Meanwhile Sir William Markham had been strangely employed. He came home
to get himself brushed free of the dust of his journey; but when he got
to the house he thought of that errand no more. He asked for his letters
as if these were all that he was thinking of. And you may suppose that
in a house which knew the importance of letters, and was aware of all
the momentous issues of neglect in that particular, Sir William’s
letters were carefully arranged on the table in the library. He asked
for them, which was unnecessary, and looked so full of business and
importance, that Brown found “a screw loose” in his master too. This was
not his usual aspect when he came home. Then the busy statesman allowed
himself a holiday. Even when he was in office (much more being in
opposition), he had put off his burden of official cares, and had
strolled up the avenue with his wife without caring for his letters.
When Brown answered respectfully, “They are in the library, Sir
William;” within himself that functionary shook his head and said,
“There is something wrong.” Sir William went into the library, which was
large and dim and cool, the very home of quiet leisure and comfort--and
closed the door after him with a sense of relief. His letters were all
laid out on the table, but he did not so much as look at them. He sat
down in his usual chair, and leaned his head in his hands, and gazed
into the blank air before him. Was this all he had come for? Certainly
he did nothing more: gazed out straight before him and saw nothing; sat
motionless doing nothing; paused altogether body and soul. He was not
aware yet of the second visitor who had arrived; but he was in no doubt
about the first. He did not require to ask himself what his old
friend,--whose name had tingled through and through him, though he had
professed that he scarcely remembered it--wanted of him. That early
chapter of his life which he had put away entirely, which he had
honestly forgotten as if it had not been, came back to him in a moment,
no longer capable of being forgotten as he sat by his daughter’s side in
the little pony carriage. He had not meant any harm in putting it so
entirely from him. But nothing is ever lost in this tenacious world.
Bury a secret in the deepest earth, and some chance digger, thinking of
other things, will bring it up without intending it. Exercise even the
most innocent reticence about your own affairs, matters in which you
have a perfect right to judge for yourself, and some time or other even
this will come up against you like a crime. What harm had he done by
burying in his own heart a little inconsequent chapter of his life, an
episode that had come to an end so soon, that had left so few results
behind? What results had it left? The only one had been promptly and
conclusively taken off his hands. He had never felt it; he had never
been conscious of any responsibility in respect to it. But that which
had seemed to him nothing but a broken thread at twenty-five, was it to
reappear against him at sixty like a web of fate perplexing and
entangling his feet? A cold dew came out upon his forehead when he
thought of his wife. Were she to hear it, were she to know, how could he
ever again look her in the face? And yet he had done her no wrong.
There had been no harm, no evil intention in his mind. Half
inadvertence, and half a dislike to return to a matter which was an
irritation to his orderly mind, as well as a recollection of pain--an
incident that had come to nothing, a false beginning in life--were the
causes of his original silence about his own youth and all that was in
it. A man who marries at forty, is it necessary that he should unfold
everything that happened to him at twenty-five? and he had been done
with it all; had closed the chapter altogether so very long ago. That it
should be re-opened now was intolerable. But yet Sir William knew that
he must bear it; he must subdue all signs of annoyance, he must receive
his unwelcome visitor as if he were pleased to see him, and ascertain
what he wanted, and steal, if possible, his weapons out of his hands.
