Enid had the look of a veritable snow-queen thought Hubert, as he came
upon her a day or two later in a little _salon_ opening out of the
drawing-room, and found her gazing out upon a landscape of which all the
lines were blurred in falling snow. She was dressed in a white woollen
gown, which was confined at her waist by a simple white ribbon, and had
white fur at the throat and wrists.
The dead-white suited her delicate complexion and golden hair; she had
the soft and stainless look of a newly fallen snowflake, which to touch
were to destroy. Hubert almost felt as if he ought not to speak to one
so far removed from him--one set so high above him by her innocence and
purity. And yet he was bound to speak.
"You like the snow?" he began.
"Yes--as much as I like anything."
"At your age," said Hubert slowly, "you should like everything."
"You think I am so very young!"
"Well--seventeen."
"Oh, but I don't feel young at all!" the girl said half wearily, half
bitterly. "I seem to have lived centuries! You know, cousin Hubert,
there are very few girls of my age who have had all the trouble that I
have had."
"You have had a great deal--you have been the victim of a tragedy," said
Hubert gloomily, not able to deny the truth of her remark, even while he
was forced to remember that many other girls of Enid's age had far more
real and tangible sorrows than she. The vision of a girl pleading with
him to find her work flashed suddenly across his mind; her words about
London Bridge--"her last resource"--occurred to him; and his common
sense told him that after all Enid's position, sad and lonely though it
was, could scarcely be called so pitiable as that of Cynthia West. But
it was not his part to tell her so; his own share in producing Enid's
misfortunes sealed his lips.
What he said however was almost too direct an allusion to the past to be
thought sympathetic by Enid. A very natural habit had grown up at
Beechfield Hall of never mentioning her father's fate; and this silence
had had the bad result of making her brood over the matter without
daring to reveal her thoughts. The word "tragedy" seemed to her almost
like a profanation. It sent the hot blood rushing into her face at once.
Enid's organisation was peculiarly delicate and sensitive; her knowledge
of the publicity given to the details of her father's death was torture
to her. She was glad of the seclusion in which the General lived,
because when she went into Whitminster, she would hear sometimes a
rumor, a whispered word--"Look--that is the daughter of Sydney Vane who
was murdered a few years ago! Extraordinary case--don't you remember
it?"--and the consciousness that these words might be spoken was
unbearable to her. Hubert had touched an open wound somewhat too
roughly.
He saw his mistake.
"Forgive me for speaking of it," he said. "I fancied that you were
thinking of the past."
"Oh, no, no--not of that!" cried Enid, scarcely knowing what she said.
"Of other troubles?" Hubert queried very softly. It was natural that he
should think of what Flossy had said to him quite recently.
"Yes--of other things."
"Can you not tell me what they are?" he said gently, taking one of her
slight hands in his own.
"Oh, no--not you!"
She was thinking of him as Florence's brother, possibly even as
Florence's accomplice in a crime; but he attributed her refusal to a
very different motive. Tell him her troubles? Of course she could not do
so, poor child, when her troubles came from love of him. He was not a
coxcomb, but he believed what Flossy had said.
"Not me? You cannot tell me?" he said, drawing her away from the cold
uncurtained windows with his hand still on hers. "And can I do nothing
to lighten your trouble, dear?"
She looked at him doubtfully.
"I--don't--know."
"Enid, tell me."
"Oh, no!" she cried. "I can't tell you--I can't tell any one--I must
bear it all alone!"--and then she burst into tears, not into noisy sobs,
but into a nearly silent passion of grief which went to the very heart
of the man who stood at her side. She drew her hand away from his and
laid it upon the mantelpiece, which she crept to and leaned against,
sobbing miserably meanwhile, as if she needed the support that solid
stone could give.
Her slender figure, in its closely-fitting white gown, shook from head
to foot. It was as much as Hubert could do to restrain himself from
putting his arm round it, drawing it closely to him, and silencing the
sobs with kisses. But his feeling was that of a grown-up person to a
child whom he wanted to comfort and protect, not that of a man to the
woman whom he loved. He waited therefore silently, with a fixed look of
mingled pain and determination upon his face, until she had grown a
little calmer. When at last her figure ceased to vibrate with sobs, he
came closer and put his hand caressingly upon her shoulder.
"Enid," he said, "I have asked you before if I could make you happier;
you never answered the question. Will you tell me now?"
She raised herself from her drooping attitude, and stood with averted
face; but still she did not speak.
