A MODERN LOVE-CHASE.
Mr. O'Boyneville was to leave London for his circuit-work a week after
the departure of the 11th Plungers; and again there was a discussion
as to the disposal of Cecil's life during his absence. This time she
placed herself entirely in her husband's hands.
"Perhaps you are right," she said; "and it is better for me not to stay
in town while you are away."
"Will you go to the Mountjoys'? you know how often Mrs. Mountjoy has
asked you, I'm sure she'd be pleased if you went."
"I think I would rather go to some little watering-place, where I could
have quiet and rest."
"Rest! Ah, to be sure. I dare say you want rest. You have been going
about a good deal this year, and I suppose that sort of thing tires
even a woman in the long-run. For my own part, I have always found
one evening-party worse than a week's work; but I'm not a party-going
man. You shall go to Scarborough, if you like; and I'll try to spend
an occasional Sunday with you. I can get across from Manchester and
Liverpool."
"I should like that very much."
"Then it shall be so."
But it was not so; for a little note came from Mrs. Lobyer in the
course of the morning to say that that lady was coming to dine in the
evening, unless her heartless Cecil told her she was not to come.
"I know you are at home," wrote the lively Florence; "and I know your
nervous headache is only an excuse for shutting your doors upon me. So
I shall make a desperate attempt to force the citadel."
Cecil had no motive for excluding her friend. There was only one person
whom she had wished to avoid, and that person had now left England.
"Come to us by all means, dearest Flo," she wrote, "if you don't mind a
dull evening."
So at half-past six Florence's unapproachable chestnuts pawed the
macadam of Bloomsbury, and the barrister's dinner was enlivened by that
young lady's vivacious chatter.
"I have come to make a petition," she said; "and it is to you I shall
address myself, Mr. O'Boyneville. I have grown heartily tired of London
within this last week or two. I think the Ascot week is the season's
apogee, and after that every thing begins to fade. There are to be
cheap nights at the opera next week, and how can any decent person stay
in town when there are cheap nights at the opera? So I am going to rush
off to Pevenshall the day after to-morrow, and I want Cecil to go with
me. I know your circuit-work begins next week, Mr. O'Boyneville; and I
don't intend to accept a refusal. You can come to us from some of your
Northern towns whenever you please; and we shall always be glad to have
a flying visit."
It was in vain that Cecil told her friend of the plan that had already
been made for Scarborough. Mrs. Lobyer pooh-poohed Scarborough. Cecil
urged her desire for perfect rest and quiet; but Mrs. Lobyer declared
that Pevenshall would be a perfect hermitage during the month of July.
"None of my people are coming till the twelfth of August," she said.
"It is impossible to beguile a decent man into the country till
there is something for him to shoot. Sir Nugent is yachting in some
uncivilised Northern region, and Grace Evershed is going to Switzerland
with her father. Mr. Wilmot--that young clubbish man, you know, who
played so well in our comedy--is going on a walking expedition in
Brittany; and in fact every body worth having is engaged between this
and September. So, if you want quiet, Cecil, you shall have plenty of
it at Pevenshall. I have secured the dearest and deafest of matrons to
play propriety--a delightful old creature who dozes in a snug corner
half the day, and deludes herself with the belief that she is doing
Berlin-wool work--so we can live our own lives, and enjoy ourselves
thoroughly. I am going to try and do something for the good of my
fellow-creatures this year; and I shall want your advice about some
schools I wish to establish, and some cottages I mean to build near
Pevenshall."
Mrs. Lobyer was in the habit of pleading as earnestly as a spoiled
child for the gratification of her wishes, and on this occasion, as on
almost every other, she contrived to have her own way. It was arranged
that Cecil should go to Pevenshall, and that she and Flo should travel
together.
* * * * *
Cecil was busy with her packing next day, when a card was put into her
hand, and she was told that a gentleman was waiting for her in the
drawing-room.
"A gentleman for me?" she said, without looking at the card.
"Yes, my lady. The same gentleman who called twice before, Pupkin says."
