Mrs. Warrender and Chatty left the Warren in the end of the week in
which these events had taken place. They had a farewell visit from the
rector and Mrs. Wilberforce, which no doubt was prompted by kindness,
yet had other motives as well. The Warren looked its worst on the
morning when this visit was paid. It was a gray day, no sun visible,
the rain falling by intervals, the sky all neutral tinted, melting
in the gray distance into indefinite levels of damp soil and shivering
willows,--that is, where there was a horizon visible at all. But in the
Warren there was no horizon, nothing but patches of whitish gray seen
among the branches of the trees, upon which the rain kept up such an
endless, dismal patter as became unendurable after a time--a continual
dropping, the water dripping off the long branches, drizzling through
the leaves with incessant monotonous downfall. The Wilberforces came
picking their way through the little pools which alternated with dry
patches along all the approaches to the house, their wet umbrellas
making a moving glimmer of reflection in the damp atmosphere. Inside,
the rooms were all dark, as if it had been twilight. Boxes stood about
in the hall, packed and ready, and there were those little signs of
neglect in the usual garnishing of the rooms which is so apt to occur
when there is a departure. Chatty, with her hat on, stood arranging a
few very wet flowers in a solitary vase, as if by way of keeping up
appearances, the usual decorations of this kind being all cleared away.
"Theo is so little at home," she said, by way of explanation, "he would
get no good of them." Afterwards when she thought of it, Chatty was
sorry that she had mentioned her brother at all.
"Ah, Theo! We have been hearing wonderful things of Theo," said Mrs.
Wilberforce, as Mrs. Warrender approached from the drawing-room to meet
them and bid them enter. "I have never been so surprised in my life;
and yet I don't know why I should be surprised. Of course it makes his
conduct all quite reasonable when we look back upon it in that light."
"Who speaks of conduct that is reasonable?" said Mrs. Warrender. "It is
kinder than reason to come and see us this melancholy day: for it is
very discouraging to leave home under such skies."
"But you don't need to leave in such a hurry, surely. Theo would never
press you: and besides, I suppose with a larger house so close at hand
they would not live here."
"There is nobody going to live here that I know of, except Theo," said
his mother. ("Let me take off your cloak," cried Chatty;) "notwithstanding
the packing and all the fuss the servants love to make, we may surely
have some tea. I ought to ask you to come and sit down by the fire.
Though it is June, a fire seems the only comfortable thing one can
think of." Mrs. Warrender was full of suppressed excitement, and talked
against time that her visitors might not insist upon the one topic of
which she was determined nothing should be said. But the rector's wife
was not one whom it was easy to balk.
"A fire would be cosy," she said; "but I suppose now the Warren will be
made to look very different. With all the will in the world to change,
it does need a new start, doesn't it, a new beginning, to make a real
change in a house?"
This volley was ineffective from the fact that it called forth no remark.
As Mrs. Warrender had no answer to make, she took refuge in that which
is the most complete of all--silence: and left her adversary to watch,
as it were, the smoke of her own guns, dispersing vaguely into the heavy
air.
"We are going to London, first," Mrs. Warrender said. "No, not for the
season, it is too late; but if any little simple gaieties should fall in
Chatty's way----"
"Little simple gaieties are scarcely appropriate to London in June,"
said the rector, with a laugh.
"No, if we were to be received into the world of fashion, Chatty and
I--but that doesn't seem very likely. We all talk about London as if we
were going to plunge into a vortex. Our vortex means two or three people
in Kensington, and one little bit of a house in Mayfair."
"That might be quite enough to set you going," said Mrs. Wilberforce.
"It only depends upon whom the people are; though now, I hear that in
London there are no invitations more sought after, than to the rich
parvenu houses,--people that never were heard of till they grew rich;
and then they have nothing to do but get a grand house in Belgravia,
and let it be known how much money they have. Money is everything,
alas, now."
"It always was a good deal, my dear," observed the rector mildly.
"Never in my time, Herbert! Mamma would no more have let us go to such
houses! It is just one of those signs of the time which you insist on
ignoring, but which one day---- This new connection will be a great
thing for Chatty, dear Mrs. Warrender. It is such a nice thing for a
girl to come out under good auspices."
"Poor Chatty, we cannot say she is coming out," said her mother, "and
the Thynnes, I have always understood, were dull people, not fashionable
at all."
"Oh, you don't think for a moment that I meant the Thynnes! She has been
very quiet, to be sure; but now, of course, with a young husband--and I
am sure Chatty does not look more than nineteen; I always say she is the
youngest looking girl of her age. And as she has never been presented,
what is she but a girl coming out? But I do think I would wait till she
had her sister-in-law to go out with. It may be a self-denial for a
mother, but it gives a girl such an advantage!"
"But Chatty is not going to have a husband either young or old," said
Mrs. Warrender, with a laugh which was a little forced. "Ah, here is the
tea, I wish we had a fire too, Joseph, though it is against rules."
"I'll light you a fire, mum," said Joseph, "in a minute. None of us
would mind the trouble, seeing as it's only for once, and the family
going away."
