EASTMINSTER
The days that followed were, in a sense, like the calm before the
threatened storm. As the date of my father’s promised return to
Eastminster drew near, every day I expected to hear from Alice that he
had abandoned his purpose, and that Northshire would see him no more.
But no such letter came. On the contrary, when news did come it was
news which astonished me.
“You will be glad to hear,” Alice wrote, “that father came back last
night looking better, although rather thin. He did not seem to have
understood that you were already with Mrs. Fortress, and I think he
was disappointed not to see you. At the same time, considering that
you have acted without consulting him in any way, and that there is
certainly some room for doubt as to the wisdom of the step you have
taken, I think that he takes your absence very well. He wants you to
come down in a week for a day or two. No doubt you will be able to
manage this. You must stay for a Sunday. Father preached last
evening, and there was quite a sensation. Lady Bolton has been so
kind. She says that the Bishop is continually congratulating himself
upon having found father in the diocese. I have not seen either
Mr. Deville or Miss Berdenstein since I left the Vicarage. As you can
imagine I have been terribly busy. The house here is simply
delightful. The old oak is priceless, and there are such quaint
little nooks and corners everywhere. Do come at once. Ever your
loving sister, Alice.”
I passed the letter across to my mother, and when she had finished it
she looked with a smile into my still troubled face.
“That proves finally that you were wrong,” she remarked, quietly. “I
suppose you have no more doubts about it?”
I shook my head. I did not commit myself to speech.
“I suppose I must have been mistaken,” I said. “It was a wonderful
likeness.”
“He wants to see you,” she continued, looking wistfully across at
me. “You know what that means?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I think I know what that means.”
“He will try to make you leave me,” she went on. “Perhaps he will be
right. At any rate, he will think that he is right. It will be a
struggle for you, child. He has a strong will.”
“I know it,” I answered; “but I have made up my mind. Nothing will
induce me to change it--nothing, at any rate, that my father will be
able to say. Another month like the last would kill me. Besides, I do
not think that I was meant for a clergyman’s daughter--I am too
restless. I want a different sort of life. No, you need not fear. I
shall come back to you.”
“If I thought that you would not,” she said, “I should be very
unhappy. I have made so many plans for the future--our future.”
I crossed the room to the side of her chair and threw myself down upon
my knees, with my head in her lap. She passed her arms around me, and
I had no need to say a single word. She understood.
I think as I walked down the little main street of Eastminster that
sunny morning I knew that the crisis in these strange events was fast
drawing near. The calm of the last few days had been too
complete. Almost I could have persuaded myself that the events of the
last month or two had been a dream. No one could possibly have
imagined that the thunderclouds of tragedy were hovering over that
old-fashioned, almost cloistral, dwelling house lying in the very
shadows of the cathedral. My father was, beyond a doubt, perfectly at
his ease, calm and dignified, and wearing his new honors with a
wonderful grace and dignity. Alice was perfectly happy in the new
atmosphere of a cathedral town. To all appearance they were a model
father and daughter, settling down for a very happy and uneventful
life. But to me there was something unnatural alike in my father’s
apparent freedom from all anxiety and in Alice’s complacent
ignorance. I could not breathe freely in the room whilst they talked
with interest about their new surroundings and the increased
possibilities of their new life. But what troubled me most perhaps was
that my father absolutely declined to discuss with me anything
connected with the past. On every occasion when I sought to lead up to
it he had at once checked me peremptorily. Nor would he suffer me to
allude in any way to my new life. Once, when I opened my lips to frame
some suggestive sentence, I caught a light in his eyes before which I
was dumb. Gradually I began to realize what it meant. By leaving him
for my mother, I had virtually declared myself on her side. All that I
had been before went for nothing. In his eyes I was no longer his
daughter. Whatever fears he had he kept them from me. I should no
longer have even those tragic glimpses into his inner life. My
anxieties, indeed, were to be lessened as my knowledge was to be
less. Yet that was a thought which brought me little consolation. I
felt as though I had deserted a brave man.
I had come for a walk to escape from it, and at the end of the little
line of shops issuing from the broad archway of the old-fashioned
hotel I came face to face with Bruce Deville. He was carefully, even
immaculately, dressed in riding clothes, and he was carrying himself
with a new ease and dignity. Directly he saw me he stopped short and
held out his hand.
“What fortune!” he exclaimed, forgetting for the moment, or appearing
to forget, to release my hand. “I heard that you were down, and I was
going to call. It is much pleasanter to meet you though!”
I was miserably and unaccountably nervous. Our old relative positions
seemed suddenly to have become reversed.
“We will go back, then,” I said; “it is only a moment’s walk to the
close.”
He laid his hand upon the sleeve of my jacket and checked me.
“No! it is you whom I wanted to see. I may not be able to talk to you
alone at your house, and, besides, your father might not allow me to
enter it. Will you come for a short walk with me? There is a way
through the fields a little higher up. I have something to say to
you.”
I suffered myself to be easily persuaded. There was something
positively masterful about the firm ring of his voice, the strong
touch of his fingers, the level, yet anxious glance of his keen, grey
eyes. Anyhow I went with him. He appeared to know the way
perfectly. Soon we were walking slowly along a country road, and
Eastminster lay in the valley behind us.
“Where is Miss Berdenstein?” I asked him.
He looked at me with a gleam of something in his eyes which puzzled
me. It was half kindly, half humorous. Then in an instant I
understood. The girl had told him. Something decided had happened
then between them. Perhaps she had told him everything.
“I believe,” he answered, “that Miss Berdenstein has gone to
London. Don’t you feel that you owe me a very humble plea for
forgiveness?”