These were the thoughts in his mind as he sat alone and pondered,
arranging his ideas. He had known what it was to be much troubled by
public business in his day, but he had experienced little trouble with
his own. All was orderly and well regulated in his private affairs: no
skeletons in the cupboards, nothing anywhere that could not meet the
eye of day. This was the very sting of the present occurrence to him. A
secret! That _he_ should be convicted of a hidden chapter of early
indiscretion, of having taken a foolish step which might have coloured
all his life! Though it was no wrong to her, his wife could scarcely
fail to think it a wrong, and he could not but suffer in the estimation
of everybody who heard of it. Already, was he not humiliated in his own
eyes? But for this pause which enabled him to rearrange his thoughts, to
settle his plan of operations, he felt that he must have been
overwhelmed altogether. At last, with a sigh, he got up and prepared
himself to issue forth out of his sanctuary, and meet the dangers that
threatened him; he to be threatened with dangers of such a sort!--It was
intolerable--yet it had to be borne. He went out to meet the party which
he could hear coming up the avenue. Brown looked at him with suspicious
eyes as he came into the hall. Could Brown know anything? did everybody
know? Even Lady Markham, he thought, looked at him strangely, almost
with alarm. But it is unnecessary to say that this was all in Sir
William’s imagination. No one had as yet associated any idea of mystery
with him. His wife only thought he was weary with the work of the
session, and looking pale. She was standing talking to Colonel Lenny,
waiting till Alice should draw up at the door. Sir William, with a faint
gleam of returning pleasure, stood on the top of the steps and waited
too; but then he was confronted by the vision of the pink bonnet by his
daughter’s side. A pink bonnet! who had been talking of a pink bonnet?
He came down slowly, half afraid of this and everything else that was
new.
“In good time, Markham,” said Colonel Lenny, waving his hand; “here is
another old friend come to see you. She is changed more than you are.
From a girl, and a pretty one, she has grown an old woman, and that’s
not a thing to be permitted; but an old friend, my dear fellow, and more
than an old friend. Can’t you see it’s Katey? Katey, my wife?”
“Katey!” Even Sir William’s steady nerves gave way a little. His eyes
seemed to give a startled leap of alarm in their sockets. For a moment
the impulse in his mind was to turn and fly. Lenny was bad, but his wife
was a hundred times worse; and she looked at him, leaning out of the
pony carriage and holding out her hands as if she meant to kiss him;
but that was more than flesh and blood could bear. “Katey!” he said; “I
cannot believe my eyes. Is it Katey Gaveston after all these years? I
know I’ve grown an old man, and everything has changed, but----”
“You never thought to see the like of me such an old woman? Ah, Will,
but it’s true. I am Katey Gaveston, as sure as you stand there. I came
after him, to stop him from making mischief. He don’t mean it--we know
that; but he’s just as simple as ever. He blurts everything out.”
This speech went through and through Sir William. The light seemed to
fail from his eyes for a moment; but when he looked round all was as
before--Lady Markham talking to Brown, and Alice to the groom, who had
come for the pony carriage.
“Hush!” he said, instinctively, with a shudder, giving her his hand to
help her to step out. “Hush!” Then, making a little effort over himself,
he added, “We are to have time, I hope, to talk over old stories
quietly--at our leisure--no need to go back in a moment from the present
to the past.”
“Nearly forty years--it’s a long way to go back,” she said. “We’ve
grown old folks; but it’s better to take our time and talk it all over
quietly, as you say. Yes, yes, quietly; that is by far the best way.”
Mrs. Lenny nodded till her bonnet seemed to fill all the atmosphere with
pink mists of reflection, and laughed, filling the air with
reverberations of sound, just as her bonnet did with flickering of
coloured light; but she did not throw her arms round him in sisterly
salutation; this was something saved at least.
Then he led her in ceremoniously to the great drawing-room, which was
carefully shaded and cool and luxurious after the blaze outside. It was
sweet with great bowls of late roses, full of flowers of every kind--a
stately room such as Mrs. Lenny was not accustomed to see. She stopped
short with a cry of admiration.
“What a lovely place! What a beautiful--beautiful house!” Then she put
her handkerchief to her eyes. “To think, poor dear, who might have been
the mistress of it all!” she said.
Sir William cast an alarmed glance behind him, but his wife was too far
off to hear.
“You must recollect,” he said, “that _then_ I had no house at all--no
place to make--any one the mistress of. I never expected then to be
master here.”
Mrs. Lenny sat down and wiped her eyes.
