CAROLINE AND BEATRIX
It was nearly twelve o'clock when Caroline went up to her room. Her mind
was calmed by her talk with her father. She loved him so much that his
contentment could hardly fail of some reflection in her. And, though
jealousy was far removed from her, it gave her pleasure to think that
when Beatrix had left him he would need her love and companionship more.
Perhaps it was, as he had said, she was feeling hurt that Beatrix had
not come to her for the deep love and sympathy that was there for her in
her joys as well as in her troubles. Although her sympathies had not
been undivided in that trouble of a year ago, for she had believed that
her father had been right and had felt for him during a period of
something like estrangement as much as she had felt for Beatrix in being
parted from her lover, still her heart had beaten much closer to her
sister's then than it did now. Beatrix had leant upon her. She had been
wayward; perhaps she had even been selfish. She had often hurt Caroline,
when the hurt in herself had made her hard and unreasonable towards all
but the one who could then have assuaged it. But Caroline had gone
through it all with her, and loved her all the more for having shared
her pain. It was rather hard if she was to be held at arm's length now,
after having given so much, and being ready to give so much.
Her sadness came upon her again when she had shut herself into her room
and made ready for bed. She heard her father go upstairs, and the house
became quite still. The clock of the church began to strike, and the
clock on the stable turret chimed in on a fainter, quicker note. Before
they had finished, the door of her room opened and startled her wildly.
It was Beatrix, who came in, a figure all in white, and threw herself
into her arms, and clung to her sobbing.
For a moment Caroline felt giddy with the shock of her surprise, and the
fear of what was coming. But she rallied herself and murmuring soft
words drew Beatrix to the bed and sat there holding her to her breast.
"I've been such an _awful_ beast to you, darling," Beatrix sobbed, "I
had to come and ask you to forgive me. I couldn't sleep till I told you
how much I love you."
The childish confession made Caroline inclined to laugh and cry at the
same time, but brought with it such a sense of relief as was almost
bliss to her troubled mind.
"I know you have wanted me to tell you everything," Beatrix went on, her
sobs becoming less frequent, "and I've wanted to all the time. But
something horrid in me kept it back, and I know I've hurt you
frightfully, darling, and I shall never forgive myself for it as long as
I live."
Caroline swept the hair from her forehead and kissed her lovingly, as
her mother might have done. She felt immeasurably older than her sister,
who seemed to her a little child again. "If you tell me now, my
darling!" she said tenderly.
Beatrix sat up, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of Caroline's light
dressing-gown. "Yes, I will. I want to," she said, in a pathetic voice.
"It's only you I can tell everything to."
She bent her head and played with the ribbon that lay across Caroline's
knee. "I know what you have thought," she said. "I didn't seem to be
noticing, or to care, but I felt it all through me all the time. I
couldn't be such a hard-hearted beast as not to mind what you were
thinking, darling."
A few more tears and answering caresses, and she told her story, with
her head on Caroline's shoulder, and Caroline's arm round her.
"I don't think I've behaved very well to Dick," she said. "I knew that
he loved me very much, and yet I played with him. Perhaps I even led him
on. But I didn't know how much he really did love me, or I wouldn't have
done it. He's so strong and so deep; it was like playing with fire.
Perhaps I didn't do anything very wrong till two days ago, for though
I'd let him talk to me I hadn't given him any idea that I--that I wanted
him to go any further. He has told me since that he would never have
asked me to marry him unless I had said or done something to make him
think that he could. I suppose I saw that it was like that. I felt,
somehow, that he was trying to bend me to his will--no, not that, but
there was something in him that _I_ couldn't move. And that vexed me.
Oh, I was a beast! We went into the garden; I'd sent Bunting away so
that I could show him I wanted to be alone with him. Then I led him on
to tell me that he loved me; and at last he did. Then--oh, I hate myself
for what I did."
She stopped, and cried again on Caroline's shoulder. Caroline soothed
her, but felt her heart growing heavy again.
