SOME EXPLANATIONS.
Mabin trudged along the chalky, dry road in the fast-gathering
darkness, oppressed by fears. What if Rudolph should not be in time.
Now it seemed clear to the girl that poor Mrs. Dale had started on
that solitary walk in a frenzy of despair, goaded to a mad act by the
taunts of Lady Mallyan.
And if he were in time, what would the end of it be? She could not
marry her husband’s brother, even if she had returned the love he bore
her. Yet, since he had asked so piteously for a few words with her, it
was impossible to refuse him.
Mabin’s warm heart was full of sympathy for them both; for the woman
who had erred so grievously, but who had gone through such a bitter
repentance: for the man who, whatever his weakness, his indiscretion,
had suffered and been constant.
In the mean time, Rudolph had reached the bare stretch of sandy waste
which extended along the cliffs beyond the last of the straggling
houses. The tide was coming in below, each little wave breaking
against the white wall of chalk with a dull roar, followed by a
hissing sound as the water retreated among the loose rocks.
Not a living creature was to be seen, although his seaman’s eyes saw a
long way in the dusk.
The fears which had haunted him as he ran grew stronger. He looked
over with a cold sensation of dread at the water beneath the cliff. He
listened, and at last he called:
“Mrs. Dale! Are you anywhere about, Mrs. Dale?”
He was conscious that his voice had not the ring of careless
heartiness which it was meant to have. And there was no answer.
He had come to a gap, by which carts and horses went down to the shore
to bring away sand and seaweed. A dark object, half hidden in a cranny
of the chalk, met his eye. He ran down, and as he approached the thing
sprang up and started away from him. But he gave chase, came up with
the flying figure as it reached the edge of the water, and caught at
the black draperies as he ran.
The long black veil gave way, and remained a limp rag in his hand. But
the flying figure stopped.
“Why do you come? Why can’t you leave me alone?” she asked fiercely.
And as she turned upon him, he saw in her large, blue eyes, which
looked dark and unnaturally bright in the dusk, something of the
passionate temper which she had learned by sad experience to control.
Rudolph hesitated. There was a doubt in his mind which made him choose
his words.
“He wants to see you, he says he must see you,” he said at last, in a
low voice. “He told Lady Mallyan so. You cannot, you will not refuse
to come.”
But a sudden change to terror came over her beautiful face. To
Rudolph’s great perplexity and distress, she burst into a violent fit
of crying.
“I can’t go, I can’t see him. After what she said! I can’t. I would
rather die!” Rudolph did not know what to say. His vague and awkward
attempts to comfort her were quite without effect, and at last he
contented himself by waiting in impatient silence, for the arrival of
Mabin. As he expected, the young girl found them out quickly, guided
by the piteous sobs of Mrs. Dale.
“Don’t cry so, dear, don’t cry. The old woman will never dare to worry
you again,” were the words which Mabin whispered into the ears of the
weeping woman, as she threw her arms round her, and at once began to
try to drag her up the slope toward home. “She’s ashamed of herself
already. And you will not have to meet her alone. Remember that.”
Under the influence of her gentle words, and still more persuasive
caresses, Mrs. Dale speedily became calmer. And although she at first
resisted all her friend’s efforts to lead her back toward the house
she had left, she presently listened to and began to answer Mabin’s
words.
“I will come with you a little way,” she said in a tremulous voice.
“You are a sweet, dear girl, and I love you for your goodness. But you
must let me go to the station, and get away.”
Mabin paused before trying her final shot.
“You must come, dear,” she whispered, “because there is some one who
wants to see you; some one who is not strong enough to come after you
himself.”
At these words Mrs. Dale, who had begun to walk slowly up the hill,
leaning on Mabin’s arm, stopped short and began to tremble violently.
“Who--is--that?” she asked hoarsely, with apparent effort, keeping her
eyes fixed on those of her companion with such searching intentness
that the young girl was alarmed.
“Mr. Banks,” whispered the girl. “And listen, dear. He only wants to
see you just once; he said so. And he is ill, you know, so I think you
ought. And since he has loved you all this time----”
Mabin stopped short. For as she uttered these words a cry escaped from
Mrs. Dale’s lips, a cry so full of poignant feeling, so plaintive, so
touching, that it was evident she was moved to the inmost depths of
her nature.
