ride, and doubted whether Alice had ever been on horseback in her life.
After all, how many advantages does a girl lose by having to pass her
days in a nursery! For a moment some such idea crossed his mind. Then he
asked Georgiana some question as to the scenery through which they were
passing. “Very fine, indeed,” said Georgiana. She looked square before
her, and sat with her back square to the horse’s tail. There was no
hanging in the saddle, no shifting about in uneasiness. She could rise
and fall easily, even gracefully, when the horse trotted. “You are fond
of riding I can see,” said the Major. “I do like riding,” answered
Georgiana. The tone in which she spoke of her present occupation was
much more lively than that in which she had expressed her approbation of
scenery.
At the ruin they all got down, and Lady Wanless told them the entire
story of the Owlesses and the Wanlesses, and filled the brewer’s mind
with wonder as to the antiquity and dignity of the family. But the Major
was the fish just at this moment in hand. “The Rossiters are very old,
too,” she said smiling; “but perhaps that is a kind of thing you don’t
care for.”
“Very much indeed,” said he. Which was true,--for he was proud of
knowing that he had come from the Rossiters who had been over four
hundred years in Herefordshire. “A remembrance of old merit will always
be an incitement to new.”
“It is just that, Major Rossiter. It is strange how very nearly in the
same words Georgiana said the same thing to me yesterday.” Georgiana
happened to overhear this, but did not contradict her mother, though she
made a grimace to her sister which was seen by no one else. Then Lady
Wanless slipped aside to assist the brewer and Edith, leaving the Major
and her second daughter together. The two younger girls, of whom the
youngest was the wicked one with the penchant for the curate, were
wandering among the ruins by themselves.
“I wonder whether there ever were any people called Owless,” said
Rossiter, not quite knowing what subject of conversation to choose.
“Of course there were. Mamma always says so.”
“That settles the question;--does it not?”
“I don’t see why there shouldn’t be Owlesses. No; I won’t sit on the
wall, thank you, because I should stain my habit.”
“But you’ll be tired.”
“Not particularly tired. It is not so very far. I’d go back in the
carriage, only of course we can’t because of the habits. Oh, yes; I’m
very fond of dancing,--very fond indeed. We always have two balls every
year at Slowbridge. And there are some others about the county. I don’t
think you ever have balls at Beetham.”
“There is no one to give them.”
“Does Miss Dugdale ever dance?”
The Major had to think for a moment before he could answer the question.
Why should Miss Wanless ask as to Alice’s dancing? “I am sure she does.
Now I think of it I have heard her talk of dancing. You don’t know
Alice Dugdale?” Miss Wanless shook her head. “She is worth knowing.”
“I am quite sure she is. I have always heard that you thought so. She is
very good to all those children; isn’t she?”
“Very good indeed.”
“She would be almost pretty if she wasn’t so,--so, so dumpy I should
say.” Then they got on their horses again and rode back to Brook Park.
Let Georgiana be ever so tired she did not show it, but rode in under
the portico with perfect equestrian grace.
“I’m afraid you took too much out of her,” said Lady Wanless to the
Major that evening. Georgiana had gone to bed a little earlier than the
others.
This was in some degree hard upon him, as he had not proposed the
ride,--and he excused himself. “It was you arranged it all, Lady
Wanless.”
“Yes indeed,” said she, smiling. “I did arrange the little excursion,
but it was not I who kept her talking the whole day.” Now this again was
felt to be unfair, as nearly every word of conversation between the
young people has been given in this little chronicle.
On the following day the young people were again thrust together, and
before they parted for the night another little word was spoken by Lady
Wanless which indicated very clearly that there was some special bond of
friendship between the Major and her second daughter. “You are quite
right,” she had said in answer to some extracted compliment; “she does
ride very well. When I was up in town in May I thought I saw no one
with such a seat in the row. Miss Green, who taught the Duchess of
Ditchwater’s daughters, declared that she knew nothing like it.”
On the third morning he returned to Beetham early, as he intended to go
up to town the same afternoon. Then there was prepared for him a little
valedictory opportunity in which he could not but press the young lady’s
fingers for a moment. As he did so no one was looking at him, but then
he knew that it was so much the more dangerous because no one was
looking. Nothing could be more knowing than the conduct of the young
lady, who was not in any way too forward. If she admitted that slight
pressure, it was done with a retiring rather than obtrusive favour. It
was not by her own doing that she was alone with him for a moment. There
was no casting down or casting up of her eyes. And yet it seemed to him
as he left her and went out into the hall that there had been so much
between them that he was almost bound to propose to her. In the hall
there was the Baronet to bid him farewell,--an honour which he did to
his guests only when he was minded to treat them with great distinction.
“Lady Wanless and I are delighted to have had you here,” he said.
“Remember me to your father, and tell him that I remember him very well
when I was at Christchurch and he was at Wadham.” It was something to
have had one’s hand taken in so paternal a manner by a baronet with such
an eyebrow, and such a coat.
And yet when he returned to Beetham he was not in a good-humour with
himself. It seemed to him that he had been almost absorbed among the
Wanlesses without any action or will of his own. He tried to comfort
himself by declaring that Georgiana was, without doubt, a remarkably
handsome young woman, and that she was a perfect horsewoman,--as though
all that were a matter to him of any moment! Then he went across to the
doctor’s house to say a word of farewell to Alice.
“Have you had a pleasant visit?” she asked.
“Oh, yes; all very well.”
“That second Miss Wanless is quite beautiful; is she not?”
“She is handsome certainly.”
“I call her lovely,” said Alice. “You rode with her the other day over
to that old castle.”
Who could have told this of him already? “Yes; there was a party of us
went over.”
“When are you going there again?” Now something had been said of a
further visit, and Rossiter had almost promised that he would return. It
is impossible not to promise when undefined invitations are given. A man
cannot declare that he is engaged for ever and ever. But how was it that
Alice knew all that had been said and done? “I cannot say that I have
fixed any exact day,” he replied almost angrily.
“I’ve heard all about you, you know. That young Mr. Burmeston was at
Mrs. Tweed’s and told them what a favourite you are. If it be true I
will congratulate you, because I do really think that the young lady is
the most beautiful that I ever saw in my life.” This she said with a
smile and a good-humoured little shake of the head. If it was to be that
her heart must be broken he at least should not know it. And she still
hoped, she still thought, that by being very constant at her work she
might get over it.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BEETHAMITES.
IT was told all through Beetham before a week was over that Major
Rossiter was to marry the second Miss Wanless, and Beetham liked the
news. Beetham was proud that one of her sons should be introduced into
the great neighbouring family, and especially that he should be honoured
by the hand of the acknowledged beauty. Beetham, a month ago, had
declared that Alice Dugdale, a Beethamite herself from her
babyhood,--who had been born and bred at Beetham and had ever lived
there,--was to be honoured by the hand of the young hero. But it may be
doubted whether Beetham had been altogether satisfied with the
arrangement. We are apt to envy the good luck of those who have always
been familiar with us. Why should it have been Alice Dugdale any more
than one of the Tweed girls, or Miss Simkins, the daughter of the
attorney, who would certainly have a snug little fortune of her
own,--which unfortunately would not be the case with Alice Dugdale? It
had been felt that Alice was hardly good enough for their hero,--Alice
who had been seen about with all the Dugdale children, pushing them in
perambulators almost every day since the eldest was born! We prefer the
authority of a stranger to that of one chosen from among ourselves. As
the two Miss Tweeds, and Miss Simkins, with Alice and three or four
others, could not divide the hero among them, it was better then that
the hero should go from among them, and choose a fitting mate in a
higher realm. They all felt the greatness of the Wanlesses, and argued
with Mrs. Rossiter that the rising star of the village should obtain
such assistance in rising as would come to him from an almost noble
marriage.
There had been certainly a decided opinion that Alice was to be the
happy woman. Mrs. Dugdale, the stepmother, had boasted of the promotion;
and old Mr. Rossiter had whispered his secret conviction into the ear of
every favoured parishioner. The doctor himself had allowed his patients
to ask questions about it. This had become so common that Alice herself
had been inwardly indignant,--would have been outwardly indignant but
that she could not allow herself to discuss the matter. That having been
so, Beetham ought to have been scandalised by the fickleness of her
hero. Beetham ought to have felt that her hero was most unheroic. But,
at any rate among the ladies, there was no shadow of such a feeling. Of
course such a man as the Major was bound to do the best for himself.
The giving away of his hand in marriage was a very serious thing, and
was not to be obligatory on a young hero because he had been carried
away by the fervour of old friendship to kiss a young lady immediately
on his return home. The history of the kiss was known all over Beetham,
and was declared by competent authorities to have amounted to nothing.
It was a last lingering touch of childhood’s happy embracings, and if
Alice was such a fool as to take it for more, she must pay the penalty
of her folly. “It was in her father’s presence,” said Mrs. Rossiter,
defending her son to Mrs. Tweed, and Mrs. Tweed had expressed her
opinion that the kiss ought to go for nothing. The Major was to be
acquitted,--and the fact of the acquittal made its way even to the
doctor’s nursery; so that Alice knew that the man might marry that girl
at Brook Park with clean hands. That, as she declared to herself, did
not increase her sorrow. If the man were minded to marry the girl he was
welcome for her. And she apologised for him to her own heart. What a man
generally wants, she said, is a beautiful wife; and of the beauty of
Miss Georgiana Wanless there could be no doubt. Only,--only--only, there
had been a dozen words which he should have left unspoken!
That which riveted the news on the minds of the Beethamites was the
stopping of the Brook Park carriage at the door of the parsonage one day
about a week after the Major’s visit. It was not altogether an
unprecedented occurrence. Had there been no precedent it could hardly
have been justified on the present occasion. Perhaps once in two years
Lady Wanless would call at the parsonage, and then there would be a
return visit during which a reference would always be made to Wadham and
Christchurch. The visit was now out of its order, only nine months
having elapsed,--of which irregularity Beetham took due notice. On this
occasion Miss Wanless and the third young lady accompanied their mother,
leaving Georgiana at home. What was whispered between the two old ladies
Beetham did not quite know,--but made its surmises. It was in this wise.
“We were so glad to have the Major over with us,” said her ladyship.
“It was so good of you,” said Mrs. Rossiter.
“He is a great favourite with Sir Walter.”
“That is so good of Sir Walter.”
