Olivia Denison’s outburst against the Vicarage folk and their
treatment of Vernon Brander seemed to overwhelm the latter with
consternation. He stood before the impulsive girl as if benumbed by her
vehemence; and it was not until her restless movements and bending head
showed that she felt uncomfortable and ashamed of herself that he tried
to speak and to reassure her. For it was evident that she thought her
boldness had deeply offended him.
“You do them injustice, Miss Denison. Though I know it’s only through
your kind feeling for me. There is nothing my brother would not do for
me; he always takes my part most valiantly.”
“Ah, your brother, perhaps. But Mrs. Brander! She doesn’t. And a woman
can do you more harm by raising her eyebrows at the mention of your
name than a man could by preaching a course of sermons against you.”
“But why should she? Miss Denison, I can’t believe it.”
“Do you believe what I tell you, that Mrs. Brander warned my
step-mother against admitting you into her house?”
“I must believe it, since you say it is true. But I am sure there must
be some explanation--”
“Of course there will be an explanation; and one that will satisfy
you perfectly, I have no doubt,” interrupted Olivia, impatiently.
“Mrs. Brander will be able to explain everything, and make you see how
entirely right and natural it is that you should have no friends but
those at the Vicarage.”
She saw by the change in his face that she had succeeded in sowing the
seed of what she considered a wholesome suspicion in his mind; and
rather afraid of trusting herself to further speak on a matter which
lay nearer her heart than she cared to show, she held out her hand
abruptly, saying with a break in her voice--
“Good-night, Mr. Brander.”
She knew he was grateful for her interest in him; she knew he had that
day been happy in her society. But she was quite unprepared for the
flash of passionate feeling which suddenly shone out of his dark, thin
face at the touch of her hand. It was like the wild gratitude of a
starving man for food, which he seizes ravenously, and for which he can
utter no articulate thanks. Olivia was almost frightened by it, and her
hand trembled as he clutched it in his.
“Good-night,” he said; “good-night. I had forgotten what such a thing
was--as a friend--until, until you came. They are very good--my
sister-in-law, and even my old housekeeper. But they are cold; at
least, they are not like you. There is something in the very touch of
your hand, in the kindness of your eyes, that warms one and makes one
feel--human again. God bless you, Miss Denison!”
He had hurried out his words so fast, in such a low, hoarse voice, that
Olivia scarcely heard more than half. But what she did hear touched,
melted her, made her heart open with a yearning tenderness she had
never felt before, even for her beloved father in his troubles. She
let Mr. Brander hold her hands in the grip of a moment’s passionate
happiness, and only sighed out a faint protest against his fervent
words. It was he who first woke from the entrancing pleasure of that
moment’s mutual sympathy. Letting the girl’s hand drop, he stepped back
as abruptly as if they had been interrupted, leaving her confused and
ashamed at her involuntary show of feeling.
Through long years of self-control on his side, through pride on
hers, they both recovered their outward composure so quickly that a
very keen observer, who happened to pass a moment later, could detect
no sign of unusual emotion in either of them. This passer-by was Ned
Mitchell, who touched his hat to Miss Denison with a significant air
of being determined to remark nothing, and nodded to the clergyman
with a side glance of no great favor. As she caught sight of him,
Olivia drew a deep breath and shivered, as if some forgotten horror had
become suddenly vivid. Instead of allowing Mr. Brander to take a formal
farewell of her, as he was about to do, she detained him by a gesture
until the colonist was out of hearing, and then made an impulsive step
nearer to him, with a face full of deep anxiety and excitement.
“I had forgotten--quite forgotten,” she panted out. “That man--do you
know who he is?”
“No.”
“Do you know why he is here?”
“No--o. But I have sometimes made ugly guesses.”
“They were right; they were true. He is the brother of Nellie Mitchell.”
She communicated this intelligence in the lowest of whispers, and he
received it without a perceptible movement. She did not know what to
do next--whether she should attempt to comfort and reassure him, or
whether she should quietly slip away while he was apparently absorbed
in his own thoughts and unconscious of her presence. She decided on a
middle course.
“Good-bye, Mr. Brander,” she said, in a gentle and timid voice.
He started, and as he turned towards her, she noted narrowly the
expression of his face. Whether the waning daylight had now grown too
faint for her to see properly, she could not be sure; but it seemed to her
that there was more relief than alarm in his eyes, which were glowing
with keen excitement.
