"YOU ARE NOT HE."
Ayala had been a week at Stalham, and according to the understanding
which had existed she should now have returned to Kingsbury Crescent.
She had come for a week, and she had had her week. Oh, what a week
it had been, so thoroughly happy, without a cloud, filled full with
ecstatic pleasures! Jonathan Stubbs had become to her the pleasantest
of friends. Lady Albury had covered her with caresses and little
presents. Nina was the most perfect of friends. Sir Harry had never
been cross, except for that one moment in the wood. And as for
Sprite,--Sprite had nearly realised her idea of an Angel of Light.
Oh, how happy she had been! She was to return on the Monday, having
thus comprised two Sundays within her elongated week. She knew
that her heaven was to be at an end; but she was grateful, and was
determined in her gratitude to be happy and cheerful to the close.
But early on this Sunday morning Colonel Stubbs spoke a word to Lady
Albury. "That little girl is so thoroughly happy here. Cannot you
prolong it for her just for another three days?"
"Is it to be for her,--or for Colonel Stubbs, who is enamoured of the
little girl?" asked Lady Albury.
"For both," said the Colonel, rather gravely.
"Are you in earnest?"
"What do you call earnest? I do love to see a pretty creature enjoy
herself thoroughly as she does. If you will make her stay till
Thursday Albury will let her ride the little horse again at Star
Cross on Wednesday."
"Of course she shall stay,--all the season if you wish it. She is
indeed a happy girl if you are in earnest."
Then it was settled, and Lady Albury in her happiest manner informed
Ayala that she was not to be allowed to take her departure till after
she had ridden Sprite once again. "Sir Harry says that you have given
the little horse quite a name, and that you must finish off his
character for him at Star Cross." As was the heart of the Peri when
the gate of Paradise was opened for her so was the heart of Ayala.
There were to be four days, with the fourth as a hunting-day, before
she need think of going! There was an eternity of bliss before her.
"But Aunt Margaret!" she said, not, however, doubting for a moment
that she would stay. Who cares for a frowning aunt at the distance of
an eternity. I fear that in the ecstacy of her joy she had forgotten
the promise made, that she would always remember her aunt's goodness
to her. "I will write a note to Mrs. Dosett, and make it all
straight," said Lady Albury. The note was written, and, whether
matters were straight or crooked at Kingsbury Crescent, Ayala
remained at Albury.
Colonel Stubbs had thought about the matter, and determined that he
was quite in earnest. He had, he told himself, enough for modest
living,--for modest living without poverty. More would come to him
when old General Stubbs, his uncle, should die. The general was
already past seventy. What was the use of independence if he could
not allow himself to have the girl whom he really loved? Had any
human being so perfectly lovely as Ayala ever flashed before his eyes
before? Was there ever a sweeter voice heard from a woman's mouth?
And then all her little ways and motions,--her very tricks,--how full
of charm they were! When she would open her eyes and nod her head,
and pout with her lips, he would declare to himself that he could no
longer live without her. And then every word that fell from her lips
seemed to have something in it of pretty humour. In fact the Colonel
was in love, and had now resolved that he would give way to his
love in spite of his aunt, the Marchesa, and in spite of his own
philosophy.
He felt by no means sure of success, but yet he thought that he might
succeed. From the moment in which, as the reader may remember, he
had accosted her at the ball, and desired her to dance with him in
obedience to his aunt's behests, it had been understood by everyone
around him that Ayala had liked him. They had become fast friends.
Ayala allowed him to do many little things which, by some feminine
instinct of her own, would have been put altogether beyond the reach
of Captain Batsby. The Colonel knew all this, and knew at the same
time that he should not trust to it only. But still he could not but
trust to it in some degree. Lady Albury had told him that Ayala would
be a happy girl if he were in earnest, and he himself was well aware
of Ayala's dependent position, and of the discomforts of Kingsbury
Crescent. Ayala had spoken quite openly to him of Kingsbury Crescent
as to a confidential friend. But on all that he did not lean much
as being in his favour. He could understand that such a girl as
Ayala would not accept a husband merely with the object of avoiding
domestic poverty. Little qualms of doubt came upon him as he
remembered the nature of the girl, so that he confessed to himself
that Lady Albury knew nothing about it. But, nevertheless, he hoped.
His red hair and his ugly face had never yet stood against him among
the women with whom he had lived. He had been taught by popularity to
think himself a popular man;--and then Ayala had shown so many signs
of her friendship!
There was shooting on Saturday, and he went out with the shooters,
saying nothing to any one of an intended early return; but at three
o'clock he was back at the house. Then he found that Ayala was out
in the carriage, and he waited. He sat in the library pretending to
read, till he heard the sounds of the carriage-wheels, and then he
met the ladies in the hall. "Are they all home from shooting?" asked
Lady Albury. The Colonel explained that no one was home but himself.
He had missed three cock-pheasants running, and had then come away in
disgust. "I am the most ignominious creature in existence," he said,
laughing; "one day I tumble into a ditch three feet wide--"
"It was ten yards at least," said Nina, jealous as to the glory of
her jump.