“And we are quite pleased to have him among our young people.” That was
all, but it was quite sufficient to tell Mrs. Rossiter that John might
have Georgiana Wanless for the asking, and that Lady Wanless expected
him to ask. Then the parting was much more affectionate than it had ever
been before, and there was a squeezing of the hand and a nodding of the
head which meant a great deal.
Alice held her tongue, and did her work and attempted to be cheery
through it all. Again and again she asked herself,--what did it matter?
Even though she were unhappy, even though she felt a keen, palpable,
perpetual aching at her heart, what would it matter so long as she
could go about and do her business? Some people in this world had to be
unhappy;--perhaps most people. And this was a sorrow which, though it
might not wear off, would by wearing become dull enough to be bearable.
She distressed herself in that there was any sorrow. Providence had
given to her a certain condition of life to which many charms were
attached. She thoroughly loved the people about her,--her father, her
little brothers and sisters, even her overworn and somewhat idle
stepmother. She was a queen in the house, a queen among her busy toils;
and she liked being a queen, and liked being busy. No one ever scolded
her or crossed her or contradicted her. She had the essential
satisfaction of the consciousness of usefulness. Why should not that
suffice to her? She despised herself because there was a hole in her
heart,--because she felt herself to shrink all over when the name of
Georgiana Wanless was mentioned in her hearing. Yet she would mention
the name herself, and speak with something akin to admiration of the
Wanless family. And she would say how well it was that men should strive
to rise in the world, and how that the world progressed through such
individual efforts. But she would not mention the name of John Rossiter,
nor would she endure that it should be mentioned in her hearing with any
special reference to herself.
Mrs. Dugdale, though she was overworn and idle,--a warped and almost
useless piece of furniture, made, as was said before, of bad
timber,--yet saw more of this than anyone else, and was indignant. To
lose Alice, to have no one to let down those tucks and take up those
stitches, would be to her the loss of all her comforts. But, though she
was feckless, she was true-hearted, and she knew that Alice was being
wronged. It was Alice that had a right to the hero, and not that
stuck-up young woman at Brook Park. It was thus she spoke of the affair
to the doctor, and after awhile found herself unable to be silent on the
subject to Alice herself. “If what they say does take place I shall
think worse of John Rossiter than I ever did of any man I ever knew.”
This she said in the presence both of her husband and her step-daughter.
“John Rossiter will not be very much the worse for that,” said Alice
without relaxing a moment from her work. There was a sound of drolling
in her voice, as though she were quizzing her stepmother for her folly.
“It seems to me that men may do anything now,” continued Mrs. Dugdale.
“I suppose they are the same now as they always were,” said the doctor.
“If a man chose to be false he could always be false.”
“I call it unmanly,” said Mrs. Dugdale. “If I were a man I would beat
him.”
“What would you beat him for?” said Alice, getting up, and as she did so
throwing down on the table before her the little frock she was making.
“If you had the power of beating him, why would you beat him?”
“Because he is ill-using you.”
“How do you know that? Did I ever tell you so? Have you ever heard a
word that he has said to me, either direct from himself, or second-hand,
that justifies you in saying that he has ill-used me? You ill-use me
when you speak like that.”
“Alice, do not be so violent,” said the doctor.
“Father, I will speak of this once, and once for all;--and then pray,
pray, let there be no further mention of it. I have no right to complain
of anything in Major Rossiter. He has done me no wrong. Those who love
me should not mention his name in reference to me.”
“He is a villain,” said Mrs. Dugdale.
“He is no villain. He is a gentleman, as far as I know, from the crown
of his head to the sole of his foot. Does it ever occur to you how
little you make of me when you talk of him in this way? Dismiss it all
from your mind, father, and let things be as they were. Do you think
that I am pining for any man’s love? I say that Major Rossiter is a true
man and a gentleman;--but I would not give my Bobby’s little finger for
all his whole body.” Then there was silence, and afterwards the doctor
told his wife that the Major’s name had better not be mentioned again
among them. Alice on this occasion was, or appeared to be, very angry
with Mrs. Dugdale; but on that evening and the next morning there was an
accession of tenderness in her usually sweet manner to her stepmother.
The expression of her mother’s anger against the Major had been
wrong;--but the feeling of anger was not the less endearing.
Some time after that, one evening, the parson came upon Alice as she
was picking flowers in one of the Beetham lanes. She had all the
children with her, and was filling Minnie’s apron with roses from the
hedge. Old Mr. Rossiter stopped and talked to them, and after awhile
succeeded in getting Alice to walk on with him. “You haven’t heard from
John?” he said.
“Oh, no,” replied Alice, almost with a start. And then she added
quickly, “There is no one at our house likely to hear from him. He does
not write to anyone there.”
“I did not know whether any message might have reached you.”
“I think not.”
“He is to be here again before long,” said the parson.
“Oh, indeed.” She had but a moment to think of it all; but, after
thinking, she continued, “I suppose he will be going over to Brook
Park.”
“I fear he will.”
“Fear;--why should you fear, Mr. Rossiter? If that is true, it is the
place where he ought to be.”
“But I doubt its truth, my dear.”
“Ah! I know nothing about that. If so he had better stay up in London, I
suppose.”
“I don’t think John can care much for Miss Wanless.”
“Why not? She is the most thoroughly beautiful young woman I ever saw.”
“I don’t think he does, because I believe his heart is elsewhere. Alice,
you have his heart.”
“No.”
“I think so, Alice.”
“No, Mr. Rossiter. I have not. It is not so. I know nothing of Miss
Wanless, but I can speak of myself.”
“It seems to me that you are speaking of him now.”
“Then why does he go there?”
“That is just what I cannot answer. Why does he go there? Why do we do
the worst thing so often, when we see the better?”
“But we don’t leave undone the thing which we wish to do, Mr. Rossiter.”
“That is just what we do do,--under constraint. Alice, I hope, I hope
that you may become his wife.” She endeavoured to deny that it could
ever be so;--she strove to declare that she herself was much too
heart-free for that; but the words would not come to her lips, and she
could only sob while she struggled to retain her tears. “If he does come
to you give him a chance again, even though he may have been untrue to
you for a moment.”
Then she was left alone among the children. She could dry her tears and
suppress her sobs, because Minnie was old enough to know the meaning of
them if she saw them; but she could not for awhile go back into the
house. She left them in the passage and then went out again, and walked
up and down a little pathway that ran through the shrubs at the bottom
of the garden. “I believe his heart is elsewhere.” Could it be that it
was so? And if so, of what nature can be a man’s love, if when it be
given in one direction, he can go in another with his hand? She could
understand that there had not been much heart in it;--that he, being a
man and not a woman, could have made this turning point of his life an
affair of calculation, and had taken himself here or there without much
love at all; that as he would seek a commodious house, so would he also
a convenient wife. Resting on that suggestion to herself, she had dared
to declare to her father and mother that Major Rossiter was, not a
villain, but a perfect gentleman. But all that was not compatible with
his father’s story. “Alice, you have his heart,” the old man had said.
How had it come to pass that the old man had known it? And yet the
assurance was so sweet, so heavenly, so laden to her ears with divine
music, that at this moment she would not even ask herself to disbelieve
it. “If he does come to you, give him a chance again.” Why;--yes! Though
she never spoke a word of Miss Wanless without praise, though she had
tutored herself to swear that Miss Wanless was the very wife for him,
yet she knew herself too well not to know that she was better than Miss
Wanless. For his sake, she could with a clear conscience--give him a
chance again. The dear old parson! He had seen it all. He had known. He
had appreciated. If it should ever come to pass that she was to be his
daughter-in-law, he should have his reward. She would not tell herself
that she expected him to come again; but, if he did come, she would
give the parson his chance. Such was her idea at that moment. But she
was forced to change it before long.
CHAPTER V.
THE INVITATION.
WHEN Major Rossiter discussed his own conduct with himself as men are so
often compelled to do by their own conscience, in opposition to their
own wishes, he was not well pleased with himself. On his return home
from India he had found himself possessed of a liberal income, and had
begun to enjoy himself without thinking much about marrying. It is not
often that a man looks for a wife because he has made up his mind that
he wants the article. He roams about unshackled, till something, which
at the time seems to be altogether desirable, presents itself to him;
and then he meditates marriage. So it had been with our Major. Alice had
presented herself to him as something altogether desirable,--a something
which, when it was touched and looked at, seemed to be so full of
sweetnesses, that to him it was for the moment of all things the most
charming. He was not a forward man,--one of those who can see a girl for
the first time on a Monday, and propose to her on the Tuesday. When the
idea first suggested itself to him of making Alice his wife he became
reticent and undemonstrative. The kiss had in truth meant no more than
Mrs. Tweed had said. When he began to feel that he loved her, then he
hardly dared to dream of kissing her.
But though he felt that he loved her,--liked perhaps it would be fairer
to say in that early stage of his feelings,--better than any other
woman, yet when he came to think of marriage, the importance of it all
made him hesitate; and he was reminded, by little hints from others, and
by words plain enough from one person, that Alice Dugdale was after all
a common thing. There is a fitness in such matters,--so said Mrs.
Rossiter,--and a propriety in like being married to like. Had it been
his lot to be a village doctor, Alice would have suited him well.
Destiny, however, had carried him,--the Major,--higher up, and would
require him to live in London, among ornate people, with polished
habits, and peculiar manners of their own. Would not Alice be out of her
element in London? See the things among which she passed her life! Not a
morsel of soap or a pound of sugar was used in the house, but what she
gave it out. Her hours were passed in washing, teaching, and sewing for
the children. In her very walks she was always pushing a perambulator.
She was, no doubt, the doctor’s daughter; but, in fact, she was the
second Mrs. Dugdale’s nursemaid. Nothing could be more praiseworthy. But
there is a fitness in things; and he, the hero of Beetham, the Assistant
Deputy Inspector-General of the British Cavalry, might surely do better
than marry a praiseworthy nursery girl. It was thus that Mrs. Rossiter
argued with her son, and her arguments were not without avail.
Then Georgiana Wanless had been, as it were, thrown at his head. When
one is pelted with sugar-plums one can hardly resent the attack. He was
clever enough to feel that he was pelted, but at first he liked the
sweetmeats. A girl riding on horseback, with her back square to the
horse’s tail, with her reins well held, and a chimney-pot hat on her
head, is an object, unfortunately, more attractive to the eyes of
ordinary men, than a young woman pushing a perambulator with two babies.
