"HE COMES TOO NEAR, WHO COMES TO BE DENIED."
Lady Cecil stayed at Pevenshall. Her first thought on hearing that
Hector Gordon was to be an inmate of the house had been to go straight
back to London, without having so much as seen the man she dreaded.
But a woman is very seldom free to follow her first thoughts. If a
man wishes to escape from any given place at a moment's notice, he
has only to declare himself called away on business, and lo! he is
free to spring into the first hansom he encounters and start for the
Antipodes, if he so pleases, without let or hindrance. But a woman
cannot take an unexplained morning's walk without the dread of question
and scandal. A few moments' reflection showed Cecil that escape from
Pevenshall was a moral impossibility. What motive could she allege for
such a proceeding? How account to the impetuous Flo, who would press
her closely for her reasons? How explain her return to London to her
husband, whose wonder would be aroused by her caprice? And if once
people began to wonder and to question, might they not arrive at the
miserable truth? An overwhelming terror seized her on the discovery of
her helplessness. She found herself hemmed in on every side, powerless
to fly from the pursuer she dreaded, run to earth like some hunted
animal; and with no resource but to stand at bay and defy the cruel
hunter.
A strong-minded woman would perhaps have made light of the difficulties
which surrounded the lawyer's wife. A real heroine would have bidden
her hostess a hasty adieu, and left the danger-haunted mansion without
explanation or delay. But Cecil was not strong-minded. She had lived
all her life in the dread of those little social laws which a woman
sometimes finds it more difficult to break than to violate the law of
Heaven itself.
She gave up all idea of flight. There was only one course which seemed
possible to her, and that was to make an _ad-misericordiam_ appeal
to Hector Gordon. A woman always hopes so much from the honour and
generosity of a man--until she has made her appeal and discovered how
frail a straw manly generosity may prove in the hour of peril.
So Cecil met Major Gordon in the drawing-room where the Pevenshall
guests had assembled. The party consisted of the deaf matron, who had
an aristocratic nose and a placid imbecility of countenance; the deaf
matron's husband, who was a retired half-pay colonel, with a very red
face, and that genius for gastronomy which seems the special faculty
of the middle-aged warrior who has retired on his laurels; two stylish
girls who had been schoolfellows of Flo's; and a brace of curates
from the neighbourhood. It was a very small assembly compared to the
brilliant gathering of the last winter; and the great drawing-room
looked almost tenantless.
Cecil was very pale when she followed Florence into the room. The
first glance told her that the man she dreaded was present. He was
standing by one of the open windows talking to Colonel Henniker, while
the curates entertained the two young ladies with mild local gossip;
during the progress of which the deaf matron assumed that amiable air
of interest which a man who has forgotten the French he learned at some
juvenile academy is apt to wear during the recital of some piquant
Parisian anecdote.
Mrs. Lobyer conducted her friend straight to the placid matron. "My
dear Mrs. Henniker, how shameful of me to be the last to come down,
and on the first day too! But I had no idea it was so late. How kind
of you and the dear Colonel to come to me at such a short notice! And
how have you left every one in York? I looked for my Yorkshire friends
in vain all the year. No one came to town except the Spaldings and the
Apperleys. Let me introduce my friend Lady Cecil O'Boyneville. You
were not with us last winter when she was here. And now I must go and
welcome the Colonel and Major Gordon. Take care, Lucy, Mr. Summerton is
dreadfully High-Church.--How do you do, Laura? I'll come and talk to
you presently," said the young matron to her sometime schoolfellows, as
she tripped away.
Cecil plunged at once into a laborious conversation with Mrs. Henniker.
How delightful the country was at this time of year! And how especially
beautiful the scenery about Pevenshall! and so on. It was weary work,
that stereotyped talk, while the sense of Hector Gordon's vicinity
exercised a bewildering influence on her thoughts, and rendered the
most commonplace conversation difficult. She was safe under shelter of
the matron's wing, when Hector came presently to greet her. She would
not see his outstretched hand, and received his greeting with freezing
coldness. A desperate kind of courage possessed her in this extremity,
and she determined all at once that she would humiliate herself by no
_ad-misericordiam_ appeal. She would compel him to leave Pevenshall.
She would awaken him to the sense of his own dishonour. Brave and
defiant for the moment, she looked up at him with a proud steady
glance, and silently challenged him with his baseness. He felt all the
significance of that cold gaze, and his eyelids fell beneath it.
