Bee stole into her mother’s room as she went upstairs before that first
dinner at home which used to be such a joyous meal. How they had all
enjoyed it--until now. The ease and space, the going from room to room,
the delight in finding everything with which they were familiar, the
flowers in the vases (never were any such flowers as those at home!),
the incursions of the little ones shouting to each other, “Mamma’s come
home!” Even the little air of disorder which all these interruptions
brought into the orderly house was delightful to the young people. They
looked forward as to an ideal life, to beginning all their usual
occupations again and doing them all better than ever. “Oh, how nice it
is to be at home!” the girls had said to each other. Instead of those
hotel rooms, which at their best are never more than hotel rooms, a
_genre_ not to be mistaken, how delightful was the drawing-room at home,
with all its corners--Bee’s little table where she muddled at her
drawings, mamma’s great basket of needlework where everything could be
thrown under charitable cover, Betty’s stool on which she sat at the
feet of her oracle of the moment, whoever that might be, and all the
little duties to be resumed--the evening papers arranged for papa (as if
he had not seen enough of them in the daytime in his office!), the
flowers to see after, the little notes to write, all the pleasant
common-places of the home life. But to-night, for the first time, dinner
was a silent meal, hurried over--not much better than a dinner at a
railway station, with a sensation in it of being still on the road, of
not having yet reached their destination. The drawing-room was in brown
holland still, for they were all going on to Kingswarden to-morrow. The
house felt formal, uninhabited, as if they had come home to lodgings.
All this was bad enough; but the primary trouble of all was the fact
that mamma was upstairs--gone to bed before dinner, too tired to sit up.
Such a thing had never happened before. However tired she was, she had
always so brightened up at the sensation of coming home.
And papa, though kind, was very grave. The happiness of getting his
family back did not show in his face and all his actions as it generally
did. Colonel Kingsward was very kind as a father, and very tender as a
husband; the severity of his character showed little at home. His wife
was aware of it, and so were the servants, and Charlie, I think, had
begun to suspect what a hand of iron was covered by that velvet glove.
But the girls had never had any occasion to fear their father. Bee
thought that the additional gravity of his behaviour was owing to
herself and her introduction of a new individual interest into the
family; so that, notwithstanding a touch of indignation, with which she
felt the difference, she was timid and not without a sense of guilt
before her father. Never had she been rebellious or disobedient before;
and she was both now, determined not to submit. This made her
self-conscious and rather silent; she who was always overflowing with
talk and fun and the story of their travels. Colonel Kingsward did not
ask many questions about that. What he did ask was all about “your
mother.”
“She is not looking so well as when she went away,” he said.
“Oh, papa, it’s only because she’s so tired,” cried little Betty. Betty
taking upon her to answer papa, to take the responsibility upon her
little shoulders! But Bee felt as if she could not say anything.
“Do you really think so?” he said, turning to that confident little
speaker--to Betty. As if Betty could know anything about it! But Bee
seemed paralysed and could not speak.
She stole, as I have said, into her mother’s room on her way upstairs,
but she had hardly time to say a word when papa came in to see if Mrs.
Kingsward had eaten anything, and how she felt now that she was
comfortably established in her own bed. It irritated Bee to feel herself
thus deprived of the one little bit of possible expansion, and stirred
her spirit. With her cheek to her mother’s, she said in her ear, “Mamma,
I saw Aubrey at the station,” with a thrill of pleasure and defiance in
saying that, though secretly, in her father’s presence.
“Oh, Bee!” said Mrs. Kingsward, with a faint cry of alarm.
“And he told me,” continued Bee, breathless in her whisper, “that papa
was firm against us.”
“Bee! Bee!”
“And we promised each other we should never, never give up, whatever
anyone might say.”
“Oh, child, how dare you, how dare you?” Mrs. Kingsward said.
How Bee’s heart beat! What an enlivening, inspiriting strain of
opposition came into her mind, making her cheeks glow and her eyes
flame! The whisper was, perhaps, a child’s device, perhaps a woman’s
weakness, but it exhilarated her beyond description to say all this in
the very presence of her father. There was a sensation of girlish
mischief in it as well as defiance, which relieved all the heavier
sentiments that had weighed down her heart.
“What are you saying to your mother, Bee? She must not be disturbed. Run
away and let her rest. If we are to go back to Kingswarden to-morrow she
must get all the rest that is possible now.”
“I was never the one to disturb mamma,” said Bee, bestowing another kiss
on her mother’s cheek.
