Two days after Sir John had been taken into confidence, Philip received
a visit from Lady Bellamy that caused him a good deal of discomfort.
After talking to him on general subjects for awhile, she rose to go.
“By the way, Mr. Caresfoot,” she said, “I really had almost forgotten
the object of my visit. You may remember a conversation we had together
some time ago, when I was the means of paying a debt owing to you?”
Philip nodded.
“Then you will not have forgotten that one of the articles of our
little verbal convention was, that if it should be considered to the
interest of all the parties concerned, your daughter’s old nurse was
not to remain in your house?”
“I remember.”
“Well, do you know, I cannot help thinking that it must be a bad thing
for Angela to have so much of the society of an ill-educated and not
very refined person like Pigott. I really advise you to get rid of
her.”
“She has been with me for twenty years, and my daughter is devoted to
her. I can’t turn her off.”
“It is always painful to dismiss an old servant—almost as bad as
discarding an old dress; but when a dress is worn out it must be thrown
away. Surely the same applies to servants.”
“I don’t see how I am to send her away.”
“I can quite understand your feelings; but then, you see, an agreement
implies obligations on both sides, doesn’t it? especially an agreement
‘for value received,’ as the lawyers say.”
Philip winced perceptibly.
“I wish I had never had anything to do with your agreements.”
“Oh! if you think it over, I don’t think that you will say so. Well,
that is settled. I suppose she will go pretty soon. I am glad to see
you looking so well—very different from your cousin, I assure you. I
don’t think much of his state of health. Good-bye; remember me to
Angela. By the way, I don’t know if you have heard that George has met
with a repulse in that direction; he does not intend to press matters
any more at present; but, of course, the agreement holds all the same.
Nobody knows what the morrow may bring forth.”
“Where you and my amiable cousin are concerned, I shall be much
surprised if it does not bring forth villany,” thought Philip, as soon
as he heard the front door close. “I suppose that it must be done about
Pigott. Curse that woman, with her sorceress face. I wish I had never
put myself into her power; the iron hand can be felt pretty plainly
through her velvet glove.”
Life is never altogether clouded over, and that morning Angela’s
horizon had been brightened by two big rays of sunshine that came to
shed their cheering light on the grey monotony of her surroundings. For
of late, notwithstanding its occasional spasms of fierce excitement,
her life had been as monotonous as it was miserable. Always the same
anxious grief, the same fears, the same longing pressing hourly round
her like phantoms in the mist—no, not like phantoms, like real living
things peeping at her from the dark. Sometimes, indeed, the
presentiments and intangible terrors that were gradually strengthening
their hold upon her would get beyond her control, and arouse in her a
restless desire for action—any action, it did not matter what—that
would take her away out of these dull hours of unwholesome mental
growth. It was this longing to be doing something that drove her,
fevered physically with the stifling air of the summer night, and
mentally by thoughts of her absent lover and recollections of Lady
Bellamy’s ominous words, down to the borders of the lake on the evening
of George’s visit to her father, and once there, prompted her to try to
forget her troubles for awhile in the exercise of an art of which she
had from childhood been a mistress.
The same feeling it was too, that led her to spend long hours of the
day and even of the night, when by rights she should have been asleep,
immersed in endless mathematical studies, and in solving, or attempting
to solve, almost impossible problems. She found that the strenuous
effort of the brain acted as a counter-irritant to the fretting of her
troubles, and though it may seem an odd thing to say, mathematics
alone, owing to the intense application they required, exercised a
soothing effect upon her. But, as one cannot constantly sleep induced
by chloral without paying for it in some shape or form, Angela’s relief
from her cares was obtained at no small cost to her health. When the
same brain, however well developed it may be, has both to study hard
and suffer much, there must be a waste of tissue somewhere. In Angela’s
case the outward and visible result of this state of things was to make
her grow thinner, and the alternate mental effect to increasingly
rarefy an intellect already too ethereal for this work-a-day world, and
to plunge its owner into fits of depression which were rendered
dreadful by sudden forebodings of evil that would leap to life in the
recesses of her mind, and for a moment cast a lurid glare upon its
gloom, such as at night the lightning gives to the blackness which
surrounds it.
