Various scenes to which Markland was all unaccustomed had been taking
place in these days, alternations of rapture and gloom on the part of
Warrender, of shrinking and eagerness on the part of Lady Markland,
which made their intercourse one of perpetual vicissitude. From the
quiet of her seclusion she had been roused into all the storms of
passion, and though this was sweetened by the absolute devotion of the
young man who adored her, there were yet moments in which she felt like
Geoff that the position was becoming insupportable. Everything in her
life was turned upside down by this new element in it, which came
between her and her child, between her and her business, the work to
which she had so lately made up her mind to devote herself as to the
great object of her existence. All that was suspended now. When Theo was
with her, he would not brook, nor did she desire, any interruption; and
when he was not with her the bewildering thoughts that would rush upon
her, the questions in her mind as to what she ought to do, whether it
might not even now be better for everybody to break, if it was possible,
those engagements which brought so much agitation, which hindered
everything, which disturbed even the bond between herself and her child,
would sometimes almost destroy her moral balance altogether. And then
her young lover would arrive, and all the miseries and difficulties
would be forgotten, and it would seem as if earthly conditions and
circumstances had rolled away, and there were but these two in a new
life, a new world, where no troubles were. Then Lady Markland would
say to herself that it was the transition only that was painful, that
they were all in a false position, but that afterwards, when the
preliminaries were over and all accomplished, everything would be
well. When she was his, and he hers, beyond drawing back or doubt,
beyond the possibility of separation, then all that was over-anxious,
over-sensitive in Theo would settle down in the sober certainty of
happiness secured, and Geoff, who was so young, would reconcile himself
to that which would so soon appear the only natural condition of life,
and the new would seem as good, nay, better than the old. She trembled
herself upon the verge of the new, fearing any change and shrinking from
it as is natural for a woman, and yet in her heart felt that it would be
better this great change should come and be accomplished rather than to
look forward to it, to go through all its drawbacks, and pay its
penalties every day.
A few days after these incidents Theo came to Markland one morning with
brows more than usually cloudy. He had been annoyed about his house,
the improvements about which had been going on very slowly: one of his
tradespeople worse than another, the builder waiting for the architect,
the carpenter for the builder, the new furniture and decorations naturally
lagging behind all. And to make these things more easy to bear he had
met Mrs. Wilberforce, who had told him that she wondered to see so much
money being spent at the Warren, as she heard his home was to be at
Markland, and so natural, as it was so much better a house: and that she
had heard little Lord Markland was going to school immediately, which no
doubt was the best thing that could be done, and would leave his mother
free. After this he had rushed to Markland in hot impetuosity. "I am
never told," he cried. "I do not wish to exact anything, but if you have
made up your mind about Geoff, I think I might have heard it from
yourself."
"Dear Theo!" Lady Markland said, and that was all.
Then he threw himself at her feet in sudden compunction, "I am a brute,"
he said. "I come to you with my idiotic stories and you listen to me
with that sweet patience of yours, and never reprove me. Tell me I am a
fool and not worthy of your trust; I am so, I am so! but it is because I
can't bear this state of affairs--to be everything and yet nothing, to
know that you are mine, and yet have a stranger informing me what you
are going to do."
"No stranger need inform you, Theo. Geoff has asked me to send him to
school. I can't tell how any one could know. He wishes to go--directly.
He is not happy either. Oh, Theo, I think I make everybody unhappy
instead of----"
"Not you," he cried, "not you, those men with their idiotic delays.
Geoff is wise, wiser than they are. Let us follow his example, dearest.
You don't distrust me; you know that whatever is best for you, even
what they think best, all their ridiculous conditions, I will carry out.
Don't you know, that the less my hands are bound, the more I should
accept the fetters, all, as much as they please, that they think needful
for you--but not as conditions of having you. That is what I cannot
bear."
"You have me," she said, smiling upon him with a smile very close upon
tears, "you know, without any conditions at all."
"Then let it be so," he cried. "Oh let it be so--directly, as Geoff
wishes: dear little Geoff, wise Geoff--let him be our example."
"Theo--oh, try to love my boy!"
"I will make him my model, if you will take his example, directly,
directly! The child is wise, he knows better than any of us. Darling,
let us take his example, let us cut this knot. When the uncertainty is
over, all these difficulties will melt away."
"He _is_ wise, Theo--you don't know how right you are. Oh, my boy! and I
am taking so little thought of him. I felt my heart leap when he asked
to go away. Can you believe it? My own boy, my only one! I was glad, and
I hate myself for it, though it was for you."
"All that," he said, eagerly addressing himself with all the arts he
knew to comfort and reassure her, "is this state of miserable delay. We
are in the transition from one to another. What good can we do to keep
hanging on, to keep the whole county in talk, to make Geoff unhappy? He
goes by instinct and he sees it--my own love, let us do so too. Let us
do it--without a word to any one, my dearest!"
