I need not follow day by day the course of Herbert’s life. Though the
brother and sister went out a good deal together at first, being asked
to all the great houses in the neighborhood, as became their position in
the county and their recent arrival, yet there gradually arose a
separation between Herbert and Reine. It was inevitable, and she had
learned to acknowledge this, and did not rebel as at first; but a great
many people shook their heads when it became apparent that,
notwithstanding Mrs. Farrel-Austin’s warning, Herbert had been drawn
into the “racketing set” whose headquarters were at the Hatch. The young
man was fond of pleasure, as well as of flattery, and it was Summer,
when all the ills that flesh is heir to relax their hold a little, and
dissipation is comparatively harmless. He went to Ascot with the party
from the Hatch, and he went to a great many other places with them; and
though the friends he made under their auspices led Herbert into places
much worse both for his health and mind than any the girls could lead
him to, he remained faithful, so far, to Kate and Sophy, and continued
to attend them wherever they went. As for Reine, she was happy enough in
the comparative quiet into which she dropped when the first outbreak of
gayety was over. Miss Susan, against her will, still remained at
Whiteladies; against her will--yet it may well be supposed it was no
pleasure to her to separate herself from the old house in which she had
been born, and from which she had never been absent for so much as six
months all her life. Miss Augustine, for her part, took little or no
notice of the change in the household. She went her way as usual,
morning and evening, to the Almshouses. When Miss Susan spoke to her, as
she did sometimes, about the cottage which stood all this time furnished
and ready for instant occupation, she only shook her head. “I do not
mean to leave Whiteladies,” she said, calmly. Neither did Giovanna, so
far as could be perceived. “You cannot remain here when we go,” said
Miss Susan to her.
“There is much room in the house,” said Giovanna; “and when you go,
Madame Suzanne, there will be still more. The little chamber for me and
the child, what will that do to any one?”
“But you cannot, you must not; it will be improper--don’t you
understand?” cried Miss Susan.
Giovanna shook her head.
“I will speak to M. Herbert,” she said, smiling in Miss Susan’s face.
This then was the position of affairs. Herbert put off continually the
settlement between them, begging that he might have a little holiday,
that she would retain the management of the estate and of his affairs,
and this with a certain generosity mingling with his inclination to
avoid trouble; for in reality he loved the woman who had been in her way
a mother to him, and hesitated about taking from her the occupation of
her life. It was well meant; and Miss Susan felt within herself that
moral cowardice which so often affects those who live in expectation of
an inevitable change or catastrophe. It must come, she knew; and when
the moment of departure came, she could not tell, she dared not
anticipate what horrors might come with it; but she was almost glad to
defer it, to consent that it should be postponed from day to day. The
king in the story, however, could scarcely manage, I suppose, to be
happy with that sword hanging over his head. No doubt he got used to it,
poor wretch, and could eat and drink, and snatch a fearful joy from the
feasting which went on around him; he might even make merry, perhaps,
but he could scarcely be very happy under the shadow. So Miss Susan
felt. She went on steadily, fulfilled all her duties, dispensed
hospitalities, and even now and then permitted herself to be amused; but
she was not happy.
Sometimes, when she said her prayers--for she did still say her prayers,
notwithstanding the burden on her soul--she would breathe a sigh which
was scarcely a prayer, that it might soon be over one way or another,
that her sufferings might be cut short; but then she would rouse herself
up, and recall that despairing sigh. Giovanna would not budge. Miss
Susan made a great many appeals to her, when Reine was straying about
the garden, or after she had gone to her innocent rest. She offered sums
which made that young woman tremble in presence of a temptation which
she could scarcely resist; but she set her white teeth firm, and
conquered. It was better to have all than only a part, Giovanna thought,
and she comforted herself that at the last moment, if her scheme failed,
she could fall back upon and accept Miss Susan’s offer. This made her
very secure, through all the events that followed. When Herbert
abandoned Whiteladies and was constantly at the Hatch, when he seemed to
have altogether given himself over to his cousins, and a report got up
through the county that “an alliance was contemplated,” as the
Kingsborough paper put it, grandly having a habit of royalty, so to
speak--between two distinguished county families, Giovanna bore the
contretemps quite calmly, feeling that Miss Susan’s magnificent offer
was always behind her to fall back upon, if her great personal
enterprise should come to nothing. Her serenity gave her a great
advantage over Herbert’s feebler spirit. When he came home to
Whiteladies, she regained her sway over him, and as she never indulged
in a single look of reproach, such as Sophy employed freely when he left
the Hatch, or was too long of returning, she gradually established for
herself a superior place in the young man’s mind.
