The reply to Grace's note, which Mrs. Barham wired back, was to the
effect that the Rev. James Barham and she would be delighted to receive
Miss Ballinger at Fellbridge on Thursday, for as long as she could find
it convenient to remain with them. It was arranged, therefore, that
Mordaunt should telegraph to his sister on Mrs. Frampton's arrival, and
that they should meet at the Brunswick Hotel in Boston, whichever day
her aunt liked to leave New York.
Tuesday and Wednesday passed without event or conversation worth
record. Messrs. Laffan and Burton had departed; other visitors came and
went, some for the afternoon, some to dine and sleep. Mrs. Courtly's
hospitality was great; but she did not resemble the man in the parable,
who thought any company was better than none. She was seldom alone, and
people of all kinds and all tastes met in her house; but they must have
something to recommend them, they must bring some grist to the mill of
society. One night they danced, some boys from Harvard and some girls
from Boston having arrived; and to see Mrs. Courtly's light, graceful
figure flying round with a beardless youth was really a pretty sight,
and did not appear incongruous.
"'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety,'"
murmured Quintin Ferrars, as he watched her.
"Yes," Grace replied, "I never knew so many-sided a human being.
Nothing seems to come amiss to her--except unkindness." She had grown
really fond of her hostess, though two characters more opposed it would
have been hard to find.
Since Paul Barham's departure Ferrars had found many opportunities of
being alone with Grace, and, even after Mrs. Courtly's revelations,
she did not avoid these, for, as she said truly, she was interested in
the man, and she pitied him doubly since she knew his story. She did
not respect or admire him; but he was clever, and, her very outspoken
criticism of his opinions not being taken amiss, it was just possible
she might exercise some beneficial influence over him. So he had
himself declared, and what woman is there who would refuse to believe
such a declaration? After Thursday they might probably never meet
again. If she could do him any good, if any words of hers could alter
the current of this unhappy man's feelings towards his fellow-men, she
must spare no pains, during the short time that was left her, to effect
this.
So when, on that Thursday morning, he asked her to take a last walk
with him, she would not refuse. Overhead was a hard, blue sky, like
a stone, with yet harder white clouds driven across it by a bitter
northeast wind. The shrubs were bowed earthwards; the brown last year's
leaves from the garden, the pulverized stone-dust from the road,
were swept along till they found refuge in some corner where their
relentless driver could no longer flog them.
Grace, clad in her ulster and stalking-cap, did not fear the wind, but,
as it rendered talking difficult, she proposed that they should seek
the shelter of the fir-wood. There, the turbulence of the wind was only
heard in the upper branches; a great quiet reigned over the soft, tawny
soil, carpeted with pine-needles, upon which their footsteps fell.
His beginning was not happy.
"Why are you going away? Why do you go and stay with those Barhams, a
country minister and his wife, with whom I am sure you can have nothing
in common?"
"I like Mrs. Barham and her son very much--that is why I go."
"You will turn that conceited young fellow's head." Then he added,
suddenly, without looking at her, "You are the only woman I ever met
who seems to have no idea of her own power." She remained silent for a
moment, then said, slowly, "I have not found it so. My life has rather
shown me that I have very little."
"With certain people you can do anything you choose," he persisted,
"but that is not my point. Of course, many women have that power,
for good or ill. My point is that you don't know when you have
it--you don't see the tremendous influence you may exercise upon some
lives--upon mine, for instance. You may change all my views of life,
turn curses into blessings, misery into joy, and you do not see it!"
She was startled; for the first time the truth flashed upon her
mind. It was impossible to misunderstand the meaning of those words.
This man, in whom she had taken a purely impersonal intellectual
interest, whom she had never led, by word, or look, or action, to make
love to her; this man, with a wife living, from whom he was not yet
divorced, dared to suggest to her the hopes he entertained. A flush
of indignation suffused her face. She felt angry with him, and doubly
angry with herself for her stupidity.
"You are quite right. _I did not see_, and I do not choose to see now,"
she said at last. "I told Mrs. Courtly yesterday that you understood me
very little; this proves it."
"Why? Is it an offence to say this?"
"It should be so. But let that pass. I repeat that you understand me
very little, since you seem to have mistaken the nature of my friendly
feeling towards you. I am very sorry if--"
"No--no--don't say you are sorry.... I have been precipitate, I
know.... We are going to part now--and I felt I must speak--that I must
tell you how different life has appeared to me since I came to know you
well. I have never felt for any woman what I feel for you--"
"You should not say that," she interrupted, quickly. "It is enough that
I know your story."
