‘OH, THINK’ST THOU WE SHALL EVER MEET AGAIN?’
BELLA’S hopes were realized insomuch that her offer to visit his
cottagers certainly did bring her more directly in contact with Mr.
Culverhouse than she had ever been yet. From that hour Cyril became
friendly and confidential--he had found some one besides the Vicar and
Mrs. Dulcimer to whom he could talk about his poor parishioners, their
wants, their virtues, and their vices. He found Bella full of sympathy.
She took up her new work with ardour. She made friends wherever she
went. His people were full of her praises. Perhaps, if Cyril’s heart
had been free, he might have obliged Mrs. Dulcimer by falling in love
with her latest _protégée_. There was something so nice about Bella
Scratchell--a winning softness, a gentle submission to other people, a
kittenish sleekness and grace, accompanied with all a petted kitten’s
caressing ways.
‘That girl has really a remarkable sweetness of character,’ said
Cyril, who, like most young men fresh from the university, fancied he
understood mankind.
He praised Isabella warmly to Mrs. Dulcimer, and thereby stimulated
that lady’s efforts.
‘How clever it was of you to propose to visit the poor!’ said the
Vicar’s wife to Bella, approvingly. ‘Just the very thing to please him.’
‘Oh, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I hope you don’t think I did it on that
account,’ cried Bella, with a shocked look. ‘It is a real pleasure to
me to be of some little use. When I see how good you and Mr. Dulcimer
are----’
‘Oh, my dear, I’m afraid I don’t go among the poor as much as I
ought. Anxious as I am to do good, I don’t get on with them as
well as Clement does. I can’t help telling them when I see things
going wrong, and trying to set them in the right way. And they
resent that. One must look on and smile as if everything was
right--dirt--muddle--extravagance--everything. It is too trying for any
one with an energetic temper. I’m sure only the other day I said to
Maria Bowes--whom I’ve known all my life--“If I were you, Maria, I’d
try to have your keeping-room a little neater--and a few flowers in the
window--and the hearth always swept up. It would be so much nicer for
Bowes when he comes home from his work.” “I dare say I should have it
so if I’d three women-servants, and a boy to clean up after them,” she
answered, quite impertinently, “and, if my keeping-room wasn’t kitchen
and chamber too.” “Do you mean to say that I keep too many servants,
Maria?” I said. “No, ma’am,” she answered, “but I mean that gentlefolks
can’t tell how difficult poor folks find it to cook a bit of victuals,
and keep their children from getting ragged, without fiddle-faddling
with cleaning up a place that’s no sooner cleaned than it’s mucked
again.”’
‘I can pity her, poor wretch,’ said Bella, ‘for it’s like that with us
at home, though we make believe to think ourselves gentlefolks. It’s
as much as mother can do to keep things together anyhow; and every
Saturday night is a struggle to get the children’s clothes decent for
Sunday. Mother and I often sit up till after twelve o’clock, sewing on
buttons, and darning stockings.’
‘Ah, what a wife you will make, Bella!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, as if
a wife’s one duty were the repair of her husband’s garments.
* * * * *
The woods were growing browner, the moorland grayer. The mists of
chill November crept up from the valley, and hung upon the hill-side.
The river was half hidden under a silvery veil, on those dim November
afternoons. An autumnal tranquillity hung over the sombre old Water
House. The dahlias and hollyhocks were dead, the chrysanthemums were
fading--autumn primroses showed pale in quiet nooks of the garden, and
along by the old-fashioned borders stole the welcome odour of late
violets.
How often Cyril Culverhouse lingered on the old Roman bridge to look at
the house which held the one woman he loved! The entrance tower and a
couple of fine old yew trees hid the river walk from him, or he might
have seen Beatrix pacing slowly up and down in melancholy solitude.
She had not answered his letter, but he had received a brief note from
Mr. Harefield.
‘SIR,--I have delivered your letter to my daughter unread. I hope the
next two years will bring her wisdom.
