she had feared, this was what she had determined to avoid; but once
again Fate had been too strong for her, and had precipitated the
calamity before she had had time to obtain her freedom. Now every one
would call her heartless and unwomanly; her parents would look coldly
upon her, she would be branded before the neighbourhood as a girl who
had forsaken her love when he most needed her devotion. A great wave of
anger swept over her, her heart thumped against her side, and her breath
came fast. She hardly knew what she was saying, but the words rushed
out in a breathless string--
"Oh yes, Maud--Maud! Always Maud! I'm sick of hearing Maud quoted, and
held up as a pattern! Maud is always right, and I am wrong. Maud is an
angel, and I am an unwomanly wretch! Why didn't you get engaged to
Maud, when you liked her so much better than me? If I have made a
mistake, so have you, and you have no right to reproach me. I'll go
away and leave you, since I make you so unhappy, and you prefer Maud's
company to mine."
She was out of the room even as the last word was uttered, and the two
who were left stared at each other with horrified eyes. Maud's face was
crimson, from the tip of her chin to the roots of her hair, but she was
the first to speak and recover some semblance of composure.
"Oh, don't listen to her! Don't listen to her! She does not know what
she is saying. She is excited, and has lost her self-control. In a few
minutes she will be sorry. Oh yes, I know she will; she will be
wretched, and come to beg you to forgive her. Wait, wait, and don't
judge her hardly. She is so young, as you said, and she didn't know
what she was saying. Try to forget it."
But Ned sank down in a chair and covered his face with his hands.
"But it is true!" he moaned. "It is true, and I can't deny it! Oh, how
blind I have been--how blind and foolish! I have ruined my own life as
well as hers."
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
A MILESTONE.
It was all over. Ned had gone away, and the diamond ring no longer
shone on Lilias's left hand. In a storm of tears and sobs she had
declared to her mother that she neither could nor would keep true to her
engagement, and Ned had received the intelligence with grave composure.
"She made a mistake!" he said quietly. "We both made a mistake. I
cannot blame her, for I was in fault myself. What we thought was love,
was but the attraction of youth and good spirits, which could not stand
the strain of adversity. Don't be hard on Lilias, Mrs Rendell. I
should be sorry that she should suffer any more on my account. It has
been a painful experience for her."
But Mrs Rendell closed her lips in a stern silence, and had no word of
pity for her daughter. It shocked her proud heart that one of her girls
should have behaved in a manner so unworthy the precept which she had
endeavoured to teach, for she knew well that Lilias would have felt no
qualms in preparing for her marriage, if Ned's story had been one of
success instead of failure.
What Mrs Rendell thought she was accustomed to say, and Lilias came
away from the important interview smarting with mortification and
wounded vanity. She tried to think that the worst was over; but the
bitterest moment was yet to come, when she met her father--the gentlest
and most forbearing of men, who was so slow to blame that his children
could count the reproofs of a lifetime on the fingers of one hand--and
he looked at her with a strange, cold glance, in which was no trace of
the old fond admiration.
"What's this I hear about you, Lilias?" he asked sternly. "I'm not
proud of you, my dear, not proud at all! I did not think that a
daughter of mine could have behaved in such an unwomanly manner. Your
affection seems good only for fair weather. Talbot is well rid of such
a wife!"
It was not much, and it was the only reference to the broken engagement
which she ever heard from his lips, but it pierced the girl's heart as
no other reproach could have done. The relationship between a father
and a daughter is a very sacred and beautiful one, and the consciousness
of his pride in her, his barely concealed satisfaction in the admiration
she excited, had been one of her most cherished joys. The thought that
her father was ashamed of her made Lilias wince with pain, nor did her
sisters' reception of the news help to restore her composure.
Maud's principle in life was to say nothing, if it were impossible to
say what was agreeable; but Nan made up for this silence by the candour
of her denunciation. The two girls came face to face at the top of the
stairs, an hour after the great news had circulated through the house,
and mutually stopped to gaze in each other's face.
