CLEARING UP.
Mr. Burchell was brought upstairs with some solemnity. Though Mrs.
Meredith’s mind was very full of all that had been passing, and with no
small amount of personal feeling, a father in such a case could not be
put off. They were all agitated in different ways, the elder people
painfully, the young ones happily. As for Edward, his energy and
satisfaction knew no bounds. He even jarred upon the feelings of the
others, though most innocently, his heart was so light. ‘You are like
Oswald,’ his mother said to him, with a sigh of anxiety; ‘you are not
like yourself.’ ‘I feel like Oswald,’ said Edward. He did not seem able
to put his self-gratulation into fitter words. The sense of being
second, of being the shadow to Oswald’s sunshine, went out of his mind;
and, with it, all sense of grudging and everything like envy, which,
however deeply repressed and disapproved, had been in his heart
hitherto, an involuntary weakness. All that was over now. That Cara
loved him he scarcely ventured to believe; but she was free; she was not
swept up like every other good thing by his elder brother. What an ease
diffused itself through his heart! And with Cara, too, the sensation was
that of ease; her bonds were broken. She might have stood faithful still
as the Screen (for indeed that poor lady was in the _Vita Nuova_, and it
was not kind of great Dante, great as he was!) but circumstances had
broken her bonds. Cara had not been intimate with Agnes Burchell that
she should be much disturbed by finding out her identity with Oswald’s
Agnes. And after the first shock she was confident that nothing amiss
could have happened to her while Oswald was there. And her own
pre-occupations made the whole matter but secondary in her mind. Was it
selfish of her? But she could not help it. She had cast off more than
one burden; her young frame was tingling with the excitement of the two
disclosures she had made, one of which had brought her father to her,
the other--well, the other at least had set her free; it had set her
right with others, if nothing more. It was Edward who went to the
dining-room to conduct Mr. Burchell upstairs, feeling such a
friendliness towards him as words could not express. Had not he been the
occasion of it all? ‘My mother begs that you will come upstairs,’ he
said, feeling an inclination to hug his visitor, though he was little
captivating. Mr. Burchell had a feeling of disapproval of the house and
all that were in it. It was the house Roger had given an account of,
where he had dined on Sunday, and where the lady lived who was so
intimate with Mr. Beresford. The Rector disapproved of all such
intimacy. But he was anxious and rather unhappy about his daughter, and
it was his duty to take Agnes back out of this doubtful, perhaps
polluted house. So he followed his conductor upstairs, looking about him
with involuntary criticism. These kind of people had so many comforts
that did not fall to the lot of their superiors in every moral sense.
Large comfortable houses, many servants, the _Times_ every day (he found
it on the table in the dining-room), and many other luxuries. He could
not help making this remark to himself; he could not afford such
pleasures; and now his child, his daughter, not theirs who perhaps
deserved it, had gone away. Matters were not mended when Mrs. Meredith,
with all her usual sweetness, but with a thrill of agitation still about
her, came up to him holding out her hand.
‘Cara tells me that you are anxious about your daughter, and that my
son--knows her,’ she said faltering. It was so difficult to know what to
say.
‘So she tells me,’ said the Rector. ‘You will understand it is not from
me; I know nothing of it. Agnes has said nothing; and perhaps,’ he
added, looking round with a little natural defiance, ‘her absence may
turn out to be quite simple; there may be nothing in it. She is not a
good correspondent. But we are anxious, her mother and I.’
‘I do not know where Oswald is. Oh! heaven knows, if my son has anything
to do with it, I shall be grieved, grieved and ashamed to the heart! But
no harm will happen to her in Oswald’s company,’ said Mrs. Meredith,
raising her head in her turn with tearful pride. ‘I know my boy.’
‘It is what I would not say of any child of mine, or of myself, for that
matter,’ said the Rector. ‘Who can tell what a moment may bring forth?
