A TIMELY WARNING.
Mr. O'Boyneville enjoyed himself amazingly at Pevenshall. The man
whose ordinary existence was one unceasing round of hard work was the
most social of creatures when once set free from the daily round of
labour. He enjoyed himself with a boisterous boyish delight in simple
pleasures, and the Pevenshall visitors found his gaiety contagious.
There are some people who succeed in society by mere force of animal
spirits, and who are pardoned for solecisms that would be the perdition
of a more timid blunderer. Laurence O'Boyneville did what he liked and
said what he liked, with the reckless impulsiveness of his nation, and
people forgave him and were pleased with him.
He gave himself up so thoroughly to the social delights of Mr. Lobyer's
mansion, which was made all the pleasanter by the frequent absence of
its master, that he had no leisure for morbid anxieties of a domestic
nature. The idea that he had any need to doubt the allegiance of the
wife he loved and honoured had never presented itself to him in any
shape, howsoever impalpable. She was his wife--a creature so much above
suspicion, that only the rudest of awakenings could disturb his perfect
confidence in her honour and truth. That he might leave her in one
moment bright, beautiful, and smiling, and return in the next to find
her dead, was a possibility within his power of conception; but that
he could awake from his trust in her to find her false to him was a
monstrous impossibility which his mind would have been unable to grasp.
So he gave himself up to the pleasure of the hour, and devoted himself
to the service of the fair sex with an indiscriminate and laborious
gallantry, which the gilded youth fluttering around Mrs. Lobyer, and
drawling some subtle half-implied compliment once in the twenty-four
hours, beheld with amazement from afar off.
"I had no idea that Mr. O'Boyneville was such a delightful creature,"
Flo remarked to Cecil. "I hope I shall never again be without
an Irishman in the house when I have a large party. That dear
good-tempered husband of yours contrives to keep all the women in
good humour. I'm sure that poor Miss Skairkrow had never had a civil
word said to her on the subject of her personal appearance till Mr.
O'Boyneville told her she was the image of the Empress of the French.
He assured Miss Skeechoule that her voice reminded him of Grisi in her
prime. And then there is pretty Mrs. Fitz-Cavendish, the _attaché's_
wife, who has been surfeited with admiration, but who declares that
there never was such an absurdly-delightful creature as your husband."
Cecil acknowledged these praises somewhat coldly. This noisy frivolous
Irishman, whom other people thought so delightful, was no nearer to
her than the overworked barrister of Brunswick Square. She was weak
enough to feel something like anger against him for his genial good
temper--for his utter blindness to her own deadly peril. Hector Gordon
had broken his promise. He had stayed at Pevenshall; and in the social
intercourse of that pleasant mansion it was impossible for Cecil to
avoid his companionship. Nor did Laurence O'Boyneville's presence
shield her in any manner from that dangerous association. Serene in
perfect confidence, the barrister amused himself noisily at one end of
the drawing-room, while Major Gordon talked to his wife at the other.
So perverse is the human heart that this placid trustfulness offended
the woman who was trusted. Cecil resented her husband's confidence
as an evidence of indifference, and was angry with him for not being
jealous.
"If I had a husband who loved me, he would come between me and my
danger," she thought bitterly; "but my husband does not know what love
is."
Unhappily there was some one at Pevenshall who did know, or who
pretended to know, all the mysteries of that fatal passion; some one
whose voice sounded very often in Cecil's ear, whose eyes were for
ever seeking hers. Heaven knows that she did her best to avoid him;
but her best efforts were very weak and futile as compared to the
machinery which the Eumenides employed against her. A thousand little
circumstances conspired to force her into the society of the man she
feared. At races, and picnics, and water parties, and rustic gatherings
of every description, she was always finding Hector Gordon by her side.
The old companionship of the Fortinbras time rose again; but now there
was always a guilty consciousness, a remorseful agony lurking amidst
the unhallowed happiness; and oh, the meanness, the deception, the
grovelling guiltiness, which was the everyday cost of that forbidden
joy! Balancing one against the other, Cecil knew how heavily the
perpetual remorse outweighed those brief moments of feverish gladness,
when the sound of Hector's voice lulled her with its fatal music, and
the tender pressure of Hector's hand lifted her above the common earth.