Clinging to Mabin with trembling fingers, gazing into her eyes with
her own full of tears, she said in a low, broken voice:
“He said that? He--really--said--that?”
“Why, yes, he did,” answered the girl, not knowing whether to be glad
or sorry that the admission had escaped her.
Not another word was uttered by either of them; but Mrs. Dale began to
walk so fast that Mabin, whose ankle had not yet recovered all its own
strength, found great difficulty in keeping up with her, and Rudolph,
who had been ahead of them, had now to drop behind.
It was not until they reached the hill on the top of which “The
Towers” stood, that Mrs. Dale’s steps slackened, and her face become
again overclouded with doubt and fear.
“Is--she with him? Was she with him when you came away?” she asked in
a meek and plaintive little voice.
Mabin had to confess that the dreaded “she” had been with him.
And Mrs. Dale faltered again, and had to be further helped and further
encouraged. At last, however, the top of the hill was reached, and
“The Towers” came in sight.
But the place seemed to be deserted. No one was at the gates; there
was no light at any of the windows. A sense of desolation crept into
the hearts of both the ladies as they made their way, with slower
steps, toward the house. Rudolph hastened forward to open the gate for
them. He went through into the garden, and came out again quickly.
“Mabin,” he said then, putting his hand lightly on her arm, “let Mrs.
Dale go in. I want to speak to you.”
Mabin hesitated, for Mrs. Dale was clinging to her arm with an almost
convulsive pressure. And then the girl saw that within the garden
gates, looking deadly pale in the light of the newly risen moon, “Mr.
Banks” was standing. As Mabin disengaged herself from her companion,
he came forward, almost staggering, and held out his arms.
“Dorothy! Dorothy!” he whispered hoarsely.
Mrs. Dale uttered a sound like a deep sigh. Then she made one step
toward him. But as he approached her, with a pathetic look of love, of
yearning in his eyes, she tottered, and would have fallen to the
ground if he had not caught her.
Then, reaching Mabin’s astonished ears quite distinctly, as she stood,
anxious, bewildered, at a little distance, came these words in Mrs.
Dale’s voice:
“Oh, have you forgiven me? Will you ever forgive me, Geoffrey!
Geoffrey!”
Mabin swung round on her feet and all but fell into Rudolph’s arms.
“Then--Mr. Banks--is her _husband_!” she gasped, in such a whirl of
joyous excitement that she did not notice how unduly gracious to
Rudolph her excitement was making her.
“Yes. Didn’t you guess?”
“N-n-no. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“She didn’t tell you then?”
“No. She didn’t know herself, I am sure. But she began to wonder and
to suspect. And yet she didn’t dare, not knowing, I suppose, poor
little woman, how he felt toward her, to meet him. So she did the
worst thing possible, and sent for his mother. And no doubt the old
woman made more mischief, told her Sir Geoffrey would never forgive
her, and all that. So the little woman went off her head very nearly.
And goodness knows what would have happened if we hadn’t gone after
her so soon.”
Mabin wrenched herself away from Rudolph, who had held one arm round
her while he spoke.
“Then that wicked old woman has been cheating her into thinking she
killed him, while all the while he was alive and well?” she cried,
only now awakening to the full sense of the situation.
“Yes.”
“And poor Mrs. Dale has been allowed to torture herself for nothing?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly nothing. She _might_ have killed him. Indeed
she meant----”
But Mabin would not let him finish.
“Nonsense,” she said sharply. “I’m going in by the kitchen-garden.
Good-night.”
And she fled so precipitately that Rudolph had no time for another
word.
In the long drawing-room, no longer a dreary and desolate place,
husband and wife were sitting together. Almost without a word she had
led him into the house, and, shuddering in the midst of her
thankfulness at the sight of the open door of the dining-room, where
old Lady Mallyan had shown her so little mercy as to drive her to
despair, she had thrown open the door of the drawing-room, where a
lamp had been placed upon the table, making a tiny oasis of light in a
great wilderness of shadow.
Very gently, very humbly, with eyes still wet, hands still tremulous,
she led him to a chair and took her own seat modestly on a footstool
near his feet.
“And now tell me,” she began in a low voice, as soon as he was seated,
“why did you let me think I--I----”
She could not go on.
“My dear child,” said Sir Geoffrey tenderly, as he drew her
half-reluctant hands into his, and stroked her bright hair, “we have
all made mistakes in this unhappy business, and that was the first,
the greatest of all.”