"And have you no pity for me, then? Can you not see how the great
deception of my life turned all my feelings into gall, until I met you?
Can you not understand my anxiety _now_ for freedom--freedom, which I
shall obtain in less than six months? Will you not--"
"Stay! Mr. Ferrars. Situated as you are, it is hardly showing much
respect for me to use this language. But no matter. Understand me, once
for all. If you were fifty times free, it would make no difference in
my feelings towards you. I am sorry you have disturbed the pleasant
terms on which we were."
"Will you hold out no hope? No possibility in the future?" he asked, in
a low, husky voice.
She shook her head. "None, Mr. Ferrars; none."
"Fool!" he muttered; and, in his sudden passion, he broke the stick in
his hand. "Why did I speak? Not from want of respect for you, believe
me, but because we were going to part, and I resolved never to follow
you--never to persecute you with my presence--unless I had a ray of
hope. Just one ray was all I wanted. God! If you knew what it was to
be utterly alone in the world, without a creature you care for, or who
cares for you!" He flung the two pieces of stick among the trees. "That
is all my life is worth now. I was insane enough to fancy it might
begin again. That dream is ended. You will forgive me--won't you?"
She made no reply. Platitudes, good advice, were worse than useless at
such a moment. Her transient indignation had given place to real sorrow
for the man, but to express this would only add fuel to the fire. They
had reached a point in the wood where two paths met. At the farther
end of one she saw Mordaunt and Miss Planter. Their backs were towards
her; they were in deep conversation, as they slowly paced along. Grace
naturally chose the other path, and it was that which led back to the
house. When they were yet some yards distant, she said,
"Let all this be forgotten between us; we have both made a mistake. But
I hope, by and by, if we should meet again, that you will let me feel
the same friendly regard for you that I did before--before you allowed
yourself to speak to me of this foolish fancy, which I am sure will
pass away."
"Never," he said, in a hoarse voice; "it will never _pass away_--but
I promise--I swear to you that you shall not be troubled with this
madness of mine again. Let us part here--I can't face all those
people--God bless you! You are the best woman I have ever known, and
for your sake I shall think better of humanity henceforward."
He wrung her hand, and his face was deadly white as he turned to enter
the house by a side door. An hour later he was gone. No one but Mrs.
Courtly saw him, and that discreet friend announced at luncheon that
Quintin Ferrars had been called suddenly and unexpectedly away.
In the meantime the other two had been walking in the fir-wood for the
best part of an hour. If we take up their dialogue during the last ten
minutes we shall sufficiently understand what preceded it.
"You say you like no one else?--that there is no other fellow you'd
sooner marry?"
"No, there is none. I like you better than Lord Grantham, though I
really liked him very much, and better than any one else who has
proposed to me in London or New York. I like you awfully, I really
_do_. But to marry--Oh! I think a man takes a deal of knowing before
one can make up one's mind to marry him."
"Haven't we had exceptional opportunities here of knowing each other?
Far better, I'm sure, than if we had spent a season in London or a
winter in New York together! I feel I know your bright, sweet nature
thoroughly, and--"
"Oh! but you don't. I am ever so full of contradictions. As fast as
ever you get hold of one thing, you'll find there's something else
quite contrary. I wish a thing, and I don't wish it. Sometimes I fancy
I should like to marry an Englishman, and then again I think I should
prefer living in my own country. I am not sure about anything, you
see, yet, and therefore I mean to go around for quite a time, and feel
certain before I settle down."
"I want you to feel certain. But if in six months you don't change your
mind--"
"But I have not made up my mind! If I had, I should not feel like
changing it in six months. I am changeable now, but I don't mean to be
so by and by. When I was in England, of course I had quite a number of
proposals; but, except for Lord Grantham--I think he really _did_ like
me--I felt pretty sure they only wanted to marry me because they heard
papa was rich and I was his only child, and that wasn't good enough for
_me_."
"I should think not! I'd marry you gladly if you hadn't a penny--try
me. Tell your father not to settle a dollar on you. Men in
business--Americans especially, I believe--are not fond of making
settlements. I'm not rich, but I've quite enough for us to live on."
"Oh! that is not it. I think I can tell when a man is pretending. And I
am sure you are not pretending. All the same," she added, with an arch
smile, "I expect your heart would recover if you were told you were
never to see me again, though you might feel pretty badly at first."