"Oh, Theo," she cried, "if you will but promise me to love my boy."
In the distracted state in which she was, this no-argument of Geoff's
little example went to her heart. It seemed to bring him somehow into
the decision, to make it look like a concession to Geoff, a carrying out
of his wishes, and at the same time a supreme plea with Theo for love
and understanding of Geoff. Yet it was with falterings and sinkings of
soul indescribable that Lady Markland went through the two following
days. They were days wonderful, not to be ever forgotten. Theo did not
appear, he had gone away, she said, for a little while upon business,
and Geoff and she were left alone. They went back into all the old
habitudes as if nothing were changed; and the house fell again into a
strange calm, a quietness almost unnatural. There were no lessons, no
business, nothing to be done, but only an abandonment to that pleasure
of being together which had been so long broken. He went with her for
her drives, and she went with him for his walk. She called for Geoff
whenever he disappeared for a moment, as if she could not bear him away
from her side. They were as they had been before Theo existed for them,
when they were all in all to each other. Alas, they were, yet were not,
as they had been. When they drove through the fair country where the
sheaves were standing in the fields and everything aglow with the
mirth of harvest, they were both lost in long reveries, only calling
themselves back by intervals, with a recollection of the necessity of
saying something to each other. When they walked, though Geoff still
clung to his mother's arm, his thoughts as well as hers were away. They
discovered in this moment of close reunion that they had lost each
other. Not only did the mother no longer belong to the child, but the
child even, driven from her side he knew not how, was lost to the
mother; they had set out unconsciously each upon a new and separate way.
Geoff was not grieved, scarcely even startled, when she told him on the
second evening that she was going to town next day --for shopping, she
said. He did not ask to be taken with her, nor thought of asking; it
appeared to Geoff that he had known all along that she would go. Lady
Markland proposed to him that he should pay Mrs. Warrender a visit, and
he consented, not asking why. He drove in with her to the station at
Highcombe, where Chatty met him, and took leave of his mother, strangely,
in a curious, dreamy way, as if he were not sure what he was doing. To
be sure it was a parting of little importance. She was going to town,
to do some shopping, and in less than a week she was to be back. It
had never happened before, which gave the incident a distinguishing
character, that was all. But she seated herself on the other side of the
railway carriage and did not keep him in her eye till she could see him
no more. And though she cried under her veil some tears which were salt
and bitter, yet in her heart there was a feeling of relief--of relief to
have parted with her boy! Could such a thing be possible? Geoff on his
side went back with Chatty very quietly, saying little. He sat down in a
corner of the drawing-room, with a book, his face twitching more than
usual, his eyes puckered up tight: but afterwards became, as Chatty
said, "very companionable," which was indeed the chief quality of this
little forsaken boy.
It was not till nearly a week after that Lady Markland came back. She
arrived suddenly, one evening, with Theo, unexpected, unannounced. Dinner
was over, and they had all gone into the garden in the warm summer
twilight when these unlooked-for visitors came. Lady Markland was clad
from head to foot in gray, the colour of the twilight, she who had been
for so long all black. Theo followed her closely, in light attire also,
and with a face all alight with happiness, more bright than in all his
life his face had ever been before. He took Geoff by the shoulders with
a sort of tender roughness, which was almost like an embrace. "Is that
you, my old boy?" he said, with an unsteady laugh, pushing him into his
mother's arms. And then there was some crying and kissing, and Geoff
heard it said that they had thought it better so, to avoid all fuss and
trouble, and that it had taken place in town five days ago. To him no
further explanations were made, but he seemed to understand it as well
as the most grown-up person among them all.
This sudden step, which put all the power in Theo's hands to thwart
the lawyers and regulate matters at his own pleasure, made him at once
completely subservient to them, accepting everything which he had
struggled against before. He took up his abode at Markland with his wife
without so much as a protest; from thence he found it an amusement to
watch the slow progress of the works at the Warren, riding over two or
three times a week, sometimes accompanied by Geoff on his pony, sometimes
by Geoff's mother, who it appeared could ride very well too. And when
they went into society it was as Lady Markland and Mr. Warrender. Even
on this point, without a word, Theo had given in.
There was, of course, a great outcry in the county about this almost
runaway marriage. It was not dignified for Lady Markland, people said;
but there were some good-natured souls who said they did not wonder, for
that a widow's wedding was not a pretty spectacle like a young girl's,
and of course there were always embarrassments, especially with a child
so old as Geoff. What could his mother have done with him, had he been
present at the wedding, and he must have been present at the wedding, if
it had been performed in the ordinary way. Poor little Geoff! If only
the new husband would be good to him, everybody said.