Unfortunately, I say, because in either case the young woman should be
judged by her personal merits and not by externals. But the Major
declared to himself that the personal merits would be affected by the
externals. A girl who had pushed a perambulator for many years, would
hardly have a soul above perambulators. There would be wanting the
flavour of the aroma of romance, that something of poetic vagueness
without which a girl can hardly be altogether charming to the senses of
an appreciative lover. Then, a little later on, he asked himself whether
Georgiana Wanless was romantic and poetic,--whether there was much of
true aroma there.
But yet he thought that fate would require him to marry Georgiana
Wanless, whom he certainly did not love, and to leave Alice to her
perambulator,--Alice, whom he certainly did love. And as he thought of
this, he was ill at ease with himself. It might be well that he should
give up his Assistant Deputy Inspector-Generalship, go back to India,
and so get rid of his two troubles together. Fate, as he personified
fate to himself in this matter,--took the form of Lady Wanless. It made
him sad to think that he was but a weak creature in the hands of an old
woman, who wanted to use him for a certain purpose;--but he did not see
his way of escaping. When he began to console himself by reflecting that
he would have one of the handsomest women in London at his dinner-table
he knew that he would be unable to escape.
About the middle of July he received the following letter from Lady
Wanless:--
“DEAR MAJOR ROSSITER,--The girls have been at their father for the
last ten days to have an archery meeting on the lawn, and have at
last prevailed, though Sir Walter has all a father’s abhorrence to
have the lawn knocked about. Now it is settled. ‘I’ll see about
it,’ Sir Walter said at last, and when so much as that had been
obtained, they all knew that the archery meeting was to be. Sir
Walter likes his own way, and is not always to be persuaded. But
when he has made the slightest show of concession, he never goes
back from it. Then comes the question as to the day, which is now
in course of discussion in full committee. In that matter Sir
Walter is supposed to be excluded from any voice. ‘It cannot matter
to him what day of the week or what day of the month,’ said
Georgiana very irreverently. It will not, however, much matter to
him so long as it is all over before St. Partridge comes round.
“The girls one and all declared that you must be here,--as one of
the guests in the house. Our rooms will be mostly full of young
ladies, but there will be one at any rate for you. Now, what day
will suit you,--or rather what day will suit the Cavalry generally?
Everything must of course depend on the Cavalry. The girls say that
the Cavalry is sure to go out of town after the tenth of August.
But they would put it off for a week longer rather than not have
the Inspector-General. Would Wednesday 14th suit the Cavalry? They
are all reading every word of my letter as it is written, and bid
me say that if Thursday or Friday in that week, or Wednesday or
Thursday in the next, will do better, the accommodation of the
Cavalry shall be consulted. It cannot be on a Monday or Saturday
because there would be some Sunday encroachment. On Tuesday we
cannot get the band from Slowbridge.
“Now you know our great purpose and our little difficulties. One
thing you cannot know,--how determined we are to accommodate
ourselves to the Cavalry. _The meeting is not to take place without
the Inspector-General._ So let us have an early answer from that
august functionary. The girls think that the Inspector had better
come down before the day, so as to make himself useful in
preparing.
“Pray believe me, with Sir Walter’s kind regards, yours most
sincerely,
“MARGARET WANLESS.”
The Major felt that the letter was very flattering, but that it was
false and written for a certain purpose. He could read between the lines
at every sentence of it. The festival was to be got up, not at the
instance of the girls but of Lady Wanless herself, as a final trap for
the catching of himself,--and perhaps for Mr. Burmeston. Those
irreverent words had never come from Georgiana, who was too placid to
have said them. He did not believe a word of the girls looking over the
writing of the letter. In all such matters Lady Wanless had more life,
more energy than her daughters. All that little fun about the Cavalry
came from Lady Wanless herself. The girls were too like their father for
such ebullitions. The little sparks of joke with which the names of the
girls were connected,--with which in his hearing the name of Georgiana
had been specially connected,--had, he was aware, their origin always
with Lady Wanless. Georgiana had said this funny thing and that,--but
Georgiana never spoke after that fashion in his hearing. The traps were
plain to his eyes, and yet he knew that he would sooner or later be
caught in the traps.
He took a day to think of it before he answered the letter, and
meditated a military tour to Berlin just about the time. If so, he must
be absent during the whole of August, so as to make his presence at the
toxopholite meeting an impossibility. And yet at last he wrote and said
that he would be there. There would be something mean in flight. After
all, he need not ask the girl to be his wife unless he chose to do so.
He wrote a very pretty note to Lady Wanless saying that he would be at
Brook Park on the 14th, as she had suggested.
Then he made a great resolution and swore an oath to himself,--that he
would not be caught on that occasion, and that after this meeting he
would go no more either to Brook Park or to Beetham for awhile. He would
not marry the girl to whom he was quite indifferent, nor her who from
her position was hardly qualified to be his wife. Then he went about his
duties with a quieted conscience, and wedded himself for once and for
always to the Cavalry.
Some tidings of the doings proposed by the Wanlesses had reached the
parson’s ears when he told Alice in the lane that his son was soon
coming down to Beetham again, and that he was again going to Brook Park.
Before July was over the tidings of the coming festivity had been spread
over all that side of the county. Such a thing had not been done for
many years,--not since Lady Wanless had been herself a young wife, with
two sisters for whom husbands had to be,--and were provided. There were
those who could still remember how well Lady Wanless had behaved on that
occasion. Since those days hospitality on a large scale had not been
rife at Brook Park--and the reason why it was so was well known. Sir
Walter was determined not to embarrass himself further, and would do
nothing that was expensive. It could not be but that there was great
cause for such a deviation as this. Then the ladies of the neighbourhood
put their heads together,--and some of the gentlemen,--and declared
that a double stroke of business was to be done in regard to Major
Rossiter and Mr. Burmeston. How great a relief that would be to the
mother’s anxiety if the three eldest girls could be married and got rid
of all on the same day!
Beetham, which was ten miles from Brook Park, had a station of its own,
whereas Slowbridge with its own station was only six miles from the
house. The Major would fain have reached his destination by Slowbridge,
so as to have avoided the chance of seeing Alice, were it not that his
father and mother would have felt themselves aggrieved by such
desertion. On this occasion his mother begged him to give them one
night. She had much that she wished to say to him, and then of course he
could have the parsonage horse and the parsonage phaeton to take him
over to Brook Park free of expense. He did go down to Beetham, did spend
an evening there, and did go on to the Park without having spoken to
Alice Dugdale.
“Everybody says you are to marry Georgiana Wanless,” said Mrs. Rossiter.
“If there were no other reason why I should not, the saying of everybody
would be sufficient against it.”
“That is unreasonable, John. The thing should be looked at itself,
whether it is good or bad. It may be the case that Lady Wanless talks
more than she ought to do. It may be the case that, as people say, she
is looking out for husbands for her daughters. I don’t know but that I
should do the same if I had five of them on my hands and very little
means for them. And if I did, how could I get a better husband for one
of them than--such a one as Major John Rossiter?” Then she kissed his
forehead.
“I hate the kind of thing altogether,” said he. He pretended to be
stern, but yet he showed that he was flattered by his mother’s softness.
“It may well be, John, that such a match shall be desirable to them and
to you too. If so, why should there not be a fair bargain between the
two of you? You know that you admire the girl.” He would not deny this,
lest it should come to pass hereafter that she should become his wife.
“And everybody knows that as far as birth goes there is not a family in
the county stands higher. I am so proud of my boy that I wish to see him
mated with the best.”
He reached the parsonage that evening only just before dinner, and on
the next morning he did not go out of the house till the phaeton came
round to take him to Brook Park. “Are you not going up to see the old
doctor?” said the parson after breakfast.
“No;--I think not. He is never at home, and the ladies are always
surrounded by the children.”
“She will take it amiss,” said the father almost in a whisper.
“I will go as I come back,” said he, blushing as he spoke at his own
falsehood. For, if he held to his present purpose, he would return by
Slowbridge. If Fate intended that there should be nothing further
between him and Alice, it would certainly be much better that they
should not be brought together any more. He knew too what his father
meant, and was more unwilling to take counsel from his father even than
his mother. Yet he blushed because he knew that he was false.
“Do not seem to slight her,” said the old man. “She is too good for
that.”
Then he drove himself over to Brook Park, and, as he made his way by one
of the innumerable turnings out of Beetham, he saw at one of the corners
Alice, still with the children and still with the perambulator. He
merely lifted his hat as he passed, but did not stop to speak to her.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARCHERY MEETING.
THE Assistant Deputy Inspector-General, when he reached Brook Park,
found that things were to be done on a great scale. The two
drawing-rooms were filled with flowers, and the big dining-room was laid
out for to-morrow’s lunch, in preparation for those who would prefer the
dining-room to the tent. Rossiter was first taken into the Baronet’s own
room, where Sir Walter kept his guns and administered justice. “This is
a terrible bore, Rossiter,” he said.
“It must disturb you a great deal, Sir Walter.”
“Oh, dear--dreadfully! What would my old friend, your father, think of
having to do this kind of thing? Though, when I was at Christchurch and
he at Wadham, we used to be gay enough. I’m not quite sure that I don’t
owe it to you.”
“To me, Sir Walter!”
“I rather think you put the girls up to it.” Then he laughed as though
it were a very good joke and told the Major where he would find the
ladies. He had been expressly desired by his wife to be genial to the
Major, and had been as genial as he knew how.
Rossiter, as he went out on to the lawn, saw Mr. Burmeston, the brewer,
walking with Edith, the third daughter. He could not but admire the
strategy of Lady Wanless when he acknowledged to himself how well she
managed all these things. The brewer would not have been allowed to walk
with Gertrude, the fourth daughter, nor even with Maria, the naughty
girl who liked the curate,--because it was Edith’s turn. Edith was
certainly the plainest of the family, and yet she had her turn. Lady
Wanless was by far too good a mother to have favourites among her own
children.
He then found the mother, the eldest daughter, and Gertrude overseeing
the decoration of a tent, which had been put up as an addition to the
dining-room. He expected to find Mr. Cobble, to whom he had taken a
liking, a nice, pleasant, frank young country gentleman; but Mr. Cobble
was not wanted for any express purpose, and might have been in the way.
