MONICA.
MONICA
A Novel.
BY
EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN.
Author of
“Torwood’s Trust,” “The Last of the Dacres,”
“Ruthven of Ruthven,” Etc.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
LONDON:
WARD AND DOWNEY,
12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1889.
PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS,
AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
PAGE
Mrs. Bellamy 1
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
Randolph’s Story 23
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
Storm and Calm 40
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
A Summons to Trevlyn 61
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.
Changes 77
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.
United 101
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
A Shadow 125
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.
In Scotland 143
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
A Visit to Arthur 160
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
Back at Trevlyn 180
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
An Enigma 199
MONICA
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
MRS. BELLAMY.
Randolph was gone; and Monica, left alone in her luxurious London
house, felt strangely lost and desolate. Her husband had expressed a
wish that she should go out as much as possible, and not shut herself
up in solitude during his brief absence, and to do his will was now her
great desire. She would have preferred to remain quietly at home. She
liked best to sit by her fire upstairs, and make Wilberforce tell her
of Randolph’s childhood and boyish days; his devotion to his widowed
mother, his kindness to herself, all the deeds of youthful prowess,
which an old nurse treasures up respecting her youthful charges
and delights to repeat in after years. Wilberforce would talk of
Randolph by the hour together if she were not checked, and Monica felt
singularly little disposition to check her.
However she obeyed her husband in everything, and took her morning’s
ride as usual next day, and was met by Cecilia Bellamy, who rode beside
her, with her train of cavaliers in attendance, and pitied the poor
darling child who had been deserted by her husband.
“I am just in the same sad predicament myself, Monica,” she said,
plaintively. “My husband has had to go to Paris, all of a sudden, and I
am left alone too. We must console ourselves together. You must drive
with me to-day and come to tea, and I will come to you to-morrow.”
Monica tried in vain to beg off; Cecilia only laughed at her. Monica
had not _savoir faire_ enough to parry skilful thrusts, nor insincerity
enough to plead engagements that did not exist. So she was monopolised
by Mrs. Bellamy in her morning’s ride, was driven out in her carriage
that same afternoon, and taken to several houses where her friend had
“just a few words” to say to the hostess. She was taken back to tea,
and had to meet Conrad, who received her with great warmth, and had the
bad taste to address her by her Christian name before a whole roomful
of company, and who ended by insisting on walking home with her. Yet
his manner was so quiet and courteous, and he seemed so utterly
unconscious of her disfavour, that she was half ashamed of it, despite
her very real annoyance.
And the worst of it was that there seemed no end to the attentions
pressed upon her by the indefatigable Cecilia. Monica did not know
how to escape from the manifold invitations and visits that were
showered upon her. She seemed fated to be for ever in the society of
Mrs. Bellamy and her friends. Beatrice Wentworth and her brother were
themselves out of town; Randolph was detained longer than he had at
first anticipated, and Monica found herself drawn in an imperceptible
way—against which she rebelled in vain—into quite a new set of people
and places.
Monica was a mere baby in Cecilia’s hands. She had not the faintest
idea of any malice on the part of her friend. She felt her attentions
oppressive; she disliked the constant encounters with Conrad; but she
tried in vain to free herself from the hospitable tyranny of the gay
little woman. She was caught in some inexplicable way, and without
downright rudeness she could not escape.
As a rule, Conrad was very guarded and discreet, especially when alone
with her. He often annoyed her by his assumption of familiarity in
presence of others, but he was humble enough for the most part, and
took no umbrage at her rather pointed avoidance of him. She did not
know what he was trying to do: how he was planning a subtle revenge
upon his enemy her husband—the husband she was beginning unconsciously
yet very truly to love. She shrank from him without knowing why, but
the day was rapidly approaching when her eyes were to be opened.
Her instincts were so true that it was not easy to deceive her for
long. Ignorance of the world and reluctance to suspect evil blinded
her for a time; but she was to learn the true nature of her so-called
friends before long.
There had been a small picnic party at Richmond one day. Monica had
tried hard to excuse herself from attending, but had been laughed and
coaxed into consent. It mattered the less what she did now, for her
husband was to be at home the following day, and in the gladness of
that thought she could almost enjoy the sunshine, the fresh air, the
sight of green grass and waving trees, the country sights and sounds
to which she had so long been a stranger.
The party, too, was small, and though Conrad was of the number, he
held aloof from Monica, for which she was glad, for she had felt an
increasing distrust of him of late. It was an equestrian party, and the
long ride was a pleasure to Monica, who could have spent a whole day in
the saddle without fatigue.
And then her husband was coming. He would set all right. She would tell
him everything—she had not felt able to do so in the little brief notes
she had written to him—and she would take his advice for the future,
and decline friendship with all who could not be his friends too.
Everything would be right when Randolph came back.
Then Monica was glad of an opportunity of a little quiet talk with
Cecilia Bellamy. The wish for a private interview with her had been
one of the reasons which had led her to consent to be one of to-day’s
party. She had something on her mind she wished to say to her in
private, and as yet she had found no opportunity of doing so.
Yet it was not until quite late in the afternoon that Monica’s
opportunity came; when it did, she availed herself of it at once. She
and her friend were alone in a quiet part of the park; nobody was very
near to them.
