"Il n'y a rien de doux comme le retour de joie qui suit le
renoncement de la joie, rien de vif, de profond, de charmant,
comme l'enchantement du désenchanté."
Oliver Boringdon held in his hand the West Indian letter which he knew
was an answer to the one he had written to his brother-in-law rather
more than a month before. For nearly a week he had made it his business
to be always at home when the postman called, and this had required on
his part a certain amount of contrivance which was intensely
disagreeable to his straightforward nature. He had missed but one
post--that which had come on the morning of the fire at Chancton Priory.
Three days had gone by since then, but his nerves were still quivering,
not yet wholly under his own control, and to such a man as Boringdon
this sensation was not only unpleasant, but something to be ashamed of.
The hand holding the large square envelope, addressed in the neat clear
writing of Andrew Johnstone, shook so that the letter fell, still
unopened, on the gravel at Oliver's feet. He stooped and picked it up,
then turned into the garden and so through a large meadow which led
ultimately to the edge of the downs, at this time of the year generally
deserted. Not till he was actually there, with no possibility of sudden
interruption, did he break the seal of his brother-in-law's thick
letter.
At once he saw with quick disappointment that what had so weighted the
envelope was one of his sister Grace's long letters; her husband's note
only consisted of a few lines:--
"Grace insists on your being told more than I feel we are
justified in telling. Still, I believe her information is
substantially correct. There would be very serious difficulties
in the way of what you suggest. By next mail you shall know
more."
For a moment he felt full of unreasoning anger against Johnstone. He had
asked a perfectly plain question--namely, whether it would not be
possible for Mrs. Rebell to obtain a divorce from the man of whom Grace
had given so terrible an account; and in answer to that question his
brother-in-law merely referred him to Grace and spoke of "serious
difficulties"! Well, whatever these were, they must be surmounted.
Oliver had already made up his mind to resign his post of agent to the
Chancton estate, and he would use his little remaining capital in going
out to Santa Maria, there to do what lay in his power to set Barbara
free. Again he glanced at Johnstone's laconic note, and between the
lines he read considerable disapproval of himself. He set his teeth and
turned to the sheets of paper covered with Grace's large handwriting.
Then, in a moment, there leapt to his eyes a sentence which brought with
it such a rush of uncontrollable relief that the sensation seemed akin
to pain,--and yet he felt a species of horror that this was so, for the
words which altered his whole outlook on life were these:--
"My darling Oliver, Pedro Rebell is dying."
What matter if Grace went on to qualify that first statement
considerably,--to confess that she only knew of the wretched man's
condition from a not very trustworthy source, but that before next mail
Andrew would go over himself, "though he does not like the idea of doing
so," to see if the report was well founded? "Andrew says," she went on,
"that of course it will be his duty to try and keep him alive."
Boringdon beat the turf viciously with his stick, and then felt bitterly
ashamed of himself.
Only one passage in his sister's letter gave definite information--
"Is it not odd that a place where they send consumptive people
from home should have so many native cases? Pedro Rebell treats
himself in the most idiotic manner--he is being actually
attended by a witch doctor! I am more glad than I can say that
poor Barbara got safe away before he became suddenly worse.
Andrew confesses that he knew the man was very ill when we moved
her here, but he said nothing, so like him, because he thought
that if Barbara knew she simply wouldn't leave the
plantation----"
Again Oliver turned to Johnstone's note--"still, I believe that her
information is substantially correct;" it was curious how immensely that
one dry cautious sentence enhanced the value of Grace's long letter.
Boringdon walked slowly back into the village by the lovely lane--lovely
even in its present leafless bareness--down which Doctor McKirdy had
accompanied Mrs. Rebell the first morning of her stay at the Priory
three months ago. Oliver recalled that first meeting; it had taken place
just where he was now walking, where the lane emerged on the open down.
He remembered his annoyance when Berwick had stared so fixedly at the
old Scotchman's companion.
James Berwick! The evocation of his friend's peculiar, masterful
personality was not pleasant. But a slight, rather grim smile, came over
Boringdon's lips. The moment Mrs. Rebell became a widow, she would be
labelled "dangerous" in the eyes of James and Arabella Berwick. Oliver
had known something of the Louise Marshall episode, and, without for a
moment instituting any real comparison between the two cases, his mind
unconsciously drew the old moral, "The burnt child dreads the fire." If
it became advisable, but he did not think it at all likely that it
would, he would certainly tell Berwick the news contained in Grace's
letter.