"I have followed you, you see, Lady Cecil," he said in a very low
voice. She did not answer him, but turned to Mrs. Henniker and took up
the thread of her vapid talk.
"No, I never was in York; and I am really most anxious to see the
Minster. Papa used to say he thought it finer than Rouen Cathedral. But
I cannot fancy any thing--" and so on, and so on.
Hector Gordon placed himself opposite the two ladies; and sat looking
steadily at Cecil. She was conscious of that determined contemplation,
but did not flinch beneath it. And she went on perseveringly with her
disquisition upon the show-places and rural beauties of Yorkshire.
Major Gordon was obliged to offer his arm to Mrs. Henniker presently,
when dinner was announced; while the portly Colonel conducted his
hostess, and Cecil was relegated to the care of the High-Church curate.
All that evening and all the next day, and for many days and evenings
to come, Cecil preserved the same frigid demeanour towards Hector
Gordon; and yet he did not leave Pevenshall. Again and again he tried
to obtain a few moments' confidential conversation, but on every
occasion he found himself baffled and repulsed; and yet he did not
leave Pevenshall. A silent duel was always going on between these two.
The poor hunted victim was always on the defensive; the hunter was
merciless. By every possible stratagem Cecil avoided the explanation
she feared; but still the Major held his post obstinately, waiting for
the chance which must come sooner or later.
It came at last, when Cecil had been some weeks at Pevenshall, and when
the house was beginning to fill. The York Summer Meeting was close at
hand. Mr. Lobyer had returned from Rouen triumphant, and was happy in
the society of some of the choicer spirits of Manchester, renowned for
their achievements on the turf, and all full of their York engagements.
The Major's opportunity came at last. The nights were oppressively
warm; and all visitors at Pevenshall under forty years of age were in
the habit of abandoning the drawing-room soon after dinner for the
broad terrace in front of the open windows. Here, in the delicious
moonlight, the party broke up into pleasant groups to saunter up and
down the broad walk, or to gather in a knot at some angle of the stone
balustrade; and hence more adventurous spirits wandered away in twos
and threes and fours to circulate among the winding pathways of the
gardens, where the rarest specimens of the pine tribe imparted a spicy
odour to the night air.
The windows of the billiard-room, as well as those of the drawing-room,
opened on this delightful terrace: and a cluster of iron chairs
in the neighbourhood of these windows marked the spot where Mr.
Lobyer and his particular friends were wont to congregate, making a
little constellation with the luminous ends of their cigars. These
summer evenings in the open air were very agreeable to the guests at
Pevenshall, and the great clock in the quadrangle had generally struck
twelve before the last of the strollers left the terrace. It was the
place of places for flirtation; the place of places for that intimate
converse which the French call _causerie_, and which is the next thing
to flirtation. The eligible young men who had come down for the York
Summer and the marriageable young ladies found a good deal to say to
one another on these balmy moonlight nights; and appropriate couplets
from Tennyson, Owen Meredith, and Alfred de Musset were at a premium.
Byron and Moore are _rococo_ nowadays; and the most sentimental of
damsels would stare in amazement at an admirer who should quote the
_Corsair_ or _Lalla Rookh_ for her entertainment.
Sir Nugent Evershed was still yachting; but Florence seemed very little
affected by the absence of the chief of her worshippers. Other adorers
flocked round her shrine, and she was content to receive their homage.
To be admired was the only art she knew; and a life spent in the
perpetual excitement derivable from new millinery left little time for
serious thought.
"I really believe I am the happiest creature in the world, Cecil," she
said to the one friend whom she trusted with her secret thoughts; "for
I am only unhappy when I think; and as I may almost say that I never
think, it must follow that I am never unhappy."
It was while sauntering on the terrace with Cecil on one of the warmest
of the July nights that Florence thus addressed her friend. They had
wandered away from the rest of the party, who gathered chiefly about
the lighted windows of the drawing-room, whence an extra chair, or a
forgotten shawl, or a cup of tea, or a glass of water, or any one of
the trifles that womankind is always demanding from attendant man,
could be fetched at a moment's notice; and where some one was always
found willing to sing or play for the edification of the loungers
outside the windows.
Cecil and Florence had been walking up and down the deserted end of the
terrace for some time, when the voice of Mr. Lobyer, bawling "Flo, Flo!
come here; I want to speak to you," was heard from the distance; and
Cecil's companion hurried away to attend the bidding of her lord and
master.