Mr. Cobble was landed and safe. Before long he found himself walking
round the garden with Lady Wanless herself. The other girls, though they
were to be his sisters, were never thrown into any special intimacy with
him. “She will be down before long now that she knows you are here,”
said Lady Wanless. “She was fatigued a little, and I thought it better
that she should lie down. She is so impressionable, you know.” “She” was
Georgiana. He knew that very well. But why should Georgiana be called
“She” to him, by her mother? Had “She” been in truth engaged to him it
would have been intelligible enough. But there had been nothing of the
kind. As “She” was thus dinned into his ears, he thought of the very
small amount of conversation which had ever taken place between himself
and the young lady.
Then there occurred to him an idea that he would tell Lady Wanless in so
many words that there was a mistake. The doing so would require some
courage, but he thought that he could summon up manliness for the
purpose,--if only he could find the words and occasion. But though “She”
were so frequently spoken of, still nothing was said which seemed to
give him the opportunity required. It is hard for a man to have to
reject a girl when she has been offered,--but harder to do so before the
offer has in truth been made. “I am afraid there is a little mistake in
your ideas as to me and your daughter.” It was thus that he would have
had to speak, and then to have endured the outpouring of her wrath, when
she would have declared that the ideas were only in his own arrogant
brain. He let it pass by and said nothing, and before long he was
playing lawn-tennis with Georgiana, who did not seem to have been in the
least fatigued.
“My dear, I will not have it,” said Lady Wanless about an hour
afterwards, coming up and disturbing the game. “Major Rossiter, you
ought to know better.” Whereupon she playfully took the racket out of
the Major’s hand. “Mamma is such an old bother,” said Georgiana as she
walked back to the house with her Major. The Major had on a previous
occasion perceived that the second Miss Wanless rode very well, and now
he saw that she was very stout at lawn-tennis; but he observed none of
that peculiarity of mental or physical development which her mother had
described as “impressionable.” Nevertheless she was a handsome girl, and
if to play at lawn-tennis would help to make a husband happy, so much at
any rate she could do.
This took place on the day before the meeting,--before the great day.
When the morning came the girls did not come down early to breakfast,
and our hero found himself left alone with Mr. Burmeston. “You have
known the family a long time,” said the Major as they were sauntering
about the gravel paths together, smoking their cigars.
“No, indeed,” said Mr. Burmeston. “They only took me up about three
months ago,--just before we went over to Owless. Very nice
people;--don’t you think so?”
“Very nice,” said the Major.
“They stand so high in the county, and all that sort of thing. Birth
does go a long way, you know.”
“So it ought,” said the Major.
“And though the Baronet does not do much in the world, he has been in
the House, you know. All those things help.” Then the Major understood
that Mr. Burmeston had looked the thing in the face, and had determined
that for certain considerations it was worth his while to lead one of
the Miss Wanlesses to the hymeneal altar. In this Mr. Burmeston was
behaving with more manliness than he,--who had almost made up his mind
half-a-dozen times, and had never been satisfied with the way he had
done it.
About twelve the visitors had begun to come, and Sophia with Mr. Cobble
were very soon trying their arrows together. Sophia had not been allowed
to have her lover on the previous day, but was now making up for it.
That was all very well, but Lady Wanless was a little angry with her
eldest daughter. Her success was insured for her. Her business was done.
Seeing how many sacrifices had been made to her during the last
twelvemonths, surely now she might have been active in aiding her
sisters, instead of merely amusing herself.
The Major was not good at archery. He was no doubt an excellent Deputy
Inspector-General of Cavalry; but if bows and arrows had still been the
weapons used in any part of the British army, he would not, without
further instruction, have been qualified to inspect that branch.
Georgiana Wanless, on the other hand, was a proficient. Such shooting as
she made was marvellous to look at. And she was a very image of Diana,
as with her beautiful figure and regular features, dressed up to the
work, she stood with her bow raised in her hand and let twang the
arrows. The circle immediately outside the bull’s-eye was the farthest
from the mark she ever touched. But good as she was and bad as was the
Major, nevertheless they were appointed always to shoot together. After
a world of failures the Major would shoot no more,--but not the less did
he go backwards and forwards with Georgiana when she changed from one
end to the other, and found himself absolutely appointed to that task.
It grew upon him during the whole day that this second Miss Wanless was
supposed to be his own,--almost as much as was the elder the property of
Mr. Cobble. Other young men would do no more than speak to her. And when
once, after the great lunch in the tent, Lady Wanless came and put her
hand affectionately upon his arm, and whispered some word into his ear
in the presence of all the assembled guests, he knew that the entire
county had recognised him as caught.
There was old Lady Deepbell there. How it was that towards the end of
the day’s delights Lady Deepbell got hold of him he never knew. Lady
Deepbell had not been introduced to him, and yet she got hold of him.
“Major Rossiter, you are the luckiest man of the day,” she said to him.
“Pretty well,” said he, affecting to laugh; “but why so?”
“She is the handsomest young woman out. There hasn’t been one in London
this season with such a figure.”
“You are altogether wrong in your surmise, Lady Deepbell.”
“No, no; I am right enough. I see it all. Of course the poor girl won’t
have any money; but then how nice it is when a gentleman like you is
able to dispense with that. Perhaps they do take after their father a
little, and he certainly is not bright; but upon my word, I think a girl
is all the better for that. What’s the good of having such a lot of
talkee-talkee?”
“Lady Deepbell, you are alluding to a young lady without the slightest
warrant,” said the Major.
“Warrant enough;--warrant enough,” said the old woman, toddling off.
Then young Cobble came to him, and talked to him as though he were a
brother of the house. Young Cobble was an honest fellow, and quite in
earnest in his matrimonial intentions. “We shall be delighted if you’ll
come to us on the first,” said Cobble. The first of course meant the
first of September. “We ain’t so badly off just for a week’s shooting.
Sophia is to be there, and we’ll get Georgiana too.”
The Major was fond of shooting, and would have been glad to accept the
offer; but it was out of the question that he should allow himself to be
taken in at Cobble Hall under a false pretext. And was it not incumbent
on him to make this young man understand that he had no pretensions
whatever to the hand of the second Miss Wanless? “You are very good,”
said he.
“We should be delighted,” said young Cobble.
“But I fear there is a mistake. I can’t say anything more about it now
because it doesn’t do to name people;--but there is a mistake. Only for
that I should have been delighted. Good-bye.” Then he took his
departure, leaving young Cobble in a state of mystified suspense.
The day lingered on to a great length. The archery and the lawn-tennis
were continued till late after the so-called lunch, and towards the
evening a few couples stood up to dance. It was evident to the Major
that Burmeston and Edith were thoroughly comfortable together. Gertrude
amused herself well, and even Maria was contented, though the curate as
a matter of course was not there. Sophia with her legitimate lover was
as happy as the day and evening were long. But there came a frown upon
Georgiana’s brow, and when at last the Major, as though forced by
destiny, asked her to dance, she refused. It had seemed to her a matter
of course that he should ask her, and at last he did;--but she refused.
The evening with him was very long, and just as he thought that he would
escape to bed, and was meditating how early he would be off on the
morrow, Lady Wanless took possession of him and carried him off alone
into one of the desolate chambers. “Is she very tired?” asked the
anxious mother.
“Is who tired?” The Major at that moment would have given twenty guineas
to have been in his lodgings near St. James’s Street.
“My poor girl,” said Lady Wanless, assuming a look of great solicitude.
It was vain for him to pretend not to know who was the “she” intended.
“Oh, ah, yes; Miss Wanless.”
“Georgiana.”
“I think she is tired. She was shooting a great deal. Then there was a
quadrille;--but she didn’t dance. There has been a great deal to tire
young ladies.”
“You shouldn’t have let her do so much.”
How was he to get out of it? What was he to say? If a man is clearly
asked his intentions he can say that he has not got any. That used to be
the old fashion when a gentleman was supposed to be dilatory in
declaring his purpose. But it gave the oscillating lover so easy an
escape! It was like the sudden jerk of the hand of the unpractised
fisherman: if the fish does not succumb at once it goes away down the
stream and is no more heard of. But from this new process there is no
mode of immediate escape. “I couldn’t prevent her because she is nothing
to me.” That would have been the straightforward answer;--but one most
difficult to make. “I hope she will be none the worse to-morrow
morning,” said the Major.
“I hope not, indeed. Oh, Major Rossiter!” The mother’s position was
also difficult, as it is of no use to play with a fish too long without
making an attempt to stick the hook into his gills.
“Lady Wanless!”
“What am I to say to you? I am sure you know my feelings. You know how
sincere is Sir Walter’s regard.”
“I am very much flattered, Lady Wanless.”
“That means nothing.” This was true, but the Major did not mean to
intend anything. “Of all my flock she is the fairest.” That was true
also. The Major would have been delighted to accede to the assertion of
the young lady’s beauty, if this might have been the end of it. “I had
thought----”
“Had thought what, Lady Wanless?”
“If I am deceived in you, Major Rossiter, I never will believe in a man
again. I have looked upon you as the very soul of honour.”
“I trust that I have done nothing to lessen your good opinion.”
“I do not know. I cannot say. Why do you answer me in this way about my
child?” Then she held her hands together and looked up into his face
imploringly. He owned to himself that she was a good actress. He was
almost inclined to submit and to declare his passion for Georgiana. For
the present that way out of the difficulty would have been so easy!
“You shall hear from me to-morrow morning,” he said, almost solemnly.
“Shall I?” she asked, grasping his hand. “Oh, my friend, let it be as I
desire. My whole life shall be devoted to making you happy,--you and
her.” Then he was allowed to escape.
Lady Wanless, before she went to bed, was closeted for awhile with the
eldest daughter. As Sophia was now almost as good as a married woman,
she was received into closer counsel than the others. “Burmeston will
do,” she said; “but, as for that Cavalry man, he means it no more than
the chair.” The pity was that Burmeston might have been secured without
the archery meeting, and that all the money, spent on behalf of the
Major, should have been thrown away.
CHAPTER VII.
AFTER THE PARTY.
WHEN the Major left Brook Park on the morning after the archery
amusements he was quite sure of this,--that under no circumstances
whatever would he be induced to ask Miss Georgiana Wanless to be his
wife. He had promised to write a letter,--and he would write one
instantly. He did not conceive it possible but that Lady Wanless should
understand what would be the purport of that letter, although as she
left him on the previous night she had pretended to hope otherwise. That
her hopes had not been very high we know from the words which she spoke
to Sophia in the privacy of her own room.
