On Sunday the Meres dined early. It was very seldon that any one came
to see them in the afternoon, which was generally much taken up with
music. Mr. Meres had the habit of dozing over a book in his study. In
theory he set apart Sunday for those great authors who are more talked
about than read, for whom so little time is left amid the manifold
demands of necessary labour and the literature of the day, yet for lack
of whose sustaining companionship we are apt to fail so in the ways of
plain living and high thinking. But between two and five o’clock the
spell of drowsiness lay heavy upon our well-intentioned friend. On
Sunday most people find it hard to exert themselves to much purpose. The
atmosphere is soporific.
To-day there was expectation of Kingcote’s visit. Mr. Meres had made up
his mind that if he just showed himself, and then left the young
ladies to entertain their visitor, he would be exercising commendable
discretion. After dinner he went to his study as usual; Ada and the
two sisters remained in the sitting-room. There was no mention of the
subject which occupied the minds of all; other things were talked of,
but in an artificial way. Hilda presently began to play upon the piano.
An hour passed, and there was a knock at the front door.
Kingcote had had a long letter from Isabel the evening before, and his
mind was not ill-tuned for the visit. He was pleased with the aspect of
the small house; here at all events there would be what he longed for,
domestic peace and simplicity. He was conducted to the study, and found
Mr. Meres with a Shakespeare open before him. He smiled, reminded of the
rector of Winstoke.
“Which is your favourite play?” asked Mr. Meres by way of greeting,
taking it for granted that Kingcote would know to what author he
referred.
“_Antony and Cleopatra_,” was the unhesitating reply.
“Ha! I think my weakness is for the _Winter s Tale_. Perhaps it is
because I grow old.”
They talked awhile. Kingcote listened to notes of music from an
adjoining room. Mr. Meres presently proposed that they should invade
what he called the gynæceum.
The little front room looked very bright and pleasant; its occupants
were each one interesting, and in different ways. Kingcote’s eyes sought
Ada first of all. It surprised him that she did not suffer so much by
comparison with the other girls as he had anticipated. Perhaps it
was familiarity with her face which enabled him to see it in a more
favourable light than formerly. She was perfectly grave and, as usual,
distant, but somehow she seemed more feminine than at Knightswell.
There was miscellaneous gossip, chiefly about the Academy. The old
question of the artistic and the merely pleasing was rung upon in
all its changes. Ada spoke very little, but Rhoda was unusually
cheerful--perhaps she thought it became her to represent the hostess;
perhaps also there were other reasons--and Hilda could not be other than
charming. Only to look at her fresh, dainty youthfulness rested the eye
like the hue of spring verdure. She was asked at length to sing.
“I have no sacred songs,” she remarked with a dubious glance.
“You have many that are not exactly profane,” returned her father,
smiling.
Whilst she sang, Mr. Meres quietly left the room. There followed an hour
or two of such pleasant animation as Kingcote had never known. Wholly
at his ease, and forgetful of everything but the present, he surprised
himself by the natural flow of his talk. The music stirred his
faculties; the unwonted companionship soothed him. All he said was
received with a certain deference anything but disagreeable; even Ada
gave him respectful attention, and made not a single caustic remark. The
girls’ conversation was of a very pleasing kind, remarkably intelligent,
as different as possible from that of girls of corresponding age who
are trained in the paces of society. In Rhoda and Hilda the influence
of their father and of Ada Warren was evident; they appeared absolutely
free from unreasoning kinds of prejudice, and were strong in the faith
of the beautiful, which is woman’s salvation.
This visit Kingcote repeated twice before the end of July, not oftener,
though he had invitations to do so. In the days through which he now
began to live, it was seldom that he could regain the mood in which it
was possible to mingle with society of any kind, even though the process
might have relieved him. It was nothing less than an illness which
fell upon him, an illness of the nerves and the imagination. There
were intermissions of suffering, mostly the results of exhaustion; his
torment rose to the point at which a mental catastrophe seemed imminent,
then came a period of languor, in which he resumed strength to suffer
again. Later, these three months became all but a blank in his memory,
the details of the time, with the exception of one or two moments,
forgotten.
