PAUL WARD.
The autumn tints were rich and beautiful upon the Kent woods, and
nowhere more rich or more beautiful than in Sir Thomas Boldero's
domain. The soft grass beneath the noble beeches was strewn with the
russet leaves a little earlier than usual that year, and somewhat more
plentifully, for the storm had shaken them down, and had even rent
away a branch here and there from some of the less sturdy trees. And
then the forester made his inspection, and the fallen branches were
removed, and duly cut and housed for winter fire-wood, and it chanced
that the hitherto forgotten log on which George Dallas had sat one
spring morning was carried away with them.
Clare Carruthers missed it from its accustomed place as she rode down
the glade which she still loved, though it had a painful association
for her now. Every day her eyes had rested on the rugged log, and
every day she had turned them away with a sigh. To-day it was there no
longer, and its absence was a relief. She reined Sir Lancelot up for a
moment, and looked at the vacant space. The earth lay bare and brown
where the log had been; there was no grass there.
"It won't be hidden until the spring," she thought, impatiently. "I
wish--I wish I could forget the place in which I saw him first! I wish
I could forget that I ever had seen him!"
Then she turned her head away with an effort and a sigh, and rode on.
Clare was going over from the Sycamores to Poynings. She had occasion
to see the housekeeper, started early, and, as usual, unattended, save
by Cæsar, who bounded along now by the side of Sir Lancelot, anon a
considerable way in advance, doing the distance twice over, after the
fashion of dogs, and evidently compassionating the leisurely pace to
which his equine friend and comrade was condemned.
The months which had elapsed since her inauspicious meeting among the
beeches with Paul Ward had had much inquietude and mysterious trouble
in them for the girl whose graces they had but ripened and perfected,
on whose fair face they had impressed a premature but very beautiful
thoughtfulness. To one so young, so innocent, so carefully shielded
from evil, living in so pure and calm an atmosphere of home, and yet
around whom the inevitable solitude of orphanhood dwelt, the presence
of a secret cause of sorrow, doubt, perplexity, was in itself a burden
grievous to be borne. Clare could not help, dwelling perpetually on
the only mystery which had ever come into her tranquil conventional
life, and the more she shrank from the contemplation, the more it
pressed itself upon her; Sometimes, for days and weeks together, the
remembrance of it would be vague and formless, then it would take
shape again and substance, and thrill her with fresh horror, distract
her with new perplexity. Sometimes she would address herself with all
the force of her intelligence to this mysterious remembrance, she
would arrange the circumstances in order and question them, and then
she would turn away from the investigation cold and trembling, with
all the terrible conviction of the first moment of revelation forcibly
restored.
The dreadful truth haunted her. When Sir Thomas Boldero asked her
ladyship if there was any news in the _Times_ each morning (for the
Sycamores was governed by other laws than those which ruled Poynings,
and Lady Boldero, who was interested in politics after her preserves
and her linen-presses, always read the papers first), Clare had
listened with horrid sickening fear for many and many a day. But
suspense of this sort cannot last in its first vitality, and it had
lessened, but it was not wholly dead even yet. One subject of
speculation frequently occupied her. Had he seen the warning she had
ventured to send him? No, she would sometimes say to herself,
decisively, no, he had not seen it. His safety must have been
otherwise secured; if he had seen it, he would know that the terrible
truth was known to her, and he would never have dared to recall
himself to her memory. For he did so recall himself, and this was the
most terrible part of it all for Clare. On the first day of each month
she received the current number of the _Piccadilly_, and there was
always written on the fly-leaf, "From Paul Ward." No, her attempt had
failed; such madness, such audacity, could not otherwise be accounted
for. For some time Clare had not looked at the books which reached her
with this terribly significant imprint. She had not destroyed them,
but she had put them away out of her sight. One day, after her
cousin's marriage, and when her thoughts--forcibly distracted for some
time by the preparations, the hospitalities, and the rejoicings
attendant on that event--had flown back to the subject which had such
tormenting attraction for her, a sudden impulse of utter incredulity
seized her. Nothing was changed in the facts, nothing in the
circumstances; but Clare laid aside reason under the suddenly exerted
power of feeling, and refused to believe that Paul Ward had murdered
the unknown man in whose company he had been, and who undoubtedly had
been murdered.
"I _won't_ believe it! I don't believe it!"
