Nothing occurred to interfere with the plan of action decided on by
Hilda and Philip; no misadventure came to mock them, dashing the
Tantalus cup of joy to earth before their eyes. On the contrary, within
forty-eight hours of the conversation recorded in the last chapter,
they were as completely and irrevocably man and wife, as a special
licence and the curate of a city church, assisted by the clerk and the
pew-opener, could make them.
Then followed a brief period of such delirium as turned the London
lodgings, dingy and stuffy as they were in the height of the hot
summer, into an earthly paradise, a garden of Eden, into which, alas!
the serpent had no need to seek an entrance. But, as was natural, when
the first glory of realized happiness was beginning to grow faint on
their horizon, the young couple turned themselves to consider their
position, and found in it, mutually and severally, many things that did
not please them. For Philip, indeed, it was full of anxieties, for he
had many complications to deal with. First there was his secret
engagement to Maria Lee, of which, be it remembered, his wife was
totally ignorant, and which was in itself a sufficiently awkward affair
for a married man to have on his hands. Then there was the paramount
need of keeping his marriage with Hilda as secret as the dead, to say
nothing of the necessity of his living, for the most part, away from
his wife. Indeed, his only consolation was that he had plenty of money
on which to support her, inasmuch as his father had, from the date of
his leaving Oxford, made him an allowance of one thousand a year.
Hilda had begun to discover that she was not without her troubles. For
one thing, her husband’s fits of moodiness and fretful anxiety troubled
her, and led her, possessed as she was with a more than ordinary share
of womanly shrewdness, to suspect that he was hiding something from
her. But what chiefly vexed her proud nature was the necessity of
concealment, and all its attendant petty falsehoods and subterfuges. It
was not pleasant for Hilda Caresfoot to have to pass as Mrs. Roberts,
and to be careful not to show herself in public places in the daytime,
where there was a possibility of her being seen by any one who might
recognize in her striking figure the lady who had lived with Miss Lee
in Marlshire. It was not pleasant to her to be obliged to reply to
Maria Lee’s affectionate letters, full as they were of entreaty for her
return, by epistles that had to be forwarded to a country town in a
remote district of Germany to be posted, and which were in themselves
full of lies that, however white they might have seemed under all the
circumstances, she felt in her conscience to be very black indeed. In
short, there was in their union none of that sense of finality and of
security that is, under ordinary circumstances, the distinguishing mark
of marriage in this country; it partook rather of the nature of an
illicit connection.
At the end of a fortnight of wedded bliss all these little things had
begun to make themselves felt, and in truth they were but the
commencement of evils. For, one afternoon, Philip, for the first time
since his wedding, tore himself away from his wife’s side, and paid a
visit to a club to which he had been recently elected. Here he found no
less than three letters from his father, the first requesting his
return, the second commanding it in exceptionally polite language, and
the third—which, written in mingled anxiety and anger, had just
arrived—coolly announcing his parent’s intention, should he not hear of
him by return, of setting detective officers to work to discover his
whereabouts. From this letter it appeared, indeed, that his cousin
George had already been despatched to London to look for him, and on
reference to the hall porter he discovered that a gentleman answering
to his description had already inquired for him several times.
Cursing his own folly in not having kept up some communication with his
father, he made the best of his way back to his lodgings, to find Hilda
waiting for him somewhat disconsolately.
“I am glad you have come back, love,” she said, drawing him towards her
till his dark curls mingled with her own fair locks, and kissing him
upon the forehead. “I have missed you dreadfully. I don’t understand
how I can have lived all these years without you.”
“I am afraid, dear, you will have to live without me for a while now;
listen,” and he read her the letters he had just received.
She listened attentively till he had finished.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, with some anxiety in her voice.
“Do? why of course I must go home at once.”
“And what am I to do?”
“Well, I don’t know; I suppose that you must stop here.”
“That will be pleasant for me, will it not?”