But if there should be anything in it, and you have any clue to your
son’s movements----’
‘I have none. Thursday or Friday he said he would come back. Cara, if
you can tell us anything----’
Cara told at once what she knew; how he had heard that Agnes was going
somewhere, she did not remember where, and that he had made up his mind
to go too, and explain himself. ‘Limpet Bay; she is not there,’ said Mr.
Burchell. He took no interest in the rest of the story, which excited
the others so much, that half of them spoke together. Edward, however,
had the _pas_ as being most energetic. ‘I will go at once to Limpet
Bay,’ he said, ‘and find out if anything is known of them; that seems
the best thing.’ Mr. Burchell looked at him with a half-suspicion in his
eyes. But this was how it was finally arranged. The Rector himself
seemed to have greater confidence in wandering about town. He was going
now to his sister’s at Notting Hill, and then to the House. Then he
would come back again to the Square, to see if any news had come. ‘My
son Roger will be in London in an hour or two,’ he added, with a kind of
vague trust in that. But he neither sanctioned nor objected to Edward’s
mission. He had no notion himself what to do. He had no faith in his own
child, and even thought worse of Mrs. Meredith--if there could be a
worse or a better about such a person--for thinking well of hers. When
he went away at last in his heavy distress they were all relieved. He
was to come back in a few hours to see if any news had been received. As
for Edward, he was like a man transformed. He ran upstairs with airy
energy, thrust what he wanted into a bag, tossed a heap of notebooks on
the floor (where his mother found them, and picking them up carefully,
put them away behind his bureau where he could not find them), and came
down again swiftly and lightly, ready for anything. Then it was arranged
that Cara and her father should walk with him to the House to see if
anything had been heard there. This new chapter of anxiety was a relief
to all of them, strange as it may seem to say so. Even Mrs. Meredith was
comforted, after all the personal excitement of the afternoon, to have
this outlet to her emotion. She was not afraid that anything very
dreadful could have happened to Oswald, nor, though Mr. Burchell thought
her confidence wicked, to anyone else, through her boy. She knew
Oswald’s faults, she said to herself--who better? but Agnes would get no
harm from him. On the other hand, the fact that they had disappeared
together was in itself active harm. The boy was safe enough, but the
girl--that was a more difficult matter; and even a young man who decoyed
away, or could be said to have decoyed away, not a poor milliner or
housemaid, but a girl in his own rank--society would look but darkly,
there could be no doubt, on such a man. It was evident that in any point
of view to find Oswald was the chief thing to be thought of. In the
meantime, however, they had been reckoning without their train. There
was not one going to Limpet Bay till six o’clock, and a pause perforce
had to be made. And people began to come in, to call in the midst of
their agitation, the first being actually shown up into the drawing-room
while they still stood together talking in their scarcely subsiding
excitement. This was more than the others could bear. Mrs. Meredith
indeed met her visitors with her usual smiles, with hands stretched out,
with all the air of soft and kind interest in them which bound her
friends so close to her; the air of agitation about her only increased
the kindness of her looks; but the three others were not so courageous.
They all forsook her, stealing away one by one. Mr. Beresford went to
his library, where he had so many things to think of. Cara and Edward,
stealing away one after the other, met on the stairs. ‘Will you come
into the Square,’ he said, ‘till it is time for my train?’ The Square
was a spot where they had played together when they were children. It
had been avoided by both of them without any reason given: now they went
out and took refuge in it, where the little ladies and gentlemen of the
Square were still playing. They wandered demurely under the flowery
shrubs and those kind trees which do not despise London, their hearts
beating softly yet loud, their young lives in a tender harmony. They
seemed to be walking back into the chapter of their childhood and to see
themselves playing hide and seek among the bushes. ‘You used to look
just like that,’ Edward said, pointing to a pretty child in a white
sun-bonnet with her lap full of daisies, who looked up at them with
serious blue eyes as they passed. Cara was not so very much older, and
yet what a world of youthful experience lay between her and this child.
Then naturally they began to talk of what had happened to their
knowledge, and of what might have happened which they did not know.
‘And you think he really loved her,’ Edward said, his voice at this word
taking a reverential tone. ‘He must indeed--or else----. But was he in
earnest--he was always so full of levity? And where can they have gone?’
