’ said Ben; ‘that would be difficult under any
name.’
And then there was a dead pause. Millicent put her arm over the edge of
the boat and dipped her pretty hand into the water. She had a certain
air of embarrassment, either real or assumed; and Ben looked at her with
a curious openness and fixedness of gaze. ‘You have just come?’ she said
at last, not raising her eyes.
‘Just come,’ said Ben; ‘and only for a few days.’
Then Millicent’s eyes rose, and turned to him curiously; and Mary, too,
bewildered, gave him a frightened, anxious look. There was a whole drama
in their glances, and yet the words were very constrained and very few
which passed between them. ‘So soon?’ Millicent said, with a surprised,
half-sorrowful tone.
‘So soon!’ he repeated, with a kind of decision, always looking at her,
till Mary, hard-hearted as she thought herself, felt that he was
uncivil, and was moved to interfere; but Millicent bore it bravely
enough. Her colour grew higher, her composure was a little shaken, but
yet she did not betray any symptoms of mortification or fear.
‘My mother would be glad to see you before you go,’ she said, faltering
slightly. ‘We cannot forget our obligations to you,--though perhaps you
have forgotten;’ and then she tried another half-supplicating, anxious
look.
‘I have forgotten nothing,’ said Ben. ‘We Rentons have extraordinary
memories. I will call on Mrs. Tracy if I can before we go.’
‘Then I will not detain you longer,’ Millicent said, with a look of
relief. ‘What a pleasure it must be to you, Mary, to have your cousin to
row you about! I am quite grateful to Mr. Horsman, who is so good as to
bring me out. How delicious the river is, to be sure! Mr. Renton, it was
you who used to tell me of it--first.’
‘Then I am glad to have added something to your pleasures,’ said Ben. He
had adjusted his sculls, and did not manifest the least inclination to
stay longer. On the contrary, Mary felt that he was anxious to go on, to
get clear of this interruption. And not less anxious was the young
Guardsman,--almost a boy,--who had taken his hat off sulkily, and waited
his orders with eagerness. Millicent was the only one of the four who
had any desire to linger. She gave Ben another long, searching look, to
which he made no response, being busy, or appearing to be busy, with his
sculls; and then she gave a little nod to her waterman.
‘I dare say we shall meet again,’ she said, gaily, ‘unless you are going
a very long way;--_au revoir_.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Mary. And in another moment, with one pull of the
steerage and one sweep of the oars, the Renton boat had shot wide of the
other, darting off to one side with a nervous motion, for which Mary
alone was responsible. Ben made no remark, which was symptom enough of
his agitation too. Had he been as calm as he affected to be, Mary knew
well that her illegitimate energy would not have passed without remark.
And they went up the river for some time at a tremendous pace, devoting
themselves to their work with the energy of professional people. Mary
steered beautifully all the way to the Swan’s Nest. She steered as if
her life depended on it, keeping the due course in every turn, avoiding,
as she ought, the side where the current was strongest, which a
steerswoman seldom remembers to do, and in every way justifying the old
training which had been disused so long. And scarcely a word was spoken
between them until they reached the end of their expedition. It was a
sheltered little elbow of the river, a very bed of water-lilies in the
season. And the green leaves still spread all round like a thick carpet
upon the water. Then Ben took breath for the first time. He lay upon his
oars and wiped his forehead, and drew a long breath. ‘That was hard
work,’ he said, with a sigh. But which it was that was hard
work,--whether the encounter with Millicent, or their long, breathless
sweep against the current, Mary could not tell.
CHAPTER X.
AUNT LYDIA.
‘Let us run to the Cottage for five minutes, and see mamma,’ said Mary,
as they made their way back. ‘Fancy, Ben, she does not know you have
come home!’
‘Shall we have time?’ Ben asked, making for the bank as he spoke. The
path that led to the Cottage struck off from the river-side above The
Willows. And it was always gaining time to make this little diversion.
He had been so silent, saying nothing,--and a sense of disappointment
had crept over Mary after the intense sympathy with which she felt she
had been entering into all his thoughts.
But when he thrust the boat into the flowery bank, and helped her to
jump out, Ben replied to her, though she had said nothing. ‘You are
quite right,’ he said. ‘It is best in every way not to meet them again.’
‘Ben! I did not say a word----’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘you did not, and it was very, very kind of you,
Mary. I am more obliged to you than I can say. There are some things
which it is impossible to talk about. I thank you with all my heart.’
What did this mean? Mary was accustomed to a great deal of talk about
everything,--more talk than meaning, indeed. And she was a little
bewildered by this absence of all explanation. She would have been
comforted had he opened up a little and told her how it all was. But she
submitted, of course, concluding it was his mannish, unsatisfactory way.
And as they went hurriedly up the lane, in the kindness of her heart she
slid her hand through Ben’s arm. It was the softest, kindly touch, such
as his sister’s hand might have given. Was not she his sister, nearer to
him than any one else, and, little as she did understand, yet knowing
more of what was in his heart,--she thought,--than any other creature in
the world?
And Ben was not indifferent to that mute token of sympathy. He drew the
timid hand closely through his arm. ‘My good little Mary!’ he said; but
even then he said no more. No explanation came, whatever she might do or
say, which was hard, but had to be borne.
And this is how it was that Mrs. Westbury, to her very great amazement,
saw her daughter and Ben Renton approaching the Cottage
arm-in-arm,--‘like an engaged couple,’ she said afterwards,--which gave
her a curious thrill of admiration and satisfaction at the first
glance. When her nephew came up to her, however, nature prevailed, and
the recollection of her own agency, which nobody but herself believed
in, in sending all the boys away.
‘Ben!’ she cried, and then kissed him, and held both his hands, and shed
some tears of surprise and joy, ‘I am so glad to see you! I cannot tell
how glad I am to see you! Have you all come home?’
‘Only I,’ said Ben; ‘but the others are coming, and Mary and I have come
to fetch you, Aunt Lydia, to dine with my mother. She does not
understand my noise and uncouthness, after the long spell of quiet she
has had. After dinner Mary and I will bring you back.’
‘Mary and you seem to be--full of business,’ said Mrs. Westbury, more
and more astonished. She had intended to end her sentence differently,
but had met Mary’s eye, and paused, not quite knowing what to make of
it. But she went up-stairs for her best cap, calling her daughter with
her. ‘What is the meaning of all this, Mary?’ she said. ‘What does Ben
mean by it? For my part, I cannot tell what to think.’
‘About what, mamma?’ said Mary; but there was a little flutter in her
heart which belied her composure. ‘Ben has come home, as you see, and he
came to see you, as he ought to do, and he wants you to go to dinner. I
think it is all very visible what he means.’
‘It does not seem to me at all plain,’ said Mrs. Westbury; but then she
put her hand into her wardrobe to get out her cap, and decided that it
was best not to spoil sport by any premature remarks. It was startling
to see Mary leaning so confidentially on her cousin’s arm. And Ben’s
talk of ‘Mary and I’ was very peculiar; and if the will was all right,
such an arrangement would be a most sensible, most admirable one. But if
things were going on so well of their own accord, it might be best to
let them alone, and suffer the affair to take its own course. When she
found herself walking down to the river a quarter of an hour afterwards,
with a maid behind carrying her cap, and Ben and Mary on each side of
her, Mrs. Westbury freely expressed her surprise at the whole business.
‘I was just going to have tea,’ she cried. ‘One can’t dine late when one
is alone, and Laurence has gone over to Cookesley to see some of his
friends. I never thought of seeing any of you, nor of Ben at all, though
I knew he was expected. And now to find myself on my way to Renton!
Laurence will be struck dumb when he comes home.’
‘So Laurence is a parson now,’ said Ben. ‘How droll it will be to see
him so! but pleasant for you. You can keep hold of a parson and keep
him at home.’
‘Yes. I expect you to give him Renton, you know, Ben, when old Mr.
Palliser dies.’
‘Well, I suppose one of us is sure to have Renton to give,’ said Ben;
‘so that Laurence will be safe anyhow. But I have no confidence that it
will be me.’
‘It must be you,’ said Mrs. Westbury, indignantly. And then there came a
pause, and she was helped into the boat. ‘Who are those new people at
The Willows?’ she said, as she settled herself. ‘That is their boat;
they are always on the water. They say she is a young widow; but I don’t
think that is much like a widow. Somebody told me you knew them, Mary.
Was it yourself?’
‘She was at Thorny croft at school for a little,’ said Mary, giving her
mother a look. The look put a stop to the conversation; but it had to be
explained afterwards, which was done somewhat at the expense of truth.
The Willows’ boat had been drawn close to the bank before they passed,
and Mary was less particular in steering wide of it. Millicent stood on
the lawn, having just landed, with her scarlet cloak dropping off her
shoulders, and waved her hand to them. ‘Good-night! How pleasant it has
been!’ she cried, her voice falling softly through the summer air, still
full of the slanting sunshine. ‘Good-night!’ Mary cried across the
water. Ben never said a word; he did not even pause in the slow,
vigorous, regular stroke which made the boat fly down the shining
current. They were yards below The Willows before Millicent had finished
speaking her two or three words. “Was he afraid?--was he indifferent?
And while Mary’s mind was busy about this question, Aunt Lydia was
forming her little theories of a very different kind. When a young man
passes by a very pretty woman without so much as raising his head, it
means,--what does it mean?--that some one else has secured his
attention, and taken up all his thoughts. Mrs. Westbury felt as if
Providence itself was heaping coals of fire on her head. She it was who
had brought about the banishment of the boys, and yet no sooner had the
first of them come home than he set about fulfilling her dearest wish.
But no doubt it was for Mary’s sake. Mary, who had never harmed any one,
who had helped and served everybody from her cradle. How bright she had
become all at once!--how she had learned to chatter like the rest! It
seemed curious to Mrs. Westbury that an important event should be coming
about in her child’s life in which she herself had not been the chief
actor,--especially that Mary should have had the sense to acquire for
herself an eligible lover without any assistance. Ben did not look very
much like a lover it is true, but Aunt Lydia was aware that a man in
such a position is not always possessed with an insane delight, but
often has a great deal to think of. She, too, was silent with the stress
of her own thoughts. It was Mary who entertained them,--talking as she
had never been heard to talk before,--full of wild spirits and fun. Her
mother, who knew nothing of the story, did not perceive that Mary’s
gaiety came on suddenly after they passed The Willows, nor that her eyes
had the humid and dilated look which signifies emotion. One finds things
out so much more readily when one has an inkling of the _fin mot_ of the
enigma. Mrs. Westbury did not even know there was an enigma to solve,
and set down her daughter’s high spirits to what seemed to her the most
natural and the most likely cause.