Cecil was not sorry to find herself alone. Her life at Pevenshall
since the hour of her arrival had been one perpetual excitement. The
silent battle for ever being fought against the man who loved her, and
whose love had shown itself more pitiless than another man's hate, was
not without its agony. The helpless wild creature brought to bay, and
facing its hunter in the desperation of bitter despair, must suffer
anguish something akin to that which Cecil had endured in the daily
companionship of the lover she feared.
She feared him. In vain she called upon her womanly pride to help her;
in vain she supplicated better and surer help from that Heaven her
sin offended, even while she prayed. Day by day she fought her battle
bravely; but a dim consciousness of coming danger perpetually oppressed
her. The old simile of the precipice is the only comparison which
fits the state of her mind. She felt like a creature walking in outer
darkness near the verge of an abyss. She felt herself near the horrible
danger. It was not inevitable that she should fall over the precipice,
but the precipice was always there--always hidden by the thick
darkness, and at any moment her ignorant footsteps might stray too
near the fatal boundary. Thinking of that day of temptation and trial
at Fortinbras, and all that had occurred since then,--the young wife's
untimely death, the return of Hector's regiment, the chance that had
brought him to Pevenshall,--Cecil was inclined to yield to the weakest
theory ever propounded by an invisible Satan for the corruption of
womankind. The old classic machinery, the work of the Eumenides, seemed
to have had part in all this story of unhappy love. Hector Gordon's
return to England was Agamemnon's return over again,--only this time
the hero returned to destroy rather than to be destroyed; and it was
the heroine for whom the fatal net was spread. Surely, when beguiling
Eve to her ruin, the Miltonic Satan must amongst other arguments have
urged that the Fates had ordained her disobedience, and that she was
pro-destined to taste the forbidden fruit. A weak-minded woman is
always ready to mistake the action of a man's selfish obstinacy for the
handiwork of the Fates.
To-night Cecil fancied herself abandoned to the Eumenides; for, a few
minutes after Mrs. Lobyer had quitted her, a dark figure came between
her and the moonlight; and looking up, she recognised Hector Gordon.
"At last, Cecil!" he said.
She had been walking away from the animated assembly outside the
drawing-room windows, but at sight of her persecutor she turned
abruptly. He laid his hand upon her arm to stop her.
"I must speak to you, Cecil," he said. "You have avoided me as if I
were a pestilence ever since I came to this house; but do you think I
am likely to submit to be avoided after the sacrifice I have made in
order to come here?"
"The sacrifice! what sacrifice?" cried Cecil.
The barrier fell and the foe rushed to his triumph. Cecil's only
chance of defending the citadel had lain in a steady refusal to hold
parley with the enemy. Entrapped into a conference, her best strength
abandoned her.
"Is it possible that you do not know how much I have sacrificed in
order to be here by your side to-night? Oh Cecil, there is a meanness
in this affectation of ignorance. I have sacrificed my career--my
position as a soldier--for your sake. Do you know what it is for a man
to sell out of his regiment on the eve of a perilous service? If it
were not for what I have done in India, I might be branded as a coward.
As it is, in spite of what I did out there, there are men who will hint
the possibility of my cowardice. You don't know, perhaps, how dear a
soldier's career is to him. And yet, by the way men court dangerous
service, you must know how much dearer reputation is to them than life."
"Why were you so foolish--so mad, as to remain in England?"
"Because I love you."
"You had no right to remain. Do you remember what you said to me that
night? You were going away: we might never see each other again. After
that you were bound in honour to go."
"I know that. But I could not go--after----"
He paused for a moment, and then said in a lower voice, "After what I
heard that night."
"I wish I had died before that night!" cried Cecil passionately. She
felt the darkness growing thicker round her, her feet wandering nearer
to the precipice--and she was powerless; as powerless as a dreamer
fighting with shadows.
"It is my fate to be wicked and miserable," she thought.
"I wish _I_ had died before that night," repeated Hector Gordon. "I
wish I had died in India, or at Fortinbras. Oh Cecil, you claim a right
to blame me! It is I who have a right to reproach you for your coldness
that day. One word and we should have been so happy: not for a moment
only--and there are some moments of happiness worth a commonplace
lifetime--but for all our lives,--innocently, serenely happy. It wanted
only one word from you, Cecil--only one little word."
"I tried to do my duty. And yet--I loved you so dearly!"
The words were spoken unconsciously. She was thinking of that painful
struggle between love and duty, and of the useless victory which she
had gained. Utterly useless since the battle had to be fought over
again.
