"CHANCE CANNOT CHANGE MY LOVE, NOR TIME IMPAIR."
Suzette endured her lover's absence with a philosophical cheerfulness
which somewhat surprised her aunt.
"Upon my word, Suzie, I am half inclined to think that you don't care
a straw for Allan," Mrs. Mornington exclaimed one day, when her niece
came singing across the wintry lawn, crisp under her footsteps after
the morning frost.
Suzette looked angrier than her aunt had ever seen her look till this
moment.
"Auntie, how can you say anything so horrid? Not care for Allan!
When he is in sad trouble, too! This morning's letter gives a most
melancholy account of his father. I fear the end must be near. It was
horrid of me to come running and singing over the grass; but these
frosty mornings are so delicious. Look at that glorious blue sky!"
"And when all is over, Allan will come back to you, I suppose? I must
say you have endured the separation in the calmest way."
"Why should I make myself unhappy? I know that it is Allan's duty to be
at Fendyke. The only thing I regret is that I can't be there too, to
help him to bear his sorrow."
"And you do not mind being parted from him. You can live without him?"
Suzette smiled at the sentimental question from the lips of her
practical aunt, whose ideas seemed rarely to soar above the daily cares
of housekeeping and the considerations of twopence as against twopence
halfpenny.
"I have had to live without him over twenty years, auntie."
"Yes, but I thought that the moment a girl was engaged she found life
impossible in the absence of her sweetheart."
"I think that kind of girl must be very empty-headed."
"And your little brains are well furnished--and then you have Mrs.
Wornock and her son to fill up your days," said Mrs. Mornington, with a
searching look.
"I have Mrs. Wornock, and I like her society. I see very little of Mrs.
Wornock's son."
"Where is he, then? I thought he was at the Manor."
"He is seldom at home in the daytime, and I am never there in the
evening."
"And so you never meet. You are like Box and Cox. So much the more
satisfactory for Allan, I should say."
"Really, aunt, you are in a most provoking mood this morning. I'm
afraid the butcher's book must be heavier than you like."
It was Tuesday--Mrs. Mornington's terrible day--the day on which
the tradesmen's books came up for judgment; a day on which the
cook trembled, and even the housemaids felt the electricity in the
atmosphere.
"I never like the butcher's book," said the lady; "but that isn't what
set me thinking about you and Allan. I have been thinking about you for
ever so long. I'm afraid you are not so fond of him as you ought to be."
"Auntie, you have no right to say that."
"Why not, pray, miss?"
"Because, perhaps, if you had not urged me to accept him, I might not
have said 'Yes' when he asked me the second time. Oh, pray don't look
so frightened. I am very fond of him--very fond of him. I know that he
is good and true and kind, and that he loves me better than I deserve
to be loved, and thinks me better than I am--cleverer, prettier,
altogether superior to my work-a-day self. And it is very sweet to
have a lover who thinks of one in that exalted way. But I am not
romantically in love, auntie. I don't believe that it is in my nature
to be romantic. I see the bright and happy side of life. I see things
to laugh at. I am not sentimental."
"Well, I dare say Allan can get on without sentiment, so long as he
knows you like him better than anybody else in the world; and now, as
there is no reason whatever for delay, the sooner you marry him the
better."
"I am afraid he will lose his father before long, auntie; and then he
can't marry for at least a year."
"Nonsense, child. He won't be a widow. I dare say Lady Emily will be
marrying when the year is out. Three months will be quite long enough
for Allan to wait. You can make the wedding as quiet as you like."
Suzette did not prolong the argument. The subject was too remote to
need discussion. Mrs. Mornington went back to her tradesmen's books,
and Suzette left her absorbed in the calculation of legs and sirloins,
and the deeper mysteries of soup meat and gravy beef.
* * * * *
Christmas had come and gone, a very tranquil season at Matcham, marked
only by the decoration of the church and the new bonnets in the
tradespeople's pews. It was a dull, grey day at the end of the year,
the last day but one, and Suzette was walking home in the early dusk
after what she called a long morning with Mrs. Wornock, a long morning
which generally lasted till late in the afternoon. But these mid-winter
days were too short to allow of Suzette walking home alone after tea;
so unless her own or her aunt's pony-carriage were coming for her, she
left the Manor before dusk.
To-day Mrs. Wornock had been sadder even than her wont, as if saddened
by the last news from Fendyke, and sorrowing for Allan's loss; so
Suzette had stayed longer than usual, and as she walked homeward the
shadows of evening began to fall darkly, and the leafless woods looked
black against the faint saffron of the western sky. The sun had shown
himself, as if reluctantly, an hour before his setting.
Presently in the stillness she heard horses' hoofs walking slowly on
the moist road, and the next turn in the path showed her Geoffrey
Wornock, in his red coat, leading his horse.
