THE year went on in its usual routine, the boys came back from school,
there was the usual move to the seaside, all mechanically performed
under the impulse of use, and when the anniversary came round of the
mother’s death, it passed, and the black dresses were gradually laid
aside. And everything came back, and everybody referred to Bee as if
there had always been a slim elder sister at the head of affairs. Betty
came home at the end of the season with a sentiment in respect to Gerald
Lyon, and with the prospect of many returns to Portman Square, but
nothing final in her little case, nothing that prevented her from being
one of the ringleaders in all the mischief which inevitably occurred
when the family were gathered together. Bee had become so prematurely
serious, so over-wrought with the cares of the family, that Betty, who
was too energetic to be suppressed, gradually came to belong rather to
the faction of the boys than to share the responsibilities of the elder
sister, which might have been her natural place. The second Christmas,
instead of being forlorn, like the first, was almost the gayest that had
been known in Kingswarden for many years. For the boys were growing, and
demanded invitations for their friends, and great skating while the
frost lasted, which, as the pond at Kingswarden was the best for a great
number of miles round, brought many cheerful youthful visitors about the
house. Colonel Kingsward was nothing if not correct; he did not neglect
the interests of any of his children. He perceived at once that to have
Bee alone at the head of affairs, without any support, especially when
his own time at home was so much broken by visits, would be bad at once
for her “prospects,” and for the discipline of the family. He procured
a harmless, necessary aunt accordingly, a permanent member of the
household, yet only a visitor, who could be displaced at any time, to
provide for all necessary proprieties, an arrangement which left him
very free to go and come as he pleased. And thus life resumed its usual
lightness, and youth triumphed, and things at Kingswarden went on as of
old, with a little more instead of less commotion and company and
entertainment as the young people developed and advanced.
It was perhaps natural enough, too, in the circumstances that Charlie,
though the oldest son, should be so little at home. He came for
Christmas, but he did not throw himself into the festivities with the
spirit he ought to have shown. He was in a fitful state of mind,
sometimes in high spirits, sometimes overclouded and impatient,
contemptuous of the boys, as having himself reached so different a line
of development, and indifferent to all the family re-unions and
pleasures. Sometimes it seemed to Bee, who was the only one in the
family who concerned herself about Charlie’s moods, that he was anxious
and unhappy, and that the air of being bored which he put on so readily,
and the hurried way in which he rushed out and in, impatient of the
family calls upon him, concealed a secret trouble. He complained to her
of want of money, of his father’s niggardliness, of the unhappy lot of
young men who never had any “margin,” who dared not spend an extra
shilling without thinking where it was to come from. But whether this
was the only trouble, or how it came about that he had discovered
himself to be so poor, Bee, poor child, who knew so little, could not
divine. How miserable it was that it was she who was in the mother’s
place! Mamma would have divined, she would have understood, she would
have helped him through that difficult passage, but what could Bee do,
who knew nothing about life, who thought it very likely that she was
making mountains out of molehills, and that all young men were bored and
uneasy at home--oh, if people would only be all good, all happy with
each other, all ready to do what pleased the whole, instead of merely
what pleased themselves!
To Bee, so prematurely introduced into the midst of those jars and
individual strivings of will and fancy, it seemed as if everything might
be made so easy in life by this simple method. If only everybody would
be good! The reader may think it was a nursery view of human life, and
yet what a solution it would give to every problem! Colonel Kingsward
then would have been more at home, would have been the real father who
commanded his children’s confidence, instead of papa, whose
peculiarities had to be studied, and in whose presence the children had
to be hushed and every occasion of disturbance avoided, and of whom they
were all more or less afraid. And Charlie would have been more or less a
second to him, thoughtful of all, chivalrous to the girls, fond of home,
instead of, as he was, pausing as it were on one foot while he was with
his family, anxious only to get away. And Bee--well, Bee perhaps would
have been different too had that new, yet old, golden rule come into
full efficacy. Oh, if everybody, including always one’s own self, would
only be good!
It makes the head go round to think what a wonderful revolution in the
world generally the adoption of that simplest method would produce. But
in poor Bee’s experience it was the last rule likely to be adopted in
Kingswarden, where, more and more to the puzzled consciousness of the
girl not able to cope with so many warring individualities, everyone was
going his own way.
