AUBREY stayed at the village public-house day after day, hoping for some
sign or message. He wrote to Bee, this time by the post; but he had no
better success. Was it only because of her grief that she took no
notice? Terrible as that grief must be, and rigorous as evidently were
the rules of the closed-up house, from which no one came forth, even for
a mouthful of air, it did not seem to him that this was reason enough
for putting him from her--he who was to share her life, and whose
sympathy was so full and overflowing. Surely it was the moment when all
who loved her should gather round her, when she most wanted solace and
support. It could not be that her heart was so wrapped up in sorrow
that she should push from her the man who had the best right to share
her tears--whom her mother approved and liked, whose acceptance she had
ratified and confirmed. It could not be that. He felt that, had he been
in the same circumstances, his cry would have been for Bee to stand by
him, to comfort him. Was she so different, or was she overwhelmed by
what was before her--the charge of her father’s house, the dreadful
suggestion that it was to him and the children she should dedicate
herself henceforward, giving up her own happiness? It seemed to Aubrey,
after long thinking, that this must be the cause of her silence; the
burden which surely was not for her young shoulders, which never could
be intended for her, must have come down upon her, crushing her. She was
the eldest girl. She must have, like so many girls, an exaggerated sense
of what was her duty. Her duty! Could anything be more fantastic, more
impossible? To take her mother’s place--and her mother had been killed
by it!--to humour the stern father--to take care of the tribe of
children, to be their nurse, their ruler--everything that a creature of
nineteen could not, should not be! And for this she would throw aside
her own life--and him, whose life it was also. He would never, never
consent to such a sacrifice, he said to himself. Bee was not soft and
yielding, like their mother. She was a determined little thing. She
would stand to it, and sacrifice him as she sacrificed herself, unless
he made a bold stand from the first. No, no, no! Whatever was to be
done, that must not be done. He would not have it--he must let her know
from the very first--if it were not that she knew already, and that this
was the reason why she was silent, feeling that if ever they met she
could not hold out against him. Poor little Bee! Poor, poor little Bee!
Her mother dead, and her father so stern; and thinking it her duty--her
duty, God bless her!--to take all that household upon her little
shoulders. The tears came into his eyes with a sudden softening. She
thought it better to keep him at arm’s length, the darling, knowing that
she never could stand against him, that he would never, never consent;
the little, sublime, unreasonable girl! The things they took into their
heads, these inexperienced, generous creatures! But, thank heaven, he
was here; even though she held him at bay--here, to make all right.
The reader knows that poor Bee was not actuated by such lofty feelings,
but then Aubrey had no knowledge in his mind of that strange story which
had destroyed her faith in him. When a man is guilty he knows all that
can be brought against him, in which, in its way, there is a certain
advantage. He cannot be taken by surprise. He knows that this or that is
lying ready like a secret weapon apt to be picked up by any man who may
wish to do him harm. But the innocent man has not that safeguard. It is
not likely to occur to him that harmless circumstances may be so twisted
as to look like guilt. For his own part he had forgotten all about that
little episode on the railway--or if he remembered it, it was with a
smile and a glow of momentary pleasure, to think how, with a little
money--so small a matter--he had been able to make comfort take the
place of misery to the poor little family, whom perhaps he would never
have noticed at all had not his thoughts been full of Bee. He had done
that for her with the feeling with which he might have given her an
ornament or a basket of flowers; the only drawback to the pleasure of it
being that he could not tell her off-hand, and get the smile of thanks
she would give him for it--far more than he deserved, for he liked doing
it--kindness coming natural to this young man. It was hard on Aubrey in
the complications of fate that this innocent, nay praiseworthy, incident
should be made the occasion of his trouble. But he had no suspicion of
it--forgot the fact, indeed, altogether--and would have laughed at the
idea that such an accidental occurrence could in any way influence his
fate.
