And I said--Is this the sky, all grey and silver-suited?
And I said--Is this the sea, that lies so pale and wan?
I have dreamed, as I remember--give me time, I was reputed
Once to have a steady courage--now, I fear, 'tis gone!
_Requiescat in Pace._
Claud sat somewhat despondently at Mr. Fowler's side in the tall
dog-cart as they spun along the lanes from Stanton back to Lower House.
Their errand had been to convey some of the Allonbys' luggage to the
station, and see the family off to London.
They were gone; and the two gentlemen who had just seen the last of them
were both silent, for different reasons: Claud, because he was resenting
the indifference of Wynifred's manner, and Henry, because he was
secretly angry with Claud. He did not understand so much beating about
the bush. Naturally Mr. Cranmer could not afford to marry an entirely
portionless wife; very well, then he ought to have packed his
portmanteau and taken his departure long ago, instead of following Miss
Allonby hither and thither, engaging her in conversation whenever he
could secure her attention, and generally behaving as though seriously
attracted--risking the girl's happiness, Mr. Fowler called it. To be
sure the conversations seemed usually to end in a wrangle; there was
nothing tender in them. Wynifred's serenity of aspect was unruffled when
Claud approached, and she never appeared to regret him when he departed
in dudgeon. A secret wonder as to whether she could have refused him
suggested itself, but was rejected as unlikely. Still the master of
Lower House was not accustomed to see young people on such odd terms
together; and it vexed him.
The last fortnight of the young artist's stay at Edge had been full of
excitement; for Osmond had made full confession to the Misses Willoughby
of his love and his imprudent declaration. The good ladies passed
through more violent phases of feeling than had been theirs for years.
Astonishment, fright, excitement, a vague triumph in the subjugation of
the tall, handsome young man had struggled for the mastery in their
hearts. Finally they had called in Mr. Fowler to arbitrate.
He came to the conclusion which Osmond felt certain that he would,
namely: that Elsa could not yet know her own mind. She must be left for
a year, at least, to gain some knowledge of society; he would not hear
of her binding herself by any promise.
As to young Allonby, he had personally no objection in the world to him.
He both liked and respected him, though unable to help feeling sorry
that he had so prematurely disclosed his love to the girl. He would
gladly see him engaged to her as soon as ever he could show that it was
in his power to maintain her in the position to which she was born.
But, on descending to practical details, it seemed to poor Osmond that
it might be years before he could claim to be the possessor even of a
clear five hundred a-year, unencumbered by sisters. Wynifred sympathized
with him so deeply as to make her preoccupied during all her last days
at Edge. Claud Cranmer's vagaries could not be so important as her
darling brother's happiness. Though the engagement was not allowed, yet
the attitude of the Misses Willoughby was anything but hostile. Osmond
was a favorite with all, and Miss Ellen was privately determined that
if, when Elsa was twenty-one, want of money should be the only barrier
to their happiness, she should consent to the marriage, and make them a
yearly allowance, with the understanding that all came to them at the
death of the sisters. But first it was only just that Osmond should be
for a time on probation, that they might see of what stuff he was made;
and communication could be kept up by means of a correspondence between
Elsa and Jacqueline, who had struck up something of a friendship, as
girls will.
It was now finally settled that Elsa should go to London in November,
spend a month or two with Lady Mabel, and then a short time with the
Ortons. In London she would naturally meet the Allonbys, and this
delightful consideration went far to dry the passionate tears she shed
on the departure of her lover.
During the fortnight which had elapsed since the picnic, there had been
an ominous calm on the part of Godfrey. His two or three hours'
detention on the cliffs had given him a wholesome awe of Osmond, and
each day afterwards he had been so meek that everyone was beginning to
hope that he was not so black as he was painted.
Osmond, to show he bore no malice, had taken pains to have the boy
included in all their expeditions; so that he remarked one day to Elsa:
"Allonby's not half a bad fellow, and I'm hanged if I ever lift a finger
to help him to marry a wretched little sneak like you. If you'd been
anything like decently behaved to me, I'd have settled some of my
fortune on you, but now I'd sooner give him ten thousand down to let you
alone. I should like him to know what sort you are; but the jolliest
fellows are fools when they're in love."