He had intended to return by Slowbridge, but when the morning came he
changed his mind and went to Beetham. His reason for doing so was hardly
plain, even to himself. He tried to make himself believe that the letter
had better be written from Beetham,--hot, as it were, from the immediate
neighbourhood,--than from London; but, as he thought of this, his mind
was crowded with ideas of Alice Dugdale. He would not propose to Alice.
At this moment, indeed, he was averse to matrimony, having been
altogether disgusted with female society at Brook Park; but he had to
acknowledge a sterling worth about Alice, and the existence of a genuine
friendship between her and himself, which made it painful to him to
leave the country without other recognition than that raising of his hat
when he saw her at the corner of the lane. He had behaved badly in this
Brook Park affair,--in having been tempted thither in opposition to
those better instincts which had made Alice so pleasant a companion to
him,--and was ashamed of himself. He did not think that he could go back
to his former ideas. He was aware that Alice must think ill of
him,--would not believe him to be now such as she had once thought him.
England and London were distasteful to him. He would go abroad on that
foreign service which he had proposed to himself. There was an opening
for him to do so if he liked, and he could return to his present duties
after a year or two. But he would see Alice again before he went.
Thinking of all this, he drove himself back to Beetham.
On that morning tidings of the successful festivities at Brook Park
reached the doctor’s house. Tidings of the coming festivities, then of
the preparations, and at last of the festal day itself, had reached
Alice, so that it seemed to her that all Beetham talked of nothing else.
Old Lady Deepbell had caught a cold, walking about on the lawn with
hardly anything on her old shoulders,--stupid old woman,--and had sent
for the doctor the first thing in the morning. “Positively settled,” she
had said to the doctor, “absolutely arranged, Dr. Dugdale. Lady Wanless
told me so herself, and I congratulated the gentleman.” She did not go
on to say that the gentleman had denied the accusation,--but then she
had not believed the denial. The doctor, coming home, had thought it his
duty to tell Alice, and Alice had received the news with a smile. “I
knew it would be so, father.”
“And you?” This he said, holding her hand and looking tenderly into her
eyes.
“Me! It will not hurt me. Not that I mean to tell a lie to you, father,”
she added after a moment. “A woman isn’t hurt because she doesn’t get a
prize in the lottery. Had it ever come about, I dare say I should have
liked him well enough.”
“No more than that?”
“And why should it have come about?” she went on saying, avoiding her
father’s last question, determined not to lie if she could help it, but
determined, also, to show no wound. “I think my position in life very
happy, but it isn’t one from which he would choose a wife.”
“Why not, my dear?”
“A thousand reasons; I am always busy, and he would naturally like a
young lady who had nothing to do.” She understood the effect of the
perambulator and the constant needle and thread. “Besides, though he
might be all very well, he could never, I think, be as dear to me as the
bairns. I should feel that I lost more than I got by going.” This she
knew to be a lie, but it was so important that her father should believe
her to be contented with her home duties! And she was contented, though
very unhappy. When her father kissed her, she smiled into his face,--oh,
so sweetly, so pleasantly! And the old man thought that she could not
have loved very deeply. Then she took herself to her own room, and sat
awhile alone with a countenance much changed. The lines of sorrow about
her brow were terrible. There was not a tear; but her mouth was close
pressed, and her hand was working constantly by her side. She gazed at
nothing, but sat with her eyes wide open, staring straight before her.
Then she jumped up quickly, and striking her hand upon her heart, she
spoke aloud to herself. “I will cure it,” she said. “He is not worthy,
and it should therefore be easier. Though he were worthy, I would cure
it. Yes, Bobby, I am coming.” Then she went about her work.
That might have been about noon. It was after their early dinner with
the children that the Major came up to the doctor’s house. He had
reached the parsonage in time for a late breakfast, and had then written
his letter. After that he had sat idling about on the lawn,--not on the
best terms with his mother, to whom he had sworn that, under no
circumstances, would he make Georgiana Wanless his wife. “I would sooner
marry a girl from a troop of tight-rope dancers,” he had said in his
anger. Mrs. Rossiter knew that he intended to go up to the doctor’s
house, and therefore the immediate feeling between the mother and son
was not pleasant. My readers, if they please, shall see the letter to
Lady Wanless.
“MY DEAR LADY WANLESS,--It is a great grief to me to say that there
has been, I fear, a misconception between you and me on a certain
matter. This is the more a trouble to me because you and Sir Walter
have been so very kind to me. From a word or two which fell from
you last night I was led to fear that you suspected feelings on my
part which I have never entertained, and aspirations to which I
have never pretended. No man can be more alive than I am to the
honour which has been suggested, but I feel bound to say that I am
not in a condition to accept it.
“Pray believe me to be,
“Dear Lady Wanless,
“Yours always very faithfully,
“JOHN ROSSITER.”
The letter, when it was written, was, to himself, very unsatisfactory.
It was full of ambiguous words and namby-pamby phraseology which
disgusted him. But he did not know how to alter it for the better. It is
hard to say an uncivil thing civilly without ambiguous namby-pamby
language. He could not bring it out in straightforward stout English:
“You want me to marry your daughter, but I won’t do anything of the
kind.” So the letter was sent. The conduct of which he was really
ashamed did not regard Miss Wanless, but Alice Dugdale.
At last, very slowly, he took himself up to the doctor’s house. He
hardly knew what it was that he meant to say when he found himself
there, but he was sure that he did not mean to make an offer. Even had
other things suited, there would have been something distasteful to him
in doing this so quickly after the affair of Miss Wanless. He was in no
frame now for making love; but yet it would be ungracious in him, he
thought, to leave Beetham without seeing his old friend. He found the
two ladies together, with the children still around them, sitting near a
window which opened down to the ground. Mrs. Dugdale had a novel in
hand, and, as usual, was leaning back in a rocking-chair. Alice had also
a book open on the table before her, but she was bending over a
sewing-machine. They had latterly divided the cares of the family
between them. Mrs. Dugdale had brought the children into the world, and
Alice had washed, clothed, and fed them when they were there. When the
Major entered the room, Alice’s mind was, of course, full of the
tidings she had heard from her father,--which tidings, however, had not
been communicated to Mrs. Dugdale.
Alice at first was very silent while Mrs. Dugdale asked as to the
festivities. “It has been the grandest thing anywhere about here for a
long time.”
“And, like other grand things, a great bore,” said the Major.
“I don’t suppose you found it so, Major Rossiter,” said the lady.
Then the conversation ran away into a description of what had been done
during the day. He wished to make it understood that there was no
permanent link binding him to Brook Park, but he hardly knew how to say
it without going beyond the lines of ordinary conversation. At last
there seemed to be an opening,--not exactly what he wished, but still an
opening. “Brook Park is not exactly the place,” said he, “at which I
should ever feel myself quite at home.” This was in answer to some
chance word which had fallen from Mrs. Dugdale.
“I am sorry for that,” said Alice. She would have given a guinea to
bring the word back after it had been spoken. But spoken words cannot be
brought back.
“Why sorry?” he asked, smiling.
“Because--Oh, because it is so likely that you may be there often.”
“I don’t know that at all.”
“You have become so intimate with them!” said Alice. “We are told in
Beetham that the party was got up all for your honour.”
So Sir Walter had told him, and so Maria, the naughty girl, had said
also--“Only for your beaux yeux, Major Rossiter, we shouldn’t have had
any party at all.” This had been said by Maria when she was laughing at
him about her sister Georgiana. “I don’t know how that may be,” said the
Major; “but all the same I shall never be at home at Brook Park.”
“Don’t you like the young ladies?” asked Mrs. Dugdale.
“Oh, yes; very much; and Lady Wanless; and Sir Walter. I like them all,
in a way. But yet I shall never find myself at home at Brook Park.”
Alice was very angry with him. He ought not to have gone there at all.
He must have known that he could not be there without paining her. She
thoroughly believed that he was engaged to marry the girl of whose
family he spoke in this way. He had thought,--so it seemed to her,--that
he might lessen the blow to her by making little of the great folk among
whom his future lot was to be cast. But what could be more mean? He was
not the John Rossiter to whom she had given her heart. There had been no
such man. She had been mistaken. “I am afraid you are one of those,” she
said, “who, wherever they find themselves, at once begin to wish for
something better.”
“That is meant to be severe.”
“My severity won’t go for much.”
“I am sure you have deserved it,” said Mrs. Dugdale, most indiscreetly.
“Is this intended for an attack?” he asked, looking from one to the
other.
“Not at all,” said Alice, affecting to laugh. “I should have said
nothing if I thought mamma would take it up so seriously. I was only
sorry to hear you speak of your new friends so slightingly.”
After that the conversation between them was very difficult, and he soon
got up to go away. As he did so, he asked Alice to say a word to him out
in the garden, having already explained to them both that it might be
some time before he would be again down at Beetham. Alice rose slowly
from her sewing-machine, and, putting on her hat, led the way with a
composed and almost dignified step out through the window. Her heart was
beating within her, but she looked as though she were mistress of every
pulse. “Why did you say that to me?” he asked.
“Say what?”
“That I always wished for better things and better people than I found.”
“Because I think you ambitious,--and discontented. There is nothing
disgraceful in that, though it is not the character which I myself like
the best.”
“You meant to allude specially to the Wanlesses?”
“Because you have just come from there, and were speaking of them.”
“And to one of that family specially?”
“No, Major Rossiter. There you are wrong. I alluded to no one in
particular. They are nothing to me. I do not know them; but I hear that
they are kind and friendly people, with good manners and very handsome.
Of course I know, as we all know everything of each other in this little
place, that you have of late become very intimate with them. Then when I
hear you aver that you are already discontented with them, I cannot help
thinking that you are hard to please. I am sorry that mamma spoke of
deserving. I did not intend to say anything so seriously.”
“Alice!”
“Well, Major Rossiter.”
“I wish I could make you understand me.”
“I do not know that that would do any good. We have been old friends,
and of course I hope that you may be happy. I must say good-bye now. I
cannot go beyond the gate, because I am wanted to take the children
out.”
“Good-bye then. I hope you will not think ill of me.”
“Why should I think ill of you? I think very well,--only that you are
ambitious.” As she said this, she laughed again, and then she left him.
