Hubert Lepel had promised to spend Christmas Day at Beechfield, but for
some unexplained reason he stayed away, sending at the last moment a
telegram which his sister felt to be unsatisfactory. Flossy did not
often exert herself to obtain a guest; but on this occasion she wrote a
rather reproachful letter to her brother, and begged him not to fail to
visit them on New Year's eve. "The General was disappointed," she wrote,
"and so was someone else." Hubert thought that she meant herself, felt a
thrill of wondering compassion, and duly presented himself at the Hall
on the thirty-first of December.
He saw Flossy alone in her luxurious boudoir before anyone else knew of
his arrival. He thought her looking ill and haggard, and asked after her
health. To his surprise, the question made her angry.
"Of course I am not well--I am never well," she answered; "but I am no
worse than usual. There is someone else in the house whose appearance
you had better enquire after."
"You are fond of talking in riddles. Do you mean the General?" said
Hubert drily.
"No, not the General," Florence answered, setting her lips.
Hubert shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject. He had not an
idea of what she meant; but when, shortly before dinner, he first saw
Enid, a light flashed across his mind--Flossy meant that the girl was
ill. He had certainly been rather dense and rather unkind, he thought to
himself, not to ask after her. And how delicate she was looking! What
was the matter with her? It was not merely that she was thinner and
paler, but that an indefinable change had come over her countenance. The
shadow that had always lurked in her sweet eyes seemed to have fallen at
last over her whole face, darkening its innocent candor, obscuring its
tranquil beauty; the look of truthfulness and of ignorance of evil had
gone. No child-face was it now--rather that of a woman who had been
forced to look evil in the face, and was repelled and sickened at the
sight. There was no joy in the eyes with which Enid now looked upon the
world.
Hubert watched her steadily through the long and elaborate meal which
the General thought appropriate to New Year's eve, noting her weariness,
her languor, her want of interest in anything that went on, and could
not understand the change. Was this girl--sick apparently in body and
mind--the guileless maiden who had listened with such flattering
attention to the stories of his wanderings in foreign lands, when he
last came down to Beechfield Hall? He tried her with similar tales--they
had no interest for her now. She was silent, _distraite_, preoccupied.
Still gentle and sweet to every one, she was no longer bright; smiles
seemed to be banished for ever from her lips.
She and Florence scarcely spoke to each other. The General did not seem
to notice this fact; but Hubert had not been half an hour in their
company before he recognised its force. They must have quarrelled, he
said to himself rather angrily--Flossy had probably tried to tyrannise,
and the girl had resented her interference. Flossy was a fool; he would
speak to her about it as soon as he had the opportunity, and get the
truth from her--forgetting for the moment that, if ever a man set
himself an impossible task, it was this one of getting the truth from
Flossy.
Before dinner was ended, the sound of footsteps, the tuning of
instruments; the clearing of voices could be distinguished in the hall.
Hubert glanced at his host for explanation, which was speedily given.
"It is the village choir," he said confidentially. "They come on
Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and sing in the hall. When they have
finished, they all have a glass of wine and drink our healths before
they go down to supper in the kitchen. It's an old custom."
"And a very disagreeable one," said Mrs. Vane calmly. "Your ears will be
tortured, Hubert, by the atrocious noise they make. With your
permission, Enid and I will go to the drawing-room;" and, glancing at
Enid, she rose from her chair.
"My dear Flossy, I entreat of you to stay!" said the General. "You have
never gone away before--it would hurt their feelings immensely. I have
sent word for Dick to be brought down; I mean them to drink his health
too, bless the little man! It will be quite a slight to us all if you go
away."
Flossy smiled ironically, but she looked at Enid in what Hubert thought
a rather peculiar way. He knew his sister's face very well, and he could
not but fancy that there was some apprehension in the glance. Enid sat
still, looking at the tablecloth before her. Her face had grown
perceptibly paler, but she did not move. A little spot of red suddenly
showed itself on each of Mrs. Vane's delicate cheeks.
"Well, Enid, what do you say?" she asked, with less languor of utterance
than usual. "Do you wish to suffer a purgatory of discord? Come--let us
go to the drawing-room; nobody will notice whether we are here or not."
"My dear, I said I wished you to stay," began the General anxiously; but
Florence only laughed a little wildly, and beat her fan once or twice
upon the table.