"Perhaps you hardly know what I mean. I am willing--anxious--to give my
whole life to you, Enid, my child. If you can trust yourself to my
hands, I will take such care of you that you shall never know trouble or
sorrow again, if care can avert it. Give me the right to do this for
you, dear. You shall not have cause to repent your trust. Look at me,
Enid, and tell me that you trust me."
Why that insistence on the word "trust"? Was it--strange
contradiction--because he felt himself so utterly unworthy of her
confidence? He said not a word of love.
Enid looked round at him at last. Her gentle face was pale, her lashes
were wet with tears, but the traces of emotion were not unbecoming to
her. Even to Hubert's cold eyes, cold and critical in spite of himself,
she was lovelier than ever.
"I want to trust you--I do trust you," she said; but there were trouble
and perplexity in her voice. "I don't know what to do. You would not let
me be deceived, Hubert? You would not let dear uncle be tricked and
cheated into thinking--thinking--by Flossy, I mean---- Oh, I can't tell
you! If you knew what I know, you would understand."
Hubert had never been in greater danger of betraying his own secret.
Knowing of no other, his first instinctive thought was that Enid had
learnt the true story of her father's death and Flossy's share in
bringing it about; but a second thought, quickly following the first,
showed him that in that case she would never have said that she wanted
to trust him, or that he would not let her and her uncle be deceived.
No, it could not be that. But what was it?
By a terrible effort he kept himself from visibly blenching at her
words. He stood still holding her hands, feeling himself a villain to
the very lowest depths of his soul, but looking quietly down at her,
with even a slight smile on the lips that--do what he would--had turned
pale--the ruddy firelight glancing on his face prevented this change of
color from being seen.
"But how can I understand," he said, "when I have not the slightest
notion of what you mean?"
"You have not?"
"Not the least in the world."
She crept a little closer to him.
"You are not sheltering Flossy from punishment?"
It was what he had been doing for the past eight years.
"Good heavens, Enid," he cried, losing his self-possession a little for
the first time, "what on earth can you possibly mean?"
She thought that he was indignant, and she hastened tremblingly to
appease his apparent wrath.
"I don't mean to accuse you or her," she said; "I have said a great deal
too much. I can trust you, Hubert--oh, I am sure I can! Forgive me for
the moment's doubt."
"If you have not accused me, you have accused my sister. I must know
what you mean."
"Forgive me, cousin Hubert! I can't tell you--even you."
"But, my dear Enid, if you said so much, you must say more."
"I will never say anything again!" she said, her face quivering all over
like that of a troubled child.
He loosed her hands and looked at her steadily for a moment; he had more
confidence in his power over her now.
"I think you should make me understand what you mean, dear. Do you
accuse my sister of anything?"
She looked frightened.
"No, indeed I do not. I don't know what I am saying, Hubert. Tell me one
thing. Do you think we should ever do wrong--or what seems to be
wrong--for the sake of other people's happiness? Clergymen and good
people say we should not; but I do not know."
"Enid, you have not been consulting that parson at Beechfield about it?"
"Not exactly. At least"--the ingenuous face changed a little--"we talked
on that subject, because he knew that I was in trouble, but I did not
tell him anything. He said one should always tell the truth at any
cost."
"And theoretically one should do so," said Hubert, trying to soothe her,
yet feeling himself a corrupter of her innocent candor of mind as he
went on; "but practically it would not be always wise or right. When you
marry, Enid"--he drew her towards him--"you can confess to your husband,
and he will absolve you."
"Perhaps that is what would be best," she answered softly.
"To no man but your husband, Enid."
She drew a quick little sigh.
"You can trust me?" he said, in a still lower voice.
"Oh, yes," she said--"I am sure I can trust you! It was only for a
moment--you must not mind what I said. You will it set all right when
you know."
He was silent, seeing that she had grasped his meaning more quickly than
he had anticipated, and had, in fact, accepted him, quite simply and
confidently, as her husband that was to be. Her child-like trust was at
that moment very bitter to him. He bent his head and kissed her forehead
as a father might have done.
"My dear Enid," he said, "we must remember that you are very young. I
feel that I may be taking advantage of your inexperience--as if some day
you might reproach me for it."
"I told you I did not feel young," she said gently; "but perhaps I
cannot judge. Do what you please."
The listlessness in her voice almost angered Hubert.
"Do you not love me then?" he asked.
"Oh, yes--I always loved you!" said the girl. But there was no look of a
woman's love in her grave eyes. "You were always so kind to me, dear
cousin Hubert; and indeed I feel as if I could trust you absolutely. You
shall decide for me in everything."