‘He did not mean to have gone for more than the day. It must have been
some accident. He would not have done anything again to get her scolded.
_I_ scolded him for it before.’
‘You scolded him. I wish you would scold me, Cara,’ said Edward, looking
at her. ‘You never talk to me as you used to talk to him. What bad
feelings you used to rouse in my mind--you who are as good as an angel!
hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness. I went very near to hating
my brother. Poor Oswald, I shall stand by him now through thick and
thin.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Cara, thankfully ignoring what went before.
‘That is your doing too, like the other; Cara--there seems so many
things that I want to say to you.’
‘Oh, we must not talk of anything to-day, but how to get this settled,’
cried the girl, with a nervous shiver. ‘What a trouble for your mother,
to see all these people to-day. I could not stay to help her--it seemed
impossible; but she--she could not be unkind to anyone,’ said Cara, with
generous fervour; though indeed Mrs. Meredith, unwittingly, had strewn a
few thorns in Cara’s pathway too.
‘Yes,’ said Edward; ‘I don’t think my mother is a humbug--at least, yes,
she is, in the way of kindness. She can’t bear that anyone should feel
neglected--and yet she means it, too,’ he added, doubtfully looking up
at the window, at which some of her visitors showed, for the day was
very warm. Her friends had flooded back upon her, notwithstanding her
recent widowhood. It was not like going into society, they all said.
Society, indeed, went to her instead. To desert her in her troubles was
not a friend’s part. The consequence of this doctrine was that her
receptions were almost as crowded as ever, and that all who considered
themselves her intimates were more punctual than ever they had been.
‘Ought we not to go?’ said Cara at last, and they turned and came out
through the dusty bushes once more. The Square was not lovely in itself,
but it looked like a garden of Eden to the two, when they had been
walking in the cool of the day, like Adam and Eve, thinking of each
other, talking, with little breaks and relapses into thoughts which were
dangerous, but very sweet, of other things. Now they came out again,
side by side. As they crossed the road, Roger Burchell joined them. He
had been sent for, and had hurried up, poor fellow, to do his duty, and
look for his lost sister. It was not a happy errand to begin with, nor
was it exactly happiness for him to see Cara, though the thought of
doing so had lent wings to his feet. He looked at her with a face full
of suppressed agitation, longing and yet suspicious. This was not the
Meredith he was afraid of--this was the one with whom he was rather in
sympathy, the unfortunate one, like himself. But there was something in
the looks of the two which hurt Roger and angered him, he could scarcely
have told why.
He addressed Edward rather roughly. ‘If you are going after them, tell
me,’ he said, with a hoarse tone in his voice, ‘or I will do it. There
is no time to lose.’
‘I am waiting only for the train,’ said Edward. It was a valid excuse
enough, and poor Roger felt that he might have waited hours for the
train without being amused meantime in this heavenly fashion. The gate
of the garden was at some little distance from the house, close to the
thoroughfare which passed along the end of the Square. They could see
along this line of road as they turned to go back.
‘We must go for Mr. Beresford,’ Edward was saying. ‘He was to go with us
first to the House.’
Here he stopped short, open-mouthed, and the others stopped too, by that
curious instinct which makes one man share in the startled sensations of
his companion, without knowing what they mean. They were both startled
like Edward. A carriage had drawn up within a little distance, and two
people were getting out of it. Cara’s eye, following Edward’s, reached
this little group. She ran forward, with a low cry. The new-comers,
seeing nobody, occupied with themselves, advanced steadily. They came up
to the corner of the Square. Just within that comparative stillness,
they too started and stopped, he facing the others boldly, with smiles
on his face, she drooping, blushing, trembling, with her hand on his
arm.
‘Oswald! for heaven’s sake, who is this lady?’ cried Edward, stepping in
advance. The others waited with equal eagerness, though they knew very
well who she was.