"Come, Enid. We have had music enough, surely! You are coming?"
"No, I am going to stay here," said the girl, without raising her eyes.
Her tone was exceedingly cold.
Flossy bit her lip, laughed again, and sank back into her chair with an
air of would-be indifference.
"If you stay, I suppose I must," she said lightly; but there was a
strange glitter in her narrowed eyes, and she bit her lip with her
little white teeth so strongly and so sharply as to draw the blood.
"Here comes Dick," said the General, whose placidity was quite restored
by his wife's consent to stay--"here he comes! There, my boy--seen Uncle
Hubert yet? Go and kiss him, and then come back to me and I'll give you
some dessert."
The fair-haired little fellow looked smaller and shyer than Hubert
remembered him. He had very little color in his face, but his eyes
lighted up joyfully when he saw the visitor, and he put his arms around
Hubert's neck with such evident satisfaction that his uncle felt quite
flattered. But, when Dick was perched upon his father's knee, and the
singers had struck up their first florid chant, he was surprised to find
that Enid had raised her blue eyes and was steadily regarding him with a
searching yet sorrowful look, which seemed as if it would explore the
inmost recesses of his soul. For various reasons Hubert felt that he
could not long endure that gaze. The best way of stopping it was to
return it, and therefore, although with an effort which was almost
agonising, he suddenly looked back into her eyes with a composure and
resolute boldness which caused her own very speedily to sink. The color
rose to her face, she gave a slight quickly-suppressed sigh, and she did
not look up again. Puzzled, troubled, vaguely suspicious, Hubert
wondered whether his calm reception of her gaze had silenced the doubt
of him, which he was nearly sure that he read in those sad blue eyes. He
knew that Flossy was watching him and watching her, and he envied the
General his guileless enjoyment of all that was going on, and little
Dick's innocent pleasure in what was to him a great and unwonted treat.
When two songs had been sung, with much growling of the bass and a
general misconception of the functions of a tenor, with great scraping
of violin strings and much want of harmony amongst the 'cellos, the
General called the butler and told him to open the door. The dining-room
had two wide folding-doors opening into the hall, and, when they were
flung open, a motley crowd of village faces could be seen. A row of
shrill-voiced chorister boys, much muffled up in red comforters, stood
foremost; behind them came the singing men and the performers on
instruments--a diverse little crowd of men and youths. In the
background, some six or eight singing women and girls presented a
half-bold, half-shy appearance, as knowing that they were there on
sufferance only, and that the Rector had been doing his best to prevent
their going out at nights to sing with the village choir. But the
General had "backed them up;" he did not like the discontinuance of old
customs, and was inclined to think the Rector unduly strict. Accordingly
they stood in their accustomed places, but, as most of them felt,
probably for the last time on New Year's Eve.
The faces of men and women and children, with one exception, were
wreathed in smiles; but that one exception was notable indeed. Hubert,
with his trained powers of keen observation, observed a lowering face
directly. It was that of tall young woman neatly dressed in black--a
young woman with fair hair curled over her forehead and rather prominent
blue eyes--a coarse-looking girl, he thought, in spite of her pale
coloring and sombre garments. Her brows were drawn together over her
eyes in an angry frown; she was biting her lip, much as Flossy had been
doing, and there was not a gleam of good humor or pleasure in her eyes.
Hubert wondered idly why she had come, when she seemed to enjoy her
occupation so very little.
The opening of the doors was the signal for a volley of clapping,
stamping, and shouting. When this was over, the butler and his helpers
appeared with trays of well-filled glasses, which were taken by the
members of the choir, down to the smallest child present, with great
alacrity. The fair woman in the background was once more an
exception--she took no wine.
The General filled his own glass and signed for Hubert to do the same
for the ladies. He then stood up and prepared to make his usual New
Year's Eve speech. But this time he did what he had never done
before--he lifted his little son on to the chair on which he had been
sitting, and made his oration with one arm round little Dick's slender
shoulders. To Hubert it seemed a pretty sight. Why did it give no
pleasure to Florence and to Enid? Florence's eyes glittered, and a spot
of blood was painfully conspicuous on her white lips; but Enid, sitting
silent with downcast eyes, was now unusually flushed. A student of
character might have said that, while Flossy seemed merely excited,
Enid--the timid, delicate, pure-minded Enid--looked ashamed.