“Cecilia,” said Monica, “there is something I wish to say to you now
that we are alone together. I am very much obliged to you for being so
friendly during my husband’s absence—but—but—it is difficult to say
what I mean—but I think you ought not to have had your brother so much
with you when you were asking me; or rather I think, as he is your
brother, whilst I am only a friend, the best plan would be for us to
agree not to attempt to be very intimate. We have drifted apart with
the lapse of years, and there are reasons, as you know, why it is not
advisable for me to see much of your brother. I am sure you understand
me without any more words.”
“Oh, perfectly!” said Mrs. Bellamy with a light laugh. “Poor child,
what an ogre he is! Well, at least, we have made the best of the little
time he allowed us.”
Monica drew herself up very straight.
“I do not understand you, Cecilia. Please to remember that you are
speaking of my husband.”
Mrs. Bellamy laughed again.
“I am in no danger of forgetting, my dear. Please do not trouble
yourself to put on such old-fashioned airs with me; as if every one did
not know your secret by this time.”
Monica turned upon her with flashing eyes.
“What secret?”
“The secret of your unhappy marriage, my love. It was obviously a
_mariage de convenance_ from the first, and you take no pains to
disguise the fact that it will never be anything else. As Randolph
Trevlyn is rather a fascinating man, there is only one rational
interpretation to be put upon your persistent indifference.”
Monica stood as if turned to stone.
“What?”
“Why, that your heart was given away before he appeared on the scene.
People like little pathetic romances, and there is something in the
style of your beauty, my dear, that makes you an object of interest
wherever you go. You are universally credited with a ‘history’ and a
slowly breaking heart—an equally heart-broken lover in the background.
You can’t think how interested we all are in you—and——”
But the sentence was not finished. Mrs. Bellamy’s perceptions were not
fine, but something in Monica’s face deterred her from permitting her
brother’s name to pass her lips. It was easy to see that no suspicion
of his connection with the “romance” concocted for her by gossiping
tongues had ever crossed her mind. But she was sternly indignant, and
wounded to the quick by what she had heard.
She spoke not a word, but turned haughtily away and sought for solitude
in the loneliest part of the park. She was terribly humiliated. She
knew nothing of the inevitable chatter and gossip, half good-humoured,
half mischievous, with which idle people indulge themselves about their
neighbours, especially if that neighbour happens to be a beautiful
woman, with an unknown past and an apparent trouble upon her. She did
not know that spite on Conrad’s part, and flighty foolishness on that
of his sister, had started rumours concerning her. She only felt that
she had by her ingratitude and coolness towards the husband who had
sacrificed so much for her, and whom she sincerely respected, and
almost loved, had been the means of bringing his name and hers within
the reach of malicious tongues, had given rise to cruel false rumours
she hated ever to think of. If only her husband were with her!—at least
he would soon be with her, and if for very shame she could not repeat
the cruel words she had heard, at least she could show to all the world
how false and base they were.
Monica woke up at last to the fact that it was getting late, and that
she was in a totally strange place, far away from the rest of the
party. She turned quickly and retraced her steps. She seldom lost her
bearings, and was able to find her way back without difficulty, but
she had strayed farther than she knew; it took her some time to reach
the glade in which they had lunched, and when she arrived there she
found it quite deserted. There was nothing for it but to go back to the
hotel, whither she supposed the others had preceded her, but when she
reached the courtyard no one was to be seen but Conrad, who held her
horse and his own.
“Ah, Monica! here you are. We missed you just at starting. Did you lose
yourself in the park? Nobody seemed to know what had become of you.”
“I suppose I walked rather too far. Where are the rest?”
“Just started five minutes ago. We only missed you then. I said I’d
wait. We shall catch them up in two minutes.”
As this was Mrs. Bellamy’s party, and Conrad was her brother, this
mark of courtesy could not be called excessive, yet somehow it
displeased Monica a good deal.
“Where is my groom?”
Conrad looked round innocently enough. “I suppose he joined the
cavalcade, stupid fellow! Stablemen are so very gregarious. Never mind;
we shall be up with them directly.”
And Monica was forced to mount and ride after the party with Conrad.
But they did not come up with the others, despite his assurances, and
the fact that they rode very fast for a considerable time. He professed
himself very much astonished, and declared that they must have made a
stupid blunder, and have gone by some other road.
“In that case, Sir Conrad,” said Monica, “I will dispense with your
escort. I am perfectly well able to take care of myself alone.”
He read her displeasure in her face and voice. She had an instinct that
she had been tricked, but it was not a suspicion she could put into
words.
“_Sir_ Conrad!” he repeated, with gentle reproach. “Have I offended
you, Monica?”
“Sir Conrad, it is time we should understand one another,” said Monica,
turning her head towards him. “I made you a sort of promise once—a
promise of friendship I believe it was. I am not certain that I ever
ought to have given it; but after my marriage with a man you hold as
an enemy, it is impossible that I can look upon you as a true friend.
I do not judge or condemn you, but I do say that we had better meet
as infrequently as possible, and then as mere acquaintances. You have
strained your right of friendship, as it is, by the unwarrantable and
persistent use of my Christian name, which you must have known was not
for you to employ now. We were playfellows in childhood, I know, but
circumstances alter cases, and our circumstances have greatly changed.