“No, dear, it will be pleasant neither for you nor me; but what can I
do? You know the man my father is to deal with; if I stop here in
defiance to his wishes, especially as he has been anxious about me,
there is no knowing what might not happen. Remember, Hilda, that we
have to deal with George, whose whole life is devoted to secret
endeavours to supplant me. If I were to give him such an opportunity as
I should by stopping away now, I should deserve all I got, or rather
all I did not get.”
Hilda sighed and acquiesced; had she been a softer-minded woman she
would have wept and relieved her feelings, but she was not soft-
minded. And so, before the post went out, he wrote an affectionate
letter to his father, expressing his sorrow at the latter’s anxiety at
his own negligence in not having written to him, the fact of the matter
being, he said, that he had been taken up with visiting some of his
Oxford friends, and had not till that afternoon been near his club to
look for letters. He would, however, he added, return on the morrow,
and make his apologies in person.
This letter he handed to his wife to read.
“Do you think that will do?” he asked, when she had finished.
“Oh, yes!” she replied, with a touch of her old sarcasm, “it is a
masterpiece of falsehood.”
Philip looked very angry, and fumed and fretted; but he made no reply,
and on the following morning he departed to Bratham Abbey.
“Ah, Philip, Philip!” said his father, under the mellow influence of
his fourth glass of port, on the night of his arrival. “I know well
enough what kept you up in town. Well, well, I don’t complain, young
men will be young men; but don’t let these affairs interfere with the
business of life. Remember Maria Lee, my boy; you have serious
interests in that direction, interests that must not be trifled with,
interests that I have a right to expect you will _not_ trifle with.”
His son made no reply, but sipped his wine in silence, aching at his
heart for his absent bride, and wondering what his father would say did
he really know what had “kept him in town.”
After this, matters went on smoothly enough for a month or more; since,
fortunately for Philip, the great Maria Lee question, a question that
the more he considered it the more thorny did it appear, was for the
moment shelved by the absence of that young lady on a visit to her aunt
in the Isle of Wight. Twice during that month he managed, on different
pretexts, to get up to London and visit his wife, whom he found as
patient as was possible under the circumstances, but anything but
happy. Indeed, on the second occasion, she urged on him strongly the
ignominy of her position, and even begged him to make a clean breast of
it to his father, offering to undertake the task herself. He refused
equally warmly, and some sharp words ensued to be, however, quickly
followed by a reconciliation.
On his return from this second visit, Philip found a note signed
“affectionately yours, Maria Lee,” waiting for him, which announced
that young lady’s return, and begged him to come over to lunch on the
following day.
He went—indeed, he had no alternative but to go; and again fortune
favoured him in the person of a diffident young lady who was stopping
with Maria, and who never left her side all that afternoon, much to the
disgust of the latter and the relief of Philip. One thing, however, he
was not spared, and that was the perusal of Hilda’s last letter to her
friend, written apparently from Germany, and giving a lively
description of the writer’s daily life and the state of her uncle’s
health, which, she said, precluded all possibility of her return. Alas!
he already knew its every line too well; for, as Hilda refused to
undertake the task, he had but a week before drafted it himself. But
Philip was growing hardened to deception, and found it possible to read
it from end to end, and speculate upon its contents with Maria without
blush or hesitation.
But he could not always expect to find Miss Lee in the custody of such
an obtuse friend; and, needless to say, it became a matter of very
serious importance to him to know how he should treat her. It occurred
to him that his safest course might be to throw himself upon her
generosity and make a clean breast of it; but when it came to the point
he was too weak to thus expose his shameful conduct to the woman whose
heart he had won, and to whom he was bound by every tie of honour that
a gentleman holds sacred.
He thought of the scornful wonder with which she would listen to his
tale, and preferred to take the risk of greater disaster in the future
to the certainty of present shame. In the end, he contrived to
establish a species of confidential intimacy with Maria, which, whilst
it somewhat mystified the poor girl, was not without its charm,
inasmuch as it tended to transform the every-day Philip into a hero of
romance.
