The terraced garden at Garth rested to the south and east on a
sustaining wall so high that to build it to-day would tax the resources
of three Squires. Unfortunately, either for defence or protection from
the weather, the wall rose high on the inner side also, so that he who
walked in the garden might enjoy the mellow tints of the old brickwork,
but had no view of the country except through certain loop-holes,
gable-shaped, which pierced the wall at intervals, like the port-holes
of a battleship. If the lover of landscape wanted more, he must climb
half a dozen steps to a raised walk which ran along the south side.
Thence he could look, as from an eyrie, on the green meadows below him,
or away to the line of hills to westward, or turning about he could
overlook the operations of the gardener at his feet.
More, if it rained or blew there was at the south-west corner, and
entered from the raised walk, an ancient Dutch summer-house of brick,
with a pyramidal roof. It had large windows and, with much at Garth
that served for ornament rather than utility, it was decayed, time and
damp having almost effaced its dim frescoes. But tradition hallowed it,
for it was said that William of Orange, after dining in the hall at the
oaken table which still bore the date 1691, had smoked his pipe and
drunk his Schnapps in this summer-house; and thence had watched the
roll of the bowls and the play of the bias on the turf below. For in
those days the garden had been a bowling green.
There on summer evenings the Squire would still drink his port, but in
winter the place was little used, tools desecrated it, and tubers took
refuge in it. So when Josina began about this time to frequent it, and,
as winter yielded to the first breath of spring, began to carry her
work thither of an afternoon, Miss Peacock should have had her
suspicions. But the good lady saw nothing, being a busy woman. Thomas
the groom did remark the fact, for idle hands make watchful eyes, but
for a time he was none the wiser.
“What’s young Miss doing up there?” he asked himself. “Must be
tarnation cold! And her look’s fine, too! Ay, ’tis well to be them as
has nought to do but traipse up and down and sniff the air!”
Naturally it did not at once occur to him that the summer-house
commanded a view of the path which ran along the brook side; nor did he
suppose that Miss had any purpose, when, as might happen perhaps once a
week, she would leave her station at the window and in an aimless
fashion wander down to the mill—and beyond it. She might be following a
duck inclined to sit, or later—for turkeys will stray—be searching for
a turkey’s nest. She might be doing fifty things, indeed—she was
sometimes so long away. But the time did come when, being by chance at
the mill, Thomas saw a second figure on the path beside the water, and
he laid by the knowledge for future use. He was a sly fellow, not much
in favor with the other servants.
Presently there came a cold Saturday in March, a wet, windy day, when
to saunter by the brook would have too odd an air. But would it have an
odd look, Josina wondered, standing before the glass in her room, if
she ran across to the Cottage for ten minutes about sunset? The bank
closed early on Saturdays, and men were not subject to the weather as
women were. Twice she put on her bonnet, and twice she took it off and
put it back in its box—she could not make up her mind. He might think
that she followed him. He might think her bold. Or suppose that when
they met before others, she blushed; or that they thought the meeting
strange? And, after all, he might not be there—he was no favorite with
Mrs. Bourdillon, and his heart might fail him. In the end the bonnet
was put away, but it is to be feared that that evening Jos was a little
snappish with Miss Peacock when arraigned for some act of
forgetfulness.
Had she gone she might have come off no better than Clement, who,
braving all things, did go. Mrs. Bourdillon did not, indeed, say when
he entered, “What, here again?” but her manner spoke for her, and
Arthur, who had arrived before his time, received the visitor with less
than his usual good humor. Clement’s explanation, that he had left his
gun, fell flat, and so chilly were the two that he stayed but twenty
minutes, then faltered an excuse, and went off with his tail between
his legs.
He did not guess that he had intruded on a family difference, a trouble
of some standing, which the passage of weeks had but aggravated. It
turned on Ovington’s offer, which Arthur, pluming himself on his
success and proud of his prospects, had lost no time in conveying to
his mother. He had supposed that she would see the thing with his eyes,
and be as highly delighted. To become a partner so early, to share at
his age in the rising fortunes of the house! Surely she would believe
in him now, if she had never believed in him before.
But Mrs. Bourdillon had been imbued by her husband with one fixed
idea—that whatever happened she must never touch her capital; that
under no circumstances must she spend it, or transfer it or alienate
it. That way lay ruin. No sooner, therefore, had Arthur come to that
part of his story than she had taken fright; and nothing that he had
been able to say, no assurance that he had been able to give, no gilded
future that he had been able to paint, had sufficed to move the good
woman from her position.
“Of course,” she said, looking at him piteously, for she hated to
oppose him, “I’m not saying that it does not sound nice, dear.”
“It is nice! Very nice!”