"If I could get away to some quiet hiding-place at the other end of
the world, where he _could not_ follow me, I might escape him, and be
innocent and happy once more," she thought. That escape for which she
yearned seemed every day more difficult. The poor frail rudderless
bark was hovering on the very brink of a whirlpool, and there was no
friendly hand to steer it back to safety. Sometimes Cecil resolved
that she would confess every thing to her husband, and demand the
shelter she needed; but the barrister's good humoured indifference was
more repellent to her in her present frame of mind than the fiercest
severity of a jealous husband could possibly have been. It would
have been a relief to her to be suspected. She wanted an occasion to
throw herself into her husband's arms, and cry, "Have pity upon my
wickedness, and save me from myself!" Perhaps in these latter days,
when the chronicles of the Divorce-Court furnish such piquant reading
for middle-class breakfast-tables, it would be well if husbands were
a little more inclined to jealous watchfulness, and somewhat less
disposed to believe implicitly in their own invincible claims to all
love and duty. More than once had Cecil nerved herself for the ordeal.
She had resolved on humiliating herself before the husband whose
indifference wounded her; but after waiting for an hour or more in the
loneliness of her own apartment until it should please her lord and
master to withdraw himself from some social masculine gathering in the
smoking-room below--after waiting with the words she meant to speak
arranging and rearranging themselves in her brain, the remorseful wife
found it impossible to begin her guilty story, and to open her heart to
a man who was chuckling over the capital things he had been saying, and
who insisted on relating the triumphs he had just achieved in argument.
Against that everyday joviality, that commonplace good-humour, the
flood-tide of passion dashed impotently, as storm-beaten waters
break against a groin of solid masonry. So the days went by, and Mr.
O'Boyneville enjoyed himself, while the Fates worked their worst
against helpless Cecil, who found herself day by day in more frequent
association with the man who loved her, and who persisted in reminding
her perpetually of his love.
Pevenshall was very full and very gay. Amidst so many people and so
much gaiety flirtations that would have made scandal in a quieter
household passed unnoticed, except by a few quiet watchers unengaged by
schemes of their own. Sir Nugent Evershed appeared at the York Meeting,
where one of his horses ran a bad second for the Great Ebor, and after
the races was almost a daily guest at Mr. Lobyer's mansion. The Irish
barrister had been some time at Pevenshall when Mrs. MacClaverhouse
arrived on a flying visit. She had been visiting further north, and she
took Mrs. Lobyer's house on her way homewards, in accordance with an
old promise made to Flo, who liked the lively dowager.
"I must only stay with you three or four days at the most, my dear,"
she said to her hostess; "for I am due in Hampshire next week, at a
dear old rectory which is supposed to be haunted; though I must confess
the ghosts have never come my way. But there are some people who may
spend their lives in tapestried chambers and not see any thing out of
the common."
Before Mrs. MacClaverhouse had been half-a-dozen hours at Pevenshall
she had taken occasion to interrogate her nephew respecting the sale
of his commission. She put him through so sharp an examination that
the Major was fain to confess the existence of motives which it was
impossible for him to explain.
"Then they must be bad motives," exclaimed the dowager, "and unworthy
of the true-hearted lad I used to be so proud of. You can't suppose
that _I_ wished you to go out to Japan to be killed by a herd of
horrible creatures with small eyes and pigtails; but I have heard
people speak sneeringly about your sudden selling out, and the
malicious wretches have made me feel quite uneasy."
"You needn't be uneasy, my dear aunt," answered Hector; "it's not a
case of 'the white feather,' if that's what you mean."
"That's not what I mean, and you know as well as I do that it is not. I
don't like those mysterious motives which you can't explain."
The Major shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating gesture. He might
give his aunt Indian shawls and ivory caskets and _carte blanche_ upon
his wine-merchant; but there were secrets which he did not hold himself
bound to reveal to that lady. She took his refusal very quietly.
"When people object to tell me things, I generally contrive to find
them out for myself," she said calmly; and from this time, though she
enjoyed the delights of Pevenshall to the uttermost, she kept a sharp
eye upon her handsome nephew, and an assiduous ear for all floating
gossip that accidental breezes wafted in her way.
She stayed a week; and on hearing that Mr. O'Boyneville had occasion to
run up to town on the day following her intended departure, she delayed
that departure in order to avail herself of his escort.