“When did you find this out?” he asked, very quietly.
“This afternoon, on my way to St. Cuthbert’s,” she answered, promptly.
“On your way to St. Cuthbert’s,” he echoed, very softly. Olivia blushed
and bit her lip, but she answered readily enough, holding up her head
with some dignity--
“You had been insulted by my people. I came to apologize for them. That
was only natural, as you were my friend.”
Mr. Brander smiled. He seemed already to have quite recovered from any
shock her alarming information might have been supposed to cause him.
“That was generous of you--and like you,” he said. “But it was very
unwise. Do you want to set all the old women’s tongues wagging?”
“I don’t care,” murmured Olivia defiantly, though she cast down her
eyes; “besides, I didn’t stop to think.”
“But you ought to stop to think. You haven’t always some one at your
elbow to do it for you, as I verily believe a woman ought to have.”
He had fallen into the tone of playful reproach which was natural to
him when he was moved to tenderness.
“But I was in the right,” said Olivia.
“I don’t know about that. However, we will leave that unsettled. How
came this man to speak to you?”
“He saw that I wanted to get into the churchyard, and so did he.”
“And he told you he was Nellie Mitchell’s brother?”
“Yes,” answered Olivia, who felt the hot blood burning in her face as
he mentioned the dead girl’s name.
Both were silent for some moments, during which Mr. Brander regarded
the girl intently, trying to fathom the thoughts in her mind.
“And you thought it would interest me to know this?” he asked, very
gently.
“I--I was afraid so,” she burst out, and impulsively hid her face for a
moment in her hands.
She heard his breath come fast; she seemed to feel that his hands were
near her, hovering over her, almost touching her; and she remained
motionless. But when she looked up he was some paces away, busily
employed digging holes in the ground with the point of his umbrella. As
she looked up, their eyes met.
“Yes. You were right. It does interest me,” he said, gravely. Olivia’s
face fell. At sight of this change in her expression, Mr. Brander’s
composure suddenly gave way again--broke up altogether. He showed
himself suddenly in an entirely new light, swayed by excitement so
tempestuous that the girl realized for the first time the depths of
passion which still remained in this man under the burnt-out crust. In
a moment she recognized the fact that he was capable of impulses and of
acts which she could neither measure nor understand. For good or for
evil, his was a nature deeper and stronger than hers. This knowledge,
so suddenly borne in upon her, gave her a new interest in, and respect
for, him, even while it made her reluctantly admit that the possibility
of his having committed a great crime was far clearer to her than
before. All this flashed into her mind in a second of time, as his
agitated face turned towards her just before the feelings which surged
within him broke on his lips in hoarse, incoherent speech.
“I must tell you--Oh, God! Why should I not tell _you_? Who in the
whole world deserves to hear the truth as you do? Listen!”
No need to tell the girl that. Her heart was in her eyes. She held
her very breath in the intensity of a rush of feelings, which made
her wet and cold from head to foot as she stood, unable to utter a
word, waiting for the fatal explanation. He had come a step nearer
to her, the first words of his confession were on his lips, when a
bright, high, woman’s voice broke upon their ears. The sound acted on
Vernon Brander like a stroke of paralysis. His right hand, raised in
eager gesture, fell to his side; into his excited face came suddenly
the vacant stare of idiotcy. As for Olivia, the tension on her weaker
feminine nerves had been too great.
She drew a long sigh, and burst into tears. Then, before he could
recover himself sufficiently to offer one word of comfort or apology,
she muttered a hasty “good-night,” and hurried through the farmyard
gate towards her home.
Vernon could only watch her retreating figure a little way, as an
angle of the big barn that stood opposite the farmhouse soon hid
her from sight. Then he went on with slow, dogged footsteps to meet
his sister-in-law; for it was her voice which had disturbed his
_tete-a-tete_ with Miss Denison. The suspicions of the latter had
already bore some fruit in his mind; for he asked himself whether Mrs.
Brander had not come out on purpose to interrupt them. What other
motive could bring that comfort-loving lady out into the damp and cold
of a wet April evening? He dismissed the idea from his mind almost as
soon as it entered; nevertheless, it was a just one.
Mrs. Brander had called on Mrs. Denison that afternoon, and had learnt,
through the indiscretion of the latter’s husband, enough of the
morning’s proceedings to fill her with anxiety and annoyance. The vicar
managed to restrain her first impulse, which was to go straight to St.
Cuthbert’s and see Vernon.