"No, no, Cecil! I cannot believe that you loved me," cried the soldier,
seizing the slender hand which struggled in vain to free itself; "you
could not have been so cruel if you had loved me."
They had walked away from the lights and the crowd, and were standing
at the end of the terrace, where there were vases full of flowers on
the broad balustrade, and a life-size marble figure of Pomona, which
cast its shadow over them as they stood looking down at the sloping
landscape, sublimely beautiful in the moonlight.
The sense of her own dishonour, and of the dishonour of the man who
loved her, was paramount in Cecil's mind; and yet she let him talk
to her. That feeling of perfect helplessness which holds the dreamer
in its spell possessed her as she stood by her lover's side in the
dreamlike light and shadow of the summer night.
"I have not been altogether base," pleaded Hector. "I spoke the truth
that night at the opera when I told you that I was going to leave
England. It was not till some days after that I resolved to sell out.
I should have held to my purpose--I firmly believe I should have left
England--if you had not so obstinately refused to see me when I called
in Brunswick Square. I think an interview with you would have given
me strength, Cecil; and I should have gone out yonder resigned to the
misery of our separation."
"You had no right to try to see me after that night. You call me
cruel;--what could be more cruel or dishonourable than your conduct
to me? You persecute me in my own house; you follow me here where I
am powerless to escape from you. Is this the conduct of a gentleman,
Major Gordon?"
"It is the conduct of a man who is ready to trample reputation, honour,
every thing under his feet in order to be near the woman he loves. But
how can I expect you to understand all this? You have never loved me.
If you had loved me, you would not have married O'Boyneville."
"I have married a man who is more than worthy of my affection and
gratitude."
"Yes; and who is about as capable of appreciating you as Mr. Lobyer is
capable of understanding that Leonardo da Vinci which he brought from
Rome."
"Major Gordon, I will not allow you to speak so of my husband. If you
cannot respect him as I respect him, it is better that his name should
never be mentioned between us."
"Much better; for I cannot speak of him with patience. Can you imagine
what I felt, Cecil, when I received my aunt's letter announcing your
marriage? I had married another woman--loving you, and you only,
all the time--because you had decided that I was bound to keep my
promise. I kept my word to my poor true-hearted girl at the cost of
my happiness. But you, Cecil, you were bound by no old contract; and
yet within so short a time of our parting, all memory of my love was
blotted from your mind, and you were ready to marry this O'Boyneville!"
"All memory of the past was not blotted from my mind. I had tried to
forget, honestly and truly, but I know now to my cost that I never
really forgot that time at Fortinbras. Oh, Major Gordon, why do you
force me to say these things? I hate myself for listening to you;
I hate myself for talking to you. You could never understand why I
married Mr. O'Boyneville. You could never have imagined the weariness
of my life and my bitter need of some friend and protector. My chief
unhappiness arises from the fact that my husband's profession will not
allow him to be the friend I hoped he would be; and you know this. You
know how lonely I am, and you take advantage of my defencelessness. It
is cruel and unmanly, Major Gordon."
She lost all self-command as she said this, and burst into tears;
whereupon Hector humiliated himself to the very dust, imploring her
forgiveness, and declaring that he would leave Pevenshall--he would
tear himself from her for ever and ever, rather than he would inflict
pain upon the woman he loved so dearly. And then came those perilous
promises which a man is apt to make on such occasions. He implored
her to trust him. What was there in all the world so precious to him
as her happiness? He confessed his own guilt. He had been reckless,
heedless of every thing, in his passionate desire to see her once
more, to speak to her once again; and now that he had spoken, he would
be content. He would go away resigned to the idea of their eternal
separation.
Cecil dried her tears during these protestations.
"I wish to believe in your sincerity," she said; "but there is no
occasion for you to leave Pevenshall; I shall go back to town to-morrow
morning. Good-night!"
"You are going in at once?"
"Yes: I am very tired."
"Let me take you back to the house, at least."
"No, thanks; I would rather go by myself."
She walked away, leaving him leaning against the balustrade under the
shadow of the marble Pomona. This time she believed the battle had been
won; but there was a keen sense of shame mingled with the triumph of
victory. She contrived to reach her own rooms without encountering any
one, and packed every thing ready for her departure before going to
bed. She announced her intention to Mrs. Lobyer before breakfast the
next morning, and encountered the opposition which she had expected
from that lady.