‘Edward, my good fellow, you must make much of her,’ said Oswald. He was
really moved, and his gay voice faltered. ‘You and Cara--We want you and
Cara to make up our happiness. This is my wife.’
Though it was the public road, or, at least, the corner of the Square,
Cara rushed forward and threw herself upon Agnes, who, red as a rose,
with downcast face and eyes that could not bear the light, stood on her
trial, as it were. Edward put out one hand to her and another to his
brother, without saying a word. He came, unthinking, between Roger and
his sister.
‘You and Cara.’ He and Cara; nothing to say to the brother, who stood
behind, red and lowering, looking on, noticed by no one, like a
stranger. The two pairs fell together as by nature; Roger was the one
who was left out. Is it not the very essence of all youthful story, even
of all childish games, that someone should be left out? The little girl
in the sun-bonnet in the Square garden could have produced half a dozen
instances--that there is no fun without this; from puss in the corner
upwards, the situation is invariable. But the left-out one does not see
the fun. Roger stood, and changed into all manner of colours. He was not
wanted. He and Agnes--he and Cara; for himself nobody, no companion, no
notice, no share in it all. To take it sentimentally and sadly, and turn
away, in all the dignity of the neglected, is one way; to be angry and
resent is another. Roger, who felt the hot blood tingling down to his
very finger-points, chose the latter. He made a step forward, pushing
Edward aside, even thrusting aside Cara, and seized his sister roughly
by the arm.
‘What is the meaning of all this?’ he said. ‘Agnes, what do you want
here? Where have you been? My father has come up to town in trouble
about you; my mother is ill of it at home. Where have you been? These
people have nothing to do with you. You’ve got to give me an explanation
of it--and you too, sir!’ cried Roger, with natural inconsistency,
turning fiercely upon Oswald. What! this fellow, who had appropriated
Cara so calmly, was he to have Agnes too?
‘Oh, Roger! don’t quarrel--don’t quarrel! I went home this morning.
Mamma knows,’ cried Agnes, flushed and tearful, clasping her hands.
‘And I am ready to give you every explanation,’ said Oswald. ‘You have a
right to it. We were married on Tuesday. It was no doing of hers. The
fault is all mine. And your mother is satisfied. Come in with us, and
you shall have every detail. And come, Roger, shake hands with me. There
is no harm done after all.’
‘Harm done!’ cried the young man in his bitterness; ‘harm done! Is it no
harm that she has disgraced herself? I don’t know what greater harm is
in the world.’
‘Oh, Roger, Roger!’
‘This has gone far enough,’ said Oswald; ‘take care what you say. Agnes,
my darling, take my arm, and come to my mother. He does not know what he
is saying; and Ned, come along, you and Cara. There are a hundred things
to tell you. I want you to hear everything to-day.’
They passed him, while he stood fuming with bitter rage, not on account
of Agnes, though she was the excuse for it. She took all the guilt to
herself, however, looking at him pitifully, appealing to him as her
husband led her to his mother’s door.
‘Roger, oh Roger, dear, come with us!’ she cried. She had spoken to no
one but him.
But Roger paid no attention to Agnes. It was the other pair who had all
his thoughts; he seemed to be supplanted over again, to have all the
pangs of failure to bear over again. The idea of Oswald’s success with
Cara had become familiar to him, and there was a little consolation in
the fact that Edward, like himself, was unhappy. But at this new change,
the poor young fellow ground his teeth. It was more than he could bear.
Rage and anguish were in his eyes. Even Cara’s kind look at him, her
little mute apology and deprecation of his wrath, increased it. Why
should he go with them? What did it matter to him? His sister? Oh, there
were plenty of people to look after his sister, and why should he follow
them, who cared so little for him? But, after a while, he did follow
them. There is something in this kind of suffering which attracts the
sufferer to the rack. He is in course of healing when he has the courage
to turn his back upon it, and go firmly away.
