CECILIA PAYS HER DEBTS
CECILIA rose to meet a new day, each moment of which the coming years
failed to obliterate from her memory. In the first light hours she had
taken her happiness in her two hands and killed it, deliberately, for
the sake of the woman she loved. She had decided to part with Gilbert
Speid.
She hid nothing from herself and made no concealment. She did not
pretend that she could offer herself up willingly, or with any glow of
the emotional flame of renunciation, for she had not that temperament
which can make the sacrificial altar a bed of inverted luxury. She
neither fell on her knees, nor prayed, nor called upon Heaven to
witness her deed, because there was only one thing which she cared it
should witness, and that was Lady Eliza’s peace of mind. Nor, while
purchasing this, did she omit to count the cost. The price was a higher
one than she could afford, for, when it was paid, there would be
nothing left.
The thing which had culminated but yesterday had been growing for many
months, and only those who wait for an official stamp to be put upon
events before admitting their existence will suppose that Cecilia was
parting with what she had scarcely had time to find necessary. She was
parting with everything, and she knew it. The piteousness of her aunt’s
unquestionably real suffering was such that she determined it must end.
That someone should suffer was inevitable, and the great gallantry in
her rose up and told her that she could bear more than could Lady
Eliza.
What she could scarcely endure to contemplate was Gilbert’s trouble,
and his almost certain disbelief in the genuineness of her love. In the
eyes of the ordinary person her position was correct enough. Her
engagement had been disapproved of by her natural guardian, and she
had, in consequence, broken it. This did not affect her in any way, for
she was one to whom more than the exterior of things was necessary.
What did affect her was that, without so much as the excuse of being
forbidden to marry her lover, she was giving him his heart’s desire and
then snatching it away. But, as either he or Lady Eliza had to be
sacrificed, she determined that it should be Speid, though she never
hesitated to admit that she loved him infinitely the better of the two.
He was young, and could mend his life again, whereas, for her aunt,
there was no future which could pay her for any present loss. And she
had had so little. She understood that there was more wrapped up in
Lady Eliza’s misery than she could fathom, and that, whatever the cause
of the enigma might be, it was something vital to her peace.
The hours of the day dragged on. She did not know whether to dread
their striking or to long for the sound, for she had told her aunt that
she wished to see her lover, and tell him the truth with her own lips,
and a message had been sent to Whanland to summon him to Morphie in the
afternoon. There had been a curious interview between the two women,
and Lady Eliza had struggled between her love for her niece and her
hatred of the marriage she contemplated. She, also, had chastened her
soul in the night-season, and told herself that she would let no
antipathy of her own stand in the way of her happiness; but her
resolution had been half-hearted, and, unable to school her features or
her words, she had but presented a more vivid picture of distress. She
had not deceived Cecilia, nor, to tell the truth, had Cecilia entirely
succeeded in deceiving her; but her own feelings had made the
temptation to shut her eyes too great for her complete honesty of
purpose.
Cecilia had given her reasons for her change of intention very simply,
saying merely, that, since their discussion of yesterday, she had seen
the inadvisability of the marriage. To all questions she held as brave
a front as she could, only demanding that she should see Gilbert alone,
and tell him her decision with no intervention on the part of Lady
Eliza. To be in a position to demand anything was an unusual case for a
girl of those days, but the conditions of life at Morphie were unusual,
both outwardly and inwardly, and the two women had been for years as
nearly equals as any two can be, where, though both are rich in
character, one is complicated in temperament and the other primitive.
It was on Cecilia’s side that the real balance of power dipped, however
unconsciously to herself the scale went down.
The task before her almost took her courage away, for she had, first,
to combat Speid, when her whole heart was on his side, and then to part
from him--not perhaps, finally, in body, for she was likely to meet him
at any time, but in soul and in heart. One part of her work she would
try, Heaven helping her, to do, but the other was beyond her. Though
she would never again feel the clasp of his arm, nor hear from his lips
the words that had made yesterday the crown of her life, she would be
his till her pulses ceased to beat. Much and terribly as she longed to
see him, dread of their parting was almost stronger than the desire;
but fear lest he should suppose her decision rested on anything about
his parentage which Lady Eliza had told her kept her strong. Never
should he think that. Whatever reasons she had given her aunt, he
should not go without understanding her completely, and knowing the
truth down to the very bed-rock. She shed no tears. There would be
plenty of time for tears afterwards, she knew, when there would be
nothing for her to do, no crisis to meet, and nothing to be faced but
daily life.
