In June, when the gardens at Yelverton were glorious with roses (and
Caroline's one task seemed to be hunting the children out of the
strawberry-beds), Cuthbert Baynhurst and his wife returned to town.
They did not do this voluntarily; it was literally to see his mother
die that Cuthbert was summoned back to England.
Rupert Haverford himself wrote the message that brought his
half-brother home.
He himself was on the eve of sailing for the United States when his
mother's condition became so serious.
He had promised Mrs. Brenton to spend one night at Yelverton before
leaving for America, but of course all his arrangements were upset.
"It is impossible to describe to you the suffering my poor mother is
enduring just now," he wrote. "She is amazingly brave, and her brain is
as active as ever. It sounds cruel to say it, but I almost regret this,
for she persists in fatiguing herself. Only yesterday she worked for
three hours."
Another time he wrote--
"She has been very ill for some time, how ill no one but she herself
has known; but undoubtedly she has hastened matters to the present
crisis by her unhappiness about Cuthbert's marriage. It was a great
shock to her; she craves for him, and seems to torture herself with
vain and unreasonable jealousy. I am most unhappy about her.... It is a
bitter thing to feel that I have not the gift of ministering to her!"
All these letters passed into Caroline's hands.
Usually she read them out in the garden, and when she was alone.
She was well again, but very restless in these days. After that nervous
breakdown Mrs. Brenton endeavoured to treat her as a kind of invalid,
but she quickly abandoned this as a hopeless undertaking, and indeed
the girl very speedily picked up her colour and her strength. But she
was changed; her calm, determined, practical mood was gone altogether.
There were times when Mrs. Brenton was puzzled by her manner, and
nothing was more difficult for her to understand than the friendship
which appeared to have sprung up between Caroline and Sir Samuel
Broxbourne.
Sir Samuel was always turning up at Yelverton at unexpected moments.
As the Brentons had known him since he was a boy he was outside the
category of guests; but though Mrs. Brenton was hospitality itself, she
really chafed a little at his constant visits, and if she could only
have imagined that he was indirectly or directly connected with what
she in her plain-spoken way called Camilla's "wickedness," he would
have found himself shut out of Yelverton in particularly quick time.
As it was, very little of what went on in Broxbourne's world found its
way to Mrs. Brenton's ears, and she was in happy ignorance of the fact
that when Camilla had broken her traces in that startling fashion,
Broxbourne had been as much an object of curiosity to a certain section
of society as Rupert Haverford himself.
Nevertheless she gave him very little encouragement to come so often;
but Sir Samuel was, happily for himself, thick-skinned.
"What _do_ you find to talk about, you two?" she asked Caroline on one
occasion, almost irritably; and the girl had shrugged her shoulders.
"I listen," she said; and then, with an effort, she had added, "Sir
Samuel amuses the children. He is always inventing some marvellous
games."
"Yes," said Mrs. Brenton, thoughtfully; "but it is not a bit like Sammy
Broxbourne to spend his time inventing games to amuse children."
Caroline's eyes had flashed, and she had laughed for a moment.
"I expect he finds the country air refreshing after town."
"Is it possible," Mrs. Brenton said to her husband after this little
conversation, "is it possible that Sammy has fallen in love with
Caroline?"
Mr. Brenton closed his book with his finger in it to keep the place.
"It does not seem improbable," he said; and then he added, "Caroline is
a very sweet girl."
To which his wife retorted--
"Do you think I don't know that? She is much too sweet for a man like
Sammy."
In a vague sort of way this question of Broxbourne seemed to divide
Caroline and Mrs. Brenton. The older woman resented, not unnaturally,
the fact that the girl should not confide in her.
"Of course if he is in love, and he wants to marry her, it might be
foolish to do anything to prevent it. Though he is not very nice
himself, he has a very nice position, and his people are the kindest
creatures in the world. It would be what the world would call a
wonderful marriage for Caroline, I suppose. But _does_ he want to marry
her? And would she have him?" Here Mrs. Brenton had to shrug her
shoulders hopelessly. "I should have thought he would have been the
last man on earth to attract her."
And Caroline was perfectly well aware of what was passing in the other
woman's mind. It was one of the many little prickly burdens which she
carried in her heart in these days.
If it could have been possible to have shared this trouble with Agnes
Brenton, she would have done it gladly; but she knew that Camilla's
disloyalty had worked far deeper into the heart of this woman, who had
loved her with the anxious love of a mother for so many years, than
even Agnes Brenton herself realized.