"My dear friends," the General began, "I'm very much obliged to you for
coming, you know--very much obliged. So are my wife and my niece, and my
little boy here--so far as he understands anything about it--very much
obliged to you all. You know I ain't much of a speech-maker--'actions
speak louder than words' was always my maxim"--great cheering--"and I
take leave to say that I think it is a very good maxim too"--tremendous
applause. "My friends, it's the end of one year, and it will soon be the
beginning of another. Let's hope that the new year will be better than
the last. I don't suppose I shall have many more to spend amongst you,
and that is why I wish to introduce--so to speak--my little boy to you.
As my son and heir, my friends, he will one day stand in the place which
I now occupy, and speak to you perhaps as I am speaking now. I can only
ask you to behave as well to him as you have always behaved to me. I
trust that he will prove himself worthy of his name and of his race, and
that generations yet unborn will bless the day when Beechfield Hall came
into the hands of a younger Richard Vane. My friends, if you drink my
health to-night, I shall ask you also to drink the health of my boy--to
wish him happiness, and that he may prove a better landlord, a better
magistrate, and a better man than ever I have been."
There was a tumult of applause, mingled with cries of "No, no!"--"Can't
be better than you have been, sir!" and "Hurrah for the General!"
Hubert, smiling with pleasure at his host's genial tone, was amazed at
the gloom which sat upon the brows of three persons in the
room--Florence, Enid, and the woman in black. There was no other
likeness between them, but that air of reserve and gravity made them
look as if some incommunicable bond, some similarity of feeling or
experience, held them back from the general hilarity which surrounded
them.
"A happy New Year to you all, my friends!" said the General, in his
hearty voice. "Here's to your good healths! There, Dick, my man--drink
too, and say, 'A happy New Year to all of you!'"
Little Dick took a sip from his father's glass, and gravely uplifted his
childish treble.
"A happy New Year to all of you!" he said; and men and women alike broke
out into delighted response.
"Same to you, sir, and many of them!" "Bless his little heart," one of
the women was heard to murmur, "he's just the image of his mamma!" But,
if she thought to give pleasure by this remark, she was far from
successful. Mrs. Vane threw so angry a glance in her direction that the
woman shrank back aghast; and the girl in black, who stood in the
background, laughed between her teeth.
The function was over at last. The choir trooped away to the servants'
premises, where a substantial supper awaited them; the General kissed
little Dick, and strode away with him to his nurse; and Mrs. Vane rose
from the table with an air of studied weariness and disgust.
"Thank Heaven, that is over!" she said. "I am tired to death of this
senseless old practice! If we have it another year, I shall say I am ill
and go to bed. Come, Enid--let us go to the drawing-room and have some
music."
The girl rose and followed obediently; but she vouchsafed no answer to
Mrs. Vane's remarks. As the General had disappeared, Hubert thought that
he too might as well accompany the ladies to the drawing-room,
especially if Enid were about to play. But it did not seem that she was
inclined to do so. She sat down in the darkest corner of the room, and
leaned her head upon her hand. Flossy established herself in a luxurious
lounging-chair, and took up a novel. Hubert hesitated for a moment or
two, then went over to Enid's side.
"Are we not to have any music to-night?"
"Have you not had plenty?" she asked wearily.
"Music! You call that music?"
She did not answer; something in her voice, her attitude, seemed to show
that she was shedding tears. He was intensely sorry for her trouble,
whatever it might be; but he scarcely knew how to comfort her.
"It would be good for us all if you would play," he said softly. "We
want consoling--strengthening--uplifting."
"Ah, but music does not always do that!" she answered, with a new note
of passion in her voice. "When we are happy, music helps us--but not
when we are sad."
"Why not?" said Hubert, more from the desire to make her talk than from
any wish to hear her views on that particular subject.
But she spoke eagerly in reply, yet softly, so that her words should not
reach the ears of the silent, graceful, languid woman by the fire.
"I can't tell why," she said; "but everything is different. Once music
delighted me, even when I was a little sad; but now it seems to harrow
my very soul. It brings thoughts into my mind of all the misery of the
world. If I hear music, I shed tears--I don't know why. Everything is
changed."
"My dear child," said Hubert, "you are unhappy!"
"Yes," she said slowly, with a pathetic tremor of the voice--"yes, I am
very--very unhappy."
"Can I do nothing at all to make you happier?" he said.
The question was left unanswered.