"W-ell?" queried Lilias timidly. "You've heard! Mother has told you.
What do you--what do you think about it?"
Nan closed her eyes, and tilted her chin in the air.
"Sneak!" she said shortly; and the other started back in astonishment.
"Wh-what do you say?"
"Sneak! That's what I called you. It's a mean, sneakish thing to
desert a man just when he is in trouble and needs all the help he can--"
"It wasn't just then. I had been thinking of it a long time. If he had
stayed away a week longer, I would have spoken to mother all the same.
I had made up my mind. You don't understand what you are talking about,
and you have no right to call me names. It's vulgar and unladylike."
"I am thankful for that!" cried Nan piously. "If your behaviour is
ladylike, I'll be as vulgar as I can. I'd rather not talk, if you
please, until I have got over it a little. I'm afraid of what I may
say."
She went stalking downstairs, and Lilias turned into the porch-room and
sat herself down in despair. Elsie was seated at the table engaged in
informing the diary of the latest family event, and she turned a look of
such sympathetic sorrow upon the new-comer, that Lilias felt that here,
at last, she had found a friend in need.
"My heart is broken, Elsie!" she sobbed tragically. "Every one has
turned against me. Father--mother--Nan--they are all cruel to me.
Their words cut into my heart! I can never forget them--never feel the
same again."
Elsie drew a sigh so long and fluttering that it was almost worthy to be
ranked as a groan.
"No--never, never! A blow like this, coming in early youth, will cloud
and darken all your life. You can never be a girl again. The
remembrance of all you have suffered, and of the life you have wrecked,
will haunt your dreams, and make you old before your time. You feel it
now, but you'll feel it more and more, like a leaden weight pressing
upon you, crushing out all your joy..."
"Dear me, Elsie, how you talk! You might be a penny novel, to prose
away like that. You are a fine Job's comforter for a poor girl to come
to in her trouble! It's hard enough for me as it is, without trying to
make it worse. I shall drown myself, if this sort of thing goes on.
Maud sulking, Nan raving, you croaking! What a prospect! And I shall
have to endure it all my life too, for I shall never marry--now."
"No," said Elsie judiciously, "I suppose not. Not for love, at least.
Perhaps, by and by, after years and years, when you are middle-aged, you
may make a marriage _de convenance_, to some old man who could give you
a comfortable home. People often do that in books, I notice, when they
have had an unfortunate affair in youth. And look at Mrs Bailey! Her
lover was killed in the Crimea, and when she was fifty-two she married
that nasty old man with the snuff on his beard, and--"
But the rest of the sentence was spoken to the air, for Lilias had fled.
The prospect of the old man with snuff on his beard was too much for
her composure, and she rushed into the garden, to see if there, at
least, she might find the much-desired solitude.
No, not yet! for the summer-house towards which she sped had already
been occupied by the three schoolgirls, and there they sat staring at
her with big solemn eyes, as if, forsooth, a girl who had broken off her
engagement was a new and extraordinary freak of humanity.
Good-natured Agatha made room for the new-comer by her side, and glanced
sympathetically at the tear-stained face, but, as usual, her remarks
were not the most tactful in the world.
"Was it really your doing, Lilias?" she inquired, "or was Ned tired of
you too? Kitty says he was, and feels sure he will not mind much."
That opened Lilias's eyes with a flash of anger, but Kitty had the
courage of her opinions, and said stolidly--
"I never considered from the beginning that he was really in love. I've
seen lots of engaged people, and he wasn't a bit like them. He used to
ask us to go about with you, and be quite disappointed if we wouldn't,
and most couples like to be alone, and make faces at one another when
they think you are not looking, to say they wish you would run away.
I've had experience, for last summer we stayed two months in a
hydropathic."
"Perhaps he really did care for you at first, but was disappointed when
he got to know you better!" This from Christabel; while Agatha chimed
in with an eager--
"But you are glad, dear, aren't you, to think he is not heart-broken?
