"The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright."--SHELLEY.
At Chetwoode they are all assembled in the drawing-room,--except
Archibald, who is still confined to his room,--waiting for dinner: Cyril
alone is absent.
"What can be keeping him?" says his mother, at last, losing patience as
she pictures him dallying with his betrothed at The Cottage while the
soup is spoiling and the cook is gradually verging toward hysterics. She
suffers an aggrieved expression to grow within her eyes as she speaks
from the depths of the softest arm-chair the room contains, in which it
is her custom to ensconce herself.
"Nothing very dreadful, I dare say," replies Florence, in tones a degree
less even than usual, her appetite having got the better of her
self-control.
Almost as she says the words the door is thrown open, and Cyril enters.
He is in morning costume, his hair is a little rough, his face pale, his
lips bloodless. Walking straight up to his mother, without looking
either to the right or to the left, he says, in a low constrained voice
that betrays a desperate effort to be calm:
"Be satisfied, mother: you have won the day. Your wish is fulfilled: I
shall never marry Mrs. Arlington: you need not have made such a
difficulty about giving your consent this morning, as now it is
useless."
"Cyril, what has happened?" says Lady Chetwoode, rising to her feet
alarmed, a distinct pallor overspreading her features. She puts out one
jeweled hand as though to draw him nearer to her, but for the first time
in all his life he shrinks from her gentle touch, and moving backward,
stands in the middle of the room. Lilian, going up to him, compels him
with loving violence to turn toward her.
"Why don't you speak?" she asks, sharply. "Have you and Cecilia
quarreled?"
"No: it is no lovers' quarrel," with an odd change of expression: "we
have had little time for quarreling, she and I: our days for love-making
were so short, so sweet!"
There is a pause: then in a clear harsh voice, in which no faintest
particle of feeling can be traced, he goes on: "Her husband is alive; he
is coming home. After all,"--with a short unlovely laugh, sad through
its very bitterness,--"we worried ourselves unnecessarily, as she was
not, what we so feared, a widow."
"Cyril!" exclaims Lilian; she is trembling visibly, and gazes at him as
though fearing he may have lost his senses.
"I would not have troubled you about this matter," continues Cyril, not
heeding the interruption, and addressing the room generally, without
permitting himself to look at any one, "but that it is a fact that must
be known sooner or later; I thought the sooner the better, as it will
end your anxiety and convince you that this _mesalliance_ you so
dreaded,"--with a sneer,--"can never take place."
Guy, who has come close to him, here lays his hand upon his arm.
"Do not speak to us as though we could not feel for you," he says,
gently, pain and remorse struggling in his tone, "believe me----"
But Cyril thrusts him back.
"I want neither sympathy nor kind words now," he says, fiercely: "you
failed me when I most required them, when they might have made _her_
happy. I have spoken on this subject now once for all. From this moment
let no one dare broach it to me again."
Guy is silent, repentant. No one speaks; the tears are running down
Lilian's cheeks.
"May not I?" she asks, in a distressed whisper. "Oh, my dear! do not
shut yourself up alone with your grief. Have I not been your friend?
Have not I, too, loved her? poor darling! Cyril, let me speak to you of
her sometimes."
"Not yet; not now," replies he, in the softest tone he has yet used, a
gleam of anguish flashing across his face. "Yes, you were always true to
her, my good little Lilian!" Then, sinking his voice, "I am leaving
home, perhaps for years; do not forsake her. Try to console, to
comfort----" He breaks down hopelessly; raising her hand to his lips, he
kisses it fervently, and a second later has left the room.
For quite two minutes after the door had closed upon him, no one stirs,
no one utters a word. Guy is still standing with downcast eyes upon the
spot that witnessed his repulse. Lilian is crying. Lady Chetwoode is
also dissolved in tears. It is this particular moment Florence chooses
to make the first remark that has passed her lips since Cyril's abrupt
entrance.
"Could anything be more fortunate?" she says, in a measured,
congratulatory way. "Could anything have happened more opportunely? Here
is this objectionable marriage irretrievably prevented without any
trouble on our parts. I really think we owe a debt of gratitude to this
very unpleasant husband."
"Florence," cries Lady Chetwoode, with vehement reproach, stung to the
quick, "how can you see cause for rejoicing in the poor boy's misery! Do
you not think of him?" After which she subsides again, with an audible
sob, into her cambric. But Lilian is not so easily satisfied.