It must be Sir Conrad and Lady Monica now between you and me, if ever
we meet in future.”
His eyes gleamed with that wild beast ferocity that lay latent in his
nature, but his voice was well under command.
“Your will is law, Lady Monica. It is hard on me, but you know best. I
will accept any place that you assign me.”
She was not disarmed by his humility.
“I assign you no place; and you know that what I say is not hard. We
are not at Trevlyn now. You know your own world well; I am only just
beginning to know it. You had no right ever to take liberties that
could give occasion for criticism or remark.”
He looked keenly at her, but she was evidently quite unconscious of the
game he had tried to play for the amusement of his little circle. She
only spoke in general terms.
“There was a time, Monica,” he said gently, “when you cared less what
the world would say.”
“There was a time, Sir Conrad,” she answered, with quiet dignity, “when
I knew less what the world might say.”
Had Monica had the least suspicion of what her companion had tried
to make it say, she would not now have been riding with him along the
darkening streets, just as carriages were rolling by carrying people to
dinner or to the theatres.
Twice she had imperatively dismissed him, but he had absolutely
declined to leave her.
“I will not address another word to you if my presence is distasteful
to you,” he said; “but you are my sister’s guest, and in the absence
of her husband I stand in the place of your host. I will not leave you
to ride home at this late hour alone. At the risk of incurring your
displeasure I attend you to your own door.”
Monica did not protest after that, but she hardly addressed a single
word to her silent companion.
As she rode up to her own house she saw that the door stood open. The
groom was there, with his horse. He was in earnest converse with a
tall, broad-shouldered man, who held a hunting-whip in his hand, and
appeared about to spring into the saddle.
Monica’s heart gave a sudden leap. Who was that other man standing with
his back to her on the pavement? He turned quickly at the sound of her
approach—it was her husband.
He looked at her and her companion in perfect silence. Conrad took
off his hat, murmured a few incoherent words, and rode quickly away.
Randolph’s hand closed like a vice upon his whip, but he only gave one
glance at the retreating figure, and then turned quietly to his wife
and helped her to dismount. The groom took the horse, and without a
word from anyone, husband and wife passed together into the house. And
this was the meeting to which Monica had looked forward with so much
trembling joy.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.
RANDOLPH’S STORY.
Randolph led his wife upstairs to the drawing-room, and closed the
door behind them. It was nine o’clock, and the room was brightly
illuminated. Randolph was in dinner dress, as though he had been some
time at home. His face was pale, and wore an expression of stern
repression more intense than anything Monica had ever seen there
before. She was profoundly agitated—agitated most of all by the feeling
that he was near her again; the husband that she had pined for without
knowing that she pined. Her agitation was due to a kind of tumultuous
joy more than to any other feeling, but she hardly knew this herself,
and no one else would have credited it, from the whiteness of her face,
and the strained look it wore. As a matter of fact, she was physically
and mentally exhausted. She had gone through a great deal that day;
she had eaten little, and that many hours ago; she was a good deal
prostrated, though hardly aware of it—a state in which nervous tension
made her unusually susceptible of impression; and she trembled and
shrank before the displeasure in her husband’s proud face. Would he
look like that if he really loved her? Ah, no! no! She shrank a little
more into herself.
Randolph did not hurry her. He took off his overcoat leisurely, and
laid his whip down upon the table. He looked once or twice at her as
she sat pale and wan in the arm-chair whither he had led her. Then he
came and stood before her.
“Monica, what have you to say to me?”
She looked up at him with an expression in her dark eyes that moved and
touched him. Something of the severity passed from his face; he sat
down, too, and laid his hand upon hers.
“You poor innocent child,” he said quietly, “I do not even believe you
know that you have done wrong.”
“I do, Randolph,” she answered. “I do know, but not as you think—I
could not help that. I hated it—I hate him; but to-night I could
not help myself. Where I was wrong was in not doing as you
asked—persisting in judging for myself. But how could I know that
people could be so cruel, so unworthy, so false? Randolph, I should
like to-night to know that I should never see one of them again!”
She spoke with a passionate energy that startled him. He had never seen
her excited like this before.
“What have they been saying to you?” he asked in surprise.
“Ah! don’t ask me. It is too hateful! It was Cecilia. She seemed
to think it was amusing—a capital joke. Ah! how can people be so
unwomanly, so debased!”
She put her hands before her eyes, as if to shut out some hideous
image. “Yes, I will tell you, Randolph—I will. I owe it to you,
because—because—oh, because there is just enough truth to make it so
terribly bitter. She said that people knew it was not an ordinary
marriage, ours—she called it a _mariage de convenance_. She said
everybody knew we had not fallen in love with one another.” Monica’s
hand was still pressed over her eyes; she could not look at her
husband. “She said I showed it plainly, that I let every one see.
I never meant to, Randolph, but perhaps I did. I don’t know how to
pretend. But oh, she said people thought it was because I cared—for
some one else—that I had married you whilst I loved some one else—and
that is all a wicked, wicked lie! You believe that, Randolph, do you
not?”
She rose up suddenly and he rose too, and they stood looking into each
other’s eyes.