He waited several days into the new week without hearing from Isabel,
and at last had a very brief note from her, asking him to call before
three o’clock. It was in his mind to write a refusal, saying that he was
sure she had no time to give him, but this he could not carry out.
He found her just leaving the dining-room; she had lunched alone. Her
spirits were extravagant; he had never seen her so gay. The contrast
with his own gloomy state did not tend to brighten him.
“What has happened to excite you so?” he asked.
“Happened? Nothing at all. Only I am well, and happy, and the sun
shines; isn’t that enough to put one in good spirits?”
“Happy?” he repeated, rather bitterly.
“Did you wish me to be miserable?” she exclaimed merrily. “It is you who
make my happiness; why don’t you keep some for yourself?”
“There you mistake. I have nothing whatever to do with it.”
“No, the mistake is yours, Bernard. I tell you the truth, but you will
not, will not believe me. I can’t help it; I only know that you will
believe me some day. Time will be on my side.”
He sat mute and downcast.
“Oh, why do you take life so hard?” she asked him. “It is full of good
things to make the time pass, if you will only see them. Tell me now,
what have you been doing since I saw you?”
“Nothing--waiting to hear from you.”
“Ah, that is not true! Who was it that went to Chelsea on Sunday, and
made himself very agreeable indeed, charmingly agreeable, so that young
ladies speak most flatteringly of him? I know, you see. Indeed I was
just a little jealous, or should have been, if jealousy were not such a
foolish thing.”
“That I don’t think you would ever feel.”
“Perhaps not. I certainly should not without cause, and, if I had cause,
that would be a better reason still for resisting it.”
“Not if you----”
He interrupted himself, and turned away impatiently.
“You were going to say something very unkind, and you thought better of
it. But you sadden me; it is dreadful to see you so low-spirited. Have
you thought,” she asked, with a little hesitation, “of finding some
occupation for your time?”
“Yes, I have thought constantly, but of course without result. You think
I should not trouble you so often if my time were taken up?”
He could not help it. Almost everything she said converted itself in his
seething mind to a bitter significance. This was the first reference she
had made to the necessity under which he stood. It was natural enough
that the subject should occupy her thoughts; he had several times
wondered, indeed, that she kept silence about it. Now that she spoke, he
attributed to her unkind motives.
They talked on in this fruitless way. He saw her look at the clock,
and endeavoured to leave his seat; no doubt she was going somewhere, or
expected visitors. Minute after minute he said to himself that he would
go, yet still remained. The door opened, and Mr. Asquith was announced.
Robert had been long back from his yachting; at present he was entering
with heartiness into the pleasures of the London season. His mode of
life seemed to agree with him; there was ruddy health on his cheeks, and
his whole appearance bespoke the man who found life one with enjoyment.
Kingcote had heard his name in former times from the Vissians, but
Isabel had never mentioned her cousin to him. He regarded him with
involuntary dislike; the placid good-humour, the genial contentment of
Asquith’s look and voice were enough to excite this feeling under the
circumstances, and the frank kindness with which Isabel received him
naturally increased it.
“Colonel Stratton,” Robert remarked, _more suo_, as he seated himself.
“I met him at the top of Park Lane, and he was most anxious to discover
my exact opinion of the atmospheric conditions of the day; seemed
delighted when I agreed with him that there was moisture in the air.”
Isabel laughed heartily.
“Was that all that passed between you?” she inquired.
“Not quite. He wanted me to go with him to Barnet--was it Barnet? on a
coach driven by a friend of his, a Captain Cullen--Hullen----”
“Captain Mullen,” Isabel corrected, much amused. “He is a first-rate
whip. Why didn’t you go? It would have been delightful.”
“I’m afraid the company would have been rather too military for my
tastes. Besides, I told him I was coming to see you. He begged me
to----”
“To do what?”
“Nay, he himself paused at the ‘to’; the rest I was doubtless to
understand. I presume from his manner that I was to present his respects
to you.”
“Our friend Colonel Stratton,” Isabel explained to Kingcote, “is
habitually at a loss for words. He really is the shyest man I ever knew.
I tease him dreadfully, and I don’t think he minds it a bit.”
“Coach-driving,” remarked Robert. “Singular taste that. One is disposed
to suggest hereditary influences.”
Kingcote rose.
“Must you go?” Isabel asked.