Mrs. Brenton had never set Camilla on a pedestal; she had never
proclaimed her faultless, but she had never ceased to find reasonable
excuses for all the mistakes that the younger woman had made.
Her love had always been tempered by her judgment. She had forgiven
more in Camilla than she would have been able to forgive in other
people; but she could not easily pardon that act of betrayal, that
deliberate renunciation of right, of honour, and of duty.
Caroline was by no means sure that if she were to have lain before Mrs.
Brenton the facts which Sir Samuel had disclosed to her that sad and
strange morning, she would have received any suggestion of help. On the
contrary, it seemed to her that Camilla's old friend might have been
more definitely estranged, as assuredly she would have been made more
miserable were she to have listened to that story of temptation and
weakness and dishonour.
Caroline herself, though she pitied, also condemned.
Undoubtedly the woman had been sorely tried; she must have endured a
veritable torture at Broxbourne's hands, but surely (Caroline argued
now), surely she owed the man who had loved her so wonderfully, too big
a debt of gratitude to have exposed him so needlessly to the heart
suffering and humiliation she had brought upon him?
"What she ought to have done," Caroline said over and over again to
herself, "was, firstly, to have broken her engagement, then if he had
pressed her for an explanation, she could have told him the truth. I
know this must have seemed too hard for her to do, but I know, too,
that such love as he had for her can work miracles. If she had only
thrown herself on his hands for protection, I am convinced he would
have stood by her. As it is, she has lost him, she has lost Agnes
Brenton, and she has sold herself into a worse bondage than any she
ever had in the past!"
And still though she judged, and even condemned, Caroline could not
detach herself from this woman. In her turn she owed a heavy debt to
Camilla, a debt that was sweet to pay, that claimed from her the best
she had to give.
The same spirit that had sent her out into the night, eagerly defiant
of fatigue, loneliness, or any possible danger, merely to stand beside
this helpless, lovable woman, animated her still. She could not shut
out of her remembrance the pleading patheticness of Camilla's look the
last time they had met, and though they were now parted by an
irrevocable barrier, she remained still acutely sensitive to the spell
exercised by that creature of wayward moods and tenderest influences.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst reached London, she at once wired to
Yelverton, announcing her arrival, and desired that the children might
be taken to town the following day to meet her.
To Caroline she sent a little pleading note, in which she asked the
girl to bring the children herself.
"She has at least the grace not to suggest coming here," said Mrs.
Brenton, with a laugh that had the sound of tears in it.
Then she looked at Caroline.
"You will go?" she said in a low voice; and Caroline said--
"Yes."
The Cuthbert Baynhursts were installed naturally in one of the best
suites of one of the largest and most sumptuous hotels.
It was so strange, so natural, and yet so unreal to see Camilla again!
She looked marvellously well; that fretted, excited, nervous air had
gone entirely.
As Betty phrased it--
"You look _so_ pretty, mummy darling, just like a new, young girl."
The presence of the children relieved the situation to a great extent,
yet both Caroline and Cuthbert Baynhurst's wife felt the strain of this
meeting sharply.
"You're going to stay with me a day or two?" said Camilla,
entreatingly. "It will be sweet to have you." Then with a flash of her
old merriment, "remember we are cousins now."
Caroline shook her head.
"I am afraid I must go back this evening; but the children will be all
right with Dennis."
And Camilla bit her lip.
"Of course, if you must go, you must go." Then she added, restlessly,
"I hope we shall not stay here more than a few days ourselves. It was
horrible coming at all. And then I am so afraid this illness will upset
Cuthbert. He is so sensitive. I have entreated him not to stay longer
than a few minutes in his mother's room. I wish he need not go in at
all. Cancer is such an awful thing."
Then she shuddered.
Caroline said nothing. She had no reason to care one way or another
about Mrs. Baynhurst, but it was impossible for her to withhold her
pity in such an hour as this; because she knew, none better, the
hopelessness of the mother's passionate love for her second child, and
because it had been a creed with Octavia Baynhurst to sneer at womanly
weakness, and suffering; to deny almost scornfully the terrors of death.
And now death had come upon her--and what a death!
There was a tragedy to Caroline in the thought of that fine intellect,
that strong nature, surrendering itself to the ravages of the most
appalling disease the human frame can know.
