TWO--PARTED.
This early summer had been a time of little pleasure to any one in the
Square. Everything had seemed to go wrong from the day Miss Cherry went
dolefully away, crying with wonder and disappointment to think that her
darling should have been so unkind to her, and her brother fallen so
completely out of her influence. Very hopefully she had come, prepared
to do her duty, and sure at least of Cara’s sweet society and
comfort--but as she drove away from the door Miss Cherry felt that this
society was over for ever. She had trusted in ‘the child’ from Cara’s
earliest days--and now the child shut up her heart, and would not, even
after all she had seen with her own eyes, confide in her. She saw now
how it was going to be. James would marry ‘that woman,’ which was the
bitter name by which gentle Miss Cherry, so full of kindly charity, had
been driven by suspicion to call Mrs. Meredith--and Cara would fall away
from her own relations, and estrangement and doubt would take the place
of affection. Oh, that we had never seen them! Miss Cherry said to
herself, meaning the Meredith family generally--that ‘elderly siren’ who
had bewitched James, and that harum-scarum son who had persuaded Cara to
bind herself to him without telling her nearest relations. For Edward
Miss Cherry had a certain kindness. He had been very kind--he had
behaved as young men used to do (she thought), as was becoming and
respectful--and he too had been disappointed and wounded by the strange
secresy of the young pair, who had no motive to make them so desirous of
concealing their engagement; why should they conceal it? This was the
most provoking, the most exasperating feature of all; there was no
reason for concealment--the parents on either side would have been
willing enough--no one would have thrown any obstacles in their way. Why
had they made a mystery of it? And James?--Miss Cherry went down to the
country with a sad heart. But it pained her infinitely to answer those
questions which Miss Charity insisted upon having replies to. She could
censure them herself in the recesses of her own bosom--but to hear
others find fault with them was more than Miss Cherry could bear.
‘You see I have got well without you,’ Miss Charity said. ‘I hope you
have done as well for James and his daughter, Cherry, as nature, without
any assistance, has done for me.’
‘Oh, they are very well, thank you,’ said Miss Cherry, with a tremor.
‘Cara has a headache sometimes; but all girls have headaches--and as for
James, he is in perfect health.’
‘I was not thinking of his health. Is all safe about the other matter?’
‘You know, her husband died,’ said Miss Cherry, somewhat dreamily.
‘What has that to do with it? A woman without a husband has just as much
need to be circumspect as a woman with one. What are you insinuating,
Cherry? I don’t understand you to-day?’
‘Why should I insinuate--and what can I say? James was going away,
because he could not make up his mind to give up going to her; but
now--he means to stay.’
‘So that is it!’ said Miss Charity. She was not quite decorous in all
her ways, but took the privilege of her age, and often shocked her more
scrupulous niece. She uttered a sound which was not unlike a low whistle
of mingled astonishment and amusement. ‘So that is what it is! These men
with broken hearts are _incroyable_, Cherry. And will she have him, I
wonder?’
‘Have him?’ Miss Cherry echoed, with something which from her gentle
lips was like scorn. She was over severe in this case as naturally as in
other cases she was over-charitable. ‘She had not seen her husband for I
don’t know how many years--there cannot be any very great grief on his
account. And James goes there--every night.’