“You will be putting yourself in the wrong if you do that, my dear,”
said Meredith, quietly. “If he thinks he has any cause of complaint
against you, he is not the man to nurse it up silently. He is sure to
come straight here on the first opportunity to ‘have it out’ with you.
And then I have no doubt of your powers of making the rough places
smooth again.”
Evelyn Brander submitted to her husband’s judgment, with a doubt
which he made light of. A few months ago she could have made her
brother-in-law take her own view of any matter; now there was an
unpleasant possibility that he might take somebody else’s.
As the afternoon wore on, therefore, and Vernon did not appear, she
went the length of watching for him at one of the drawing-room windows
which commanded the best view of the road; and when the tenant of the
adjoining cottage returned home, she threw up the sash, and asked him
if, in the course of the rambles round the parish which he was known
to be in the habit of taking, he had that day met the vicar of St.
Cuthbert’s. The colonist, being an observant man, noted the lady’s
anxiety, and the unusual courtesy towards himself to which it gave rise.
“Your brother-in-law, madam,” said he, bluntly, “is standing at the
bottom of the hill. He has been standing there some time, I believe.”
Then the idea of a little experiment crossing his mind, Ned Mitchell
made a pause to give the more effect to his next words. “He is with
Miss Denison, of the farm down yonder.”
Mrs. Brander’s handsome eyes flashed; with what feeling, whether
jealousy, or anger or disquietude, he could not be sure. She bestowed
upon him a little polite smile of thanks for his information, and said
it was an unpleasant evening. But it was evident that her interest in
him was gone; and as he had nothing more at present to obtain from
or to impart to her, the colonist gave the off-hand touch to his hat
which was the most respectful form of salutation he ever bestowed, and
retreated into his cottage. Mrs. Brander shut down the window with one
vigorous pull, and in two minutes was sallying down the hill through
the mud and the drizzle, her handsome dinner dress held at a height
more convenient than graceful, her kid shoes encased in stout goloshes,
an old macintosh of her husband’s buttoned round her with the sleeves
left swinging and a huge carriage umbrella held over her head. She was
a practical woman, and if one liked to wear handsome clothes, there was
no reason why one should spoil them for the sake of a more picturesque
appearance for ten minutes on a wet evening. As she passed the end of
her neighbor’s garden, that gentleman, who was on the watch underneath
his porch, addressed to her an admiring word.
“Well done, ma’am!” cried he. “As long as you parsons’ ladies do your
husband’s district visiting in such weather as this, you’ll stave off
disestablishment, I reckon.”
“Oh, yes,” she called out in answer, being in one of those anxious
moods in which the proudest woman is afraid of giving offence to a
fellow mortal; “you don’t know yet what weak woman is capable of.”
These were the words she was uttering when the faint sound of her voice
startled Vernon and Olivia as they stood together at the foot of the
hill.
When Miss Denison left him, Vernon had only a few steps to take before
he met his sister-in-law, who greeted him with the kindly affectionate
manner of a relation with whom one is on perfectly good terms. She gave
her umbrella to him to hold, and passed the disengaged hand lightly
through his arm. Instead of proceeding up the hill with her, however,
he stood still, remaining as stiff as a wooden soldier.
“Aren’t you coming up to the house?” she asked, with innocent
peremptoriness, shaking his arm persuasively.
“No, thank you,” said he coolly, but with a coolness utterly different
from hers, as it arose from the chilling of a warm nature, not from the
innate frigidity of a cold one.
“Oh, but you must! I was peeping out of the drawing-room window when
the bear next door came back to his den and told me you were out here,
talking to Miss Denison. So I rushed out hoping to catch you both, and
drag you in to dinner; the pretty farmer’s daughter to amuse Meredith,
and you to entertain me.”
With the audacious coquetry of a cold woman, she pressed his arm
with her hand, and bending forward looked into his face with her
great gazelle-like eyes, which, by a turn of her head, she could make
divinely alluring while ordering the details of a custard pudding. But
Vernon was not now to be allured. He withdrew his arm boldly under the
pretence that it required two hands to hold the heavy umbrella at the
proper angle.
“Miss Denison has gone home,” said he. “And I’m going home: thank you.”
“What, without an umbrella? Come as far as the house, and I’ll give you
one. It’s sure to rain before you can get back.”
“Miss Denison has got mine. I can go to the farm to fetch it.”