These words have often been uttered by the human will, when tortured
by the terrible impotence of human despair, as unreasonably, as
obstinately, as Clare Carruthers spoke them, and with infinitely more
suffering implied in the inevitable reaction. But they can seldom have
brought greater relief. A generous, reckless impulse of youth, partly
against the terrible knowledge of evil, partly against her own
suffering, which wearied and oppressed her spirit, distant, vague,
even chimerical as she told herself it was, animated her resolution.
She rose, and stretched her arms out, and shook her golden head, as
though she discarded a baleful vision by a strong act of her will.
"I shall never see him again," she thought. "I shall never know his
fate, unless, indeed, he becomes famous, and the voice of his renown
reaches me. I shall never know the truth of this dreadful story; but,
strong as the evidence is, I never will believe it more. Never,
never!"
Clare Carruthers was too young, too little accustomed to the sad
science of self-examination, too candidly persuadable by the natural
abhorrence of youth for grief, to ask herself how much of this
resolution came from the gradual influence of time--how much from the
longing she felt to escape from the constant pressure of the first
misery she had ever known. The impulse, the resolution, had come to
her, with her first waking thoughts, one glorious morning in the early
autumn--the morning which saw George Dallas and his uncle arrive at
Homburg, and witnessed Mr. Carruthers's reception of his stepson. This
resolution she never abandoned. That day she had taken the books out
of their hiding-place, and had set herself to read the serial story
which she knew was written by him. Something of his mind, something of
his disposition, would thus reveal itself to her. It was strange that
he remembered to send her the books so punctually, but that might mean
nothing; they might be sent by the publisher, by his order. He might
have forgotten her existence by this time. Clare was sensible, and not
vain, and she saw nothing more than a simple politeness in the
circumstance. So she read the serial novel, and thought over it; but
it revealed nothing to her. There was one description, indeed, which
reminded her, vaguely, of Mrs. Carruthers, as she had been before her
illness, as Clare remembered her, when she had first seen her, years
ago. Clare liked the story. She was not enthusiastically delighted
with it. A change which her newly-formed resolution to believe him
innocent, to chase from her all that had tormented her, could never
undo, had passed upon Clare, since her girlish imagination had been
ready to exalt Paul Ward, "the author," Paul Ward, "the artist," as
she had called him, with all the reverence her innocent heart accorded
to such designations, into a hero; she had less impulse in her now,
she had suffered, in her silent unsuspected way, and suffering is a
sovereign remedy for all enthusiasm except that of religion. But she
discerned in the story something which made her reason second her
resolution. And from that day Clare grieved no more. She waited, she
did not know for what; she hoped, she did not know why; she was
pensive, but not unhappy. She was very young, very innocent, very
trustful; and the story of the murder was six months old. So was that
of the meeting, and that of the myrtle-sprig; and all three were
growing vague.
The young girl's thoughts were very busy as she rode from the
Sycamores to Poynings, but not exclusively with Paul Ward.
Her life presented itself in a more serious aspect to her then than it
had ever before worn. All things seemed changed. Her uncle's letters
to her had undergone a strange alteration. He wrote now to her as to
one whom he trusted, to whom he looked for aid, on whom he purposed to
impose a responsible duty. The pompousness of Mr. Carruthers's nature
was absolutely inseparable from his style of writing as from his
manner of speech, but the matter of his letters atoned for their
faults of manner. He wrote with such anxious affection of his wife, he
stepson, whose name Clare had never heard pronounced by his lips or in
his presence. Above all, he seemed to expect very much from Clare.
Evidently her life was not to be empty of interest for the future, if
responsibility could fill it; for Clare was to be intrusted with all
the necessary arrangements for Mrs. Carruthers's comfort, and Mrs.
Carruthers was very anxious to get back to England, to Poynings, and
to Clare! The girl learned this with inexpressible gladness, but some
surprise. She was wholly unaware of the feelings with which Mrs.
Carruthers had regarded her, and the intentions of maternal care and
tenderness which she had formed--feelings she had hidden, intentions
she had abandoned from motives of prudence founded on her thorough
comprehension of the besetting weakness of her husband's character.
Clare had not the word of the enigma, and it puzzled her. But it
delighted her also. Instinctively she felt there was something of Mark
Felton's doing in this. He had impressed her as favourably as she had
impressed him. She had recognized his possession of the two great
qualities, feeling and intelligence, and her own kindred endowments
had answered to them at once.