“It is a beautiful house,” she said. “I’ve been into the park, and seen
a great deal; and when I think of all that’s come and gone, when I
remember that you were nothing but a poor man, Will Markham, just as
poor as all the rest of us--and to see you now, like a prince, with your
lovely wife, and her sweet family--oh! I know you’ll forgive me, my dear
lady; if your heart is as sweet as your face, you’ll forgive me; but I
can’t help thinking that what is given to one is taken from another; and
of them that never had a chance of happiness--them that are dead and
gone--and the place where they might have been--remembers them no more.”
Lady Markham, who could not shut her heart to any distress, came and sat
down by her and took her hand.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “When I have any sorrow it always
comes upon me afresh in a new place.”
How far she was from knowing what her visitor meant!
Mrs. Lenny looked up surprised. Then two big honest tears burst out of
her eyes, and her whole face lighted up with a smile.
“You are a darling,” she said, seizing Lady Markham’s soft hand in both
of hers, “with a heart as feeling! But I am not crying for anything in
particular, my dear--only out of excitement, and the strangeness of
everything. You must not be so sorry for me.”
Here Colonel Lenny interposed, and pointed out to Lady Markham the
tea-table which was awaiting her.
“Give her a big cup, my dear lady; that is what makes Katey happy,” he
said. “What would she be without her tea? We men take something
stronger, I don’t deny it; but we’re not so dependent upon anything. I
could live without my smoke, and I could live without my drink--times
have been when I’ve lived without eating too; but I can’t fancy my wife
without a tea-pot.”
“Not altogether without eating, I hope. Take some cake now,” said Lady
Markham, smiling, “to make amends.”
“I will have the cake,--but yes, altogether without eating--for as long
as it lasted--that was two days; the time is apt to feel long when
you’ve nothing to eat. I’ve always thought the more of breakfast and
dinner and all the little bits of ornamental eating and drinking that we
make no account of, since then. Oh I’ve told all about it to the boys.
I’m getting to an end of my stories,” said the colonel. “Roland begins
to know them better than I; he says, ‘That’s not how you told it
before.’ That boy is as sharp as a needle; he’s the one you should make
a lawyer of, my dear lady. Now Harry’s a born soldier; he’s up to
everything that wants doing with the hands. Put him before a lion, and
he’ll face it, that little fellow; and he takes in every word you say to
him. But Roland by Jove, cross-examines you as if you were in a
witness-box: ‘You said so-and-so before,’ or ‘How could you do that when
you had just done so-and-so?’ He’s as keen as an east wind.”
“That is a very biting metaphor,” said Lady Markham; but it did not
occur to her that the colonel was talking against time to beguile her
attention and keep the conversation which was going on at the other side
of the room undisturbed. There it was Sir William who was serving Mrs.
Lenny with the tea his wife had poured out.
“She knows nothing,” he said, in a low tone. “I did not think it was
worth while telling her. For God’s sake do not let her surmise it now.”
“I wouldn’t if I could help it, Will; but the boy--there’s the boy.”
“What boy? You mean Philip’s boy?”
Mrs. Lenny put out her hand and grasped his.
“Haven’t you heard? Philip’s dead, and the property all sold up, and
nothing left for one belonging to him. He never learnt, like the rest of
us, to scrape and save. It’s all gone--every penny. There was not so
much to begin with, when you think upon it; and there he is, without a
son.”
“My God!” said Sir William under his breath. He was not a man given to
oaths, but he was suddenly overwhelmed by the danger that over-shadowed
him which he had not thought of before. The evil he had feared was as
nothing in comparison. He grew pale to his very finger-nails. “This is
why you have come to me?” he said.
“Nothing but that--do I want to bother you? but _he_ must be thought of,
too. Will, the boy must not lose his rights.”
“He must be provided for,” said the baronet, gloomily; “but he has no
rights.”
“Will! do you mean to bring his mother out of her grave? No rights! We
came in friendship, but we’ll go in anger if there is any meaning in you
to disown the boy.”
“I cannot say any more now,” said Sir William, hastily. “I will talk to
Lenny to-night.”
“I don’t put my faith in Lenny for that matter. Will, you must satisfy
_me_.”
“I will, I will, Katey! For God’s sake no more.”