There was certainly relief in her tone; but Hubert had looked for
something more.
"I have been wanting to speak to you for several days," he said, "but I
have never had the opportunity before; and I must tell you, dear, that I
spoke to the General before I spoke to you."
"Oh," Enid's fair face flushed a little. "I thought--I did not know that
you intended--when you began to speak to me first, I mean----"
Hubert could not help smiling.
"I understand; you thought I spoke on a sudden impulse of affection,
longing to comfort and help you. So I did. But that is not incompatible
with previous thought and preparation, is it? Surely my care for you--my
love for you--would be worth less as a sudden growth than as a plant of
long and hardy growth?" He groaned inwardly at the subterfuge contained
in the last few words, but he felt that it was unavoidable.
Enid looked up and gave him an answering smile.
"Oh, yes, I see!" she said hurriedly; but there was some little
dissatisfaction in her mind, she did not quite know why.
Even her innocent heart dimly discerned the fact that Hubert was not her
ideal lover. His wooing had scarcely been ardent in tone; and to find
that it had all been discussed, mapped out, as it were, and formally
permitted by the General, and perhaps by his wife, gave her a sudden
chill. For Flossy's interpretation of Enid's melancholy was by no means
a true one. She had dreamed a little of Hubert in a vague romantic way,
as young girls are apt to do when a new-comer strikes their fancy; but
she had not set her heart upon him at all in the way which Florence had
led her brother to believe. There was certainly danger lest she should
do so now.
"The General says," Hubert went on more lightly, "that you cannot be
expected to know your own mind for a couple of years. What do you say to
that?"
"I think that uncle Richard might know me better," said the girl,
smiling. She was still standing on the hearthrug, and Hubert put his arm
round her as he spoke.
"And he will not consent even to an engagement until you are eighteen,
Enid. But he did not forbid me to speak to you and ask you whether you
cared for me, and if you would wait two years."
"Oh, why should it be so long?" the girl cried out; and then she turned
crimson, seeing the meaning that Hubert attached to her words. "I only
mean," she said, "that I wanted to tell you everything that was in my
mind just now."
"And can't you do it now, little darling?"
"No, not now."
"I must wait for that, must I? We must see if we can soften the
General's obdurate heart, my dear. But you are not unhappy now?"
To his surprise, the shadow rose again in her beautiful eyes, the lips
fell into their old mournful lines.
"I don't know," she said sadly. "I ought not to be; but after all
perhaps this does not make things any better. Oh, I wish I could forget
what I know--what I have heard!"
"It is about Flossy?" said Hubert, in a whisper.
She hid her face, upon his shoulder without a word.
"My poor child, I am half inclined to think that I can guess. I know
that Flossy's life has not been all that it should have been. No, don't
tell me--I will not ask you again unless you wish to confide in me."
"You said you did not know."
"I do not know--exactly; but I suspect; and, my dear Enid, we can do
nothing. Make your mind easy on that point. Our highest duty now is to
hold our tongues."
He thought, naturally enough, that she had heard of Florence's secret
interviews with Sydney Vane--so much, he was certain, even the
village-people knew--that in her visits to the cottages she had heard
some story of this kind, and had been distressed--that was all.
"Do you really think so?" said Enid, clinging to him. She was only too
thankful to get rid of the responsibility of judging for herself. "You
do not think that uncle Richard ought to know?"
"My dear girl, what an idea! Certainly not! Do you want to break the old
man's heart?"
"He is very fond of little Dick," murmured Enid, rather to herself than
to him.
He did not lay hold of the clue that her words might have given him if
he had attended to them more closely. He went on encouragingly--
"And of his wife too. No, dear, we cannot wreck his happiness by
scruples of that kind. We must endure our knowledge--or our
suspicions--in silence. Besides, what you have heard may not be true."
"Do you think so, Hubert?" she said wistfully.
"It is better surely to take a charitable view, is it not?"
"Oh, thank you! That is just what I wanted!" she said, a new brightness
stealing into her eyes and cheeks. "Yes, I am sure that I must have been
hard and uncharitable. I will try to think better things. And, oh,
Hubert, you have really made me happy now!"
"That is what I wanted," said Hubert, with a sigh, as for the first time
he pressed his lips to hers. "Your happiness, Enid, is all that I wish
to secure."
He was in earnest; and it did not seem hard to him that in trying to
secure her happiness he had perhaps lost his own.