As the children danced off to another room to find Dennis, and they
were alone, Camilla turned and stretched out both her hands to the girl.
"Have I lost you, Caroline?" she said; "you look at me so strangely,
your eyes hurt me. I have always clung to the hope that you would never
change, that you would always love me."
Caroline paused a moment, and then took the hands for an instant.
"Are you happy?" she asked in a low voice.
The look that flashed into the other woman's face was a revelation to
her.
"So happy," she said. "Oh, Caroline, it is all the beginning over
again, only better, truer, and, please God, more lasting! Caroline, I
love him. He is so young, so beautiful, so full of poetry, he makes
life quite different! Oh, I love him, and I never thought I should love
any one again after Ned."
Caroline turned away; her lips quivered.
"Then we who care for you must be content," she said. There was a
bitter and yet a sad note in her voice.
Cuthbert Baynhurst's wife stood and looked at her.
"Of course," she said a little hardly, "I know you think I did a
dreadful thing, and I will tell you one thing, Caroline, that I wish
from the bottom of my heart that I could have come by this happiness in
a different way. I don't want to excuse myself, for I have no excuse,
but equally I don't want you or anybody else to make up things that
don't exist. Don't for instance, run away with the idea that Rupert is
breaking his heart about me. He is much too prosaic, too stolid, too
commonplace. You saw for yourself how calmly he took the whole thing.
If he had been another sort of man, well!" she laughed, "there might
have been four inches of steel for Cuthbert, and perhaps a bullet
through my brain."
Caroline turned and looked at her coldly.
"How can you speak so foolishly. What do you know of his heart? You
have never understood him; even when you had the life of his life in
your hands you sneered at him as poor and paltry. Make a mockery of him
to others if you will, but not to those who know what sort of man he
is. It is pitiful; it makes your wrong so much, much worse."
Camilla looked almost frightened. Her lip quivered, and tears gathered
in her eyes.
"Oh, don't speak to me like that," she said brokenly. "Do you think I
don't know how good he is--how more than good; his generosity won't
bear talking about; but you don't know all, Caroline. If you did,
perhaps you would judge me more mercifully."
There was a little pause.
Caroline made no answer; she turned aside sharply, and walked to one of
the long windows. Though she had spoken so quietly, so coldly, a wild
sort of passion swirled about her; her heart beat so violently she felt
almost suffocated.
Camilla moved across to her.
"Caroline, darling," she said pleadingly. She put her hand on
Caroline's shoulder, and as the girl still said nothing she gave a
quick sigh.
"Well," she said, letting her hand slip down, "whatever any one else
may think, Rupert himself ought not to reproach me. For I was
absolutely honest with him. I always told him I was not half good
enough for him. There was no deception, my dear Caroline, and he chose
to do what he did with his eyes open. I don't mind betting you anything
you like that he is ever so much happier now that I am off his hands,"
Camilla declared. "Our marriage would have been the most awful failure
of modern times."
She came back to the girl by the window, and gave her a little shake.
"You know you love me, and you shan't be angry with me, Caroline."
There was a mist in Caroline's eyes. She turned, and would have spoken,
but at that moment Dennis looked in at the door and called to her
mistress.
"If you please, ma'am, I think you'd better come to Mr. Baynhurst. He's
in the other room. I'm afraid something bad has happened."
Camilla stumbled in her haste to get out of the room, and almost
immediately she was back again.
"I'm sorry," she said indistinctly, nervously; "but I think the
children had better not stop. Cuthbert's mother is dead. She died an
hour ago. Try not to let them be disappointed, Caroline. Tell them they
shall see me very soon, perhaps to-morrow. It seems awfully unkind to
send them away, poor little souls, but he is in a terrible state. I
must be with him. It would be so miserable for the children here."
Indeed the children seemed glad to go. They kissed their mother, who
held them to her in a passionate, nervous kind of way, and then let
Dennis put on their hats, and went away with Caroline, dancing as they
went.
Outside in the hot sunshine they clamoured for food.
"I can smell beef," said Betty, wrinkling up her pretty nose. "I
thought we was going to have a lovely dinner, and we didn't have none.
Oh, Caroline, I am so hungry."
And Baby chimed in with the same remark.
Caroline hoisted them both into a cab, and they drove to the station.
There she regaled them with lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon
they were back at Yelverton.