It makes it easier for you when he doesn't care!"
Plainly there was no comfort forthcoming for Miss Lilias from the
members of her own family!
Meanwhile Jim was seeing his friend off at the railway station, and
administering such sympathy as was deserved for Ned's business reverses,
while eclipsing his sisters in candour on the subject of the broken
engagement.
"If you would be a fool, you must be prepared to suffer for it. Never
was more surprised in my life than to hear of it, when it first came
off. Thought you had gone off your head. When I was at home with you
last, there was no sign of such nonsense. Can't think what on earth
possessed you!"
"She was so pretty and charming, and seemed so much interested in all I
did! Vanity was at the bottom of it, I suppose. I was flattered and
interested, just when I was down on my luck, and needed it most. I--I--
I must make a clean breast of it, Jim, and tell you the truth! Of
course, it was Maud I cared for first; I can see now that I have loved
her all through, but she was so reserved with me, and kept me at such a
distance, that I thought she wanted to show me that I had no chance.
Then Lilias came home, and I was captivated by her lovely face and
pretty ways. She seemed to turn to me for advice and sympathy, to be so
pleased to see me, so sorry when I left, that--that--ah, well, you know
the rest! I was a fool, as I daresay many a man has been before me; and
though I was miserable enough, I never discovered why, until Lilias
herself pointed it out. She accused me of caring for Maud more than for
her--in Maud's presence, too--when we three were alone together!"
Jim's lips met in a significant whistle.
"The little wretch! She ought to be shaken! My poor old Maud, that was
rough on her. What did she do or say?"
"Begged me to take no notice, and pleaded for Lilias, like the angel she
is. But I was knocked completely over, didn't know what I was doing,
and told her straight out that it was true. Perhaps I should not have
done it, but I could not help myself, and she gave me one look, just
one! Oh, Jim, old man, if this crash has shown me the awful mistake I
was making, it will be indeed a blessing in disguise. I will work like
ten men, I will laugh at difficulties, I will do anything and
everything, if only, only I can win Maud in the end. You will be my
friend, won't you? You will help me, and tell her what I hope?"
"Not if I know it!" returned Jim, with masculine candour. "You have
done quite enough mischief for the time, old chap, and had better lie
low until things have blown over. I've a great deal too much respect
for Maud, to suggest that she should adopt you as her lover the moment
you are dropped by Lilias. Wait a year or two until you have made your
position, and then come down and ask her yourself--"
"A year or two! And meantime she might think I had changed again, and
had forgotten all about her--That's too much to expect! I don't ask you
to say anything just yet, but in time to come you might drop a hint, or
let her see one of my letters, show her in any indirect way you like
that I know my own mind at last, and am working towards an end. It
isn't much to ask from an old chum--I'd do as much for you if I were in
your place."
"Humph!" quoth Jim concisely; but his grey eyes sent out a kindly gleam,
and Ned Talbot went away comforted by the knowledge that his friend
would be kinder in deed than in word, and that his message would not
fail to be delivered.
He had another friend at court to whom he gave less thought, but whose
loyalty was at least as strong as that of her brother. Nan had her own
dreams of the future, of which she breathed no word to a living soul,
but she set herself to work to clear away such difficulties as lay in
Ned's path, with her accustomed energy and daring.
"If I were a nice old gentleman with heaps of money and nothing to do, I
would give a good situation to a young fellow who was miserable and ill-
treated!" she announced to Mr Vanburgh, at the conclusion of the story
of the broken engagement; and that gentleman chuckled with enjoyment as
he listened.
"Would you, indeed? And in what capacity? I don't quite see what
situations I have to offer which would meet Mr Talbot's requirements.
There is a good deal of machinery of one sort and another involved in
the work of a house like this, but I fear it is hardly the kind which he
is accustomed to superintend."
"Don't snub me, please. I'm too reduced. I don't mean in this house,
but somewhere else where there are Works like his own. If you would
just write to the people and say how clever he is, and what a good
manager, and that you are sure they would like him!"