The whole young party went into the dining-room, where the _Times_ which
Mr. Burchell had grudged to Mrs. Meredith was still on the table. A
dining-room is an oppressive place for such a purpose. It looks like bad
interviews with fathers when there are admonitions to be given, or those
fearful moments when a young offender is detained after the others have
left the cheerful table, to be told of his faults. Agnes went into the
house of her husband’s mother, with her heart in her mouth, or, at
least, in her throat, leaping wildly, ready to sink into the ground with
shame and terror. How would Mrs. Meredith receive her? Her own mother
had yielded only to the arguments which the poor girl despised the
most, to the details of Oswald’s income, and the settlements, about
which he had already written to his lawyer. This mollified her--not
Agnes’s weeping explanations; and the bride’s heart was still sore from
the pang of this forgiveness, which Oswald, not caring in the least for
Mrs. Burchell, had been quite satisfied with. He did not care very much
for anything except herself, she had already found out, and took all
disapproval with the frankest levity of indifference, which made it burn
all the more into the heart of Agnes. Perhaps it was necessary for her
to have a burden of one kind or another. And his mother; how would his
mother look upon her? Would she set her down, as it was so natural for
mothers to do, as the guilty party, the chief offender? Agnes had felt
that her own mother had done this. She had excused Oswald. ‘No man would
ever think of such a thing, if he had not got encouragement.’ Even
Sister Mary Jane had said so, in a modified and more generous way. Was
it always the poor girl’s, the poor wife’s fault? Agnes shrank into a
corner. She could not take any courage from Cara’s caressings, who came
and hung about her, full of admiration and interest.
‘I was his confidante all the time,’ said Cara; ‘but how was I to know
that his Agnes was you?’
Agnes did not get much comfort out of this; she was not quite sure even
that she liked him to have had a girl confidante. Though she was
‘happy,’ in the ordinary sense of the word, as applied to brides, happy
in the love of her new husband, and in her own love for him, yet the
troubles of the moment had seized hold upon her at their worst. She
trembled for the opening of the door. She was almost at the limit of her
powers of endurance. Her ‘happiness’ had cost her dear. She had got it
at the sacrifice of all her tender prejudices, all her little weaknesses
of sentiment. She took Roger’s angry speech for true, and endorsed it.
However happily it might all turn out, though everything should be
better than she thought, still she would have disgraced herself. Nobody
could be so much shocked at the whole business as she herself was. To
everyone who censured her she was ready to say amen. It may be supposed,
therefore, that the feelings with which she awaited Oswald’s mother were
agitating enough. If Mrs. Meredith received her unkindly, or coldly--and
how was it possible that a mother could receive otherwise than coldly
such an unexpected bride?--it seemed to Agnes, in her discouragement and
terror, that she must fall at her feet and die.
‘Go and tell my mother, Ned,’ said Oswald, who was himself rather
breathless with suspense. ‘Go, you and Cara--take Cara with you. She
will be kinder if you go together.’
‘Was she ever unkind?’ said Cara, half indignant.
‘Come all the same,’ said Edward, taking her hand in the freedom of the
moment. ‘If I offer to make a sacrifice to her if she will forgive
them?’ he whispered, as they went upstairs together--‘it will not be
true--Cara, may I do it, not being true?’
‘Does she want to be paid for her kindness?’ said Cara, whispering back;
but she smiled, notwithstanding, not knowing what he meant, yet knowing
quite well what he meant. They went into the drawing-room thus, still
for the moment hand in hand, which Mrs. Meredith perceiving, turned
round from her guests with a little excitement. What had they come to
tell her? She disengaged herself from the people whom she was talking
to, and hurried towards them, breathless--‘Children, what is it?’ the
conjunction had already had its effect.
‘Mother, Oswald and his wife are downstairs; come and speak to
them--come and console her.’
‘His wife! Good heavens! has it gone so far?--and is that all?’ the
mother said inconsistently in one breath.
Edward went up close to her, and whispered in her ear--‘And I no longer
think of going to India. If that pleases you, forgive them.’
‘Traitor!’ said Mrs. Meredith; ‘that is not the reason;’ and then, ‘God
bless you, my darling!’ she said, with tears in her eyes.