As for Herbert himself, the three long months of that Summer were more
to him than all the former years of his life put together. His first
outburst of freedom on the Riviera, and his subsequent ramble in Italy,
had been overcast by adverse circumstances. He had got his own way, but
at a cost which was painful to him, and a great many annoyances and
difficulties had been mingled with his pleasure. But now there was
nothing to interfere with it. Reine was quiescent, presenting a smiling
countenance when he saw her, not gloomy or frightened, as she had been
at Cannes. She was happy enough; she was at home, with her aunts to fall
back upon, and plenty of friends. And everybody and everything smiled
upon Herbert. He was acting generously, he felt, to his former guardian,
in leaving to her all the trouble of his affairs. He was surrounded by
gay friends and unbounded amusements, amusements bounded only by the
time that was occupied by them, and those human limitations which make
it impossible to do two things at once. Could he have been in two
places at once, enjoying two different kinds of pleasure at the same
time, his engagements were sufficient to have secured for him a double
enjoyment. From the highest magnates of the county, to the young
soldiers of Kingsborough, his own contemporaries, everybody was willing
to do him honor. The entire month of June he spent in town, where he had
everything that town could give him--though their life moved rather more
quickly than suited his still unconfirmed strength. Both in London and
in the country he was invited into higher circles than those which the
Farrel-Austins were permitted to enter; but still he remained faithful
to his cousins, who gave him a homage which he could not expect
elsewhere, and who had always “something going on,” both in town and
country, and no pause in their fast and furious gayety. They were always
prepared to go with him or take him somewhere, to give him the carte du
pays, to tell him all the antecedents and history of this one and that
one, and to make the ignorant youth feel himself an experienced man.
Then, when it pleased him to go home, he was the master, welcomed by
all, and found another beautiful slave waiting serene to burn incense to
him.
No wonder Herbert enjoyed himself. He had come out of his chrysalis
condition altogether, and was enjoying the butterfly existence to an
extent which he had never conceived of, fluttering about everywhere,
sunning his fine new wings, his new energies, his manhood, and his
health, and his wealth, and all the glories that were his. To do him
justice, he would have brought his household up to town, in order that
Reine too might have had her glimpse of the season, could he have
persuaded them; but Reine, just then at a critical point of her life,
declined the indulgence. Kate and Sophy, however, were fond of saying
that they had never enjoyed a season so much. Opera-boxes rained upon
them; they never wanted bouquets; and their parties to Richmond, to
Greenwich, wherever persons of her class go, were endless. Herbert was
ready for anything, and their father did decline the advantages, though
he disliked the giver of them; and even when he was disagreeable,
matrons were always procurable to chaperone the party, and preside over
their pleasures. Everybody believed, as Sophy did, that there could be
but one conclusion to so close an intimacy.
“At all events, we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, who was not
so sure.
And Herbert fully echoed the words when he heard them. Yes, it had been
a very jolly season. He had “spent his money free,” which in the highest
class, as well as in the lowest, is the most appropriate way in which a
young man can make himself agreeable. He had enjoyed himself, and he had
given to others a great many opportunities of enjoying themselves. Now
and then he carried down a great party to Whiteladies, and introduced
the _beau monde_ to his beautiful old house, and made one of those fêtes
champêtres for his friends which break so agreeably upon the toils of
London pleasuring, and which supply to the highest class, always like
the lowest in their peculiar rites, an elegant substitute for Cremorne
and Rosherville. Miss Susan bestirred herself, and made a magnificent
response to his appeals when he asked her to receive such parties, and
consoled herself for the gay mob that disturbed the dignity of the old
house, by the noble names of some of them, which she was too English not
to be impressed by. And thus in a series of delights the Summer passed
from May to August. Herbert did not go to Scotland, though he had many
invitations and solicitations to do so when the season was over. He came
home instead, and settled there when fashion melted away out of town;
and Sophy, considering the subject, as she thought, impartially, and
without any personal prejudice (she said), concluded that it must be for
her sake he stayed.