"But how can I be sure? I know nothing about Mr Talbot's business
capacities, and should hardly recognise him if I met him in the street!"
"But I tell you! You can trust my word; and every one likes Ned, for he
is so good and noble. He didn't want to go into the Works at all, for
he is one of those quiet, studenty sort of men, who are never so happy
as when they are in the country, alone with their books and their
thoughts. He wanted to be a literary man, but his brother died, and
there was no one else to help his father, so he gave up his own plans
for the sake of the family. That seems to me very hard--to be unselfish
and take up uncongenial work, and then to meet with nothing but failure
and disappointment! I should expect to be rewarded by making piles of
money, but poor old Ned has lost almost all he has. Dear, sweet, kind
Mr Vanburgh, find him another opening--do!"
The old man smiled, and laid his worn fingers caressingly over the
girl's hand.
"I would do a great deal to please you, Nan, if I could find the way,
but my word is not so powerful as you imagine. I am afraid the managers
of the great factories would pay very little attention to my
recommendation; but if Mr Talbot is not set on continuing a business
life, it is possible that something else might be found. I have a good
deal of land which will come to Gervase in his turn, and meantime, as he
engages my stewards for me and takes in hand most of the arrangements,
you had better speak to him on the subject."
"Oh-oh!" cried Nan, and turned towards the young man with hands clasped
together in supplication. "Oh! do you--do you? Then one of them is a
bad steward, isn't he? I am sure he is! You want a new one; I am sure
you do! Ned would make a beauty, for he loves nothing so much as a
country life. He is a splendid shot. Jim saw him knock over twelve
rocketers running, last time they were out together, and he goes in for
all kinds of sport. His father had a beautiful country place when they
were rich, and he is always talking of what he used to do. He looks so
sweet in gaiters, too! He would make a lovely steward!"
Both men shook with laughter, but Nan's earnestness could not be shaken.
She was pleading for Maud's future, for Maud's happiness, and neither
ignorance nor bashfulness had power to check her. She insisted on the
wickedness of the present steward with such determination, that Gervase
was forced to come to his defence.
"Indeed, Nan, he is a most capable and clever fellow. I've not a word
to say against him, except that perhaps he is too clever to stay with us
much longer. Lord Edgeworth has been advertising for a steward, and I
think it more than likely that he will get the post. If he should--"
"He will! He will!" cried Nan excitedly. "I feel a conviction. He
will get it, and you will offer Ned his place. It would be defying
Providence to do anything else. Oh, how happy I am--how pleased he will
be! And is it a pretty house in a garden, big enough for us all to go
down and stay with him? How soon will it be settled, so that I can tell
them at home?"
So determinedly confident did she appear as to the success of her
scheme, that it seemed an ungenerous act to pour cold water on such
generous enthusiasm, and each man registered a mental vow to satisfy
her, if it were within the bounds of possibility.
As his custom was, Gervase escorted the visitor on a tour of inspection
round the garden before she took her departure, and took advantage of
the _tete-a-tete_ to express a more ardent sympathy with the home
trouble than he had cared to show in his uncle's presence. The broken
engagement had been no surprise to him, for he had summed up the
character of Miss Lilias too accurately to have any trust in her
stability; but it had evidently come as a shock to Nan's unsuspecting
mind.
"She says now that she has been thinking of it for some time, and he
says he was dissatisfied; yet neither of them spoke a word, but went
drifting on and on, waiting upon chance. I suppose they would have
married each other if this crash had not come, and regretted it for the
rest of their lives. I can't understand such behaviour. If I feel a
thing, I can't bottle it up, I simply cannot; out it must come, whatever
is the consequence. And when it comes to pretending to love a person
when you don't, and to be happy when you are not, that is worse than
anything else. It's positively wicked!"