He had been most anxious to tell her that he was not going to marry that
girl, but he had not known how to do it. He could not bring himself to
declare that he would not marry a girl when by such declaration he would
have been forced to assume that he might marry her if he pleased. So he
left Alice at the gate, and she went back to the house still convinced
that he was betrothed to Georgiana Wanless.
CHAPTER VIII.
SIR WALTER UP IN LONDON.
The Major, when he left the doctor’s house, was more thoroughly in love
with Alice than ever. There had been something in her gait as she led
the way out through the window, and again, as with determined purpose
she bade him speedily farewell at the gate, which forced him to
acknowledge that the dragging of perambulators and the making of
petticoats had not detracted from her feminine charm or from her
feminine dignity. She had been dressed in her ordinary morning
frock,--the very frock on which he had more than once seen the marks of
Bobby’s dirty heels; but she had pleased his eye better than Georgiana,
clad in all the glory of her toxopholite array. The toxopholite feather
had been very knowing, the tight leathern belt round her waist had been
bright in colour and pretty in design. The looped-up dress, fit for the
work in hand, had been gratifying. But with it all there had been the
show of a thing got up for ornament and not for use. She was like a box
of painted sugar-plums, very pretty to the eye, but of which no one
wants to extract any for the purpose of eating them. Alice was like a
housewife’s store, kept beautifully in order, but intended chiefly for
comfortable use. As he went up to London he began to doubt whether he
would go abroad. Were he to let a few months pass by would not Alice be
still there, and willing perhaps to receive him with more kindness when
she should have heard that his follies at Brook Park were at an end?
Three days after his return, when he was sitting in his offices thinking
perhaps more of Alice Dugdale than of the whole British Cavalry, a
soldier who was in waiting brought a card to him. Sir Walter Wanless had
come to call upon him. If he were disengaged Sir Walter would be glad to
see him. He was not at all anxious to see Sir Walter; but there was no
alternative, and Sir Walter was shown into the room.
In explaining the purport of Sir Walter’s visit we must go back for a
few minutes to Brook Park. When Sir Walter came down to breakfast on the
morning after the festivities he was surprised to hear that Major
Rossiter had taken his departure. There sat young Burmeston. He at any
rate was safe. And there sat young Cobble, who by Sophia’s aid had
managed to get himself accommodated for the night, and all the other
young people, including the five Wanless girls. The father, though not
observant, could see that Georgiana was very glum. Lady Wanless herself
affected a good-humour which hardly deceived him, and certainly did not
deceive anyone else. “He was obliged to be off this morning, because of
his duties,” said Lady Wanless. “He told me that it was to be so, but I
did not like to say anything about it yesterday.” Georgiana turned up
her nose, as much as to say that the going and coming of Major Rossiter
was not a matter of much importance to any one there, and, least of all,
to her. Except the father, there was not a person in the room who was
not aware that Lady Wanless had missed her fish.
But she herself was not quite sure even yet that she had failed
altogether. She was a woman who hated failure, and who seldom failed.
She was brave of heart too, and able to fight a losing battle to the
last. She was very angry with the Major, who she well knew was
endeavouring to escape from her toils. But he would not on that account
be the less useful as a son-in-law;--nor on that account was she the
more willing to allow him to escape. With five daughters without
fortunes it behoved her as a mother to be persistent. She would not give
it up, but must turn the matter well in her mind before she took further
steps. She feared that a simple invitation could hardly bring the Major
back to Brook Park. Then there came the letter from the Major which did
not make the matter easier.
“My dear,” she said to her husband, sitting down opposite to him in his
room, “that Major Rossiter isn’t behaving quite as he ought to do.”
“I’m not a bit surprised,” said the Baronet angrily. “I never knew
anybody from Wadham behave well.”
“He’s quite a gentleman, if you mean that,” said Lady Wanless; “and
he’s sure to do very well in the world; and poor Georgiana is really
fond of him,--which doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Has he said anything to make her fond of him? I suppose she has gone
and made a fool of herself,--like Maria.”
“Not at all. He has said a great deal to her;--much more than he ought
to have done, if he meant nothing. But the truth is, young men nowadays
never know their own minds unless there is somebody to keep them up to
the mark. You must go and see him.”
“I!” said the afflicted father.
“Of course, my dear. A few judicious words in such a case may do so
much. I would not ask Walter to go,”--Walter was the eldest son, who was
with his regiment,--“because it might lead to quarrelling. I would not
have anything of that kind, if only for the dear girl’s sake. But what
you would say would be known to nobody; and it might have the desired
effect. Of course you will be very quiet,--and very serious also. Nobody
could do it better than you will. There can be no doubt that he has
trifled with the dear girl’s affections. Why else has he been with her
whenever he has been here? It was so visible on Wednesday that everybody
was congratulating me. Old Lady Deepbell asked whether the day was
fixed. I treated him quite as though it were settled. Young men do so
often get these sudden starts of doubt. Then, sometimes, just a word
afterwards will put it all right.” In this way the Baronet was made to
understand that he must go and see the Major.
He postponed the unwelcome task till his wife at last drove him out of
the house. “My dear,” she said, “will you let your child die
broken-hearted for want of a word?” When it was put to him in that way
he found himself obliged to go, though, to tell the truth, he could not
find any sign of heart-breaking sorrow about his child. He was not
allowed to speak to Georgiana herself, his wife telling him that the
poor child would be unable to bear it.
Sir Walter, when he was shown into the Major’s room, felt himself to be
very ill able to conduct the business in hand, and to the Major himself
the moment was one of considerable trouble. He had thought it possible
that he might receive an answer to his letter, a reply that might be
indignant, or piteous, admonitory, or simply abusive, as the case might
be,--one which might too probably require a further correspondence; but
it had never occurred to him that Sir Walter would come in person. But
here he was,--in the room,--by no means with that pretended air of
geniality with which he had last received the Major down at Brook Park.
The greeting, however, between the gentlemen was courteous if not
cordial, and then Sir Walter began his task. “We were quite surprised
you should have left us so early that morning.”
“I had told Lady Wanless.”
“Yes; I know. Nevertheless we were surprised. Now, Major Rossiter, what
do you mean to do about,--about,--about this young lady?” The Major sat
silent. He could not pretend to be ignorant what young lady was intended
after the letter which he had himself written to Lady Wanless. “This,
you know, is a very painful kind of thing, Major Rossiter.”
“Very painful indeed, Sir Walter.”
“When I remembered that I had been at Christchurch and your excellent
father at Wadham both at the same time, I thought that I might trust you
in my house without the slightest fear.”
“I make bold to say, Sir Walter, that you were quite justified in that
expectation, whether it was founded on your having been at Christchurch
or on my position and character in the world.” He knew that the scene
would be easier to him if he could work himself up to a little
indignation on his own part.
“And yet I am told,--I am told----”
“What are you told, Sir Walter?”
“There can, I think, be no doubt that you have--in point of fact, paid
attention to my daughter.” Sir Walter was a gentleman, and felt that the
task imposed upon him grated against his better feelings.
“If you mean that I have taken steps to win her affections, you have
been wrongly informed.”
“That’s what I do mean. Were you not received just now at Brook Park
as,--as paying attention to her?”
“I hope not.”
“You hope not, Major Rossiter?”
“I hope no such mistake was made. It certainly was not made by me. I
felt myself much flattered by being received at your house. I wrote the
other day a line or two to Lady Wanless and thought I had explained all
this.”
Sir Walter opened his eyes when he heard, for the first time, of the
letter, but was sharp enough not to exhibit his ignorance at the moment.
“I don’t know about explaining,” he said. “There are some things which
can’t be so very well explained. My wife assures me that that poor girl
has been deceived,--cruelly deceived. Now I put it to you, Major
Rossiter, what ought you as a gentleman to do?”
“Really, Sir Walter, you are not entitled to ask me any such question.”
“Not on behalf of my own child?”
“I cannot go into the matter from that view of the case. I can only
declare that I have said nothing and done nothing for which I can blame
myself. I cannot understand how there should have been such a mistake;
but it did not, at any rate, arise with me.”
Then the Baronet sat dumb. He had been specially instructed not to give
up the interview till he had obtained some sign of weakness from the
enemy. If he could only induce the enemy to promise another visit to
Brook Park that would be much. If he could obtain some expression of
liking or admiration for the young lady that would be something. If he
could induce the Major to allude to delay as being necessary, farther
operations would be founded on that base. But nothing had been obtained.
“It’s the most,--the most,--the most astonishing thing I ever heard,” he
said at last.
“I do not know that I can say anything further.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said the Baronet. “Come down and see Lady Wanless.
The women understand these things much better than we do. Come down and
talk it over with Lady Wanless. She won’t propose anything that isn’t
proper.” In answer to this the Major shook his head. “You won’t?”
“It would do no good, Sir Walter. It would be painful to me, and must, I
should say, be distressing to the young lady.”
“Then you won’t do anything!”
“There is nothing to be done.”
“Upon my word, I never heard such a thing in all my life, Major
Rossiter. You come down to my house; and then,--then,--then you
won’t,--you won’t come again! To be sure he was at Wadham; but I did
think your father’s son would have behaved better.” Then he picked up
his hat from the floor and shuffled out of the room without another
word.
Tidings that Sir Walter had been up to London and had called upon Major
Rossiter made their way into Beetham and reached the ears of the
Dugdales,--but not correct tidings as to the nature of the conversation.
“I wonder when it will be,” said Mrs. Dugdale to Alice. “As he has been
up to town I suppose it’ll be settled soon.”
“The sooner the better for all parties,” said Alice cheerily. “When a
man and a woman have agreed together, I can’t see why they shouldn’t at
once walk off to the church arm in arm.”
“The lawyers have so much to do.”
“Bother the lawyers! The parson ought to do all that is necessary, and
the sooner the better. Then there would not be such paraphernalia of
presents and gowns and eatings and drinkings, all of which is got up for
the good of the tradesmen. If I were to be married, I should like to
slip out round the corner, just as though I were going to get an extra
loaf of bread from Mrs. Bakewell.”
“That wouldn’t do for my lady at Brook Park.”
“I suppose not.”
“Nor yet for the Major.”