It was in the early spring that Colonel Kingsward came down from town to
Kingswarden, looking less like the adoption of this method than ever
before. The children were in the hall when he came, busy with some great
game in which various skins which were generally laid out there were in
use as properties, making, it must be allowed, a scene of confusion in
that place. The Colonel was not expected. He had walked from the
station, and the sound of his voice stopped the fun with a sudden horror
of silence and fright, which, indeed, was not complimentary to a father.
Instead of greetings, he asked why the children were allowed to make
such a confusion in the place, with a voice which penetrated to the
depths of the house and brought Bee and Betty flying from the
drawing-room.
“Papa!” they both cried, in surprise, mingled with alarm. Colonel
Kingsward walked into the room they had left, ordering peremptorily the
children to the nursery, but finding certain friends of Betty’s there,
in full enjoyment of talk and tea, retreated again to his library, Bee
following nervously.
“Is your brother here?” he asked, harshly, establishing himself with his
back to the fire.
“My brother?” echoed Bee, for indeed there were half-a-dozen, and how
was she to know on the spur of the moment which he meant.
Colonel Kingsward looked, in the partial light (for a lamp which smoked
had been brought in hurriedly, to make things worse), as if he would
have liked to seize his daughter and wring her slender neck. He went on
with additional irritation: “I said your brother. The others, I have no
doubt, will provide trouble enough in their turn. For the moment it is,
of course, Charlie I mean. Is he here?”
“Papa! Why, he is at Oxford, you know, in the schools----”
Colonel Kingsward laughed harshly. “He was going in for honours, wasn’t
he? Wanted to go up to read in the long vacation--was full of what he
was going to do? Well, it has all ended in less than nothing, as I might
have known it would. Read that!” he cried, tossing a letter on the
table.
Bee, with her heart sick, took up and opened the letter, and struggled
to read, in her agitation, an exceedingly bad hand by an indifferent
light. She made out enough to see that Charlie had not succeeded in his
“schools,” that he had not even secured a “pass,” that he had incurred
the continual censure of his college authorities by shirking lectures,
failing in engagements, and doing absolutely no work. So far as was
known there was nothing against his moral character, but---- Bee, to
whom the censure of the college sounded like a sentence of death, put
down the dreadful letter carefully, as if it might explode, and raised
large eyes, widened with alarm and misery, to her father’s face.
“Oh, papa!” was all that she could say.
“I telegraphed to him to come home at once and meet me here. The fool,”
said Colonel Kingsward, pacing about the room, “is capable of not doing
that--of going away--of----”
“Papa, they say there is nothing against his character. Oh! you couldn’t
think that he would--do anything dreadful; not disappear, not----” Bee
said the rest in an anguish of suspicion and ignorance with her eyes.
“God knows what an idiot like that may do! Things are bad enough, but he
will, of course, think them worse than they are. There is one thing we
may be sure of,” he said, with a fierce laugh, “Charlie will do nothing
to make himself uncomfortable. He knows how to take care of himself.”
Colonel Kingsward walked up and down the room, gnawing the end of his
moustache. The lamp smoked, but he took no notice of it. “There is one
thing certain,” he said, “and that is, there’s a woman in it. I remember
now, he was always thinking of something; like an ass, I supposed it was
his studies. No doubt it was some Jezebel or other.”
“Papa,” said Bee.
“Speak out! Has he told you anything?” He stopped in front of her, and
stood looking with threatening eyes into her face. “If you keep back
anything from me,” he said, “your brother’s ruin will be on your head.”
“Papa,” said Bee, faltering, “it is not much I know. I know that there
was a lady who lived in Oxford----”
“Ah! The long vacation,” he exclaimed, with another angry laugh.
“He used to write long letters to her, and he told me her name.”
“That is something to the purpose. What was her name?”
“He said,” said Bee, in a horror of betraying her brother, yet impelled
to speak, “he said that she was called--Laura, papa.”
“What?” he cried, for Bee’s voice had sunk very low; and then he turned
away again with an impatient exclamation, calling her again a little
fool. “Laura, confound her! What does that matter? I thought you had
some real information to give.”
“Papa,” said Bee, timidly, “there is a little more, though perhaps it
isn’t information. When he took me to the Academy in summer I saw him
meet a lady. Oh, not a common person, a beautiful, grand-looking lady.
But it could not be the same,” Bee added, after a pause, “for she was
much older than Charlie--not a young lady at all.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this at the time?” cried Colonel Kingsward. “Can
one never secure the truth even from one’s own children? I should have
sent him off at once had I known. What do you mean by not young at all?”
