"For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
* * * * *
This thought is as a death."--SHAKESPEARE.
The next day is dark and lowering, to Lilian's great joy, who, now she
is prevented by lameness from going for one of her loved rambles, finds
infinite satisfaction in the thought that even were she quite well, it
would be impossible for her to stir out of doors. According to her mode
of arguing, this is one day not lost.
About two o'clock Archibald returns, in time for luncheon, and to resume
his care of Lilian, who gives him a gentle scolding for his desertion of
her in her need. He is full of information about town and their mutual
friends there, and imparts it freely.
"Everything is as melancholy up there as it can be," he says, "and very
few men to be seen: the clubs are deserted, all shooting or hunting, no
doubt. The rain was falling in torrents all the day."
"Poor Archie, you have been having a bad time of it, I fear."
"In spite of the weather and her ruddy locks, Lady Belle Damascene has
secured the prize of the season, out of season. She is engaged to Lord
Wyntermere: it is not yet publicly announced, but I called to see her
mother for five minutes, and so great was her exultation she could not
refrain from whispering the delightful intelligence into my ear. Lady
Belle is staying with his people now in Sussex."
"Certainly, 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' She is painfully
ugly," says Miss Beauchamp. "Such feet, such hands, and such a shocking
complexion!"
"She is very kind-hearted and amiable," says Cyril.
"That is what is always said of a plain woman," retorts Florence. "When
you hear a girl is amiable, always conclude she is hideous. When one's
trumpeter is in despair, he says that."
"I am sure Lord Wyntermere must be a young man of good sound sense,"
says Lilian, who never agrees with Florence. "If she has a kind heart
he will never be disappointed in her. And, after all, there is no such
great advantage to be derived from beauty. When people are married for
four or five years, I dare say they quite forget whether the partner of
their joys and sorrows was originally lovely or the reverse: custom
deadens perception."
"It is better to be good than beautiful," says Lady Chetwoode, who
abhors ugly women: "you know what Carew says:
"But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires;
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks or lips or eyes."
"Well done, Madre," says Cyril. "You are coming out. I had no idea you
were so gifted. Your delivery is perfect."
"And what are you all talking about?" continues Lady Chetwoode: "I think
Belle Damascene very sweet to look at. In spite of her red hair, and a
good many freckles, and--and--a rather short nose, her expression is
very lovable: when she smiles I always feel inclined to kiss her. She is
like her mother, who is one of the best women I know."
"If you encourage my mother she will end by telling you Lady Belle is a
beauty and a reigning toast," says Guy, _sotto voce_.
Lady Chetwoode laughs, and Lilian says:
"What is every one wearing now, Archie?"
"There is nobody to wear anything. For the rest they had all on some
soft, shiny stuff like the dress you wore the night before last."
"What an accurate memory you have!" says Florence, letting her eyes rest
on Guy's for a moment, though addressing Chesney.
"Satin," translates Lilian, unmoved. "And their bonnets?"
"Oh, yes! they all wore bonnets or hats, I don't know which," vaguely.
"Naturally; mantillas are not yet in vogue. You are better than 'Le
Follet,' Archie; your answers are so satisfactory. Did you meet any one
we know?"
"Hardly any one. By the bye,"--turning curiously to Sir Guy,--"was
Trant here to-day?"
"No," surprised: "why do you ask?"
"Because I met him at Truston this morning. He got out of the train by
which I went on,--it seems he has been staying with the Bulstrodes,--and
I fancied he was coming on here, but had not time to question him, as I
barely caught the train; another minute's delay and I should have been
late."
Archibald rambles on about his near escape of being late for the train,
while his last words sink deep into the minds of Guy and Cyril. The
former grows singularly silent; a depressed expression gains upon his
face. Cyril, on the contrary, becomes feverishly gay, and with his mad
observations makes merry Lilian laugh heartily.
But when luncheon is over and they all disperse, a gloom falls upon him:
his features contract; doubt and a terrible suspicion, augmented by
slanderous tales that forever seem to be poured into his ears, make
havoc of the naturally kind expression that characterizes his face, and
with a stifled sigh he turns and walks toward the billiard-room.
Guy follows him. As Cyril enters the doorway, he enters too, and,
closing the door softly, lays his hand upon his shoulder.
"You heard, Cyril?" he says, with exceeding gentleness.
"Heard what?" turning somewhat savagely upon him.
