AN OLD WOUND.
“Do come here for Christmas,” wrote Bella to Bill from Haylands about
the middle of December. “You must come, if it is only for a week. It is
nonsense for Polly to say she can’t spare you; she simply must. Theresa
thinks that it will do you good. She won’t believe what Polly says
about the way in which you have taken this breaking off with Gilchrist;
she thinks you must be upset, and that to come here might do you good.
I enclose a postal order for six shillings for the fare. Polly is sure
to say you can’t afford it; Theresa and I can, and we want you to come.”
And in spite of Polly’s protestations and objections Bill went. Polly
could not go; she had one lodger now and could not shut the house up.
But seeing that he was only one, and one who did not require much
waiting on, and seeing also that Bella and Theresa had paid Bill’s
fare, there was no reason why she should not go. So Bill went to
Wrugglesby, and Bella and Theresa, who had driven from Ashelton for
some shopping, met her and brought her home.
Bella was glad Bill was coming, although, she reflected, if the girl
was really as disturbed as Theresa imagined about her broken engagement
she would be but poor company and not much relief from the dulness of
Haylands. For some reason or other it had been dull there that autumn,
at least on the days when Jack did not come. Theresa, who had always
been quiet, was more quiet than ever now; she seemed to have aged
during the past months, or else Bella, used to associating with the
livelier if more unprincipled Polly, thought so. “Marriage does alter
people,” thought Bella, and fell to speculating about herself and Jack.
There really was very little to think about at Haylands, very little
to talk about in all Ashelton. Even Miss Minchin, at the fortnightly
working-parties, had nothing fresh to say, and so went untiringly over
the nine days’ wonder of Gilchrist Harborough’s claim to Wood Hall.
Miss Minchin might not be tired of that, but Bella was, and by the
beginning of December she had heard quite enough of that and most
other subjects of Ashelton conversation. But about that time she
and Theresa found a fresh subject in the letter Bill wrote to them
after Gilchrist’s visit to London. She wrote by one post, and by the
next Polly wrote a good two ounces of lamentation, indignation, and
abuse, the last both of Theresa and her “ridiculous secrecy,” and
also, in a far larger degree, of Bill and her obstinacy. Theresa was
much perplexed; neither she nor Bella could understand how it had
come about; there was no explanation, except that Bill had availed
herself of their permission to change her mind, and that somehow seemed
unlikely. Bella was inclined to blame Gilchrist, and cited several
instances when his devotion had fallen short of Jack’s. Theresa, on
the other hand, was for putting the change down to girlish caprice.
She made a point of talking to Gilchrist on the subject, but without
enlightening herself to any great extent. “Of course I could not
cross-question him,” she wrote to Polly, and was naturally not aware of
that lady’s wrathful exclamation,--“I know I could then!”
Although Theresa did not hear this, or any other of Polly’s remarks,
she could guess their nature, and her invitation to Bill was given
partly with a view of saving the girl from the ceaseless bombardment
of the elder cousin’s wrath. As it happened, however, Polly was
comparatively merciful in her indignation; she knew when words were a
waste of breath, and understood with some precision when she could,
and when she could not, move her partner. Consequently Bill was let
off easily, and for that, or for some other reason, she did not seem
at all unhappy when she stepped out on the platform at Wrugglesby
station. The sisters, who met her, recognised the fact at once, and
Bella at least was glad of it as she helped to carry Polly’s hat-box
to the pony-carriage. Bill talked a good deal on the homeward way,
seeming anything but depressed. Once when they were clear of the town
she looked round and said softly: “How beautiful it is! How very, very
beautiful it is out here!”
Bella thought the girl must be expressing her delight at leaving
London and all her troubles behind her. She could see no beauty in the
landscape,--bare fields spread wide beneath the winter sky; gaunt,
black-limbed elms and leafless hedgerows where the twilight crept
mysteriously; a pale flare of sunset breaking through the ashen clouds
to make the level land luminous and show near objects with a wonderful
distinctness; stacks and barns and low-roofed cottages whence the
smoke in thin spirals went straightly up into the evening air.
Robert came out to meet the pony-carriage with quite a cheerful smile
of welcome.