"How dare you speak so?" she says, turning upon Florence with wet eyes
that flash fire through their tears. "You are a cold and heartless
woman. How should _you_ understand what he is feeling,--poor, poor
Cyril!" This ebullition of wrath seems to do her good. Kneeling down by
her auntie, she places her arms round her, and has another honest
comfortable cry upon her bosom.
Florence draws herself up to her full height, which is not
inconsiderable, and follows her movements with slow, supercilious
wonder. She half closes her white lids, and lets her mouth take a
slightly disdainful curve,--not too great a curve, but just enough to be
becoming and show the proper disgust she feels at the terrible
exhibition of ill-breeding that has just taken place.
But as neither Lilian nor Lady Chetwoode can see her, and as Guy has
turned to the fire and is staring into its depths with an expression of
stern disapproval upon his handsome face, she presently finds she is
posing to no effect, and gives it up.
Letting a rather vindictive look cover her features, she sweeps out of
the drawing-room up to her own chamber, and gets rid of her bad temper
so satisfactorily that after ten minutes her maid gives warning, and is
ready to curse the day she was born.
The next morning, long before any one is up, Cyril takes his departure
by the early train, and for many days his home knows him no more.
* * * * *
A mighty compassion for Cecilia fills the hearts of all at
Chetwoode--all, that is, except Miss Beauchamp, who privately considers
it extremely low and wretched form, to possess a heart at all.
Lady Chetwoode, eager and anxious to atone for past unkind thought, goes
down to The Cottage in person and insists on seeing its sad
tenant,--when so tender and sympathetic is she, that, the ice being
broken and pride vanquished, the younger woman gives way, and, laying
her head upon the gentle bosom near her, has a hearty cry there, that
eases even while it pains her. I have frequently noticed that when one
person falls to weeping in the arms of another, that other person
maintains a _tendresse_ for her for a considerable time afterward.
Cecilia's lucky rain of tears on this occasion softens her companion
wonderfully, so that Lady Chetwoode, who only came to pity, goes away
admiring.
There is an indescribable charm about Cecilia, impossible to resist.
Perhaps it is her beauty, perhaps her exquisite womanliness, combined
with the dignity that sits so sweetly on her. Lady Chetwoode succumbs to
it, and by degrees grows not only sympathetic toward her, but really
attached to her society,--"now, when it is too late," as poor Cecilia
tells herself, with a bitter pang. Yet the friendship of Cyril's mother
is dear to her, and helps to lighten the dreary days that must elapse
before the news of her husband's return to life is circumstantially
confirmed. They have all entreated her to make The Cottage still her
home, until such unwelcome news arrives.
Colonel Trant's friend has again written from Russia, but without being
able to add another link to the chain of evidence. "He had not seen
Arlington since. He had changed his quarters, so they had missed, and he
had had no opportunity of cross-examining him as to his antecedents; but
he himself had small doubt he was the man they had so often discussed
together. He heard he had gone south, through Turkey, meaning to make
his voyage home by sea; he had mentioned something about preferring
that mode of traveling to any other. He could, of course, easily
ascertain the exact time he meant to return to England, and would let
Trant know without delay," etc.
All this is eminently unsatisfactory, and suspense preying upon Cecilia
commits terrible ravages upon both face and form. Her large eyes look at
one full of a settled melancholy; her cheeks grow more hollow daily; her
once elastic step has grown slow and fearful, as though she dreads to
overtake misfortune. Every morning and evening, as the post hour draws
nigh, she suffers mental agony, through her excessive fear of what a
letter may reveal to her, sharper than any mere physical pain.
Cyril has gone abroad; twice Lilian has received a line from him, but of
his movements or his feelings they know nothing. Cecilia has managed to
get both these curt letters into her possession, and no doubt treasures
them, and weeps over them, poor soul, as a saint might over a relic.
Archibald, now almost recovered, has left them reluctantly for change of
air, in happy ignorance of the sad events that have been starting up
among them since his accident, as all those aware of the circumstances
naturally shrink from speaking of them, and show a united desire to
prevent the unhappy story from spreading further.
So day succeeds day, until at length matters come to a crisis, and hopes
and fears are at an end.