"NO!"
Ayala, on her return from the walk to the wood, spent the remainder
of the afternoon in tears. During the walk she kept close to Sir
Harry, pretending to listen to the arguments about the fox, but she
said nothing. Her ears were really intent on endeavouring to catch
the tones of her lover's voice as he went on in front of them talking
to Nina. Nothing could be more pleasant than the sound as he said a
word or two now and again, encouraging Nina in her rhapsodies as to
Lord George and all Lord George's family. But Ayala learned nothing
from that. She had come to know the man well enough to be aware that
he could tune his voice to the occasion, and could hide his feelings
let them be ever so strong. She did not doubt his love now. She did
not doubt but that at this moment his heart was heavy with rejected
love. She quite believed in him. But nevertheless his words were
pleasant and kind as he encouraged Nina.
Nor did she doubt her own love. She was alone in her room that
afternoon till she told herself at last the truth. Oh, yes; she loved
him. She was sure of that. But now he was gone! Why had she been
so foolish? Then it seemed as though at that moment the separation
took place between herself and the spirit which had haunted her. She
seemed to know now,--now at this very moment,--that the man was too
good for her. The knowledge had been coming to her. It had almost
come when he had spoken to her in the wood. If it could only have
been that he should have delayed his appeal to her yet for another
day or two! She thought now that if he could have delayed it but
for a few hours the cure would have been complete. If he had talked
to her as he so well knew how to talk while they were in the wood
together, while they were walking home,--so as to have exorcised the
spirit from her by the sweetness of his words,--and then have told
her that there was his love to have if she chose to have it, then she
thought she would have taken it. But he had come to her while those
words which she had prepared under the guidance of the spirit were
yet upon her tongue. "I cannot," she had said. "I cannot." But she
had not told him that she did not love him.
"I did love him," she said to herself, almost acknowledging that
the spirit had been wholly exorcised. The fashion of her mind was
altogether different from that which had so strongly prevailed
with her. He was an honest, noble man, high in the world's repute,
clever, a gentleman, a man of taste, and possessed of that gentle
ever-present humour which was so inexpressibly delightful to her. She
never again spoke to herself even in her thoughts of that Angel of
Light,--never comforted herself again with the vision of that which
was to come! There had appeared to her a man better than all other
men, and when he had asked her for her hand she had simply said,--"I
cannot." And yet she had loved him all the time. How foolish, how
false, how wicked she had been! It was thus that she thought of it
all as she sat there alone in her bedroom through the long hours of
the afternoon. When they sent up for her asking her to come down, she
begged that she might be allowed to remain there till dinner-time,
because she was tired with her walk.
He would not come again now. Oh, no,--he was too proud, too firm,
too manly for that. It was not for such a one as he to come whining
after a girl,--like her cousin Tom. Would it be possible that she
should even yet tell him? Could she say to him one little word,
contradicting that which she had so often uttered in the wood?
"Now I can," once whispered in his ear, would do it all. But as to
this she was aware that there was no room for hope. To speak such
a word, low as it might be spoken, simple and little as it might
be, was altogether impossible. She had had her chance and had lost
it,--because of those idle dreams. That the dreams had been all idle
she declared to herself,--not aware that the Ayala whom her lover had
loved would not have been an Ayala to be loved by him, but for the
dreams. Now she must go back to her uncle and aunt and to Kingsbury
Crescent, with the added sorrow that the world of dreams was closed
to her for ever. When the maid came to her she consented to have
the frock put on, the frock which Sir Harry had given her, boldly
resolving to struggle through her sorrow till Lady Albury should have
dismissed her to her home. Nobody would want her now at Stalham, and
the dismissal would soon come.
While she had been alone in her room the Colonel had been closeted
with Lady Albury. They had at least been thus shut up together for
some half-hour during which he had told his tale. "I have to own,"
said he, half-laughing as he began his tale, "that I thoroughly
respect Miss Dormer."
"Why is she to be called Miss Dormer?"
"Because she has shown herself worthy of my respect."
"What is it that you mean, Jonathan?"
"She knew her own mind when she told me at first that she could not
accept the offer which I did myself the honour of making her, and now
she sticks to her purpose. I think that a young lady who will do that
should be respected."
"She has refused you again?"
"Altogether."
"As how?"
"Well, I hardly know that I am prepared to explain the 'as how' even
to you. I am about as thick-skinned a man in such matters as you may
find anywhere, but I do not know that even I can bring myself to tell
the 'as how.' The 'as how' was very clear in one respect. It was
manifest that she knew her own mind, which is a knowledge not in the
possession of all young ladies. She told me that she could not marry
me."
"I do not believe it."
"Not that she told me so?"
"Not that she knew her own mind. She is a little simple fool, who
with some vagary in her brain is throwing away utterly her own
happiness, while she is vexing you."
"As to the vexation you are right."
"Cross-grained little idiot!"
"An idiot she certainly is not; and as to being cross-grained I have
never found it. A human being with the grains running more directly
all in the same way I have never come across."