"I don't say it wouldn't," returned Mordaunt, quick enough to see that
frankness was his best policy. "I'm not going to tell a lot of humbug
about my heart being broken, which you wouldn't believe. Of course, I
have flirted a good deal. A guardsman of eight-and-twenty must have
had some affairs. You wouldn't believe me if I said I hadn't. But I
have never been hard hit till now. I am honestly and heartily in love
with you. I think you are the dearest girl in the world, and I shall
go on persevering as long as I see you don't prefer another fellow. If
you _do_, I shall be awfully cut up, though I shall try and prevent
the world's seeing it; and, I suppose, in the course of time, I shall
marry some one else, who throws her cap at me. She'll have to make the
running. I sha'n't be a bit in love."
"Mamma says love is not necessary at first--that it grows and
strengthens after marriage--that violent fancies are seldom lasting."
"You run no danger of that kind, apparently," was his reproachful
reply. "You speak as if you had no heart."
"I don't know if I have one, or not. If I was sure I had, I would marry
the man right away who made me sure. And when I feel sure I have _not_,
I shall marry--well, I suppose any one."
"For ambition?"
"Perhaps."
There was a long silence. Irrepressible, "bumptious," as he was often
called, Mordaunt Ballinger on this occasion was reduced to silence.
His eyes bent upon the ground, his hands thrust deep into the pockets
of his ulster, he kicked the fir-cones with his yellow leather boots
as they paced the wood, while the girl, erect, keen-sighted, with a
brilliant color on her fair cheek, glanced at him from time to time,
and then away through the red-stemmed pines to where the blue smoke
curled up from the chimneys of the house.
It was she who spoke first.
"Where are you going after Boston?"
"To Colorado. And you? Do you remain at Pittsburgh till the spring?"
"I think not. It doesn't agree with mamma. Perhaps we may go to the
Pacific Slope."
"Where is that? Don't laugh. Do you mean California?"
"Why, of course. Don't the hills slope down to the Pacific?"
"And where do you stop there?"
"Possibly at Monterey; just the loveliest place in the whole world, I
believe."
"I think we might come too. I didn't mean to go so far, but if--if
you--would like--"
"Like? Why, of course I should! It would be just delightful! We would
have a real good time, wandering by that lovely shore, watching the
seals, and driving through the cypress forest. I shall expect to meet
you there."
"Then I shall come."
That afternoon, the brother and sister parted at the Boston Railway
Station, when Mordaunt saw his sister and her maid into a train which
would deposit them in half an hour at Fellbridge, the small town of
which the Rev. Joseph Barham was the rector.
But little had passed between Grace and Mordaunt. Clare Planter's name
had not been mentioned. The two girls had parted with cordiality, when
Clare had said, "I hope we may meet in California. Your brother says we
shall."
"Indeed?" Grace replied. "I did not know he meant to go as far." Then
she added, with emphasis, "If _you_ wish it, I hope we may."
She sought no explanation from Mordaunt; she respected his reticence,
understood his rather forced hilarity at moments, and then his long
lapses into silence. It was better so; she did not much believe in
confidences.
Mr. Barham met his English visitor at the Fellbridge Station, and while
her maid waited to accompany the porter who was to wheel her box on a
truck down the street, the minister conducted Grace to the rectory.
He was a tall, handsome man of five-and-forty, with hair still
untouched with gray, which may have helped to make a middle-aged face,
in which high cheek-bones and a prominent chin were the chief defects,
look somewhat hard. The silver that years scatters on our head is a
wondrous softener, as silver, in life, is so often found to be.
He greeted the young Englishwoman with a grave, old-fashioned courtesy
to which she was unaccustomed.
"This visit is a pleasure to which Mrs. Barham has been looking forward
for several weeks, Miss Ballinger. You will take us as we are, simple
folk, living in a simple way. You can have expected nothing else in
coming to a minister's house, so I make no apologies. We will make you
as comfortable as we can, and show you what little there is to see in
our neighborhood."
They stopped before a green-painted wooden house, in no way dissimilar
from its fellows in the long, wide street. It stood in a "yard,"
perhaps a quarter of an acre square, with half a dozen stripling trees
and a bush or two irregularly dispersed round it. Fence or paling there
was none, dividing it from the road or from its neighbors. It had a
"piazza," or covered balcony, running along the front, in which grew
two shrubs in pots, but there was no border or bed of brown frozen
earth telling of a past-summer's garden. The exterior was certainly
discouraging.
