The year was speeding into spring. Easter had come and gone.
Down in the country, in the old-fashioned gardens that stretched at the
back of Yelverton, the sun was busy bringing out the leaves, and even
the blossoms, almost visibly.
The children had found a delightfully warm, sheltered spot, and here
they sat with Caroline basking in the sunshine, protected from the
chilliness of the spring wind by the tall, sunburnt wall on which
spread pear trees and peach trees, the pink flowers and the white
flowers mingling together where the long arms of the branches met and
touched.
Betty was supposed to be having lessons, but she was not a very
diligent pupil; not that any one urged her to learn.
Mrs. Brenton's theory was that children should run wild till they were
seven or eight, provided they were properly influenced, and it was
really Agnes Brenton who superintended with Caroline the care of the
children now.
Mrs. Lancing had gone back to town just before Easter rather hurriedly,
and she had not taken the children with her.
Her plans had been changed. Instead of staying in London she went to
the south of England on a visit. From there she wrote announcing that
she had felt impelled to postpone the marriage.
"I don't quite know what is wrong, but my heart is playing me tricks,
and I really want to feel much better before I rush into my new
responsibilities.... I have a sort of idea the Devonshire air will do
me no end of good."
The children rejoiced openly when they found they were not going away
from Yelverton.
Rupert Haverford came frequently down to see them all. His manner with
Caroline always amused her. He seemed to regard it as a duty that he
should put her through a sort of cross-examination.
"I wish you would understand," she said to him, half impatiently, once,
"that I really and truly want to be with the children. What should I do
with myself if I went away from them?"
"You might travel. You might study. Your income is not a very large
one, but still it would give you the opportunity of coming in contact
with a lot of things about which you know nothing now."
Caroline laughed at this.
"Well, that is true. I am woefully ignorant," she said. "It is rather
impertinent of me to call myself a governess, but I am studying all the
time. Mr. Brenton is educating me. I shall be quite learned in a little
while."
"I only feel that it is my duty to put before you certain
possibilities," Haverford said.
And Caroline answered--
"I am very much obliged to you, but I prefer the certainty that I have
to all the possibilities in the world."
Then there had been a rather brisk passage of arms between them on the
subject of Caroline's money.
"I wish you would not pretend things to me," the girl had said, when
they had first discussed the matter. "I can't help feeling that this is
all your doing, that you consider it your duty to make some provision
for me; in fact," Caroline had added defiantly, "I don't believe my
mother had anything to leave me." After a little pause she said, "And I
assure you I don't care in the least to take money from other people,
even from you, except, of course, when I earn it...."
She was astonished to see how cross he looked.
"Evidently," he said, "you have not read those old letters and papers I
gave you."
And Caroline was obliged to confess she had not done so.
"I advise you," Haverford had remarked, "to acquaint yourself with your
mother's story, then you will see I have invented nothing."
Caroline could be obstinate at times.
"Well," was all she had remarked in answer to this, "there may have
been something; but I am convinced, Mr. Haverford, you are giving me
more than I ought to have."
To this, a little stiffly, he said--
"If you are not satisfied with what has been arranged, you can instruct
a lawyer to go into the matter. I will give you the address of a very
good man."
And Caroline had frowned, and then smiled.
"You know perfectly well I am not grumbling at you. The idea is
ridiculous!"
"Are you not?" he had queried, with a smile. "Well, it sounded
uncommonly like it."
On the whole, however, they were on the best of terms, though they
never progressed to intimacy.
April was well advanced when the children's mother arrived unexpectedly
at Yelverton.
She had travelled up from Devonshire without pausing for rest in town,
and declared that she was perfectly well; but Agnes Brenton was shocked
at her appearance--shocked, too, and pained by the change in her manner.
That quiet, apathetic langour was gone; Camilla was all jerks and
nerves. She seemed strung up to the highest pitch of excitement. She
talked incessantly, and smoked nearly all the time. This was a new
habit.