But in the main Maria was ill-suited to play heroine to her wooer’s
hero. Herself as open as the daylight, it was quite incomprehensible to
her why their relationship should be kept such a dark and mysterious
secret, or why, if her lover gave her a kiss, it should be done with as
many precautions as though he were about to commit a murder.
She was a very modest maiden, and in her heart believed it a wonderful
thing that Philip should have fallen in love with her—a thing to be
very proud of; and she felt it hard that she should be denied the
gratification of openly acknowledging her lover, and showing him off to
her friends, after the fashion that is so delightful to the female
mind.
But, though this consciousness of the deprivation of a lawful joy set
up a certain feeling of irritation in her mind, she did not allow it to
override her entire trust in and love for Philip. Whatever he did was
no doubt wise and right; but, for all that, on several occasions she
took an opportunity to make him acquainted with her views of the
matter, and to ask him questions that he found it increasingly
difficult to answer.
In this way, by the exercise of ceaseless diplomacy, and with the
assistance of a great deal of falsehood of the most artistic nature,
Philip managed to tide over the next six months; but at the end of that
time the position was very far from improved. Hilda was chafing more
and more at the ignominy of her position; Maria was daily growing more
and more impatient to have their engagement made public; and last, but
by no means least, his father was almost daily at him on the subject of
Miss Lee, till at length he succeeded in wringing from him the
confession that there existed some sort of understanding between Maria
and himself.
Now, the old squire was a shrewd man of the world, and was not
therefore slow to guess that what prevented this understanding from
being openly acknowledged as an engagement was some entanglement on his
son’s part. Indeed, it had recently become clear to him that London had
developed strange attractions for Philip. That this entanglement could
be marriage was, however, an idea that never entered into his head; he
had too good an opinion of his son’s common- sense to believe it
possible that he would deliberately jeopardize his inheritance by
marrying without his permission. But Philip’s reluctance and obstinacy
annoyed him excessively. “Devil” Caresfoot was not a man accustomed to
be thwarted; indeed, he had never been thwarted in his life, and he did
not mean to be now. He had set his heart upon this marriage, and it
would have to be a good reason that could turn him from his purpose.
Accordingly, having extracted the above information, he said no more to
Philip, but proceeded to lay his own plans.
That very afternoon he commenced to put them into action. At three
o’clock he ordered the carriage and pair, a vehicle that was rarely
used, giving special directions that the coachman should see that his
wig was properly curled. An ill-curled wig had before now been known to
produce a very bad effect upon Mr. Caresfoot’s nerves, and also upon
its wearer’s future prospects in life.
At three precisely the heavy open carriage, swung upon C-springs and
drawn by two huge greys, drew up in front of the hall-door, and the
squire, who was as usual dressed in the old-fashioned knee-breeches,
and carried in his hand his gold-headed cane, stepped solemnly into it,
and seated himself exactly in the middle of the back seat, not leaning
back, as is the fashion of our degenerate days, but holding himself
bolt upright. Any more imposing sight than this old gentleman presented
thus seated, and moving at a stately pace through the village street,
it is impossible to conceive; but it so oppressed the very children
that fear at the spectacle (which was an unwonted one, for the squire
had not thus driven abroad in state for some years) overcame their
curiosity, and at his approach they incontinently fled.
So soon as the carriage had passed through the drive-gates of the
Abbey, the squire ordered the coachman to drive to Rewtham House,
whither in due course he safely arrived.
He was ushered into the drawing-room, whilst a servant went in search
of Miss Lee, whom she found walking in the garden.
“A gentleman to see you, miss.”
“I am not at home. Who is it?”
“Mr. Caresfoot, miss!”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so before?” and taking it for granted that
Philip had paid her an unexpected visit, she started off for the house
at a run.