"And to-day I cannot hit a bird. I shall take to writing a book and
leave the severer pursuit of sport to more enterprising persons."
Then suddenly turning round he said to Ayala, "Are you good-natured
enough to come and take a walk with me in the shrubbery?"
Ayala, taken somewhat by surprise at the request, looked up into
Lady Albury's face. "Go with him, my dear, if you are not tired,"
said Lady Albury. "He deserves consolation after all his good deeds
to you." Ayala still doubted. Though she was on terms of pleasant
friendship with the man, yet she felt almost awestruck at this sudden
request that she should walk alone with him. But not to do so,
especially after Lady Albury's injunction, would have been peculiar.
She certainly was not tired, and had such a walk come naturally it
would have been an additional pleasure to her; but now, though she
went she hesitated, and showed her hesitation.
"Are you afraid to come with me?" he said, as soon as they were out
on the gravel together.
"Afraid! Oh, dear no, I should not be afraid to go anywhere with you,
I think; only it seemed odd that you did not ask Nina too."
"Shall I tell you why?"
"Why was it?"
"Because I have something to say to you which I do not want Nina
to hear just at this moment. And then I thought that we were such
friends that you would not mind coming with me."
"Of course we are," said Ayala.
"I don't know why it should be so, but I seem to have known you years
instead of days."
"Perhaps that is because you knew papa."
"More likely because I have learnt to know your papa's daughter."
"Do you mean Lucy?"
"I mean Ayala."
"That is saying the same thing twice over. You know me because you
know me."
"Just that. How long do you suppose I have known that Mrs. Gregory,
who sat opposite to us yesterday?"
"How can I tell?"
"Just fifteen years. I was going to Harrow when she came as a young
girl to stay with my mother. Her people and my people had known
each other for the last fifty years. Since that I have seen her
constantly, and of course we are very intimate."
"I suppose so."
"I know as much about her after all that as if we had lived in two
different hemispheres and couldn't speak a word of each other's
language. There isn't a thought or a feeling in common between us. I
ask after her husband and her children, and then tell her it's going
to rain. She says something about the old General's health, and then
there is an end of everything between us. When next we meet we do it
all over again."
"How very uninteresting!" said Ayala.
"Very uninteresting. It is because there are so many Mrs. Gregorys
about that I like to go down to Drumcaller and live by myself.
Perhaps you're a Mrs. Gregory to somebody."
"Why should I be a Mrs. Gregory? I don't think I am at all like Mrs.
Gregory."
"Not to me, Ayala." Now she heard the "Ayala," and felt something
of what it meant. There had been moments at which she had almost
disliked to hear him call her Miss Dormer; but now,--now she wished
that he had not called her Ayala. She strove to assume a serious
expression of face, but having done so she could not dare to turn
it up towards him. The glance of her little anger, if there was any,
fell only upon the ground. "It is because you are to me a creature so
essentially different from Mrs. Gregory that I seem to know you so
well. I never want to go to Drumcaller if you are near me;--or, if I
think of Drumcaller, it is that I might be there with you."
"I am sure the place is very pretty, but I don't suppose I shall ever
see it."
"Do you know about your sister and Mr. Hamel?"
"Yes," said Ayala, surprised. "She has told me all about it. How do
you know?"
"He was staying at Drumcaller,--he and I together with no one
else,--when he went over to ask her. I never saw a man so happy as
when he came back from Glenbogie. He had got all that he wanted in
the world."
"I do so love him because he loves her."
"And I love her,--because she loves you."
"It is not the same, you know," said Ayala, trying to think it all
out.
"May I not love her?"
"He is to be my brother. That's why I love him. She can't be your
sister." The poor girl, though she had tried to think it all out, had
not thought very far.
"Can she not?" he said.
"Of course not. Lucy is to marry Mr. Hamel."
"And whom am I to marry?" Then she saw it all. "Ayala,--Ayala,--who
is to be my wife?"
"I do not know," she said,--speaking with a gruff voice, but still in
a whisper, with a manner altogether different,--thinking how well it
would be that she should be taken at once back into the house.
"Do you not know whom I would fain have as my wife?" Then he felt
that it behoved him to speak out plainly. He was already sure that
she would not at once tell him that it should be as he would have
it,--that she would not instantly throw herself into his arms. But he
must speak plainly to her, and then fight his cause as best he might.
"Ayala, I have asked you to come out with me that I might ask you to
be my wife. It is that that I did not wish Nina to hear at once. If
you will put out your hand and say that it shall be so, Nina and all
the world shall know it. I shall be as proud then as Hamel, and as
happy,--happier, I think. It seems to me that no one can love as I
do now, Ayala; it has grown upon me from hour to hour as I have seen
you. When I first took you away to that dance it was so already. Do
you remember that night at the theatre,--when I had come away from
everything and striven so hard that I might be near to you before you
went back to your home? Ayala, I loved you then so dearly;--but not
as I love you now. When I saw you riding away from me yesterday, when
I could not get over the brook, I told myself that unless I might
catch you at last, and have you all to myself, I could never again be
happy. Do you remember when you stooped down and kissed that man's
baby at the farm-house? Oh, Ayala, I thought then that if you would
not be my wife,--if you would not be my wife,--I should never have
wife, never should have baby, never should have home of my own."