“But I’m older than you, and oh, dear, dear, I’ve known what
disappointment is! I remember when your father thought that he had the
promise of the Benthall living and we bought the drawing-room carpet,
though it was blue and buff and your father did not like the
color—something to do with a fox, I remember, though to be sure a fox
is red! Well, my dear,” drumming with her fingers on her lap in a
placid way that maddened her listener, “he was just as confident as you
are, and after all the Bishop gave the living to his own cousin, and
the money thrown clean away, and the carpet too large for any room we
had, and woven of one piece so that we couldn’t cut it! I’m sure that
was a lesson to me that there’s many a slip between the cup and the
lip. Believe me, a bird in the hand——”
“But this is in the hand!” Arthur cried, restraining himself with
difficulty. “This is in the hand!”
“Well, I don’t know how that may be. I never was a business woman,
whatever your uncle may say when he is in his tantrums. But I do know
that your father told me, nine or ten times——”
“And you’ve told me a hundred times!”
“Well, and I’m sure your uncle would say the same! But, indeed, I don’t
know what he wouldn’t say if he knew what we were thinking of!”
“The truth is, mother, you are afraid of the Squire.”
“And if I am,” plaintively, “it is all very well for you, Arthur, who
are away six days out of seven. But I’m here and he’s here. And I have
to listen to him. And if this money is lost——”
“But it cannot be lost, I tell you!”
“Well, if it is lost, we shall both be beggars! Oh, dear, dear, I’m
sure if your father told me once he told me a hundred times——”
“Damn!” Arthur cried, fairly losing his temper at last. “The truth is,
mother, that my father knew nothing about money.”
At that, however, Mrs. Bourdillon began to cry and Arthur found himself
obliged to drop the matter for the time. He saw, too, that he was on
the wrong tack, and a few days later, under pressure of necessity, he
tried another. He humbled himself, he wheedled, he cajoled; and when he
had by this means got on the right side of his mother he spoke of
Ovington’s success.
“In a few years he will be worth a quarter of a million,” he said.
The figure flustered her. “Why, that’s——”
“A quarter of a million,” he repeated impressively. “And that’s why I
consider this the chance of my life, mother. It is such an opportunity
as I shall never have again. It is within my reach now, and surely,
surely,” his voice shook with the fervor of his pleading, “you will not
be the one to dash it from my lips?” He laid his hand upon her wrist.
“And ruin your son’s life, mother?”
She was shaken. “You know, if I thought it was for your good!”
“It is! It is, mother!”
“I’d do anything to make you happy, Arthur! But I don’t believe,” with
a sigh, “that whatever I did your uncle would pay the money.”
“Is it his money or yours?”
“Why, of course, Arthur, I thought that you knew that it was your
father’s.” She was very simple, and her pride was touched.
“And now it is yours. And I suppose that some day—I hope it will be a
long day, mother—it will be mine. Believe me, you’ve only to write to
my uncle and tell him that you have decided to call it up, and he will
pay it as a matter of course. Shall I write the letter for you to
sign?”
Mrs. Bourdillon looked piteously at him. She was very, very unwilling
to comply, but what was she to do? Between love of him and fear of the
Squire, what was she to do? Poor woman, she did not know. But he was
with her, the Squire was absent, and she was about to acquiesce when a
last argument occurred to her. “But you are forgetting,” she said, “if
your uncle takes offence, and I’m sure he will, he’ll come between you
and Josina.”
“Well, that is his look-out.”
“Arthur! You don’t mean that you’ve changed your mind, and you so fond
of her? And the girl heir to Garth and all her father’s money!”
“I say nothing about it,” Arthur declared. “If he chooses to come
between us that will be his doing, not mine.”
“But Garth!” Mrs. Bourdillon was altogether at sea. “My dear boy, you
are not thinking! Why, Lord ha’ mercy on us, where would you find such
another, young and pretty and all, and Garth in her pocket? Why, if it
were only on Jos’s account you’d be mad to quarrel with him.”
“I’m not going to quarrel with him,” Arthur replied sullenly. “If he
chooses to quarrel with me, well, she’s not the only heiress in the
world.”
His mother held up her hands. “Oh dear me,” she said wearily. “I give
it up, I don’t understand you. But I’m only a woman and I suppose I
don’t understand anything.”
He was accustomed to command and she to be guided. He saw that she was
wavering, and he plied her afresh, and in the end, though not without
another outburst of tears, he succeeded. He fetched the pen, he
smoothed the paper, and before he handed his mother her bed-candle he
had got the fateful letter written, and had even by lavishing on her
unusual signs of affection brought a smile to her face. “It will be all
right, mother, you’ll see,” he urged as he watched her mount the
stairs. “It will be all right! You’ll see me a millionaire yet.”