When passing the Priory gates, he met Lucy Kemp. "Mrs. Rebell must be
much better," she said gladly, "for Doctor McKirdy has asked me to go
and sit with her for an hour." Oliver turned and went with her up to the
porch of the great house, lingered a moment to receive the latest good
but colourless bulletin, and then walked down to the estate office.
He had not been there many moments when a carriage dashed furiously up
the steep village street, the horses galloping past the window of the
room in which Boringdon sat writing.
* * * * *
Doctor McKirdy was waiting in the hall, and, as Lucy came forward rather
timidly, he looked at her not very pleasantly. "You've been a long
while," he said crossly, "a very long while, and who was it came with
you to the door? But I won't trouble ye to answer me, for I heard the
voice--I've heard it more than once this day. I doubt that ye ever were
told, Miss Lucy, of the bachelors' club to which Rabbie Burns belonged
as a youth. Membership was only conferred on the spark who could prove
his allegiance to more than one lass. Your friend Mr. Oliver Boringdon
would ha' been very eligible, I'm thinking!"
"I don't think you have any right to say such a thing, Doctor McKirdy!"
"Toots! Toots!" The doctor felt like a lion confronted with an angry
lamb; he saw he had gone too far. Bless us, what a spirit the girl had!
He rather liked her for it. "This way," he said, more amiably; "not so
far up as the other morning, eh? When you're with her, you just chatter
about the things ladies like to talk about--just light nonsense, you
know. No going back to the fire, mind! She doesn't trouble her head much
about it, and I don't want her to begin."
He opened a door, and Lucy walked through into the beautiful room where
Barbara now lay, in the immense canopied bed, her left shoulder and arm
outlined by a wicker cage-like arrangement. Her hair was concealed by a
white hood, Léonie's handiwork, and, as Lucy drew near, she lifted her
free hand off the embroidered coverlet, and laid it on that of the girl.
Doctor McKirdy stood by. "Well, I'll tell old Jean she needn't disturb
you for a bit, and now I'll be going home. You'll see me after supper."
He nodded his head, but Barbara, still holding Lucy's gloved hand, was
speaking. "You won't forget the _Scotsman_----" in her eagerness she
moved, and in doing so she suddenly winced.
"Never fear it! But the one we want to see won't be here till to-morrow
afternoon--the meeting was only last night." He spoke in a very gentle
voice, and then walked quickly to the door.
"Sit down just there, behind the leaf of the screen, and then I can see
you. I'm afraid I gave you a great fright the other night? How good you
were to me! Doctor McKirdy tells me that it might have been much worse,
and that I shall be all right in a few weeks----"
Suddenly Barbara lifted her head a little,--"Miss Kemp! Lucy! What is
the matter?"
"Nothing--nothing at all! Doctor McKirdy made a remark that annoyed me.
It is stupid of me to mind." Poor Lucy tried to smile, but her lips
quivered; she repeated, "It really was nothing, but you know how odd he
is, and--and rude, sometimes?"
The sound of a carriage coming quickly up through the trees, and then
being driven more carefully round the broad sweep of lawn, and so to the
space before the porch, put an end to a moment of rather painful
silence. Then the bell pealed loudly through the house--a vigorous peal.
"Someone coming to inquire how you are," suggested Lucy diffidently, but
Barbara made no answer, she was listening intently. Would McGregor never
answer that insistent summons? At last they heard the front door being
opened, and then quickly shut again. Now the carriage was driving away,
quite slowly, in very different fashion from that of its arrival.
Barbara closed her eyes, absurdly disappointed. What reason had she to
suppose that Berwick would hasten back as soon as he heard of the great
danger she had been in? And even if something in her heart assured her
that in this matter her instinct was not at fault, who would have
conveyed the news to him? Not Oliver Boringdon, not Doctor McKirdy? Poor
Barbara was very ignorant of the geography of her own country, but she
knew that Scotland was a long way off, and the most important of the
meetings he had gone there to attend had taken place only the night
before.
But hark! there came a sound of quick muffled footsteps down the short
corridor. A knock at the door, and Berwick was in the room--Berwick,
haggard, sunken-eyed, bearing on his face, now ravaged with contending
feelings, a look of utter physical fatigue. For a moment he stood
hesitating. McGregor had told him that Miss Kemp was with Mrs. Rebell,
but, as he looked round with a quick searching look, the room seemed to
him to hold only Barbara--he saw nothing but Barbara's little head lying
propped up on a large pillow, her eyes, her lips smiling at him with an
odd look of deprecating tenderness, as if his being there was the most
natural thing in the world, and yet as if she understood the dreadful
night and day he had gone through, and felt grieved to think he was so
tired.