It was in one of the worst of these fits, her “cloudy days” as she
would call them to Pigott, that good news found her. As she was
dressing, Pigott brought her a letter, which, recognizing Lady
Bellamy’s bold handwriting, she opened in fear and trembling. It
contained a short note and another letter. The note ran as follows:
“Dear Angela,
“I enclose you a letter from your cousin George, which contains what I
suppose you will consider good news. _For your own sake_ I beg you not
to send it back unopened as you did the last.
“A. B.”
For a moment Angela was tempted to mistrust this enclosure, and almost
come to the determination to throw it into the fire, feeling sure that
a serpent lurked in the grass and that it was a cunningly disguised
love-letter. But curiosity overcame her, and she opened it as gingerly
as though it were infected, unfolding the sheet with the handle of her
hair-brush. Its contents were destined to give her a surprise. They ran
thus:
“Isleworth Hall, September 20.
“My dear Cousin,
“After what passed between us a few days ago you will perhaps be
surprised at hearing from me, but, if you have the patience to read
this short letter, its contents will not, I fear, be altogether
displeasing to you. They are very simple. I write to say that I accept
your verdict, and that you need fear no further advances from me.
Whether I quite deserved all the bitter words you poured out upon me I
leave you to judge at leisure, seeing that my only crime was that I
loved you. To most women that offence would not have seemed so
unpardonable. But that is as it may be. After what you said there is
only one course left for a man who has any pride—and that is to
withdraw. So let the past be dead between us. I shall never allude to
it again. Wishing you happiness in the path of life which you have
chosen,
“I remain, “Your affectionate cousin, “George Caresfoot.”
It would have been difficult for any one to have received a more
perfectly satisfactory letter than this was to Angela.
“Pigott,” she called out, feeling the absolute necessity of a confidant
in her joy, and forgetting that that worthy soul had nothing but the
most general knowledge of George’s advances, “he has given me up; just
think, he is going to let me alone. I declare that I feel quite fond of
him.”
“And who might you be talking of, miss?”
“Why, my cousin George, of course; he is going to let me alone, I tell
you.”
“Which, seeing how as he isn’t fit to touch you with a pair of tongs,
is about the least as he can do, miss, and, as for letting you alone, I
didn’t know as he ever proposed doing anything else. But that reminds
me, miss, though I am sure I don’t know why it should, how as Mrs.
Hawkins, as was put in to look after the vicarage while the Reverend
Fraser was away, told me last night how as she had got a telegraft the
sight of which, she said, knocked her all faint like, till she turned
just as yellow as the cover, to say nothing of four- and-six porterage,
the which, however, she intends to recover from the Reverend—Lord,
where was I?”
“I am sure I don’t know, Pigott, but I suppose you were going to tell
me what was in the telegram.”
“Yes, miss, that’s right; but my head does seem to wool up somehow so
at times that I fare to lose my way.”
“Well, Pigott, what was in the telegram?”
“Lord, miss, how you do hurry one, begging your pardon; only that the
Reverend Fraser—not but what Mrs. Hawkins do say that it can’t be true,
because the words warn’t in his writing nor nothing like, as she has
good reason to know, seeing that——”
“Yes, but what about Mr. Fraser, Pigott? Isn’t he well?”
“The telegraft didn’t say, as I remembers, miss; bless me, I forget if
it was to-day or to-morrow.”
“Oh, Pigott,” groaned Angela, “do tell me what was in the telegram.”
“Why, miss, surely I told you that the thing said, though I fancy
likely to be in error——”
“What?” almost shouted Angela.
“Why, that the Reverend Fraser would be home by the midday train, and
would like a beefsteak for lunch, not mentioning, however, anything
about the onions, which is very puzzling to Mrs.——”
“Oh, I am glad; why could you not tell me before? Cousin George
disposed of and Mr. Fraser coming back. Why, things are looking quite
bright again; at least they would be if only Arthur were here,” and her
rejoicing ended in a sigh.