And then he made a mistake which was to cost him dearly. He left the
letter on the mantel-shelf. An hour later, when he had been some time
in bed, he heard a door open and he sat up and listened. Even then, had
he acted on the instant, it might have availed. But he hesitated,
arguing down his misgivings, and it was only when he caught the sound
of footsteps stealthily re-ascending that he jumped out of bed and lit
a candle. He slipped downstairs, but he was too late. The letter was
gone.
He went up to bed again, and though he wondered at the queer ways of
women he did not as yet doubt the issue. He would recover the letter in
the morning and send it. The end would be the same.
There, however, he was wrong. Mrs. Bourdillon was a weak woman, but
weakness has its own obstinacy, and by the morning she had reflected.
The sum charged on Garth was her whole fortune, her sole support, and
were it lost she would be penniless, with no one to look to except the
Squire, whom she would have offended beyond forgiveness. True, Arthur
laughed at the idea of loss, and he was clever. But he was young and
sanguine, and before now she had heard of mothers beggared through the
ill-fortune or the errors of their children. What if that should be her
lot!
Nor was this the only thought which pressed upon her mind. That Arthur
should marry Josina and succeed to Garth had been for years her darling
scheme, and she could not, in spite of the hopes with which he had for
the moment dazzled her, imagine any future for him comparable to that.
But if he would marry Josina and succeed to Garth he must not offend
his uncle.
So, when Arthur came down in the morning, and with assumed carelessness
asked for the letter she put him off. It was Sunday. She would not
discuss business on Sunday, it would not be lucky. On Monday, when,
determined to stand no more nonsense, he returned to the subject, she
took refuge in tears. It was cruel of him to press her so, when—when
she was not well! She had not made up her mind. She did not know what
she should do. To tears there is no answer, and, angry as he was, he
had to start for Aldersbury, leaving the matter unsettled, much to his
disgust and alarm, for the time was running on.
And that was the beginning of a tragedy in the little house under
Garthmyle. It was a struggle between strength and weakness, and
weakness, as usual, sought shelter in subterfuge. When Arthur came home
at the end of the week his mother took care to have company, and he
could not get a word with her. She had no time for business—it must
wait. On the next Saturday she was not well, and kept her bed, and on
the Sunday met him with the same fretful plea—she would do no business
on Sunday! Then, convinced at last that she had made up her mind to
thwart him, he hardened his heart. He loved his mother, and to go
beyond a certain point did not consort with his easy nature, but he had
no option; the thing must be done if his prospects were not to be
wrecked. He became hard, cruel, almost brutal; threatening to leave
her, threatening to take himself off altogether, harassing her week
after week, in what should have been her happiest hours, with pictures
of the poverty, the obscurity, the hopelessness to which she was
condemning him! And, worst of all, torturing her with doubts that after
all he might be right.
And still she resisted, and weak, foolish woman as she was, resisted
with an obstinacy that was infinitely provoking. Meanwhile only two
things supported her: her love for him, and the belief that she was
defending his best interests and that some day he would thank her. She
was saving him from himself. The odds were great, she was unaccustomed
to oppose him, and still she withstood him. She would not sign the
letter. But she suffered, and suffered terribly.
She took to bringing in guests as buffers between them, and once or
twice she brought in Josina. The girl, who knew them both so well,
could not fail to see that there was something wrong, that something
marred the relations between mother and son. Arthur’s moody brow, his
silence, or his snappish answers, no less than Mrs. Bourdillon’s scared
manner, left her in no doubt of that. But she fancied that this was
only another instance of the law of man’s temper and woman’s
endurance—that law to which she knew but one exception. And if the girl
hugged that exception, trembling and hoping, to her breast, if Arthur’s
coldness was a relief to her, if she cared little for any secret but
her own, she was no more of a mystery to them than they were to her.
When the door closed behind her, and, accompanied by a maid, she
crossed the dark fields, she thought no more about them. The two
ceased—such is the selfishness of love—to exist for her. Her thoughts
were engrossed by another, by one who until lately had been a stranger,
but whose figure now excluded the world from her view. Her secret
monopolized her, closed her heart, blinded her eyes. Such is the law of
love—at a certain stage in its growth.
Meanwhile life at the Cottage went on in this miserable fashion until
April had come in and the daffodils were in full bloom in the meadows
beside the river. And still Arthur could not succeed in his object, and
wondering what the banker thought of the delay and his silence, was
almost beside himself with chagrin. Then there came a welcome breathing
space. Ovington despatched him to London on an important and
confidential mission. He was to be away rather more than a fortnight,
and the relief was much even to him. To his mother it had been more, if
he had not, with politic cruelty, kept from her the cause of his
absence. She feared that he was about to carry out his threat and to
make a home elsewhere—that this was the end, that he was going to leave
her. And perhaps, she thought, she had been wrong. Perhaps, after all,
she had sacrificed his love and lost his dear presence for nothing! It
was a sad Easter that she passed, lonely and anxious, in the little
house.