"Do not talk to me, Jonathan, like that," she said. "When I call
her cross-grained I mean that she is running counter to her own
happiness."
"I cannot tell anything about that. I should have endeavoured,
I think, to make her happy. She has certainly run counter to my
happiness."
"And now?"
"What;--as to this very moment! I shall leave Stalham to-morrow."
"Why should you do that? Let her go if one must go."
"That is just what I want to prevent. Why should she lose her little
pleasure?"
"You don't suppose that we can make the house happy to her now! Why
should we care to do so when she will have driven you away?" He sat
silent for a minute or two looking at the fire, with his hands on his
two knees. "You must acknowledge, Jonathan," continued she, "that I
have taken kindly to this Ayala of yours."
"I do acknowledge it."
"But it cannot be that she should be the same to us simply as a young
lady, staying here as it were on her own behalf, as she was when we
regarded her as your possible wife. Then every little trick and grace
belonging to her endeared itself to us because we regarded her as one
who was about to become one of ourselves. But what are her tricks and
graces to us now?"
"They are all the world to me," said the Colonel.
"But you must wipe them out of your memory,--unless, indeed, you mean
to ask her again."
"Ah!--that is it."
"You will ask her again?"
"I do not say so; but I do not wish to rob myself of the chance. It
may be that I shall. Of course I should to-morrow if I thought there
was a hope. To-morrow there would be none,--but I should like to
know, that I could find her again in hands so friendly as yours,
if at the end of a month I should think myself strong enough to
encounter the risk of another refusal. Would Sir Harry allow her to
remain here for another month?"
"He would say, probably, nothing about it."
"My plan is this," he continued; "let her remain here, say, for three
weeks or a month. Do you continue all your kindness to her,--if not
for her sake then for mine. Let her feel that she is made one of
yourselves, as you say."
"That will be hard," said Lady Albury.
"It would not be hard if you thought that she was going to become so
at last. Try it, for my sake. Say not a word to her about me,--though
not shunning my name. Be to her as though I had told you nothing of
this. Then when the period is over I will come again,--if I find
that I can do so. If my love is still stronger than my sense of
self-respect, I shall do so." All this Lady Albury promised to do,
and then the interview between them was over.
"Colonel Stubbs is going to Aldershot to-morrow," said she to Ayala
in the drawing-room after dinner. "He finds now that he cannot very
well remain away." There was no hesitation in her voice as she said
this, and no look in her eye which taught Ayala to suppose that she
had heard anything of what had occurred in the wood.
"Is he indeed?" said Ayala, trying, but in vain, to be equally
undemonstrative.
"It is a great trouble to us, but we are quite unable to prevent
it,--unless you indeed can control him."
"I cannot control him," said Ayala, with that fixed look of
resolution with which Lady Albury had already become familiar.
That evening before they went to bed the Colonel bade them all
good-bye, as he intended to start early in the morning. "I never saw
such a fellow as you are for sudden changes," said Sir Harry.
"What is the good of staying here for hunting when the ground and
Tony's temper are both as hard as brick-bats. If I go now I can get
another week further on in March if the rain should come." With this
Sir Harry seemed to be satisfied; but Ayala felt sure that Tony's
temper and the rain had had nothing to do with it.
"Good-bye, Miss Dormer," he said, with his pleasantest smile, and his
pleasantest voice.
"Good-bye," she repeated. What would she not have given that her
voice should be as pleasant as his, and her smile! But she failed so
utterly that the little word was inaudible,--almost obliterated by
the choking of a sob. How bitterly severe had that word, Miss Dormer,
sounded from his mouth! Could he not have called her Ayala for the
last time,--even though all the world should have heard it? She was
wide awake in the morning and heard the wheels of his cart as he was
driven off. As the sound died away upon her ear she felt that he
was gone from her for ever. How had it been that she had said, "I
cannot," so often, when all her heart was set upon "I can?"
And now it remained to her to take herself away from Stalham as fast
as she might. She understood perfectly all those ideas which Lady
Albury had expressed to her well-loved friend. She was nothing to
anybody at Stalham, simply a young lady staying in the house;--as
might be some young lady connected with them by blood, or some
young lady whose father and mother had been their friends. She had
been brought there to Stalham, now this second time, in order that
Jonathan Stubbs might take her as his wife. Driven by some madness
she had refused her destiny, and now nobody would want her at Stalham
any longer. She had better begin to pack up at once,--and go. The
coldness of the people, now that she had refused to do as she had
been asked, would be unbearable to her. And yet she must not let it
appear that Stalham was no longer dear to her merely because Colonel
Stubbs had left it. She would let a day go by, and then say with all
the ease she could muster that she would take her departure on the
next. After that her life before her would be a blank. She had known
up to this,--so at least she told herself,--that Jonathan Stubbs
would afford her at any rate another chance. Now there could be no
other chance.
The first blank day passed away, and it seemed to her almost as
though she had no right to speak to any one. She was sure that Lady
Rufford knew what had occurred, because nothing more was said as
to the proposed visit. Mrs. Colonel Stubbs would have been welcome
anywhere, but who was Ayala Dormer? Even though Lady Albury bade her
come out in the carriage, it seemed to her to be done as a final
effort of kindness. Of course they would be anxious to be rid of her.