Then Alice shook her head and sighed, and took herself out to walk alone
for a few minutes among the lanes. How could it be that he should be so
different from that which she had taken him to be! It was now September,
and she could remember an early evening in May, when the leaves were
beginning to be full, and they were walking together with the spring air
fresh around them, just where she was now creeping alone with the more
perfect and less fresh beauty of the autumn around her. How different a
person he seemed to her to be now from that which he had seemed to be
then;--not different because he did not love her, but different because
he was not fit to be loved! “Alice,” he had then said, “you and I are
alike in this, that simple, serviceable things are dear to both of us.”
The words had meant so much to her that she had never forgotten them.
Was she simple and serviceable, so that she might be dear to him? She
had been sure then that he was simple, and that he was serviceable, so
that she could love him. It was thus that she had spoken of him to
herself, thinking herself to be sure of his character. And now, before
the summer was over, he was engaged to marry such a one as Georgiana
Wanless and to become the hero of a fashionable wedding!
But she took pride to herself as she walked alone that she had already
overcome the bitterness of the malady which, for a day or two, had been
so heavy that she had feared for herself that it would oppress her. For
a day or two after that farewell at the gate she had with a rigid
purpose tied herself to every duty,--even to the duty of looking
pleasant in her father’s eyes, of joining in the children’s games, of
sharing the gossip of her stepmother. But this she had done with an
agony that nearly crushed her. Now she had won her way through it, and
could see her path before her. She had not cured altogether that wound
in her heart; but she had assured herself that she could live on without
further interference from the wound.
CHAPTER IX.
LADY DEEPBELL.
Then by degrees it began to be rumoured about the country, and at last
through the lanes of Beetham itself, that the alliance between Major
Rossiter and Miss Georgiana Wanless was not quite a settled thing. Mr.
Burmeston had whispered in Slowbridge that there was a screw loose,
perhaps thinking that if another could escape, why not he also? Cobble,
who had no idea of escaping, declared his conviction that Major Rossiter
ought to be horsewhipped; but Lady Deepbell was the real town-crier who
carried the news far and wide. But all of them heard it before Alice,
and when others believed it Alice did not believe it,--or, indeed, care
to believe or not to believe.
Lady Deepbell filled a middle situation, half way between the
established superiority of Brook Park and the recognised humility of
Beetham. Her title went for something; but her husband had been only a
Civil Service Knight, who had deserved well of his country by a
meritorious longevity. She lived in a pretty little cottage half way
between Brook Park and Beetham, which was just large enough to enable
her to talk of her grounds. She loved Brook Park dearly, and all the
county people; but in her love for social intercourse generally she was
unable to eschew the more frequent gatherings of the village. She was
intimate not only with Mrs. Rossiter, but with the Tweeds and Dugdales
and Simkinses, and, while she could enjoy greatly the grandeur of the
Wanless aristocracy, so could she accommodate herself comfortably to the
cosy gossip of the Beethamites. It was she who first spread the report
in Beetham that Major Rossiter was,--as she called it,--“off.”
She first mentioned the matter to Mrs. Rossiter herself; but this she
did in a manner more subdued than usual. The “alliance” had been high,
and she was inclined to think that Mrs. Rossiter would be disappointed.
“We did think, Mrs. Rossiter, that these young people at Brook Park had
meant something the other day.”
Mrs. Rossiter did not stand in awe of Lady Deepbell, and was not pleased
at the allusion. “It would be much better if young people could be
allowed to arrange their own affairs without so much tattling about it,”
she said angrily.
“That’s all very well, but tongues will talk, you know, Mrs. Rossiter. I
am sorry for both their sakes, because I thought that it would do very
well.”
“Very well indeed, if the young people, as you call them, liked each
other.”
“But I suppose it’s over now, Mrs. Rossiter?”
“I really know nothing about it, Lady Deepbell.” Then the old woman,
quite satisfied after this that the “alliance” had fallen to the ground,
went on to the Tweeds.
“I never thought it would come to much,” said Mrs. Tweed.
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t,” said Matilda Tweed. “Georgiana Wanless
is good-looking in a certain way; but they none of them have a penny,
and Major Rossiter is quite a fashionable man.” The Tweeds were quite
outside the Wanless pale; and it was the feeling of this that made
Matilda love to talk about the second Miss Wanless by her Christian
name.
“I suppose he will go back to Alice now,” said Clara, the younger Tweed
girl.
“I don’t see that at all,” said Mrs. Tweed.
“I never believed much in that story,” said Lady Deepbell.
“Nor I either,” said Matilda. “He used to walk about with her, but what
does that come to? The children were always with them. I never would
believe that he was going to make so little of himself.”
“But is it quite sure that all the affair at Brook Park will come to
nothing, after the party and everything?” asked Mrs. Tweed.
“Quite positive,” said Lady Deepbell authoritatively. “I am able to say
certainly that that is all over.” Then she toddled off and went to the
Simkinses.
The rumour did not reach the doctor’s house on that day. The conviction
that Major Rossiter had behaved badly to Alice,--that Alice had been
utterly thrown over by the Wanless “alliance,” had been so strong, that
even Lady Deepbell had not dared to go and probe wilfully that wound.
The feeling in this respect had been so general that no one in Beetham
had been hard-hearted enough to speak to Alice either of the triumph of
Miss Wanless, or of the misconduct of the Major; and now Lady Deepbell
was afraid to carry her story thither.
It was the doctor himself who first brought the tidings to the house,
and did not do this till some days after Lady Deepbell had been in the
village. “You had better not say anything to Alice about it.” Such at
first had been the doctor’s injunction to his wife. “One way or the
other, it will only be a trouble to her.” Mrs. Dugdale, full of her
secret, anxious to be obedient, thinking that the gentleman relieved
from his second love, would be ready at once to be on again with his
first, was so fluttered and fussy that Alice knew that there was
something to be told. “You have got some great secret, mamma,” she said.
“What secret, Alice?”
“I know you have. Don’t wait for me to ask you to tell it. If it is to
come, let it come.”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
“Very well, mamma. Then nothing shall be said.”
“Alice, you are the most provoking young woman I ever had to deal with
in my life. If I had twenty secrets I would not tell you one of them.”
On the next morning Alice heard it all from her father. “I knew there
was something by mamma’s manner,” she said.
“I told her not to say anything.”
“So I suppose. But what does it matter to me, papa, whether Major
Rossiter does or does not marry Miss Wanless? If he has given her his
word, I am sure I hope that he will keep it.”
“I don’t suppose he ever did.”
“Even then it doesn’t matter. Papa, do not trouble yourself about him.”
“But you?”
“I have gone through the fire, and have come out without being much
scorched. Dear papa, I do so wish that you should understand it all. It
is so nice to have some one to whom everything can be told. I did like
him.”
“And he?”
“I have nothing to say about that;--not a word. Girls, I suppose, are
often foolish, and take things for more than they are intended to mean.
I have no accusation to make against him. But I did,--I did allow myself
to be weak. Then came this about Miss Wanless, and I was unhappy. I woke
from a dream, and the waking was painful. But I have got over it. I do
not think that you will ever know from your girl’s manner that anything
has been the matter with her.”
“My brave girl!”
“But don’t let mamma talk to me as though he could come back because the
other girl has not suited him. He is welcome to the other girl,--welcome
to do without her,--welcome to do with himself as it may best please
him; but he shall not trouble me again.” There was a stern strength in
her voice as she said this, which forced her father to look at her
almost with amazement. “Do not think that I am fierce, papa.”
“Fierce, my darling!”
“But that I am in earnest. Of course, if he comes to Beetham we shall
see him. But let him be like anybody else. Don’t let it be supposed that
because he flitted here once, and was made welcome, like a bird that
comes in at the window, and then flitted away again, that he can be
received in at the window just as before, should he fly this way any
more. That’s all, papa.” Then, as before, she went off by herself,--to
give herself renewed strength by her solitary thinkings. She had so
healed the flesh round that wound that there was no longer danger of
mortification. She must now take care that there should be no further
wound. The people around her would be sure to tell her of this breach
between her late lover and the Wanless young lady. The Tweeds and the
Simkinses, and old Lady Deepbell would be full of it. She must take care
so to answer them at the first word that they should not dare to talk to
her of Major Rossiter. She had cured herself so that she no longer
staggered under the effects of the blow. Having done that, she would not
allow herself to be subject to the little stings of the little creatures
around her. She had had enough of love,--of a man’s love, and would make
herself happy now with Bobby and the other bairns.
“He’ll be sure to come back,” said Mrs Dugdale to her husband.
“We shall do no good by talking about it,” said the doctor. “If you will
take my advice, you will not mention his name to her. I fear that he is
worthless and unworthy of mention.” That might be very well, thought
Mrs. Dugdale; but no one in the village doubted that he had at the very
least £1,500 a year, and that he was a handsome man, and such a one as
is not to be picked up under every hedge. The very men who go about the
world most like butterflies before marriage “steady down the best”
afterwards. These were her words as she discussed the matter with Mrs.
Tweed, and they both agreed that if the hero showed himself again at the
doctor’s house “bygones ought to be bygones.”
Lady Wanless, even after her husband’s return from London, declared to
herself that even yet the game had not been altogether played out. Sir
Walter, who had been her only possible direct messenger to the man
himself, had been, she was aware, as bad a messenger as could have been
selected. He could be neither authoritative nor persuasive. Therefore
when he told her, on coming home, that it was easy to perceive that
Major Rossiter’s father could not have been educated at Christchurch,
she did not feel very much disappointed. As her next step she determined
to call on Mrs. Rossiter. If that should fail she must beard the lion in
his den, and go herself to Major Rossiter at the Horse Guards. She did
not doubt but that she would at least be able to say more than Sir
Walter. Mrs. Rossiter, she was aware, was herself favourable to the
match.
“My dear Mrs. Rossiter,” she said in her most confidential manner,
“there is a little something wrong among these young people, which I
think you and I can put right if we put our heads together.”
“If I know one of the young people,” said Mrs. Rossiter, “it will be
very hard to make him change his mind.”
“He has been very attentive to the young lady.”
“Of course I know nothing about it, Lady Wanless. I never saw them
together.”
“Dear Georgiana is so very quiet that she said nothing even to me, but I
really thought that he had proposed to her. She won’t say a word against
him, but I believe he did. Now, Mrs. Rossiter, what has been the meaning
of it?”
“How is a mother to answer for her son, Lady Wanless?”