Alice had come up to them in her easy grace of youth. She heard, if not
the words, yet the tone in which they were said; and her father got up
hastily and got behind the stranger to whom he was speaking so
seriously, but who smiled upon the girl from her great chair.
“Come and talk to me, my pretty,” Mrs. Lenny said. “Your father and I
have been reminding each other of things we had both forgotten, and
they’re not such pleasant things as you. Come and cheer us up, my bonnie
dear.”
Lady Markham was very well content to see the close conversation that
was going on between her husband and this new guest. It took a great
burden off her mind. This time she had made no mistake--the claim of the
old friendship was real. No suspicion of any kind entered her thoughts.
She leaned back in her chair with a grateful sense of relief, and felt
glad that she had sent orders by Brown that Mrs. Lenny was to be put
into one of the best rooms, thus promoting the colonel too. There
remained only one little difficulty: Mrs. Lenny’s pink bonnet was a very
fine article indeed, but she could not come to dinner in it. Where was
she to find a toilette for the evening, since all her luggage, Lady
Markham knew, consisted of a bag which she had left with the
lodge-keeper? Lady Markham herself was somewhat particular about dress.
She wondered privately what it would be best to do, as she leant back in
her chair and listened to the colonel talking of Roland and Harry. She
must put on, she concluded, the plainest article in her wardrobe, that
Mrs. Lenny might not feel uncomfortable, and she must give Alice a hint
to do the same. Thus the alarming sensations aroused by this meeting
subsided, to all appearance.
“Yes, you did quite right; they are old friends, very old friends,” Sir
William said from his dressing-room, in answer to his wife’s question.
“Did I never tell you I spent two years in Barbadoes? Indeed I suppose I
had almost forgotten myself. My uncle had left some property there, and
not being of much consequence then I was sent out to look after it. It
came to nothing, like most West Indian property. The Gavestons were a
family of handsome girls. I--saw a good deal of them; most of the young
Englishmen who were there frequented their house. Lenny among the rest.
I scarcely recollected his name; but Katey Gaveston of course I was
bound to know.”
“She implied, I think, that there once had been some--flirtation between
you,” said Lady Markham, with a smile.
“Ah!” said Sir William--his voice sounded harsher than usual, though he
was painfully civil and ready to explain--“perhaps there might have
been--something. It is nearly forty years ago--it is not of much
consequence to any one now.”
“No--you don’t think I mind,” she said, this time with a soft laugh. But
he did not respond. He had not finished dressing, and _he_ was very
particular in his attire. His wife had taken a slight liberty, she felt,
in disturbing him. Did she not know that he liked perfect tranquillity
in that moment of preparation for dinner? It would not have occurred to
him to put on a black neck-tie, or change the usual solemn dignity of
his appearance on account of any visitor. Lady Markham was glad that her
own very simple dress escaped notice, at least.
The other pair meanwhile were comparing notes in their rooms, where Mrs.
Lenny’s preparations for dinner were by no means so simple as Lady
Markham had supposed. The bag, on being opened, had proved to contain
what she called “an evening body,” much trimmed with lace and ribbons.
She regarded this article with great complacency as she pinned the
ribbons across her bosom.
“I hope you don’t feel that you’ve any call to be ashamed of your wife,
Lenny,” she said. “I hope I’m fit to sit down with my lady, or the Queen
herself if she were to think of asking us. There’s the good of a real,
excellent black silk, it does for anything; in the morning it’s one
dress, in the evening it’s another. My Lady Markham will think I have
trunks full when she sees me. She’s a sweet woman; I thought so before,
but I think so more than ever now, to see the handsome room she’s put us
in. That proves her sense. She can see I’m not one of the common sort.
She doesn’t know anything about the connection, and she sha’n’t know it
through me, to vex her, the pretty dear. She doesn’t even know he was
ever in the island. After all, it’s a long time ago. She shall never
hear a word of it through me.”
“That would be all very well,” said the colonel, “if there was only you
and I; but you forget there’s another to think of.”