She walked on by his side, listening, but she had not a word to say
to him. It had been easy enough to her to reject and to rebuke and
to scorn Tom Tringle, when he had persisted in his suit; but she
knew not with what words to reject this man who stood so high in
her estimation, who was in many respects so perfect, whom she so
thoroughly liked,--but whom, nevertheless, she must reject. He was
not the Angel of Light,--could never be the Angel of Light. There
was nothing there of the azure wings upon which should soar the all
but celestial being to whom she could condescend to give herself and
her love. He was pleasant, good, friendly, kind-hearted,--all that
a friend or a brother should be; but he was not the Angel of Light.
She was sure of that. She told herself that she was quite sure of it,
as she walked beside him in silence along the path. "You know what
I mean, Ayala, when I tell you that I love you," he continued. But
still she made no answer. "I have seen at last the one human being
with whom I feel that I can be happy to spend my life, and, having
seen her, I ask her to be my wife. The hope has been dwelling with me
and growing since I first met you. Shall it be a vain hope? Ayala,
may I still hope?"
"No," she said, abruptly.
"Is that all?"
"It is all that I can say."
"Is that one 'no' to be the end of everything between us?"
"I don't know what else I ought to say to you, Colonel Stubbs."
"Do you mean that you can never love me?"
"Never," she said.
"That is a hard word,--and hardly friendly. Is there to be no more
than one hard word between you and me? Though I did not venture
to think that you could tell me that you loved me, I looked for
something kinder, something gentler than that."
"From such a sharp and waspish word as 'no,'
To pluck the sting!"
Ayala did not know the lines I have quoted, but the idea conveyed in
them was present clearly to her mind. She would fain have told him,
had she known how to do so, that her heart was very gentle towards
him, was very kind, gentle and kind as a sister's;--but that she
could not love him, so as to become his wife. "You are not he,--not
he, not that Angel of Light, which must come to me, radiant with
poetry, beautiful to the eye, full of all excellences of art, lifted
above the earth by the qualities of his mind,--such a one as must
come to me if it be that I am ever to confess that I love. You are
not he, and I cannot love you. But you shall be the next to him in my
estimation, and you are already so dear to me that I would be tender
to you, would be gentle,--if only I knew how." It was all there,
clear enough in her mind, but she had not the words. "I don't know
what it is that I ought to say," she exclaimed through her sobs.
"The truth, at any rate," he answered, sternly, "but not the truth,
half and half, after the fashion of some young ladies. Do not think
that you should palter with the truth either because it may not be
palatable to me, or seem decorous to yourself. To my happiness this
matter is all important, and you are something to my happiness, if
only because I have risked it on your love. Tell me;--why cannot you
love me?"
The altered tone of his voice, which now had in it something of
severity, seemed to give her more power.
"It is because--" Then she paused.
"Because why? Out with it, whatever it is. If it be something that
a man may remedy I will remedy it. Do not fear to hurt me. Is it
because I am ugly? That I cannot remedy." She did not dare to tell
him that it was so, but she looked up at him, not dissenting by any
motion of her head. "Then God help me, for ugly I must remain."
"It is not that only."
"Is it because my name is Stubbs--Jonathan Stubbs?" Now she did
assent, nodding her head at him. He had bade her tell him the truth,
and she was so anxious to do as he bade her! "If it be so, Ayala, I
must tell you that you are wrong,--wrong and foolish; that you are
carried away by a feeling of romance, which is a false romance. Far
be it from me to say that I could make you happy, but I am sure that
your happiness cannot be made and cannot be marred by such accidents
as that. Do you think that my means are not sufficient?"
"No;--no," she cried; "I know nothing of your means. If I could love
you I would not condescend to ask,--even to hear."
"There is no other man, I think?"
"There is no other man."
"But your imagination has depicted to you something grander than I
am,"--then she assented quickly, turning round and nodding her head
to him,--"some one who shall better respond to that spirit of poetry
which is within you?" Again she nodded her head approvingly, as
though to assure him that now he knew the whole truth. "Then, Ayala,
I must strive to soar till I can approach your dreams. But, if you
dare to desire things which are really grand, do not allow yourself
to be mean at the same time. Do not let the sound of a name move you,
or I shall not believe in your aspirations. Now shall I take you back
to the house?"
Back to the house they went, and there was not another word spoken
between them. By those last words of his she had felt herself to be
rebuked. If it were possible that he could ask her again whether that
sound, Jonathan Stubbs, had anything to do with it, she would let him
know now, by some signal, that she no longer found a barrier in the
name. But there were other barriers,--barriers which he himself had
not pretended to call vain. As to his ugliness, that he had confessed
he could not remedy; calling on God to pity him because he was so.
And as for that something grander which he had described, and for
which her soul sighed, he had simply said that he would seek for it.
She was sure that he would not find it. It was not to such as he that
the something grander,--which was to be the peculiar attribute of
the Angel of Light,--could be accorded. But he had owned that the
something grander might exist.