"You must stay for the York Summer," Flo said decisively; "Sir Nugent
Evershed's horses are to run, and he and all his set will be there in
full force. Grace is coming home from Switzerland, and is to give me a
week immediately; and you know you like Grace."
"I like her very much, and I am very sorry to leave you, Flo; but I
must go."
"Why must? give me an adequate reason, and you shall be worried no
more; but I must have a reason."
"Mr. O'Boyneville wishes me to return."
"Has he written to tell you so?"
"Yes."
It was the first deliberate falsehood Cecil had ever told, and she
blushed as she uttered it.
"But I thought he was on circuit?"
"His circuit work is just over."
"Oh, very well, Cecil; if your duty as a wife compels you to depart, I
suppose I must submit. But I am so sorry to lose you."
"And I am sorry to leave you, dear. There is a train leaves Chiverley
at three; I thought of going by that."
"Then we will take an early luncheon, and I will drive you to the
station.--Good-morning, Major Gordon," cried Mrs. Lobyer, as that
gentleman entered the room; "here is Lady Cecil going to run away from
us just as our party is beginning to be pleasant. Don't you think she
is very unkind?"
"I think there can scarcely be any real reason for Lady Cecil's
departure," answered the Major; "a lady is always mistress of her time.
It is another matter with us. I find by my letters of this morning that
I shall be obliged to leave Pevenshall in a day or two. I need scarcely
say how much I shall regret going away."
"There now!" cried Flo; "that is always my fate. If one nice person
goes away, other nice people begin to take fright directly. You army
men find that desertion is infectious, I believe, Major Gordon."
Cecil spent the morning in her own rooms under pretence of making
preparations for departure that had been made overnight. She was
feverishly anxious to be away from Pevenshall; and she went down to
luncheon in her travelling dress.
"The ponies are to be ready at half-past one," said Flo; "and one
of the men has taken your luggage already in a cart. You see I am
heroic enough to speed the parting guest when I am told departure
is inevitable. Major Gordon, will you give Lady Cecil one of those
cutlets?"
Cecil declined any thing so substantial as a cutlet; but took two or
three sips from a glass of pale sherry, for the satisfaction of her
hostess. In her eagerness to escape from the house that sheltered
Hector Gordon she felt an unreasoning dread of some hindrance to her
departure. Her eyes wandered to the clock on the chimney-piece every
now and then, while Flo was absent preparing for the drive: and it was
with difficulty that she went through the ordeal of bidding adieu to
Mrs. Lobyer's guests, who were all "so sorry" to find she was really
going, and "so anxious" to meet her again before long. "Though I am
sure we can never meet in such a pleasant house as this," said a genial
widow, who appreciated the liberty and luxury of Mr. Lobyer's mansion.
Flo came back to the dining-room at last, equipped for the drive; and
every body left the table to bid a last good-bye to Lady Cecil. The two
ladies went out together with a posse of people following them; and in
the hall they encountered a stalwart gentleman who had just alighted
from a lumbering fly, and who pounced upon Cecil and kissed her before
the assembled multitude.
"I have not forgotten your hearty invitation, you see, Mrs. Lobyer,"
said the stalwart gentleman, who was no other than the great
O'Boyneville. "My circuit work has been rather lighter than usual
this year, and I have come over from Carlisle to spend a few days at
Pevenshall."
"I am so glad," cried Flo. "And that letter!"
"What letter?"
"The letter asking Cecil to go back to town."
"I wrote no letter asking Cecil to go back to town."
"Oh Cecil!" said Mrs. Lobyer, "I am sorry you were so tired of us all."
Cecil blushed crimson, and cast an imploring look at her friend, who
stared at her in supreme mystification.
"I suppose I may send away the pony-carriage," said Flo. "You will not
think any more of leaving us."
"Not till Mr. O'Boyneville goes."
"And that will not be till after the races, I hope."
"I will stay for the races--I will stay for any diversion you please
to offer me, Mrs. Lobyer," cried the barrister cheerily. "I am my own
man for the next six weeks, and your devoted slave. What a delightful
place this is in summer; and what scenery!--Ah, Gordon, how do you do?
I thought you were off to Japan."
He seemed bigger and more boisterous than usual, Cecil thought, as she
went back with him to the dining-room, where the interrupted luncheon
began again, and where Mr. O'Boyneville entertained the company with
some delightful anecdotes of the provincial law-courts. So Lady Cecil
stayed at Pevenshall, trusting that Hector Gordon would keep his
promise and depart immediately.