"My dear fellow,"--affectionate entreaty in his tone,--"do not be
offended with me. Will you not listen, Cyril? It is very painful to me
to speak, but how can I see my brother so--so shamefully taken in
without uttering a word of warning."
"If you were less tragic and a little more explicit it might help
matters," replies Cyril, with a sneer and a short unpleasant laugh. "Do
speak plainly."
"I will, then,"--desperately,--"since you desire it. There is more
between Trant and Mrs. Arlington than we know of. I do not speak without
knowledge. From several different sources I have heard the same
story,--of his infatuation for some woman, and of his having taken a
house for her in some remote spot. No names were mentioned, mind; but,
from what I have unwillingly listened to it is impossible not to connect
these evil whispers that are afloat with him and her. Why does he come
so often to the neighborhood and yet never dare to present himself at
Chetwoode?"
"And you believe Trant capable of so far abusing the rights of
friendship as to ask you--_you_--to supply the house in the remote
spot?"
"Unfortunately, I must."
"You are speaking of your friend,"--with a bitter sneer,--"and you can
coldly accuse him of committing so blackguardly an action?"
"If all I have heard be true (and I have no reason to doubt it), he is
no longer any friend of mine," says Guy, haughtily. "I shall settle with
him later on when I have clearer evidence; in the meantime it almost
drives me mad to think he should have dared to bring down here, so close
to my mother, his----"
"What?" cries Cyril, fiercely, thrusting his brother from him with
passionate violence. "What is it you would say? Take care, Guy; take
care: you have gone too far already. From whom, pray, have you learned
your infamous story?"
"I beg your pardon," Guy says, gently, extreme regret visible in his
countenance. "I should not have spoken so, under the circumstances. It
was not from one alone, but from several, I heard what I now tell
you,--though I must again remind you that no names were mentioned;
still, I could not help drawing my own conclusions."
"They lied!" returns Cyril, passionately, losing his head. "You may tell
them so for me. And you,"--half choking,--"you lie too when you repeat
such vile slanders."
"It is useless to argue with you," Guy says, coldly, the blood mounting
hotly to his forehead at Cyril's insulting words, while his expression
grows stern and impenetrable. "I waste time. Yet this last word I will
say: Go down to The Cottage--now--this moment--and convince yourself of
the truth of what I have said."
He turns angrily away: while Cyril, half mad with indignation and
unacknowledged fear, follows this final piece of advice, and almost
unconsciously leaving the house, takes the wonted direction, and hardly
draws breath until the trim hedges and pretty rustic gates of The
Cottage are in view.
The day is showery, threatening since dawn, and now the rain is falling
thickly, though he heeds it not at all.
As with laggard steps he draws still nearer the abode of her he loves
yet does not wholly trust, the sound of voices smites upon his ear. He
is standing upon the very spot--somewhat elevated--that overlooks the
arbor where so long ago Miss Beauchamp stood and learned his
acquaintance with Mrs. Arlington. Here now he too stays his steps and
gazes spell-bound upon what he sees before him.
In the arbor, with his back turned to Cyril, is a man, tall, elderly,
with an iron-gray moustache. Though not strictly handsome, he has a fine
and very military bearing, and a figure quite unmistakable to one who
knows him: with a sickly chill at his heart, Cyril acknowledges him to
be Colonel Trant.
Cecilia is beside him. She is weeping bitterly, but quietly, and with
one hand conceals her face with her handkerchief. The other is fast
imprisoned in both of Trant's.
A film settles upon Cyril's eyes, a dull faintness overpowers him,
involuntarily he places one hand upon the trunk of a near elm to steady
himself; yet through the semi-darkness, the strange, unreal feeling that
possesses him, the voices still reach him cruelly distinct.
"Do not grieve so terribly: it breaks my heart to see you, darling,
_darling_," says Trant, in a low, impassioned tone, and raising the hand
he holds, presses his lips to it tenderly. The slender white fingers
tremble perceptibly under the caress, and then Cecilia says, in a voice
hardly audible through her tears:
"I am so unhappy! it is all my fault; knowing you loved me, I should
have told you before of----"
But her voice breaks the spell: Cyril, as it meets his ears, rouses
himself with a start. Not once again does he even glance in her
direction, but with a muttered curse at his own folly, turns and goes
swiftly homeward.
A very frenzy of despair and disappointment rages within him: to have so
loved,--to be so foully betrayed! Her tears, her sorrow (connected no
doubt with some early passages between her and Trant), because of their
very poignancy, only render him the more furious.