It appeared she had not come to stay at Yelverton. She was due at Lea
Abbey.
"I want to leave Dennis here," she said to Mrs. Brenton. "She is seedy,
poor soul, and I told her she had better take a holiday. I can manage
without her for a day or two."
They strolled out-of-doors to join the children. Caroline was dreaming.
It was so delicious out in the garden, sitting looking at the country
that stretched away in the distance, veiled in that tender, velvety
bloom which is the first embrace of spring; so delicious to hear the
irresistible and varied notes of the thrush from the boughs of the old
apple tree, chanting to the buzz of the bees humming in and out of the
adjacent currant bushes.
The children were playing about her. Baby was picking flowers; every
now and then she would over-balance herself and topple over, and then
would sit solemnly contemplating the earth with a resigned expression
till Betty came and pulled her up. Her treasures were always brought
and laid on Caroline's lap.
The girl closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them it
seemed as if a fresh bunch of snowy pear blossom on the wall beside her
had been whispered into life. Beyond in the paddock little lambs were
bleating.
Betty had made a great discovery that morning. The robin's eggs in the
nest hidden so cunningly (just at the entrance into the fruit gardens)
had vanished, and in their place some little feathered morsels, with
wide-open beaks and glittering eyes, were treasured in the warm, dark
depths. Life was full of indescribable delights.
The coming of Camilla was like the falling of a curtain. The time for
dreams was ended; the quiet garden seemed to quiver with another kind
of life.
She spent the few hours she was at Yelverton with the children. They
carried her everywhere--through the rough meadows, over the marshes to
the woods that were carpeted with primroses, with here and there a
patch of wild violets, and anon a streak of budding bluebells. A great
weight seemed to have gathered about Caroline's heart. For the first
time she lagged as she walked, and quite forgot to look for plovers'
eggs. Once, as they paused to listen to a lark piping out its soul in
the clear sky, and then watched it drop to earth, Camilla pinched the
arm she held.
"Naughty Caroline," she said; "you are not a bit glad to see me!"
Caroline's eyes filled with tears.
"I am not a bit glad to see you looking as you look now," she answered.
"How do I look?"
"Ill and ... miserable...."
Camilla laughed.
"Ill and miserable, my _dear_ child; do you know what you are
saying?... I may be a bit seedy--I don't deny that--but how can I be
miserable when I have everything in the world to make me happy?"
"I don't know why you should be. I only know you are," Caroline said,
in her quiet way. They had to carry Baby across the dykes; the exertion
brought the colour flashing into her mother's cheeks for awhile.
"I shall get you a donkey to ride, Boodles," she said, as they turned
homewards, their arms full, and their hats wreathed with the wood
flowers. "You are such a lot too heavy to carry. That reminds me,
Betty," Camilla added, "you are going to have a dog, a real beauty.
Sammy is sending it to you."
"I don't want it, thank you very much," said Betty, in her clear
treble. "Rupert's going to gived me a dog. I don't like Sammy." A
little pause, then the child said thoughtfully, "I'm glad I'm not a
dog, mummy--special Sammy's dog--because I've not gotten to eat my
din-din out of his plate. And he can't kick me. I've saw him kick his
horse in the stable that day he was throwed. I think he's a horrid man."
Camilla had turned white.
"You only care for the things Rupert gives you," she said, in a
strangled voice; then, "Oh dear, how tired I am, and there is a
dance-to-night! Why _did_ I walk so far?"
Indeed, she was a long time getting back to the gardens, and when they
were reached, she asked that the carriage might be made ready at once
to take her over to Lea Abbey.
"When do you want us to go to London?" Caroline asked her as they went
indoors together.
"Next week.... I don't know.... I will write. It seems a sin to take
the chicks away from here. How well they look!"
A little later, when she was getting into the carriage, Mrs. Lancing
drew the girl towards her.