Very slowly, still held by her eyes, he came forward, and as he sank on
his knees, and laid his cheek on the hand stretched out on the coverlet,
he saw with shuddering pain by what her other hand and arm were
concealed, and he broke into hard, difficult sobs.
Lucy got up, and almost ran to the door,--she felt a passion of sympathy
and pity for them both. Then she waited in the corridor, wondering what
she ought to do--what Barbara would wish her to do. But that point, as
generally happens in this world, was settled for her. Doctor McKirdy
suddenly loomed in front of her, and even before she saw him, as the
staircase creaked under his heavy footsteps, Lucy heard him muttering
something to himself.
"Then he's in there, eh? And they've sent you out here?"
"Nothing of the sort!" said Lucy briefly: "I came out without being
sent."
"Well, now, you must just go in again, and I'll follow. A fine thing it
would be for the jabbering folk of Chancton to learn of these crazy
comings and goings!" And, as Lucy made no haste to obey him, he added
sharply, "Now you just knock and open the door and walk right in. We
don't want old Jean to be the one to disturb them, eh?"
Lucy knocked, and opened the door with hesitating fingers. What she then
saw was James Berwick quietly engaged in putting some coal on the fire;
as the girl and Doctor McKirdy came in, he did not look round, but went
on mechanically picking up the little lumps and putting them noiselessly
into the grate.
"Well now, you've had two visitors, that's quite enough for one
day,"--the doctor spoke very gently. "Here's Miss Kemp come to say
good-bye, and Mr. Berwick no doubt will do himself the pleasure of
taking her to the Grange, for it's a very dark night." He added in an
aside, "I'm always finding you cavaliers, eh, Miss Lucy?"
Berwick came forward: "Yes, of course I will! By the way, I'm staying
here to-night, so will you dine with me, McKirdy?"
"Well, no, I don't think I will. By the way, I'll be staying here too,
and you'll do well to have your dinner in your bed, I'm thinking." He
followed Barbara's two visitors to the door: "I can't make out how you
ever did it, man, if it's true the meeting didn't break up till after
twelve----"
For the first time Berwick laughed. "Come," he said, "where are your
wits? Specials, of course--and if we hadn't had a stupid, an inexcusable
delay at Crewe, I should have been here hours ago!"
And then, without again looking at Barbara, he followed Lucy out into
the corridor, and down into the hall.
"Just one moment, Miss Kemp. I must put on my boots. I took them off
before coming upstairs."
"But I can go home alone perfectly well."
"No, indeed! I should like to take you. Mrs. Rebell has been telling me
how good you were to her the other night."
And not another word was said by him or by Lucy till they exchanged a
brief good-night at the Grange gate.
* * * * *
The Priory and its inmates settled down to a long period of quietude.
With the possible exception of Lucy Kemp and Oliver Boringdon--who both
called there daily--little or nothing was known in the village save that
Mrs. Rebell was slowly, very slowly, getting better. No Chancton gossip
could discover exactly how much she had been injured, and even Mrs.
Boringdon could learn nothing definite from her son.
At last there came a day when the mistress of Chancton Cottage thought
she would make a little experiment. "Is it true that Mrs. Rebell is now
allowed to be downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Then you are seeing her, I suppose?"
"Yes, sometimes, for a little while."
"Parliament met last week, didn't it?" The question sounded rather
irrelevant.
Oliver looked up: "Yes, mother, of course--on the fifteenth."
"Then Mr. Berwick won't be able to be here so much. Miss Vipen tells me
that the village people all think he must be in love with Mrs. Rebell!"
Mrs. Boringdon's words had an effect very different from what she had
intended them to have. They drew from her son neither assent nor denial,
but they confirmed and made real to him certain facts from which he had
shrunk, and which he had tried to persuade himself did not exist. For
five long weeks he had been alive to the knowledge that Berwick was
continually with Barbara--in fact, that he was with her whenever he
chose to be, excepting during those few moments when he, Boringdon, was
grudgingly allowed to have a few minutes' talk, generally in the
presence of some third person, with the invalid. The state of things at
the Priory had made the young man so wretched, so indignant, that more
than once he had felt tempted to attack Doctor McKirdy. What did they
all mean by allowing James Berwick to behave as if he were Mrs. Rebell's
brother instead of a mere acquaintance?
And so Mrs. Boringdon's words spurred her son to do that which he had
hoped would not be necessary. They showed him that the time had come for
a clear explanation between himself and Berwick. He told himself that
the latter would probably be surprised to learn how his constant visits
to the Priory were regarded; still, the matter could not be to him one
of vital concern, and when once the man who had been for so many years
his friend told him how matters stood, he would surely leave Chancton.