“You believe that at least, Randolph?” she asked, and wondered at the
stern sorrow visible in every line of his face.
“Yes, Monica, I believe that,” he answered, very quietly; yet, in spite
of all his yearning tenderness there was still some sternness in his
manner, for he was deeply moved, and knew that the time had come when
at all costs he must speak out. “I, too, have heard that false rumour,
and have heard—which I hope you have not—the name of the man to whom
your heart is supposed to be given. Shall I tell it you? His name is
Conrad Fitzgerald.”
Monica recoiled as if he had struck her, and put both her hands before
her face. Randolph continued speaking in the same concise way.
“Let me tell you my tale now, Monica. I left Scotland early this
morning, finishing business twelve hours earlier than I expected. I
wired from Durham to you; but you had left the house before my telegram
reached. In the train, during the last hour of the journey, some
young fellows got in, who were amusing themselves by idle repetition
of current gossip. I heard my wife’s name mentioned more than once,
coupled with that of Sir Conrad Fitzgerald, in whose company she had
evidently been frequently seen of late. I reached home—Lady Monica was
out for the day with Mrs. Bellamy—presumably with Sir Conrad also. I
dined at my club, to hear from more than one source that the world was
gossiping about my handsome wife and Sir Conrad Fitzgerald. I came home
at dusk to find the groom just returned, with the news that Sir Conrad
was bringing my lady home, that he was dismissed from attendance; and
in effect the man whose acquaintance I repudiate, whose presence in my
house is an insult, rides up to my door in attendance upon my wife.
Before I say any more, tell me your story. Monica, let me hear what you
have been doing whilst I have been away.”
Monica, roused to a passionate indignation by what she heard—an
indignation that for the moment seemed to include the husband, who had
uttered such cruel, wounding words, told her story with graphic energy.
She was grateful to Randolph for listening so calmly and so patiently.
She was vaguely aware that not all men would show such forbearance
and self-control. She knew she had wounded him to the quick by her
indiscretion and self-will, but he gave her every chance to exculpate
herself. When she had told her story, she stood up very straight before
him. Let him pronounce sentence upon her; she would bear it patiently
if she could.
“I see, Monica,” he answered, very quietly, “I understand. It is not
all your fault. You have only been unguarded. You have been an innocent
victim. It is Fitzgerald’s own false tongue that has set on foot these
idle, baseless rumours. It is just like him.”
Monica recoiled again.
“Just like him! but, Randolph, he is my friend!”
A stern look settled upon Randolph’s face.
“Oblige me, Monica, by withdrawing that word. He is _not_ your friend;
and he is my enemy.”
“Your enemy?”
“Yes; and _this_ is how he tries to obtain his revenge.”
Monica was trembling in every limb.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Sit down, then, and I will tell you.”
She obeyed, but he did not sit down. He stood with his back against
the chimney-piece, the light from the chandelier falling full upon his
stern resolute face, with its handsome features and luminous dark eyes.
“You say you know the story of Fitzgerald’s past?”
“Yes; he forged a cheque. His sister told me.”
Randolph looked at her intently.
“Was that _all_ she told you?”
“Yes; she said it was all. He deceived a friend and benefactor, and
committed a crime. Was not that enough?”
“Not enough for Fitzgerald, it seemed,” answered Randolph,
significantly. “Monica, I am glad you did not know more, since you
have met that man as a friend. Forgiveness is beautiful and noble—but
there are limits. I will tell you the whole story, but in brief. The
Colonel Hamilton of whom you heard in connection with the forgery was
Fitzgerald’s best and kindest friend. He was a friend of my mother’s
and of mine. I knew him intimately, and saw a good deal of his
_protégé_ at his house and at Oxford. I did not trust him at any time.
It was no very great surprise when, after a carefully concealed course
of vulgar dissipation, he ended by disgracing himself in the way you
have heard described. It cut Hamilton to the quick. ‘Why did not the
lad come to me if he was in trouble? I would have helped him,’ he said.
He let me into the secret, for I happened to be staying with him at the
time; but it was all hushed up. Fitzgerald was forgiven, and vowed an
eternal gratitude, as well as a complete reformation in his life.”
“Did he keep his promise?” asked Monica in a whisper.
“You shall hear how,” answered Randolph, with a gathering sternness
in his tone not lost upon Monica. “From that moment it seemed as if a
demon possessed him. I believe—it is the only excuse or explanation to
be offered—that there is a taint of insanity in his blood, and that
with him it takes, or took, the form of an inexplicable hatred towards
the man to whom he owed so much. About this time, Colonel Hamilton,
till then a bachelor, married a friendless, beautiful young wife,
to whom in his very quiet and undemonstrative way he was deeply and
passionately attached, as she was to him. But she was very young and
very inexperienced, and when that man, with his smooth false tongue,
set himself to poison her life by filling her mind with doubts of her
husband’s love, he succeeded but too well. She spoke no word of what
she suffered, but withdrew herself in her morbid jealous distress.