“Well, perhaps you won’t mind seeing me as far as the door first. I
can’t hold that great thing and keep my dress up too. I won’t insist
on your coming in; that will do some other time. I had something to
say--to ask you about my Katie; but never mind now. I see you are
thinking of something else.”
“Katie!” exclaimed Vernon. “What about Katie?”
“Oh, she doesn’t seem very well to-day, and I thought perhaps--”
“You thought what? Is there anything I can do?”
“There might have been. But I can’t ask favors of you in such a mood as
you are in to-night. We are losing you day by day. You will soon have
no place in your heart even for Katie.”
“I think you misjudge me, Evelyn. A child may forget her friends when
they are absent. But at least she does not speak ill of them.”
Mrs. Brander stopped short in the mud, and looked at him with proud
indignation.
“Of course I see you are insinuating that I have done so. Your new
friends have been turning you against the old!”
“No. It seems, though I can scarcely believe it, that my old friends
have been turning my new ones against me. Now, Evelyn, you are honest,
aren’t you? Did you, or did you not, warn Mrs. Denison against me, as
not being a proper friend for a young girl?”
Now, Vernon Brander only did his sister-in-law justice when he called
her honest. Her blunt frankness, which made little account of other
people’s feelings, had often been counted against her as a fault.
Moreover, it was one result of her husband’s profession that, though
not by nature over-scrupulous, lying should now seem a great sin to
her. But the issues at stake seemed to her so great that it cost her
only a moment’s hesitation to reply--
“I did not. I told her I understood you did not think of marrying. Was
I wrong?”
“No,” answered Vernon, in a very low voice.
Evelyn’s great eyes were meeting his with the simple, direct stare
habitual to her, which seemed to preclude the idea that she could lie.
A weaker, a more sensitive, or a more modest nature would have shrunk
from the gaze of his burning, pleading eyes. But her character was not
built on complex lines; she felt that she was doing the best possible
thing under the circumstances for herself and for everybody else, and
so, her conscience being, as usual, free, there was no need for any
airs of disquietude or remorse. And so the guileless man was caught at
the first throw of the line, and was carried off to the house safe and
subdued, while she informed him that Katie was not well, and that if he
and his old housekeeper were willing to take charge of the little girl
at St. Cuthbert’s for a fortnight, she thought the change would do her
good.
The vicar’s wife had not overrated the effect of this proposal. To have
his darling niece in his own care for two whole weeks was a bribe which
would have tempted him to condone any wrong. By the light which came
into his face as he quietly said he should be glad to have the child,
Mrs. Brander knew that her trump card had been very well played, and
that she had an influence ready to her hand which might be reckoned
upon to counteract the dangerous one of Olivia Denison’s youth and
beauty.
The tenant of the cottage watched the pair curiously as they passed his
garden on the way up to the Vicarage. Nothing in the demeanor of either
escaped his penetrating eyes. Absorbed as he was in one object, every
smallest incident which occurred in his neighborhood was regarded by
him as having a possible bearing upon it.
“I wonder,” he said to himself, as they turned the corner into the
private road at the top of the hill, “what is the reason of the
interest that parson’s wife takes in her husband’s brother? Pretty
strong it must be to bring my lady out into the puddles in those
finicking togs of hers! Love, passion, anything of that sort? She
ain’t built that way; and if she had liked him best, she would either
have married him or she’d have given ’em something to talk about by
this time. I should like to think there was a woman in the secret--my
secret; it would make my work seventy-five per cent. easier.”
In the meantime, Mrs. Brander and Vernon had reached the house, and had
been met at the door by the vicar, who seemed placidly amused by the
triumph and satisfaction he saw on his wife’s face, and by the subdued
and even hangdog expression on that of his brother.
Dinner was waiting; and the vicar, who was as much disturbed by such
an occurrence as he ever was about anything, hastened to lead the
way to the dining-room, gently murmuring disapproval of his wife’s
conduct in leaving the house at such a critical moment. The meal passed
uncomfortably; for the unexplained uneasiness under which Vernon was
evidently laboring could not fail to effect, in some degree, even his
rather stolid brother. When they all adjourned to the drawing-room,
the constraint of his manner became so apparent that Meredith, used to
an atmosphere of calm respect for himself and content with things in
general, laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder and asked him, with
benevolent peremptoriness, if there was anything the matter.