He went to the funeral, unnoticed in the crowd of people who were
there--some for love and some for conventional necessity, but almost all
with a pang of natural sympathy to see the train of children who
followed their mother to her last rest. The Colonel, rigid in all
things, had insisted at last, that all, except the very youngest, should
be there--having wavered for a moment whether it would not be more in
order that the girls should remain at home, and only the boys be present
at the melancholy ceremony. To see the little wondering faces
two-and-two that followed the elder children up the aisle, and were
installed in the mourners’ places, some of them scarcely tall enough to
see over the edge of the pew, brought many a gush of tears to
sympathetic eyes. Bee and Betty, the two inseparable “eldest,”--slim,
black figures--drooping under the heavy veils that covered them from the
daylight, almost touched Aubrey with their clinging black garments as
they passed. Did they see him? He saw, wherever he was, at whatever
distance, any movement they made. He saw that Bee never raised her head;
but Betty was younger, and less self-restrained--that she had seen him
at least he felt sure. And he felt the Colonel’s eyes upon him,
penetrating the thickest of the crowd. Colonel Kingsward had a glance
that saw everything. He was a man bereaved, the light of his eyes taken
from him, and the comfort of his life--and yet he saw everything at his
wife’s funeral, saw and noted the faces that were dull and tired of the
tension, and those that were alive with sympathy--making notes for or
against them in his memory, and, above all, he saw Aubrey Leigh. Charlie
saw him more accidentally, without any conscious observation, and the
boys who had cried all they were capable of, and now could not help
their eyes straying a little, conscious of the spectacle, and of the
important part they played in it, everybody looking at them. All of them
saw him, but Bee. Was it only Bee who was so little in sympathy with him
that she did not know he must be there?
He went back to his lodging a little angry through his emotion. It was
too much. Even in the interval between her mother’s death and funeral he
felt that a girl who loved him should not be so obdurate as that, and he
listened with a very sombre face to all the landlady’s discussion of the
proceedings. “It was a shame,” she said, “to bring those little children
there, not much more than babies--what could they know? I’d have kept
them safe in the nursery with some quiet game to play, the poor little
innocents! And so would Missis. Missis would have thought what was best
for them, not for making a display. But God knows what will become of
them children now.”
“What should become of them?” said the husband. “They’ll get the best of
everything and servants to wait on them hand and foot. The Colonel, he
ain’t like a poor man who could do nothing for them. When the mother’s
gone the children had better go too--in a poor man’s house.”
“It’s little you know about it,” said the woman with contempt. “Rich
house or poor house, it don’t make no such great difference. Nurses is a
long way different from mothers. Not as I’m saying a word against Sarah
Langridge, as is a good honest woman, that would wrong her master not by
a candle end or a boot lace, not she. But that’s not like being a
mother. The Lord grant that if I die and there’s a baby it may go too,
as you say. You’re more than a nurse, you’re their father, and you’re
part of them; but Lord forbid that I should leave a poor little baby on
your hands.”
The man turned on his heel with a tremulous laugh. “Well, I ain’t
wishing it, am I?” he said.
“But,” said Aubrey, “there are the--elder sisters--the young ladies.”
“Miss Bee! Lord bless us, sir, do ye know the age that child is?
Nineteen, and no more. Is that an age to take the charge of a nursery
full of children? Why, her mother was but forty as has been laid in her
grave to-day. I wish to goodness as that marriage hadn’t been broke off.
He was a widower--and I don’t much hold with widowers--but I wish that I
could give him a sign to come back, if he has any spirit in him, and try
and get that poor young lady away.”
“If he has been sent about his business,” said Aubrey, forcing a smile,
“he could have no right to come back.”
“I don’t know whose fault it was,” said the landlady. “None o’ missis’s,
you take my word; but, Lord, if a gentleman loves a young lady, what’s
to hinder him putting his pride in his pocket? A man does when he’s real
fond of a woman in our rank of life.”
“I don’t know about that,” said her husband. “If I had been sent away
with a cuff on the side of my head, blessed if I’d ever have come back.”
“You’re a poor lot, all of you,” the woman said.
Aubrey could not but smile at the end of the argument, but he asked
himself when he was alone--Was he a poor lot? Was he unwilling to put
his pride in his pocket? Walking about his little room, turning over and
over the circumstances, remembering the glare from Colonel Kingsward’s
eye, which had recognised him, he at last evolved out of his own
troubled feelings and imagination the idea that it was his part to offer
sympathy, to hold out an olive branch. Perhaps, after all, the stern
man’s heart was really touched; perhaps it would soothe him in his grief
to hear that “when the eye saw her, then it blessed her,” which was
Aubrey’s sincere feeling at this moment in respect to Bee’s mother. It
seemed to him that it was best to act upon this impulse before other
arguments came in; before the sense of wounding and pain in Bee’s
silence got the upper hand. He spent most of the afternoon in writing a
letter, so carefully put together, copied over and over again, that
there might be nothing in it to wound the most sensitive feelings;
offering to Colonel Kingsward his profound sympathy, telling him with
emotion of her kindness to himself, her sweetness, her beauty, with that
heightening of enthusiastic admiration, which, if it is permissible
anywhere, is so over a new-made grave. And at the end he asked, with all
the delicacy he could, whether in these new circumstances he might not
ask a hearing, a renewed consideration, for her dear sake who had been
so good to him, and who was gone.