“Oh, be a good child, Bee!” pleaded Mrs. Kingsward, almost without
sound; for by this time the Colonel was hovering over the bed, with a
touch of suspicion, wondering what was going on between these two.
“Yes, mamma dear, always,” said Bee, aloud.
“What is she promising, Lucy? And what were you saying to her? Bee
should know better at her age than to disturb you with talk.”
“Oh, nothing, Edward. She was only giving me a kiss, and I told her to
be a good child--as I am always doing; thinking to be heard, you know,
for so much speaking,” the mother said, with a soft laugh.
“Bee has always been a sufficiently good child. I don’t think you need
trouble yourself on that point. The thing is for you to get well, my
dear, and keep an easy mind. Don’t trouble about anything; leave all
that to me, and try and think a little about yourself.”
“I always do, Edward,” she said with a smile.
He shook his head, but agitation had brought a colour to her cheeks, and
to persuade one’s-self that it is only fatigue that makes a beloved face
look pale is so easy at first, before any grave alarm has been roused.
Yet, Colonel Kingsward’s mind was not an easy one that night. He was _au
fond_, a severe man, very rigid as to what he thought his duty, taking
life seriously on the whole. His young wife, who loved pleasure, had
made him far more a man of society than was natural or indeed pleasing
to him; but he had thus got into that current which it is so difficult
to get out of without a too stern withdrawal, and his large young family
had warmed his heart and dressed his aspect in many smiles and graces
which did not belong to him by nature. The mixture of the rigid and the
yielding had produced nothing but good effects upon his character till
now. But there is no telling what a man is till the first conflict of
wills arises in his own household. Hitherto there had been nothing of
the kind. His children had amused him and pleased him and made him
proud. Their health, their prettiness, their infantile gaiety and
delight in every favour accorded to them had been all so many tributes
to his own supreme influence and power. Their very health was a standing
compliment to his own health and vigour, from whom they took their
excellent constitutions, and to the wonderful care and attention to
every law of health which he enforced in his house. Not a drain escaped
trapping, not a gas was left undisposed of where Colonel Kingsward was.
He had every new suggestion in his nursery that sanitary science could
bring up. “And look at the result!” he was in the habit of saying. Not a
pale face, not a headache, not an invalid member there. And among the
children he was as the sun in his splendour. Every delight rayed out
from him. The hour of his coming home was watched for; it was the
greatest treat for the little boys to go in the dogcart with Simmons,
the groom, to fetch papa from the station, while the others assembled at
the door as at a daily celebration to see him arrive. Charlie was now a
man grown, but he was a good boy, full of all right impulses, and there
had never been any difficulty with him.
Thus Colonel Kingsward had been kept from all knowledge of those
contrarieties of nature which appear even in the most favoured regions.
He was of opinion that he surrounded his wife with every care, bore
everything for her, did not suffer the winds of heaven to visit her
cheek too roughly. And it was true. But he was not at all aware that she
saved him anything, or that his joyful omnipotence and security from
every fret and all opposition depended upon her more than on anything
else in the world. He did not know the little inevitable jars which she
smoothed away, the youthful wills growing into individuality which she
kept in check. Which was a pity, for the strong man was thus deprived of
the graces of precaution, and knew no more than the merest weakling
what, as his children grow into men and women, every man has to face and
provide against. If Colonel Kingsward was too arbitrary, too trenchant
in his measures, too certain that there was no will but his own to be
taken into account, the blame must thus be partially laid upon those
natural fictions of boundless love and duty and sweet affectionate
submission, which grow up in the nursery and reign as long as childhood
lasts--until a more potent force of self or will or love, comes in to
put the gentle dream to flight.
It was thus that Colonel Kingsward considered the matter about Bee. It
had been, of course, necessary to cross Bee two or three times in her
life before. It had been necessary, or at least he had thought it
necessary, to send her to school; it had been thought expedient to keep
her back a year longer than she wished from appearing in the world.
These decisions had cost tears and a little struggle, but in a few days
Bee had forgotten all about them--or so, at least, her father thought.
