“To hug the wealth ye cannot use,
And lack the riches all may gain,
O blind and wanting wit to choose,
Who house the chaff and burn the grain!
And still doth life with starry towers
Lure to the bright divine ascent!
Be yours the things ye would: be ours
The things that are more excellent.”
William Watson.
|Come over to this side of the carriage,” said Bruce Wylie as they took
their places in the train at Territet, “you will get the best of the
views this side.”
Evereld had become quite used to his kindly little arrangements for her
comfort, she felt sure in her own mind that any good-natured man would
have done as much for a girl on her first Swiss tour, and she smiled to
herself at that ridiculous report which Mr. Lewisham had quoted to her.
After all, though, was it not very likely that she herself had misjudged
other people in exactly the same way? She was always making little
romances in her mind about the people they met in the hotels, and they
generally proved to be wrong when closer acquaintance revealed the
truth.
She felt perfectly happy that September morning as they journeyed along
the lovely lake, past the red roofed Castle of Chillon, past the white
peaks of the Dent du Midi to St. Maurice, and then on once more through
the somewhat trying heat of the Rhone Valley to Vernayaz.
“I shall be quite independent of you,” said Janet, “and shall spend my
day sketching. We will all meet here again in time for the train.”
“Oh we must come and see you settled,” said Bruce Wylie, “besides
Evereld ought to see the waterfall nearer than from the train. We have
our whole day before us, there is no hurry.”
In the end these three walked off together in the direction of the
Pissevache, while the two lovers went in the opposite direction,
promising to order luncheon at the hotel.
Evereld seemed more talkative than usual, but when, having duly
inspected the waterfall, he tried hard to draw her into the region of
sentiment, she seemed more provokingly matter of fact than ever.
“It’s very sad to think we have only one more excursion before we
go home,” he remarked, “how detestable England will seem after this
holiday.”
“Do you think so,” said Evereld, “why I am longing to get back to
England. Lovely as this place is, it seems so dreadfully far away.”
“Far away from what?” said Bruce Wylie.
“Well, from one’s friends and belongings,” said Evereld.
Bruce Wylie could only pretend to be deeply offended.
“You say that to me,” he said tragically, “one of your oldest friends!”
She laughed merrily.
“It was certainly a case of what _Punch_ would call ‘Things one would
rather have expressed differently.’ But though the tour has been a great
treat I believe I should always begin to be homesick for England at the
end of six weeks.”
“Oh if it is only an abstraction like England I will not be jealous, it
isn’t worth while,” said her companion with a laugh.
And Evereld blushed a little, knowing that it was not England in the
abstract, but nearness to Ralph that she longed for.
Bruce Wylie saw the blush and was pleased. He entirely misunderstood it,
and might have proposed to her at that very minute, had not some very
dirty little children besieged them just then with the usual request for
money.
The straggling street of Vernayaz was not the place for a private
conversation, he would wait till later in the day.
After a merry lunch at the hotel with Minnie and Major Gillot they all
went together to see the Gorge de Trient, and here he contrived to fall
behind on the pretext of pointing out some particularly striking effect
to Evereld as they threaded their way through the awful ravine with its
foaming white torrent and its towering heights above.
But his effort was useless, for something in the majesty of this great
rock, cleft so strangely, had filled Evereld with awe; she was thinking
her own thoughts and was quite unresponsive to all his attempts to draw
her into conversation.
“It feels like a church,” she said once as they paused for a few
minutes, and Bruce Wylie anxious not to jar upon her in any way,
relapsed into silence.
Emerging at length from the cool shade of the Gorge de Trient, they
returned to the hotel, Major Gillot ordered coffee, and Bruce Wylie took
the opportunity to draw him aside and suggest a change of programme.
“Sir Matthew gave me leave to take Evereld on to Finshauts if she liked
the idea,” he said. “Let us all meet at the station. But don’t wait
for us if we chance to be late. Lady Mactavish might be anxious. I will
bring her on by the next train in any case.”
“All right,” said the Major, paying no very great heed to the words, and
well pleased to be left with Minnie for the rest of the time.
“Evereld,” said Bruce Wylie, rejoining the ladies, “I don’t know what
you will say to the notion, but it seems to me very hot down in this
place, and we have still some hours before us. I find there is a most
beautiful drive to a place called Finshauts up in the mountains, with a
very fine view of Mont Blanc. Shall you and I make a pilgrimage up
there and leave Miss Mactavish and Major Gillot to enjoy this garden in
peace?”