As soon as she thought that he would have finished his beefsteak, with
or without the onions, Angela walked down to the vicarage and broke in
upon Mr. Fraser with something of her old gladsome warmth. Running up
to him without waiting to be announced, she seized him by both hands.
“And so you are back at last? what a long time you have been away. Oh,
I am so glad to see you.”
Mr. Fraser, who, it struck her, looked older since his absence, turned
first a little red and then a little pale, and said,
“Yes, Angela, here I am back again in the old shop; it is very good of
you to come so soon to see me. Now, sit down and tell me all about
yourself whilst I go on with my unpacking. But, bless me, my dear, what
is the matter with you, you look thin, and as though you were not
happy, and—where has your smile gone to, Angela?”
“Never mind me, you must tell me all about yourself first. Where have
you been and what have you been doing all these long months?”
“Oh, I have been enjoying myself over half the civilized globe,” he
answered, with a somewhat forced laugh. “Switzerland, Italy, and Spain
have all been benefited by my presence, but I got tired of it, so here
I am back in my proper sphere, and delighted to again behold these dear
familiar faces,” and he pointed to his ample collection of classics.
“But let me hear about yourself, Angela. I am tired of No. 1, I can
assure you.”
“Oh, mine is a long story, you will scarcely find patience to listen to
it.”
“Ah, I thought that there was a story from your face; then I think that
I can guess what it is about. Young ladies’ stories generally turn upon
the same pivot,” and he laughed a little softly, and sat down in a
corner well out of the light. “Now, my dear, I am ready to give you my
best attention.”
Angela blushed very deeply, and, looking studiously out of the window,
began, with many hesitations, to tell her story.
“Well, Mr. Fraser, you must understand first of all—I mean, you know,
that I must tell you that—” desperately, “that I am engaged.”
“Ah!”
There was a something so sharp and sudden about this exclamation that
Angela turned round quickly.
“What’s the matter, have you hurt yourself?”
“Yes; but go on, Angela.”
It was an awkward story to tell, especially the George complication
part of it, and to any one else she felt that she would have found it
almost impossible to tell it, but in Mr. Fraser she was, she knew, sure
of a sympathetic listener. Had she known, too, that the mere mention of
her lover’s name was a stab to her listener’s heart, and that every
expression of her own deep and enduring love and each tone of
endearment were new and ingenious tortures, she might well have been
confused.
For so it was. Although he was fifty years of age, Mr. Fraser had not
educated Angela with impunity. He had paid the penalty that must have
resulted to any heart-whole man not absolutely a fossil, who had been
brought into close contact with such a woman as Angela. Her loveliness
appealed to his sense of beauty, her goodness to his heart, and her
learning to his intellectual sympathies. What wonder that he learnt by
imperceptible degrees to love her; the wonder would have been if he had
not.
The reader need not fear, however; he shall not be troubled with any
long account of Mr. Fraser’s misfortune, for it never came to light or
obtruded itself upon the world or even upon its object. His was one of
those earnest, secret, and self-sacrificing passions of which, if we
only knew it, there exist a good many round about us, passions which to
all appearance tend to nothing and are entirely without object, unless
it to be make the individuals on whom they are inflicted a little less
happy, or a little more miserable, as the case may be, than he or she
would otherwise have been. It was to strive to conquer this passion,
which in his heart he called dishonourable, that Mr. Fraser had gone
abroad, right away from Angela, where he had wrestled with it, and
prayed against it, and at last, as he thought, subdued it. But now, on
his first sight of her, it rose again in all its former strength, and
rushed through his being like a storm, and he realized that such love
is of those things that cannot die. And perhaps it is a question if he
really wished to lose it. It was a poor thing indeed, a very poor
thing, but his own. There is something so divine about all true love
that there lurks a conviction at the bottom of the hearts of most of us
that it is better to love, however much we suffer, than not to love at
all. Perhaps, after all, those really to be pitied are the people who
are not capable of any such sensation.