And a lover--at nineteen--what was that but another plaything, a
novelty, a compliment, such as girls love? How could it mean anything
more serious? Why, Bee was a child--a little girl, an ornamental adjunct
to her mother, a sort of reflection, not to be detached for a long time
from that source of all that was delightful in her. Colonel Kingsward
had felt with a delighted surprise that the child and the mother did
“throw up” each other when he began to go out with them together. Bee’s
young beauty showing what mamma’s had been, and Mrs. Kingsward’s beauty
(so much higher and sweeter than any girl’s wild-rose bloom could be)
showing what in the after days her child would grow to. To cut these two
asunder for a stranger--another man, an intruding personality thrusting
himself between the child and her natural allegiance--was oppressive in
any shape. At the first word, indeed, and in the amusement furnished him
by the letters that had been poured upon him, Colonel Kingsward’s
consent had been given almost without thought. Aubrey Leigh was a good
match, he had a fine place, a valuable estate, and was well spoken of
among men. If Lucy was so absurd as to wish her daughter to marry; if
Bee, the silly child, was so foolish as to think of leaving her father’s
house for another, that was probably as good a one as she could have
chosen. I don’t know if fathers generally feel it a sort of desecration
when their young daughters marry. Some fathers do, and some brothers, as
if the creature pure by nature from all such thoughts were descending to
a lower place, and becoming such an one as themselves. Colonel Kingsward
was not, perhaps, visionary enough for such a view, yet he was slightly
shocked in his sentiment about the perfection of his own house by this
idea on his child’s part of leaving it for another. However, it was true
he had a very large family, and to provide so well for one of them at
the very outset of her career was a thing which was not to be despised.
But when the second chapter of this romance, all so simple, so natural
in its first phase, opened out, and there appeared a dark passage
behind--a woman wronged who had a claim upon the man, a story, a
scandal--whether it were true or untrue!--Colonel Kingsward, in his
knowledge of the world, knew that it did not so much matter whether a
story was true or untrue. It stuck, anyhow; and years, generations
after, when, if false, it had been contradicted and exploded, and
acknowledged to be false, people still would shake their heads and say,
“Wasn’t there some story?” For this reason he was not very rigid about
the facts, part of which, at least, the culprit admitted. There was a
woman and there was a story, and all the explanations in the world could
not do away with these. What did it matter about the man? He, Colonel
Kingsward, was not Aubrey Leigh’s keeper. And as for Bee, there would be
some tears, no doubt, as when she was sent to school--a little passion
of disappointment, as when she was kept back for a whole year, from
seventeen to eighteen, in her “coming out”--but the tears and the
passion once over, things would go on the same as before. The little
girl would go back to her place, and all would be well.
This was the man’s delusion, and perhaps it was a natural one, and he
was conscious of wishing to do the best thing for her, of saving her
from the after tortures which a wife has to endure whose husband has
proclivities towards strange women, and capabilities of being “led
away.” That was a risk that he could understand much better than she
could, at her age. The fellow might be proud of her, small blame to
him--he might strive to escape from disgraceful entanglements by such an
exceptionable connection as that of Colonel Kingsward, of Kingswarden,
Harley Street, and the Intelligence Department; he might be very much in
earnest and all that. He did not altogether blame the man; indeed, he
was willing enough to allow that he was not a bad fellow, and that he
was popular among his friends.
But these were not enough in the case of a girl like Bee. And it was
certainly for her good that her father was acting. She had known the man
a month, what could he be to her in so short a time? This is the most
natural of questions, constantly asked, and never finding any sufficient
answer. Why should a girl in three or four weeks be so changed in all
her thoughts as to be ready to give up her father’s house, the place in
which she has all her associations, the company in which she has been
so happy, and go away to the end of the world, perhaps with a man whom
she has known only for a month? It is the commonest thing in the world,
but also the most mysterious, and Colonel Kingsward refused to believe
in it, as so many other fathers have done. Bee would cry, and her mother
would console her. She would fly into a childish passion, and struggle
against her fate--for a few days. She would swear that she would never,
never give up that new plaything, and the joy of parading it before the
other girls, who perhaps had not such toys to play with--but all that
nonsense would give way in a little to firm guidance and considerate
care, and the fresh course of amusement and pleasure which the winter
would bring.
The winter is by no means barren to those who spend it habitually in
town. It has many distractions. There is the theatre, there are
Christmas gatherings without number, there are new dresses also to be
got for the same, perhaps a pretty new bonnet or two thrown in by a
penitent father, very sorry even in his own interests to give his
little girl pain. If all these pleasant things could not make up for the
loss of a man--of doubtful character, too--whom she had only known for a
month, Colonel Kingsward felt that it would be a strange thing indeed,
and altogether beyond his power to explain.