"That is very good of you not to mind," said his mistress, laughing.
"Light it, then, it will make us more cheerful before we go."
"Ah, Joseph," said the rector's wife, "you may well be kind to your good
old mistress, who has always been so considerate to you. For new lords,
new laws, you know, and when the new lady comes----"
Joseph, who was on his knees lighting the fire, turned round with the
freedom of an old servant. "There ain't no new ladies but in folks'
imagination," he said. "The Warren ain't a place for nothing new."
"Joseph!" cried his mistress sharply; but she was glad of the assistance
thus afforded to her. And there was a little interval during which Mrs.
Wilberforce was occupied with her tea. She was cold and damp, and the
steaming cup was pleasant to see; but she was not to be kept in silence
even by this much-needed refreshment. "I should think," she resumed,
"that the boy would be the chief difficulty. A step-mother is a difficult
position; but a step-father, and one so young as dear Theo!"
"Step-fathering succeeds better than step-mothering," said the rector,
"so far as my experience goes. Men, my dear, are not so exacting; they
are more easily satisfied."
"What nonsense, Herbert! They are not brought so much in contact with
the children, perhaps, you mean; they are not called on to interfere so
much. But how a mother could trust her children's future to a second
husband---- For my part I would rather die."
"Let us hope you will never need to do so, my dear," said the rector, at
which little pleasantry Mrs. Warrender was glad to laugh.
"Happily none of us are in danger," she said. "Chatty must take the
warning to heart and beware of fascinating widowers. Is it true about
the Elms--that the house is empty and every one gone?"
"Thank heaven! it is quite true; gone like a bubble burst, clean swept
out, and not a vestige left."
"As every such place must go sooner or later," said Mrs. Wilberforce.
"That sort of thing may last for a time, but sooner or later----"
"I think," said the rector, "that our friend Cavendish had, perhaps,
something to do with it. It appears that it is an uncle of his who bought
the house when it was sold three years ago, and these people wanted
something done to the drainage, I suppose. I advised Dick to persuade
his uncle to do nothing, hoping that the nuisance--for, I suppose,
however wicked you are, you may have a nose like other people--might
drive them out; and so it has done apparently," Mr. Wilberforce said,
with some complacency, looking like a man who deserved well of his kind.
"They might have caught fever, too, like other people. I wonder if that
is moral, to neglect the drains of the wicked?"
"No," said Mrs. Wilberforce firmly; "they have not noses like other
people. How should they, people living in that way? The sense of smell
is essentially a belonging of the better classes. Servants never smell
anything. We all know that. My cook sniffs and looks me in the face and
says, 'I don't get anything, m'm,' when it is enough to knock you down!
And persons of _that_ description living in the midst of every evil--!
Not that I believe in all that fuss about drains," she added, after a
moment. "We never had any drains in the old times, and who ever heard of
typhoid fever _then_?"
"But if they had been made very ill?" said Chatty, who, up to this time,
had not spoken. "I don't think surely Mr. Cavendish would have done
that."
She was a little moved by this new view. Chatty was not interested in
general about what was said, but now and then a personal question would
rouse her. She thought of the woman with the blue eyes, so wide open
and red with crying, and then of Dick with his laugh which it always
made her cheerful to think of. Chatty had in her mind no possible
link of connection between these two: but the absence of any power of
comprehending the abstract in her made her lay hold all the more keenly
of the personal, and the thought of Dick in the act of letting in
poisonous gases upon that unhappy creature filled her with horror. She
was indignant at so false an accusation. "Mr. Cavendish," she repeated
with a little energy, "never would have done that."
"It is all a freak of those scientific men," said Mrs. Wilberforce.
"Look at the poor people, they can do a great deal more, and support a
great deal more, than we can: yet they live among bad smells. I think
they rather like them. I am sure my nursery is on my mind night and day,
if there is the least little whiff of anything; but the children are as
strong as little ponies--and where is the drainage there?"
With this triumphant argument she suddenly rose, declaring that she knew
the brougham was at the door, and that Mrs. Warrender would be late for
the train. She kissed and blessed both the ladies as she took leave of
them. "Come back soon, and don't forget us," she said to Chatty; while
to Mrs. Warrender she gave a little friendly pat on the shoulder. "You
won't say anything, not even to true friends like Herbert and me? but a
secret like that can't be kept, and though you mayn't think so,
everybody knows."
"Do you think that is true, mamma?" Chatty asked when the wet umbrellas
had again gone glimmering through the shrubberies and under the trees,
and the travellers were left alone.
"That everybody knows? It is very likely. There is no such thing as a
secret in a little world like ours; everybody knows everything. But
still they cannot say that they have it by authority from you and me. It
is time enough to talk of it when it is a fact, if it is to be."
"But you have not any doubt of it, mamma?"
"I have doubt of everything till it is done; even," she said, with a
smile as the wheels of the brougham cut the gravel and came round with a
little commotion to the door, "of our going away: though I allow that it
seems very like it now."
They did go away, at last, leaving the Warren very solitary, damp, and
gray, under the rain,--a melancholy place enough for Theo to return to.