“It was not your doing, I am sure of that,” said Dorothy quickly. “You
would not have thought of doing anything so cruel, of your own
accord.”
He frowned. It had already become clear to him that, in yielding so
much as he had done to the advice of his mother, he had not only
imperilled his own happiness, but had caused his young wife suffering
more bitter than he had imagined possible.
“I was wrong too. I should have known; I should have trusted you
more,” said he in a remorseful voice. “But you were such a child, you
seemed such a feather-headed little thing, I could only believe my
mother’s judgment when she gave me advice about you.”
“But you should not have mistrusted me, however much she said. You
should have watched me yourself if you thought I wanted watching.”
“I know--I know. I am sorry, child.”
“Then why, when I had done the dreadful thing--” and suddenly the fair
head bent down in humility and shame--“why didn’t you see me? Why
didn’t you let me see you? And why, oh, why did you let them tell me I
had k-killed you? Think of it! Think of it! The horror of that thought
is something you can never imagine, never understand.”
“When my mother first told you that,” answered Sir Geoffrey gravely,
“she thought it was true. I was very ill, you know, long after they
had extracted the bullet. I was too ill to see you, even if she had
let me. And when you had been sent away, I suppose my mother meant to
punish you by letting you think as she did.”
“Ah, but it was brutal to let me believe it so long!”
“I am afraid it was!”
“But you--when you knew--when at last she told you what I had been
taught--didn’t you see yourself how cruel it was?”
Sir Geoffrey was silent. He did not wish to own to Dorothy, what he
was forced to acknowledge to himself, that his mother had deceived him
as egregiously as she had his wife; that, in pursuing her own
revengeful and selfish ends, she had gone near to wrecking both their
lives. But something, some part of her work was bound to become known;
and he had reluctantly to see that the intercourse between his wife
and his mother could never be anything but strained.
“I had been led to believe,” admitted he, “that your hatred of me was
so great, your fear of me too, that even the idea that I had died
would not affect you long.”
She shuddered, and abruptly withdrew her hand from his. “Dorothy,
forgive me. I never meant that you should bear the burden so long.
When you rebelled, and insisted on going away from the place where my
mother had put you, I had been sent abroad for my health. When I came
back, you were gone, and my mother told me you were travelling abroad.
But I was already hungering for a sight of you, anxious to see you, to
find out whether there was really no prospect of reconciliation for
us. And as I found my mother unwilling to help me, I went away, but
not abroad as she thought. I had found out where you were, and I
determined to settle down near you, and to keep watch for an
opportunity of approaching you, and finding out that one thing which
was more important than anything else in life to me--whether my young
wife was ready to forgive her old husband, and to welcome him back to
life.”
At these words he paused. Dorothy, her face glowing with deep feeling,
went down on her knees and lifted her swimming eyes to his.
“If you could have known--If you could have looked into my heart!” she
whispered.
“Ah! my darling, how could I know? I used to watch you from the lane,
waiting for hours for what glimpse I could catch of your face through
the trees. Then one night, when I was prowling about the place,
thinking of you, it came into my head that if I could look on your
face while you slept, and call to you, I might speak to you while you
were half awake, and tell you what was in my heart and prepare you for
finding out that I was alive. So I climbed up to your window, and
looked in.”
“Ah! That was what I thought was a dream! I saw you!”
“Yes. You were not asleep. You looked at me with such a stare of
horror and alarm, that I was afraid of the effect of my own act, and I
dropped down to the ground. But some one looked out from an upper
window--it was your housemaid, Annie; the next day I met her, and,
seeing that she recognized me as the person she had seen the night
before, I told her who I was. Fortunately, she had seen my portrait
hanging in a room of the house, a locked room, she told me; so that
she was ready to believe me.”
“Ah!” cried Dorothy.
“And this knowledge that you kept my portrait gave me hope. The girl
promised to get me the key of the room in which it was hung, and to
leave a window open by which I could get into the house that night.”
Dorothy looked up with rather wide eyes.
“These sentimental girls!” exclaimed she. “Supposing you had not been
my husband!”
Sir Geoffrey smiled.
“We need not trouble our heads about that now,” said he. “I got in
that night, but you had played a trick upon me, for in your room there
was another lady!”
Dorothy stared.
“Did she see you? Did Mabin see you?” she asked breathlessly.