But what Mr. Fraser suffered listening that autumn afternoon to
Angela’s tale of another’s love and of her own deep return of that
love, no man but himself ever knew. Yet still he heard and was not
shaken in his loyal-heartedness, and comforted and consoled her, giving
her the best advice in his power, like the noble Christian gentleman
that he was; showing her too that there was little need of anxiety and
every ground for hope that things would come to a happy and successful
issue. The martyr’s abnegation of self is not yet dead in the world.
At last Angela came to the letter that she had that very morning
received from George. Mr. Fraser read it carefully.
“At any rate,” he said, “he is behaving like a gentleman now. On the
whole, that is a nice letter. You will be troubled with him no more.”
“Yes,” answered Angela, and then flushing up at the memory of George’s
arguments in the lane, “but it is certainly time that he did, for he
had no business, oh, he had no business to speak to me as he spoke, and
he a man old enough to be my father.”
Mr. Fraser’s pale cheeks coloured a little.
“Don’t be hard upon him because he is old, Angela—which by the way he
is not, he is nearly ten years my junior—for I fear that old men are
just as liable to be made fools of by a pretty face as young ones.”
From that moment, not knowing the man’s real character, Mr. Fraser
secretly entertained a certain sympathy for George’s sufferings,
arising no doubt from a fellow-feeling. It seemed to him that he could
understand a man going very far indeed when his object was to win
Angela: not that he would have done it himself, but he knew the
temptation and what it cost to struggle against it.
It was nearly dark when at length Angela, rising to go, warmly pressed
his hand, and thanked him in her own sweet way for his goodness and
kind counsel. And then, declining his offer of escort, and saying that
she would come and see him again on the morrow, she departed on her
homeward path.
The first thing that met her gaze on the hall-table at the Abbey House
was a note addressed to herself in a handwriting that she had seen in
many washing bills, but never before on an envelope. She opened it in
vague alarm. It ran as follows:
“Miss,—Yore father has just dismissed me, saying that he is too pore to
keep me any longer, which is a matter as I holds my own opinion on, and
that I am too uneddicated to be in yore company, which is a perfect
truth. But, miss, not feeling any how ekal to bid you good-bye in
person after bringing you up by hand and doing for you these many
years, I takes the liberty to write to you, miss, to say good-bye and
God bless you, my beautiful angel, and I shall be to be found down at
the old housen at the end of the drift as my pore husband left me,
which is fortinately just empty, and p’raps you will come and see me at
times, miss.
“Yore obedient servant, “Pigott.
“I opens this again to say how as I have tied up your things a bit
afore I left leaving mine till to-morrow, when, if living, I shall send
for them. If you please, miss, you will find yore clean night-shift in
the left hand drawyer, and sorry am I that I can’t be there to lay it
out for you. I shall take the liberty to send up for your washing, as
it can’t be trusted to any one.”
Angela read the letter through, and then sank back upon a chair and
burst into a storm of tears. Partially recovering herself, however, she
rose and entered her father’s study.
“Is this true?” she asked, still sobbing.
“Is what true?” asked Philip, indifferently, and affecting not to see
her distress.
“That you have sent Pigott away?”
“Yes, yes, you see, Angela——”
“Do you mean that she is really to stop away?”
“Of course I do, I really must be allowed, Angela——”
“Forgive me, father, but I do not want to listen to your reasons and
excuses.” Her eyes were quite dry now. “That woman nursed my dying
mother, and played a mother’s part to me. She is, as you know, my only
woman friend, and yet you throw her away like a worn-out shoe. No doubt
you have your reasons, and I hope that they are satisfactory to you,
but I tell you, reasons or no reasons, you have acted in a way that is
cowardly and cruel;” and casting one indignant glance at him she left
the room.
Philip quailed before his daughter’s anger.
“Thank goodness she’s gone, and that job is done with. I am downright
afraid of her, and the worst of it is she speaks the truth,” said
Philip to himself, as the door closed.
Ten days after this incident, Angela heard casually from Mr. Fraser
that Sir John and Lady Bellamy were going on a short trip abroad for
the benefit of the former’s health. If she thought about the matter at
all, it was to feel rather glad. Angela did not like Lady Bellamy,
indeed she feared her. Of George she neither heard nor saw anything. He
had also gone away.