She broke the faithful heart that loved her, and she broke her own
too. It sounds a wild and foolish tale, perhaps, to one who does not
understand the mysteries of a passionate love such as that; but it is
all too true. I had been absent from England for some time, but came
home, all unconscious of what had happened, to find my friend Hamilton
in terrible grief. His young wife lay dying—dying of a rapid decline,
brought on, it was said, by mental distress; and worse than all, she
could not endure her husband’s presence in the room, but shrank from
him with inconceivable terror and excitement. He was utterly broken
down by distress. He begged me to see her, and to learn if I could,
the cause of this miserable alteration. I did see her. I did get her
to tell her story. I heard what Conrad Fitzgerald had done; and I
was able, I am thankful to say, to relieve her mind of its terrible
fear, and to bring her husband to her before the end had come. She
died in his arms, happy at the last; but she died; and he, in his
broken-hearted misery for her loss, and for the treachery of one he had
loved almost as a son, did not survive her for long. Within six months,
my true, brave friend followed her to the grave.
“I was with him to the end. I need hardly say that Fitzgerald did
not attempt to come near him. He was plunged in a round of riotous
dissipation. Upon the day following the funeral, I chanced to come upon
him, surrounded by a select following of his boon companions. Can I
bring myself to tell you what he was saying before he knew that I was
within earshot? I need not repeat his words, Monica: they are not fit
for your ears. Suffice it to say that he was passing brutal jests upon
the man who had just been laid in his grave, and upon the young wife
whose heart had been broken by his own base and cruel slanders. Coupled
with these jests were disgraceful boastings, as unmanly and false as
the lips that uttered them.
“I had in my hand a heavy riding-whip. I took him by the collar, and I
made him recant each one of those cruel slanders he had uttered, and
confess himself a liar and a villain. I administered, then and there,
such a chastisement as I hope never to have to administer to any man
again. No one interposed between us. I think even his chosen companions
felt that he was receiving no more than his due. I thrashed him like
the miserable hound he was. If it had been possible, I would have
called him out and shot him like a dog.”
Randolph’s voice had not risen whilst he was speaking. He was very
calm and composed as he told his story; there was no excitement in his
manner, and yet his quiet, quivering wrath thrilled Monica more than
the fiercest invective could have done.
“My whip broke at last. I flung him from me, and he lay writhing on
the floor. But he was not past speech, and he had energy left still
to curse me to my face, and to vow upon me a terrible vengeance,
which should follow me all my life. He is trying now to keep this
vow. History repeats itself you know. He ruined the happiness of one
life, and brought about this tragedy, by poisoning the mind of a wife,
and setting her against her husband; and I presume he thinks that
experiment was successful enough to be worth repeating. There, Monica,
I have said my say. You have now before you a circumstantial history of
the past life of Sir Conrad Fitzgerald—your friend.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
STORM AND CALM.
Monica sat with her face buried in her hands, her whole frame quivering
with emotion. Those last words of her husband’s smote her almost like
a blow. She deserved them, no doubt; yet they were cruel, coming like
that. He could not have spoken so if he loved her. He would not stand
coldly aloof whilst she suffered, if he held her really dear. And yet,
once he had almost seemed to love her, till she had alienated him by
her pride and self-will. It was just, she admitted, yet, oh! it was
very hard!
She sat, crushed and confounded, for a time, and it was only by a great
effort that she spoke at all.
“I did not know, Randolph; I did not know. You should have told me
before.”
“I believed you did know. You told me that you did.”
“Not that. Did you think I could know _that_ and treat him as a friend?
Oh, Randolph! how could you? You ought to have told me before.”
“Perhaps I ought,” he said. “But remember, Monica, I spoke out very
plainly, and still you insisted that he was, and should continue to be,
your friend—your repentant friend.”
Monica raised her eyes to her husband’s face, full of a sort of mute
reproach. She felt that she merited the rebuke—that he might have
said much more without being really harsh—and yet it was very hard, in
this hour of their re-union, to have to hear, from lips that had never
uttered till then anything but words of gentleness and love, these
reproofs and strictures on her conduct. She saw that he was moved: that
there was a repressed agitation and excitement in his whole manner;
but she could not guess how deeply he had been roused and stirred
by the careless jests he had heard passed that day, nor how burning
an indignation he felt towards the man who had plotted to ruin his
happiness.
“You should not have left me, Randolph,” said Monica, “if you could not
trust me.”
He went up to her quietly, and took her hands. She stood up, looking
straight into his eyes.
“I did trust you—I do trust you,” he answered, with subdued
impetuosity. “Can I look into your face and harbour one doubt of your
goodness and truth? I trust _you_ implicitly; it is your judgment, not
your heart, that has been at fault.”
She looked up gratefully, and drew one step nearer.
“And now that you have come back, all will be right again,” she said.
“Randolph, I will never speak to that man again.”
His face was stern; it wore a look she did not understand.
“I am not sure of that,” he answered, speaking with peculiar
incisiveness. “It may be best that you _should_ speak to him again.”
She looked up, bewildered.
“Randolph, why do you say that? Do you think that, after all, he has
repented?”
Randolph’s face expressed an unutterable scorn. She read the meaning of
that glance, and answered it as if it had been expressed in words.
“Randolph, do you believe for a moment that I would permit any one to
speak ill of you to me? Am I not your wife?”
His face softened as he looked at her, but there was a good deal of
sadness there, too.