"Well, I must tell you everything," she began again, "but I wish I
hadn't got it to tell. It spoils everything. When he told me that he
loved me, and asked me to marry him, I pretended to be very surprised,
and said that I'd no idea of marrying him. He was very quiet, and let me
go on. I said I didn't love him; I had had enough of that sort of love,
and only loved you, and Dad, and the others. I can't think what made me
go on like that. I was a _fool_. But he stopped me suddenly. He was very
angry. He said I had known quite well that he would say what he had, and
that I had meant him to, and that I wasn't what he had thought I was.
Then he went away, without saying good-bye or anything.
"I was frightened then, and--and ashamed of myself, because what he had
said was true. And I didn't want him to go away altogether. I thought
perhaps after all I did love him a little. Oh, I don't know what I
thought. But I went upstairs to the window to look at him coming from
the stables--he had ridden over--and to see what he looked like. And
Bunting came down from the attic and caught me there, but of course he
didn't know what I was doing, and he startled me so much that I flew out
at him."
She laughed a little. "Poor darling Bunting!" she said. "I startled
_him_. I don't think he has ever seen me like that before. But I told
him I was sorry afterwards, and he was awfully sweet about it and said
it didn't matter a damn. I think he'd have been still more surprised if
he'd known what I was there for. Fortunately he wasn't near enough to
the window to see Dick.
"Well, then, I was rather miserable, but I was angry too at the way he
had spoken to me. Sometimes I was one and sometimes I was the other, and
I didn't know whether I cared for him or not. The next morning it had
all calmed down rather, and I made up my mind I wouldn't care whether he
came back or not, and that if he did I would behave just as I had
before, and pretend that nothing had happened. I don't know whether I
should have been able to keep that up if he hadn't come to lunch next
day. When Jarvis brought up his name I was glad, though I don't think I
showed it, did I?"
Caroline reminded her of what she had said, and she smiled and said she
thought she had hidden it very well, and by the way he behaved she
thought he intended to ignore what had happened too.
"I was a little frightened when you went indoors and left me alone with
him," she said. "But for some time he went on talking as if he had
forgotten everything, and I was rather grateful to him, and felt that I
did like him very much. He's so strong and--and self-controlled; and I
admire strong men, who won't let you play with them. I had had enough of
that. I didn't want to play with him any more, and I wanted him to see
that I was sorry, without having to say so. So I suppose I was extra
nice to him. And I did want him at least as a friend.
"Then suddenly he said something. That's his way--when you're not
expecting it. He said perhaps he'd made a mistake about me yesterday,
but he didn't think he'd been altogether mistaken. If I didn't love him
very much now, he wanted me all the same, and he was sure he could make
me happy. Would I marry him and let him try?
"It was the last thing I expected. I didn't know what to say or what to
think. Then he said that he shouldn't worry me with love-making until I
was ready for it. He said in his quiet deep sort of way, 'When you are,
my dear, you'll have all you can want,' and he made me feel, somehow,
that perhaps I should come to want it--from him, I mean."
She stopped for a moment as if she were examining herself. "I can't
think now what made me say, yes," she said. "I didn't feel in the least
like I did when I--when I said yes, before. I think if he had--had
kissed me, or treated me as if I had already given him everything, I
should have drawn back, perhaps run away from him. But he just took
both my hands, and looked me straight in the face and said: 'Thank you;
I promise you that you shall never be sorry for it.' Oh, he is good--and
strong. I think I do love him. If you'd seen the look in his eyes! It
touched me, and made me want to cry. I think if he had kissed me then, I
shouldn't have minded."
"Hasn't he kissed you at all?" Caroline asked. The heaviness of heart
which the beginning of the story had brought her had lightened. It would
not have been told her in just that way if Beatrix had come to her to
ask her help in extricating herself from an impossible position. And yet
she had been inclined to think that it had been all a mistake, and had
better be ended, for the sake of Beatrix's happiness.
"I'm coming to that, darling. You must let me tell it to you all as it
happened."
Caroline kissed her again. As her heart grew lighter, the channels of
her love were clearing.