"Don't let them forget me...." Her voice had an odd, dry sound. "Don't
let them suppose I am forgetting because they do not see me. Children
can forget so easily." She pressed Caroline's hand. "It is funny," she
said, in an unsteady way. "I never left them before without yearning to
be back the moment they were out of sight; but I leave them with you,
almost happily, you funny little cross-patch Caroline."
Caroline looked at her. Once again there were tears in her eyes.
"Come back soon," she said. "Come back and let us make you well. We all
want you."
Their hands unclasped, the door was shut, and the carriage rolled away.
At the bend of the drive Mrs. Lancing leaned forward and waved her hand
out of the window.
Caroline stood a minute or two and watched the carriage roll out of
sight. The air was fragrant with the scent of spring, laden with the
whispers of a thousand unseen blossoms.
From where she stood she could see nothing save the lawn and the mass
of newly garmented trees. Only a little while before it had been easy
to see the entrance gate; now all was blocked out by that fresh shutter
of golden-green foliage.
Turning at last, she walked slowly through the hall. Mr. Brenton had
discarded his usual corner, and had taken his books out into the
sunshine. She could hear the children laughing and singing beyond.
Their mother had given each a little parcel as she had gone away. It
seemed to Caroline as if she had shirked taking farewell of them.
The girl was glad to be alone for a little while.
Dennis was with the children. Mrs. Brenton had vanished.
Caroline walked to and fro slowly in the afternoon sunshine. She wore
no hat, but her head was well protected from any chilly breeze by the
splendid thickness of her hair.
A curious longing possessed her in this moment to follow Camilla, and
urge her to come back to Yelverton. She could not quite understand the
reason for this protracted separation.
"There seems to be something more, something new," she said to herself.
By that she meant that there was something more than that lack of
sympathy with the man she had promised to marry that was actuating Mrs.
Lancing in all her movements now.
"What is the use of my being happy?" Caroline asked herself suddenly,
"if I cannot assure happiness to others?--to these two in particular?"
And half impatiently she asked herself, "Why is she so obstinate? Why
cannot she see that the longer she stands alone the farther she must be
away from all that she needs? Surely she ought to trust him. I can't
understand why she should doubt or hesitate for an instant."
The children came running up to her to show her their latest
possessions, and then she had to greet Dennis, who seemed to be
delighted to be where she was.
"It's a real joy to be here, miss," she said to Caroline; "but didn't I
tell you what it was going to be when you first came? Just look at them
two little angels! They ain't the same children; I declare they ain't."
"I'm sorry to hear you have not been very well, Dennis," Caroline
remarked, as she collected the children and their toys and took them
towards the house, for, as the sun began to drop, the air was cold.
"Me ill?" said Dennis, in surprise. "Why, there's nothing the matter
with me! Who said I was ill?"
"Oh, I had a sort of idea you were not well," said Caroline. "Now, come
along, chicks; we'll go upstairs and have a lovely game."
"And Dennis shall tell us a story," said Betty, to whom the last comer
was always the most welcome.
Caroline walked behind the others laden with their treasures; and the
stairs seemed long, and her limbs were strangely tired this day. There
was, too, a curious ache when her heart beat.
The bath-time was over, and two little people were tucked up in bed
when Mrs. Brenton beckoned Caroline out of the room.
"I hope you won't mind if we leave you this evening, but there is that
concert and entertainment in the village. You said you did not care to
go to it, but I think we must go. We always have supported the vicar,
and he would never forgive if we did not turn up. Will you change your
mind and come?"
Caroline shook her head.
"As a matter of fact, I have a good deal of work to do for Mr. Brenton.
I have not translated my last lesson. The children are so pleased to
have Dennis that she is going to sit with them."
"You will dine at the same hour," said Mrs. Brenton, and with a smile
she passed on.
It was a significant fact she said nothing about Camilla.
Caroline went into her sitting-room, brought out pen and ink and
foolscap, dictionaries and Latin grammar; but when she sat down to
work, her usual pleasure and eagerness had flown.