That evening the buxom woman did not come to help her dress herself.
It was an accident. The buxom woman was wanted here and there till it
was too late, and Ayala had left her room. Ayala, in truth, required
no assistance in dressing. When the first agonizing moment of the new
frock had been passed over, she would sooner have arrayed herself
without assistance. But now it seemed as though the buxom woman was
running away, because she, Ayala, was thought to be no longer worthy
of her services.
On the next morning she began her little speech to Lady Albury.
"Going away to-morrow?" said Lady Albury.
"Or perhaps the next day," suggested Ayala.
"My dear, it has been arranged that you should stay here for another
three weeks."
"No."
"I say it was arranged. Everybody understood it. I am sure your aunt
understood it. Because one person goes, everybody else isn't to
follow so as to break up a party. Honour among thieves!"
"Thieves!"
"Well;--anything else you like to call us all. The party has been
made up. And to tell the truth I don't think that young ladies have
the same right of changing their minds and rushing about as men
assume. Young ladies ought to be more steady. Where am I to get
another young lady at a moment's notice to play lawn tennis with Mr.
Greene? Compose yourself and stay where you are like a good girl."
"What will Sir Harry say?"
"Sir Harry will probably go on talking about the Stillborough fox and
quarreling with that odious Captain Glomax. That is, if you remain
here. If you go all of a sudden, he will perhaps hint--"
"Hint what, Lady Albury?"
"Never mind. He shall make no hints if you are a good girl." Nothing
was said at the moment about the Colonel,--nothing further than the
little allusion made above. Then there came the lawn tennis, and
Ayala regained something of her spirits as she contrived with the
assistance of Sir Harry to beat Nina and the curate. But on the
following day Lady Albury spoke out more plainly, "it was because of
Colonel Stubbs that you said that you would go away."
Ayala paused a moment, and then answered stoutly, "Yes, it was
because of Colonel Stubbs."
"And why?"
Ayala paused again and the stoutness almost deserted her. "Because--"
"Well, my dear?"
"I don't think I ought to be asked," said Ayala.
"Well, you shall not be asked. I will not be cruel to you. But do you
not know that if I ask anything it is with a view to your own good?"
"Oh, yes," said Ayala.
"But though I may not ask I suppose I may speak." To this Ayala made
no reply, either assenting or dissenting. "You know, do you not, that
I and Colonel Stubbs love each other like brother and sister,--more
dearly than many brothers and sisters?"
"I suppose so."
"And that therefore he tells me everything. He told me what took
place in the wood,--and because of that he has gone away."
"Of course you are angry with me;--because he has gone away."
"I am sorry that he has gone,--because of the cause of it. I always
wish that he should have everything that he desires; and now I wish
that he should have this thing because he desires it above all other
things." Does he desire it above all other things?--thought Ayala to
herself. And, if it be really so, cannot I now tell her that he shall
have it? Cannot I say that I too long to get it quite as eagerly
as he longs to have it? The suggestion rushed quickly to her mind;
but the answer to it came as quickly. No;--she would not do so. No
offer of the kind would come from her. By what she had said must she
abide,--unless, indeed, he should come to her again. "But why should
you go, Ayala, because he has gone? Why should you say aloud that you
had come here to listen to his offer, and that you had gone away as
soon as you had resolved that, for this reason or that, it was not
satisfactory to you?"
"Oh, Lady Albury."
"That would be the conclusion drawn. Remain here with us, and see if
you can like us well enough to be one of us."
"Dear Lady Albury, I do love you dearly."
"What he may do I cannot say. Whether he may bring himself to try
once again I do not know,--nor will I ask you whether there might
possibly be any other answer were he to do so."
"No!" said Ayala, driven by a sudden fit of obstinacy which she could
not control.
"I ask no questions about it, but I am sure it will be better for you
to remain here for a few weeks. We will make you happy if we can, and
you can learn to think over what has passed without emotion." Thus it
was decided that Ayala should prolong her visit into the middle of
March. She could not understand her own conduct when she again found
herself alone. Why had she ejaculated that sudden "No," when Lady
Albury had suggested to her the possibility of changing her purpose?
She knew that she would fain change it if it were possible; and yet
when the idea was presented to her she replied with a sudden denial
of its possibility. But still there was hope, even though the hope
was faint. "Whether he may bring himself to try again I do not know."
So it was that Lady Albury had spoken of him, and of what Lady Albury
said to her she now believed every word. "Whether he could bring
himself!" Surely such a one as he would not condescend so far as
that. But if he did one word should be sufficient. By no one else
would she allow it to be thought, for an instant, that she would wish
to reverse her decision. It must still be No to any other person from
whom such suggestion might come. But should he give her the chance
she would tell him instantly the truth of everything. "Can I love
you! Oh, my love, it is impossible that I should not love you!" It
would be thus that the answer should be given to him, should he allow
her the chance of making it.