"We went and walked in the garden," Beatrix went on. "We talked about
what we would do when we were married--where we should live, and all
that. I felt quite pleased and excited. It was something going to
happen. I think only one part of me was working. And I felt as if I'd
come to anchor. You know, darling, I _haven't_ enjoyed myself this year,
as I did last. _That_ had spoilt everything for me. I think if I had
lived quietly at home, as you have, it might have been different. But
I'm rather tired of going about, and remembering _that_ all the time. I
don't want _him_ any longer--of course. I hate him. But what I thought
he was--having somebody all my own who would love me, and I would do all
I could to make him happy--I suppose if you've once wanted that you
always want it; and a home of your own, and children of your own to
love."
"Yes, I know, dearest," said Caroline softly. She was longing to come to
the point at which Beatrix might show her that all that, which lies
before women made of their clay as the ultimate end of their lives,
would come to Beatrix through the only gate which leads to its perfect
fulfilment. She had thought at one time that it might be taken by a
deliberate choice of a partner, and that the love that would sweeten it
might come afterwards. But she thought differently now. Beatrix herself
had taught her. That first love of hers, broken off as it had been, had
been the right beginning; it would have led her through the only gate.
Would this second adventure take her into the right path? If not, she
might get much in life that would satisfy her; she would bend herself to
it, and the world might not see that she had not all. But it would
change her. She would not grow to the full stature of her true
womanhood. Secondary things would be put above primary, for primary
things would be out of her reach. It was not for such a one as Beatrix
to make a merely satisfactory marriage.
The word she had been longing for came sooner than she had expected. "I
won't go over it all any more," Beatrix said. "You saw what I was all
last night and all to-day. I thought I should be able to keep it up, but
I know now I couldn't have. Sometimes when I have been with him I felt
like crying, because he was so matter-of-fact about everything, and I
knew he wasn't really feeling like that, but was longing for me to give
him a chance of being different. But I remembered what I had done
before, and I wasn't sure that I really wanted him to--to make love to
me.
"It was when he went away to-night. You know I went to see him out. I
think if he had gone as he did last night--just as if we weren't engaged
at all--I couldn't have gone on with it, I was feeling so miserable.
Perhaps I looked at him in a way that showed him; for he looked at me as
he was saying good-night. I saw by his eyes how much he loved me, and he
kissed me very gently, on the forehead, and called me something sweet
which I won't tell you; and then he went away."
"Oh, darling, I'm so glad," said Caroline. "I know by the way you tell
me that it was what you really wanted all the time, wasn't it?"
"I don't know whether I did want it all the time. I know I should have
been miserable if he had gone away without. And I wished when I'd gone
upstairs that I'd given him something in return, some sign just to show
that I didn't want him to go back to that horrid cold talk of to-day and
yesterday. Do you think he will? He's not so _frightfully_ strong,
after all. I'm sure he never meant to show me what he did. He couldn't
keep it under."
Caroline laughed gently at her. "Yes, he is strong," she said, "with the
right sort of strength. He wouldn't have shown you that, if you hadn't
shown him something first. Oh, darling, you do love him, don't you? You
wouldn't be going to marry him if you didn't."
Beatrix didn't answer at once. "I suppose I'm frightened to let myself
go," she said. "I did before, and it's as if something had got stopped
up in me. I don't feel towards him as I did, and with _him_, though I
admire and trust him a thousand times more. Will it come, Cara, dear?
Can I go on, without doing him harm? He's so good and so fine, he
_ought_ to have somebody who would simply worship him, and think of
nobody else; not somebody who has already thought of somebody else,
somebody not to be compared with him."
Caroline wouldn't tell her that she thought it would all come. She knew
it would, because now she saw that it was already there, though it was
struggling for life through the dead waste of a once living but now
withered love. "It's what you feel now, darling, that matters," she
said. "I think something has been going on in you all the time that you
can't recognise, because it's different from what it was."
"Do you think that's it?" she asked rather pathetically. "I hope it is.
It isn't that I want all _that_ to come back, though it did make me very
happy while it lasted. But I don't want to disappoint him. I don't want
to give him something, just because I feel like it for the moment, and
then take it away again."