"I agree with you. I have always maintained that absolute honesty
should be practised in these affairs between a man and a woman, and that
far less trouble would arise if each side spoke out plainly as to what
was in their hearts. I go perhaps a little further in my views than
most people, but long ago I made myself a promise that when my own hour
came I would act up to my convictions, and I am not going to draw back
now. Months ago, Nan, you walked into my uncle's room to meet me, and I
knew--I think I knew almost as soon as I met your eyes--that here was a
new specimen of her kind, a woman who would play a great part in my
life. I had never known that feeling before, but it has grown in
strength ever since that day, until now it is difficult to imagine my
life without it. You have engrossed all my thoughts--all my hopes--"
Nan stood still and stared at him. The colour had left her cheeks, and
her eyes were wide and startled. She laid her hand on her throat and
gave a little choking gasp.
"Do you mean that you--that you are--in love--with _me_?"
The amazement in her tone, the incredulity of that "me" was touching in
its humility, and Gervase's smile was very tender as he replied--
"I think I am. I am, at least, travelling very fast in that direction.
Does that alarm you so very much? Does it distress you? Have you no
feeling of friendship to offer me in return?"
"Friendship! Oh yes, but not,"--Nan gulped over the word in wild
embarrassment--"the other thing! It's too soon. I have just left the
schoolroom--I have just put up my hair. I couldn't think of such a
thing for years and years, until I am old, and have got some sense!"
Gervase laughed softly.
"You have more sense now than any girl I know; but don't be frightened,
dear, I am not asking for my answer yet. You must have time, but I
wanted you to know from the beginning what my feelings were. As you
grow older and go into society, and meet other men, I want you to
remember that there is one man who has already given his heart to your
keeping, and is waiting in the hope that yours may be given to him in
return. You are not bound-to me in any way. If you meet some one whom
you can care for more than for me, I will wish you God-speed; but until
that day comes I will wait in hope. I will not trouble you by referring
to the subject again at present; for a year to come I will promise not
to allude to it, but by that time you will be twenty, and will have had
twelve whole months to think me over. You will not forbid me to speak
to you again next July, Nan?"
"N-no!" sighed Nan dubiously, "I suppose not. You are very kind, but I
am--frightened. Suppose I said `Yes,' and then changed my mind like
Lilias! That would be dreadful, yet how can one be sure? I like you
very much, better than any other man, but still--"
"You must never say `Yes' unless you have no doubt in your heart. No
amount of liking will do. If the day ever comes when you feel that your
whole heart goes out to me, as mine does to you, when you would choose
poverty with me rather than riches with another man, then come to me,
darling, but never till then. You and I are not the sort to be
satisfied with a half-and-half happiness, and we will not risk failure.
I want to make your life beautiful, not to wreck it!"
The tears rose slowly in Nan's eyes, and her lips trembled.
"You are very good to me; but I feel as if I must be a hypocrite to have
deceived you so. I'm not worth it. I'm not, indeed. If you only knew
what a wretch I am, you couldn't think of me any more. There are such
lots of nice girls. If you would only choose somebody proper and
sensible and accomplished and clever--"
"Oh, Nan, I don't want her. Don't force her on me, please. I've met
her such scores and scores of times, and she bored me so unutterably. I
want just you, and no one else; but don't trouble your head about me for
another year. Live your own bright life. I would not for the world
shorten your girlhood or make you old before your time. It won't be a
very depressing thought, dear, will it, that somewhere a hundred miles
away a man is loving you, and trying to live a better life because of
his love?"
Nan could not answer, could only shake her head in a mute dissent. No;
it was far from depressing--it was beautiful, inspiring--but, oh, what a
responsibility! Gervase might say that he would not willingly shorten
her girlhood, but, alas! had he not already done so? To feel that
another heart leant on her own, another life depended on her for
happiness--was this not a reflection to sober the most careless and most
light-hearted of natures? Nan knew full well that this short interview
was as a milestone in her life, and that at one step she had left behind
the careless days of youth.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
AFTER TWO YEARS.