The storm had burst. Poor little Betty's half-superstitious misgivings,
that in their case "the course of true love" was "running too smooth" to
last, for her and Horace, seemed to have been prophetic. For, as
Frances, with her experience of her father's peculiarities, had feared,
once the idea had entered Mr Morion's mind (suggested in the first
place negatively by Horace's non-allusion in his letter to his mother or
his family) that but scanty welcome was to be accorded to his daughter,
he mounted a very high horse indeed. He refused to entertain for an
instant the idea of India for her; he went back upon the Littlewoods'
shorter pedigree and deficient quarterings; he worked himself up to
refuse his sanction to any engagement of any kind!
Horace, as his letter showed, was in despair. Betty was palely
miserable, though between the two themselves the opposition but
strengthened their trust and devotion. Frances suffered for both to an
extent which really blotted out the sting of her own disillusionment
more completely than she as yet realised.
Things were in this position when one afternoon, about a week after the
receipt of Horace's letter by Mr Morion, Frances, feeling
self-reproachful for having omitted her usual visits to Scaling Harbour
during the last few days, made her way thither, feeling, sadly depressed
and almost hopeless. The sight of Betty's white face was beyond the
reach of her philosophy.
"I cannot bear to see her," she thought to herself, "just when I thought
_her_ happiness, at least, was secured;" and it took considerable
self-control to listen with her usual sympathy and attention to all the
confidences, requests for advice, hopes and troubles, which were poured
out upon her by her now familiar friends among the fisher-folk. And of
all these there was to-day a more than usual amount, partly owing to her
own temporary absence, partly owing to an unfortunate coincidence, which
she now learnt for the first time, that during the last fortnight Mr
Darnley had been forced to go away for change and rest.
Everything down here, too, seemed to have been going crookedly, and her
face, as she turned the corner of the main street on her way home again,
looked very unlike its serene self.
So absent-minded was she that she almost ran against a man walking
rapidly in the opposite direction; it was not till his murmured "I beg
your pardon" made her glance up quickly that she saw, to her amazement,
that the newcomer was no other than Mr Ryder Morion. She gave a little
exclamation of surprise, and somehow, almost in the same instant, the
expression of his eyes, kind and somewhat concerned, sent through her a
curious little instinct of hopefulness.
"Can he have heard about it?" she thought, and his next words did not
dispel the idea, though they scarcely confirmed it. He turned at once
as if to accompany her.
"You are not looking well, Miss Morion," he said. "I am afraid you have
been overworking yourself down here, with Darnley's absence. I only
heard of it on my arrival at Craig-Morion last night. There are several
things that need seeing to at once, so I am doubly glad I came, even
though I may miss him. But you mustn't burden yourself too much."
"On the contrary," said Frances, her colour deepening, "I am reproaching
myself with having done nothing here lately. I--we have been a good
deal absorbed at home by other things. And I, too, did not know Mr
Darnley had been ill. It does seem unfortunate--before his helper, the
new curate, has come, too. Things always seem so contrary," with a
little attempt at a smile.
"That is not your usual way of looking at the world," said her
companion. "I hope--I am afraid--do not think me impertinent--I hope
your home absorptions have not been painful ones."
Frances' lips opened and closed again. "I--I wonder if you know
anything?" she said, with a kind of abrupt frankness; "but I must not
take you out of your course--you were going in the opposite direction."
"I had only one more thing to do," he said, "and then I am going home.
It was, in fact, a second thought--may I overtake you? I shall not be
more than five minutes, and I want to talk to you about some of the
people down here. I am sorry about the Silvers. I want to see Mrs
Silver again for half a moment."
Frances looked up.
"I was afraid there was something the matter there," she said. "Though
Jenny did not say much."
"I will tell you about it," he replied, as he hurried off.
As soon as he had turned the corner, Frances--who was feeling very
tired, and yet, inconsistently enough, far less depressed than five
minutes ago--sat down on one of the rocky boulders strewn capriciously
about this part of the coast, even some little way inland. Down below,
the little waves were rippling in gently, gleaming softly in the
sunshine; the day was balmy rather than brilliant--there was a sense of
afternoon restfulness over the whole, very soothing and congenial. She
felt as if she could trust Ryder Morion, and the impulse grew stronger
upon her to tell him everything, whether or not he was already prepared
for it. But before she had time to come to any decision he was back
again. She started to her feet at the sound of his approaching steps.