I looked at him cautiously.
“Why?”
His lips relaxed a little. He was half smiling.
“Did you not make a deliberate plot against me in conjunction with
Miss Berdenstein?”
“I am not sure that I understand you,” I answered. “I certainly did
not originate any plot against you.”
“Nay, but you fell in with it. I know all about it, so you may just as
well confess. Miss Berdenstein was to leave off making inconvenient
inquiries about Philip Maltabar, and you were to be as rude to me as
you could. Wasn’t that something like the arrangement? You see I know
all about it. I have had the benefit of a full confession.”
“If you know,” I remarked, “you do not need to ask me.”
“That is quite true,” he answered, opening a gate and motioning me to
precede him. “But at the same time I thought that it would be
rather--well, piquant to hear the details from you.”
“You are very ungenerous,” I said, coldly.
“I hope not,” he answered. “Do you know I only discovered this
diabolical affair yesterday, and----”
“Mr. Deville!”
He turned round and looked at me. I was standing in the middle of the
path, and I daresay I looked as angry as I felt.
“I will tell you the truth,” I said. “Afterwards, if you allude to the
matter at all I shall go away at once. The girl has it in her power,
as you know, to do us terrible harm. She, of her own accord, offered
to forego that power forever--although she is quite ignorant of its
extent--if I would not see or talk with you. She was a little fool to
make the offer, of course, but I should have been more foolish still
if I had not accepted it. She imagined that our relative positions
were different. However, that is of no consequence, of course. I made
the bargain, and I kept my part of it. I avoided you, and I left the
neighborhood. You have reminded me that I am not keeping to the letter
of my agreement in being here with you. I should prefer your leaving
me, as I can find my way home quite well alone.”
“It is unnecessary,” he said. “The agreement is off. Miss Berdenstein
and I have had an understanding.”
“You are engaged, then?” I faltered.
“Well, no,” he said, coolly, “I should perhaps have said a
misunderstanding.”
“Tell me the truth at once,” I demanded.
“I am most anxious to do so,” he answered. “She was, as you remarked,
a little fool. She became sentimental, and I laughed at her. She
became worse, and I put her right. That was last night. She was silly
enough to get into a passion, and from her incoherencies I gathered
the reason why you were so unapproachable those last few days at the
Vicarage. That is why I got up at six o’clock this morning and rode
into Eastminster.”
“Have you come here this morning?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s only thirty miles,” he answered, coolly. “I wanted to see
you.”
I was silent for a few moments. This was news indeed. What might come
of it I scarcely dared to think. A whole torrent of surmises came
flooding in upon me.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“In London, I should think, by this time,” he answered.
I drew a long breath of relief. To be rid of her for a time would be
happiness.
“I believe,” he continued, “that she intends to return to Paris.”
After all it was perhaps the best thing that could happen; if she had
been in earnest--and I knew that she had been in earnest--she would
hate England now. At any rate she would not want to come back again
just yet. My face cleared. After all it was good news.
“She has gone--out of our lives, I hope,” he said, quietly, “and in
her hysterics she left one little legacy behind for me--and that is
hope. I know that I am not half good enough for you,” he said, with
an odd little tremble in his tone, “but you have only seen the worst
of me. Do you think that you could care for me a little? Would you
try?”
Then when I should have been strong I was pitiably weak. I struggled
for words in despair. He was so calm, so strong, so confident. How
was I to stand against him?
“It is impossible,” I said; “you know who I am. I shall never marry.”
He laughed at me scornfully.
“If that is all,” he said, taking my hands suddenly into his, “you
shall not leave me until you have promised.”
“But--I----”
Then he was very bold, and I should have been very angry, but was
not. He looked coolly round, and finding that there was no one in
sight, he drew me to him and kissed me. His arms were like steel bars
around me, I could not possibly escape. After that there were no words
which I could say. I was amazed at myself, but I was very happy. The
twilight was falling upon the city when we walked once more through
the little streets, and my veil was closely drawn to hide my wet eyes.
My lover--I dared to call him that at last--was coming home with me,
and for a few brief moments my footsteps seemed to be falling upon
air.
I allowed myself the luxury of forgetfulness; the load of anxiety
which had seemed crushing had suddenly rolled away. But at the
entrance to the close a little dark figure met us face to face, and my
blood ran cold in my veins, for she lifted her veil, and my dream of
happiness vanished into thin air. Her face was like the face of an
evil spirit, yet she would have passed me without a word, but that I
held out my hand and stopped her.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “What do you want?”
She smiled at me with the malice of a fiend.
“It was a little call,” she said, “which I was paying upon your
father. He was unfortunately not at home. No matter, I shall call
again; I shall call again and again until I see him. I am in no hurry
to leave. Eastminster is such an interesting place!”
Then my heart died away within me, and the light of my sudden
happiness grew dim. She looked from one to the other of us, and her
eyes were lit with a new fury. Some subtle instinct seemed to guide
her to the truth.
“May I congratulate you both?” she asked, with a sneer in her tone. “A
little sudden, isn’t it?”
We did not answer. I had no words, and Bruce remained grimly and
contemptuously silent. She gathered up her skirts, and her eyes
flashed an evil light upon us.
“After all,” she exclaimed, “it is an admirable arrangement! How happy
you both look! Don’t let me keep you! I shall call later on this
evening.”
She flitted away like a dark shadow and passed underneath the stone
archway out of the close. I covered my face with my hands and
moaned. It had come at last, then. All that I had done had been
useless. I was face to face with despair.