On reaching Chetwoode he shuts himself into his own room, and, feigning
an excuse, keeps himself apart from the rest of the household all the
remainder of the evening and the night. "Knowing you loved me,"--the
words ring in his ears. Ay, she knew it,--who should know it
better?--but had carefully kept back all mention of the fact when
pressed by him, Cyril, upon the subject. All the world knew what he,
poor fool, had been the last to discover. And what was it her tender
conscience was accusing her of not having told Trant before?--of her
flirtation, as no doubt she mildly termed all the tender looks and
speeches, and clinging kisses, and loving protestations so freely
bestowed upon Cyril,--of her flirtation, no doubt.
The next morning, after a sleepless night, he starts for London, and
there spends three reckless, miserable days that leave him wan and aged
through reason of the conflict he is waging with himself. After which a
mad desire to see again the cause of all his misery, to openly accuse
her of her treachery, to declare to her all the irreparable mischief she
has done, the utter ruin she has made of his life, seizes hold upon him,
and, leaving the great city, and reaching Truston, he goes straight from
the station to The Cottage once so dear.
In her garden Cecilia is standing all alone. The wind is sighing
plaintively through the trees that arch above her head, the thousand
dying leaves are fluttering to her feet. There is a sense of decay and
melancholy in all around that harmonizes exquisitely with the dejection
of her whole manner. Her attitude is sad and drooping, her air
depressed; there are tears, and an anxious, expectant look in her gray
eyes.
"Pining for her lover, no doubt," says Cyril, between his teeth (in
which supposition he is right); and then he opens the gate, and goes
quickly up to her.
As she hears the well-known click of the latch she turns, and, seeing
him, lets fall unheeded to the ground the basket she is holding, and
runs to him with eyes alight, and soft cheeks tinged with a lovely
generous pink, and holds out her hands to him with a little low glad
cry.
"At last, truant!" she exclaims, joyfully; "after three whole long, long
days; and what has kept you from me? Why, Cyril, Cyril!"--recoiling,
while a dull ashen shade replaces the gay tinting of her cheeks,--"what
has happened? How oddly you look! You,--you are in trouble?"
"I am," in a changed, harsh tone she scarcely realizes to be his, moving
back with a gesture of contempt from the extended hands that would so
gladly have clasped his. "In so far you speak the truth: I have
discovered all. One lover, it appears, was not sufficient for you; you
should dupe another for your amusement. It is an old story, but none the
less bitter. No, it is useless your speaking," staying her with a
passionate movement: "I tell you I know _all_."
"All what?" she asks. She has not removed from his her lustrous eyes,
though her lips have turned very white.
"Your perfidy."
"Cyril, explain yourself," she says, in a low, agonized tone, her pallor
changing to a deep crimson. And to Cyril hateful certainty appears if
possible more certain by reason of this luckless blush.
"Ay, you may well change countenance," he says, with suppressed fury in
which keen agony is blended; "have you yet the grace to blush? As to
explanation, I scarcely think you can require it; yet, as you demand it,
you shall have it. For weeks I have been hearing of you tales in which
your name and Trant's were always mingled; but I disregarded them; I
madly shut my ears and was deaf to them; I would not believe, until it
was too late, until I saw and learned beyond dispute the folly of my
faith. I was here last Friday evening!"
"Yes?" calmly, though in her soft eyes a deep well of bitterness has
sprung.
"Well, you were there, in that arbor"--pointing to it--"where
_we_"--with a scornful laugh--"so often sat; but then you had a more
congenial companion. Trant was with you. He held your hand, he caressed
it; he called you his 'darling,' and you allowed it, though indeed why
should you not? doubtless it is a customary word from him to you! And
then you wept as though your heart, your _heart_"--contemptuously--
"would break. Were you confessing to him your coquetry with me? and
perhaps obtaining an easy forgiveness?"
"No, I was not," quietly, though there is immeasurable scorn in her
tone.
"No?" slightingly. "For what, then, were you crying?"
"Sir,"--with a first outward sign of indignation,--"I refuse to tell
you. By what right do you now ask the question? yesterday, nay, an hour
since, I should have felt myself bound to answer any inquiry of yours,
but not now. The tie between us, a frail one as it seems to me, is
broken; our engagement is at an end: I shall not answer you!"
"Because you dare not," retorts he, fiercely, stung by her manner.
"I think you dare too much when you venture so to address me," in a low
clear tone. "And yet, as it is in all human probability the last time we
shall ever meet, and as I would have you remember all your life long the
gross injustice you have done me, I shall satisfy your curiosity. But
recollect, sir, these are indeed the final words that shall pass between
us.