Cecil looked at the card, and saw that it was Hector Gordon's; but over
the inscription in the corner--11th Plungers--the words "late of" were
written in pencil.
"I cannot see Major Gordon," said Cecil. "Tell Pupkin to say that I am
particularly engaged."
The servant stared, but obeyed. When the door had closed upon
her, Cecil sat with the card in her hand, staring blankly at that
half-written, half-printed sentence, "late of the 11th Plungers."
"He has not gone," she said to herself; "and he has left his regiment.
What does it all mean?"
Something like actual fear took possession of her as she thought that
Hector Gordon was in England--near her--ready at any moment to intrude
his presence upon her.
"He has betrayed me," she said; "he made me believe that he was going
away, on purpose to extort my secret from me. And now he will come, and
come, and come, until at last he forces me to see him; and then----!
Nothing but misery can come of our meeting; nothing but wretchedness
and remorse."
And then her mind went back to that subject of which she had thought as
she drove home from the opera. The images of women whom she knew and
had known arose before her; the women who hovered on the border-land
between the Eden of respectability and the region of outer darkness far
away. She began to understand the stories of many of these women; the
stories which had been such dark enigmas for her until to-day.
"They have been like me, perhaps," she thought; "they have believed in
their own strength of mind, their own honour; and all at once they have
sunk into a degradation as deep as mine. And my husband leaves me to my
fate; to take my own course, without help or care from him. I doubt if
he remembers my existence, except when I am with him; and I know he is
often unconscious of my presence even when I am sitting by his side."
For the first time in her life, Cecil felt a sense of resentment as she
thought of her husband's indifference. He was kind, he was generous.
She tried to remember this, and to be grateful; but to-day she could
remember only his indifference. She had long ago reconciled herself to
the idea that he loved his profession better than he loved his wife;
but to-day she was angry with him for the unflattering preference, and
argued that he must love his wife very little if the dry-as-dust work
of the law-courts could be dearer to him than she was. To-day for the
first time she was angry with him for not loving her better; for to-day
she felt herself in supreme need of his love.
She went on with her packing, mechanically enough; but still the work
was done. The housemaid, who assisted in the process, thought her
mistress just a little paler and a little quieter than usual: and was
rather inclined to wonder about that military gentleman who had called
three times, and had been refused admittance every time; and who,
according to Pupkin, was such a splendid and gracious creature.
"He's never been here except those three times," thought the housemaid.
"Perhaps she knew him before she was married to master, pore thing!"
When the packing was finished, Cecil ordered her brougham, and drove to
Dorset Square. She was feverishly anxious to know the meaning of those
two words--"late of"--on Hector Gordon's card. She found her aunt at
home, but that lady could throw no light upon the mystery.
"I fully thought he had sailed for Japan in the Satrap," said the
dowager. "He came to bid me good-bye a week ago; and he didn't say a
word then about the probability of his exchanging or selling out. _I_
don't read the _Military Gazette_. He might have called upon _me_,
I think, to tell me the change in his plans; but he has been very
mysterious in his manners of late. Perhaps he has seen some one who is
to be the second Mrs. Gordon. Those young men with too much money and
nothing to do are always falling in love."
Cecil could obtain no more than this from the dowager. She bade her
aunt good-bye, and went back to Brunswick Square, where she received
a little note from Mr. O'Boyneville, announcing that he found himself
suddenly compelled to dine at Blackwall with Sleghammer and two or
three others. So she was left alone all the evening, too preoccupied
to read, and with nothing to do but to sit in the summer twilight
listening to the fifes and drums in the quadrangle of the Foundling,
and the ebb and flow of hansom cabs.
* * * * *
The train by which Mrs. Lobyer was to travel left the Euston Station
at ten o'clock. There had been some talk of Mr. Lobyer accompanying
his wife; but on the eve of the journey that gentleman announced
the necessity of his immediate departure for Rouen to complete some
great cotton transaction, involving considerable strategy, and the
mystification of the calico trade in general, for the enrichment of
Lobyer and Co. in particular.