“Here, brother-in-law Laziness,” Bill said, filling his arms with
Theresa’s parcels; “take some more, you can have these. I’ve got the
sugar, T.”
And they went indoors, Robert’s setter slobbering over Bill,--she
never had a dress that could be hurt by a dog’s caress--and sheepishly
following them into the forbidden precincts of the house.
“You are jolly cold, I expect,” Robert said as he poked the fire into a
blaze. “Get your boots off and warm your feet. Where are your slippers?
In this thing? Is this the key tied on outside?”
Bill said it was; in her opinion to tie its key to the handle of an
article was a sure way of having the key when you wanted it. Robert
unfastened the box and rummaged over the contents with clumsy hands
till he found the shoes; afterwards he put the things back anyhow, so
that the box had to be carried up-stairs with the lid open.
How they talked that evening! Bella and Robert, even Theresa as well as
Bill. Bill wanted to know everything, about the horses and dogs, the
cows and pigs; what that stack had yielded when it was threshed, how
the potatoes were keeping, why the long meadow was ploughed. She wanted
to know all about everybody in the place, how they were and what new
clothes they had; she wanted to know when Jack came last and when he
was coming next, what quantity of butter Theresa was getting now, and
the pattern of the lace Bella had bought for her petticoats.
Somehow or other the commonplaces of life, the veriest trivialities
assumed a vivid interest with Bill; the life which had seemed rather
dull in the living became full of humour and incident when told to her.
Her own life in London, when she told them about it, seemed almost
fascinating. Bella found herself wishing that she had insisted on
joining the lodging-venture; she did not realise that the life, like
the flat wintry landscape, required to be looked at through the lens of
a particular kind of mind to assume the aspect it did for Bill.
One could not help being conscious of Bill’s presence in the house. By
the next afternoon Theresa was beginning to be aware of the difference
she made. Bill had been in the attic that morning and looked over the
nuts and apples that she herself had put there; she had brought down
the rotten ones and brought down also the rose-leaves, put away to dry
and forgotten. She had been round the barns and stables and out into
the frozen garden, round the orchard to look for broken branches and
dead wood for burning, into the icy dairy to help Jessie and hear about
her love-affairs.
“It’s like openin’ the winders on a summer mornin’,” Jessie said, when
just before dinner Bill passed the kitchen-door with some Christmas
roses she had found in a sheltered corner of the garden. She had gone
to the pantry to arrange them in a glass, singing as she did so.
Strangely enough she had not sung or whistled since that September
morning at Bymouth when she mimicked the birds while Kit Harborough
wrung out her wet bathing-dress. But she did not know this, neither
did Jessie, though she heard the singing appreciatively now. Still, it
was not that which caused her remark when Bill, now quiet, passed the
kitchen-door.
“It do freshen the house up wonderfully to have you here again, miss;
it’s for all the world like openin’ the winders on a sunny mornin’.”
But Bill scarcely understood the allusion any more than Theresa did the
fact. Theresa certainly did not understand; she was glad to have the
girl back again, but she felt that she was more incomprehensible than
ever. Her whole attitude towards Gilchrist and the broken engagement
was extraordinary to Theresa. She questioned Bill of course, and
learned practically nothing, though her questions were answered freely
enough. Bill was glad when the questioning was over; she was very tired
of the subject and she wanted to hear about Bella’s _trousseau_; also
she wanted to go and see Mr. Dane.
Mr. Dane knew nothing about the engagement; there was no reason now
why Bill should tell him, yet that afternoon, as she knelt on his
hearth-rug in the twilight, she suddenly determined to do so and to
ask his opinion on her own course of action. It was after one of those
pleasant, companionable silences which often fell between them that she
approached the subject, entirely without introduction, as was her way.
“Monseigneur,” she said abruptly, “do you think it is ever right to
break a promise,--a promise to marry someone, I mean?”
“To marry someone?” Mr. Dane repeated, and though his tone was only
surprised there was a gravity in his manner as if he feared trouble in
the near future. “Yes,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “in
some circumstances I do think it right to break such a promise.”
“What circumstances?”