Mrs. Barham, who had been watching at the window for them, came to
the door herself, but not before it had been opened by an Irish
parlor-maid, with an aroma of Tipperary still hanging about her. Her
very hair seemed to have a brogue. But behind her shone the sweet,
glad face of Saul's mother, and two delicate hands which Grace declared
she would have recognized anywhere, were extended to greet her.
The interior of the house presented some pleasant features, indicative
of work and home life. On this account it seemed to Grace more cheerful
than many of the sumptuous dwellings she had visited in New York. The
"parlor" had books on one table, Mrs. Barham's work-basket on another,
her writing-materials and letters on a third. There was no open
fire-place, and the heat from the stove struck Grace as oppressive,
coming from the sharp air of the February afternoon. But she was
beginning to get acclimatized to the atmosphere of American hotels,
railway-cars, and most private houses, Brackly being an exception.
She threw open her fur jacket as she sat down.
"How nice it is to see you again--and to be under your roof!" she
exclaimed.
"It was lovely of you to offer yourself, Miss Ballinger.... I am afraid
you find the room too warm? Won't you take your jacket right off?" Then
calling, "Molly! you might bring the tea, and--Molly! some blueberry
jam, if you please, and the Boston crackers. Joseph"--this to her
husband, who, divested of his great-coat and overshoes, now entered the
parlor--an honor he rarely paid that apartment till the evening--"I
hope you feel like coming to sit down here, and having a quiet cup of
tea with us? He does work so hard, Miss Ballinger. I am so glad to get
him away from his study and his parish-work for half an hour."
Mr. Barham did not reply to this. He sat down stiffly, crossed his
legs, and said,
"We expect our son presently."
"You saw him on Sunday?" asked Mrs. Barham, anxiously. "Did you think
him looking ill?"
"Hardly as well as on board ship--but that was natural."
"His heart is in his work, and he works too hard," sighed the mother.
"He does his duty. He can do no less. You observe that Mrs. Barham
has 'work' on the brain," said the father, with just so much upward
inclination of the curves of the mouth as might, by courtesy, be called
a smile. "That which a man's hand finds to do should be done with all
his might. I should regret if a son of mine thought otherwise."
"Ah, Joseph, but with Saul you know very well that though the spirit is
willing, the flesh is weak."
"Saul is free to do as he will. I do not coerce him. He has an
independence. He may travel on the continent of Europe till he is
strong--and you may go with him. I have told you both so, quite a
number of times, but he prefers to work at home, and now that he has
gotten this professorship I guess it will be hard to induce him to give
it up. He has the grit of a true American, Miss Ballinger. He won't
cave in till he is forced."
"Then I hope you will force him--if his health suffers."
"Thank you for saying that," said Mrs. Barham, eagerly. "My husband is
just as anxious as I am about our son, but he won't speak. He says a
man must work out the problem of life for himself. I say we old ones
should help the young with our experience."
Molly here entered, staggering under a tea-tray laden with the teapot
and crackers and jam. She set it down, sweeping to right and left the
books on the table; then, with a mighty sigh, which seemed as though it
would burst every button in her bodice, she placed her arms akimbo, and
stood awaiting further instructions.
"You might bring some milk, Molly," observed Mrs. Barham, in mild
remonstrance. Then, lifting the lid of the teapot, "Are you sure the
water boiled?"
"Faith, m'm, I thought ye wanted your tay in a hurry, and for once it
didn't matther."
A distressed look came over her mistress's face. "It always _must_
boil, Molly. I have told you so before. Could not the cook have put it
on the fire sooner?"
"She an' me was helpin' Pat Malone wid the lady's box, which was that
big we had the divil's own work to get it upstairs, m'm."
"Do not speak of the devil's work in that light way," said her master,
sternly.
"I wasn't manein' to sphake of him in a light way, sorr, for indade it
was mighty heavy, and--"
"Well," interrupted her mistress, quickly, "you might run and make some
fresh tea--for this is hardly warm; and mind the water _boils_ this
time." Having thus got rid of the irrepressible Hibernian housemaid,
Mrs. Barham turned to her guest, with a piteous smile. "These helps are
our greatest trial. They come over here raw--very raw--material. If one
gets an honest girl like this, one must put up with her faults. One
dare not get rid of her for fear of getting something worse."
The shrill whistle of a steam-engine was now heard, not far distant.
"That is the train from Cambridge," said Saul's mother.