Was she going to be happy and useful? Was she going to be something
more than the rich Miss Carruthers, the heiress of Poynings, who had
every luxury life could supply, except that of feeling herself of
active individual importance to any living creature? Was Poynings
going to be as pleasant as the Sycamores, and for a more worthy
reason? Clare felt in her honest young heart that the superiority of
the Sycamores consisted principally in the fact that the uncle who
inhabited that abode was never in her way, whereas the uncle who ruled
at Poynings was generally otherwise, and unpleasant. It was very
ungrateful of her to feel this; but she did feel it. Was all this
going to be altered? Was she going to have the sort of feeling that
might have been hers if she had not been the heiress of Poynings, but
the real, own daughter of a kind lady who needed and would accept all
her girlish love and eager, if unskilful, care? It must be so, Clare
thought, now Mrs. Carruthers had her son with her, and she no longer
felt that there was injustice done to her, for which Clare was made
the reason or the pretext, she would allow her to be all she had
always desired to be. How much uselessness, unreality, weariness, fell
away from Clare Carruthers as she rode on, the beautiful healthful
colour rising higher in her cheeks as the glad thoughts, the vague,
sweet, unselfish hopes of the future, expanded in her young heart! She
would tell Mrs. Carruthers some day when she was quite well, when
there should be no longer any danger of doing her harm by the
revelation, about the mystery which had caused her so much suffering,
and then, when there should be perfect confidence between them, she
would tell her how she had discovered that she, too, was acquainted
with Paul Ward. Clare had never speculated seriously upon the cause of
Mrs. Carruthers's illness. Her first convictions were, that it had
originated in some trouble about her son. The old housekeeper's
manner, the removal of the portrait, had sufficed for Clare. This was
a sacred sorrow, sacred from Clare's curiosity, even in her thoughts.
And now it was at an end, probably thanks to Mark Felton; but, at all
events, it was quite over. In the time to come, that future which
Clare's fancy was painting so brightly, as her horse carried her
swiftly over the familiar road, Mrs. Carruthers might even love her
well enough to tell her the story of the past, and what that terrible
grief had been.
"I am to take Thomas up to town with me, Mrs. Brookes, and I only wish
you were coming too," said Clare to the housekeeper at Poynings, as a
concluding item of the budget of news she had to tell. Clare was in
high spirits by this time. Mrs. Brookes was much more friendly than
usual to the young lady, whom she, too, had always regarded with
jealousy, and almost dislike, as the enemy of George.
"I am better here, Miss Carruthers," said Mrs. Brookes. "I daresay
there won't be much delay in London--for Mrs. Carruthers and master, I
mean. You'll stay awhile with Mrs. Stanhope, belike?"
"O dear no--I certainly shall not," replied Clare, with the prettiest
air of importance. "I shall come down with my uncle and aunt. My uncle
says we are to come as soon as the doctors will let us go."
"And Mr. Felton also, you say, Miss Carruthers?"
"Yes, and Mr. Dallas. How delighted I am, Mrs. Brookes--how delighted
you must be!" The girl's face flushed deeply. She was all glowing with
the generous ardour of her feelings. She had taken off her hat, and
was standing before the open window in the morning-room, her habit
gathered up in one hand, her slight figure trembling, her beautiful
face radiant.
"I am sure it has been almost as hard for you as for his mother. I
could not say anything about it before, Nurse Ellen"--it was
the first time Clare had ever called the old woman by this
name--"because--because I knew nothing--no one ever told me anything,
and I must have seemed to blame my uncle. But, indeed, it pained me
very much, and now--now I am so happy!"
Bright swift tears sparkled in her golden-brown eyes. She dashed them
away, and, taking the old woman's hands in hers, she said, with
girlish archness,
"You must not hate me any more, Nurse Ellen, for 'Master George' and I
are going to be very good friends."
"Hate you, my dear young lady!" said Mrs. Brookes, who was too old to
blush externally, but who certainly felt like blushing. "How can you
have such fancies? Who could hate _you?_"
"You--you dear, faithful old thing! But it's all right now; and, Nurse
Ellen," she said, seriously, "I am sure we owe all this happy change
to Mr. Felton. The moment I saw that man, I felt he had come to do
good. By-the-by, my uncle tells me there is no news of Mr. Felton's
son yet. I suppose you never saw him, nurse?"