“I must,” was the brief reply.
“I don’t think you ever met Mr. Kingcote at Knightswell?” Isabel said,
when the door had closed.
“I remember your speaking of him. Is he in London permanently?”
“I believe so.”
A purpose, which Isabel had had in mentioning him, passed, and she spoke
of other things....
Kingcote was walking about the streets. He avoided home nowadays as much
as possible; his madness seemed harder to bear in his own room, or with
Mary watching him; it was always best to walk himself into fatigue, that
there might be a chance of sleep in the night. Why had he not obeyed
her hint, and left before visitors could arrive? And there again was the
sting; she _wished_ him to leave. Did she expect this cousin of hers,
this prosperous, well-fed, easy-mannered gentleman? That mattered
little; the one certainty was that her love grew less and less. She had
not even the outward affectionateness which had once marked her when she
spoke with him alone. Knowing perfectly the power of help and soothing
that lay in her lightest loving word, she would not trouble to find one,
not one. She was gay in the face of his misery. Love would be affected
by subtle sympathies; yet she slept peacefully through those nights when
he wrestled with anguish; when he called upon her, she was deaf to the
voice she should have heard. So many other voices claimed her ear;
those that murmured graceful things in bright drawing-rooms, those that
flattered insidiously when she was enjoying her triumphs. It had been a
mistake; to her an occasion, perhaps, for regrets and annoyances, to him
a source of unutterable woe. Even if she really loved him at first, how
could she continue to, now that every day brought something to lower him
in her estimation? The worst of his suffering was in the thought that
he himself was his own ruin. Could he from the first have borne himself
like a man, have been affectionate without excess, have taken some
firm, direct course in his difficulties, above all have seemed to be
independent of her, then he might have held her his own. But that was
requiring of him to be another than he was. Out of weakness strength
could not come. His passion was that of a woman. Could he even now put
on a consistent show of independence, it might not be too late. Why had
he not taken her at her word when she offered to return to Knights well?
Was it too late?
Too late; for in love that which is undone never can be made good. He
was not worthy of her love; the consciousness was burnt in upon his
brain. Had she met him now for the first time, and seen him as now he
was, would she have loved him? Never; to think it was to rob her of
woman’s excellence. He had no one but himself to blame. He must bear
it; go lower in her sight day after day, see her impatience grow, feel
friendship wholly supplanting love, and fatigued endurance take the
place of friendship. It was his fate; he was himself, and could not
become another....
Ah, he had indeed drunk too deeply of that magic water of the Knights
Well, the spring at her gates! One draught, and it would have sent him
on his way refreshed. But the water was so insidiously sweet....
He wrote her letters again, in which he spared neither reproach nor
charge of cruelty. Isabel replied to him very shortly, but in pitying
forbearance. At length she begged him earnestly to seek employment. He
was undermining his health; it was imperative that he should apply his
mind to some regular pursuit. Her he was making grievously unhappy;
she would have to leave London. “Why, then, does she not?” he exclaimed
angrily when he read this. “She knows it would be better for me.”
Another cause of complaint had grown up in his thoughts; why had she
never offered to come and see his sister? It would have been graceful,
it would have been kind. But it would have been to commit herself too
far, he reasoned. She was doing her best to show him in the gentlest way
that the past must not be remembered too seriously. She never spoke now,
never, of the day when she would become his wife. That was in any case
at a year’s distance. Another year! He laughed scornfully. In a year it
would be as if they had never met.
“Isabel,” he wrote to her one day, when memories had touched him, “I
have given you all the love of which my soul is capable, and the soul of
man never gave birth to more. I am weak and contemptible in your sight;
it is because I faint for love of you. Oh, why have you stripped from
my life every leaf and blossom, leaving only that red flower of passion
which burns itself away? Every interest I once cherished has died in
feeding this love. I cannot see the world around me; wherever I look
there is your face, in thousandfold repetition, with every difference of
expression I have ever beheld upon it. I see the first smile with which
you greeted me--the first of all; I see the look in which your love
dawned, the flush of rapture with which you listened to my earliest
words of gratitude and devotion.