"If you give him something because you feel like it--well, that's just
what you'll be right in doing, darling. It wouldn't be right to hold it
back. If you feel like it at any time, it shows it's there. I'm sure
he's worth loving, B."
"Oh, yes, he is. I think I do love him. I know I want him to come back
to-morrow."
Those were the words that rang in Caroline's ears when Beatrix had left
her, comforted, and assured of her forgiveness for the horrid way in
which she had behaved herself towards her. Poor little B! It would all
have been so different if this had been the first time she had trodden
the happy path of love. She was all softness and sweetness, made to
capitulate to a strong man's wooing. But she had been bruised and torn,
and there were sensitive places in her which shrank from the lightest
touch. Her lover would not get the full response from her until he had
taught her not to fear his touch on them.
But she wanted him to come back. Her heart was fluttering out to meet
him. Its wings would grow stronger.
He came early the next morning. He had walked the three miles from
Wilborough, where breakfast was earlier than at Abington, because any
other mode of progression would have brought him there before it was
convenient, and yet he wanted to be moving. Beatrix had gone down the
ferny glade towards the gate in the wall that led into the park, not
expecting to meet him so soon, but because she also felt it necessary to
be in motion, and that was the way he would probably come.
She was close upon the gate when he opened it and came through. His face
looked as if it had been suddenly struck with a bright light as he saw
her. But he hesitated a moment before he spoke. He was still putting
constraint on himself.
She saw the sudden bright look, and the change, and it moved her
profoundly. She was rather taken by surprise too, for she had not
expected to see him, though she had come down through the park with no
other purpose. But she smiled at him and said: "Here I am, you see,
waiting for you."
Was it an invitation? He couldn't tell. He had not been prepared for it.
He smiled at her in return. "You won't often have to wait for me," he
said. "If I had thought you would be out so early I would have motored
over."
Then she turned, and they walked slowly back towards the house together.
At first both of them were at a loss what to say.
She slipped her hand into his arm. It came natural to her to do so; it
was so she walked with her father, and she no longer felt afraid of
Dick; He was dependent on her, and he was her friend.
He flushed under his brown skin, and looked down at her. She was not
wearing her hat with the broad brim to-day, and he could see her face.
Since he had gained her promise he had seen it excited, merry, pleased
sometimes, sometimes it had hurt him to think a little frightened, and
once, as it had thrilled him all through the night to remember,
appealing. But he had not seen it smooth and calm as it was now. The
attitude of both of them seemed to be reversed. It was she who was sure
of herself, and he who was in perturbation.
"We'll have a long day together," she said. "We'll do whatever you like.
Would you like to fish? If so, I'll be your gillie. I often land Dad's
fish for him, and I know exactly what to do."
All he said was, "Yes, I should like that," but his voice trembled, and
his happiness was almost too much for him. She was offering him that
sweet confiding companionship which he had thought he would only attain
to through long and troubled effort, when by difficult repression of his
strong desires he should have taught her that she might safely give it
to him. If he could have it now, offered to him of her own free-will,
surely the rest would come! But he could wait; he could wait for a long
time if he might have this.
To all outward seeming they might have been married for months, and
reached that happy state in which perfect community of taste and
understanding doubles the pleasure of any common pursuit, as they
followed the stream and tempted the trout in its pools and shallows.
Beatrix was as eager and interested as if she had been fishing with her
father, and as merry and talkative. He loved her so like that, and was
so happy with her that he sometimes forgot how much he loved her. He
seemed to forget it altogether when at last he hooked a big fish, and
drew it towards the bank, and she was not clever enough in manipulating
her landing net. He ordered her about as if she had been a small boy,
and rather a stupid one, and when the fish was landed and was lying on
the grass with its gills opening and shutting, she burst out laughing.
"If _that's_ the way you're going to treat me!" she exclaimed.
She looked so adorable, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling, that
all his prudent resolves vanished. He caught her and kissed her, just
once, and let her go. "That's the way I'm going to treat you," he said,
"and you've got to learn to put up with it."
She was taken by surprise. She looked at him, and then she smiled. "I
think I shall learn in time," she said.