REYNOLD'S REGRET.
With the passing of that gleam of moonlight it seemed to Reynold Harding
that Mitchelhurst Place disappeared finally into the abyss that waits
for all created things. Where the house, in its curious ghastly
whiteness, had stood a moment earlier, was now nothing but baffling
gloom, and the very gate vanished into the shadows, as if there were no
need of any substantial barrier between him and the lost vision. The
scene had closed with dramatic suddenness, and he felt that the play was
played out, but how long he stood staring at the dusky curtain he did
not know.
At last he turned, and made his way down the dim road. The bewildering
obscurity seemed to press upon his sight, and he quickened his pace to
gain the corner where his glance might rest on the scattered lamps of
Mitchelhurst Street--little flames shuddering and struggling in the
gale. He had gone about half the distance to his lodgings, when he saw
two advancing eyes of fire at the end of the street. Nearer and nearer
they came, but, owing to the clamour of the wind, the noise of wheels
was inaudible till the carriage was close upon him where he paused on
the sidewalk. Then for a moment there was a gleam of light upon the
road, and in it appeared, as in a kind of magic-lantern picture, a
sorry-looking grey horse, travelling reluctantly beyond his stable at
the inn, a shabby driver, buttoned closely against the wind, with his
hat pulled low on his brows, a flashing of revolving wheels, and the
black silhouette of the Mitchelhurst fly. Harding looked after it till
he saw the lamp shine for a moment, with sudden brightness, as the
carriage turned, and then go out. After this fashion was Mr. Hayes, too,
lost in the darkness which had swallowed everything else, and Reynold's
gaze conveyed a not unkindly farewell.
The night gathered and deepened in the village, and the great starless
dome bent its vaulted gloom over the half-dozen lights which glimmered
on cottages and cabbage plots. Now and again a dog would bark, or the
wind would pass with a wilder wail, and the sign of the _Rothwell Arms_
would creak discordantly. The people to whom that little hollow was the
world, lay close and safe in their houses, wakened, perhaps, by the
gale to hope that no tiles would fall, and no damage be done in the
gardens, listening drowsily for awhile, and then turning in their beds
to sleep again.
It was not till the moon was low in the west that it broke once more
through the clouds, and, peering in at a small uncurtained window,
revealed the white face of a man who sat by it, with drooping head and
listless hands. He was not asleep, but he did not move. With that same
glance the moon espied St. Michael in the lancet window, sedulously
trampling on his little dragon, while the old clock above his head
recorded the passing of the hours with a labour of slow strokes. Those
two, and those two only, did the moon see in all Mitchelhurst, and then
vanished again and left them, till the wind went down, and the day came
slowly over the grey fields, with a deluge of autumnal rain.
Mrs. Simmonds was sorry to lose her lodger, and sorry that the weather
should be so bad, and that he should look so pale. She busied herself
about his breakfast, and brought him the local paper with the air of a
successful prophet.
"I told you there'd be another to-day, sir," she said as she laid it
down, "and here it is!" Reynold briefly acknowledged the attention, but
he never touched it. "So set as he was upon that other one!" said Mrs.
Simmonds later to her husband.
Simmonds suggested that he might have found something that specially
interested him in the other paper, somebody dead and leaving money, may
be, or somebody mysteriously disappeared, or something--he looked as if
he'd had a shock of some sort. But Mrs. Simmonds was inclined to think
that he was most likely upset by the thought of his railway journey. She
knew it was all _she_ could do to swallow a bit, if she were going
anywhere, with all her packing on her mind, and very likely the
gentleman was of the same way of feeling. As to a shock, he hadn't got
any shock out of the paper, she knew. He might have had some bad news in
the letters Miss Strange brought him, for he told her with his own lips
that they were very important, and that was why she came with them
herself.
"You see, the old gentleman was out," said Mrs. Simmonds, "so I suppose
she didn't know what to do."
"I shouldn't think the old gentleman would be best pleased," said
Simmonds.
The good woman considered for a moment.
"Well, I sha'n't tell him," she announced finally.
Harding drove to the nearest station in a gig. The rain was not so heavy
then, the downpour had become a persistent drizzle. Nevertheless the
village looked drenched and dismal enough as he bade it good-bye, and
swung round the corner of the churchyard wall, where the yellow weeds
stood up in the crevices behind the slant grey veil, and the great
black-plumaged yews let fall their heavy tears upon the graves. In
another minute a clump of trees hid the square tower and the leaden
roof, and Mitchelhurst was left behind. But the young man looked right
and left at the wet hedgerows till they reached a spot where a ploughed
field rose above the bank on one side, while on the other a deep
bramble-grown ditch divided the road from the sodden meadows. He fixed
his eyes on that. It was exactly a week that Wednesday since he first
met Barbara Strange.