‘I congratulate you, my dear, upon having Ben back again,’ she said to
Mrs. Renton as she kissed her. They were not very fond of each other,
the two ladies; but yet, by dint of connexion and contiguity, had come
to a certain habit of mutual dependence, though the support was chiefly
on one side.
‘Yes,’ Mrs. Renton said, with an under-tone which was slightly
querulous. ‘He is a very good boy; but a stranger in the house makes
such a difference in one’s life.’
‘You don’t call Ben a stranger, poor fellow! And he is so nice. It is
quite a pleasure to see him back,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I thought you
would have been out of your wits with joy.’
‘And so I am,’ said Ben’s mother, with a little indignation; ‘but there
is nobody that has any real consideration for my weakness except Mary.
She knows just how much I am able to bear. I suppose it is difficult for
people in health to realise how weak I am.’
‘Well, my dear, you know I always said that if you would but make an
effort to exert yourself it would do all the good in the world,’ said
Mrs. Westbury; and then she went up-stairs to put on her cap. ‘I have no
patience with your aunt,’ she said to Mary,--‘thinking of her own little
bits of ailments, half of which are mere indulgence, when her poor boy
has just come home.’
‘Poor godmamma! I don’t think she can help it,’ said Mary.
‘Nonsense, child! I have said to her from the first that she ought to
make an effort. How do you think I should ever have managed had I given
in? And now tell me, please, what you meant by looking at me so, twice
over, when I was speaking to Ben.’
‘I did not want you to talk about Mrs. Rich,’ said Mary, turning away as
the exigencies of her own toilette required. ‘He used to know her, and
I was afraid you might say something----’
‘You might have left that to my own discretion,’ said Mrs. Westbury,
with some offence.
‘But, dear mamma, how could your discretion serve when you did not
know?’ said Mary. ‘And, poor fellow! he is so,--so----’
‘So very devoted to some one else that he could not even take the
trouble to look at Mrs. Rich,--such a pretty woman, too!’ said Mrs.
Westbury. ‘It seems to me, my dear, that you have made the very most of
your time.’
‘Oh, mamma, how dreadful that you should say so!’ cried Mary, turning
round again with flaming, crimson cheeks. ‘Surely, surely, you know me
better! And Ben, poor fellow! has so much to think of. Nothing could be
further from his mind. I have been their sister all their lives; it
would be hard if I could not try to be a little comfort to him now.’
‘My dear, if he needs comfort, I am sure I have no objection,’ said Mrs.
Westbury, with a smile; and just then Mary’s maid came into the room,
and the conversation came to an end. It was this dreadful practical
turn, which was in the old Renton blood, which bewildered the less
energetic members of the family. But it was wonderful to see how Ben and
Aunt Lydia got on at dinner. He told her more about his work, and what
he had been doing, in half-an-hour than the others had extracted from
him in twenty-four. And the Renton spirit sparkled in Mrs. Westbury’s
eyes as she listened. ‘Even if you had not made a penny, Ben,’ she said,
in her energetic way, ‘I should be so much more pleased that you had
been making some use of your talents than just hanging on in the old way
at home.’
‘But I have made a penny,’ Ben said, with a kindred glance;--he was
pleased with the thought, which gave Mary a momentary disgust;--‘though
it has cost more than it is worth in the making,’ he added, in a lower
tone. And then his cousin forgave, and was sorry for poor Ben. It was
dangerous work for Mary, especially as there was still the excitement of
the return expedition across the river, to convey Mrs. Westbury home to
look forward to. But, fortunately, there was no one visible about The
Willows when that moment came;--nothing but serene moonlight, white and
peaceable, unbroken by any shadow or voice but their own, was on the
gleaming river. And the Rev. Laurence Westbury standing on the bank in
his clerical coat,--who had been at school when Ben left Renton,--to
take his mother home, and bid the new-comer welcome; and then the silent
progress back down the stream in the moonlight. It surprised Mary
afterwards to think how little Ben and she had said to each other, and
yet what perfectly good company he had been. And thus they went on,
those curious, rapid days.
CHAPTER XI.
ALL HOME.
Laurie arrived on the Friday, coming in, in his usual unexpected way,
through the window, when they were all in the drawing-room after dinner.
The brothers had met in town, where Ben had paused for a day on his way
to Renton, so that their greeting was not mingled with any of those
remarks on changed appearance and unexpected signs of age which are
general after a long absence. But when they stood thus together for the
first time for seven years, the difference between old things and new
became more perceptible to the bystanders. The surroundings were so
completely the same as of old that any variation from the past became
more clear to them. The same lamps, shaded for their mother’s sake; the
same brilliant spot of light upon the tea-table, where the china and
silver glittered; Mrs. Renton lying on the same sofa, in the same
attitude, covered with the same Indian shawl; the same soft odour of
mignonette and heliotrope, and earth and dew, stealing in at the great
open window; even the same moths, or reproductions of the same, making
wild circles about the lamp. ‘And Mary, I think, is the very same,’
Laurie said, looking at her with true brotherly kindness. But ‘the boys’
were not the same. Of the two it was Laurie who looked the elder. He was
just thirty, but the hair was getting thin on the top of his head, and
his face was more worn than it had any right to be. Ben had broadened,
almost imperceptibly, but still enough to indicate to the bystander that
the first slim outline of youth was over. But Laurie, though he had not
expanded, had aged even in the lines of his face; and then he had grown
a little careless, like the society into which he had cast himself. He
was dusty with his walk, and his velvet morning-coat looked strange and
wild beside Ben’s correct evening costume. Lazy Laurence still; but with
all the difference between sanguine youth and meditative manhood. Mary,
however, was the only one of the party who was troubled by the mystery
of Laurie’s subdued tone. Mrs. Renton was not given to speculation, and
Ben was occupied by his own affairs to the exclusion of all inquiry into
those of others. Both mother and brother took it for granted that Laurie
was just as it was natural he should be. Only Mary,--sisterly, womanly,
anxious always to know how it was,--watched him with a sympathetic eye.
‘Well! here we are at home once more, old fellow,’ said Laurie,
throwing himself into an easy chair near the window, when the mother had
been safely conveyed up-stairs.
‘Yes, a home that always looks the same,’ said Ben. ‘I am not so sure as
I used to be of the good of that. It makes one feel doubly the change in
one’s self.’
‘These are his Yankee notions,’ said Laurie. ‘I suppose he has given up
primogeniture, and Church and State, and everything. But Mary is an
orthodox person who will set us all right.’
‘As if women might not think about primogeniture and all the rest as
well as you others!’ said Mary. ‘We are the only people who take any
time to think now-a-days. Ben has done nothing but make railways,--and
money,--and he likes it;--he is a real Renton,’ she cried, pleased to
let him know her mind on that subject.
‘And very right, too,’ said Laurie. ‘If there were not Rentons to be had
somewhere how should the world get on?’
‘But I don’t care for the world,’ said Mary; ‘and I would much rather
you were not fond of money, like everybody else, you boys.’
‘I am very fond of money, but I never can get any,’ said Laurie. ‘I say
to myself, if I should happen to come into reputation next century, what
a collection of Rentons there will be for somebody to make a fortune
of,--Ben’s heirs, most probably; or that little Mary of Frank’s, who is
a darling. Now that I think of it, as she is a painter’s descendant, it
is she who shall be my heir.’
‘I think much the best thing would be for you to have Renton, Laurie,
and heirs of your own.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘my brothers are very kind. Frank took the
trouble to write me a long letter ever so many years ago, adjuring me by
all I held dear to marry a certain Nelly Rich.’
‘It was very impertinent of him,’ cried Mary, ‘and very conceited. Nelly
Rich would no more have looked at you----’
‘Showed her sense,’ said Laurie, quietly. ‘I am only telling you what
actions have been set on foot for my benefit. But I never saw Nelly Rich
except once, so I am not conceited; and as for Renton, no such iniquity
could ever be, as that it should go past you, Ben.’
‘You speak strongly,’ said the elder brother.
‘That is one result of time, you know. One can see now, without
irreverence, how wrong my poor father was. Of course we would have been
wretches had we been capable of anything but obedience at the time,’
said Laurie; ‘but, looking back, one can see more clearly. He was
wrong,--I don’t bear him any malice, poor dear old father! but he did us
as much harm almost as was possible. And if Renton is left out of the
natural succession, I shall say it is iniquity, and oppose it with all
my power.’
‘It would be iniquity,’ Ben said, gravely. And then there was a pause.
The three sat, going back into their individual memories, unaware what
devious paths the others were treading. But for that Laurie might never
have fallen into the temptation which had stolen what energy he had out
of him, and strengthened all his dreamy, unpractical ways. But for that
Ben might have given the Renton force and strength of work to his
country, and served her,--as is the citizen’s first duty,--instead of
making American railroads, which another man might have been found to
do. As for Mary, the paths in which she went wandering were not her own.
It did not occur to her to think of the seven years, which for her had
been simple loss. Had she been living at home, no doubt, long before
this she would have married some one, and been like Alice, the mother of
children. But such were not Mary’s reflections. She was thinking if this
had not happened Ben would have married Millicent seven years ago, and
that, on the whole, everything was for the best.