"What money have you got that I haven't, I should like to know?" Elsa
had retorted, unwisely. "I am the eldest--I ought to have the most."
"Jupiter! D'you mean to say the old girls have never told you that our
papa left me all the cash? Quite the right thing, too. What's a girl to
do with money? Only brings a set of crawling fortune-hunters round her.
But, if you'd been anything like, I'd have settled something handsome on
you when I come of age; as it is, you won't get one penny out of me."
"I don't believe a word you say!"
"All right; but you'd better be careful how you cheek me. I'm going to
pay you out for all the lies you told Allonby about me. I haven't
forgotten. You just keep your weather-eye open, my lady. You'll get
something you won't fancy, I can tell you."
From this menace, Elsa went straight to her Aunt Ellen, to ask if it was
true that all her father's fortune was left to Godfrey. In great concern
at her having been told, Miss Ellen was obliged to own that it was so,
though she still concealed the fact that flagrant injustice had been
done, the money so bequeathed having all come to Colonel Brabourne
through his first wife. This part of the story, however, was gleefully
supplied by Godfrey, who had been lying in ambush outside the door to
jeer at her as she came out.
"Well, ain't it true? Eh? I don't tell so many crackers as you, you see.
And the joke of it is that all the money came from your mother, and now
my mother's son has got it. My! weren't the old aunts in a state, too?
You should hear my Uncle Fred on the subject! But if your mother was
like these old cats I'm sure my papa must have been jolly glad to be
quit of her!"
Elsa darted at him with a cry of rage, but he saved himself by flight.
If anything had been wanting to fill the cup of her hatred to the brim,
here it was. Had it not been for this child, she would have been
rich--very rich. She would have been able to marry Osmond, to have a
large fine house in London, to have her gowns cut like Lady Mabel's, and
to possess necklaces, lace, jewels, and all things beautiful in
profusion.
He had stolen her fortune, insulted her mother, humiliated herself. The
violence of her wrath and rancour were beyond all limits, and she had
never been taught self control. She loathed Godfrey; the very sight of
him choked her; she could scarcely swallow food when he was at the
table; yet she had no thought of appealing to her aunts. She had never
received sympathy in all her life--why should she expect it now?
Such was the state of things at Edge Willoughby. The stagnant days of
yore, when existence merely flowed quietly on from hour to hour, were no
more. The spell was broken, the prince had kissed and wakened the
sleeping beauty--human passion had rushed in upon the passionless calm,
the tide of life from the outer world was flowing, flowing in the fresh
breeze.
Partly on all these changes was Mr. Cranmer meditating as they drove
back to Lower House in the dulness of an autumn afternoon.
The weather was threatening, the sea of that strange, thick, lurid
tinge, which suggests a disturbance somewhere under the surface. The
gulls skimmed low, with strange cries, over the sluggish heaving water.
He thought of the hot bright day of the picnic, when the young gulls
were not yet flown, and when their wild laughter echoed along the
nest-riddled cliff walls.
A melancholy feeling was upon him, that the year was broken and gone,
that there would be no more fair weather, no more violet and amber and
crimson in the west.
To-morrow he was to leave the valley and go north to shoot over a
friend's moor in Scotland. It was the best thing he could do, he told
himself. There would be plenty of society, such different society from
that he had known of late. There would be women of his set, women who
spoke the social shibboleths he knew. There would be bleak moorland and
dark grey rock, which would not seem so horribly at variance with cold
weather as did this Valley of Avilion; for the whole party, taking their
cue from Osmond, had been wont to speak of Edge always as Avilion.
At Ardnacruan he felt certain that he would regain his normal serenity,
his cheerful from-day-to-day enjoyment of life; but this afternoon all
influences seemed combined to make him experience that nameless feeling
of misery and loss which the Germans call _katzenjammer_. The first
verse of "James Lee's Wife" was saying itself over and over in his
head, and he could not forget it. The mare's feet, in their even trot,
kept time to it, the rolling of the wheels formed a sad, monotonous
accompaniment.
"Ah, love, but a day,
And the world has changed!
The sun's away
And the bird estranged.
The wind has dropped
And the sky's deranged,
Summer has stopped."
He wished he had had the sense to leave the place a day before instead
of a day after the Allonbys. He knew that he had been due at Ardnacruan
on Tuesday, and to-day was Thursday. Why on earth had he been so
idiotic, so weak, so altogether contemptible?
