THE LETTER IS WRITTEN
But Stella's confidence did not live long. Mr. Hazlewood was a child at
deceptions; and day by day his anxieties increased. His friends argued
with him--his folly and weakness were the themes--and he must needs repel
the argument though his thoughts echoed every word they used. Never was a
man brought to such a piteous depth of misery by the practice of his own
theories. He sat by the hour at his desk, burying his face amongst his
papers if Dick came into the room, with a great show of occupation. He
could hardly bear to contemplate the marriage of his son, yet day and
night he must think of it and search for expedients which might put an
end to the trouble and let him walk free again with his head raised high.
But there were only the two expedients. He must speak out his fears that
justice had miscarried, and that device his vanity forbade; or he must
adopt Pettifer's suggestion, and from that he shrank almost as much. He
began to resent the presence of Stella Ballantyne and he showed it.
Sometimes a friendliness, so excessive that it was almost hysterical,
betrayed him; more usually a discomfort and constraint. He avoided her
if by any means he could; if he could not quite avoid her an excuse of
business was always on his lips.
"Your father hates me, Dick," she said. "He was my friend until I touched
his own life. Then I was in the black books in a second."
Dick would not hear of it.
"You were never in the black books at all, Stella," he said, comforting
her as well as he could. "We knew that there would be a little struggle,
didn't we? But the worst of that's over. You make friends daily."
"Not with your father, Dick. I go back with him. Ever since that
night--it's three weeks ago now--when you took me home from Little
Beeding."
"No," cried Dick, but Stella nodded her head gloomily.
"Mr. Pettifer dined here that night. He's an enemy of mine."
"Stella," young Hazlewood remonstrated, "you see enemies everywhere," and
upon that Stella broke out with a quivering troubled face.
"Is it wonderful? Oh, Dick, I couldn't lose you! A month ago--before that
night--yes. Nothing had been said. But now! I couldn't, I couldn't! I
have often thought it would be better for me to go right away and never
see you again. And--and I have tried to tell you something, Dick, ever so
many times."
"Yes?" said Dick. He slipped his arm through hers and held her close to
him, as though to give her courage and security. "Yes, Stella?" and he
stood very still.
"I mean," she said, looking down upon the ground, "that I have tried to
tell you that I wouldn't suffer so very much if we did part, but I never
could do it. My lips shook so, I never could speak the words." Then her
voice ran up into a laugh. "To think of your living in a house with
somebody else! Oh no!"
"You need have no fear of that, Stella."
They were in the garden of Little Beeding and they walked across the
meadow towards her cottage, talking very earnestly. Mr. Hazlewood was
watching them secretly from the window of the library. He saw that Dick
was pleading and she hanging in doubt; and a great wave of anger surged
over him that Dick should have to plead to her at all, he who was giving
everything--even his own future.
"King's Bench Walk," he muttered to himself, taking from the drawer of
his writing-table a slip of paper on which he had written the address
lest he should forget it. "Yes, that's the address," and he looked at it
for a long time very doubtfully. Suppose that his suspicions were
correct! His heart sank at the supposition. Surely he would be justified
in setting any trap. But he shut the drawer violently and turned away
from his writing-table. Even his pamphlets had become trivial in his
eyes. He was brought face to face with real passions and real facts, he
had been fetched out from his cloister and was blinking miserably in a
full measure of daylight. How long could he endure it, he wondered?
The question was settled for him that very evening. He and his son were
taking their coffee on a paved terrace by the lawn after dinner. It was a
dark quiet night, with a clear sky of golden stars. Across the meadow the
lights shone in the windows of Stella's cottage.
"Father," said Dick, after they had sat in a constrained silence for a
little while, "why don't you like Stella any longer?"
The old man blustered in reply:
"A lawyer's question, Richard. I object to it very strongly. You assume
that I have ceased to like her."
"It's extremely evident," said Dick drily. "Stella has noticed it."
"And complained to you of course," cried Mr. Hazlewood resentfully.
"Stella doesn't complain," and then Dick leaned over and spoke in the
full quiet voice which his father had grown to dread. There rang in it so
much of true feeling and resolution.
"There can be no backing down now. We are both agreed upon that, aren't
we? Imagine for an instant that I were first to blazon my trust in a
woman whom others suspected by becoming engaged to her and then
endorsed their suspicions by breaking off the engagement! Suppose that
I were to do that!"
Mr. Hazlewood allowed his longings to lead him astray. For a
moment he hoped.
"Well?" he asked eagerly.
"You wouldn't think very much of me, would you? Not you nor any man. A
cur--that would be the word, the only word, wouldn't it?"
But Mr. Hazlewood refused to answer that question. He looked behind him
to make sure that none of the servants were within hearing. Then he
lowered his voice to a whisper.
"What if Stella has deceived you, Dick?"