I am not sure that his judgment went fully with this renewed effort, and
his landlady’s remarks were but a poor reason for any such step. But his
heart was longing after Bee, angry with her, impatient beyond words,
disturbed, miserable, not knowing how to support the silence and
separation while yet so near. And to do something is always a relief,
even though it may be the worst and not the best thing to do. In the
evening after dark, when there was no one about, he went up to
Kingswarden, and himself put his letter into the hands of the butler,
who did not know him, and therefore knew no reason why the letter should
either be carried in haste to his master or delayed. Aubrey heard that
the young ladies were quite as well as could be expected, and the
Colonel very composed, considering--and then he returned to the village.
How silent the house was! Not a creature about, and how disturbing and
painful to the anxious spirit even the simple noises and commotion of
the village street.
Next morning a letter came, delivered by the postman, from Kingswarden.
It contained only a few words.
“Colonel Kingsward is obliged to Mr. Aubrey Leigh for his message
of sympathy, but, on consideration of the whole circumstances,
thinks it better that no pretence at intercourse should be resumed.
It could be nothing but painful to both parties, and Colonel
Kingsward, with his compliments, takes the liberty to suggest that
Mr. Aubrey Leigh would do well to remain in the neighbourhood as
short a time as suits his convenience.
“Kingswarden, October 15.”
Inside were the two or three notes which Aubrey on different
occasions--twice by post and once by a private messenger--had sent to
Bee. They had not been opened. The young man’s colour rose with a fiery
indignation--his heart thumped in his ears. This was an explanation of
which he had not thought. To keep back anyone’s letters had not occurred
to him as a thing that in the end of the eighteenth century any man
would dare to do. It seemed to bring him back face to face with
old-fashioned, forgotten methods, of all sorts of antiquated kinds. He
put down the papers on the table with a sort of awe. How was he to
struggle against such ways of warfare? Bee might think he had not
written at all--had shown no sympathy with her in her trouble. How
likely that it was this that had made her angry, that kept her from
saying a word, from vouchsafing a look! She might think it was he who
was deficient, who showed no feeling. What was he to do? The landlady
coming up with his breakfast broke in upon this distracting course of
thought.
“I didn’t know, sir, as you were acquainted with the Colonel’s family,”
the woman said.
“A little,” said poor Aubrey. The letters were all lying on the table,
giving to a sharp observer a very good clue to the position. Mrs. Gregg
had noted the unopened letters returned to him in the Colonel’s
enclosure at the first glance.
“You didn’t ought to have let us talk. Why, we might have been saying,
without thinking, some ill of the Colonel or of Miss Bee.”
He smiled, though with little heart. “You were once in their service,”
he said, “do you ever go there now?”
“Oh, yes, now and again,” said Mrs. Gregg. “Sarah Langridge, as is in
the nursery, is a cousin of mine, and I do go just to see them all now
and again.”
“Would you venture to take a letter from me to--Miss Kingsward?”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Gregg, “is it about the marriage as was broke off? Is
it?” she added quickly, as he answered her by nodding his head, “likely
to come on again? That’s what I want to know.”
“If it does not,” said Aubrey, “it will not be my fault.”
“Then I will and welcome,” the landlady said. “It’s natural I should
want to go the day after the funeral, to see about everything. Give me
your letter, sir, and I’ll get it put safe into Miss Bee’s own hands.”
All that he sent was half-a-dozen words of appeal.
“Bee, these have been sent back to me. Was it by your will? I have
been here since ever I heard of her illness, longing to be with
you, to tell you what I felt for her and you. And you would not
speak to me! Bee, dearest, say you did not mean it. Tell me what I
am to do.
“A.L.”
How long the woman was in getting ready--how long in going! Before she
came back it was almost night again of the lingering, endless day. She
brought him a little note, not returning the enclosures--that was always
something--with a reproach. “Oh, sir, and you very near got me into
terrible trouble! I’ll never, never carry anything from you again.” The
note was still shorter than his own:--
“It was not by my will. I have never seen them till now. But
please--please let this be the last. We can’t meet again. There can
never more be anything between us--not from my father’s will, but
my own. And this for ever--and your own heart will tell you why.
“BEE.”
“My own heart will tell me why! My heart tells me nothing--nothing!”
poor Aubrey said to himself in the silence of his little room. But there
was little use in repeating it to himself, and there was no other ear to
hear.