Late that afternoon he walked into a dull room in a dull suburb of
London, and a woman who stood in the window, snipping the dead fronds
from a homesick-looking fern, turned to meet him. There was no mistaking
the relationship. Allowing for the differences of sex and age, they were
as like as they could possibly be, except that in every glance and
gesture the woman showed a fuller and richer life than did the man.
There was something of imperious grace in her movements which made him
seem awkward, hesitating, and constrained. She suffered him to touch her
cheek with his lips, but showed no inclination to speak first.
"Back again, you see," he said, drawing a chair to the hearth-rug.
"Yes. I should think you must be wet."
"Damp, I suppose."
He glanced round the room. The flock paper, the red curtains, the grimy
windows, the smoky fire, had the strange novelty which the most familiar
things will sometimes put on. The atmosphere was loaded with acrid fog,
and the blackness of the great city. He raised his foot and warmed a
muddy boot, while his thoughts went back to the stateliness and airy
purity of the old manor house, where the great logs cracked and glowed
upon the hearths.
Mrs. Harding came and rested her elbow on the chimney-piece, looking
down at her son.
"I left Mitchelhurst this morning," said he, after a pause.
"Yes? Well, I suppose you had seen enough of it."
"It was time to come home, anyhow," he said.
"You had business in town?"
The tone and words would have served as well for any chance visitor.
"Yes--naturally."
He put the other foot to the fire by way of a change.
"I did not know," said Mrs. Harding. "I have nothing to do with your
business. It certainly isn't mine. You are always welcome to be here as
much as you please, but of course you will attend to your own affairs."
Reynold made no answer.
"You are your own master," she continued, after a short silence. "I have
recognised that for some years. I have not expected you to go my way."
"One must go one's own way, I suppose," said the young man.
"And if I expected you to show some slight consideration for me, in
taking the way you have chosen--I was mistaken!"
He stirred the fire, and replaced the poker, but did not look at her or
speak.
"You know what I mean?" she demanded.
"Perfectly."
"Reynold, you might have written! Your uncle's offer deserved a word. I
do not say you might have accepted it, but you might have refused it
courteously. Was that so much to ask? You have insulted him wantonly,
and he will never pardon it. After all, he is your father's brother, and
an old man. Reynold, you should have written!"
He did not raise his eyes from the burning coals.
"Well," he said, "I did propose to write before I went away."
She winced at the thrust.
"I was wrong!" she owned, with bitter passion in her voice. "It would
have been better."
"As things have turned out," said Reynold, "I think it would."
Poor little Barbara! If that angry, dark-eyed woman had known how near
the fulfilment of her hopes had been, and lost by how pitiful a chance?
But the secret was safe.
Kate Harding drew a long breath.
"Well, I have no more to say about it. Perhaps it is best that we should
understand each other. You knew how your silence would wound me; it was
deliberate--it was calculated. Well, it _has_ wounded me, I don't deny
it. But it is all over now, and you will never wound me again. Do what
you please, now and always--as you have done."
He signified his attention sullenly, with a slight movement of his head.
"It is all over," she continued. "The situation is filled up, and
nothing would ever induce Robert Harding to suffer you to enter his
office--not if you offered to sweep it! He will not trouble you any
more, and, since the matter is ended, let it never be mentioned between
us again."
It was easy to see that she was, as she had said, deeply wounded, and
there was a tragical intensity in her speech. Her son made answer with
the same mute gesture of assent.
Presently she moved away, and for a few minutes she busied herself about
the room. She gathered up the leaves she had cut off, put away two or
three things that were lying about, and then came back to him.
"Dinner will be ready at the usual time," she said, in a cold, everyday
voice. "And then we can talk----of other things."
"Yes," Reynold answered, with a start, looking up from his reverie. He
had been thinking of the evening before. When he went into the little
sitting-room after his walk, and Barbara rose up from the sofa to meet
him, he had been startled, she was confused and frightened, and they had
forgotten the ordinary greetings. And then they had talked, he had sat
looking at her, he had stood up and held himself aloof--_how_ had he
done it? Well, it had been for Barbara's sake. Afterwards they had gone
through Mitchelhurst together. Together? No, absurdly apart, with the
breadth of the street between them. And at last they had talked at the
gate, and he had vexed her, and she had hurried away without a word of
farewell. It seemed to him now that he had never meant that. It was
impossible he could have meant it. Why, they had never shaken hands, he
had never touched her, and he remembered that she had no glove on, he
had seen her hand in the moonlight on the latch of the gate. She had
said, "Let us part friends," he had only to consent.
It is well that we cannot recall our moments of temptation. Reynold had
been able to pain her then with a jest, he had been strong enough in his
bitterness of heart to let her go without a word, but now as he sat
staring at the fire, idly clasping his knee, he regretted his strength.
If he could have taken Barbara's hand he would, and the long fingers,
loosely knit together, suddenly tightened at the thought. A woman's
small hand would not have had much chance of escape from such a clasp as
that.
But at that moment his mother aroused him from his musings.