Well, it was over now, and he meant for the future to possess his soul,
untroubled by any distressing emotions; and, meanwhile, the thoughts of
Wynifred, as she sat in the train, steaming towards London, were almost
exactly a reproduction of his own.
Every turn of the lanes through which they drove brought back to Claud a
memory of something which had taken place during the past summer. Here
was a view they had admired together--here the quaint old gateway,
half-way down the hill which Wynifred had sketched, the lane sloping so
abruptly that the back legs of her camp-stool had to be artificially
supported. In that field Hilda and Jac had laid out tea, and the whole
party had enjoyed a warm discussion on the subject of family
shibboleths. It began by Hilda's remarking that poor old Osmond could
hardly be looked upon as a war-horse any longer; and, on being pressed
to unravel this dark saying, she had explained with some confusion, that
_war-horse_ had been Jac's translation of _hors de combat_ at a very
early age, and that they had always used it since, which led on to
various other specimens from nursery dictionaries, and much amusing
nonsense. It was all past now.
In Claud's mind was a bitter thought which has countless times occurred
to most of us, that the past is absolutely irreclaimable. We can never
have our good minute again; it is gone. He knew the mood would pass, but
that did not lessen the suffering while it lasted. Would he ever regret
the days that were gone, with a regret that should be lifelong--was it
possible that an hour might dawn in the far future when he should be
prepared to give all to have that time again, that he might yield to the
impulses of his heart, and speak as he felt?
"It will come, I suspect, at the end of life,
When you sit alone and review the past."
What nonsense!
As the dog-cart shot in through the gates of Lower House, he shook
himself, and roused from his morbid reverie.
"How conversational we have both been!" he said, with a laugh.
"Yes," said Henry, gazing round with a sad expression in his kind eyes.
"We miss those merry girls."
"They seem to enjoy life," observed Claud.
"Yes, indeed; and what makes it so fascinating is the assurance one
always has of there being a solid foundation under all that fun. Many
girls with twice their social advantages have not one half their fresh
enjoyment."
"I believe you are right," was the answer, with a sigh which did not
escape the other.
"We must not moralise," said the master of Lower House, briskly. "The
day is dull, but don't let us follow its example. Would you care to walk
to Edge Willoughby, take tea, and make your adieux?"
"Thanks--yes--I think I should. They have been most hospitable."
"Take a mackintosh," said Mr. Fowler, who had been surveying the
threatening horizon; "we are going to have a bad night, I believe."
As he spoke, a ray of sunset light, darting through a rift in the watery
sky, fell on a gleaming white sail some distance out at sea. It recalled
to Claud his walk home to Poole with Wynifred.
"A yacht, a cutter," said his companion, with anxious interest. "She
will never be able to make Lyme harbor to-night."
They watched the flashing thing for a minute or two in silence; then the
rainy gleam faded from the sea, and the sail became again invisible.
They set off for Edge Willoughby, a short ten minutes walk.
Each now made an effort to converse, but with poor success. As they
passed at the foot of a hill, crowned and flanked with arches, there
was a rustling noise, and out into the path before them lightly sprang
Elsa.
Claud had never seen her look more beautiful or more strange. Something
in her expression arrested his eye.
Since her friendship with the Allonby girls, her whole wardrobe had
become regenerated, and the beautiful proportions of her fine figure
were no longer obscured by ill-fitting monstrosities. Her dress was dark
blue, so was her hat, and she had knotted a soft crimson shawl over her
chest. The buffetting wind had lent a magnificent glow to her skin, her
eyes were shining--she had altogether an excited look, as though her
feelings had been strongly worked upon.
"Why, where have you been, Elsa?" asked her godfather, as they greeted
her.
"Out for a ramble," she answered, evasively.
"And what direction did your rambles take?"
"Oh, I went here and there. Are you coming to see my aunts?"
"We are; we will walk with you as far as the house. Where's Godfrey?"
She looked up at him--an odd, half defiant look.
"At home, I suppose," she said.
They had not gone far when suddenly, violently, down came the rain, and
Claud hurriedly covering the girl in his mackintosh, they all took to
their heels, and ran to the friendly shelter of the house.