‘Yours obediently,
‘CHRISTIAN HAREFIELD.’
Cyril had questioned Bella Scratchell more than once about her friend,
without betraying the warmth of his interest in Beatrix.
‘Yes, she is very dull, poor thing,’ said Bella. ‘I am more sorry for
her than I can say. I go there as often as I can, and do what I can to
cheer her. But Beatrix was never a cheerful girl, you know, and she
gets graver and more silent every day. Miss Scales is quite anxious
about her, and wants her to take bark.’
‘I doubt if bark is a cure for an unhappy home,’ said Cyril.
‘No--if you call her home unhappy. But really she has everything a
girl could wish. Handsome old rooms to herself--no disorder--no noisy
brothers upsetting things. She has her books--and a governess who
adores her--a fine old garden beautifully kept--a pony carriage--a
horse to ride.’
‘Unfortunately those things won’t make youth happy,’ answered the
curate: ‘they might be sufficient for happiness at the end of life;
they are not enough for it at the beginning.’
‘I know that life is a very different thing without them,’ sighed Bella.
‘Would you change places with Miss Harefield?’ asked Cyril.
Bella blushed and cast down her eyes.
‘No,’ she said softly.
She meant that she would not barter her hope of Cyril’s love for the
advantages of Beatrix Harefield’s position, though she had envied those
advantages ever since the childish days in which she first became Miss
Harefield’s playfellow.
One afternoon, towards the close of November, Cyril was returning from
a tramp across the moor. He had been to a distant village to see the
ailing married daughter of one of his parishioners, who had fancied
that a visit from the kind curate would do her sick daughter more
good than ‘doctor’s stuff.’ It was a clear afternoon, a yellow sunset
brightening the western horizon. This long lonely walk had given him
much time for thought, and he had been thinking of Beatrix all the
way. She was so much in his thoughts that, although he had had no hope
of meeting her, it seemed scarcely strange to him when he heard the
muffled sound of hoofs upon the short grass, and looking round saw her
riding towards him at a fast canter.
What was he to do? He had promised to hold himself aloof from her. He
was neither to see nor write to her during the two years of probation.
He had made up his mind that she would pass him at that flying pace,
that he would see the slim figure--erect in the saddle, firmly seated
as an Arab on his loosely held courser--flash by him like a vision of
pride and beauty, and be gone. He stood bare-headed to see her pass,
expecting to receive no more notice than a bow, or doubtful even
whether she would see him, when she pulled her horse almost on his
haunches, wheeled round, and met him face to face.
‘How lucky!’ she cried, flushing with delight. ‘I have been dying to
see you. I thought I could not be mistaken, when I saw your figure in
the distance, and I rode after you.’
She slipped lightly out of the saddle, and stood beside him, bridle in
hand, the petted horse rubbing his velvet nose against her shoulder.
‘William is half a mile behind,’ she said. ‘He’s on one of papa’s old
hunters. Don’t you hear him?’
A distant noise, like the puffing of a steam-engine, announced the
groom’s approach.
‘Cyril,’ cried Beatrix, ‘are you as glad to see me as I am to see you?’
‘It is more than gladness that I feel, dear,’ he answered, clasping her
hands and looking earnestly at the expressive face, which had faded to
a sickly pallor after the flush of joy, ‘but, my dearest, how ill you
are looking, how changed----’
‘Oh, I have been miserable,’ she said, impetuously, ‘simply miserable.
I miss you every day in the week, every hour in the day. I did not see
you very often, did I? And yet, now that I am forbidden to go to the
Vicarage, it seems as if my life had been spent in your society. Oh,
you have work to do, you have noble ideas to fill your mind! How can
you tell the blankness of a woman’s life, parted from all she loves?’
‘My darling, it is not for life; it is only for a little while.’
‘A little while!’ she cried, impatiently. ‘A day is an age when one is
miserable. I wake every morning, oh so early! and see the dreary gray
light, and say to myself, “What does it matter? Night and day are alike
to me. I shall not see him.” Cyril, why did you write me that cruel
letter?’