“I do not believe you would deliberately listen to such words from him;
but are not poisoned shafts launched sometimes that strike home and
rankle? Has no one ever come between you and me, since the day you
gave yourself to me in marriage?”
He saw her hesitation, and a great sadness came into his eyes. How near
she was and yet how far! His heart ached for her in her loneliness and
isolation, and it ached for himself too.
Monica broke the silence first.
“Randolph,” she said timidly; “no harm has been done to you, really? He
cannot hurt you; can he?”
His face was stern as he answered her.
“He will hurt me if he can—through my wife. His threat is still
unfulfilled; but he knows where to plant a blow, how to strike in the
dark. Yes, Monica, he has hurt me.”
She drew back a pace.
“How?”
“It hurts me to know that idle gossip connects my wife’s name with
his—that he has the credit of being a lover, discarded only from
motives of policy. I know that there is not a syllable of truth in
these reports—that they have been set afloat by his malicious tongue.
Nevertheless, they hurt me. They hurt me the more because my wife has
given some countenance to such rumours, by permitting a certain amount
of intimacy with a man whom her husband will not receive.”
Monica was white to the lips. She understood now, as she had never
done before, what Cecilia Bellamy had meant by her flighty speeches a
few hours before. They had disgusted and offended her then, now they
appeared like absolute insults. Randolph saw the stricken look upon her
face, and knew that she was cut to the quick.
“Monica,” he said, more gently, “what has been done can be undone by a
little patience and self-control. We need not be afraid of a man like
Sir Conrad. I have known him and his ways long. He has tried before to
injure me without success. He has tried in a more subtle way this time;
yet again I say, most emphatically, that he has failed.”
But Monica hardly heard. She was torn by the tumult of her shame and
distress.
“Randolph!” she exclaimed, stretching out her hands towards him:
“Randolph, take me home! oh! take me home, out of this cruel, cruel,
wicked world! I cannot live here. It kills me; it stifles the very life
out of me! I am so miserable, so desolate here! It is all so hard, and
so terrible! Take me home! Ah! I was happy once!”
“I will take you to Trevlyn, Monica, believe me, as soon as ever I can;
but it cannot be just yet. Shall I tell you why?”
She recoiled from him once more, putting up her hand with that
instinctive gesture of distress.
“You are very cruel to me Randolph,” she said, with the sharpness of
keen misery in her voice.
He stood quite still, looking at her, and then continued in the same
quiet way:
“Shall I tell you why? I cannot take you away until we have been seen
together as before. I shall go with you to some of those houses you
have visited without me. We must be seen riding and driving, and going
about as if nothing whatever had occurred during my absence. If we meet
Fitzgerald, there must be nothing in your manner or in mine to indicate
that he is otherwise than absolutely indifferent to us. I dare say he
will put himself in your way. He would like to force upon me the part
of the jealous, distrustful husband, but it is a _rôle_ I decline to
play at his bidding. I am not jealous, nor am I distrustful, and he
and all the world shall see that this is so. If I take you away now,
Monica, I shall give occasion for people to say that I am afraid to
trust my wife in any place where she may meet Fitzgerald. Let us stay
where we are, and ignore the foolish rumours he has circulated, and we
shall soon see them drop into deserved oblivion.”
“Randolph, I cannot! I cannot!” cried Monica, who was now overwrought
and agitated to the verge of exhaustion; “I _cannot_ stay here. I
cannot go amongst those who have dared to say such things, to believe
such things of me. What does it matter what they think, when we are far
away? Take me back to Trevlyn, and let us forget it all. Let me go, if
only for a week. I have never asked you anything before. Oh! Randolph,
do not be so hard! Say that you will take me home!”
“If I loved you less, Monica,” he answered, in a very low, gentle tone,
“I should say yes. As it is, I say no. I cannot take you to Trevlyn
yet.”
She turned away then, and left him without a word, passing slowly
through the brilliantly-lighted room, and up the wide staircase.
Randolph sat down and rested his head upon his hand, and a long-drawn
sigh rose up from the very depths of his heart. This interview had
tried him quite as much as it had done Monica—possibly even more.
“Perhaps, after all, Fitzgerald _has_ revenged himself,” he muttered,
“though not in a way he anticipated. Ah, Monica! my fair young wife,
why cannot you trust me a little more?”
Monica trusted him far more than he knew. It was not in anger that
she had left him. In the depth of her heart she believed that he had
judged wisely and well; it was only the wave of home-sickness sweeping
over her that had urged her to such passionate pleading. And then
his strong, inflexible firmness gave her a curious sense of rest and
confidence. She herself was so torn and rent by conflicting emotions,
by bewilderment and uncertainty, that his resolute determination
and singleness of purpose were as a rock and tower of defence. She
had called him cruel in the keen disappointment of the moment, but
she knew he was not really so. Home-sick, aching for Trevlyn as she
was—irrepressibly as she shrank from the idea of facing those to whom
she had given cause to say that she did not love her husband, she felt
that his decision was right. It might be hard, but it was necessary,
and she would go through her part unflinchingly for his sake. It was
the least that she could do to make amends for the unconscious wrong
she had done him.
