THE HILL.
After this a long interval passed, which it is needless to describe in
detail. Five years is a long time in a life; how much it does! Makes
ties and breaks them, gives life and withdraws it, finds you happy and
leaves you miserable, builds you up or plucks you down; and at the same
time how little it does! Buffets you, caresses you, plays at shuttlecock
with you; yet leaves you the same man or woman, unchanged. Most of this
time James Beresford had spent in absences, now here, now there; not
travels according to the old happy sense, though in a real and
matter-of-fact sense they were more travels than those he had made so
happily in the honeymooning days. But he did not like to use the word.
He called his long voyages absences, nothing more. And they were of a
very different kind from those expeditions of old. He avoided the
Continent as if pestilence had been there, and would not even cross it
to get the mail at Brindisi, but went all the way round from Southampton
when he went to the East. He went up the Nile, with a scientific party,
observing some phenomena or other. He went to America in the same way.
He was not a very good sailor, but he made up his mind to that as the
best way of fighting through those lonely years. Once he went as far
north as any but real Arctic explorers, with their souls in it, had ever
done. Once he tracked the possible path of Russia across the wildest
border wastes to the Indian frontier. He went everywhere languidly but
persistently, seldom roused, but never discouraged. A man may be very
brave outside, though he is not brave within; and weakness is linked to
strength in ways beyond our guessing. He went into such wilds once, that
they gave him an ‘ovation’ at the Geographical Society’s meeting, not
because of any information he had brought them, or anything he had done,
but because he had been so far off, where so few people had ever been.
And periodically he came back to the Square; he would not leave that
familiar house. His wife’s drawing-room was kept just as she had liked
it, though no one entered the room: the cook and John the butler, who
had married, having the charge of everything. And when Mr. Beresford
came back to England, he went home, living downstairs generally, with
one of his travelling companions to bear him company. Maxwell and he had
dropped apart. They were still by way of being fast friends, and
doubtless, had one wanted the other, would still have proved so--last
resource of friendship, in which the severed may still hope. But, as
nothing happened to either, their relations waxed cold and distant. The
doctor had never got clear of the suspicion which had risen in his mind
at Mrs. Beresford’s death. It is true that had James Beresford given the
poor lady that ‘strong sweet dose’ she once had asked for, Maxwell would
have forgiven his friend with all his heart. I do not know, in such a
strange case, what the doctor could have done; probably exactly as he
did afterwards do, invent a death-certificate which might be accepted as
possible, though it was not in accordance with the facts. But, anyhow,
he would have taken up warmly, and stood by his friend to his last gasp.
This being the case, it is impossible to tell on what principle it was
that Maxwell half hated Beresford, having a lurking suspicion that he
had done it--a suspicion contradicted by his own statement and by
several of the facts. But this was the case. The man who would have
helped his wife boldly, heart-brokenly, to escape from living agony, was
one thing; but he who would give her a fatal draught, or connive at her
getting it, and then veil himself so that no one should know, was
different. So Mr. Maxwell thought. The inconsistency might be absurd;
but it was so. They positively dropped out of acquaintance. The men who
visited James Beresford when he was at home, were men with tags to their
names, mystic initials, F.G.S.’s, F.R.S.’s, F.S.A.’s, and others of that
class. And Maxwell, who was his oldest friend, dropped off. He said to
himself that if Beresford ever wanted him badly, he would find his
friendship surviving. But Beresford did not want Maxwell nor Maxwell
Beresford; and thus they were severed for a suspicion which would not
have severed them had it been a reality, or so at least Maxwell thought.
The doctor still went down once a week regularly to visit Miss Charity,
and so kept up his knowledge of the family; but ‘nothing came’ of the
old fancy that had been supposed to exist between him and Cherry. They
all hardened down unconsciously, these middle-aged folk, in their
various ways. The doctor became a little rougher, a little redder, a
trifle more weather-beaten; and Miss Cherry grew imperceptibly more
faded, more slim, more prim. As for Miss Charity, being now over
seventy, she was younger than ever; her unwrinkled cheeks smoother, her
blue eyes as blue, her step almost more alert, her garden more full of
roses. ‘After seventy,’ she tersely said, ‘one gets a new lease.’ And
Mrs. Burchell, at the Rectory, was a little stouter, and her husband a
little more burly, and both of them more critical. Fifty is perhaps a
less amiable age than three-score and ten. I am not sure that it is not
the least amiable age of all; the one at which nature begins to resent
the fact of growing old. Of all the elder generation, James Beresford
was the one to whom it made least change, notwithstanding that he was
the only one who had ‘come through’ any considerable struggle. He was
still speculative, still fond of philosophical talk, still slow to carry
out to logical conclusions any of the somewhat daring theories which he
loved to play with. He was as little affected as ever by what he
believed and what he did not believe.