She could hear Dennis whispering in the next room and one or the other
child putting a pertinent remark in a very unsleepy voice; but she knew
them well now. By the time she had changed her dress and had gone
downstairs, both little voices would be hushed in sleep.
Camilla's few words to her just as they parted haunted her, but instead
of that glow of satisfaction which would surely have come had they been
spoken under other circumstances, they brought a renewed touch of
heartache.
After a while she put away her books and writing.
"Assuredly," she said to herself, "love goes hand-in-hand with sorrow.
When I had no one to love, nothing to care for, nobody to make me
anxious, I never had tears in my eyes as I have them now. If only tears
would do some good! But how _can_ I help her? what can I do? I have the
sort of feeling that I ought to do something, but what--what?"
She was still standing by the window, looking at the beautiful evening
sky, when a maid came into the room softly.
"If you please, miss," she said, "would you come downstairs and see Mr.
Haverford? He says he would like to speak to you."
Caroline whipped round from the window.
"Mr. Haverford! He was not expected, and both Mr. and Mrs. Brenton are
out."
"Yes, miss, I told him so; but he said he wanted to see you. He hasn't
got any luggage; I don't think he means to stay. He's come in his
motor, miss."
Caroline paused only an instant. Her brows had met with a frown--a
sign that she was moved and nervous.
"Please say I will be down directly."
She went towards her bedroom with the intention of changing her dress,
and then she checked herself.
Stealing into the children's room, she whispered to Dennis that she was
going downstairs. The maid nodded her head; the children were quite
quiet, and Dennis herself looked half asleep.
As she went slowly down the broad staircase Caroline saw him. He was
standing in front of the fire in the hall warming his hands.
"Both Mr. and Mrs. Brenton are out--a rare occurrence," she said; "but
it is a village festival...."
She gave him her hand, and as he took it she coloured very faintly.
"Yes, so I hear. I am rather glad to see you alone." His tone was
terse. As Caroline moved forward to the fire he said, "I have come down
to ask for news of Camilla. Can you give me any?"
The girl looked at him for an instant.
"She was here to-day," she said.
"Here?... What time?"
"She came in the morning. I understand she had travelled straight
through from Devonshire, only changing stations in town."
He caught his breath in a way that was very like a sigh, and sat down,
half shutting his eyes.
"Then she wished to avoid me," he said. "Where has she gone?"
When Caroline told him, he just nodded his head and said--
"Yes...." He paused a moment, and then he said, "I am very troubled
about her, Caroline." Indeed, his voice sounded very heavy with trouble.
Caroline waited for him to go on.
"She seems to be slipping out of my hands," said Haverford; "try as I
will, I cannot satisfy her, or keep pace with her. I assure you these
last few weeks I have been like a creature on wires. I have not known
from one moment to the next what she wished me to do. Perhaps I am too
exacting. I don't know. I only know that I am wretched, that I cannot
sleep for thinking about her; thinking, not in a selfish fashion, ... I
give you my word it is not that, but troubling about her...." He sat
forward, and stared into the fire. "The last time we were together we
quarrelled rather badly," he said then.
Still Caroline said nothing.
There was nothing to say. It was a moment in which silence was more
helpful than words.
"We quarrelled about Cuthbert," the man said, rising, and standing by
the fireplace. "She has been sitting to him for her portrait. That I
don't object to; but what I do object to most emphatically--what seems
so wrong, so unmanly on his part, so weak, so foolish on hers--is the
fact that he has been getting money out of her. I taxed him with it....
He could not deny it. And when I brought the matter to her, and
insisted on giving her back the money, she said very bitter things to
me."
He drew in his breath sharply; then, as if to himself, he said--
"What is there, who is there, that can help me to give this woman
happiness? I hoped I was going to do it, but I have failed, failed
right through!"