"La, bless you, no, my dear. I never saw his father till the day he
came here. Mr. Arthur was born in America."
"Did he ever come to England before? Did Mrs. Carruthers ever see
him?"
"Never. He told his father he would see his aunt the first thing he
did, and he never came anigh the place. I doubt he's a black sheep,
Miss Carruthers."
"I hope not, for his father's sake, nurse."
And then Clare proceeded to make various arrangements with Mrs.
Brookes, thinking the while: "Arthur Felton never was here. Mrs.
Carruthers never saw him. For a moment I fancied he might have been
Paul Ward."
"I wonder what I shall think of George Dallas?" thought Clare as she
rode away from Poynings in the afternoon, having given Thomas the
necessary orders. "I wonder what he will think of me? I dare say he
does not like the idea of me much. Perhaps I should not like the idea
of _him_, if he were in my place and I in his; but, as it is, _I
decidedly do_."
Attended by her maid and Thomas, Miss Carruthers went to London on the
following day. Mrs. Stanhope met her at the railway station, and took
her home with her. The footman was despatched to Sir Thomas Boldero's
house in Chesham-place. In the course of the evening he went to Mrs.
Stanhope's house, and asked to see Clare. His errand was to inform her
that Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas had arrived in London, and were
particularly desirous of seeing Miss Carruthers. He (Thomas) had Mr.
Felton's orders to ascertain from Miss Carruthers whether she would
see them, on the following day, at Chesham-place, and if so, at what
hour. He was to take her answer to Mr. Felton's lodgings in
Piccadilly.
"When did the gentlemen arrive?" Miss Carruthers asked.
Thomas could not say exactly, but he thought they had only just
reached London. They had overcoats on, and looked "travellers-like."
Clare sent word to Mr. Felton that she should be at Cheshamplace at
noon the next day, and would be very happy to see him. She did not
mention Mr. Dallas, but it was by no means necessary she should do so.
Punctually at twelve on the following day, Mrs. Stanhope's brougham
deposited Clare Carruthers at Sir Thomas Boldero's house. It was in
process of preparation for the expected guests; but had not quite
thrown off the drowsy unoccupied look of a house whose owners were
absent. Its appearance bore the same relation to the state it would
assume by-and-by as that of an individual who has just persuaded
himself to rise, and is yawning and shivering in the process, bears to
that of the same individual in his tubbed, dressed, shaved,
breakfasted, newspaper-read, hatted, gloved, and ready-for-the-day
condition.
Clare got out of the carriage, gave the coachman some directions,
stood at the door until he had driven off, and made a remark or
two (ever reminiscent of Poynings punctiliousness) relative to the
area-railings and door-steps to Thomas before she entered the house.
He listened gravely, promised to attend to these matters, and then
said:
"Mr. Dallas has been here some time, ma'am."
"Indeed!" said Clare, pausing just inside the hall-door. "Is Mr.
Felton not here?"
"He will be here directly, ma'am. He came with Mr. Dallas, but went
away again. I showed Mr. Dallas into the study, ma'am."
Clare felt rather embarrassed. She wished Mrs. Stanhope had been with
her--she wished Mr. Felton had remained until she came, or had taken
his nephew with him. It was so awkward to have to introduce herself to
George Dallas, a stranger, and yet not exactly a stranger. She
hesitated; her colour rose. What should she do? What was not the
easiest or pleasantest thing to do--for that would be to go to the
drawing-room and remain there until Mr. Felton should come, leaving
Mr. Dallas to a similar vigil in the study--but the kindest. Clearly,
to give Mrs. Carruthers's son the friendliest greeting in her power,
to show him, in her little way, how pleased she was at the family
reunion, how much she desired to be numbered among his friends.
The study windows faced the street; he had probably seen the carriage,
and heard her voice. He might be even now hurt by her tarrying.
Clare delayed no longer. She crossed the hall, opened the door of Sir
Thomas Boldero's study, saw a man's figure close to one of the
windows, shut the door, took two or three steps, and said, in the
sweet gentle tone which was one of her peculiar charms:
"Mr. Dallas, I am so much pleased."
Then the figure turned away from the window, and Clare found herself
in the presence of Paul Ward.