‘Ah! but I wonder if they’ll care to marry,’ said the old lady--‘that’s
different--I should think they would prefer not to marry----’
‘Aunt Charity! James may be weak but he is not wicked. He would not do
such a thing----’
‘You are a little old maid, and you don’t know anything about it,’ cried
Miss Charity, peremptorily. She was an old maid herself, to speak by the
book--but she thought she did understand. Miss Cherry said nothing of
her other trouble. She went and got her knitting meekly, and settled
down in the old way as if she had never left the Hill. Well! it was
home, and this was her natural life--but when her old aunt, who was now
quite strong again, went briskly out to the garden to look after the
flowers and her gardener, Miss Cherry let her hands fall into her lap,
and felt the stillness penetrate to her soul. The troubles of the
Square, the commotions and displeasures, Cara who would not open her
heart--saucy Oswald who smiled in her face and defied her--poor Edward
with his disappointment, and even James, who according to all appearance
was going to marry again;--how angry she had been with them! how she
had felt their different faults, crying to herself bitterly over
them--and yet how she missed them! That was life--this--this was
_home_--which was quite a different thing. It was very wicked of her,
very ungrateful to God who had given her such a lovely house, such a
good kind aunt, nobody to trouble or disturb her; very ungrateful, very
wicked. Had she not everything that heart could desire? and peace and
quiet to enjoy it. Miss Cherry acknowledged all this--and cried. How
still it was! nothing moving, nothing happening--and yet, ungrateful
woman, to be so well off and not to appreciate it! What could she wish
for more?--indeed, Mrs. Burchell thought that she had a great deal too
much, and that it was sinful for an unmarried woman without a family to
be so well off as Miss Cherry was.
Meantime Cara, left alone in the Square, fell into all the melancholy of
her beginning. Oswald still came to see her from time to time in the
morning, confiding to her all the steps of his progress, and receiving
sometimes her sympathy, sometimes reproof, sometimes what they both
called ‘advice.’ Though she had very good cause to be angry with him,
yet it was very difficult to be angry with Oswald--for though he was so
self-regarding, he was too light-hearted to be stigmatised with the
harsher quality of selfishness. It came to the same thing often, but yet
the name seemed too harsh. And he was Cara’s only friend. She had not
had time to form many acquaintanceships, and she was too shy to go by
herself to return the calls, or even to accept the invitations of the
people she did know. How was she to go anywhere? Her father took no
interest, asked no questions--and Mrs. Meredith was no longer the
confidant of everything that happened, to arrange all for her. Therefore
she refused the invitations, and shrank more and more into her corner.
Between her and Mrs. Meredith a great gulf had risen. Who had caused it
or what had caused it no one could tell--but there it lay, separating
them, causing embarrassment when they met, and driving them daily
further and further apart. Mrs. Meredith was angry with Cara as Miss
Cherry was. She saw no sense, no meaning, in the concealment which she
too believed in; and it had done a positive wrong to Edward, who never,
she felt sure, would have permitted himself to go so far had the
position been definitely settled. Edward had resumed his work with
greater energy than ever. He was going forward now for his final
examination, after which very little interval was left. His mother could
not think of it without tears. One of her two boys was thus lost to
her--the half of her fortune so to speak, and more than the half, for
Edward had gradually assumed all the kindly offices which Oswald had
been too much self-occupied to undertake--and it was all Cara’s fault.
Thus they blamed each other, not saying a word except in their own
hearts--as women will do, I suppose, till the end of time. Mrs. Meredith
would have allowed, had you pressed her, that Oswald too was wrong; but
in her heart she never thought of his fault, only of Cara’s. It was Cara
who had done it--a little frankness on her part, natural confidence in
one who was to be her mother, and who was so willing (Mrs. Meredith said
to herself with genuine feeling) to accept that office, and care for the
child and her comforts; how much evil might have been avoided had Cara
possessed this quality, so winning in young people! Then Oswald would
have been drawn closer to, instead of separated as he now seemed, from
his family--then Edward would have checked himself in time, and his
thoughts would have travelled in some other direction. All Cara’s fault!
With a real ache in her heart at the thought of the mischief done, this
was what the elder woman thought. So that when Cara withdrew, wounded,
and sad, and angry at the position in which she found herself, Mrs.
Meredith made no effort to call her from her retirement. She was full of
many reflections and questions of her own--and surely it was the part of
the children to inform her of everything, to seek her consent, to
conciliate her, not hers to do all this to them.
As for Edward he went no more to the house in which he had spent so many
happy hours. Looking back at them now, how happy they seemed! No cloud
seemed to have been on his sky when he sat there by the light of Cara’s
lamp, reading to her, seeing her through all his reading, feeling the
charm of her presence. In reality they had been full of very mingled
pleasure, and often the bitterness involved had overbalanced the
sweetness; but he did not remember that now that they were past--they
seemed to have been all happiness, a happiness lost for ever. He made up
for the loss, which seemed to have impoverished his whole life, by work.