They had but one other day to themselves; but during that day the house
felt, with a bewildered sense of confusion and uncertainty, that old
times had come back. Mr. Ben and Mr. Laurie had gone back to their old
rooms; and their steps and voices, the peremptory orders of the eldest,
the ‘chaff’ of Mr. Laurie, ‘who was a gentleman as you never could
understand whether he was in earnest or in joke,’--turned the heads of
the old servants. They, like their mistress, were upset by the new
_régime_; the dulness of the house had been a trouble to them when her
reign of utter seclusion commenced; but if it was dull, there was little
to do, and the house had habituated itself to the monotonous round. And
now they felt it a hardship when the noise and the work recommenced, and
dinner ran the risk of having to wait ten minutes, and breakfast was on
the table from half-past eight to half-past ten. ‘All along o’ that lazy
Laurie, as they calls him, and a very good name, too,’ said the
affronted cook. Mary had much ado to keep them in working order. ‘There
may be further changes after a while,’ she said to the old butler, who
had carried them all in his arms, and knew about everything, and who
would as soon have cut his throat as leave Renton;--‘you must have
patience for a little, and see how things turn out.’ Thus it will be
seen that if the return of her cousins brought any happiness to Mary it
brought a great increase of anxiety as well. And there was always the
sense of Millicent’s vicinity to weigh upon her mind. She had been
looking forward for years to the family reunion as the end of
tribulation and beginning of a better life; but up to this time her
anticipations had not been fulfilled. Anxieties had increased upon
her,--one growing out of another. Instead of comfort, and certainty, and
the support which she had always been taught to believe were involved in
the possession of ‘men in the house,’ Mary found that these tenants had
rather an agitating than a calming effect upon herself and the community
in general. That she should have more trouble about the dinners was
natural; but that even their mother should require to be let softly down
into the enjoyment of their society, and that circumstances in general
required double consideration on account of their presence, was a new
idea to Mary. And then it turned out that Mrs. Renton had spoken very
truly when she said a man must have something to do. Both ‘the boys’
were in a state of restlessness and excitement, not disposed to settle
to anything. There was capital shooting to be had, and the partridges
were everything a sportsman could desire; but somehow even Ben felt that
partridges were not congenial to the occasion. And as for Laurie, he was
too indolent to make any such exertion. ‘Wait till Frank comes,’ he
said. ‘Frank has energy for two. If we were on a Scotch moor, indeed,
where you want to move about to keep yourself warm; but it’s too hot, my
dear fellow, for stumping about through the stubble. I’ll take Mary out
after a bit for a row.’ And Ben’s activities, too, culminated in the
same idea. Laurie lay in the bottom of the boat, sometimes puffing
gently at his cigar, doing simply nothing, while Ben pulled against
stream, and Mary steered him dexterously through the weeds; and then the
three floated slowly down again, saying little to each other, lingering
along the mid current with scarcely any movement of the languid oars.
They were not very sociable in this strange amusement; but still its
starts of momentary violent exercise, its dreamy charm of movement, the
warm autumnal sun overhead, the delicious gliding water that gurgled on
the sides of the boat, and all the familiarity and all the novelty of
the scene, chimed in with their feelings. Ben was pondering the future,
which was still so dark,--his unfinished work at the other end of the
world,--what he would do with Renton if it came to him,--what he would
do if it did not come to him,--all the range of possibilities which
overhung his way as the trees overhung the river. Laurie, for his part,
wandered in a field of much wider fancy, and did not take Renton at all
into account, nor the chances which a few days might bring to him. What
did it matter? he could live, and he had no more to think of,--no future
which interested him particularly,--no hope that would be affected by
the tenor of his father’s will. Sometimes his eye would be caught by a
combination of foliage, or a sudden light on the water, or the turn of
Mary’s arm as she plied her cords. ‘How did Mary keep her steering up
while we were all away?’ he would say between the puffs of his cigar,
and made up his mind that she should sit to him next day in that
particular pose. Mary, for her own part, during these expeditions, was
too much occupied in watching her cousins to have any thoughts of her
own. What was Ben thinking of? Was it The Willows his mind was fixed on
as he opened his full chest and sent the boat up against the stream with
the force of an arrow out of a bow? Was it the image of Millicent that
made his eyes glow as he folded his arms, and let the skiff idle on the
current? And what were Laurie’s thoughts occupied about as he lay, lazy,
in the bottom? Mary gazed at them, and wondered, not knowing what to
think, and said to herself how much more difficult it was now to
prognosticate what would become of them than it would have been seven
years ago, at their first entering upon life. And thus the long day
glided to its end.
On the Saturday Frank and his belongings arrived, and all was altered.
Frank, so far as personal appearance went, was the least changed of all.
His moustache had grown from the silky shadow it used to be into a very
decided martial ornament, and he was brown with the Indian sun. Laurie
had the presumption to insinuate that he had grown, which touched the
soldier to the quick; but though he was the father of a family, the
seven years had affected him less than either of his brothers. To be
sure, he was but seven-and-twenty, and had lived a comparatively happy
life. But it must be allowed that the Sunday was hard to get through.
The three brothers, who were all very different men to begin with, had
each got into his groove, and each undervalued,--let us not say had a
contempt for,--the occupation of the other. What with India, and what
with youth, and what with the training of his profession, Frank had all
the unreasoning conservatism which was natural to a well-born,
unintellectual soldier. And then he had a wife to back him, which
strengthens a man’s self-opinion. ‘Depend upon it,’ he would say, ‘these
Radicals will land us all in perdition if they get their way.’ ‘Why
should I depend upon it, when my own opinion goes directly contrary?’
Ben, who had been in America, and all over the world, drawing in
revolutionary ideas, would answer him. As for Laurie he would ask them
both, ‘What does it matter? one man is as good as another, if not
better,’ and smile in his pococurante way. The children were a godsend
to them all, and so was Alice with her youthful wisdom. For Mary by this
time, with three men to keep in order, as it were, and Mrs. Renton to
hold safely in hand all the time, and all unsuitable visitors to keep at
a distance, and the dinner to order, was about as much overwhelmed with
cares, and as little capable of the graces of society, as a woman could
be. She had to spend with her aunt the hour of that inevitable Sunday
afternoon walk, and saw her flock pair off and disappear among the trees
with the sensations of an anxious mother, who feels her nursery for the
moment in comparative safety. Ben with Alice and little Mary went one
way, and Laurie and Frank took another. When she had seen them off Mary
turned with a satisfied mind to read to her godmother the Sunday
periodical which took the place of the newspaper on this day. It was
very mild reading, though it satisfied Mrs. Renton. It was her principle
not to drive on Sunday, and the morning was occupied by the Morning
Service, which Davison and she read together before she got up, and that
duty being over the Sunday periodical came in naturally to take the
place of the drive. It was very rarely that she felt able to go to
church; and of all days this day, which followed so closely the arrival
of her sons, was the one on which she could least be supposed capable of
such an exertion. So Mary read a story, and a sermon, and a missionary
narrative, and was very tired of it, while the slow afternoon lingered
on and the others had their walk.
Ben and Alice, though they were in the position of brother and sister,
and called each other by their Christian names, had met for the first
time on the day before, and naturally were not very much acquainted with
each other’s way of thinking. The woods were their great subject of
discourse. ‘Frank has talked of them wherever we were,’ said Alice. ‘I
am so glad to bring the children here. If we should have to go to India
again it will be nice for them to remember. But I need not speak like
that,’ she added, after a moment’s pause, with a sudden rush of tears to
her blue eyes; ‘for if we have to go to India we must leave little Mary
behind,--she is too old to go back. And I suppose if I were prudent,
baby too--but I could not bear that.’
‘Why should you go back to India?’
‘Ah, we must, unless there is some money coming to us,’ said Alice: ‘you
know I had no fortune. I did not think that mattered then; but when one
has children one learns. Do you think there will be some money for Frank
in the will?’
‘I am certain of it,’ said Ben.
‘Enough to make us able to stay at home,’ said Alice, clasping her
hands. ‘It is not that I care for money, nor Frank either.’
‘But it is quite natural you should care. And I promise you,’ said Ben,
‘if there is anything I can set right, that you shall not go back to
India. Whichever of us is preferred, you may be sure of that. I can
answer for Laurie as for myself.’
‘Oh, I know Laurie,’ cried Alice; ‘but I did not know you,--and then
perhaps Frank would not be willing;--but anyhow, since you say you are
sure, I will keep up my heart.’
And in the meantime Frank and Laurie by the river-side were having their
confidences too. ‘If it should come to me,’ Frank was saying, ‘I hope I
shall do what is right by Ben in any case--but it will be a struggle for
that little beggar’s sake.’
‘I would let the little beggar take his chance,’ said Laurie; ‘there is
time enough. I don’t think you need begin to consider him yet.’
‘I should do my duty, of course,’ said Frank, ‘by Ben, who has been
badly used; but I don’t deny it will cost me something, Laurie. A man
does not get ties about him for nothing. If I had the chance of a home
for Alice and the little ones,--even if it were not a home like this, by
Jove! it would be an awful temptation,--a temptation one would scarcely
know how to resist.’
‘Then it is to be hoped it will never come,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t see
how we could stand in doubt for an instant. I don’t speak of natural
justice. But Ben was brought up to be the heir. There was never a doubt
of his being the heir till my poor father’s will had to be read.
Therefore he must be the heir now. I don’t care whether it falls to you
or me. It’s as clear as daylight, and I can’t believe you would find the
least difficulty in doing what was right.’
‘I should do it,’ said Frank, but he made no further protestation. In
his heart he could not but say to himself that it was easy for Laurie, a
man with nobody dependent on him, with no question before him such as
that of returning or not returning to India, and with,--so far as any
one knew,--no prospects of future happiness which depended on this
decision. And Ben, too, was unmarried, and likely to be unmarried.
‘Unless he marries Mary,’ Frank said to himself. Of course if Renton
fell to him he would marry, and they had all pledged themselves that
Renton must fall to him, and Ben accordingly would sit down in his
father’s seat, and bring in some stranger to rule over the place, and
Alice and the children would have to go away. Back to India! If that
were the only alternative Frank felt as if it would be impossible to do
his duty by Ben. The excitement of the moment, and the fundamental
simplicity of his mind, thus brought him to the strange notion that all
secondary justice must have been set aside, and that it would be a
question of everything or nothing to the victor. Thus the Rentons
awaited, with thoughts often too deep for words, with a restrained
excitement wonderful to behold, with hopes and sinkings of heart, the
revelation of their father’s will; and that was to take place next day.
CHAPTER XII.
SUSPENSE.