Boringdon thought he knew only too well James Berwick's peculiar moral
code; certain things he might be trusted not to do. Thus, Oliver had
heard him speak with condemnation of the type of man who makes love to a
happily-married woman, or who takes advantage of his amatory science to
poach on an intimate's preserves. Surely he would withdraw from this
strange sentimental friendship with Barbara Rebell the moment it was
made clear to him that she would soon be free,--free to be wooed and won
by any honest man, and, as a matter of fact, already loved by Boringdon,
his friend of so many years' standing? Accordingly, after a day or two
of painful hesitation, Oliver wrote a note, more formal in its wording
than usual, and asked Berwick for an appointment.
He received his answer--life is full of such ironies--in Mrs. Rebell's
presence, on the day when she was allowed to take her first drive in the
little French brougham, which, as Boringdon noted with jealous eyes, had
been sent over for her use from Chillingworth. Oliver happened to come
up to the porch of the Priory as Berwick was actually settling her and
the grim Scotchwoman, Jean, into the carriage. Barbara was flushed and
smiling--a happy light in her eyes. "I'm so sorry to be going out just
now," she cried, "Will you come to tea this afternoon, Mr. Boringdon?
Miss Kemp is coming, and I shall be down in the Blue drawing-room for
the first time. To-day is a day of first times!"
Then Berwick turned round: "I didn't answer your note because I thought
I should almost certainly be seeing you to-day. Would you like to come
over to Chillingworth this evening? Come to dinner, and we can have a
talk afterwards----"
But Boringdon answered quickly: "Thanks, I won't come to dinner, I'll
turn up about nine."
* * * * *
And now Berwick sat waiting for Boringdon in the room where he had spent
the rest of the night after his drive with Barbara from Halnakeham
Castle.
He was in that delightful state of mind which comes so rarely to
thinking mortals,--when the thinker wishes to look neither backwards nor
forwards. It was worth while to have gone through all he had gone
through, to have won such weeks as had been his! Nay more, he was in the
mood to tell himself that he would be content were life to go on as it
was now for ever and a day, were his relations with Mrs. Rebell to
remain as close, as tender--ay, even as platonic--as they had been
during that strange period of her convalescence. With what emotion, with
what sympathy she had described to him her interview with Lord Bosworth;
there had been such complete comprehension of his attitude, such keen
distress that Madame Sampiero had repulsed him!
But, deep in Berwick's heart, something told him that Barbara's attitude
to him and to their joint future was changing, and that she was in very
truth on the eve of surrender. Nature, so he assured himself to-night
had triumphed over convention, and, as a still voice also whispered,
proved stronger than conscience. Berwick's own conscience was not ill at
ease, but he experienced many phases of feeling, and went through many
moods.
Lately he had asked himself boldly whether there was any real reason why
he and Barbara should not repeat, in happier fashion, the example set
them by the two beings for whom they both had so sincere and--yes, it
might be said, reverent--an affection? Those two, Lord Bosworth and
Madame Sampiero, had shown that it was possible to be grandly faithful
to a tie unsanctioned by law, unsanctified by religious faith. Already
Berwick's love for Barbara had purified and elevated his nature; surely
together they might use his vast fortune to better purpose than he had
done alone, for he had long ago discovered how tender, how charitable
were all her impulses. Then, again, he would acknowledge to himself,
with something like impatient amazement, that he loved Barbara too well,
too intimately, to ask her to do violence to her sensitive, rather
scrupulous conscience. She could scarcely be more his own than he felt
her to be now.
Of the man for whom he was now waiting, Berwick had long ago ceased to
be jealous. He felt ashamed to remember that he had ever been so; nay,
he now understood from Barbara that Boringdon liked Lucy Kemp. Was she
not just the sort of girl whom he would have expected such a man as
Oliver to choose for a wife? As to Barbara Rebell, of course Boringdon
had liked to be with her,--had been perhaps, if all the truth were
known, caught for a moment by her charm, as who could help being? But
Berwick was not in a mood to waste much thought on such speculations,
and no presentiment of what Oliver was coming to say to him to-night
shadowed his exquisite content, or his satisfaction with himself, with
the woman he loved, and with the whole of this delightful world.
In fact, he thought he knew quite well why Boringdon wished to see him.