“I think it would be lovely,” said Evereld, her eyes lighting up. “I
have been longing to get to the top ever since we came here.”
Bruce Wylie was pleased that she should fall in with the idea, and went
off at once to order a carriage, but perhaps her delighted acquiescence
troubled him a little, for he made several attempts to justify his
scheme to his own conscience.
“If she accepts me I shall take care to be in good time for the train,
and all will be well,” he argued. “And she will accept me in all
probability after a little persuasion. If not, there is nothing for it
but Sir Matthew’s plan of scaring her with the fear of what people will
say. No real harm will be done, none whatever. We shall merely play a
little upon her credulity and ignorance and her proper pride, and all
the rest of it. The game is worth the candle, for without her, sooner or
later we shall be ruined.”
He was more considerate and gentle in manner than ever when at
length they set off together on their drive to Finshauts; her perfect
confidence in him gave him an uncomfortable sensation, he kept on
deferring the speech which must be made, and allowed her to enjoy to the
full the beauty of the winding road with its shady groves of walnut and
chestnut trees, and its wonderful glimpses of the Rhone Valley. They
paused after a time to see the Falls of Emaney, and when they once more
got into the carriage, Bruce Wylie made up his mind that before the next
stage was reached his work must somehow be done. He looked down into her
glowing happy face.
“You are enjoying it?” he said kindly.
“Oh more than I can tell you,” she said. “It is quite the best drive we
have had. What a pity Janet isn’t here.”
“For once you must let me be selfish,” said Bruce Wylie laughing. “I am
heartily glad she is not here. ‘Two is company, three is trumpery,’ as
the proverb says.”
“I never agree with that proverb,” said Evereld. “We had a
three-cornered friendship at school and it was delightful.”
“For school friends it may be well enough. But I am something more than
your friend, Evereld, I am your lover.”
The assertion struck her dumb for a minute.
“Surely you had realised that?” said Bruce Wylie. “You must, I think,
have known it all these weeks that we have been together.”
“Oh, no, no,” she cried in distress. “I never dreamt of such a thing.
Please never say that again.”
“But I must say it again. I want to make you understand me. For years I
have hoped that you would some day be my wife. And when you understand
me better I think you will say ‘yes,’ Evereld.”
“No,” she said desperately, “I can never say it. I could never care for
you in that way. Please let us just be friends as we used to be.”
“But things are altered now, you are no longer a child, but a woman.
Believe me, dear, I would make you very happy. You perhaps think that
the difference in our age is a drawback. But some of the happiest
marriages I have known have been marriages of that sort. One can’t make
a hard and fast rule as to age.”
“It is not that,” said Evereld. “That might not matter a bit. But I
could never love you.”
“I will take my chance of that. The love would grow.”
“No, it never could.... Please believe me and say no more. I can’t think
what makes you wish it when you must have met so many much more fit.”
“But I have been waiting and hoping for you. And you must at any rate
promise me to think it over for a few days before quite deciding. I have
taken you by surprise. Think it over quietly, and we will talk about it
some other day.”
“If I thought for years it would make no difference,” said Evereld.
“You fancy so, because like all young girls you have made a sort of
ideal in your own mind, and no living man can come up to that ideal.”
She shook her head.
“No, not an ideal,” she said softly, and into her eyes there stole the
soft love light which revealed all too clearly her thoughts.
“She cares for some one else,” reflected Bruce Wylie, “I suppose it’s
that confounded young Denmead. Well, silence is golden. She must be left
till to-morrow to reflect.”
“Dear child,” he said in his mellow voice. “Don’t look so grave. I will
say no more just at present. I only ask you to give what I have said
your careful thought. Here we are at Triquent.”
Evereld drew out her watch, but in the worry of the previous evening,
after her talk with Mr. Lewisham, she had forgotten to wind it up--the
hands pointed to four o’clock.
“My watch has stopped,” she said, “but surely it is time we turned back!
Finshauts seems much further than I expected.”
“Oh, we shall soon be there now,” said Bruce Wylie, glancing at the
time. “It takes us some while to climb up, but we shall rattle down
again at a great pace.”
It seemed a pity to have come so far and not after all to see the view
of Mont Blanc, and though Evereld longed to be back with the others, and
dreaded the _tête-à-tête_ with her companion after what had passed, she
scarcely liked to say any more about returning.
She was grateful to him, moreover, because on the last stage of the
journey he got out and walked beside the driver, leaving her to her
great relief unmolested.