"I suppose you won't object to take care of an old woman between
this and King's Cross, Mr. O'Boyneville," she said after proposing
this arrangement. Of course the barrister declared himself delighted
to be of service; but Cecil, who knew her strong-minded kinswoman's
independent spirit, was not a little surprised by this sudden desire
for masculine protection. Mr. O'Boyneville was only to sleep one
night in Brunswick Square, and then go on to the west of England
where he had business of importance to transact for a friend. The
affair would not occupy him more than a week, he said, and he should
hurry back to Pevenshall directly he was free to do so. Cecil made no
objection to this arrangement. It pleased her husband to leave her
in order to attend to his business, and she let him go. A strange
calmness had taken possession of her during the last few days. She was
absent-minded, and frequently answered at random; more than once she
had complained of headache, and had kept her room; but when her husband
asked her if there was any thing serious the matter, and intreated
her to see a medical man, she assured him that her illness was only
nervous. The dowager visited her on this occasion, and questioned her
sharply; but, for the first time in her experience, that worthy matron
found herself repulsed by a sullen obstinacy on the part of her niece.
"Your questioning me won't cure my headache," Lady Cecil said; "believe
me it is much better to let me alone. I am not worth the trouble you
take about me."
"But, Cecil, if you are really ill, I must insist upon your having
advice; and if you are not ill, this shutting yourself up in your room
is very absurd. That dear good O'Boyneville is most uneasy about you."
The stentorian laughter of the dear good O'Boyneville floating upward
in the summer air made itself heard at this moment through the open
windows. The barrister was enjoying himself on the terrace with the
most lively of the Pevenshall visitors.
"Yes; he is very uneasy about me, auntie," said Cecil; "any one can
perceive that."
Mrs. MacClaverhouse gave an impatient shrug and departed.
"If I had been your mother in the days when George III. was a young
man, and pert chits like you were taught to respect their elders, how
soundly I would have boxed those pretty little ears of yours! A sound
box on the ear is what you want, Lady Cecil, and I only wish that
Laurence O'Boyneville were the man to give it to you."
Thus soliloquised the dowager as she lingered for a few moments at the
door of her niece's chamber. She encountered Hector Gordon by-and-by in
the lower regions, and treated him more cavalierly than that favourite
of fortune was wont to be treated. He bore her ill-usage very meekly,
and carefully avoided the severe glare of those hard grey eyes which
had been apt to soften when they looked at him.
On the next morning the dowager and Mr. O'Boyneville took their
departure. Cecil bade them adieu in a strange mechanical manner,
which the barrister was too busy and too hurried to notice. He did
indeed perceive that his wife was paler than usual, and that she drew
herself away from him when he would have embraced her at parting; but
the pallor was accounted for by the nervous headache, from which she
confessed herself still a sufferer, and the chilling refusal of the
embrace was attributed to the inconvenient presence of the matched
footmen, who were on guard in the hall, and of Mr. and Mrs. Lobyer,
who had emerged from the dining-room to speed their parting guests.
The generous-minded Othello needs a hint from Iago before he can see
flaw or speck in Desdemona's purity, though she may plead never so
persistently for Cassio's reinstatement; and the idea that his wife's
conduct had any hidden meaning was still far away from Laurence
O'Boyneville's mind.
"I shall come back for you in a week, Cecil," he said; and amid the
confusion of adieus and good wishes he had no time to perceive his
wife's silence.
At the station Mrs. MacClaverhouse suggested that the barrister should
secure a compartment for their own special use by the diplomatic
administration of a half-crown to the guard.
"I want to have a little quiet talk with you as we go up to town," she
said.
Mr. O'Boyneville complied, wondering. At the first junction the branch
train melted into an express, which tore London-wards at the rate of
fifty miles an hour; but Mrs. MacClaverhouse and her nephew-in-law had
their quiet talk in spite of the ponderous pantings of the giant that
was bearing them to their destination; and the quiet talk must needs
have been of a very serious nature, for the barrister was as pale as a
ghost when he alighted at King's Cross.
He conducted Mrs. MacClaverhouse to a cab nevertheless, and saw her
packages and her maid safely bestowed along with her in that vehicle.
On bidding her adieu, he bent his head to say something which was not
to be heard by the maid.
"I thank you very much," he said,--"very much. I am not afraid. No,
Mrs. MacClaverhouse, with God's help, I am not afraid!"