When the Rentons were all seated together in the drawing-room after
dinner, doing their best to get through the Sunday evening, a note was
brought to Mrs. Renton, to the amazement of all the family assembly.
Mrs. Westbury and her son Laurence, who was curate of Cookesley, had
joined them at dinner; and they were all seated in a circle round the
room drinking their tea and trying to talk, and suppressing an
occasional yawn with the true decorum of a family party. Sometimes there
would get up a little lively talk between Mary and her mother and
brother touching the gossip of the district, or Alice and Laurie would
brighten into a familiar discussion of something belonging to Fitzroy
Square; but then they would suddenly remark that the others were
uninterested and taking no part, and the talk would come to a stop, and
Mrs. Westbury would make a commonplace remark to one of her nephews, and
Alice would ask the curate if he went often to the Opera, and a
uniformity of dulness would fall upon the party. The Rentons were all
well-bred people, and it was certainly not well-bred to enjoy one’s self
in an animated way in a corner with two or three, while the rest of the
company sat blank and did not know what one was making merry about. To
be sure, there was Alice’s music to fall back upon; but, except to two
or three of the company, that would not much mend matters; so that when
the note was brought to Mrs. Renton there was immediately a little
movement of interest. Ben brought one of the shaded lamps to his mother
that she might read it, and Mary drew near in case her services should
be wanted to write the answer, for which the butler stood solemnly
waiting erect in the midst of the fatigued group.
‘It must be something very urgent indeed to write about to-day,’ Mrs.
Westbury said. ‘I am old-fashioned, and I don’t think the family quiet
should be disturbed on Sunday unless it is something of importance.’
‘My dear, I can’t read these dreadful hands that people write
now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t get the light on it, and I am
too tired to sit up. If you would read it aloud, Ben----’
Ben took the little note in his hand, and put the lamp down on the
nearest table. His face was in shade, and it was impossible to tell what
his feelings were. He glanced over the note for a second, and then read
it aloud as his mother bade. It was a prayer to be allowed to visit the
woods next morning with a friend who was going away, and it was signed
‘Millicent Rich.’ ‘I would not have dreamt of asking, knowing that you
have all your people about you, and do not want to be troubled with
strangers,’ she wrote; ‘but our friend is going off by the three o’clock
train. We shall keep strictly to the woods, and not come near the house
to worry you, when your attention must be so occupied with other things;
but please let me come.’ This was what Ben read out with a perfectly
expressionless voice, not even faltering over the name.
‘Of course she must come,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Mary, you must write a
note for me. Say that the boys being here makes no difference, and that
if she will come to luncheon and bring her friend----’
‘But, godmamma, Mr. Ponsonby is coming,’ said Mary, while Ben took up
the lamp, and stood like a monument, holding it in his hand.
‘Mr. Ponsonby will not eat her, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Renton; and then
there was a pause.
‘But, godmamma,’ Mary resumed after that interval, ‘don’t you think so
important a day as to-morrow is,--and so much as there will be going
on----’
‘Any stranger would be a bore,’ said Frank. ‘How are we to go and talk
and be civil, when an hour more may see us set up or ruined----’
Here Alice plucked at his sleeve, indicating with a look of warning the
stolid countenance of old Willis, who stood listening to everything. ‘If
it would be any pleasure to grandmamma, I would attend to them,’ she
said.
‘And I think it would be a very good thing for you all,’ said Mrs.
Westbury, ‘and take your minds off yourselves a little. It is a blessing
to have a stranger for that,--you are obliged to exert yourselves, and
kept from brooding over one subject. I think your mother is quite
right.’
‘Let us have them,’ said Laurie. ‘What does it matter? Old Ponsonby is
always late.’
‘He will surely never be late on an occasion of such importance,’ said
Laurence Westbury.
Mrs. Renton looked from one to another with an anxious countenance, and
they came round the sofa, glad of the little interruption to that family
quiet which was almost too much blessedness. Ben, who said nothing,
lighted up the circle in a curious Rembrandtish way, holding his lamp so
as to screen his mother; and outside stood old Willis, erect as a
soldier, with unmoved countenance, waiting for the answer.
‘Ben, what do you say?’ said Mrs. Renton, with all the earnestness of a
last appeal.
‘That you must do just what you like, mother,’ said Ben.
Upon which she wrung her hands in despair. ‘How can I tell what I shall
like if none of you will advise me?’ she said.
‘I will attend to them, if grandmamma would like it,’ said Alice, coming
to the head of the sofa. ‘And I am sure you would like it, dear
grandmamma; it would give you something else to think of.’
‘So it would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘and how I am to
get through to-morrow without some assistance is more than I can tell.’
‘It will take all your minds off the one subject,’ added Mrs. Westbury;
‘and of course there must always be luncheon. Mary, go and do what your
aunt tells you. It will be good, my dears, for you all.’
And Ben gave a little gesture with his hand, Mary caught his eye over
the glowing darkness of the shaded lamp, and went and wrote her note
without a word. Ben’s face had said, or seemed to say, ‘Let them
come,--what does it matter?’ And if it did not matter to him, certainly
it mattered nothing to any one else. When the note was despatched, Alice
sat down at the piano and played to the entire satisfaction of her
husband, his mother, and Laurence Westbury. Ben settled down in a
corner and took a book, till his aunt Lydia went and sat beside him,
when an earnest conversation ensued; and Laurie stood idling by the
window, beating back the moths that came in tribes to seek their
destruction in the light, and sometimes saying a word to Mary, who, half
occupied by the music and more than half by her own thoughts, sat near
him within the shadow of the curtains.
‘What sort of people are those that are coming to-morrow, and why don’t
you like them?’ said Laurie, under cover of a fortissimo.
‘I never said I did not like them,’ said Mary.
‘No; but I know you don’t. Who are they?’
And then the music fell low into tremulous, dying murmurs, and all was
silent in the room except for a shrill ‘s’ now and then of Mrs.
Westbury’s half-whispered energetic conversation with Ben. When the
strain rose and swelled into passion, the talk at the window was
resumed.
‘It is not they,--it is she I don’t like;--one of my old school-fellows,
and the most beautiful woman you ever saw.’
‘Hallo!’ said Laurie, ‘is that the reason why?’
‘Yes, of course. We should all like to strangle her because she is so
pretty,’ said Mary, with a certain rancour in her voice.
Laurie sent a great night-moth out with a rush, and then he stooped
towards his cousin’s hiding-place. ‘Granted in the general,’ he said,
‘but there is something particular about this.’
What could Mary say? Her heart was quivering with that poignant sense of
weakness and inability to resist fate which sometimes overcomes a woman
in those secret machinations for somebody else’s good, which are so
seldom successful. ‘I have done,’ she said; ‘I will try no more.’ And
that was all the answer that was given to Laurie’s curiosity.
Alice had not fallen off in her playing. The piano, under her fingers,
gave forth such sounds as wiled the very hearts out of the bosoms of the
three who were listening. Mrs. Renton lay back on her sofa, with the
tears coming to her eyes and a world of inarticulate, inexpressible
feeling in her heart. Had it been poetry, the poor lady would have
yawned and wished herself in bed; but now she had floated into a serene
Eden,--a Paradise full of all vague loveliness, and sweetness, and
unspeakable, indistinct emotions. As for Laurence Westbury, he dared
scarcely draw breath, so entirely did the witchery seize him. The music
to him stormed and struggled like a soul in pain, and paused and sank to
give forth the cry of despair, and swelled into a gathering hope, into a
final conflict, into delicious murmurs of sweetness and gratefulness and
repose; there was a whole drama in it, moving the real listener with
such a rapid succession of feeling as the highest tragic efforts of
poetry call forth in others. While in the meanwhile Ben and Aunt Lydia
talked quite undisturbed in their corner of railways and investments,
and of how much Renton might be improved, and how fast Dick Westbury was
making his fortune out in India; and Laurie was driving out the moths,
and moralising over their eagerness to enter, and thinking of anything
in the world rather than the music. Such were the strange differences of
sensibility and feeling among half-a-dozen people, all of one race.
A forlorn hope that it might rain next morning, and so prevent the
threatened invasion, was in Mary’s mind up to the last moment. She felt
as if, having thus failed in her own person, Providence must aid her to
save her cousin, the head of the house, who was of so much importance to
the family, from such a snare. But Providence refused, as Providence so
often does in what seems the most heart-breaking emergency, to aid the
plans of the schemer. As lovely a September morning as ever shone
brightened all the park and the trees under her windows as she gazed
out, unable to believe that she was thus abandoned of Heaven. But there
could be no mistake about it. It was a lovely day, enough to tempt any
one to the woods had there been no purpose of the kind beforehand; and
as if to aggravate her sense of the danger of the situation, Ben
himself was visible from her window, coming up the river-path in boating
costume, though it was only half-past seven in the morning. Had he been
on the river already at this ridiculous hour? Passing The Willows no
doubt, gazing at the closed windows, pleased with the mere fact of being
near her, though at such an hour no one, Mary assured herself with a
little scorn, had ever seen Millicent out of bed; and on such a day as
this, when all his prospects for life hung in the balance! But,
strangely enough, it never occurred to Mary in her womanish
pre-occupation to think that it might be the feverish excitement of the
crisis, and not any thought of Millicent, which had roused Ben and
driven him to try the tranquillising effects of bodily exertion.
Notwithstanding the atmosphere of family anxiety by which she was
surrounded, the fact was that Millicent’s visit was ten times more
important in Mary’s eyes than that of Mr. Ponsonby. The one did not cost
her a tenth part of the anxious cogitation called forth by the other. No
doubt the will would be read and everything settled, ill or well. Ben
would have Renton, as he ought; or Frank would have it, or it would be
settled somehow; but the effect of Millicent’s appearance would be to
unsettle everything. It would rouse up those embers of old love which
she felt were smouldering in Ben’s mind. Smouldering! How could she tell
that they were not blazing with all the warmth of present passion?
Else, why had he sallied out in the dawn of the morning only to pass by
the sleeping, shut-up house which contained the lady of his dreams? For
that he had gone out for this purpose, and no other, Mary felt as
certain as if she had watched him every step of the way. But there was
nothing now to be done but to submit, and to put the best face that was
possible upon it. Perhaps, indeed, if anything should occur so as that
Ben should not have Renton, it would no longer be an unmixed misfortune,
for it would take him out of Millicent’s way.