“He is a wonderfully kind man,” she reflected. “I hope I wasn’t too
emphatic, but one had to make him quite understand. Even now we shall
have to talk it over again. Oh dear! Oh dear! how I wish Ralph and I
were really engaged, then one wouldn’t be so tongue-tied. I shall only
be twenty in the spring, and there will still be a year to wait.”
The road passed now through a wood, and something in its green depths
of shade made her think of a wood near Southbourne where they had once
spent a happy midterm holiday with the Herefords, during her school
days.
“How I wish I were at school again now,” she thought sadly. “It was
all so happy and easy there, with none of these worries and
misunderstandings. And yet I don’t either, for if I were still at school
Ralph would not have spoken to me that Sunday, that wonderful Sunday.”
She fell into a happy dream, and was startled when Bruce Wylie suddenly
appeared at the carriage door and resumed his place beside her.
“She was thinking of that boy,” he reflected with annoyance. “This
business will make our task even more disagreeable.”
“You look tired,” he said, “when we reach the Hotel Bel Oiseau I will
order some tea to be got ready while we go on to the best point of
view.”
“But are you sure we shall have time. We must not miss that train,” said
Evereld.
“Oh, plenty of time. It’s all down hill going back, and besides the
horse must rest, and the driver will certainly expect to drink our
health in the _vin du pays_.”
His manner set her mind at rest, and indeed for a time she forgot all
else in the wonderful panorama that opened out before them as Mont Blanc
and the Chamounix Valley came into view. It was a scene to remember for
a lifetime, and Evereld, with her young heart and her clear conscience,
was able to revel in its beauty, and to cast off altogether all petty
cares and vexations.
These, however, returned when they went back to the Hotel Bel Oiseau; a
mistake had been made--or so Bruce Wylie told her--as to the tea, and it
took a long time in coming. Then there was yet another delay because the
coachman had mysteriously disappeared, and when at last the horse was
put in and they turned back to Vernayaz, Evereld was certain that they
had allowed very scanty time for the descent.
“It’s as much as we shall do to catch this train,” remarked her
companion, as they at length gained the valley.
“There is a train now just passing,” exclaimed Evereld.
“Not ours, I daresay,” said Bruce Wylie, “no,” looking at his watch
reassuringly, “it’s not due for another ten minutes. We shall do it all
right, don’t be anxious.”
“There, we are punctual to the minute,” he remarked, as they drew up at
the station, “and no train is here. Ha! what’s that you say?” he added,
as an old porter came leisurely up to them. “The train gone? Why, it’s
only now due.”
The porter explained, with many gesticulations, that the Monsieur’s
watch was ten minutes slow.
“How annoying,” said Bruce Wylie, “when is the next train for St.
Maurice and Territet?”
“There are no more this evening, monsieur,” said the porter. “Monsieur
will find many good hotels in Vernayaz.”
Bruce Wylie made a well feigned ejaculation of annoyance.
“The others will have seen that we were not there,” said Evereld,
springing out of the carriage, “I will run and look for Janet;” but she
returned forlornly in a minute, for Janet was not there.
“I think she might have waited,” said the girl, indignantly.
“Oh, they would naturally conclude we should come on by a later train as
we didn’t turn up till this one started,” said Bruce Wylie, “in fact I
told the Major we should do that if by any ill fortune we were too late.
Who could have guessed that there were no trains later than this?”
“You looked out the trains yourself yesterday,” said Evereld, “I should
have thought you would have noticed.”
She felt intensely irritated, it was one of those times when a
traveller’s temper is put to the test.
Bruce Wylie did not mend matters by his rather stumbling apology. She
could not have explained her feeling, but somehow at that moment she
felt that she could no longer put confidence in him.
“Well, I wouldn’t have had such a thing happen for the world,” he said.
“It is all my fault, and I’m extremely sorry. The only thing to be done
is to go back to the Hotel Gorge du Trient. We shall be in time for
dinner, I daresay. To the Hotel, driver!”
“Wait,” said Evereld quietly. “I must first send a telegram to Lady
Mactavish explaining things.”
“Quite right, of course. I ought to have thought of it. What a sensible
little woman you are, Evereld.”
She neither smiled nor responded in any way. A few hours before the
episode would have troubled her very little, but to be stranded in this
place with the man she had just refused was a situation she disliked
very much. Behind it all, too, there lurked a vague feeling that she had
been entrapped into the drive, that perhaps even Janet had guessed what
Mr. Wylie meant to say during the course of this ill-fated expedition.