“I don’t forget; but there’s a deal more to think of than I supposed.
Why shouldn’t he stay where he is? It’s the life he’s used to. And what
would he do here? Money will never be wanting; and a little money would
make him a great man where he is. Don’t interrupt me with your reasons,
Lenny. He’s my flesh and blood, not yours; and I won’t do it, I haven’t
the heart to do it. A lovely woman, and a pretty family as you could
see. Don’t you know there’s the heir grown up--Paul they call him? If it
had been but a small boy I shouldn’t have minded. And the other, what
does he know about it? It can’t hurt him, what he doesn’t know. And he
isn’t at an age to change his habits. He’s no lad--he’s a man as old as
you or I.”
“Twenty years younger, and more.”
“What’s twenty years?” said Mrs. Lenny, indignantly. “He’s not an old
man, if you please, but neither is he young. He’s a man at his best--or
his worst, perhaps. We haven’t seen him since he was a boy. All’s fixed
and settled about him. And to change his country, and his condition, and
his way of living all in a moment!--who could do that? scarcely the best
man that ever was. He wouldn’t know how to behave; he wouldn’t
understand what was expected of him. He’d be miserable--and so would the
others too.”
“I can’t argue with you, Katey,” said her husband; “you’re so used to
having your own way. I won’t attempt to argue with you; but I know
what’s justice--and justice must surely be the best.”
“Oh, justice!” cried the colonel’s wife, “where do you find it in this
world? Is it justice that you’re only lieutenant-colonel of a West India
regiment, when you ought to have been a general in the army? Don’t speak
to me. I know you better than any one else does, and when I say that’s
what you’re fit for you may be sure I’m not flattering. Does a man get
flattery from his wife? We may get justice in another world, and I for
one hope for it; but not here. And here’s just a case where justice
would do more harm than good. It would do harm to both sides, and punish
everybody. It would be real injustice and cruelty, and all that’s bad;
and would you be the one to force it--and I to recommend it? No, no; I
tell you no!”
“I can’t argue with you, Katey,” her husband repeated. “Have it your own
way. It’s not my flesh and blood, as you say, but yours. But if it turns
out badly, and you repent after----”
“Bless us all,” cried Mrs. Lenny, starting to her feet, “there’s the
dinner bell!”
“I would advise you to put your cap on straight,” was all the colonel
said.
When this couple entered the dining-room, Mrs. Lenny felt proudly that
she had achieved one of the successes of her life. Lady Markham looking
up at her as she marched in on her husband’s arm, with flowers rustling
on her cap and lace on her shoulders, gave one look of bewildered
admiration, Mrs. Lenny thought, then glanced at Alice to communicate her
wonder. (“I knew she’d think I’d brought my whole wardrobe,” she said to
the colonel after, “and for that matter, that is fit to be seen, so I
have.”) The “evening body,” the lace, and the ribbons took Lady Markham
altogether by surprise; and it cannot be said that her own simple toilet
was appreciated by her visitor. But Mrs. Lenny was very kind after
dinner, and explained the simple artifice to her hostess, by way of
giving a lesson to one of the best dressed of women.
“You look very nice in your muslin, my dear,” she said, “and so does
that pretty darling, that would look well in anything; but when you come
to my time of life it makes a difference; and roaming about from place
to place how could I have room for muslins? not to say that washing is
a ruination. I have one evening body made with good black silk. It costs
a little more at the time, but what does that matter? And there you are,
both for morning and evening, quite set up.”
“It is a very admirable plan, I am sure,” Lady Markham said, with great
seriousness, checking with a look the laugh that was in Alice’s eyes.
The children were in the drawing-room, all four of them, very ready to
make friends with their beloved colonel’s wife.
“I feel as if I had something to do with them. I feel as if I were their
grandmother, though I never had a child of my own,” she said. Thus
everything went harmoniously in the drawing-room, though the ladies were
all a little curious to know what kept the gentlemen so long over their
wine. Sir William’s coffee grew cold; he had never been known to be so
late before.