“She not only saw me. She gave chase, and nearly caught me! I was
covered with confusion. But since then the young lady, who is a very
charming one, and I have come to an explanation.”
“Mabin! And she never told me! Oh, yes she did--I remember. She told
me you had promised never to see me again.”
And Dorothy, with a little shiver, drew nearer to her husband, and let
his sheltering arms close round her.
Rudolph was hanging about the place at an early hour next morning. He
sprang upon Mabin as soon as she stepped into the garden, with a
particularly happy look on her young face.
“I’ve come to ask for an explanation,” said he, standing very erect,
and speaking in a solemn tone, tempered by fierceness.
“An explanation? Of what?”
“Various points in your conduct.”
“Oh!” cried Mabin, turning quickly to face her accuser, and evidently
ready with counter accusations.
“In the first place, why have you been so cool to me lately?”
“Because--because--was I cool?”
“Were you cool! Yes, you were, and I know why. You were jealous.”
Mabin said nothing.
“And now I expect an apology, and an acknowledgment that you are
heartily ashamed of yourself.”
“Do you expect that, really?”
“Well, I’ll alter the form of words, and say that I ought to get it.”
“Well, you won’t.”
“I thought as much. But I am willing to compound for a promise that
you will never be so foolish again. There! That’s downright
magnanimous, isn’t it?”
Mabin shook her head.
“I won’t promise,” said she. “It’s too risky.”
“You haven’t much faith in me then?”
“I haven’t much faith in--myself. If I were to see you again
apparently absorbed in a very beautiful woman and her misfortunes, I
should feel the same again. Especially a widow!”
“But Mrs. Dale was not a widow!”
“Well, a married woman. They are more dangerous than the unmarried
ones.”
“Well, then if you become a married woman yourself, you will be able
to meet them on their own ground. There’s something in that, isn’t
there?”
And although Mabin was astonished and rather alarmed by the
suggestion, he argued her into consent to his proposal that he should
write to Mr. Rose that very day.
It was astonishing how quickly the neighbors got over their prejudices
against the color of “Mrs. Dale’s” hair when they discovered that the
lady in black was the wife of Sir Geoffrey Mallyan. And although odd
stories got whispered about as to the reason for her stay in Stone
under an assumed name, it was in the nature of things as they go in
the country, where each head weaves its own fancy, that the truth
never got known there.
Before the newly united couple left “The Towers,” they were both
present at the wedding of Rudolph and Mabin, who were married by the
Vicar, under the offended eyes of Mrs. Bonnington. Indeed it is
doubtful whether she would ever have consented to the marriage, if the
accident to Mabin’s ankle, although it left no worse effects, had not
made it impossible for her ever to ride a bicycle again.
And then, very quietly, and without warning Sir Geoffrey and his wife
Dorothy went away, telling nobody where they were going. There was a
breach now between them and old Lady Mallyan which could never be
entirely healed. But in order that they might have a little time to
themselves before they even pretended to forgive her, husband and wife
went off to Wales together. And under the tender care of his wife, Sir
Geoffrey began quickly to recover the health, the loss of which
Dorothy remorsefully traced to the mad act of which she had so
bitterly repented.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
Florence Warden was the pseudonym of Florence Alice (Price) James.
The F. V. White & Co. edition (London, 1896) was referenced for most
of the changes listed below and provided the cover image.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ lime-trees/lime trees,
stepmother/step-mother, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation: missing periods, quotation mark pairings/nestings, etc.
[Chapter I]
Change (“That’s what I _aways_ say. Especially a widow.) to _always_.
[Chapter III]
“the little scene, was looking out of window.” add _the_ after _of_.
[Chapter IV]
“not comfortable with her, the fault was _her’s_ and her father’s” to
_hers_.
“slight objection I had to your going to the ‘The Towers’ has”
delete the first _the_.
(Don’t you think that a little dog always looks rather, rather odd?)
change the comma and space after the first _rather_ to an m-dash.
[Chapter V]
“_athough_ she had forgotten that it was from the lips of” to
_although_.
(It led to awful _consequnces_ in my case,” added Mrs. Dale) to
_consequences_.
[Chapter VIII]
“Mrs. Dale lay down on the couch _beween_ the windows” to _between_.
[Chapter XIV]
“If _anyting_ has happened to her, it is the fault of” to _anything_.
[End of text]