As for Cara, however, these five years had made a great difference to
her; they had widened the skies over her head and the earth under her
feet. Whereas she had been but twelve, a child, groping and often in the
dark, now she was seventeen, and every new day that rose was a new
wonder to her. Darkness had fled away, and the firmament all around her
quivered and trembled with light; night but pretended to be, as in
summer, when twilight meets twilight, and makes the moment of so-called
midnight and darkness the merriest and sweetest of jests. Everything was
bright around her feet, and before her in that flowery path which led
through tracts of sunshine. She was no more afraid of life than the
flowers are. Round about her the elders, who were her guides, and ought
to have been her examples, were not, she might have perceived, had she
paused to think, exuberantly happy. They had no blessedness to boast of,
nor any exemption from common ills; but it no more occurred to Cara to
think that she, _she_ could ever be like her good Aunt Cherry, or Mrs.
Burchell, than that she could be turned into a blue bird, like the
prince in the fairy tale. The one transformation would have been less
wonderful than the other. She had lived chiefly at Sunninghill during
her father’s absence, and it was a favourite theory with the young
Burchells, all but two (there were ten of them), that she would progress
in time to be the Miss Cherry, and then the Miss Charity, of that
maiden house. A fate was upon it, they said. It was always to be in the
hands of a Miss Beresford, an old-maidish Charity, to be transmitted to
another Charity after her. This was one of the favourite jokes of the
rectorial household, warmly maintained except by two, _i.e._ Agnes, the
eldest, a young woman full of aspirations; and Roger, the second boy,
who had aspirations too, or rather who had one aspiration, of which Cara
was the object. She would not die Charity Beresford if he could help it;
but this was a secret design of which nobody knew. Cara’s presence, it
may be supposed, had made a great deal of difference at Sunninghill. It
had introduced a governess and a great many lessons; and it had
introduced juvenile parties and an amount of fun unparalleled before in
the neighbourhood. Not that she was a very merry child, though she was
full of visionary happiness; but when she was there, there too was drawn
everything the two other elder Charity Beresfords could think of as
delightsome. The amusements of the princesses down in St. George’s were
infinitely less considered. To be sure there were many of them, and Cara
was but one. She would have been quite happy enough in the garden, among
the roses; but because this was the case she had every ‘distraction’
that love could think of, and all the young people in the neighbourhood
had reason to rejoice that Cara Beresford had come to live with her
aunts at Sunninghill.
However, these delights came to an end when Mr. Beresford came home at
length ‘to settle.’ To say with what secret dismay, though external
pleasure, this news was received at ‘the Hill’ would require a volume.
The hearts of the ladies there sank into their shoes. They did not dare
to say anything but that they were delighted.
‘Of course I am to be congratulated,’ Miss Charity said, with a
countenance that seemed to be cut out of stone. ‘To see James settle
down to his life again is the greatest desire I can have. What good was
he to any one, wandering like that over the face of the earth? We might
all have been dead and buried before we could have called him back.’
‘Of course we are _delighted_,’ said Miss Cherry, with a quaver in her
voice. ‘He is my only brother. People get separated when they come to
our time of life, but James and I have always been one in heart. I am
more glad than words can say.’ And then she cried. But she was not a
strong-minded or consistent person, and her little paradoxes surprised
nobody. Miss Charity herself, however, who was not given to tears, made
her blue eyes more muddy that first evening after the news came, than
all her seventy years had made them. ‘What is the child to do?’ she
asked abruptly when they were alone; ‘of an age to be “out,” and without
a chaperon, or any sense in his head to teach him that such a thing is
wanted?’
‘You would not like him to marry again?’ said Miss Cherry, blowing her
agitated nose.
‘I’d like him to have some sense, or sensible notions in his head,
whatever he does. What is to become of the child?’
Alas! I fear it was, ‘What is to become of us without her?’ that filled
their minds most.
It was autumn; the end of the season at which the Hill was most
beautiful. It had its loveliness too in winter, when the wonderful
branching of the trees--all that symmetry of line and network which
summer hides with loving decorations--was made visible against the
broader background of the skies, which gained infinitude from the
dropping of those evanescent clouds of foliage. But the common mind
rejected the idea of the Hill in winter as that place of bliss which it
was acknowledged to be during the warmer half of the year. In autumn,
however, the ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ of the great plain, the
tints of fervid colour which came to the trees, the soft hazy distances
and half-mournful brightness of the waning season, gave the place a
special beauty. There were still abundant flowers fringing the lawn;
blazing red salvias, geraniums, all the warm-hued plants that reach the
‘fall;’ big hollyhocks flaunting behind backs, and languishing dahlias.
