IN SILENCE AND TEARS.
When he had time to think, Colonel Kelmscott determined in his
own mind that he would still do his best to save Granville, whether
Granville himself wished it or otherwise. So he proceeded to take
all the necessary steps for breaking the entail and raising the
money he needed for Guy and Cyril.
In all this, Granville neither acquiesced nor dissented. He
signed mechanically whatever documents his father presented to him,
and he stood by his bargain with a certain sullen, undeviating,
hard-featured loyalty; but he never forgot those few angry words
in which his father had half let out his long-guarded life secret.
Thinking the matter over continually with himself, however, he came
in the end to the natural conclusion that one explanation alone
would fit all the facts. He was not his father's eldest son at all.
Colonel Kelmscott must have been married to some one else before
his marriage with Lady Emily. That some one else's son was the
real heir of Tilgate. And it was to him that his father, in his
passionate penitence, proposed, after many years, to do one-sided
justice. Now Granville Kelmscott, though a haughty and somewhat
head-strong fellow, after the fashion of his race, was a young man
of principle and of honour. The moment this hideous doubt occurred
to his mind, he couldn't rest in his bed till he had cleared it
all up and settled it for ever, one way or the other. If Tilgate
wasn't his, by law and right, he wanted none of it. If his father
was trying to buy off the real heir to the estate with a pitiful
pittance, in order to preserve the ill-gotten remainder for Lady
Emily's son, why, Granville for his part would be no active party
to such a miserable compromise. If some other man was the Colonel's
lawful heir, let that other man take the property and enjoy it; but
he, Granville Kelmscott, would go forth upon the world, an honest
adventurer, to seek his fortune with his own right hand wherever
he might find it.
Still, he could take no active step, on the other hand, to hunt
up the truth about the Colonel's real or supposed first marriage.
For here an awful dilemma blocked the way before him. If the Colonel
had married before, and if by that former marriage he had a son or
sons--how could Granville be sure the supposed first wife was dead
before the second was married? And supposing, for a moment, she
was not dead--supposing his father had been even more criminal and
more unjust than he at first imagined--how could he take the initiative
himself in showing that his own mother, Lady Emily Kelmscott, was
no wife at all in the sight of the law? that some other woman was
his father's lawful consort? The bare possibility of such an issue
was too horrible for any son on earth to face undismayed. So,
tortured and distracted by his divided duty, Granville Kelmscott
shrank alike from action or inaction.
In the midst of such doubts and difficulties, however, one duty
shone out clear as day before him. Till the mystery was cleared
up, till the problem was solved, he must see no more of Gwendoline
Gildersleeve. He had engaged himself to her as the heir of Tilgate.
She had accepted him under that guise, and looked forward to an
early and happy marriage. Now, all was changed. He was, or might
be, a beggar and an outcast. To be sure, he knew Gwendoline loved
him for himself; but how could he marry her if he didn't even know
he had anything of his own in the world to marry upon? The park
and fallow deer had been a part of himself; without them, he felt
he was hardly even a Kelmscott. It was his plain duty, now, for
Gwendoline's sake, to release her from her promise to a man who
might perhaps be penniless, and who couldn't even feel sure he was
the lawful son of his own father. And yet--for Lady Emily's sake--he
mustn't hint, even to Gwendoline, the real reason which moved him
to offer her this release. He must throw himself upon her mercy,
without cause assigned, and ask her for the time being to have
faith in him and to believe him.
So, a day or two after the interview with his father in the library,
the self-disinherited heir of Tilgate took the path through the
glade that led into the dell beyond the boundary fence--that dell
which had once been accounted a component part of Tilgate Park,
but which Gilbert Gildersleeve had proved, in his cold-blooded
documentary legal way, to belong in reality to the grounds
of Woodlands. It was in the dell that Granville sometimes ran up
against Gwendoline. He sat down on the broken ledge of ironstone
that overhung the little brook. It was eleven o'clock gone. By
eleven o'clock, three mornings in the week, chance--pure chance--the
patron god of lovers, brought Gwendoline into the dell to meet him.
Presently, a light footfall rang soft upon the path, and next
moment a tall and beautiful girl, with a wealth of auburn hair, and
a bright colour in her cheeks, tripped lightly down the slope, as
if strolling through the wood in maiden meditation, fancy free,
unexpecting any one.
"What, you here, Mr. Kelmscott?" she exclaimed, as she saw him,
her pink cheek deepening as she spoke to a still profounder crimson.
"Yes, I'm here, Gwendoline," Granville Kelmscott answered, with
a smile of recognition at her maidenly pretence of an undesigned
coincidence. "And I'm here, to say the truth, because I quite
expected this morning to meet you."
He took her hand gravely. Gwendoline let her eyes fall modestly
on the ground, as if some warmer greeting were more often bestowed
between them. The young man blushed with a certain manly shame.