The groom had ridden up by this time on his roaring hunter, and was
standing at a respectful distance, wondering what his young mistress
could have to say to the curate, and why she had dismounted in order to
say it.
‘My own love, how could I write otherwise? I promised your father that
for two years I would respect his desires, that I would counsel you
to no act of disobedience till you were old enough to take the full
measure of your acts--till time had changed impulse into conviction.
How could I have written otherwise than as I did?’
‘You could have said, “Defy your father as I do, laugh to scorn the
loss of fortune, as I do. Be my wife. We shall be very poor, perhaps,
for the first few years. But Heaven will take care of us as the ravens
cared for Elijah.” That is how you ought to have written to me.’
He was sorely tempted by her--tempted to take her to his heart that
moment, to rain kisses on the sweet pale face that he had never
kissed--to mount her on her lively young bay horse, and steal the
groom’s hunter for himself, and ride off to the Scottish border with
her, and be married by the unlearned priest of Gretna, who was still
plying his profitable trade. Never was man more tempted. But he had
given his promise, and meant to keep it.
‘Two years hence, my dearest, please God, I will have a home for you
that shall not mean absolute poverty. I cannot break my word, love. We
must wait till you are one-and-twenty. It is not a long time.’
‘It would not seem long if my father had been reasonable--if he had
not forbidden me to see you, or write to you. Cyril,’ she said, looking
at him with sudden intensity, ‘is it a sin to wish for the death of any
one?’
‘My dear one, you must know that it is--a deadly sin: “Whosoever hateth
his brother is a murderer.”’
‘I do not hate my father; but sometimes I find myself thinking of
what would happen if he were to die. I should be free--rich. I could
give you my fortune--you could lavish it all on acts of charity and
beneficence. We would live like poor people. We would devote our lives
to doing good. We would show the world how a parish priest and his wife
ought to live.’
‘Beatrix, pray continually against wicked thoughts. There could be no
deadlier sin than to desire your father’s death. God forbid that you
should fall into it! I have never sighed for wealth--nor do I believe
that a man’s opportunities of doing good depend upon the length of
his purse. For one man who will find will and energy, patience and
perseverance, to help his fellow-men, there are a hundred ready to
give their money. No, dear love, we can be happy without your father’s
wealth. We should be no happier for his death. We have but to be true
to each other, and all will be well.’
The groom came up to remind his mistress that the short day was
closing, and that the moorland road was dangerous after dark.
‘God bless you, dearest, and good-bye,’ said Cyril.
‘Oh, why are you in such haste to get rid of me?’ she cried,
impatiently, in French, the groom standing close by, ready to lift her
on to her horse. ‘It may be ages before we meet again. You talked in
that cruel letter of leaving Little Yafford. When is that to be?’
‘I have taken no step yet. This place is dear to me. But I shall leave
soon after Christmas, if I can do so without inconvenience to the
Vicar.’
‘I shall feel just a shade more miserable when you are gone,’ said
Beatrix.
She put her slim foot upon William’s broad palm, and sprang lightly
into her saddle.
Cyril watched her as she rode slowly down the hill, looking back at him
now and then, forlornly, as from the vessel that was carrying her into
exile. His heart bled for her, but the idea that she had calculated
the possibilities that hung upon her father’s death--that she had even
sinned so deeply as to wish him dead--haunted him painfully.
Was there a strain of hardness in this impetuous nature--a flaw in this
gem which he had hitherto counted peerless? Well, she was not perfect,
perhaps. His creed taught him that there was no soul so pure but on its
virgin whiteness showed some dark spot of sin. And she had been hardly
treated--held at arm’s length by her father’s coldness. She had been
reared in a home unsanctified by affection.
He pleaded for her, and excused her in his own mind, and was full of
sorrow for her.
But for him, as she had said, life was full of interest and action. For
him two years seemed a little while.