It was the first time they had met since her refusal to play any
more duets with him, and, without knowing why, she felt considerable
embarrassment at the meeting, and was sorry when he stopped to shake
hands with her, stopped as if he meant to enter into conversation.
"Going home alone in the dark, Miss Vincent?"
"Yes; the darkness comes upon one unawares in these short winter days.
I stayed with Mrs. Wornock because she seemed out of spirits. I am glad
you are home early to cheer her."
"That is tantamount to saying you are glad I have lamed my horse. I
should be on the other side of Andover, in one of the best runs of the
season, if it were not for that fact. When one is thrown out, the run
is always quite the best--or so one's friends tell one afterwards."
"I am sorry for your horse. I hope he isn't much hurt?"
"I don't know. Lameness in a horse is generally an impenetrable
mystery. One only knows that he is lame. The stable will find half a
dozen theories to account for it, and the vet will find a seventh, and
very likely they may all be wrong. I'll walk with you to the high-road
at least."
"And give the poor horse extra work. Not for the world!"
"Then I'll take him on till I am within halloo of the stables, and then
come back to you, if you'll walk on very slowly."
"Pray don't! I am not at all afraid of the dusk."
"Please walk slowly," he answered, looking back at her and hurrying on
with his horse.
Suzette was vexed at his persistence; but she did not want to be rude
to him, were it only for his mother's sake. How much better it would
have been had he gone straight home to cheer that fond mother by his
company, instead of wasting his time by walking to Matcham, as he would
perhaps insist upon doing.
He looked white and haggard, Suzette thought; but that might only
be the effect of the evening light, or it might be that he was tired
after a laborious day. She had not much time to think about him. His
footsteps sounded on the road behind her. He was running to overtake
her. It occurred to her that she might turn this persistence of his
to good account. She might talk to him about his mother, and urge him
to spend a little more of his time at home, and do a little more to
brighten that lonely life.
"I met one of the lads," he said, "and got rid of that poor brute."
"I am so sorry you should think it necessary to come with me."
"You mean you are sorry that I should snatch a brief and perilous
joy--half an hour in your company--after having abstained from pleasure
and peril so long."
"If you are going to talk nonsense, I shall go back to the house and
ask your mother to send me home in her brougham."
"Then I won't talk nonsense. I don't want to offend you; and you are
so easily offended. Something offended you in our duets. What was
it, I wonder? Some ignorant sin of mine? some passage played _troppo
appassionato_? some _cantabile_ phrase that sounded like a sigh from an
over-laden heart! Did the music speak too plainly, Suzette?"
"This is too bad of you!" exclaimed Suzette, pale with anger. "You take
a mean advantage of finding me alone here. I won't walk another step
with you!"
She turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction as she spoke;
but she was some distance from the house, at least ten minutes' walk,
and her heart sank at the thought of how much Geoffrey Wornock could
say to her in ten minutes. Her heart was beating violently, louder
and faster than she had ever felt it beat. Did it matter so much what
nonsense he might talk to her--idle breath from idle lips? Yes, it
seemed to her to matter very much. She would be guilty of unpardonable
treason to Allan if she let this man talk. It seemed to her as if
these wild words of his--mere rodomontade--made an epoch in her life.
He seized her by the arm with passionate vehemence, but not roughly.
"Suzette! Suzette! you must--you shall hear me!" he said. "Go
which way you will, I go with you. I did not mean to speak. I have
tried--honestly--to avoid you. Short of leaving this place altogether,
I have done my uttermost. But Fate meant us to meet, you see. Fate
lamed my horse--the soundest hunter of them all. Fate sent you by
this lonely path at the nick of time. You shall hear me! Say what you
like to me when you have heard. Be as hard, as cruel, as constant to
your affianced lover as you please; but you shall know that you have
another lover--a lover who has been silent till to-night, but who
loves you with a love which is his doom. Who says that about love and
doom? Shakespeare or Tennyson, I suppose. Those two fellows have said
everything."
"Mr. Wornock, you are very cruel," she faltered. "You know how
sincerely I am attached to your mother, and that I wouldn't for
the world do anything to wound her feelings, but you are making it
impossible for me ever to enter her house again."
"Why impossible? You are trembling, Suzette. Oh, my love! my dear, dear
girl, you tremble at my touch. My words go home to your heart. Suzette,
that other man has not all your heart. If he had, you would not have
been afraid to go on with our music. If your heart was his, Orpheus
himself could not have moved you."
"I was not afraid. You are talking nonsense. I left off playing because
Allan did not like to see me absorbed in an occupation which he could
not share. It was my duty to defer to his opinion."