It was hard to tell whether it was a relief or an annoyance to find a
stranger at the breakfast-table when they all met down-stairs. ‘What a
nuisance!’ Frank said to his wife, feeling that Ben’s right-hand man was
not the sort of person to be admitted to familiar intercourse with the
family at such a moment. But Mary felt, on the whole, that Hillyard’s
unexpected appearance was a good thing for Ben. The stranger, who ought
to have arrived some days before, had been detained, and got down to
Cookesley on Sunday night, from whence it appeared Ben had gone down
early to fetch him, thus explaining, to the great consolation of his
guardian and watcher, his early expedition. Hillyard was very carefully
dressed, too carefully for the morning, and a little impressed by the
house and the circumstances. His beard had been trimmed and his
wardrobe renewed before he would follow his once _protégé_, and now
patron, to the Manor, and he was very anxious to make himself agreeable,
and justify his presence.
‘I know I should not have come at such a time,’ he explained to Mary; ‘I
told Renton so. Of course we have been so much together that I could not
but know why he was coming home.’
‘I do not think it makes any difference,’ said Mary. ‘I am sure my aunt
will always be glad to have any of Ben’s friends.’
‘It is very good of you to say so,’ Hillyard answered gratefully. And
then he began to tell her what a fine fellow her cousin was, and what a
head he had, and how he had mastered his profession while other men
would have been gaping at it. ‘He is master and I am man now,’ he said,
unconsciously using Ben’s words, ‘though I was brought up to it; and I
should just like you to see the beautiful work he puts out of his
hands.’
‘I daresay I should not understand it if I saw it,’ said Mary, smiling
behind the urn; but she lent a very willing ear, and thought Hillyard a
very nice person. Unquestionably he was a relief to the high strain of
suppressed feeling which appeared in every face at the table, except,
perhaps, Laurie’s, who, late as usual, came in, carrying the baby in his
arms, and did not mind.
‘Here is a little waif and stray I found wandering about the passages,’
he said. ‘Little Laurie, your mamma does not care about you to-day; you
had better stay with me.’
‘Doesn’t mamma care for him, the darling!’ cried Alice. And then the
child was picked up, having made a rush to her arms, and set up beside
her at table.
‘The heir-presumptive, I suppose?’ Hillyard said behind the urn; and
Mary began to think he was not quite so nice as she had thought him
before.
Then the members of the family dispersed, to kill this lingering, weary
forenoon as they best could. Ben and Hillyard went out together in
earnest conversation, and Laurie established himself in a shady corner
of the lawn, and made a group of Alice and her children, and began to
draw them; while Frank started off, as he said, for a long walk. Mr.
Ponsonby had announced that he was to come by the one o’clock train; but
there was another three-quarters of an hour later, and nobody who knew
him expected him to arrive by the first. And at half-past one Millicent
and her friend would come to luncheon. Such a conjunction of events was
very terrible to think of; though, perhaps, not so alarming to any one
as to Mary, who alone knew of the motives of the latter visit. She had
to go about her usual occupations all the same. She could not cheat the
sick expectations of her heart by joining the group on the lawn and
chatting with the children, nor could she rush forth to still her
anxieties by bodily exertion, like the boys. A woman, she thought to
herself, is always tied to the stake. She had to fulfil all her little
peaceful household occupations as if her heart was quite at ease, and
had not even any sympathy to support her, for what was it to her any one
could have said? They were all three her cousins, and it could not
matter very deeply to her which of them got Renton; and as for
Millicent, that was mere feminine jealousy, and nothing else,--so Mary
had to lock up her troubles carefully in her own breast.
It was only about a quarter past one when Millicent arrived at Renton,
and with her came her mother and her ‘friend,’ who was the young soldier
they had seen rowing her on the river. Mrs. Renton had just come
down-stairs, with Davison carrying her shawls and her worsted work, and
it was to her the visitors made their way. ‘Mr. Horsman is a connexion
of my poor husband’s,’ Millicent said with a decent sigh. ‘He is a
brother of Sir George Horsman, whom Nelly married. Nelly is my
sister-in-law, Mrs. Renton; but I suppose you know?’
‘Indeed I know very well,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It was she who we once
thought would have married Frank. Not that I am not perfectly satisfied
with Frank’s wife. She is certainly nice, and suits him admirably, which
of course is the great thing. But she had no money. And there was once a
time when he saw a great deal of Miss Rich.’
‘She was quite a catch,’ said Mrs. Tracy,--a word which wounded Mrs.
Renton’s ear.
‘I cannot say I looked upon it in that point of view; but the young
people were thrown in each other’s way a great deal,’ Mrs. Renton said
with some stateliness; and Millicent immediately rushed into the field.
‘I thought the Mr. Rentons had all arrived,’ she said, ‘and yet you are
alone;’ and cast an angry glance at Mary, as if demanding of her where
they were.
‘What has become of the boys?’ said Mrs. Renton, looking round her. ‘I
have only just come down. The fact is, it is a very exciting day for
them; we expect Mr. Ponsonby down immediately to read the will.’
Millicent and her mother exchanged glances. ‘Then the time is up?’ Mrs.
Tracy said meditatively, and bent with increasing solicitude over the
invalid on her sofa. ‘What a trial for you!’ she said, clasping her hand
in sympathy. And Mrs. Renton raised to her eyes that said unspeakable
things.
‘Ah! yes,’ she murmured; ‘but nobody thinks of me;’ and this balm of
consolation was sweet to her heart.
They all came dropping in a few minutes later to luncheon, and Ben and
Hillyard were among the first. ‘Ponsonby has not come by this train,’
said Ben, ‘but Frank is waiting at the station for the next.’ It was
hard not to feel as if Frank was doing the rest an injury by waiting to
have the first word with the lawyer; such, at least, was Mary’s
instinctive feeling. But her heart was weighted now with a more painful
anxiety still. She saw Ben give a brief, contemptuous glance at young
Horsman, whose position was not a comfortable one, and her heart sunk.
But then he turned away from Millicent,--avoided seeing her, indeed, in
a curious, visible way, and that was a consolation. Mrs. Tracy, however,
got up with effusion to shake hands with dear Mr. Renton, begging that
she might have a good look at him, to see if he was changed. ‘Not at all
changed,’ was her verdict. ‘Just the same generous face that once came
to our help in our troubles. Mr. Renton, do you know I may say you saved
my life?’
Then Millicent, too, rose, and, with a whole drama in her eyes, held out
her hand to him. There was regret, remorse, and a tender appeal for
pardon, and a sweet self-pity in those blue, shining eyes. They seemed
to say, ‘Be kind to me! Be sorry for me! I am so sorry for myself!’ But
it was hard to make out whether there was any answer in Ben’s looks.
She stood so turned towards him, holding out her hand, that he had no
choice but to draw near, and then she turned meaningly towards a vacant
chair at her side. He could not have gone away without rudeness, and Ben
was not disposed to be rude to anybody at such a moment of fate. He took
the seat accordingly, though with grave looks, and then there came a
gleam of triumph into Millicent’s eyes.
‘How curious we should have chanced to come here on this day of all
others,’ she said, her voice sinking to its softest tones. ‘You told me
of it the very last time we met; but, perhaps, Mr. Renton, you forget?’
‘Did I tell you of this?’ said Ben. ‘What a good memory you must have!
but there are some things I do not forget.’
‘Ah! something unkind about poor me, Mr. Renton! but if you knew what I
have had to go through since, you would not think anything unkind.’
‘I suppose we have all had a great deal to go through since,’ said Ben.
‘Seven years! it is a large slice out of one’s life; one’s ideas about
most things change immensely in seven years.’
‘Do they?’ said Millicent, looking at him with soft, appealing eyes.
‘Very much,’ said Ben, with a smile; ‘so much that one looks back with
amazement upon the follies one has been guilty of. A man says to
himself, “Is it possible I could have been such an ass?” Are ladies not
subject to the same effect of time?’
‘No;--ladies are more constant,’ said Millicent. ‘When our thoughts have
turned one way, it does not matter what happens, they always keep the
same. We may be obliged to change in outward appearance. We are not so
free as you gentlemen are. One’s friends or one’s circumstances sway one
sometimes, but in the heart we never change,--not half, oh! not a
quarter so much as you.’
‘That may be. I have no experience,’ said Ben.
‘But I have,’ said Millicent, ‘and I do so want to tell you. You know I
never was very happy in my circumstances, Mr. Renton. Mamma is very
kind, but she does not understand one’s feelings; and when she got me
abroad, she had me all in her own hands. Yes, you are quite right about
the change time makes. When I look back I cannot think how I could have
done it. But I was so young, and so used to obey mamma.’
‘And a very laudable principle, I am sure,’ said Ben, with a polite
little bow. ‘I beg your pardon--I thought I saw my brother and Mr.
Ponsonby coming up the avenue. You were saying,--something about
obedience,--I think?’
‘You do not think it worth while to listen to me,’ said Millicent.
‘Oh, yes, surely,--pray go on. I am full of interest,’ said Ben.
And then the poor creature looked at him with eyes which were pitiful in
the eagerness of their appeal. She was a mercenary, wretched woman,
ready to barter her beauty for comfort and wealth, and a fine house and
a good position; and yet there was still in Mrs. Henry Rich the same
redeeming possibility that there had been in Millicent Tracy. If he
would have taken her out of that slough of despond, she would have been
good, have made him a true wife, have grown a gentle lady, so far as it
was in her. To the bottom of her soul Millicent felt this,--just as many
a poor criminal feels that in other circumstances he would have been a
model of all virtue. And for her the matter was not one without
hope;--marriage to a woman may always be a new life,--and the seven
years had not dimmed her eyes, nor taken the roses from her cheeks. And
by those roses and bright eyes and lovely looks are not a woman’s fate
determined continually? Again, it was her last hope. For though
admiration was always sweet, yet to be troubled with a boy like this
young Guardsman, was irksome to Millicent in her maturity. And to go
through a round of such boys,--flattering, wooing them, being
wooed,--good heavens! was this all that fortune had in store for a
woman? Therefore she made one more effort before she yielded to fate.