Fortunately he had lost ground which had to be recovered now, if he was
to carry out his original intention about India--and he gave himself up
to this with something like passion. All the evening through, in those
hours which he used to spend with Cara, he worked, deadening himself,
stupefying himself with this like a narcotic, exciting his brain to take
the part of a counter-irritant against his heart. Now and then, if the
poor young fellow paused for a moment, a sudden softness would steal
over him, a recollection of the room next door with Miss Cherry counting
her stitches on the other side of the fire--and the soft rose-reflection
on Cara’s white dress. How could he defend himself against these
remembrances? All at once, while his eyes were fixed on his book, this
scene would come before him, and lines of exasperating verse would
tingle through him--reminding him of Elaine, and how she ‘loved him with
that love that was her doom.’ Thus some malicious spirit played upon the
boy--
I loved you and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
No, he thought with a faint half-smile, it would not be his death. If
such things happened once they did not happen now. It was not so easy to
die. A man had got to live and make the best of it--to forget what was
so near to him, yet so unattainable, and fix his thoughts on law-cases
instead. This was the modern form of tragedy. To go and work, and to
live, and do as other men did--yet never be as other men. Who does not
know the poignant yet sweet misery that is in that thought: never to be
as other men--to carry the wound all through one’s life--to be struck
with a delicate arrow which would vibrate in the wound for ever! And
then, with renewed zeal, he would plunge into his work. What notes he
made, what reports he drew out, digests of the dreariest books, accounts
of the dullest trials! I think he liked the dullest best; anything that
was interesting, anything that had any humanity in it, seemed by some
strange by-path or other to take him back to Cara. Poor boy! and then,
when it suddenly occurred to him that Cara was alone on the other side
of the wall, the book would fall out of his hand or the pen from his
fingers. She was alone as he was alone. Oswald, who ought to bear her
company, was away somewhere following his own fancies--her aunt was
gone--and her father was _here_. Then Edward trembled in mind and in
body, under the force of the temptation to go to her, to cheer her,
whatever might happen to him. He seemed to see her, lonely in a corner.
She had not even work to do as he had, to force her from herself. How
the poor boy’s heart would beat!--but then--if she were his he knew he
would not fear solitude, nor dislike having nothing to do--to think of
her would keep him happy; and perhaps if she loved Oswald as Edward
loved her---- This thought stung him back to his work again with greater
energy than ever. Most likely she loved her solitude, which was sweet
with recollections. Then there would break through all his law and all
his labour a violent hot pulse of resentment. For Oswald’s sake!--who
went wandering about, gay and light-hearted, from club to club, from
dinner to dinner, and had not so much gratitude, so much decency, as to
give one evening out of a dozen to her!
But Cara, as the reader knows, had not the consolation with which Edward
credited her. Happiness of all kinds, she thought, had deserted her for
ever. There was not even a fire to keep her company, to make her an
imitation of a companion. If one could choose the time to be unhappy, it
would be always best in winter, when one can cower over the glow of the
fire, and get some comfort out of the warmth. It was like stealing away
her last friend from her to take away her fire. When she sat in her
usual place the dark fire-place seemed to glare at her like a kind of
grave. And when she sat at the window, all the evening lights got into
her eyes and drew tears, so sweet were they and wistful, even though it
was but a London sky. Cara had once read a foolish little poem
somewhere, in which the twilight was embodied in the form of a poor girl
looking stealthily in at the open windows, to look for her lost lover,
and sighing when she could not find him. At her age allegory is still
beautiful--and the very dimness shadowed into visionary form about her,
looking for something--for what? for happiness, that was lost and could
not be found again, never could be found. She did not think any longer
as she had done at first, with a half-superstitious tremor, of her
mother who might be about, looking at her with anxious spiritual eyes,
unable to make herself known. It was a lower level of thought upon which
the girl had fallen; she had strayed from the high visionary ground, and
had begun to think of herself. She wanted someone near, some voice, some
touch, some soft words breaking the stillness; but these sweetnesses
were not for her. By turns she too would study like Edward; but then she
had no occasion to study, there was no bond of duty upon her. She read
Elaine over again, poring over her book in the twilight, which was a
congenial light to read by, and the same words which pursued Edward went
thrilling through her also like the note of a nightingale floating
through the dark--‘Loved him with that love that was her fate’--but how
fortune favoured Elaine! what an end was hers! whereas there was nothing
wonderful about poor little Cara, only a foolish mistake which she could
not set right, which nobody cared enough about her to set right, and
which must mar her whole life without remedy. The house was quite still
as it had been before Miss Cherry came--but worse than that; for then
there was no imbroglio, no web of falsehood about her poor little feet.