Gilbert started for Morphie carrying the note she had sent him in his
pocket. He had read and re-read it many times since its arrival that
morning had filled his whole being with gloom. The idea of his
presenting himself, full of hope, to meet the decree which awaited him
was so dreadful that she had added to her summons a few sentences
telling him that he must be prepared for bad news. She had written no
word of love, for she felt that, until she had explained her position
to him, such words could only be a mockery.
He stood waiting in the room into which he had been ushered, listening
for her step. He suspected that he had been summoned to meet Lady
Eliza, but he did not mean to leave Morphie without an endeavour to see
Cecilia herself. When she entered he was standing quietly by the
mantelpiece. She looked like a ghost in her white dress, and under her
eyes the fingers of sleeplessness had traced dark marks. He sprang
forward, and drew her towards him.
‘No, no!’ she cried, throwing out her hands in front of her.
Then, as she saw his look, she faltered and dropped them, letting his
arms encircle her. The intoxication of his nearness was over her, and
the very touch of his coat against her face was rest, after the
struggle of the hours since she had seen him.
She drew herself away at last.
‘What does that message mean?’ he asked, as he let her go.
She had thought of so many things to say to him, she had meant to tell
him gently, to choose her words; but, now he was beside her, she found
that everything took flight, and only the voice of her own sorrow
remained.
‘Oh, Gilbert--Gilbert!’ she sighed, ‘there are stronger things than you
or I! Yesterday we were so happy, but it is over, and we must not think
of each other any more!’
‘Cecilia!’ he cried, aghast.
‘It is true.’
‘What are you saying?’ he exclaimed, almost roughly. ‘What did you
promise me? You said that nothing should change you, and I believed it!’
‘Nothing has--nothing can--but, for all that, you must give me up. It is
for my aunt’s sake, Gilbert. If you only saw her you would understand
what I have gone through. It is no choice of mine. How can you think it
is anything to me but despair?’
Speid’s heart sank, and the thing whose shadow had risen as he locked
up the jewels and looked at his mother’s face on the wall loomed large
again. He guessed the undercurrent of her words.
‘She has not forbidden me to marry you,’ continued Cecilia, ‘but she
has told me it will break her heart if I do, and I believe it is true.
What is the use of hiding anything from you? There is something in the
background that I did not know; but if you imagine that it can make any
difference to me, you are not the man I love, not the man I thought.
You believe me? You understand?’
‘I understand--I believe,’ he said, turning away his head. ‘Ah, my God!’
‘But you do not doubt me--myself?’ she cried, her heart wrung with fear.
He turned and looked at her. Reproach, suffering, pain unutterable were
in his eyes; but there was absolute faith too.
‘But must it be, Cecilia? I am no passive boy to let my life slip
between my fingers without an effort. Let me see Lady Eliza. Let me
make her understand what she is doing in dividing you and me. I tell
you I _will_ see her!’
‘She will not forbid it, for she has told me to act for myself and
leave her out of my thoughts; but she is broken-hearted. It is piteous
to see her face. There is something more than I know at the root of
this trouble--about you--and it concerns her. I have asked her, and
though she admitted I was right, she forbade me to speak of it. You
would have pitied her if you had seen her. I cannot make her suffer--I
cannot, even for you.’
‘And have you no pity for me?’ he broke out.
The tears she had repressed all day rushed to her eyes. She sat down
and hid her face. There was a silence as she drew out her handkerchief,
pressing it against her wet eyelashes.
‘Think of what I owe her,’ she continued, forcing her voice into its
natural tone--‘think what she has done for me! Everything in my life
that has been good has come from her, and I am the only creature she
has. How can I injure her? I thought that, at Whanland, we should
hardly have been divided, but it seems that we could never meet if I
were there. She has told me that.’
He struck the back of the chair by which he stood with his clenched
fist.
‘And so it is all over, and I am to go?’ he cried. ‘I cannot, Cecilia--I
will not accept it! I will not give you up! You may push me away now,
but I will wait for ever, for you are mine, and I shall get you in the
end!’
She smiled sadly.
‘You may waste your life in thinking of that,’ she answered. ‘To make
it afresh is the wisest thing for you to do, and you can do it. There
is the difference between you and my aunt. It is nearly over for her,
and she has had nothing; but you are young--you can remake it in time,
if you will.’
‘I will not. I will wait.’
He gazed at her, seeing into her heart and finding only truth there.