‘You were more interested, Mr. Renton,’ she said, with soft reproach,
‘when we talked together last,--oh, so much more interested! If I did
not know you so well, I could scarcely think it was the same.’
‘That is true,’ said Ben; ‘but you taught me some things, Mrs. Rich, and
I profited by the lesson. I doubt whether but for your assistance I
could ever have been the man I am.’
‘Ah! then I have at least something to do with you?’ said Millicent.
‘Come and tell me, will you? It is not like London, where one was always
being interrupted. In the country there is so much time for talk.’
‘But I have no time,’ said Ben. ‘After to-morrow I shall probably go
away again; and when I tell you I have profited by your instructions, I
think that is all I have to say.’
‘You are angry with me because of,--because of,--poor Henry,’ said
Millicent, with tears coming to her eyes. ‘But ah, Mr. Renton!--ah, Ben,
if you only knew!’
Ben sprang impatiently to his feet. To him, as to any other generous
man, it felt like a personal pang and shame to see a woman thus
humiliate herself. He made a long step towards the window, with a flush
on his face. ‘Here they come!’ he said, though at the moment he was not
thinking much of their coming. And then there ensued a sudden
inevitable flutter in the family which affected the guests. Alice, who
had been charitably talking to the Guardsman, jumped up with a little
cry of excitement, and sat down again, ashamed of herself, but with all
possibilities of conversation quenched out of her; and Mrs. Renton, whom
Mrs. Tracy had been occupying to the best of her ability to leave
Millicent free for her important interview with Ben, was suddenly
overcome, and cried a little, lying back on her pillows. ‘Oh Ben, my
dear! I don’t know how I am to bear it,’ she said, holding fast by her
son’s hand. Laurie was the only one who was perfectly steady. He came
forward immediately from the background, and raised his mother up,
supporting her on his arm. ‘You will bear it beautifully, mamma, as you
always do,’ said Laurie. ‘Come and give us our luncheon. You forget we
are not alone.’
And he supported her into the dining-room, holding her hand caressingly
in his. As for Ben, he turned and gave his arm to Millicent, ‘As if I
had been a cabbage,’ she said afterwards, indignantly. None of her
pathetic glances, not the soft little pressure of her hand upon his arm,
gained the slightest response. His face was set and stern, full of
thoughts with which she had nothing to do. Mrs. Tracy ventured to
whisper as she followed, ‘Ah, how sweet it is to me to see you two
together again!’ But Ben did not even hear what she said. He waved his
hand to Mr. Ponsonby in the distance as he went across the hall. The
beautiful face at his side had no more effect upon him than if it had
been a hideous mask. He was absorbed in his own business, and careless
of her very existence. Millicent, in her fury, could have struck him as
he took her into the dining-room. Was this to be the end?
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WILL.
It was Hillyard’s behaviour at this meal which gained him the regard of
the various members of the Renton family. He took such pains to attend
to the strangers, and give to the agitated group the air of an ordinary
party, that all of them who were sufficiently disengaged to observe his
exertions felt grateful to him. Millicent sat next to Ben on one side,
but Hillyard had placed himself between her and Mary Westbury on the
other, and in all the intervals of his general services to the company
Mrs. Rich had his attention, for which Mary blessed him. She herself,
overcome by many emotions, was but a pale spectator, able to take little
part in what was going on, saying now and then a languid word to the
unfortunate Guardsman, but capable of nothing more except watching,
which she did with a sick excitement beyond all description. Mary was so
pale, indeed, and watchful and excited, that her mother was alarmed, and
made signs to her across the table which she did not feel capable of
understanding. ‘She will cry if she does not mind, and make a scene,’
Mrs. Westbury said to herself; and set it all down to the score of Ben,
which was true enough, but not as she thought. As for Ben, he inclined
his ear specially to Mrs. Tracy, who was at his other hand, and hoped
she liked The Willows, and that her rheumatism was better, and a hundred
other nothings. There was, it is true, nothing very remarkable about
this party, looking at it from the outside. They were well-dressed
people, gathered round a well-appointed table, getting through an
average amount of talk, smiling upon each other like ordinary mortals;
but yet underneath how different it was; Mrs. Renton was consoled, and
ate her luncheon, sustained by her son Laurie’s attentions; but Mrs.
Frank Renton trembled so that she could scarcely keep up the fiction of
eating, and grew pale and flushed again six times in a minute, and
nervously consulted the countenance of her husband, who, very silent and
self-absorbed, drank his sherry, and more of it than he wanted at that
hour, taking little notice of any one; then, at the other end of the
table, there was Mrs. Tracy, hanging with ostentatious, artificial
interest on every word uttered by Ben; and Millicent, very pale, with an
excited gleam in her eyes, casting tender, wistful looks at him, which
he never saw; and Hillyard talking enough for six, helping everybody,
introducing a hundred indifferent subjects of conversation, which ran a
feeble course half-way round the table and then died a natural death.
Mrs. Westbury, one of the few people who was calm enough to remark upon
the appearance of the others, concluded within herself that, after all,
the strangers were a mistake. If the family party had been alone, their
excitement would have been nothing beyond what was natural; but her own
child, Mary, who ought at least to have been one of the calmest of the
party, sat by that unhappy Guardsman pale as a ghost, once in ten
minutes saying something to him, and looking as if she were about to
faint; and all the others were equally under the sway of agitation and
self-restraint. When this uncomfortable meal came to an end, everybody
rose with an alacrity which showed how glad they were that it was over.
And then there ensued another moment of supreme embarrassment. If the
strangers had any sense of the position they would go away instantly,
the family felt; but instead of that, Millicent moved at once to the
upper end of the room, where there stood upon a crimson pedestal a bust
of the last Benedict Renton, and humbly begged of Ben to explain to her
who it was; and while the others stood about waiting, he had to follow
and describe his grandfather, and fulfil the duties of showman, Mrs.
Tracy rushing to join the group.
‘Benedict Renton--your name!’ Millicent said, with again another attempt
upon his feelings, while Ben stood angrily conscious of the effort and
contemptuous of the fooling, scarcely concealing his eagerness to be at
liberty. ‘And this portrait, Mr. Renton? I can trace the family
resemblance,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And all this while Mr. Ponsonby’s blue
bag waited outside, and the family murmured, standing round in agonies
of suspense to know their fate. Then once more Hillyard stood forth,
vindicating his claim to be called Ben’s right-hand man.
‘Let me be cicerone,’ he said, ‘Renton, I know you are anxious to see to
your business. Mrs. Rich will take me for her guide to the pictures for
the moment. You know Mr. Ponsonby cannot wait, and you are losing time.’
‘If Mrs. Rich will excuse me,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, please don’t think of excuses; we can wait,’ said Millicent.
‘Mayn’t we wait to learn the news?’ and she clasped her hands softly,
unseen of the bystanders, and gazed into his face. ‘Nobody,’ she
murmured, lowering her voice, ‘can be more interested than I.’
‘So long as you can find anything to amuse you,’ said Ben, half frantic.
‘Hillyard, I confide it to you;’ and he had turned away, before any
further dart could be thrown at him. Then there was a hurried
consultation between Mrs. Renton and her sister-in-law. ‘I shall stay
with them; never mind. Of course I am anxious too; but half-an-hour more
or less don’t matter,’ Mrs. Westbury said, with the voice of a martyr;
and when Millicent looked round she found herself standing alone with
her own special party, Hillyard at her right hand, and Mrs. Westbury,
with a smile of fixed politeness, behind. Ben was gone. He had made no
answer to her appeal,--he had shown no inclination to linger by her
side. She had put forth all her strength for this grand final _coup_,
and it had failed.
‘I don’t think Mr. Renton has improved in politeness in his travels,’
she said to Hillyard, unable altogether to restrain the expression of
her despite.
‘He has not been in polite regions,’ said Hillyard; ‘and everything, you
know, must give place to business, now-a-days, even the service of
ladies. You must forgive him, when you consider what it is----’
‘I have nothing to do with him,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘I hope I
never shall have anything to do with so rude a man;’ and then she
paused, thinking she had gone too far. ‘You know it is not a way to
treat an old friend----’
‘Poor Renton!’ said Hillyard. ‘He is so unlikely to be any the better
for this anxiety, you know,--that is the worst of it; and I don’t think
he has any hopes to speak of. He has made all his arrangements for going
back to his work----’
‘You don’t say so!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, with a look at her daughter. ‘And
I can’t believe it!’ cried Millicent.
‘But I assure you it is true. No one can know better than I, for I go
with him,’ said Hillyard; ‘all our arrangements are made. But let me
show you the pictures. This was Sir Anthony Renton, who was a--Master in
Chancery in Queen Elizabeth’s time,’ pointing to a respectable merchant
in snuff-coloured garments of the days of Queen Anne. But the visitors
cared nothing for the family portraits, and Hillyard’s last shaft had
told. If Ben was unlikely to have Renton, it was of no use spending more
trouble upon him. They consulted together hastily for a moment, and then
they turned their backs upon the pictures. ‘I have the pleasure to wish
you good morning, Mrs. Westbury,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘Since our friends
are so much occupied we will take our leave. Pray give Mrs. Renton my
best sympathies.’
‘It is to be hoped some one will get the money at the end,’ said
Millicent, with less civility, sweeping towards the door. And thus the
strangers were got rid of at last.
‘I flatter myself I did that,’ said Hillyard, with a chuckle of
satisfaction. And then he, too, took his departure, and left Aunt Lydia
free to join the party in the library, where the great revelation of the
future fate of the family was about to take place.