Things had grown worse and worse for her as the days went on. She wrote
little formal letters to the Hill saying that she and papa were quite
well. She went out to take a walk every day with nurse, and according to
the orders of that authority. She asked cook what there was to be for
dinner, and agreed to it whatever it was. She made her father’s coffee
in the morning, and was very quiet, never disturbing him, saying Yes or
No, when he asked her any question--and sat at the other end of the
table when he dined at home. He thought she was a very good little
girl--not so clever as he had expected; but children so often grow up
different from their promise--a very good little girl of the
old-fashioned type, made to be seen and not heard. He had never been
used to her, and did not require his child to sympathise with him or
amuse him as some men do--and his mind was full of other things. It did
occur to him as the summer went on that she was pale--‘I think you ought
to see Maxwell, Cara,’ he said; ‘you are looking very colourless; write
a little note, and ask him to come to put you to-rights.’
‘I am quite well, papa--I don’t want Mr. Maxwell or anyone.’
‘Well, if you are sure--but you look pale; I will speak to Mrs.
Meredith, and see what she thinks.’ Cara felt a sensation of anger at
this suggestion. She denied again with much earnestness that there was
anything the matter with her--and though the heat of her reply almost
roused her father to real consideration, it did not after all go quite
so far as that. He went to his library, and she to her drawing-room. The
morning was the cheerful time of her day. It was the hour for Oswald,
who came in quite pleasantly excited, and told her of the expedition he
was going to make into the country on the chance of having an interview
and explanation with his Agnes. Cara thought this was a very good thing
to do. ‘She ought to know exactly what you feel about her,’ she said;
‘and oh, Oswald, you ought to tell everybody, and make an end of all
these mysteries.’
‘That is one word for her and two for yourself, Cara,’ he said,
laughing; ‘you want to be free of me. But no, wait just a little longer.
Look here, I will send you the _Vita Nuova_, and there you will see that
Dante had a screen to keep people from suspecting that it was Beatrice.’
‘I will not be your screen,’ said Cara, with energy; ‘it is wicked of
you to speak so.’
‘Why, it is in the _Vita Nuova_!’ said Oswald, with indignant innocence;
‘but never mind, it will be over directly; and you shall come and see
her, and help us. My mother must come too.’
‘I am glad of that. I am sure that Mrs. Meredith would go to-day if you
were to ask her.’
‘Not to-day, let us get our holiday first. I want to see her blush and
her surprise as she sees me--but after that you shall see how good and
reasonable and correct I shall be.’
He went away smiling. It was June, and the very atmosphere was a
delight. He had brightened Cara for the moment, and she stepped out upon
the balcony and breathed the sweet air, which was sweet even there.
Oswald thought she was looking after him as he walked away, and was
flattered by Cara’s affection--and other people thought so too. As she
looked down into the Square she caught the eyes of Edward who had just
come out, and who took it for granted that this was a little overflowing
of tenderness on her part, a demonstration of happy love. He looked up
at her almost sternly she thought, but he did not mean it so. He had
grown pale and very serious these last few weeks. And he took off his
hat to her without a word. Cara went in again as if she had received a
blow. She covered her face with her hands and cried. Oh, if it really
was in the _Vita Nuova_! Cara hoped the lady who was the screen for
Beatrice did not feel it as she did--and what did it matter?--that lady,
whoever she was, must have been dead for hundreds of years. But _she_
was alive, and this falsehood embittered her whole life.