“I should think,” said Bee, with diffidence and a great anxiety not to
exaggerate such a dreadful statement, “that she might perhaps have
been--thirty, papa.”
“You little idiot,” her father kindly replied.
Why was she a little idiot? But Bee had not time to go into that
question. The evening was full of agitation and anxiety. The poor little
girl, unused to such sensations, sat through dinner in a quiver of
anxious abstraction, listening for every sound. There were several
trains by which he might still come, and at any moment when the door
opened Charlie might present himself, pale with downfall and distress,
to meet his father’s angry look, whose eyes were fixed on the door
whenever it opened with as much preoccupation as Bee’s--with this
difference, that Bee’s eyes were soft with excuses and pity, while those
brilliant steely eyes which shone from beneath her father’s dark brows,
and which were the originals of her own, blazed with anger. When dinner
was over, which he hurried through, disturbing the servants in their
leisurely routine, Colonel Kingsward again called Bee to him into the
library. She was the only person to whom he could talk of the subject of
which his mind was full, which was the sole reason for this great
distinction, for he had very little patience with Bee’s trembling
remarks. “Don’t be a little fool,” was the answer he made to any timid
suggestion upon which she ventured; but yet there was a necessity upon
him to discuss it with someone, and Bee, however inadequate, had this
burden to bear.
“If the woman is the kind you say, and if she thinks there’s anything to
be made by it--why the fool may have married her,” he cried. “Heavens!
Think of it; married at three and twenty, without a penny! But,” he
added, colouring a little, “they are very knowing, these women. She
would find out that he was not worth her while, and probably throw him
off in time.”
“Oh, papa!” cried Bee, horrified by the thought that her brother might
be deserted in the moment of his downfall.
“That is the best we can hope. He will have Kingswarden, of course, when
I die, but not a penny--not a penny in the meantime to keep up any such
ridiculous--Listen! Is that the train?”
There was a cutting near Kingswarden through which the thundering of the
train was heard as it passed. This had been a great grievance at first,
but it was not without its conveniences to the accustomed ears of the
household now. They both listened with anxiety, knowing that by this
time it must have stopped at the station and deposited any passenger,
and for the next half-hour watched and waited; Bee, with all her being
in her ears, listened with an intensity of attention such as she had
never known before, holding her breath; while Captain Kingsward himself,
though he kept walking up and down the room, did so with a softened
step which made no sound on the thick carpet, not uttering a word,
listening too. To describe all the sounds they heard, or thought they
heard, how often the gate seemed to swing in the distance, and the
gravel start under a quick foot, would be endless. It was the last
train; if he did not come now it would be clear that he did not mean to
come. And it was now too late for any telegram. When it was no longer
possible to believe that he could have been detained on the way, Colonel
Kingsward drew a long breath of that disappointment which, in the
yielding of nervous tension, is almost for the moment a relief.
“If there is no letter to-morrow morning I shall go up to Oxford,” he
said, “and, Bee, if you like, you can come with me. You might be of use.
Don’t say anything to Betty or your aunt. Say you are going with me to
town by the early train, and that you may possibly not return till next
day. There is no need for saying any more.”
“Yes, papa,” said Bee, submissively. That was all he knew! No need for
saying any more to Betty, who had known every movement her sister made
since ever she was born! But, at all events, Bee made up her mind to
escape explanation so far as she could to-night. She paused for a moment
at the door of the drawing-room as she passed. No more peaceful scene
could have been presented. Betty was at the piano singing one song after
another, half for practice, half to amuse the aunt, who sat dozing in
her chair by the fire. The others had gone to bed, and careless youth
and still more careless age, knowing nothing of any trouble, pursued
their usual occupations in perfect composure and calm. The aunt knitted
mechanically, and dozed in the warmth and quiet which she loved, and
Betty went on singing her songs, indifferent to her audience, yet
claiming attention, breaking off now and then in the middle of a line to
ask “Do you like that, Aunt Ellen? Are you paying any attention, Aunt
Ellen?” “Yes, my dear, I like it very much,” the old lady said, and
dozed again. Bee turned away with a suppressed sob. Where was Charlie?
In disgrace, perhaps heart-broken, deserted by his love, afraid to meet
his father! It was foolish to think that he was out in the night,
wandering without shelter, without hope, for there was no need of any
such tragic circumstances, but this was the picture that presented
itself to Bee’s aching and inexperienced heart.