"A year ago Colonel Trant so far greatly honored me as to ask me to
marry him: for many reasons I then refused. Twice since I came to
Chetwoode he has been to see me,--once to bring me law papers of some
importance, and last Friday to again ask me to be his wife. Again I
refused. I wept then, because, unworthy as I am, I know I was giving
pain to the truest, and, as I know now,"--with a faint trembling in her
voice, quickly subdued--"the _only_ friend I have! When declining his
proposal, I gave my reason for doing so! I told him I loved another!
That other was you!"
Casting this terrible revenge in his teeth, she turns, and, walking
majestically into the house, closes the door with significant haste
behind her.
This is the one solitary instance of inhospitality shown by Cecilia in
all her life. Never until now was she known to shut her door in the face
of trouble. And surely Cyril's trouble at this moment is sore and needy!
To disbelieve Cecilia when face to face with her is impossible. Her eyes
are truth itself. Her whole manner, so replete with dignity and offended
pride, declares her innocent. Cyril stands just where she had left him,
in stunned silence, for at least a quarter of an hour, repeating to
himself miserably all that she has said, and reminding himself with
cold-blooded cruelty of all he has said to her.
At the end of this awful fifteen minutes, he bethinks himself his hair
must now, if ever, be turned gray; and then, a happier and more resolute
thought striking him, he takes his courage in his two hands, and walking
boldly up to the hall door, knocks and demands admittance with really
admirable composure. Abominable composure, thinks Cecilia, who in spite
of her stern determination never to know him again, has been watching
him covertly from behind a handkerchief and a bedroom curtain all this
time, and is now stationed at the top of the staircase, with dim eyes,
but very acute ears.
"Yes," Kate tells him, "her mistress is at home," and forthwith shows
him into the bijou drawing-room. After which she departs to tell her
mistress of his arrival.
Three minutes, that to Cyril's excited fancy lengthen themselves into
twenty, pass away slowly, and then Kate returns.
"Her mistress's compliments, and she has a terrible headache, and will
Mr. Chetwoode be so kind as to excuse her?"
Mr. Chetwoode on this occasion is not kind. "He is sorry," he stammers,
"but if Mrs. Arlington could let him see her for five minutes, he would
not detain her longer. He has something of the utmost importance to say
to her."
His manner is so earnest, so pleading, that Kate, who scents at least a
death in the air, retires full of compassion for the "pore gentleman."
And then another three minutes, that now to the agitated listener appear
like forty, drag themselves into the past.
Suspense is growing intolerable, when a well-known step in the hall
outside makes his heart beat almost to suffocation. The door is opened
slowly, and Mrs. Arlington comes in.
"You have something to say to me?" she asks, curtly, unkindly, standing
just inside the door, and betraying an evident determination not to sit
down for any consideration upon earth. Her manner is uncompromising and
forbidding, but her eyes are very red. There is rich consolation in this
discovery.
"I have," replies Cyril, openly confused now it has come to the point.
"Say it, then. I am here to listen to you. My servant tells me it is
something of the deepest importance."
"So it is. In all the world there is nothing so important to me.
Cecilia,"--coming a little nearer to her,--"it is that I want your
forgiveness; I ask your pardon very humbly, and I throw myself upon your
mercy. You must forgive me!"
"Forgiveness seems easy to you, who cannot feel," replies she,
haughtily, turning as though to leave the room; but Cyril intercepts
her, and places his back against the door.
"I cannot let you go until you are friends with me again," he says, in
deep agitation.
"Friends!"
"Think what I have gone through. _You_ have only suffered for a few
minutes, _I_ have suffered for three long days. Think of it. My heart
was breaking all the time. I went to London hoping to escape thought,
and never shall I forget what I endured in that detestable city. Like a
man in a dream I lived, scarcely seeing, or, if seeing, only trying to
elude, those I knew. At times----"
"You went to London?"
"Yes, that is how I have been absent for three days; I have hardly slept
or eaten since last I saw you."
Here Cecilia is distinctly conscious of a feeling of satisfaction: next
to a man's dying for you the sweetest thing is to hear of a man's
starving for you!
"Sometimes," goes on Cyril, piling up the agony higher and higher, and
speaking in his gloomiest tones, "I thought it would be better if I put
an end to it once for all, by blowing out my brains."