She felt humbled to the very dust, utterly distrustful of herself, and
quite unworthy of the gentleness and forbearance her husband showed
towards her. How much he must be disappointed in her! How hard he must
feel it to have married her out of kindness, and to be treated thus!
She was very quiet and submissive during the days that followed, doing
everything he suggested, studying in all things to please him, and to
make up for the past. In society she was more bright and less silent
than she had been heretofore. She was determined not to appear unhappy.
No one should in future have cause to say that her present life was not
congenial to her. Certainly, if anyone took the trouble to watch her
now, it would easily be seen that she was no longer indifferent to her
husband. Her eyes often followed him about when he was absent from her
side. She always seemed to know where he was, and to turn to him with a
sort of instinctive welcome when he came back to her. This clinging to
him was quite unconscious, the natural result of her confidence in his
strength and protecting care; but it was visible to one pair of keenly
jealous eyes, and Conrad Fitzgerald, when he occasionally found himself
in company with Randolph and his wife, watched with a sense of baffled
malevolence the failure of his carefully-planned scheme.
People began to talk now of the devotion of Mr. Trevlyn and Lady Monica
with as much readiness and carelessness as they had done about their
visible estrangement. It takes very little to set idle tongues wagging,
and every one admired the bride and liked the bridegroom, so that the
good opinion of the world was not difficult to regain.
But Monica’s peace of mind was less easily recovered. At home she
was grave and sad, and he thought her cold; and the full and entire
reconciliation—of which, indeed, at that time she would have felt quite
unworthy—was not to be yet. Each was conscious of deep love on his or
her own side, but could not read the heart of the other, and feared to
break the existing calm by any attempt to ruffle the surface of the
waters.
They were not very much alone, for Lord Haddon and his sister spent
many evenings with them when they were not otherwise engaged, and the
intimacy between the two houses increased rapidly.
Monica had never again alluded to the prospective return to Trevlyn—the
half-promise made by Randolph to take her back soon. She did not know
what “soon” might mean, and she did not ask. She had grown content now
to leave that question in his hands.
Once, when in the after-dinner twilight, she had been talking to
Beatrice of her old home, the latter said, with eager vehemence:
“How you must long to see it again! How you must ache to be out of this
tumult, and back with your beloved sea and cliffs and pine-woods! Don’t
you hate our noisy, busy London? Don’t you pine to go back?”
Monica was silent, pondering, as it seemed. She was thinking deeply.
When she answered out of the fulness of her heart, her words startled
even herself.
“I don’t think I do. I missed the quiet and rest at first, but, you
see, my husband is here; I do not pine when I have him.”
Beatrice’s eyes grew suddenly wistful. “Ah, no!” she answered. “I can
understand that.”
But after a long silence she rallied herself and asked:
“But is he not going to take you back? Do you not want to see your
father and brother again?”
“Yes, if Randolph is willing to take me; but it must be as he likes.”
“He will like what will please you best.”
Monica smiled a little.
“No; he will like what is best, and I shall like it too.”
Beatrice studied her face intently.
“Do you know, Monica, that you have changed since I saw you first?”
Monica passed her hand across her brow. What a long time it seemed
since that first meeting in the park!
“Have I?”
“Yes. Do you know I used to have a silly fancy that you did not much
care for Randolph? It was absurd and impertinent, I know; but Haddon
had brought such a strange account of your sudden wedding, called you
the ‘snow bride,’ and had somehow got an idea that it had all been
rather cold and sad—forgetting, of course, that the sadness was on
account of your father’s health. I suppose I got a preconceived idea;
and do you know, when first I knew you I used to think of you as
the ‘snow-bride,’ and fancy you very cold to everyone—especially to
Randolph; and now that I see more of you and know you better, it is
just as plain that you love him with all your heart and soul.”
Monica sat quite still in the darkness, turning about the ring upon
her finger—the pledge of his wedded love. She was startled at hearing
put into plain words the secret thought treasured deep down in her
heart, but seldom looked into or analysed. Had it come to that? Did she
indeed love him thus? Was that the reason she yielded up herself and
her future so trustfully and willingly to him?—the reason that she no
longer yearned after Trevlyn as home, so long as he was at her side?
Yes, that was surely it. Beatrice had spoken no more than the truth
in what she said. She did love her husband heart and soul; but did he
love her too? There lay the sting—she had proved unworthy of him: he
must know it and feel it. She had been near to winning his heart; but
alas! she had not won it—and now, now perhaps it was too late. And yet
the full truth was like a ray of sunshine in her heart. Might she not
yet win his love by the depth and tenderness of her own? Something deep
down within her said that the land of promise lay, after all, not so
very far away.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.
A SUMMONS TO TREVLYN.
“Randolph! Randolph! Why did you not take me home when I begged so hard
to go? It was cruel! cruel! And now it is too late!”
This irrepressible cry of anguish burst from Monica in the first
moments of a terrible, overmastering grief. An open telegram in
Randolph’s hand announced the sudden death of Lord Trevlyn. He had just
broken to his wife, with as much gentleness as he could, the news of
this crushing sorrow. It was hardly unnatural that she should remember,
in such a moment, how eloquently she had pleaded a few weeks back to
be taken home to Trevlyn, yet she repented the words before they had
passed her lips, for she saw they had hurt her husband.
