"One day is the same to us as another. We see nobody."
"Oh, of course!" said Mrs. Wilberforce. "Dear Mrs. Warrender, it is so
noble of you to make such an effort. I hope Theo will appreciate it as
it deserves."
Mrs. Warrender coloured a little, as one is apt to do when condemned by
too much praise. It is difficult sometimes to tell which is worse, the
too little or the too much: but she did not make any reply.
"But I am glad it does not make any difference to have us to-night; that
is, if you meant me to come?--or perhaps it was only the two gentlemen?
I see now: to be sure, two gentlemen is no party; they need not even
come back to the drawing-room at all. I am so glad I came to inquire,
for now I understand perfectly. And you are sure it will quite suit you
to have them to-night?"
"Of course," said Minnie, "Mamma does not look upon you as company, dear
Mrs. Wilberforce; it will be only a relief if you come, for gentlemen,
and especially new people, who don't know what we have lost nor anything
about us, are trying. Mr. Cavendish, I remember, was quite nice when we
had tea in his rooms at Commemoration, and if all had been well---- But
I am sure mamma forms too high an estimate of her own powers. What I am
afraid of is that she will break down."
"To be sure, dear Minnie, if you are afraid of that----" said the
rector's wife, and so it was settled. Chatty took no part at all in the
arrangements. She had not joined in her sister's severe animadversions
as to the dinner-party. For herself, she was glad of the change;
it might be wrong, but she could not help being glad. It was, she
acknowledged to herself, rather dull never to see any but the same faces
day after day. And Mr. Cavendish was very nice; he had a cheerful face,
and such a merry laugh. To be sure, it would not be right for Chatty
herself to laugh, in the circumstances, in her deep mourning, but it
was a mild and surely innocent gratification to listen to the laugh of
another. The Wilberforces were very great friends and very nice, but
they always remembered what had happened, and toned themselves--these
were the words Mrs. Wilberforce used--toned themselves to the subdued
condition of the family. Chatty thought that, however nice (and most
thoughtful) that might be, it was pleasant now and then to be in company
with somebody who did not tone himself, but laughed freely when he had a
mind to do so. And accordingly she kept very quiet, and took no part,
but inclined silently to her mother's side.
This day was to Dick Cavendish like a bad dream. He could not move
outside the inclosure of the rectory grounds without seeing before him
in the distance the high garden wall, the higher range of windows, the
big trees which gave its name to the Elms. Going through the village
street, he saw twice--which seemed a superfluity of ill-fortune--Lizzie
Hampson, with her demure air, passing without lifting her eyes, as if
she had never seen him before. Had any one else known what he alone
knew, how extraordinary would his position have appeared! But he had no
leisure to think of the strangeness of his position, all his faculties
being required to keep himself going, to look as if everything was as
usual. The terror which was in his mind of perhaps, for anything he
could tell, meeting some one in these country roads, without warning, to
meet whom would be very different from meeting Lizzie Hampson, by times
got the better of his composure altogether. He did not know what he would
do or say in such an emergency. But he could do nothing to avoid it. The
Wilberforces, anxious to amuse him, drove him over in the waggonette, in
the morning, to Pierrepoint, making a little impromptu picnic among the
ruins. Under no circumstances could the party have been very exciting,
except to the children, who enjoyed it hugely, with the simple appetite
for anything that is supposed to be pleasure which belongs to their age.
They passed the Elms both coming and going. Mrs. Wilberforce put her
parasol between her and that objectionable house, but all the same made
a rapid inspection of it through the fringes. Dick turned his head away;
but he, too, saw more than any one could be supposed to see who was
looking in the other direction, and at the same time, with an almost
convulsion of laughter, which to himself was horrible, perceived the
double play of curiosity and repugnance in his hostess with a fierce
amusement. He had to make some sort of poor jest, he did not know what,
to account for the laugh which tore him asunder, which he could not keep
in. What the joke was he did not know, but it had an unmerited success,
and the carriage rattled along past the garden wall in a perfect riot of
laughter from the fine lungs of the rector and Flo and Georgie and all
the little ones. If any one had but known! The tragedy was horrible, but
the laughter was fresh and innocent on all lips but his own. Coming back
he laughed no more. The gates were being opened; a sound of horses' hoofs
and the jingle of their furniture was audible. The inhabitants were
about to drive out. "If you look back you may catch a glimpse of--those
people," the rector whispered. But Dick did not look back. The danger
made him pale. Had they met face to face, what would have happened?