It was too dark for him to see the smile upon his son's face, but he
heard the reply, and the confidence of it stung him to exasperation.
"She hasn't done that," said Dick. "If you are sure of nothing else,
sir, you may be quite certain of what I am telling you now. She hasn't
done that."
He remained silent for a few moments waiting for any rejoinder, and
getting none he continued:
"There's something else I wanted to speak to you about."
"Yes?"
"The date of our marriage."
The old man moved sharply in his chair.
"There's no hurry, Richard. You must find out how it will affect your
career. You have been so long at Little Beeding where we hear very
little from the outer world. You must consult your Colonel."
Dick Hazlewood would not listen to the argument.
"My marriage is my affair, sir, not my Colonel's. I cannot take advice,
for we both of us know what it would be. And we both of us value it at
its proper price, don't we?"
Mr. Hazlewood could not reply. How often had he inveighed against
the opinions of the sleek worldly people who would add up advantages
in a column and leave out of their consideration the merits of the
higher life.
"It would not be fair to Stella were we to ask her to wait," Dick
resumed. "Any delay--think what will be made of it! A month or six weeks
from now, that gives us time enough."
The old man rose abruptly from his chair with a vague word that he would
think of it and went into the house. He saw again the lovers as he had
seen them this afternoon walking side by side slowly towards Stella
Ballantyne's cottage; and the picture even in the retrospect was
intolerable. The marriage must not take place--yet it was so near. A
month or six weeks! Mr. Hazlewood took up his pen and wrote the letter to
Henry Thresk at last, as Robert Pettifer had always been sure that he
would do. It was the simplest kind of letter and took but a minute in the
writing. It mentioned only his miniatures and invited Henry Thresk to
Little Beeding to see them, as more than one stranger had been asked
before. The answers which Thresk had given to the questions in _Notes and
Queries_ were pleaded as an introduction and Thresk was invited to choose
his own day and remain at Little Beeding for the night. The reply came by
return of post. Thresk would come to Little Beeding on the Friday
afternoon of the next week. He was in town, for Parliament was sitting
late that year. He would reach Little Beeding soon after five so that he
might have an opportunity of seeing the miniatures by daylight. Mr.
Hazlewood hurried over with the news to Robert Pettifer. His spirits had
risen at a bound. Already he saw the neighbourhood freed from the
disturbing presence of Stella Ballantyne and himself cheerfully resuming
his multifarious occupations.
Robert Pettifer, however, spoke in quite another strain.
"I am not so sure as you, Hazlewood. The points which trouble me are very
possibly capable of quite simple explanations. I hope for my part that
they will be so explained."
"You hope it?" cried Mr. Hazlewood.
"Yes. I want Dick to marry," said Robert Pettifer.
Mr. Hazlewood was not, however, to be discouraged. He drove back to his
house counting the days which must pass before Thresk's arrival and
wondering how he should manage to conceal his elation from the keen
eyes of his son. But he found that there was no need for him to
trouble himself on that point, for this very morning at luncheon Dick
said to him:
"I think that I'll run up to town this afternoon, father. I might be
there for a day or two."
Mr. Hazlewood was delighted. No other proposal could have fitted in so
well with his scheme. The mere fact that Dick was away would start people
at the pleasant business of conjecturing mishaps and quarrels. Perhaps
indeed the lovers _had_ quarrelled. Perhaps Richard had taken his advice
and was off to consult his superiors. Mr. Hazlewood scanned his son's
face eagerly but learnt nothing from it; and he was too wary to ask any
questions.
"By all means, Richard," he said carelessly, "go to London! You will be
back by next Friday, I suppose."
"Oh yes, before that. I shall stay at my own rooms, so if you want me you
can send me a telegram."
Dick Hazlewood had a small flat of his own in some Mansions at
Westminster which had seen very little of him that summer.
"Thank you, Richard," said the old man. "But I shall get on very well,
and a few days change will no doubt do you good."
Dick grinned at his father and went off that afternoon without a word of
farewell to Stella Ballantyne. Mr. Hazlewood stood in the hall and saw
him go with a great relief at his heart. Everything at last seemed to be
working out to advantage. He could not but remember how so very few
weeks ago he had been urgent that Richard should spend his summer at
Little Beeding and lend a hand in the noble work of defending Stella
Ballantyne against ignorance and unreason. But the twinge only lasted a
moment. He had made a mistake, as all men occasionally do--yes, even
sagacious and thoughtful people like himself. And the mistake was already
being repaired. He looked across the meadow that night at the lighted
blinds of Stella's windows and anticipated an evening when those windows
would be dark and the cottage without an inhabitant.
"Very soon," he murmured to himself, "very soon." He had not one single
throb of pity for her now, not a single speculation whither she would go
or what she would make of her life. His own defence of her had now become
a fault of hers. He wished her no harm, he argued, but in a week's time
there must be no light shining behind those blinds.