He was deeply grieved for her, his heart yearned over her, but his
words were few.
“Can you be ready to start, Monica, by the noon express?”
She bent her head in a silent assent, and moved away as one who walks
in a dream.
“Poor child!” he said softly, “poor child! If only my love could make
up to you for what you have lost; but alas! that is not what you want.”
It was a strange, sad, silent journey, almost as sad as the one in
which Randolph had brought his bride to London. He was taking her back
at last to her childhood’s home. Was he any nearer to her innermost
self than he had been that day, now nearly three months ago?
He was hopeful that he had made an advance, and yet this sudden recall
to Trevlyn disconcerted him. Apart from the question of the earl’s
death, there was another trouble, he believed, hanging over Monica’s
future. Tom Pendrill had been profiting by her absence to “experiment,”
as she would have called it, upon Arthur, with results that had
surprised even him, though he had always believed the case curable if
properly treated. Randolph had had nothing to do directly with the
matter, but Tom had written lately, asking him to find out the best
authorities on spinal injuries, and get some one or two specialists
to come and have a look at the boy. This Randolph had done at his own
expense, and with the result, as he had heard a few days back, that
Arthur was to be sent abroad for a year, to be under a German doctor,
whose cures of similar cases had been bringing him into marked repute.
Monica had been, by Arthur’s special wish, kept in ignorance of
everything. He was eagerly anxious, even at the cost of considerable
suffering, to submit to the prescribed treatment, feeling how much good
he had already received from Tom’s more severe remedies; but he knew
how Monica shrank from the idea of anything that could give him pain,
how terrible she would consider the idea of parting, how vehemently
she would struggle to thwart the proposed plan. So he had begged that
she might be kept in ignorance till all was finally settled. Indeed,
he had some idea, not entirely discouraged by Tom, of getting himself
quietly removed to Germany in her absence, so that she might be spared
all the anxiety, misery, and suspense.
Randolph could hardly have been acquitted of participation in the
scheme, the whole cost of which was to fall upon him, and he wondered
what Monica might think of his share in it. It had been no doing of his
that she had not been told from the first. He had urged upon the others
the unfairness of keeping her in the dark; but Arthur’s vehement wish
for secrecy had won the day, and he had held his peace until he should
be permitted to speak.
And now, what would happen? What was likely to be the result upon
Monica of the inevitable disclosure? Would it not seem to her as if
the first act of her husband, on succeeding to the family estate, was
to banish from it the one being for whom she had so often bespoken his
protection and brotherly care? Might she not fancy that he was in some
way the originator of the scheme? Might she not be acute enough to see
that but for him it never could have been carried out, owing to lack
of necessary funds? Her father might have approved it, but he could
not have forwarded it as Randolph was able to do. Might it not seem
to her that he was trying to rid himself of an unwelcome burden, and
to isolate his wife from all whom she loved best? He could not forget
some of the words she had spoken not very long after their marriage.
Practically those words had been rescinded by what had followed, but
that could hardly be so in this case. Monica’s heart clung round
Arthur with a passionate, yearning tenderness, that was one of the
main-springs of her existence. What would she say to those who had
banded together to take the boy from her?
Randolph’s pre-occupation and gravity were not lost upon Monica, but
she had no clue to their real cause. She felt that there was something
in it of which she was ignorant, and there was a sort of sadness and
constraint even in the suspicion of such a thing. She was unnerved
and miserable, and, although, she well knew she had not merited her
husband’s full confidence, it hurt her keenly to feel that it was
withheld from her.
Evening came on, a wild, melancholy stormy evening—is there anything
more sad and dreary than a midsummer storm? It does not come with the
wild, resistless might of a winter tempest, sweeping triumphantly
along, carrying all before it in the exuberance of its power. It is a
sad, subdued, moaning creature, full of eerie sounds of wailing and
regret, not wrapped in darkness, but cloaked in misty twilight, grey
and ghostlike—a pale, sorrowful, mysterious thing, that seems to know
itself altogether out of place, and is haunted by its own melancholy
and dreariness.
It was in the fast waning light of such a summer’s evening that the
portals of Trevlyn opened to welcome Monica again.
She was in the old familiar hall that once had been so dear to her—the
place whose stern, grim desolation had held such charms for her. Why
did she now gaze round her with dilated eyes, a sort of horror growing
upon her? Why did she cling to her husband’s arm so closely, as the
frowning suits of mail and black carved faces stared at her out of the
dusky darkness? Why was her first exclamation one of terror and dismay?
“Randolph! Randolph! This is not Trevlyn! It cannot be Trevlyn! Take me
home! ah, take me home!”
There was a catch in her breath; she was shaken with nervous agitation
and exhaustion. It seemed to her that this ghostly place was
altogether strange and terrible. She did not know that the change was
in herself; she thought it was in her surroundings.
“What have they done to it? What have they done to Trevlyn? This is not
my old home!”
Randolph took her in his arms, alarmed by her pale looks and manifest
disquietude.
“Not know your own old home, Monica?” he said, half gravely, half
playfully. “This is the only Trevlyn I have ever known. It is you
that have half forgotten, you have grown used to something so very
different.”