“I see you in your careless merriment, and in your pained coldness; I see
you when you smile on others. I shall never know again that heaven of
your unspoken tenderness, never, never! It was well that you made no
vows to me; how well it is that you have seen my unworthiness before it
was too lates of gratitude and devotion. I see you in your careless
merriment, and in your pained coldness; I see you when you smile on
others. I shall never know again that heaven of your unspoken
tenderness, never, never! It was well that you made no vows to me; how
well it is that you have seen my unworthiness before it was too late!”
She found that letter waiting for her when she reached home long after
midnight, coming from a crowded scene, with laughter and music still
ringing in her ears. Till her maid had left her she did not open it; it
was with fear--as always of late--that she at length broke the envelope.
She read, and tears filled her eyes. They came rushing, irresistible;
she ceased from her endeavour to check them, and wept as she had not
wept for long years. Through the dark hours she lay, with the letter in
her hand, and only slept when morning was at her window.
She wrote, but did not ask him to come to her....
Two occasions marked themselves afterwards in his memory. To lose
himself for an hour he went one night to the theatre. It was now early
in July; Isabel was staying in town longer than she had purposed. He
reached a seat in the pit, and sat through a farce which he in vain
tried to follow. Then he watched the people who were beginning to fill
the stalls. Two ladies came forward; he thought he knew the first,
and remembered Mrs. Stratton; behind her was Isabel, then a
gentleman--Colonel Stratton, he supposed. She was exquisitely beautiful,
dressed as he had never seen her; the lights flashed upon her; her face
had its own radiance. He forced his way out of the crowd, and into the
street....
He called and asked for her, early one afternoon, and was told that she
was not at home. Half-an-hour’s wandering brought him, scarcely with
purpose, back into the same street. From a distance he saw that her
carriage was waiting before the door, and immediately she came out and
entered it. He turned away with blackness before his eyes....
He wrote and told her of that. “It is true, dear,” she answered, “and
you must not blame me. I was obliged to leave home early, and I knew
that if I saw you for a moment it would only cause you worse trouble
than to believe I was away. You oblige me to do such things as this; I
_dare_ not be quite frank with you as I wish to be; you often frighten
me. There is nothing that I wish to hide from you on my own account.
What should there be?”
And so the time wore on to the end of July. Poor Mary’s existence had
become one of ceaseless grief. Only two or three times had she ventured
to entreat her brother to take her into his confidence, and let her
share his trouble. He could not tell her the truth; it would have shamed
him to open his heart even to her.
He put it all on the troubles which were in the future, the
impossibility of marrying whilst he remained penniless.
“And I am the cause of that,” Mary said, in deep sorrow.
“You the cause? You misunderstand me entirely. It would have been
precisely the same if the old state of things had remained unaltered. In
any case I was penniless--from her point of view.”
Mary could gather from the last words a sense he did not consciously put
into them. She had her own explanation of her brother’s dreadful state.
Dreadful it was, no less. His face was wasted as if by consumption.
He scarcely ate enough to support life. His sleeplessness had become
a disease. He never smiled, and spoke for the most part in a weary,
listless tone. Mary believed that there was death in his hands.
There came the day for leave-taking; he was to go to her--Isabel
wrote--in the afternoon, and she would be at home to no one else.
“You are glad that I am going?” she said.
“Yes, I am glad. I had rather think of you among the fields.”
“Ada is going with me, to stay for a week or two. She proposed it
herself; I was surprised.”
“But she had not left you finally?”
“I quite believed she had.”
They talked without any kind of emotion, but each avoided the other’s
eyes. Kingcote had his usual look of illness and fatigue; Isabel was
not without signs that the season had been a little too much for her
strength.
“I am going to Scotland in a fortnight,” she mentioned. “Of course you
shall have my address. Then in October you will come down some day and
see me, will you not?”
“It is better that I should promise nothing. I can’t say where I may be
in October.”
“Always distrusting the future! I dare not do that. The future is my
best friend.”
“Doubtless!” he replied.
“And are not our futures one and the same, Bernard?”
“Let us say so, and think so if we can. But I know you have many things
to occupy you. Let us say good-bye.”
“I don’t like that word. _Au revoir_ is better.”
“Why not good-bye? It only means ‘God be with you.’”
“Does it? Then, good-bye!”
She offered her lips and he just touched them. Otherwise his
self-torment would not have been complete.