"What is it about the Silvers?" she said.
"Nothing very grave, I hope; it is only that Jack came home--well, not
sober--the other night. It is only the second time it has happened, but
I don't wonder at the poor little woman being uneasy. She was ashamed
to tell you, but--I am sure you will not mind--she has promised me to
let you know if it seems well to do anything in the way of giving him `a
talking-to.' It appears that Mr Ferraby knows them both well--he
married them--and in Darnley's absence his influence might be of use."
For a minute or two they went on talking about the Harbour and its
inhabitants. Then there came a little pause. Without appearing to do
so, Mr Morion had by this time made his own observations, and drawn his
own conclusions therefrom.
"She is very troubled," he thought. "I feel sure that it is about this
affair of Horace's. I wish I understood better. Why could he not have
told me the whole?"
Frances walked on, her eyes bent on the ground, thinking deeply. Once
or twice her companion hazarded some remark in hopes of drawing her into
speech again. But she scarcely seemed to hear him. Then, suddenly, she
looked up as if she had come to a decision.
"Mr Morion," she began, "I am anxious and unhappy, as you have seen.
Worst of all, I am utterly at a loss how to act, or rather how to advise
others to act who look to me for advice. I had not, of course, the
slightest idea that you were here, but yet you were one of the very few
whom I wished I could tell about this trouble. You--and Madeleine--the
only two, perhaps. Shall I tell you the whole?--regardless of the
rather peculiar position you are in to both sides, as it were."
"Perhaps I know more already than you suspect," he said gently. "That
may make it easier for you. It is about Horace Littlewood, is it not?
and--your sister. Please do tell me exactly how things stand. I gather
that you are free to do so. And please forget that I am myself--except
in so far as my position towards all concerned might give me more power
of judgment. You see, I know all the Littlewoods well. Horace's mother
is a good woman and means to be a just one. Don't exaggerate about her.
I fancy she is not at present being true to her best self."
"I hope so," said Frances. "I hope so indeed. I will tell you all,"
and so she did.
It was not difficult, once she had begun. He drew from her with
infinite tact, the tact born of true interest, the conflicting shades of
feeling which were complicating the whole. For she was too essentially
dutiful a daughter to throw any avoidable blame upon her father, yet too
fair-minded not to allow that his extreme attitude--his mixing up of
personal feeling and family prejudice where there was no need to have
brought them in--was every day making conciliation more and more
difficult.
"He will not hear of Betty's going to India," she said, "and has now
reached the length of saying that under no circumstances would he
sanction the engagement. And surely that is not fair or right? Eira
declares," she went on in a lighter tone, "that it is a case which would
justify the two principals in running away."
"I almost sympathise with her," said Mr Morion, "still--that _would_ be
an extreme measure! If Horace were independent, I mean practically so--
so placed that he could marry without imprudence, I should say, do so!
and trust to time and her real good feeling to conquer his mother's
unreasonableness."
"Ah, yes," said Frances, "but you are forgetting papa: we could not risk
it with him, and Betty would be miserable through her whole life if
there were any coldness with her own people. You see, papa is so
_sore_. It is not that he is ungenerous: he wouldn't mind if Horace had
nothing, if _he_ could give her enough. But he has been brought up to
feel sore about things, and he cannot throw it off." For the moment she
had really forgotten to whom she was speaking.
In one direction her companion was glad of this; it was what he had
asked her to do. On the other hand--"Am I growing very selfish and
grasping?" was the thought that went through his mind. "I should like
to say, or at least to feel, that all this has come from the old
disappointment--our great-grand-aunt's failing to keep her promise, and
to regret it as heartily as George Morion himself could do. But I
cannot. There is a strange survival in me of the old family feeling as
to this queer place. I would sacrifice a good deal rather than let it
go from the old name."
"Some way must be found out of the difficulty," he said at last, aloud.
"We cannot stand by and see these two young lives clouded and perhaps
spoilt, and Betty looks a fragile, sensitive little creature."
"She is stronger than you would think; strong enough and deep enough to
suffer a good deal," answered Frances; but, as Mr Morion glanced at the
grave young face beside him, it struck him that Betty would be by no
means the only one on whom all this trouble would leave its mark.