To do him justice, Bruce Wylie took good care to set her perfectly at
her ease directly they arrived at the hotel, himself saw the manageress
and explained things to her, handing over Evereld to her kindly care,
and promising to meet her in the salon.
The Swiss manageress gave her a pleasant room, and lent her all that
she needed, and when she went down to the salon a delightful surprise
awaited her.
“Why, Evereld!” said a familiar voice, and a tall pretty looking girl
stepped forward with a warm greeting.
It was May Coniston, an old schoolfellow who had left Southbourne at
Easter, and had come out to Switzerland for rest after the toils of
her first London season. She introduced Evereld to her mother, and they
listened to her description of the contretemps that had befallen her,
and Evereld introduced Mr. Wylie to them.
“It is most fortunate you just happened to come across us,” said May
Coniston cheerfully. “I can lend you everything, and mother will be only
too delighted to take care of you. There is nothing she enjoys so much
as looking after girls.”
So in the end Evereld had an extremely pleasant evening, lost her heart
to kindly Mrs. Coniston, sat up hair-brushing with her friend till after
midnight, and was delighted to have May for a companion in her large,
lonely bedroom where, as Mrs. Coniston remarked, they could fancy
themselves back at school once more.
Early the next morning, having parted with the Conistons, who were
going to Champéry, Bruce Wylie and Evereld returned to Glion, arriving
just in time for lunch. They encountered Janet and Minnie in the
entrance hall, and Evereld went straight to the _salle à manger_ with
them, laughing over the events of the previous day, and remonstrating
with them for having deserted her.
“We all got into the train when it came up,” explained Janet calmly,
“hoping to the last that you would come before it started; it must have
been some minutes in the station. Mamma was vexed with us for coming on,
but of course we all knew you were safe; your telegram got here before
we did.”
“Where is Lady Mactavish?” asked Evereld.
“She has gone down to Montreux to lunch with Lady Mount Pleasant, who by
the bye has invited us all to go to-morrow to her picnic at a place near
the Rochers de Nave.”
Just at that moment Sir Matthew and Mr. Bruce Wylie joined them. There
was something unusual in her guardian’s manner, and Evereld wondered
what had brought the cloud to his brow. It did not disappear at all when
he greeted her, and had it not been for a talkative German doctor,
who conversed learnedly with Janet, their party would have been an
uncomfortably silent one throughout the meal.
“I want a few words with you, my dear,” said Sir Matthew, when at last
lunch was over. “Come with me to our own sitting-room. We shall not be
interrupted there.”
Evereld’s heart sank.
“Mr. Wylie has told of his proposal to me,” she reflected. “And Sir
Matthew is vexed with me for refusing his friend.”
“Sit down,” said Sir Matthew, motioning her to a sofa beside the window,
and wheeling up a ponderous armchair for himself. “I have, of course,
heard from Mr. Wylie of your very surprising behaviour yesterday. Are you
aware that you have refused one of the best and cleverest of men, a man
too who has been encouraged by you for the last month.”
“Oh, no,” cried Evereld. “Indeed I never dreamt of encouraging him. How
could I be supposed to think of a man thirty years older than I am as a
lover?”
“I don’t know what you thought about it, my dear, but you did distinctly
encourage him. And everyone here, and at Zermatt, too, I believe,
considered it a case.”
“I am very sorry if they thought so, but it was a ridiculous mistake.
I should never dream of marrying Mr. Wylie. He is just a friend and
nothing more.”
“I have no patience with this foolish talk about friends,” said Sir
Matthew. “You ought to know enough of the world to realise that it never
puts faith in friendships between men and women.”
“Can I not be friends with an elderly man like that? a man of
nearly fifty, who has known me since I was a child?” said Evereld
questioningly.
“No, you cannot,” said Sir Matthew decidedly. “You have encouraged him
all these weeks, and you must marry him.”
The tone of decision would, he thought, at once silence this gentle
little girl with her innocent blue eyes. He received an uncomfortable
shock when she quietly replied: “Of course, if it is really so I can
avoid Mr. Wylie in future. But marry him I will not.”
“What possible objection can you have to him?” said her guardian
irritably. “I can tell you, he is a man that most girls would be proud
to accept.”
“But I do not love him,” said Evereld.
“Oh, you have been reading novels and have set up some absurd ideal hero
unlike any man who ever existed. Bruce Wylie is one of a thousand,
he will make you perfectly happy, and will save you from the infinite
misery of being run after for the sake of your fortune by unworthy men
embarrassed by debts.”