“If the person giving the promise finds out afterwards that he or she
does not love the one to whom it is given.”
“If one of the two finds that out?” Bill said in surprise. “You do not
really think that is enough? You would not break a promise for that,
you would not think it honourable; it would not be either--neither
honourable nor right.”
“It would not be right for some people,” Mr. Dane admitted; “but for
others--” he broke off abruptly, and after a pause turned to her with
an almost terrible earnestness. “Child,” he said, “do not think I am
trifling with right and wrong; indeed I am not. Yet still I say that,
though it might not be honourable for some to break such a promise, for
you it would not be a question of honour or dishonour but of absolute
necessity.”
“I did not think so.”
“You?” he exclaimed with an excitement which astonished her; “you did
not think so?”
“No,” she said, “I did not. I promised to marry Gilchrist Harborough,
but I did not love him.”
“Then, in God’s name, do not marry him! You don’t know what you are
doing. Do you think it worse to break your promise and dishonour your
word, or to break a man’s heart and dishonour him, yourself, and God’s
law, all that is most holy and most binding on earth?”
And then Bill realised what she had done, and how her words had wounded
her friend. Had he not married a woman who did not love? Had he not
suffered to the full the uttermost bitterness of which he spoke? As
she realised how she had reopened the tragedy of his life the girl
was struck dumb with remorse, too grieved for the moment to think of
explaining the circumstances of her own affairs.
But Mr. Dane did not know the reason of her silence, and he went on,
his face drawn and stern. “You do not know your own history nor the
danger which may threaten you. I do; and knowing, I say you must not,
cannot marry a man you do not truly love. It is a mockery to pray ‘lead
us not into temptation’ and then to put yourself in temptation’s way.
There is a passion which is stronger than you; it may sleep now but it
will not always sleep, believe me, it will not always sleep. Listen
now: first concerning your mother. You did not know her, neither did I,
but you yourself told me she married in defiance of her parents; she
loved the man and counted them well lost for him. And he,--he loved
her, bewitched her, desired her,--she had no will but to go,--I know
how it was done.”
“You knew my father!”
“No, I knew his father. I saw the spell at work; I know the will of
those Alardys and the power of their love; I have good reason to know.
Your grandmother, the first Wilhelmina, I knew her too. She was another
man’s wife; she married him though she did not love him; she thought it
was safe; she did not know--then came this other--”
He stopped abruptly. He was pacing the far side of the room with
the restlessness almost of a young man; he stood in the shadow now,
but she sat regarding him wide-eyed, something almost of horror in
her face. That he should tear open these old wounds for her, his
wife’s grandchild, Wilhelmina’s grandchild! Wilhelmina! Yes, she knew
now, the links in the chain were joined and she knew, although she
murmured,--“My grandmother, Wilhelmina Corby?”
“Yes,” he said, and then he came into the firelight and his face was
very pitiful. “Child, child,” he said sadly, “there are passions of
which you know nothing; pray God you never may!”
The girl’s eyes suddenly filled with tears: “Do you not hate me?” she
whispered.
But he did not hate her. The blessed years which had taught him not to
hate, taught him to be merciful as well as just. “No, Princess Puck,”
he said, smiling gently, “I do not think I hate you.”
She crept dog-like to his side of the fire. “Shall I tell you
something,” he said, reaching a hand down to touch her hair, “something
which I do not count the least of my blessings this year?--God’s
goodness in sending to me, whom He has denied wife or child, a little
brown elf for a granddaughter.”
Bill could not speak. She only mutely pressed against his chair, and
for a long time they sat silent while he softly stroked her hair and
the ashes fell quietly on the hearth. At last the old man spoke again;
he had been thinking of the girl’s half-made confidence and it troubled
him greatly. “This promise of which you spoke,” he said,--“is it to be
kept or broken?”
Bill started like one awakening. “Broken,” she said, “I have broken
it”; and she told him the whole story, always, of course, excepting
that which was said, or rather was not said, when she and Kit
Harborough met under the beeches on a day when a dream proved to be a
dream no longer. But perhaps Mr. Dane discovered a little of that for
himself, for when he said good-bye to her that night he realised that
his Princess Puck was a child no more.