Could he have sat there safe among the innocent children, and made no
sign? But when the evening came, and it was time for the dinner at the
Warren, he had regained his composure, which, so far as his companions
were aware, had never been lost.
In the Warren there were strong emotions, perhaps passions, which he
did not understand, but which gave him a sort of fellow-feeling more
sympathetic than the well-being of the rector and his wife. Nothing is
more pleasant to see than the calm happiness of a wedded pair, who suit
each other, who have passed the youthful period of commotion, and have
not reached that which so often comes when the children in their turn
tempt the angry billows. But there is something in that self-satisfied
and self-concentrated happiness which jars upon those who in the turmoil
of existence have not much prospect of anything so peaceful. And then
domestic comfort is often so sure that nothing but its own virtue could
have purchased such an exemption from the ills of life. The Warren had
been a few months ago a pattern of humdrum peacefulness. The impatience
that sometimes lit up a little fire in Mrs. Warrender's eyes was so out
of character, so improbable, that any one who suspected it believed
himself to have been deceived; for who could suppose the mother to be
tired of her quiet existence? And the girls were not impatient; they
lived their half-vegetable life with the serenest and most complacent
calm. Now, however, new emotions were at work. The young master of the
house was full of abstraction and dreams, wrapped in some pursuit, some
hope, some absorbing preoccupation of his own. His mother was straining
at her bonds like a greyhound in a leash. Minnie, who had been the chief
example of absolute self-satisfaction and certainty that everything was
right, had developed a keenness of curiosity and censure which betrayed
her conviction that something had gone wrong. These three were all, as
it were, on tiptoe, on the boundary line, the thinnest edge which divided
the known from the unknown; conscious that at any moment something might
happen which would disperse them and shatter all the remains of the old
life.
Chatty alone, amid these smouldering elements of change, sat calm in her
accustomed place as yet unawakened except to the mild pleasure of a new
face among those to which she was accustomed, and of a cheerful voice
and laugh which broke the monotony. She had not even gone so far as to
say to herself that such a cheerful presence coming and going might make
life more interesting. The new-comer, she was quite well aware, was going
away to-morrow, nor was there any reason within her power of divination
why he should not go; but he was a pleasant break. Chatty reasoned
with herself that though a love of novelty is a bad thing and quite
unjustifiable in a woman, still that when something new comes of itself
across one's point of vision, there is no harm in taking the good of it.
And accordingly she looked up with her face of pleasure, and smiled at
the very sound of Dick's cheerful voice, thinking how delightful it must
be to be so cheerful as that. What a happy temperament! If Theo had been
as cheerful! But then to think of Theo as cheerful was beyond the power
of mortal imagination. Thus they sat round the table, lighted by a large
lamp standing up tall in the midst, according to the fashion of the time.
In those days the light was small, not because of aesthetic principles,
but because people had not as yet learned how to make more light, and
the moderator lamp was the latest invention.
"We took Mr. Cavendish to Pierrepoint, as you suggested," said Mrs.
Wilberforce. "We had a very nice drive, but the place is really infested
by persons from Highcombe; the woman at the gate told us there had been
a party of thirty people from the works the day before yesterday. Sir
Edward will soon find the consequences if he goes on in that way. If
everybody is allowed to go, not only will they ruin the place, but other
people, people like ourselves, will give up going. He might as well make
it a penny show."
"It is a show without the penny," said the rector.