"Yes, he heard, he understood. He knew that my heart was going out to
you--my longing, passionate heart. He could read my mystery, though you
could not. Suzette, is it hopeless for me? Is he verily and indeed the
chosen? Or do you care for him only because he came to you first--when
you knew not what love means? You gave yourself lightly, because he
is what people call a good fellow. He cannot love you as I love you,
Suzette. Love is something less than all the world for him. No duty
beside a father's sick-bed would keep me from my dearest, if she were
mine. I would be your slave. I could live upon one kind word a month,
if only I might be near you, to behold and adore."
He had released her arm, but he was walking close by her side, still in
the direction of the Manor House, she hurrying impetuously, trying to
conquer her agitation, trying to make light of his foolishness, and yet
deeply moved.
"You are very unkind," she said at last, with a piteousness that was
like the complaint of a child.
"Unkind! I am a miserable wretch pleading for life, and you call
me unkind. Suzette, have pity on me! I have not succumbed without
a struggle. I loved you from the hour we met--from that first hour
when my heart leapt into a new life at the sound of your voice. On
looking back, it seems to me now that I must have so loved you from
the beginning. I can recall no hour in which I did not love you. But I
have fought the good fight, Suzette. Self-banished from the presence
I adore, I have lived between earth and sky, until, though I have
something of the sportsman's instinct, I have come almost to hate the
music of the hounds and the call of the huntsman's horn, because in
every mile my horse galloped he was carrying me further from you, and
every hour I spent far afield was an hour I might have spent with you."
"It is cruel of you to persecute me like this."
"No, no, Suzette; you must not talk of persecution. If I am rough and
vehement to-night, it is because I am resolute to ask the question that
has been burning on my lips ever since I knew you. I will not be put
off from that. But once the question asked and answered I have done,
and, if it must be so, you have done with me. There shall be no such
thing as persecution. I am here at your side, your devoted lover--no
better man than Allan Carew, but I think as good a man, with as fair
a record, of as old and honourable a race, richer in this world's
gear; but that's not much to such a woman as Suzette. It is for you to
choose between us; and it is not because you said yes to him before you
had ever seen my face that you are to say no to me, if there is the
faintest whisper in your heart that pleads for me against him."
She stood silent, her eyelids drooping over eyes that were not
tearless. His words thrilled her, as his violin had thrilled her
sometimes in some lingering, plaintive passage of old-world music. His
face was near hers, and his hand was on her shoulder, detaining her.
The intellectuality, the refinement of the delicately chiselled
features, the pallor of the clear complexion were intensified by the
dim light. She could not but feel the charm of his manner.
He was like Allan--yet how unlike! There was a fascination in this
face, a music in this voice, which were wanting in Allan, frank, and
bright, and honest, and true though he was. There was in this man just
the element of poetry and unreasoning impulse which influences a woman
in her first youth more than all the manly virtues that ever went to
the making of the Christian Hero.
Suzette had time to feel the power of that personal charm before she
collected herself sufficiently to answer him with becoming firmness.
For some moments she was silent, under the influence of a spell which
she knew must be fatal to her peace and Allan's happiness, should she
weakly yield. No, she would not be so poor, so fickle a creature. She
would be staunch and true, worthy of Allan's love and of her father's
confidence.
"Why, if I were to palter with the situation," she thought--"if I were
to play fast and loose with Allan, my father might think he had been
mistaken in trusting me without a chaperon. He would never respect me
or believe in me again. And Allan? What could Allan think of me were I
capable of jilting him?"
Her heart turned cold at the idea of his indignation, his grief, his
disgust at a woman's perfidy.
She conquered her agitation with an effort, and answered her daring
lover as lightly as she could. She did not want Geoffrey to know how he
had shaken her nerves by his vehement appeal.
She knew now, standing by his side, with that eloquent face so near her
own, that musical voice pleading to her--she knew how often his image
had been present to her thoughts at Discombe Manor, while he himself
was away.
"It is very foolish of you to waste such big words upon another man's
sweetheart," she said. "Pray believe that when I accepted Allan Carew
as my future husband, I accepted him once and for ever. There was no
question of seeing some one else a little later, and liking some one
else a little better. There may be girls who do that sort of thing;
but I should be sorry that anybody could think me capable of such
inconstancy. Allan Carew and I belong to each other for the rest of our
lives."
"Is that a final answer, Miss Vincent?"
"Absolutely final."
"Then I can say no more, except to ask your forgiveness for having said
too much already. If you will go on to the house, and talk to my mother
for a few minutes, I'll go to the stables and order the brougham to
take you home. It is too dark for you to walk home alone."
There was no occasion for the brougham. A pair of lamps in the drive
announced the arrival of Miss Vincent's pony-cart, which had been sent
to fetch her.