“Why, Philip,” she exclaimed, as she swung open the door, “this _is_
good of you, o—oh!” for at that moment Mr. Caresfoot senior appeared
from behind the back of the door where he had been standing by the
fireplace, and made his most imposing bow.
“That, my dear Maria, was the first time that I have heard myself
called Philip for many a long year, and I fear that that was by
accident; neither the name nor the blush were meant for me; now, were
they?”
“I thought,” replied Maria, who was still overwhelmed with confusion,
“I thought that it was Philip, your son, you know; he has not been here
for so long.”
“With such a welcome waiting him, it is indeed wonderful that he can
keep away;” and the old squire bowing again with such courtly grace as
to drive what little self-possession remained to poor Maria after her
flying entry entirely out of her head.
“And now, my dear,” went on her visitor, fixing his piercing eyes upon
her face, “with your permission, we will sit down and have a little
talk together. Won’t you take off your hat?”
Maria took off her hat as suggested, and sat down meekly, full under
fire of the glowing eyes that had produced such curious effects upon
subjects so dissimilar as the late Mrs. Caresfoot and Jim Brady. She
could, however, think of nothing appropriate to say.
“My dear,” the old gentleman continued presently, “the subject upon
which I have taken upon myself to speak to you is one very nearly
affecting your happiness and also of a delicate nature. My excuse for
alluding to it must be that you are the child of my old friend—ah! we
were great friends fifty years ago, my dear—and that I have myself a
near interest in the matter. Do you understand me?”
“No, not quite.”
“Well then, forgive an old man, who has no time to waste, if he comes
to the point. I mean I have come to ask you, Maria, if any
understanding or engagement exists between Philip and yourself?”
The eyes were full upon her now, and she felt that they were drawing
her secret from her as a corkscrew does a cork. At last it came out
with a pop.
“Yes, we are engaged.”
“Thank you, my dear. How long have you been engaged?”
“About eight months.”
“And why has the affair been kept so secret?”
“I don’t know; Philip wished it. He told me not to tell any one. I
suppose that I should not by rights have told you.”
“Make yourself easy, my dear. Philip has already told me that there was
an understanding between you; I only wanted to hear the confirmation of
such good news from your own lips. Young men are great coxcombs, my
dear, and apt to fancy things where ladies are concerned. I am rejoiced
to hear that there is no mistake on his part.”
“I am so glad that you are pleased,” she said shyly.
“Pleased, my dear!” said the old gentleman, rising and walking up and
down the room in his excitement, “pleased is not the word for it. I am
more rejoiced than if some one had left me another estate. Look here,
Maria, I had set my heart upon this thing coming to pass; I have
thought of it for years. I loved your father, and you are like your
father, girl; ay, I love you too, because you are a generous, honest
woman, and will bring a good strain of blood into a family that wants
generosity—ay, and I sometimes think wants honesty too. And then your
land runs into ours, and, as I can’t buy it, I am glad that it should
come in by marriage. I have always wanted to see the Abbey, Isleworth,
and Rewtham estates in a ring fence before I died. Come and give me a
kiss, my dear.”
Maria did as she was bid.
“I will try to be a good daughter to you,” she said, “if I marry
Philip; but,” and here her voice trembled a little, “I want to make you
understand that, though this engagement exists, I have sometimes
thought of late that perhaps he wanted to break it off, and——”
“Break it off?” almost shouted the old man, his eyes flashing. “Break
it off; by God, the day he plays fast and loose with you, that day I
leave the property to his cousin, George;—there, there, I frightened
you, I beg your pardon, but in his own interest, Maria, I advise you to
hold him fast to his word. To change the subject, your news has
freshened me up so much that I mean to have a little company; will you
come and dine with me next Thursday?”
“I shall be very glad, Mr. Caresfoot.”
“Thank you; and perhaps till then you will not, unless he happens to
ask you, mention the subject of our conversation to Philip. I want to
have a talk with him first.”
Maria assented, and the squire took his leave with the same
magnificence of mien that had marked his arrival.