"If the poor people did any harm, he would, no doubt, stop their coming,"
said Mrs. Warrender mildly.
"Harm! but of course they do harm. The very idea of thirty working-people,
with their heavy boots, and their dinner in a basket, and smoking, no
doubt!"
"That is bad," said Dick. "Wilberforce and I did nothing of that kind.
We only made explorations in the ruins, and used a little tobacco to
keep off the bad air. The air in the guard-room was close, and Georgie
had a puff at a cigarette, but only with a sanitary view. And our dinner
was in a hamper; there are distinctions. By the way, it was not dinner
at all; it was only lunch."
"And we, I hope, Mr. Cavendish, are very different from----"
"Oh, very different. We have most things we wish to have, and live in
nice houses, and have gardens of our own, and woods to walk in."
"That is quite true," said Minnie; "and we have always been Liberal,--not
against the people, as the Conservatives are; but still it cannot be
good to teach them to be discontented with what they have. We should all
be contented with what we've got. If it had not been the best for us, it
would not have been chosen for us."
"Perhaps we had better not go into the abstract question, Minnie. I
suppose, Mr. Cavendish, you go back to Oxford after the vacation?"
"For hard work," he said, with a laugh. "I am such an old fellow I have
no time to lose. I am not an honour man, like Warrender."
"And you, Theo,--you are going too?" said the rector.
Warrender woke up as out of a dream. "I have not made up my mind.
Perhaps I shall, perhaps not; it is not of much importance."
"Not of much importance! Your first class----"
"I should not take a first class," he said coldly.
"But, my dear fellow!----" The rector's air of puzzled consternation,
and the look he cast round him, as if to ask the world in general for
the reason of this extraordinary self-sacrifice, was so seriously comic
that Dick's gravity was in danger, especially as all the other members
of the party replied to the look with a seriousness, in some cases
disapproval, in some astonishment, which heightened the effect.
"Where does he expect to go to?" he said solemnly.
"Theo thinks," said his mother, "that a first class is not everything in
the world as it is in the University."
"But my dear Mrs. Warrender! that is precisely one of the things that
ladies never understand."
"I have no chance of one, so I agree with Warrender," said Dick. "The
Dons will bother, but what does that matter? They have no souls beyond
the class lists."
"This is all extremely unnecessary," said Warrender, with an air of
suppressed irritation. "Perhaps you will allow me to know best. I have
no more chance of a first class than you have, Cavendish. I have not
worked for it, and I have no expectation of it. All that was over long
ago. I thought every one knew."
"Every one knew that you could have whatever you chose to have,
Warrender. Some thought it foolish, and some fine; but every one knew
exactly the cause."
"Fine!" said the young master of the house, growing red. "But it is of
no consequence to me what they say. I may go back, or I may not; it is
not of the slightest importance to any one but myself." He added in a
tone which he tried to make lighter, "What use is a class of any kind to
a small country gentleman? To know the cost of cultivation and what pays
best is better than a dozen firsts. I want to find out how to cut my
trees, and how to manage my farmers, and how not to make a fool of
myself at petty sessions. Neither Plato nor Aristotle could throw any
light on these subjects."
"For the last you must come to me," said Dick; "on that point you'll
find me superior to all the sages put together. And as for drawing
leases--but I suppose you have some beggar of a man of business who will
take the bread out of a poor beginner's mouth."
"Though Mr. Cavendish talks in that way," said Mrs. Wilberforce aside
to Minnie, "as though he wanted employment so much, he has a very nice
little fortune of his own. It is just his way of talking. And as for
connection, there is no one better. His father is a cousin--it may be a
good many times removed, but still it is quite traceable--of the Duke.
I am not sure, even, that they are not in the peerage as collaterals;
indeed, I am almost sure they are, and that we should find him and
everything about him, if we looked."