"How dare you speak to me like this?" Cecilia says in a trembling voice:
"it is horrible. You would commit suicide? Am I not unhappy enough, that
you must seek to make me more so? Why should you blow your brains out?"
with a shudder.
"Because I could not live without you. Even now,"--reproachfully,--"when
I see you looking so coldly upon me, I almost wish I had put myself out
of the way for good."
"Cyril, I forbid you to talk like this."
"Why? I don't suppose you care whether I am dead or alive." This artful
speech, uttered in a heart-broken tone, does immense execution.
"If you were dead," begins she, forlornly, and then stops short, because
her voice fails her, and two large tears steal silently down her cheeks.
"Would you care?" asks Cyril, going up to her and placing one arm gently
round her; being unrepulsed, he gradually strengthens this arm with the
other. "Would you?"
"I hardly know."
"Darling, don't be cruel. I was wrong, terribly, unpardonably wrong ever
to doubt your sweet truth; but when one has stories perpetually dinned
into one's ears, one naturally grows jealous of one's shadow, when one
loves as I do."
"And pray, who told you all these stories?"
"Never mind."
"But I do mind," with an angry sob. "What! you are to hear lies of me,
and to believe them, and I am not even to know who told you them! I do
mind, and I insist on knowing."
"Surely it cannot signify now, when I tell you I don't believe them."
"It does signify, and I should be told. But indeed I need not ask," with
exceeding bitterness; "I know. It was your brother, Sir Guy. He has
always (why I know not) been a cruel enemy of mine."
"He only repeated what he heard. He is not to be blamed."
"It _was_ he, then?" quickly. "But 'blamed'?--of course not; no one is
in the wrong, I suppose, but poor me! I think, sir,"--tremulously,--"it
would be better you should go home, and forget you ever knew any one so
culpable as I am. I should be afraid to marry into a family that could
so misjudge me as yours does. Go, and learn to forget me."
"I can go, of course, if you desire it," laying hold of his hat: "that
is a simple matter; but I cannot promise to forget. To some people it
may be easy, to me impossible."
"Nothing is impossible. The going is the first step. Oblivion"--with a
sigh--"will quickly follow."
"I do not think so. But, since you wish my absence--"
He moves toward the door with lowered head and dejected manner.
"I did not say I wished it," in faltering tones; "I only requested you
to leave me for your own sake, and because I would not make your people
unhappy. Though"--piteously--"it should break my heart, I would still
bid you go."
"Would it break your heart?" flinging his hat into a corner (for my own
part, I don't believe he ever meant going): coming up to her, he folds
her in his arms. "Forgive me, I entreat you," he says, "for what I shall
never forgive myself."
The humbleness of this appeal touches Cecilia's tender heart. She makes
no effort to escape from his encircling arms; she even returns one out
of his many caresses.
"To think you could behave so badly to me!" she whispers,
reproachfully.
"I am a brute! I know it."
"Oh, no! indeed you are not," says Mrs. Arlington. "Well, yes,"--drawing
a long breath,--"I forgive you; but _promise_, promise you will never
distrust me again."
Of course he gives the required promise, and peace is once more
restored.
"I shall not be content with an engagement any longer," Cyril says,
presently. "I consider it eminently unsatisfactory. Why not marry me at
once? I have nine hundred a year, and a scrap of an estate a few miles
from this,--by the bye, you have never yet been to see your
property,--and, if you are not afraid to venture, I think we might be
very happy, even on that small sum."
"I am not afraid of anything with you," she says, in her calm, tender
fashion; "and money has nothing to do with it. If," with a troubled
sigh, "I ever marry you, I shall not come to you empty-handed."
"'If: dost thou answer me with ifs?'" quotes he, gayly. "I tell you,
sweet, there is no such word in my dictionary. I shall only wait a
favorable opportunity to ask my mother's consent to our marriage."
"And if she refuses it?"
"Why, then I shall marry you without hers, or yours, or the consent of
any one in the world."
"You jest," she says, tears gathering in her large appealing eyes. "I
would not have you make your mother miserable."
"Above all things, do not let me see tears in your eyes again," he says,
quickly. "I forbid it. For one thing, it makes me wretched,
and"--softly--"it makes me feel sure _you_ are wretched, which is far
worse. Cecilia, if you don't instantly dry those tears I shall be under
the painful necessity of kissing them away. I tell you I shall get my
mother's consent very readily. When she sees you, she will be only too
proud to welcome such a daughter."
Soon after this they part, more in love with each other than ever.