"It's a fluke," said the ardent young speculator; "and it's just one of
those affairs in which half-an-hour on the right or the wrong side may
make a difference of two or three thousand pounds. You can send what
servants you like to Pevenshall; and if I am obliged to stop in town
when I come back, I can use my club."
Cecil found Flo in the waiting-room with her maid in attendance, while
one of the matched footmen stood on guard at the door, holding a box
of books by a strap, and evidently suffering from an acute sense of
ill-usage. This dignified person was employed to secure a carriage for
the two ladies; and after ushering them to their seats, retired to a
second-class compartment with the maid.
Of course it was the fastest of express trains. Such people as Mrs.
Lobyer rarely consent to travel at less than sixty miles an hour.
Whirling northwards across the bright green country with the lively Flo
for her companion, Cecil felt as if she had been escaping from danger
and unhappiness. Major Gordon might call again in Brunswick Square; but
he would find her gone; and would abandon his persecution of her.
"It is persecution," she thought, "after the circumstances of that
night at the opera. He entrapped me into a confession, and he will be
worse than a traitor if he uses my guilty weakness against me."
She tried to despise him for the dishonour; but even the dishonour was
a sacrifice which he made to his love.
"My husband will not waste an hour from his profession for my sake,"
she thought; "and this man, who was once so true and honourable, is
ready to sacrifice truth and honour for love of me."
She thought this--not in set phrases, as it is written here. But some
such thought floated vaguely in her brain, as the express carried her
towards Pevenshall.
The rooms Cecil had occupied in the winter had been made ready for her
now, bright and gay with birds and flowers to-day, as they had been
bright with lights and fire of old. Flo sent a useful young person, who
did plain needlework and waited upon maidless visitors, to assist in
her friend's unpacking; and aided by this young person, Cecil dressed
for dinner, and found leisure to sit by the open window of her little
sitting-room, looking out at the broad expanse of hill and valley that
stretched beyond the gardens.
She was roused from her reverie by Mrs. Lobyer, who came tripping into
the room with more than customary animation.
"I have come to tell you some good news," she said, perching herself
upon the arm of Cecil's chair, like something frivolous and fashionable
in the way of birds;--"that mauve-and-white grenadine becomes you
admirably; and I like the sash worn across the shoulder that way--like
the Queen's blue ribbon. What darling cameo earrings! If there is any
thing in the world I adore, it is cameos."
"Is that your news, Flo?"
"Oh no; my news is something better than that. I was dying to tell you
all the time we were travelling; but I was determined to reserve it for
a _bonne bouche_. And now, shall I give it you in ten, shall I give it
you in twenty, shall I give it you in one of Mr. Lobyer's billions? I
have secured an eligible male visitor!"
Cecil shrugged her shoulders.
"I thought we were going to seclude ourselves from the world, in order
to carry out some philanthropic schemes, Flo."
"Oh, the philanthropic schemes shall go on all the same; _ça ira!_ But
Pevenshall entirely given over to the curates of the neighbourhood, and
two or three narrow-minded county squires, would have been insufferably
dull. And then _this_ gentleman is a friend of yours!"
"What gentleman?"
"Major Gordon. He has been wise enough to sell out just as his regiment
was going to sail for Japan. He called on me yesterday, and I told him
you were coming with me; and I made Mr. Lobyer ask him to come to us.
He accepted the invitation immediately; and it was all arranged on the
spot. This was before Mr. Lobyer knew that he would be obliged to go
to Rouen; but if he had known that, I don't suppose it would have made
much difference. I am blessed with the least jealous of husbands."
"Flo!"
"Is it wicked to say that? Mustn't I thank Providence for my blessings?"
"And Major Gordon is really coming!"
"Really and truly. He is here by this time, I dare say. There is a fast
train that leaves London at half-past twelve.--And now come and let me
introduce you to my deaf darling, Mrs. Henniker. Why, child, you stand
there with your eyes fixed as if you were in a trance!--and the second
dinner-bell has rung. _Filons!_"