"Of course everybody knows he is very well connected," said Minnie, "but
young men all talk nonsense. Listen to Theo! Why shouldn't he go back to
Oxford and take his degree, like other people? I don't care about the
class. A gentleman need not be particularly clever; but if he has been
at the University and does not take his degree, it is always supposed
that there is some reason. I don't think it is respectable, for my
part."
"Ah, my dear, the young men of the present day, they are a law to
themselves," said her friend. "They don't care for what is respectable.
Indeed, so far as I can see, they make it a sort of reproach; they let
nobodies pick up the prizes. And what do they expect it is all to end
in? I could tell them very well, if they would listen to me. The French
Revolution is what it will end in; but of course they will not listen to
anything one can say."
"Oh, you know we are Liberals," cried Minnie; "we don't go in with
that."
"If you are going to town to-morrow, Cavendish, I don't mind if I go with
you," said Warrender. "I have some business to look after. At least, it
is not exactly business," for he saw his mother's eyes turned on him
inquiringly; "it is a commission from a friend. I shall only stay a
night, mother; you need not look so surprised."
"It will do you good," she said quietly. "And why should you hurry back?
You will be the better for the change."
He gave her a suspicious, half-angry look, as if he saw more in her
words than met the eye. "I shall only be gone a single night," he said.
"I will do all I can to upset his good resolutions, Mrs. Warrender. He
shall go to all sorts of notorious places, to keep me in countenance. If
he can be beguiled into any little improprieties, I am your man."
"Don't be afraid," said the rector. "Dick's wickednesses are all
theoretical. I'd trust Georgie in the worst haunt he knows."
Dick looked up with a laugh, with some light word of contradiction, and
in a moment there gleamed before him, as by the touching of a spring,
as by the opening of a door, the real state of the case so far as he
was himself concerned. The present scene melted away to give place to
another,--to others which were burnt upon his memory in lines of fire;
to one which he could see in his imagination, with which he had a
horrible connection, which he could not dismiss out of his thoughts,
though he was in reality a fugitive from it, flying the vicinity, the
possible sight, the spectre of a ruin which was beyond description.
Merely to think of this amid an innocent company, around this decorous
table, brought a sickening sensation, a giddiness both mental and
physical. He turned his head away from the eyes of the mother, who, he
felt, must, in her experience, divine something from the expression
in his, to meet the pleased and guileless look with which Chatty was
listening to that laughing disclaimer which he had just made. She was
sitting by his side, saying nothing herself, listening to the talk,
amused and almost excited by the new voice, the little play of light
intercourse; even the charm of a new voice was something to Chatty. And
she was so certain that what the rector said was true, that Georgie, or
even she herself, more delicate still, a simple-hearted young woman,
might have been trusted in his worst haunt. He read her look with a keen
pang of feelings contradictory, of sharp anguish and a kind of pleasure.
For indeed it was true; and yet--and yet---- Did they but know!
Warrender walked back with the party as far as the Rectory gate. Indeed,
so simple was the place, the entire family came out with them, straying
along under the thick shade of the trees to the little gate which was
nearest the Rectory. It was a lovely summer night, as different as
possible from the haze and chill of the preceding one, with a little new
moon just disappearing, and everything softened and whitened by her soft
presence in the sky. Mrs. Wilberforce and Minnie went first, invisible
in the dimness of the evening, then the two solid darknesses of the
rector and Warrender. Dick came behind with Mrs. Warrender, and Chatty
followed a step in the rear of all. The mother talked softly, more than
she had done as yet. She told him that their home henceforward would
probably be in Highcombe, not here,--"That is, not yet, perhaps, but
soon," she said, with a little eagerness not like the melancholy tone
with which a new-made widow talks of leaving her home,--and that it
would please her to see him there, if, according to the common formula,
"he ever came that way." And Dick declared with a little fervour which
was unnecessary that he would surely go, that it would be always a
pleasure. Why should he have said it? He had no right to say it; for
he knew, though he could not see, with once more that pang of mingled
pleasure and misery, that there was a look of pleased satisfaction on
Chatty's face as she came softly in the darkness behind.