The air of restrained excitement in this room was such that it would
have communicated itself to the merest stranger who had entered. It was
a dark room by nature; and a cloud had just passed, as if in sympathy,
over the brightness of the day. The window was open, and the blind beat
and flapped against it in the wind, which was a sound that startled
everybody, and yet that nobody had nerve enough to stop. Mrs. Renton had
been placed in an easy chair near the vacant fireplace. Alice and Mary
sat formally on two chairs against the wall; and the three brothers
stood up together in a lump, though they neither spoke nor looked at
each other. Mr. Ponsonby was seated at the writing-table, arranging his
papers and holding in his hand a large blue envelope, sealed. There was
complete silence, except now and then the rustle of papers, as the
lawyer turned them over. The members of the family scarcely ventured to
breathe. When Aunt Lydia entered they all turned round with a look of
reproach; their nerves were so highly strung that the least motion
startled them. In the midst of this silence, all at once Mrs. Renton
began to sob and cry, ‘I feel as if you had just come home from the
funeral!’ she said, with a wail of feeble grief. There was a little
momentary stir at the suggestion, so true was it; and Alice, being at
the end of her strength, cried too, silently, out of excitement. As for
the brothers, they were beyond taking much notice of the interruption.
They were now so much wiser, so much more experienced, since the day of
the funeral, the last time they had all met together in this solemn way.
Now they did not know what they were to expect: their confidence in
their father and the world and things in general was destroyed. By this
time it had become apparent to them that things the most longed for were
about the last things to be attained. Had they been all sent away again
for another seven years, or had the property been alienated for ever and
ever, the brothers would not have been surprised. Whether they would
have submitted, was a different question. Their opinions about many
things had changed. Their unhesitating resolution to obey their father’s
will seven years ago, without a word of blame, appeared to them now
simple Quixotism. They were scarcely moved by their mother’s tears. He
had done them harm, though they had been dutiful to him. He might now be
about to do them more harm for anything they could tell. The
uncriticising anxiety and expectation which filled the women of the
party was a very different sentiment from the uneasy, angry
anticipations of ‘the boys.’ Few dead men have ever managed to secure
for themselves such a vigorous posthumous opposition. In short, he was
not to them a dead man at all, but a living power, against which they
might yet have to struggle for their lives.
Mr. Ponsonby looked round upon this strange company, with the big
envelope in his hand and an excitement equal to their own. He looked at
them all, after Mrs. Renton’s crying had been quieted, and cleared his
throat. ‘Boys,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘I don’t know what’s in this any more
than you do. He did it without consulting me. If it is the will of ‘54
that is here, it is all just and right; but if it is any new-fangled
nonsense, like what I read to you here seven years ago, by the Lord I
will fight it for you, die or win!’
This extraordinary speech, it may be supposed, did not lessen the
excitement of the listeners. Alice crossed over suddenly to her husband,
and clung to him, taking it for granted that disappointment and downfall
were involved in these words. ‘Dear, if there is nothing for us, I shall
not mind!’ she cried, gazing at Mr. Ponsonby with a kind of terror.
‘Quickly, please; let us wait no longer than is necessary,’ said Ben,
with a certain peremptoriness of tone. Mr. Ponsonby had settled down in
a moment, after this outburst, to his usual look and tone.
‘I need not trouble you with many preliminaries,’ he said; ‘you all
remember how everything happened. He sent for me a week before his
death, and gave me this,’ holding up the envelope, ‘and this letter,
which I have also here. When I remonstrated his answer was, “If the one
harms, the other will set right.” My own impression now is, I tell you
frankly, that his mind was affected. Have patience one moment. Nothing
in the shape of a will, even in draft, was found among his papers, so
that there is nothing whatever to set against this, or explain his
intention. If it is that of ‘54 it is all right----’
‘No more!’ cried Ben; ‘let us know what it is at once.’
Then the lawyer tore open the envelope. Not a sound but the tearing of
the paper and crackling sound of the document within was to be heard in
the room, except one sob from Mrs. Renton, which seemed to express in
one sound the universal thirst of all their hearts. Mr. Ponsonby rose up
as he unfolded the paper; he stopped and gazed round upon them blankly,
with consternation in his eyes. Then he opened the sheet in his hand,
turned it over and over, shook out the very folds to make sure that
nothing lurked within,--then caught up the torn envelope and did the
same. And then he uttered an oath. The man was moved out of himself,--he
stamped his foot unconsciously, and clenched his fist, and swore at his
dead antagonist. ‘D---- him!’ he cried fiercely. This pantomime drove
the spectators wild. When he held up the paper to them they all crowded
on each other to see, but understood nothing. It was a great sheet of
blue paper, spotless--without a word upon it. Mr. Ponsonby in his rage
tossed it down on the floor at their feet across the table. ‘Take it for
what it is worth!’ he shouted, almost foaming with rage. Frank, at whose
feet it fell, picked it up, and held it in his hands, turning it over,
stupid with wonder. ‘What does it mean?’ cried Ben, hoarsely. Surprise
and excitement had taken away their wits.
‘Give it to me!’ said Mrs. Renton, from behind; and her son, upon whom
the truth was beginning to dawn, threw it into her lap. It flashed upon
them all at once, and a kind of delirium, fell on the party,--flouted,
laughed at, turned into derision, as it seemed, by the implacable dead.
‘It means that there is no will. I have been keeping a blank sheet of
paper for you,’ said Mr. Ponsonby bitterly, ‘for seven years.’
And then there was another pause, and they all looked at each other, too
much bewildered to understand the position, as if the earth had been
rent asunder at their very feet.
‘We never did anything to him to deserve this!’ said Laurie suddenly,
with a voice of pain. ‘Is there no mistake?’
As for Ben, he said nothing. His eyes followed the gleam of the paper,
which his mother was turning over and over in her helpless hands, as if
the secret of it might still be found out. But by degrees his eyes
lighted up. Almost unconsciously he made a step apart, separating
himself, as it were, from the audience, placing himself by Mr.
Ponsonby’s side as a speaker. There was a certain triumph in his eye.
After all, he was but a man, like other men, and the heir; and his
rights had been debated and questioned by everybody, himself included.
There was a flush and movement of satisfaction about him,--a sudden warm
blaze out of the absorbing disappointment, baffled hopes, and bitter
resentment which were rising round him.
‘If there is no will,’ he said, with a deep flush on his face, and
nervous gesture of his hand, ‘Renton is mine, as it ought to be. I am in
my father’s place; and what has been done amiss, it is my place to undo.
I cannot believe that there is any one here who doubts me.’
While he was speaking, Alice uttered a little cry. She had turned to him
her white face, but without seeing him or any one. ‘Must we go back to
India?’ she said, with a voice of anguish. That was the shape it took to
the young pair. She was pale as marble, but Frank’s face was blazing
red.
‘Hush, Alice!’ he said, fiercely; ‘that is our own affair.’
Ben made a movement towards them in his impatience. ‘I have told you you
should not go back!’ he cried. ‘I am here in my father’s place to set
all right.’
‘Stop a little,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, suddenly coming forward with a chair
in his hand, which he placed in the midst of them, sitting down upon it,
amid the agitated group. ‘You have not done with me yet. We have not
come to such simple means yet. Mrs. Frank, my dear, don’t be angry, and
don’t give way to your feelings. Things are not so bad as you suppose. I
lost my head, which is inexcusable in a man of my profession. It was a
dirty trick of him, after a friendship of thirty years. My dear young
people, sit down, all of you, and listen to me.’
No one made any change of position, but they all turned their eyes upon
him with looks differing in intensity, but full of a hundred questions.
Frank was defiant; Alice wild with despairing anxiety; Mrs. Renton
crying; Laurie soothing her; Ben very watchful, eager, and attentive.
Mr. Ponsonby, however, had entirely recovered his composure, which
unconsciously had a calming effect upon them all.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lost my head, which I had no right to do; but I am
coming to myself. Now, listen to me. There is no will; and Ben from this
moment is master of Renton, as he says. But stop a little. The personal
property remains, which is worth as much as Renton. I don’t know what I
could have been thinking of to forget that. After all, there is really
nothing to find fault with but the look of the thing. The money has been
accumulating these seven years;--it has been as good as a long
minority;--and some of the investments have done very well. The land, of
course, goes to the eldest son; but the personality, as some of you
ought to have known, is divided. It comes to just about the same thing.
God forgive me if I said anything I ought not to have said in the
excitement of the moment. It is shabby to me, but it won’t harm you,
thank God! I lost my head, that was all, and more shame to me. The will
of ‘54 would have come to much about the same thing.’
‘Oh, Mr. Ponsonby,’ cried Alice, with streaming eyes, thrusting herself,
unconscious of what she was about, in front of them all; ‘tell me, will
there be enough to keep us from going to India again?’
‘There will be twenty thousand pounds, or more,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘if
you can live on that; and I could, for my part.’
Alice, like the lawyer, had lost her head. She was too young to bear
this wonderful strain of emotion. She threw her arms about his neck in
her joy, and wept aloud, while they all stood by looking on, with such
feelings as may be supposed.
She was the only one who spoke. Her husband drew her back at this point,
half angry, half sullen, with his disappointment still dark in his face.
‘You had better go,’ he said to her, almost harshly; ‘you have heard all
that there is to be heard. It is best we should discuss the real
business by ourselves.’
‘Yes, come along,’ said Laurie, ‘all you ladies. You have heard it is
all right. You don’t want to hear the accounts, and all that legal
stuff. We will manage the business. I will take you back to your sofa,
mother, now you know all’s right.’
‘But is it all right?’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I don’t seem to understand
anything. Ben, will you come and tell me? Have they all got their
money,--all the boys? And what is Frank to have for his children? Till
you have children of your own, it is his boy who is the heir. Laurie is
always telling me it will come right. I would rather hear it from the
rest. Oh, boys! your poor father meant it for the best.’
‘It is all right, mother,’ said Ben; ‘better than we thought.’
‘Ah, but Frank says nothing,’ said the mother. ‘I will not go away till
I am satisfied about Frank.’
‘You heard Alice, I suppose,’ said Frank, somewhat sulky still. ‘I do
think it is a shame there is no will; but if we are to have our shares,
as Mr. Ponsonby says, I suppose, mother, it is all right.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Laurie. ‘Come, and I’ll see if the carriage is
round for your drive. You know how important it is you should have your
drive.’
‘Your dear papa always made such a point of it, Laurie,’ Mrs. Renton
said, holding her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘or else I am sure I never
could have the heart to go out on such a day.’