Some late roses lingered still; the air was sweet with the faint soft
perfume of mignonette; petunias, just on the point of toppling over into
decay, made a flutter of white and lilac against the walls, and here and
there a bunch of belated honeysuckle, or cluster of jessamine stars out
of date, threw themselves forth upon the trellis. It was on the sweetest
mellow autumnal day, warm as July, yet misty as October, that the Miss
Beresfords had their last garden-party for Cara. All their parties were
for Cara; but this was especially hers, her friends far and near coming
to take leave of her, as her life at the Hill terminated.
‘She goes just at the proper moment,’ Miss Charity said, sitting out on
the lawn in her white crape shawl, receiving her visitors, with St.
George’s and all the plain beyond shining through the autumn branches
like a picture laid at her feet. ‘She takes the full good of us to the
last, and when winter comes, which lays us bare, she will be off with
the other birds. She lasts just a little longer than the swallows,’ said
the old lady with a laugh.
‘But you can’t wonder, dear Mrs. Beresford, that she should wish to go
to her father. What can come up to a father?’ said Mrs. Burchell,
meaning, it is to be supposed, to smooth over the wound.
Miss Charity lifted her big green fan ominously in her hand. It was
closed, and it might have inflicted no slight blow; and, of all things
in the world, it would have pleased the old lady most to bring it down
smartly upon that fat hand, stuffed desperately into a tight purple
glove, and very moist and discoloured by the confinement, which rested
on the admirable clergywoman’s knee.
Meanwhile Roger Burchell, who was bold, and did not miss his chances,
had got Cara away from the croquet players and the talk, on pretence of
showing her something. ‘I am coming to see you in town,’ he said. ‘It is
as easy to go there as to come here, and I shan’t care for coming here
when you are gone. So you need not say good-bye to me.’
‘Very well,’ said Cara, laughing; ‘is that all? I don’t mean to say
good-bye to any one. I am not going for good. Of course I shall come
back.’
‘You will never come back just the same,’ said Roger; ‘but mind what I
tell you. I mean to come to town. I have an aunt at Notting Hill. When I
get leave from the college I shall go there. The old lady will be
pleased; and so you shall see me every Sunday, just as you do now.’
‘Every Sunday!’ said Cara, slightly surprised. ‘I don’t mind, Roger; it
can’t matter to me; but I don’t think they will like it here.’
‘They will like it if you do,’ said the enterprising youth. He was
twenty, and soon about to enter on his profession, which was that of an
engineer. He was not deeply concerned as to what his parents might feel;
but at the same time he was perfectly confident of their appreciation of
Cara as an excellent match, should that luck be his. This is not
intended to mean that Roger thought of Cara as a good match. He had, on
the contrary, an honest boyish love for her, quite true and genuine, if
not of the highest kind. She was the prettiest girl he knew, and the
sweetest. She was clever too in her way, though that was not his way.
She was the sort of girl to be proud of, wherever you might go with her;
and, in short, Roger was so fond of Cara, that but for that brilliant
idea of his, of passing his Sundays with his aunt at Notting Hill
instead of at home, her departure would have clouded heaven and earth
for him. As it was, he felt the new was rather an improvement on the
old; it would throw him into closer contact with the object of his love.
Cara took the arrangement generally with great composure. She was glad
enough to think of seeing some one on the dull Sundays; and somehow the
Sundays used to be duller in the Square, where nobody minded them, than
at the Hill, where they were kept in the most orthodox way. Thus she had
no objection to Roger’s visits; but the prospect did not excite her. ‘I
suppose you are soon going away somewhere?’ she said, with great calm.
‘Where are you going? to India? You cannot come from India to your aunt
at Notting Hill.’
‘But I shall not go--not as long as I can help it--not till----’
Here Roger looked at her with eager eyes. He was not handsome; he was
stoutly built, like his father, with puffy cheeks and premature black
whiskers. But his eyes at the present moment were full of fire. ‘Not
till----’ How much he meant by that broken phrase! and to Cara it meant
just nothing at all. She did not even look at him, to meet his eyes,
which were so full of ardour. But she was not disinclined to loiter
along this walk instead of joining the crowd. She was thinking her own
thoughts, not his.
‘I wonder if papa will be changed? I wonder if the house will look
strange? I wonder----’ said Cara, half under her breath. She was not
talking to him, yet perhaps if he had not been with her, she would not
have said the words aloud. He was a kind of shield to her from others,
an unconscious half-companion. She did not mind what she said when he
was there. Sometimes she replied to him at random; often he so answered
her, not knowing what she meant. It was from want of comprehension on
his part, not want of attention; but it was simple carelessness on hers.