"I shall be here for a few days," he said. "Will you trust me to think
it well out, and see where or how I can be of use? I would go to see
Mrs Littlewood if that could help matters."
Frances looked at him with thankful eyes, and again there came over her,
still more strongly, the sense of strength and protection she had
already been instinctively conscious of. To her it was a strange and
novel but none the less grateful sensation. Even with Horace she had
never experienced it in the same way.
"I suppose it is that he is so much older," she thought, "and that it
has never come in my way before--for with poor papa it has always been
us trying to shelter _him_!"
Their talk had carried them far on their road. Half-unconsciously
Frances had passed through the lodge gates which Mr Morion opened for
her, thus making her way home across the park, till they reached the
usual short cut to Fir Cottage, where he came to a halt.
"I will not attempt to see your father for a day or two," he said. "I
will write to him asking when I may call."
"Thank you," said Frances, "that will be best. And in the meantime I
will not mention having seen you. As things are, I think it will be
better. But," with a little touch of anxiety and appeal, new in her,
but none the less charming, "you will be sure not to go away without
letting me know?"
"Certainly not," he replied. "I think very probably my first step will
be to write fully to Horace, which may lead to my going to see his
mother. If so, I will tell you."
Five minutes later Frances entered her own home with a heart
considerably lightened. Her burden was at least shared. She felt too
that she had laid it in willing and helpful hands.
"How little, how very little," she thought to herself, "did we ever
imagine that Ryder Morion was the sort of man--would be the sort of
friend he is!" And though she did not as yet feel free to tell Betty of
the somewhat clearing horizon, her new hopefulness made itself
instinctively felt.
"Things will come right somehow, I feel convinced!" she did say to her
sisters, for poor Eira stood in need of cheering almost as much as
Horace's _fiancee_ herself.
Frances' sleep that night was disturbed, to an extent which rarely
occurred with her, by strange and fantastic dreams. Her common-sense
explained them, partially at least, by the unusually anxious and almost
overstrained condition of her mind and nerves. Yet, as she lay awake
the next morning in the early summer daylight, she could not altogether
account for them in this way.
"I wonder if there really are occult influences of which we are only
conscious when the more material part of us is inactive," she said to
herself. "It would seem so, though it would be dangerous to give too
much thought to such a possibility. It would interfere with ordinary
life and duties."
Yet, despite this practical view of the matter, she could not succeed in
throwing off what had been the predominant impression of her visions,
even though these in themselves had grown vague and confused. She was
haunted by a feeling that there was something for her to do, something
that some one--who or where she knew not--was wishing her to do. Now
and then in the stillness, broken but by the voices of the little birds
outside, she could almost have believed that whispers, like a far-off
murmur of the sea, were growing all but audible to some interior faculty
of hearing which under normal conditions she was unconscious of
possessing. The dreams themselves had been a fantastic mingling of fact
and fancy, as indeed dreams commonly are. It had seemed to her that she
was again on the sea-shore near the Harbour, but late at night instead
of in the balmy sunshine. Cries of distress reached her, apparently
from a boat some little way out at sea, and her first thought was of
Jack Silver, who, she imagined, must be in danger. She turned to run
homewards in search of help, when suddenly she found herself in the
Laurel Walk, at the other extremity of which--the farther end from the
house--she saw a light gleaming more distinctly and brightly than the
faint reflection which it had puzzled both herself and Ryder Morion to
account for that night when they were standing at the library window.
She tried to follow the light, but found to her distress that she could
not overtake it, her feet seeming too tired and heavy to move, though
she was conscious that the beacon was intended to direct her towards the
church. Then came another sudden change of scene and of time. She was
a little girl again, playing in their own garden with her two still
smaller sisters, Eira rolling on the lawn, Betty clinging to her as if
asking to be carried. But with the effort to lift the child came again
the painful sensation of powerlessness, till, glancing up, she saw a
white figure standing beside them, whose sweet, pale face bent gently
over the child, while a voice whispered softly: "Forgive me, and let me
lift her!" At the words a shudder, not so much of fear as of awe, went
through Frances, and the relief was great when, on her endeavouring to
interpose, she saw that where the weird figure had been standing there
was now in its stead that of Ryder Morion with a reassuring smile on his
face. But before she quite awoke she seemed again to hear the pleading
voice, though from a greater distance, and to feel, rather than hear,
the words "Forgive me, and try--" and with the unfinished sentence the
dream broke off, and she awoke with the sense, as has been said, of some
task having been laid upon her to accomplish.