"How do you know that you have failed?" asked Caroline, speaking for
the first time. "She is not an easy person to deal with, yet it is just
her very elusiveness which gives her her hold on us. And I know one
thing. I can affirm this, that if there is a creature on this earth
whom she honestly respects and values, you are that person."
"Respect!" said Haverford. The fire-glow lit up his face, and she saw
that he was smiling faintly. He was silent for a time, and then he
said--
"I don't regard the question of Cuthbert as a serious one,
notwithstanding that she has taken this peculiar attitude, ranging
herself with him against me, and declaring my resolution to let him
work up to fortune and fame as a cruel, an almost unnatural, thing;
there are other points far more serious, unfortunately, which make the
situation so difficult just now. I have repeatedly asked her not to go
to Lea Abbey, yet, you see, she has gone there. And I have felt myself
compelled to absolutely forbid her to have any sort of intercourse with
Sir Samuel Broxbourne. To-day I learned quite by chance that he has
been staying in Devonshire the greater part of the time she has been
there. The man is her shadow. Wherever she goes he appears, and when we
meet there is a look about him as though he would pick a quarrel with
me."
Then Haverford pulled himself up suddenly.
"I really beg your pardon," he said. "I am pouring out my troubles just
like an old woman. How pleasant it is here," he added abruptly, "so
quiet, and cosy, and home-like." He paused again, then he asked
hurriedly. "How was she looking?"
"Ill," Caroline answered, and added, "very ill!"
Then her eyes flashed. "Why don't you assert yourself? Why don't you
insist on getting married? She belongs to you. When once she is your
wife, all this nonsense will end. I think you are as much to blame as
she is. After all, she has promised you; you ought to exact the
fulfilment of her promise."
He turned and looked at her.
"That is how you spoke the first night you came to my house," he said,
and his tone had a faint touch of amusement in it. "You are a little
bit of a mystery, Caroline. How any one so sharp and impatient as you
are can handle children as you do is a marvel."
Caroline was trembling with nervousness, and with a strange sick
sensation of pain, but she laughed.
"Oh! I don't believe in fussing," she said; "if I had only had a little
bit more spirit when I was with your mother, it would have been a
better thing for me." She moved away from him, and then she came back
to him, and looked straight into his face. "Do you know what you ought
to do? You ought to go over now to Lea Abbey, and bring her back here.
You ought to keep her here, and marry her down here. If you want a
witness, I'll be one."
"I cannot do that to-night," said Haverford. "I have brought nothing
with me, and I really must go back to town."
She understood him. It was not the first time she had realized how
supremely delicate was his attitude towards Camilla. To follow her now
might be to suggest to Camilla a desire to know what she was doing; to
demonstrate to others his right to do this.
For all this thought and tact Caroline gave him keenest appreciation;
at the same time she felt in her impatient way that it was the moment
for action.
"Suppose I take the children to town to-morrow? I know she will come if
I let her suppose she is wanted," she suggested.
"But they are so happy here, and so well."
"Oh!" said Caroline, almost sharply, "we are not considering the
children now; they don't count. And besides, they can always come back
here."
She sat down on the broad fender stool, and pondered a moment staring
into the fire.
"Really and truly I believe if you pull her up sharply, let her know
you are tired of being played with, all will go well. Mrs. Lancing is a
bundle of nerves--she has had so much to try her, that she is really
not able at this moment of taking matters into her own hands. I think
it is so natural that she should be doubtful and nervous," said
Caroline; "but one thing is sure, that the longer she delays, the more
difficult it will seem to her to take any definite step. She wants some
one else to show her the way. That is your duty."
She looked up at him; and Haverford smiled as he looked down at her.
"Practical little person," he said; "you would have made a splendid
man, Caroline."
"I mean to be a working woman," the girl answered, "and that can be
just as good as being a man."
Haverford did not answer her. He stood looking into the fire for a long
time in silence.