“No;--of course not. I know that. Girls, of course, are different. But I
thought that perhaps you might know something about it, for I did
imagine you would like the connection.”
“So I should. Why not? Nobody thinks more of birth than I do, and
nothing in my opinion could have been nicer for John. But he does not
see with my eyes. If I were to talk to him for a week it would have no
effect.”
“Is it that girl of the doctor’s, Mrs. Rossiter?”
“I think not. My idea is that when he has turned it all over in his mind
he has come to the conclusion that he will be better without a wife than
with one.”
“We might cure him of that, Mrs. Rossiter. If I could only have him down
there at Brook Park for another week, I am sure he would come to.” Mrs.
Rossiter, however, could not say that she thought it probable that her
son would be induced soon to pay another visit to Brook Park.
A week after this Lady Wanless absolutely did find her way into the
Major’s presence at the Horse Guards,--but without much success. The
last words at that interview only shall be given to the reader,--the
last words as they were spoken both by the lady and by the gentleman.
“Then I am to see my girl die of a broken heart?” said Lady Wanless,
with her handkerchief up to her eyes.
“I hope not, Lady Wanless; but in whatever way she might die, the fault
would not be mine.” There was a frown on the gentleman’s brow as he said
this which cowed even the lady.
As she went back to Slowbridge that afternoon, and then home to Brook
Park, she determined at last that the game must be looked upon as played
out. There was no longer any ground on which to stand and fight. Before
she went to bed that night she sent for Georgiana. “My darling child,”
she said, “that man is unworthy of you.”
“I always thought he was,” said Georgiana. And so there was an end to
that little episode in the family of the Wanlesses.
CHAPTER X.
THE BIRD THAT PECKED AT THE WINDOW.
THE bird that had flown in at the window and had been made welcome, had
flown away ungratefully. Let him come again pecking as he might at the
window, no more crumbs of love should be thrown to him. Alice, with a
steady purpose, had resolved on that. With all her humble ways, her
continual darning of stockings, her cutting of bread and butter for the
children, her pushing of the perambulator in the lanes, there was a
pride about her, a knowledge of her own dignity as a woman, which could
have been stronger in the bosom of no woman of title, of wealth, or of
fashion. She claimed nothing. She had expected no admiration. She had
been contented to take the world as it came to her, without thinking
much of love or romance. When John Rossiter had first shown himself at
Beetham, after his return from India, and when he had welcomed her so
warmly,--too warmly,--as his old playfellow, no idea had occurred to her
that he would ever be more to her than her old playfellow. Her own heart
was too precious to herself to be given away idly to the first comer.
Then the bird had flown in at the window, and it had been that the
coming of the stranger had been very sweet to her. But, even for the
stranger, she would not change her ways,--unless, perchance, some day
she might appertain to the stranger. Then it would be her duty to fit
herself entirely to him. In the meantime, when he gave her little hints
that something of her domestic slavery might be discontinued, she would
not abate a jot from her duties. If he liked to come with her when she
pushed the children, let him come. If he cared to see her when she was
darning a stocking or cutting bread and butter, let him pay his visits.
If he thought those things derogatory, certainty let him stay away. So
the thing had grown till she had found herself surprised, and taken, as
it were, into a net,--caught in a pitfall of love. But she held her
peace, stuck manfully to the perambulator, and was a little colder in
her demeanour than heretofore. Whereupon Major Rossiter, as the reader
is aware, made two visits to Brook Park. The bird might peck at the
window, but he should never again be taken into the room.
But the bird, from the moment in which he had packed up his portmanteau
at Brook Park, had determined that he would be taken in at the window
again,--that he would at any rate return to the window, and peck at the
glass with constancy, soliciting that it might be opened. As he now
thought of the two girls, the womanliness of the one, as compared with
the worldliness of the other, conquered him completely. There had never
been a moment in which his heart had in truth inclined itself towards
the young athlete of Brook Park,--never a moment, hardly a moment, in
which his heart had been untrue to Alice. But glitter had for awhile
prevailed with him, and he had, just for a moment, allowed himself to be
discontented with the homely colour of unalloyed gold. He was thoroughly
ashamed of himself, knowing well that he had given pain. He had learned,
clearly enough, from what her father, mother, and others had said to
him, that there were those who expected him to marry Alice Dugdale, and
others who hoped that he would marry Georgiana Wanless. Now, at last, he
could declare that no other love than that which was warm within his
heart at present could ever have been possible to him. But he was aware
that he had much to do to recover his footing. Alice’s face and her
manner as she bade him good-bye at the gate were very clear before his
eyes.
Two months passed by before he was again seen at Beetham. It had
happened that he was, in truth, required elsewhere, on duty, during the
period, and he took care to let it be known at Beetham that such was the
case. Information to this effect was in some shape sent to Alice.
Openly, she took no notice of it; but, inwardly, she said to herself
that they who troubled themselves by sending her such tidings, troubled
themselves in vain. “Men may come and men may go,” she sang to herself,
in a low voice. How little they knew her, to come to her with news as to
Major Rossiter’s coming and going!
Then one day he came. One morning early in December the absolute fact
was told at the dinner table. “The Major is at the parsonage,” said the
maid-servant. Mrs. Dugdale looked at Alice, who continued, however, to
distribute hashed mutton with an equanimity which betrayed no flaw.
After that not a word was said about him. The doctor had warned his wife
to be silent; and though she would fain have spoken, she restrained
herself. After dinner the usual work went on, and then the usual playing
in the garden. The weather was dry and mild for the time of year, so
that Alice was swinging two of the children when Major Rossiter came up
through the gate. Minnie, who had been a favourite, ran to him, and he
came slowly across the lawn to the tree on which the swing was hung. For
a moment Alice stopped her work that she might shake hands with him,
and then at once went back to her place. “If I were to stop a moment
before Bobby has had his turn,” she said, “he would feel the injustice.”
“No, I isn’t,” said Bobby. “Oo may go ’is time.”
“But I don’t want to go, Bobby, and Major Rossiter will find mamma in
the drawing-room;” and Alice for a moment thought of getting her hat and
going off from the place. Then she reflected that to run away would be
cowardly. She did not mean to run away always because the man came. Had
she not settled it with herself that the man should be nothing to her?
Then she went on swinging the children,--very deliberately, in order
that she might be sure of herself, that the man’s coming had not even
flurried her.
In ten minutes the Major was there again. It had been natural to suppose
that he should not be detained long in conversation by Mrs. Dugdale.
“May I swing one of them for a time?” he asked.
“Well, no; I think not. It is my allotted exercise, and I never give it
up.” But Minnie, who knew what a strong arm could do, was imperious, and
the Major got possession of the swing.
Then of a sudden he stopped. “Alice,” he said, “I want you to take a
turn with me up the road.”
“I am not going out at all to-day,” she said. Her voice was steady and
well preserved; but there was a slight rising of colour on her cheeks.
“But I wish it expressly. You must come to-day.”
She could consider only for a moment,--but for a moment she did think
the matter over. If the man chose to speak to her seriously, she must
listen to him,--once, and once only. So much he had a right to demand.
When a bird of that kind pecks in that manner some attention must be
paid to him. So she got her hat, and leading the way down the road,
opened the gate and turned up the lane away from the street of the
village. For some yards he did not speak. She, indeed, was the first to
do so. “I cannot stay out very long, Major Rossiter; so, if there is
anything----?”
“There is a something, Alice.” Of course she knew, but she was quite
resolved. Resolved! Had not every moment of her life since last she had
parted with him been given up to the strengthening this resolution? Not
a stitch had gone through the calico which had not been pulled the
tighter by the tightening of her purpose! And now he was there. Oh, how
more than earthly sweet it had been to have him there, when her
resolutions had been of another kind! But she had been punished for
that, and was strong against such future ills. “Alice, it had better
come out simply. I love you, and have ever loved you with all my heart.”
Then there was a frown and a little trampling of the ground beneath her
feet, but she said not a word. Oh, if it only could have come sooner,--a
few weeks sooner! “I know what you would say to me, but I would have you
listen to me, if possible, before you say it. I have given you cause to
be angry with me.”
“Oh no!” she cried, interrupting him.
“But I have never been untrue to you for a moment. You seemed to slight
me.”
“And if I did?”
“That may pass. If you should slight me now, I must bear it. Even though
you should deliberately tell me that you cannot love me, I must bear
that. But with such a load of love as I have at my heart, it must be
told to you. Day and night it covers me from head to foot. I can think
of nothing else. I dream that I have your hand in mine, but when I wake
I think it can never be so.”
There was an instinct with her at the moment to let her fingers glide
into his; but it was shown only by the gathering together of her two
hands, so that no rebellious fingers straying from her in that direction
might betray her. “If you have never loved me, never can love me, say
so, and I will go away.” She should have spoken now, upon the instant;
but she simply moved her foot upon the gravel and was silent. “That I
should be punished might be right. If it could be possible that the
punishment should extend to two, that could not be right.”
She did not want to punish him,--only to be brave herself. If to be
obdurate would in truth make him unhappy, then would it be right that
she should still be firm? It would be bad enough, after so many
self-assurances, to succumb at the first word; but for his sake,--for
his sake,--would it not be possible to bear even that? “If you never
have loved me, and never can love me, say so, and I will go.” Even to
herself, she had not pledged herself to lie. If he asked her to be his
wife in the plain way, she could say that she would not. Then the way
would be plain before her. But what reply was she to make in answer to
such a question as this? Could she say that she had not loved him,--or
did not love him? “Alice,” he said, putting his hand up to her arm.
“No!”
“Alice, can you not forgive me?”
“I have forgiven.”
“And will you not love me?”
She turned her face upon him with a purpose to frown, but the fulness of
his eyes upon her was too much, and the frown gave way, and a tear came
into her eye, and her lips trembled; and then she acknowledged to
herself that her resolution had not been worth a straw to her.
It should be added that considerably before Alice’s wedding, both Sophia
and Georgiana Wanless were married,--Sophia, in due order, as of course,
to young Cobble, and Georgiana to Mr. Burmeston, the brewer. This, as
the reader will remember, was altogether unexpected; but it was a great
and guiding principle with Lady Wanless that the girls should not be
taken out of their turns.
THE END.
PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] I presume my readers to be generally aware that the headquarters
of the National Telegraph Department are held at the top of one of
the great buildings belonging to the General Post Office, in St.
Martin’s-le-Grand.