Nor did this leave her during the next few days, though from time to
time the impression somewhat faded. Rather to her disappointment and
surprise, she heard nothing of any note or letter to her father from
Ryder Morion. No one but herself seemed to have known of his being in
the neighbourhood! She could almost have fancied that her walk and talk
with him had been a curiously rational episode in the strange dream
which had visited her that same night. But all doubt of the reality of
his material presence was put to flight by a letter which she received
on the fourth morning after having met him. A letter which fortunately
did not attract her father's attention, as the Fir Cottage bag was
rather unusually full that day, and which she was able to read without
any one noticing it. It contained but a few lines:
"Dear Miss Morion,--
"I am afraid you will scarcely feel inclined to trust me any more,
when you see that I have left Craig-Morion without seeing you again or
writing to you,"--for the letter was dated from the writer's club in
London. "I was summoned quite unexpectedly up to town. I think,
however, the matter which we were talking about will not suffer from
this; on the contrary, it may turn out for the better. I will write
again before long,--
"Yours very sincerely,--
"Ryder Morion."
This explained the silence, and Frances was fain to take refuge again in
the patience of not wholly unhopeful waiting. More than this, she
succeeded in cheering poor Betty, and that not groundlessly, for her
confidence in Ryder Morion suffered no diminution.
Still those were trying days, at best.
Late one afternoon, just as tea was over, Frances was told that a young
woman was asking to speak to her, waiting at the back door.
"Is it any one you know by sight?" she inquired of the parlour-maid.
"I _think_ she has been here before, miss," was the reply. "She comes
from Scaling Harbour, but"--with a little hesitation--"she seems rather
in trouble. I don't think she would give me her message," and at these
words there returned to Frances' memory the promise Ryder Morion had
made to Jenny Silver of help and advice, should need arise, from
herself.
She started to her feet with some self-reproach for having forgotten, in
the pressure of other thoughts, the poor girl's anxiety. And further
back in her mind there lurked another remembrance, which did not till
later on take distinct form. It was that of the association of some
trouble menacing the young couple of which she had dreamt, though but
for this visit she would probably never have thought of it again.
As she expected, the figure awaiting her was that of Jenny Silver.
"Oh, miss!" she exclaimed. "I am ashamed to trouble you, but the
gentleman told me I might come to you if things got worse."
"You were quite right to come," said Frances, and as she spoke she
glanced round. "I will come out with you a little," she said. She
still wore her out-of-door things. "We shall be quieter in the garden."
And she took the poor woman to a seat hidden in the shrubberies.
After all, things with the Silvers were not in one direction as bad as
she had feared. Jenny had come to her partly because her husband's old
father was very ill--dying, in short. Her Jack, she went on to say, had
not offended again, but he had remained sullen and unlike himself. This
had troubled the old man, and Jenny had come to ask if Miss Morion
thought it would be possible to get Mr Ferraby to go to see him the
next day.
"Father thinks a deal of the old vicar," said the young woman, "and he
thinks maybe it would be a good chance for Jack to start fresh again.
Father can't be with us long, and the vicar might know how to get hold
of Jack just at this time."
Frances quite agreed with her that the opportunity should not be lost,
and after a little more talk it was settled that she should walk up to
the vicarage with Jenny, and explain things in the first place to Mr
Ferraby, as it was a good while since he had seen any of the Silver
family. Jenny was full of gratitude for Miss Morion's help, and
fortunately they found the old vicar at home. A few minutes' talk
between him and Frances while Mrs Silver waited outside put him in
possession of the state of the case, and he expressed himself as eager
and ready to help and sanguine as to the result of a good talk with the
young man.
"He is far from a bad fellow," he said, "though I am not surprised at
Jenny being anxious. Her own people, the Bretts, have always been so
very respectable and sober that the contrast between them and what she
sees down at the Harbour must be painful. But put them off your mind,
my dear Frances; Darnley and I will see to it that he is pulled up in
time."
So Frances was able to say a hopeful word to the young wife before she
sent her into the vicarage, promising to look her up at home before
long; and when Jenny disappeared through the glass door of Mr Ferraby's
study, she turned away again with a feeling of relief, so far as her
poor friends were concerned.