Vernon who was standing by a table, turning over the leaves of a
magazine with unmistakable lack of interest, started violently, and
caused his sister-in-law to look up from the needle work with which her
handsome, industrious fingers were nearly always employed. Her quick
eyes discovered, at a glance, that there was some more serious reason
for his melancholy than she had supposed. She rose and with a thrill of
vague anxiety laid aside her work and crossed the room towards the two
brothers. Vernon’s eyes met hers, and the expression she saw in them
caused her to stop abruptly.
“Well, what is it? Do speak out, Vernon. We are not fools. We are ready
to hear anything,” she said, in impatient, almost querulous tones.
Her brother-in-law cleared his throat, looking from the one to the
other with a strange yearning in his eyes.
“I will speak; I will tell you,” he said huskily. “I have learnt to-day
something which may cause you some alarm--for me,” he added, hastily,
as husband and wife looked anxiously each at the other. “I don’t know
whether you have ever troubled yourselves about the man who has come to
live next door, or made any inquiries about him.”
“Well, who is he? What is his name?” asked Evelyn, while her husband
remained silently watching his brother.
“He is Ned Mitchell, the brother of--”
He stopped. There was dead silence in the room. Not one of the three
seemed to dare to meet the eyes of another. Evelyn was the first to
speak. Her voice was low and husky, quite unlike her usual bright,
imperious tones.
“You are sure?” she said.
“Quite sure.”
Another silence.
Then the vicar spoke. His voice was not affected by the alarming
announcement, except that it was, perhaps, unusually gentle and kind.
He laid a sympathetic hand on the shoulder of his brother, who still
remained, with head bowed down, unable to meet their eyes.
“And, of course, you think he is here about that unfortunate business
of ten years ago?”
Evelyn shuddered, and glanced first at her husband and then at the
broken-down man on the other side of her. Her lips moved, imploring
Meredith to be kind, to be careful. Vernon raised his head, looking
still at the carpet.
“I suppose so,” he answered, in a husky voice. “Not that we need
trouble ourselves. What can he really do? Nothing. I--I am as safe as
ever.”
The vicar withdrew his hand. Calm as he had remained, he seemed to
breathe more freely at this assurance.
“I hope so, indeed,” he said, solemnly; “for all our sakes.”
Vernon rose, and his eyes met those of his brother for the first time.
He tried to speak, but only a dry, choking sound came from his parched
mouth. He seized the hand his brother held out to him, and wrung it
till the clasp of his thin, nervous fingers left livid marks on the
soft pink flesh.
“God bless you,” murmured the vicar, in his warmest tones of
encouragement and sympathy.
Again Vernon tried to speak: again he failed. With a hasty side glance
at his sister-in-law, full of a plaintive, dumb sort of gratitude and
entreaty, he crossed the room rapidly, with almost a staggering gait,
opened the door with clammy fingers, and hurried out.
Husband and wife, thus left face to face, said not a word, but each
gave a strange look of searching inquiry into the face of the other.
“Poor fellow!” said the vicar, gently.
Mrs. Brander did not answer. With a woman’s keener sympathy, she was
listening to her brother-in-law’s footsteps in the hall outside. All
there was of warmth in her somewhat cool nature was brought to the
surface to-night. As she heard the hall door open, she uttered a little
cry, and, leaving the room quickly, came up with Vernon before he had
got out of the house, and put a warm, loving hand upon his arm.
“Oh, Vernon, Vernon! I wanted to say God bless you too!” she whispered,
with tenderness most unwonted in the self-contained woman.
Vernon looked in her face with astonishment. There were tears in her
great brown eyes; tears which, if he had seen them a few months ago,
would have set his blood and his brain on fire. Now the sight of them
filled him with astonishment and gratitude, but left him calm.
“You are too kind, dear,” he said, pressing her hand affectionately in
his. “You must not trouble your head so much about me. Indeed there is
no need. Good-night, good-night.”
He stooped and kissed her hand very gently, very reverently, and left
her, hurrying down the lane without a look behind.
Evelyn Brander stared out into the darkness for some minutes after he
had disappeared from her sight. For the first time, perhaps, in all her
life she felt a vague sense that there might be something in existence
more serious, more interesting than what we should eat, and what we
should drink, and wherewithal we should be clothed.
“If I had only known,” she murmured to herself; “if I had only been
able to know!”
Then she looked curiously at the hand Vernon had kissed, seeming
surprised to find no change in its appearance. The next moment, raising
her head to its usual proud angle, with a little laugh at her own
folly, she shut herself into the house.