He listened to these wonderings of hers eagerly, with full
determination to fathom what she meant.
‘He will be changed, and so will the house,’ said Roger. ‘We may be sure
of it. You were but a child when you left; now you are a--young lady.
Even if he was not changed, you would think him so,’ cried Roger, with
insight which surprised himself; ‘but those who have grown up with you,
Cara--I, for instance, who have seen you every day, I can never change.
You may think so, but you will be mistaken. I shall always be the same.’
She turned to look at him, half amused, half wondering. ‘You, Roger; but
what has that to do with it?’ she said. How little she cared! She had
faith in him: oh, yes; did not think he would change; believed he would
always be the same. What did it matter? It did not make her either
sadder or gladder to know that it was unlikely there would be any
alteration in him.
‘What are you doing here, Cara, when you ought to be looking after your
guests, or playing croquet, or amusing yourself?’
‘I am amusing myself, Aunt Cherry, as much as I wish to amuse myself. It
is not amusing to go away.’
‘My darling, we must think of your poor father,’ said Miss Cherry, her
voice trembling; ‘and there are all your young friends. Will you go and
help to form that game, Roger? They want a gentleman. Cara, dear, I
would rather you did not walk with Roger Burchell like this, when
everybody is here.’
‘He said he had something to show me,’ said Cara. ‘I was glad to get
away. All this looks so like saying farewell; as if I might never be
here again.’
‘Cara, if you make me cry, I shall not be fit to be seen; and we must
not make a show of ourselves before all these people.’ Miss Cherry
pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. ‘I am so silly; my eyes get so red
for nothing. What did Roger have to show you? He ought to be at work,
that boy.’
‘He has an aunt at Notting Hill,’ said Cara, with a soft laugh; ‘and he
told me he meant to come to town on Sundays instead of coming here. He
says he shall see me quite as often as usual. I suppose he thought I
should miss him. Poor Roger! if that were all!’
‘But, Cara, we must not allow that,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘I must speak to
his mother. See him every Sunday, as usual! it is ridiculous; it must
be put a stop to. Roger Burchell! a lad who is nobody, who has his way
to make in the world, and neither connections, nor fortune, nor any
advantage----’
Here Miss Cherry was arrested by Cara’s look turned calmly upon her,
without excitement or anxiety, yet with that half smile which shows when
a young observer has seen the weak point in the elder’s discourse.
‘What should his connections or his fortune have to do with it if he
wanted to see me and I wanted to see him?’ said Cara; ‘we have been
friends all our lives. But do not make yourself uneasy, Aunt Cherry; for
though I might, perhaps, like well enough to see Roger now and then, I
don’t want him every Sunday. What would papa say? Roger thinks Sunday in
the Square is like Sunday here--church and then a stroll, and then
church again. You know it was not like that when I was at home before.’
‘No,’ said Miss Cherry, with a sigh; ‘but then it was different.’ She
had her own thoughts as to whose fault that was, and by whose influence
James had been led away from natural churchgoing; but she was far too
loyal, both to the dead and to the living, to show this. ‘Cara,’ she
added, hurriedly, ‘in that respect, things will be as you like best
hereafter. You will be the one to settle what Sunday is to be--and what
a great many other things are to be. You must realise what is before
you, my dear child.’
‘I can’t realise Roger there in papa’s library,’ said Cara, ‘or
upstairs. Am I to live _there_? in the drawing-room. Will it never be
changed?’
‘It is so pretty, Cara--and you would like the things to be as pleased
her,’ said Miss Cherry, in trembling tones.
Cara did not make any response--her face wore a doubtful expression, but
she did not say anything. She turned her back upon the landscape, and
looked up at the house. ‘Shall I never come back just the same?’ she
said. ‘Roger says so; but he is not clever--how should he know? what
should change me? But the Square is not like the Hill,’ she added, with
a little shiver. ‘Papa will not think of me as you do--everything for
Cara; that will make a change.’
‘But you can think of him,’ said Cherry, ‘everything for _him_; and,
perhaps, for a woman that is the happiest way of the two.’
Once more Cara was silent. Clouds of doubt, of reluctance, of unwilling
repugnance, were floating through her mind. She had a horror and fear of
the Square, in which her life was henceforward to be passed--and of her
father, of whom she knew so much more than he was aware. For a moment
the old tumult in her soul about the secret she had never told came
surging back upon her, a sudden tide from which she could scarcely
escape. ‘Come, Aunt Cherry,’ she said, suddenly seizing her astonished
companion by the arm. ‘Come and play for us. We must have a dance on the
lawn my last day.’