The head of the public department in which Oliver had begun his suddenly
interrupted career as a member of the Civil Service, had lately said to
Berwick, "So your friend Boringdon wants to come back to us? I think in
his case an exception might be made!" And Berwick had done what was in
his power to gratify the other's rather inexplicable wish to get once
more into official harness. The Chancton experiment had evidently been a
mistake. Boringdon had not possessed the qualities necessary for such a
post as that of land agent to Madame Sampiero; he had not understood,
or, if he had understood, he had not chosen to take, his friend's hint
to keep on the right side of old McKirdy. Well, it couldn't be helped!
Of course Oliver must feel the telling of his news rather awkward, but
he, Berwick, would meet him half way, and make it clear that, though he
was personally sorry Boringdon was leaving Chancton, he thoroughly
understood his reasons for doing so, and, what was more, sympathised
with them.
* * * * *
As it struck nine from the various clocks which had been a special hobby
of the man who had built Chillingworth, Boringdon walked in, and his
first abrupt words confirmed Berwick's belief concerning the subject of
their coming conversation: "I am leaving Chancton, and I felt that I
ought to tell you my determination before speaking to Madame Sampiero.
There seems a chance of my getting back to the old shop!"
Berwick nodded his head; he pushed a large box of cigars across the
table which stood between them. "I know," he said, "I met Kingdon last
week, and by a word he let fall I gathered that you were thinking of
doing this. Well, of course I'm sorry, but I know you've done your best,
and after all no one could have foreseen how difficult the position
would be! I suppose they will have to go back to the unsatisfactory plan
with McKirdy." But at the back of the speaker's mind was the thought
that, if he was as much at the Priory as he hoped to be, he might
himself be able to look into things rather more--
Neither man spoke again for a few moments; then Boringdon got up, and
stood with his back to the fire, "But that," he said, "is not all I have
come to say to you. I am really taking this step because it is my
intention"--he hesitated, and Berwick perceived that a peculiarly dogged
expression had come over the dark, rather narrow face,--"I wish to tell
you that it is my intention," repeated Oliver, "to ask Mrs. Rebell to
become my wife."
His host looked up at him with frank astonishment, and a good deal of
concern. "But, my dear fellow," he began rather hurriedly, "is it
possible that you don't know?----"
"I know everything." Boringdon raised his voice, then went on more
calmly, "But I do not suppose that you yourself, Berwick, are aware that
Mrs. Rebell's husband is dying, that there is every chance that in a few
months, or perhaps in a few weeks, she will be a widow--free, that is,
to accept an offer of marriage."
In one sense Boringdon had certainly succeeded in his object. More than
he was ever destined to know, his words, his revelation, had brought the
man before him sharp up to his bearings. James Berwick was both amazed
and discomfited by this unexpected piece of news, and for the moment it
made him very ill at ease.
He had been playing with a tortoiseshell paper knife; suddenly it
snapped in two, and, with an oath, he threw the pieces down on the table
and got up from the chair in which he had been lying back.
"Are you quite sure of your information?" he said slowly. "It's ill
waiting for dead men's shoes." Then he felt ashamed of what he had just
said, and he added, more to give himself time for thought than anything
else: "Have you any reason to suppose that Mrs. Rebell----?" Then he
stopped abruptly, realising that he had been betrayed into making a
remark which to Boringdon must seem an outrage.
But the other had not apparently taken it in that sense. "No, I have no
reason to suppose that Mrs. Rebell has ever thought of such a thing. I
think far too well of her to suppose it for a moment," Oliver was
speaking very deliberately. "I received the news of the man's state
within a very few days of the fire at the Priory, and it has since been
confirmed. He has, it seems, some kind of bad chest disease,
accelerated, I fancy, by drink. As yet she knows nothing of it. Perhaps
I ought to add that I have no reason to suppose that she will accept the
offer I mean to make her as soon as a decent interval of time has
elapsed. But, on the other hand, I should like to assure you that if she
refuses me I intend to go on asking her. Nothing, short of her marriage
to someone else, will make me give her up." He repeated, and as he did
so Boringdon fixed his eyes on his friend with a peculiar, and what
Berwick felt to be a terrible, look: "Nothing--you understand me,
Berwick--nothing but her _marriage_ to another man."
The speaker of these strange words took a step forward. For a moment the
two stood opposite one another. The man Barbara loved was a brave man,
but he quailed before the other's eyes. "I have now told you what I came
to say. Of late you seem to have become very intimate with Mrs. Rebell,
and I wish to warn you that the day may come when I shall require your
good offices. Good-night,"--and without offering to shake hands with
Berwick, Boringdon turned on his heel and left the room.