"No, not to-day, dear," he said, with an effort, as she held her
cheek aside, half courting and half deprecating the expected kiss.
"Oh, Gwendoline, I don't know how to begin. I don't know how to say
it. But I've got very sad news for you--news that I can't bear to
break--that I can't venture to explain--that I don't even properly
understand myself. I must throw myself upon your faith. I must just
ask you to trust me."
Gwendoline let him seat her, unresisting, upon the ledge by his
side, and her cheek grew suddenly ashy pale, as she answered with
a gasp, forgetting the "Mr. Kelmscott" at this sudden leap into
the stern realities of life, "Why, Granville, what do you mean?
You know I can trust you. You know, whatever it may be, I believe
you implicitly."
The young man took her hand in his with a tender pressure. It was
a terrible message to have to deliver. He bungled and blundered
on, with many twists and turns, through some inarticulate attempt at
an indefinite explanation. It wasn't that he didn't love her--oh,
devotedly, eternally, she must know that well; she never could doubt
it. It wasn't that any shadow had arisen between him and her, it
wasn't anything he could speak about, or anything she must say to
any soul on earth--oh, for his mother's sake, he hoped and trusted
she would religiously keep his secret inviolate! But something had
happened to him within the last few days--something unspeakable,
indefinite, uncertain, vague, yet very full of the most dreadful
possibilities; something that might make him unable to support a
wife; something that at least must delay or postpone for an unknown
time the long-hoped-for prospect of his claiming her and marrying
her. Some day, perhaps--he broke off suddenly, and looked with a
wistful look into her deep grey eyes. His resolution failed him.
"One kiss," he said, "Gwendoline!" His voice was choking. The
beautiful girl, turning towards him with a wild sob, fell, yielding
herself on his breast, and cried hot tears of joy at that evident
sign that, in spite of all he said, he still really loved her.
They sat there long, hand in hand, and eye on eye, talking it all
over, as lovers will, with infinite delays, yet getting no nearer
towards a solution either way. Gwendoline, for her part, didn't
care, of course--what true woman does?--whether Granville was the
heir of Tilgate or not; she would marry him all the more, she said,
if he were a penniless nobody. All she wanted was to love him and
be near him. Let him marry her now, marry her to-day, and then go
where he would in the world to seek his livelihood. But Granville,
poor fellow, alarmed at the bare suggestion--for his mother's
sake--that Tilgate might really not be his, checked her at once
in her outburst with a grave, silent look; he was still, he said
calmly, the inheritor of Tilgate. It wasn't that. At least, not
as she took it. He didn't know precisely what it was himself. She
must have faith in him and trust him. She must wait and see. In
the end, he hoped, he would come back and marry her.
And Gwendoline made answer, with many tears, that she knew it was
so, and that she loved him and trusted him. So, after sitting there
long, hand locked in hand, and heart intent on heart, the two young
people rose at last to go, protesting and vowing their mutual love
on either side, as happy and as miserable in their divided lives
as two young people in all England that moment. Over and over again
they kissed and said good-bye; then they stood with one another's
fingers clasped hard in their own, unwilling to part, and unable to
loose them. After that, they kissed again, and declared once more
they were broken-hearted, and could never leave one another. But
still, Granville added, half aside, he must make up his mind not to
see Gwendoline again--honour demanded that sacrifice--till he could
come at last a rich man to claim her. Meanwhile, she was free; and
he--he was ever hers, devotedly, whole-souledly. But they were no
longer engaged. He was hers in heart only. Let her try to forget
him. He could never forget her.
And Gwendoline, sobbing and tearful, but believing him implicitly,
retreated with slow steps, looking back at each turn of the zigzag
path, and sending the ghosts of dead kisses from her finger-tips
to greet him.
Below in the dell Granville stood still, and watched her depart in
breathless silence. Then, in an agony of despair, he flung himself
down on the ground and burst into tears, and sobbed like a child
over his broken daydream.
Gwendoline, coming back to make sure, saw him lying and sobbing
so; and, woman-like, felt compelled to step down just one minute
to comfort him. Granville in turn refused her proffered comfort--it
was better so--he mustn't listen to her any more; he must steel
himself to say No; he must remember it was dishonourable of him
to drag a delicately nurtured girl into a penniless marriage. Then
they kissed once more and made it all up again; and they sobbed and
wept as before, and broke it off for ever; and they said good-bye
for the very last time; and they decided they must never meet till
Granville came back; and they hoped they would sometimes catch
just a glimpse of one another in the outer world, and whatever the
other one said or did, they would each in their hearts be always
true to their first great love; and they were more miserable still,
and they were happier than they had ever been in their lives before;
and they parted at last, with a desperate effort, each perfectly
sure of the other's love, and each vowing in soul they would never,
never see one another again, but each, for all that, perfectly
certain that some day or other they would be husband and wife,
though Tilgate and the wretched little fallow deer should sink,
unwept, to the bottom of the ocean.