But he was not in a state of mind to think of that or of any of his home
surroundings grave or gay. Chatty put her head out of the window to
look behind her at the melancholy yet dear old house, with tears in her
innocent eyes, but Mrs. Warrender, feeling that at last she had shaken
herself free from that bondage, notwithstanding the anxiety in her heart
for her son, had no feeling to spare for the leave-taking. She waved her
hand to Mrs. Bagley at the shop, who was standing out at her door with a
shawl over her cap to see the ladies go by. Lizzie stood behind her in
the doorway saying nothing, while her grandmother curtsied and waved her
hand and called out her wishes for a good journey, and a happy return.
Naturally Chatty's eyes sought those of the girl, who looked after her
with a sort of blank longing as if she too would fain have gone out into
the world. Lizzie's eyes seemed to pursue her as they drove past,--poor
Lizzie, who had other things in her mind, Chatty began to think, beside
the fashion books; and then there came the tall red mass of the Elms,
with all its windows shut up, and that air of mystery which its encircling
wall and still more its recent history conferred upon it. The two ladies
looked out upon it, as they drove past, almost with awe.
"Mamma," said Chatty, "I never told you. I saw the--the lady, just when
she was going away."
"What lady?" asked Mrs. Warrender, with surprise.
"I don't think," said Chatty, with a certain solemnity, "that she was
any older, perhaps not so old as I. It made my heart sick. Oh, dear
mother, must there not be some explanation, some dreadful, dreadful
fate, when it happens that one so young----"
"Sometimes it may be so--but these are mysteries which you, at your age,
Chatty, have no need to go into."
"At my age--which is about the same as hers," said Chatty; "and--oh,
mamma, I wanted in my heart to stop her, to bring her to you. She had
been crying--she had such innocent-looking, distracted eyes--and Lizzie
said----"
"Lizzie! what had Lizzie to do with it?"
"I promised to tell no one, but you are not any one, you are the same
as myself. Lizzie says she knew her long ago, that she is the same as
a child still, not responsible for what she is doing--fond of toys and
sweets like a child."
"My dear, I am sorry that Lizzie should have kept up such a friend. I
believe there are some poor souls that if an innocent girl were to do
what you say, stop them and bring them to her mother, might be saved,
Chatty. I do believe that: but not--not that kind."
The tears by this time were falling fast from Chatty's eyes. "I wonder,"
she said, "if I shall ever see her again."
"Never, I hope; for you could do nothing for her. Shut the window, my
dear, the rain is coming in. Poor Theo, how wet he will get coming home!
I wonder if he will have the thought to change everything now that there
is no occasion to dress, now that we are away."
"Joseph will give him no peace till he does," said Chatty, happily
diverted, as her mother had intended, from sadder thoughts. "And don't
you think she will make him stay to dinner on such a day? Don't you
think she must care a great deal for him, mamma?"
"She must care for him or she would not have listened to him. Poor
Theo!" said the mother, with a sigh.
"But he cares very much for her: and he is happy," said Chatty, with a
certain timidity, a half question; for to her inexperience there were
very serious drawbacks, though perhaps not such as might have occurred
to a more reasonable person. Mrs. Warrender had to change this subject,
too, which Chatty showed a disposition to push too far, by making an
inquiry into the number of their bags and parcels, and reminding her
daughter that they were drawing near the station. It was a very forlorn
little station, wet and dismal, with a few men lounging about, the
collars of their coats up to their ears, and Mrs. Warrender's maid
standing by her pile of boxes, having arrived before them. It had been
an event long looked for, much talked of, of late, but it was not a
cheerful going away.
But the rain had gone off by the time they reached town, and a June day
has a power of recovering itself, such as youth only possesses. But no,
that is an error, as Mrs. Warrender proved. She had been leaning back
in her corner very quiet, saying little, yet with an intense sense of
relief and deliverance. She came in to London with as delightful a
consciousness of novelty and freedom as any boy coming to seek his
fortune. Chatty's feelings were all very mild in comparison with her
mother's. She was greatly pleased to see the clouds clear off, and the
humid sweetness of the skies, which even the breath of the great city
did not obscure. "After all, Theo will have a nice evening for his drive
home," she said, unexcited. Though it was all very agreeable, Chatty
did not know of anything that might await her in town. She knew more or
less, she believed, what awaited her,--a few parties, a play or two,
the Row in the morning, the pictures, a pleasant little glimpse of the
outside of that fashionable life which was said to be "such a whirl,"
which she had no expectation, nor any desire to see much of. There was
no likelihood that she and her mother would be drawn into that whirl. If
all the people they knew asked them to dinner, or even to a dance, which
was not to be thought of, there would still be no extravagant gaiety in
that. Driving from the railway to Half Moon Street was as pleasant as
anything--to a girl of very highly raised expectations, it might have
been the best of all: but Chatty did not anticipate too much, and would
not be easily disappointed. She neither expected nor was afraid of any
great thing that might be coming to her. Her quiet heart seemed beyond
the reach of any touch of fate.