And thus the ladies were dismissed, and the brothers held their meeting,
and settled their business by themselves. It would be vain to say that
they were satisfied. Frank, whose mind had been vaguely excited,--he
could not tell why,--and to whom it had begun to seem inevitable that
some special provision should have been made for the only one of the
three who had ‘ties’ and a family to provide for, had experienced a most
sharp and painful downfall. And it took him a long time to accustom
himself to the idea that after all he was not wronged. It was a personal
offence to him, as it had been to his wife, that Ben should look
satisfied. ‘When he has Renton, I do not see the justice of Ben having
his share of the money too,’ he said, with a little bitterness in his
unreasonable disappointment. And Ben was half displeased to feel that it
was not to be his magnanimous part to provide for his brothers, but that
their own right and share remained to them as indisputably as Renton was
his. His proposal was that they should return to the will of ‘54, of
which Mr. Ponsonby still possessed the draft, and a great deal of
discussion took place between them. It was half-past six o’clock before
any of the party emerged out of the dark library, where they had spent
between three and four hours. Mr. Ponsonby came out, declaring that he
was tired and thirsty and half dead, and demanding sherry from the
butler, who was preparing the table for dinner. They all went in and
stood by the sideboard, and swallowed something to refresh themselves.
‘And, my dear boys, give me the satisfaction of hearing you say you are
contented,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘before dinner comes on; for I should
like to be jolly, if I may.’
‘I am perfectly satisfied,’ said Laurie; ‘and Ben is happy for the first
time for some years. As for Frank, he must speak for himself; he has
been dreaming, and it is sometimes unpleasant to wake up.’
‘If I have been dreaming, it was not for myself,’ said Frank; ‘a man
with a family is so different from you fellows; but if it will be any
satisfaction to you, I think I may say I am content, since better can’t
be.’
And then he went up-stairs abruptly to dress. Alice had been waiting for
him long, trembling a little, and not daring to believe anything till
her authorised expositor of external events came to deliver the judgment
to her. It did not seem right to Alice that Frank should not be the
first in any distribution of prizes or honours. And yet she was not
insensible to the claims of natural justice. ‘We should never have been
able to give it up if it had come to us,’ she said to herself; ‘and it
would have been contrary to all traditions of the family to disinherit
Ben.’
‘You always told me he was to have it,’ she said, when Frank came in,
with the remnants of his sulkiness still hanging about him. ‘You used to
say if it came to you, you would give it up to Ben.’
‘And so I should, of course,’ said Frank; ‘the thing is, the fellow was
so self-satisfied,--with a kind of look of pleasure that we were all cut
out. That was what I could not stand.’
‘But don’t you think he meant to be good to us?’ Alice said, trying hard
to smoothe her savage down.
‘Good to us, by Jove! but fortunately that’s all over,’ said Frank. ‘We
are safe enough. No need to worry yourself over those blessed children
any more. Poor little beggar! he won’t have much to look forward to; but
still you may bring him up at home, and that is all you care for, you
little goose,’ the young husband said, softening over the happiness in
Alice’s eyes.
‘How much shall we have, Frank?’ she asked, with a sudden relapse into
prudence.
‘Let me dress now,--and go and make yourself pretty,’ he said. ‘We shall
not be so badly off; there will be something like a thousand a-year.’
And thus Frank Renton too acknowledged to himself that things might have
been worse, and that he was content.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Westbury withdrew
into her daughter’s room, and locked the door, and had a cry, in which
Mary, over-worn and over-excited, was quite disposed to share, though
for a different reason. ‘I cannot understand your uncle Laurence,’ said
Mrs. Westbury. ‘I am sure I am not mercenary. I have given you up to
your aunt, and never grumbled, much though I wanted you; and you have
given up seven years of your life to her, and he has not left you so
much as a gown. I do feel it, my dear, for you.’
‘I am sure, mamma, I don’t feel it for myself,’ said Mary, with a smile.
‘One does not mind so long as all is right with the boys.’
‘The boys are all very well,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘but he might have
left something, my dear, to you.’
‘I did not want anything, mamma,’ said Mary. ‘But godmamma will not want
me so much when she has Ben, and oh, I do so long to get home!’ Poor
Mary was over-done, over-worn, excited by so many diverse feelings that
her power of self-command failed her at last. She put her arms round her
mother’s neck, and threw, as it were, all her weight of unexpressed
cares and griefs upon her. ‘Take me home, mamma!’ she said, and wept in
the abandonment of weariness and disappointment, and that overwhelming
despondency for which one can give no reason, on her mother’s neck.
Mrs. Westbury was a woman fond of explanations from other people, but
she understood her child by instinct, ‘Yes, yes, you shall go home, my
darling!’ she said, soothing her, but without any intention of carrying
out her promise. It was early days, as she said to herself. Before any
change was made, it must be made plainly apparent what the rest of the
family meant to do.
On the whole, the dinner-table was more cheerful that night. They were
all worn out with excitement, it is true, and signs of tears were about
the women’s eyes; but still there was the sense that, after all, justice
was once more in force, and natural law ruling their affairs. One man’s
will, fantastic and unaccountable, was no longer supreme over them. Ben
took his place at the head of the table with a certain glow of
satisfaction. ‘I know none of you would have seen me wronged,’ he said
when they were sipping over their wine. It was the first time that he
had taken any notice of the often-repeated declaration of his younger
brothers.
‘Not if the prize had been Great Britain, instead of Renton,’ said
Laurie; ‘though, to tell the truth, the one would have been as great a
bore as the other, had it come to me.’
‘Of course I should have given it up to Ben,’ said Frank; ‘but it would
have been a struggle; therefore I’m very glad things have been settled
as they are without my help.’
‘Bravo!’ cried Mr. Ponsonby, ‘that is the best sentiment I have heard
to-night.’
‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ said Ben, holding out his hand. Laurie
somehow did not count. The world would indeed have been coming to an end
had he been out of temper about his rights. It was the younger and the
elder who exchanged the grasp of peace and mutual amity. ‘And, remember,
Renton is home to us all,’ Ben said, with moisture in his eyes. ‘Of
course my mother remains here; as it has always been, with room for
all.’
‘Bravo, bravo!’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘now is the time for generous
feelings! My dear fellows, prosperity is the thing that opens men’s
hearts. Don’t talk to me of the benefits of misfortune! Let a man feel
he has his thousand a-year, or his five thousand a-year, safe in his
pocket, and then is the time his heart warms. But I’d have Mrs. Frank
come to an understanding with Mrs. Ben before I would take the
invitation in too literal a sense,’ said the old lawyer, with a chuckle
over his own wit.
‘I do not expect there will ever be a Mrs. Ben,’ said the heir, with an
impatient movement of his head.
‘Tell me that this time twelvemonths,’ said Mr. Ponsonby; and then they
all went out to the lawn to smoke their evening cigar.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF A DREAM.
If I do not enter very particularly into the family arrangements which
were made after this settlement, it is because, in the circumstances, so
much detail is unnecessary. Had Ben been in Frank’s position, a married
man with a family, it would of course have been needful that some
arrangements should have been made about Mrs. Renton’s future
habitation. She herself was provided for by her marriage settlements,
and had a little fortune of her own, settled on herself, which was
something for the babies to look forward to; and there was a
jointure-house on the estate, known by the name of the Dovecote, a
pretty, small house, with a view on the river, and only a mile’s drive
from Cookesley, where there can be no doubt Mrs. Renton, had there been
any need for it, would have been very comfortable. But as Ben was not
married, what did it matter? It was better his mother should keep house
for him, as she said in her innocence, than leave him to servants. There
was a consultation held in her room next morning, to the interruption
of the newspaper-reading; but as this was a crisis, full of events, for
once in a way she did not mind.
‘I would go to the Dovecote, my dear boy, if you thought I should be in
your way,’ she said; ‘but I think I had much better stay and keep house
for you, till you have a wife of your own to keep your house.’
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ said Ben. ‘Of course you
will keep house for me. And I think you should give the Dovecote to
Frank,--that is one thing I wanted to speak to you about. I will have it
fitted up, and do what I can to make it comfortable, and then you can
have the children always at hand to amuse you while I am away.’
‘But you are not going away?’
Mary was quite at the other end of the room, working by the window. It
was only her aunt’s worsted-work she was doing--not a very serious
occupation--but it always wanted a remarkable amount of light when Ben
was in the room. She was sitting there by herself, listening eagerly,
with a sore feeling in her heart, as of being excluded,--she who had
sacrificed so much to the comfort of the family. After all, though she
was so nearly related, and had spent her life with them, she was not a
Renton. Not like a daughter of the house, whose opinion would have
weight and whose comfort had to be consulted. Talk of Mrs. Renton
keeping the house! The meaning of that of course was that Mary was to
keep house. But of Ben’s house she never would be the honorary
housekeeper,--of that she was sure. When she heard her aunt’s frightened
exclamation, she too looked up a little,--of course it must be only a
figure of speech about his going away. Or he meant going to London
perhaps, or to the moors, or something temporary. Ben came to the
window, with his hands in his pockets, before he answered. Not as if he
were coming to Mary. It was only the restless habit men have of
wandering about a room. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking out, and addressing
nobody, ‘I am going away. Of course I must go back to my work. You
forget that when I came home I had not the least idea of what was to
become of me. And to throw away the work I had been making my bread by
for six years, would have been a great piece of folly. Indeed, the fact
is,--and I hope you won’t be vexed, mother, I assure you it is quite
necessary,--I am going to-morrow. I must finish what I’ve got to do.’
‘Going to-morrow!’ said Mrs. Renton, with a little shriek. Mary did not
even lift up her head from her work. She kept on bending over the
worsted roses as if they were the most important things in the world;
but her heart suddenly had taken to flutter in the wildest way against
her quiet breast.
‘Yes, Mary,’ said Ben, suddenly, ‘don’t you see that it is necessary? I
must finish my work.’
Mary made him no answer, being intent on the shade of a pink, and he
took a few turns about the room in his impatience; for his mother had
begun to cry softly in her bed.
‘That is always the worst of talking to you women,’ he said. ‘Mother,
can’t you understand? You can’t go breaking off threads in life, as you
do it in your sewing. I must wind up my affairs. There are some things I
must see after for myself.’