‘You will learn to forget me,’ says the flirt and jilt, raising chaste
eyes to heaven, and laying a sisterly hand on the shoulder of the man
she is torturing, while she listens, with satisfaction, to his hot and
miserable denial.
The only comfort in such cases is that he generally does so. But with
Cecilia there was no false sentiment, nor angling for words to minister
to her vanity. He knew that well. Thoroughly did he understand the
worth of what he was losing. He thought of the plans he had made only
last night, of the flowers to be planted, of the rooms to be
transformed, of the horse to be bought, of the jewels he had chosen for
her from the iron box. One was lying now in a drawer of his
writing-table, ready to be brought to her, and last night he had
dreamed that he was fastening it round her neck. That visionary act
would have to suffice him.
He came across the room and sat down by her, putting his arm about her.
They were silent for a few moments, looking together into the gulf of
separation before them. Life had played both of them an evil trick, but
there was one thing she had been unable to do, and that was to shake
their faith in each other. Cecilia had told her lover that he should
make his own afresh, and had spoken in all honesty, knowing that, could
she prevent his acting on her words by the holding up of her finger,
she would not raise it an inch; but for all that, she did not believe
he would obey her. Something in herself, which also had its counterpart
in him, could foretell that.
To struggle against her decision was, as Speid knew, hopeless, for it
was based upon what it would lower him in her eyes to oppose. To a
certain extent he saw its force, but he would not have been the man he
was, nor, indeed, a man of any kind, had he not felt hostile to Lady
Eliza. He paid small attention to the assurance that, behind her
obvious objection to his own history, there lurked a hidden personal
complication, for the details of such an all-pervading ill as the ruin
she had made for him were, to him, indifferent. He would wait
determinedly. Crauford Fordyce ran through his mind, for, though his
trust in Cecilia was complete, it had annoyed him to hear that he was
in Kaims. Evidently the young man was of a persevering nature, and,
however little worldly advantages might impress her, he knew that these
things had an almost absolute power over parents and guardians.
‘You told me to remake my life,’ he said, ‘and I have answered that I
will not. Oh, Cecilia! I cannot tell you to do that! Do you know, it
makes me wretched to think that Fordyce is here again. Forgive me for
saying it. Tell me that you can never care for him. I do not ask to
know anything more. Darling, do not be angry.’
He raised her face and looked into it. There was no anger, but a little
wan ray of amusement played round her mouth.
‘You need not be afraid; there is nothing in him to care for. His only
merits are his prospects, and Heaven knows they do not attract me,’ she
replied.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck, and the two looked up. Outside on
the grass the shadows of the grazing sheep were long. His arm tightened
round her.
‘I cannot go yet,’ he said. ‘A little longer, Cecilia--a few
minutes--and then the sooner it is over the better.’
The room grew very still, and, through the open window, came the long
fluting of a blackbird straying in the dew. All her life the sound
carried Cecilia back to that hour. There seemed nothing more to be
spoken but that last word that both were dreading.
‘This is only torment,’ she said at last--‘go now.’
An overpowering longing rushed through her to break the web that
circumstances had woven between them, to take what she had renounced,
to bid him stay, to trust to chance that time would make all well. How
could she let him go when it lay in her hands to stave off the moment
that was coming? She had reached the turning-point, the last piece of
her road at which she could touch hands with happiness.
He was holding her fast.
‘I am going,’ he said, in a voice like the voice of a stranger--someone
a long way off.
She could not speak. There were a thousand things which, when he was
gone, she knew that she must blame herself for not saying, but they
would not stay with her till her lips could frame them.
‘Perhaps we shall sometimes see each other,’ he whispered, ‘but God
knows if I could bear it.’
They clung together in a maze of kisses and incoherent words. When they
separated, she stood trembling in the middle of the room. He looked
back at her from the threshold, and turned again.
‘Gilbert! Gilbert!’ she cried, throwing her arms round his neck.
Then they tore themselves apart, and the door closed between them and
upon everything that each had come to value in life.
When the sound of his horse’s feet had died, she stayed on where he had
left her. One who is gone is never quite gone while we retain the fresh
impression of his presence. She knew that, and she was loth to leave a
place which seemed still to hold his personality. She sat on,
unconscious of time, until a servant came into shut the windows, and
then she went downstairs and stood outside the front-door upon the
flags. The blackbird was still on the grass whistling, but at the
sudden appearance of her figure in the doorway, he flew, shrieking in
rich gutturals, into cover.