"I wish I could feel that all would work out as you say," he said,
rousing himself at last; "but----" Then he said, "I know she is ill;
she seems to me to be on the eve of a nervous breakdown, but any remedy
I suggest seems to have no healing power for her. You cannot think how
I brood over her! She is so dear to me. The first living creature that
has belonged to me since I was a boy. Mrs. Brenton gave me very much
the same advice as yours," he said next. "The last time I was here, she
urged me strongly to take Camilla abroad at once. I have pleaded with
her a dozen times to do this: in vain!"
From a long, pregnant silence he roused himself.
"Sometimes I ask myself if she would not be happier without me."
"No!" said Caroline, sharply. "What ... what an absurd idea!" Then she
turned on him again. "Oh! I wish I were in your place! I would not
talk, or think, or sit down and worry. I would simply say I am going to
have such and such a thing done, and I would see that it _was_ done!"
She was trembling so much she had to get up and move away from him, and
was thankful that the lights had not been lit in the hall, and that it
was too dark for him to see her face distinctly.
A moment later she said--
"You would like dinner as soon as we can have it, I suppose?"
This roused him.
"Oh, thank you very much, but I want to get back! I will have some
supper in town. I have a morning full of engagements to-morrow." He
went to slip on his big motoring coat again. "Don't let Mrs. Brenton
imagine all sorts of things because I ran down in this hurried way."
"Of course not," said Caroline.
He held her hand, and pressed it warmly.
"Thank you so much," he said, "you have cheered me up a great deal. A
man is always a clumsy creature in these sort of things, and I am quite
sure that everything that is happening is my own fault. Good-bye."
"We shall meet soon," said Caroline, as steadily as she could. "I shall
telegraph to Mrs. Lancing in the morning, and tell her I find it
necessary to take the children to town. I shall invent a great many
things for her to do. I dare say she will find me very tiresome; but I
must risk that."
He laughed and released her hand, and then he moved back again and
looked at her in his characteristically keen way.
"I have not asked you how you are yourself?" he said.
"It is such an unnecessary question," retorted Caroline, "when you see
that I am in robust health."
"Are you? I thought you were looking anything but robust as you came
downstairs."
"Now please," said Caroline, "don't begin to go through the usual
catechism!"
"I won't," he answered, "except I want to know--have you got the maid
you were going to have?"
"All the servants in this house wait upon me and the nursery," said
Caroline. "I have only to command and I have what I want. Will that
satisfy you?" But he still paused.
"If I could only get her abroad," he said, with a thrill of eagerness
in his voice, "I should keep her there, and then send for you and the
children. A month or two in Switzerland, and then through Italy by easy
stages. Doesn't it sound delightful? Well! Good-bye once more, and I
think I shall take your advice." He laughed almost cheerily. "If I
could only manage to elope with Camilla without her knowledge or
consent, how she would enjoy it."
Caroline clapped her hands.
"At last," she said, "you are beginning to see your road."
He would not let her go outside, nor would he let her summon the
butler. He passed out and shut the door behind him, and for a moment
Caroline leaned against that door, and shut her eyes whilst she fought
down the wild tumult of passion and heart suffering that rushed upon
her.
There was a humiliation, too, in the suffering, a proud shame that she
should confess even to herself, that this man who had just gone from
her was so capable of moving her, that the touch of his hand, the sound
of his voice, meant joy, in its most exquisite meaning, and that as he
passed away from her, taking with him the spell of his presence, the
light and the warmth of life itself went with him. And still a very
lifetime of self-condemnation would not alter what had come. Love to
some natures is borne as lightly, has as little value as a thistledown
floating on the wind; it has the sparkle of a new jewel, the passing
radiance of a summer day, to fade with the setting sun, and to come
again when another day is born. But with other natures love comes but
once, and comes to stay; pain, sorrow, age, separation, even death
itself, have no power to dispossess such a love of its dwelling-place
in natures such as these.
And it was in this fashion that love had come by stealth as it were
into the heart of Caroline Graniger.