Evereld laughed a little. “I will promise never to marry an unworthy man
embarrassed by debts. But nothing will make me marry Mr. Wylie.”
“Then it only remains for me,” said Sir Matthew, “to tell you how things
really are. You must marry him, my dear. The whole place is talking
about you. Your reputation is at stake. Everyone knows that you were
stranded alone with him last night at Vernayaz, and there is only one
way to prevent a scandal arising. You must be engaged to him at once,
and you shall be married when we go back to London. If you like it might
be on the same day that Minnie is married.”
Evereld’s eyes dilated.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “Can you really mean that because
Mr. Wylie very carelessly allowed us to miss the train, and didn’t
know--or--or pretended not to know that it was the last train--that I
should marry him because of that?”
“Dear child, you are very young and innocent, and the world is a
hard censorious place. The busy tongues of these holiday idlers will
certainly make free with your name. And I can’t permit that. The best
way to avoid scandal, the only way, is to hasten on your marriage.”
“Very well,” said Evereld. “But it is not Mr. Wylie that I shall marry.”
“Do you dare to tell me that you are engaged to any one else?” said Sir
Matthew.
“No, I am certainly not engaged,” said Evereld. “But as soon a I come of
age I shall be engaged.”
“To whom,” said Sir Matthew.
“To Ralph,” she said, a vivid blush dyeing her cheeks.
With an inarticulate exclamation of wrath, Sir Matthew began to pace to
and fro.
“This comes of adopting beggars,” he said between his teeth. At that,
Evereld started to her feet, and would have left the room had he not
intercepted her.
“How long has this been going on?” he said, angrily.
“I never knew I cared for him like that until he had gone away more than
a year ago, when you brought down the news about his examination.”
“Just like the ungrateful fellow,” said Sir Matthew. “As soon as he saw
that there was nothing more to be got out of me, he thought to feather
his nest with your fortune.”
Evereld struggled hard not to lose control over her temper, but every
pulse in her throbbed indignantly at the words.
“I think,” she said in a low voice, “that money is the last thing any
Denmead ever troubled himself to think of.”
The words were so true that for a moment they checked Sir Matthew; he
reflected wrathfully that his own action in turning Ralph out of his
house somewhat harshly had brought about this result he so little
desired. Up to that time the friendship between the two had been of a
most brotherly and sisterly character. He was startled from this train
of thought by a sudden and wholly unexpected question from Evereld.
“My father used to say every penny he had was invested in railways--is
my money still as he left it?” she inquired.
“W--w--w--we have made a few changes; you will learn all details when
you come of age,” said Sir Matthew.
Evereld had quick perceptions. She had never heard her guardian stammer
before. She looked him through and through with her clear eyes, and
knew that something was amiss. He coloured under her scrutiny, and
complaining of the heat of the room, pushed the window wider open.
“Ralph has good points,” he said, returning to the former topic. “But
depend upon it, my dear, this is an idle fancy of yours; he will fall in
love with some actress and forget all about you. It is only natural that
it should be so.”
Evereld shook her head.
“No,” she said. “He will wait for me, and when he has got on a little in
his profession, we shall be engaged. We might have been engaged now only
he was too honourable.”
“You talk just as one might expect an innocent girl fresh from school to
talk, my dear,” said Sir Matthew. “But it will not do. Such a marriage
would be preposterous, your father would never have allowed it, and I
once more repeat that acting in your interests I shall insist on your
accepting Mr. Wylie’s offer. You think me unkind; believe me,” he took
her hand and patted it caressingly, “I am not unkind, I am only making
you do what is the best possible thing under the circumstances. You must
trust me. There are elements in the case you cannot understand. There
is no safe path for a woman but the part of obedience to authority. You
must be guided by me, my dear, you must recollect that in all the years
you have lived under my roof I have always shown you kindness and love,
and you must try to believe that I show that kindness now, though I
thwart your wishes and wed you to a man who does not exactly fit in with
your girlish and romantic ideal. We will say no more now, you are tired
and agitated. But within the next two days I shall expect to receive
from Mr. Wylie the news that his offer has been accepted. Think it
quietly over. I am convinced that some day you will thank me for what I
have done; ay! and other people will have good cause to thank me, too.”
He stooped and kissed her on the forehead and politely opened the door
for her in token that the interview was at an end.
Without a word Evereld left the room and went slowly upstairs.