“I know the Duke of Ptarmigan asked him, and Tom Heath, and Billy
Trotter,” she said to her sister. “Billy, they say, has the finest moors
going. Why shouldn’t he have gone, unless he had some motive? He can’t
have any shooting here till September. If it isn’t _that_, what do you
suppose it can be!”
“Well, at all events we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, not
disposed to commit herself; “and what we have to do is to keep things
going, and show him the country, and not be dull even now.” Which
admirable suggestion they carried out with all their hearts.
Herbert’s thoughts, however, were not, I fear, so far advanced as Sophy
supposed. It was not that he did not think of that necessity of marrying
which Miss Augustine enforced upon him in precisely the same words,
every time she saw him. “You are wasting time--you are wasting my time,
Herbert,” she said to him when he came back to Whiteladies, in July.
Frankly she thought this the most important point of view. So far as he
was concerned, he was young, and there was time enough; but if she, a
woman of seven-and-fifty, was to bring up his heir and initiate him into
her ideas, surely there was not a moment to be lost in taking the
preliminary steps.
Herbert was very much amused with this view of the subject. It tickled
his imagination so, that he had not been able to refrain from
communicating it to several of his friends. But various of these
gentlemen, after they had laughed, pronounced it to be their opinion
that, by Jove, the old girl was not so far out.
“I wouldn’t stand having that little brat of a child set up as the heir
under my very nose; and, by Jove, Austin, I’d settle that old curmudgeon
Farrel’s hopes fast enough, if I were in your place,” said his advisers.
Herbert was not displeased with the notion. He played with it, with a
certain enjoyment. He felt that he was a prize worth anybody’s pursuit,
and liked to hear that such and such ladies were “after him.” The Duke
of Ptarmigan had a daughter or two, and Sir Billy Trotter’s sister might
do worse, her friends thought. Herbert smoothed an incipient moustache,
late in growing, and consequently very precious, and felt a delightful
complaisance steal over him. And he knew that Sophy, his cousin, did not
despise him; I am not sure even that the young coxcomb was not aware
that he might have the pick of either of the girls, if he chose; which
also, though Kate had never thought on the subject, was true enough. She
had faithfully given him over to her younger sister, and never
interfered; but if Herbert had thrown his handkerchief to her, she would
have thought it sinful to refuse. When he thought on the subject, which
was often enough, he had a kind of lazy sense that this was what would
befall him at last. He would throw his handkerchief some time when he
was at the Hatch, and wheresoever the chance wind might flutter it,
there would be his fate. He did not really care much whether it might
happen to be Sophy or Kate.
When he came home, however, these thoughts would float away out of his
mind. He did not think of marrying, though Miss Augustine spoke to him
on the subject every day. He thought of something else, which yet was
not so far different; he thought that nowhere, in society or out of it,
had he seen any one like Giovanna.
“Did you ever see such a picture?” he would say to Reine. “Look at her!
Now she’s sculpture, with that child on her shoulder. If the boy was
only like herself, what a group they’d make! I’d like to have
Marochetti, or some of those swells, down, to make them in marble. And
she’d paint just as well. By Jove, she’s all the arts put together. How
she does sing! Patti and the rest are nothing to her. But I don’t
understand how she could be the mother of that boy.”
Giovanna came back across the lawn, having swung the child from her
shoulder on to the fragrant grass, in time to hear this, and smiled and
said, “He does not resemble me, does he? Madame Suzanne, M. Herbert
remarks that the boy is not dark as me. He is another type--yes, another
type, n’est ce pas!”
“Not a bit like you,” said Herbert. “I don’t say anything against Jean,
who is a dear little fellow; but he is not like you.”
“Ah! but he is the heir of M. Herbert, which is better,” cried Giovanna,
with a laugh, “until M. Herbert will marry. Why will not you marry and
range yourself? Then the little Jean and the great Giovanna will melt
away like the fogs. Ah, marry, M. Herbert! it is what you ought to do.”
“Are you so anxious, then, to melt away like the fog?--like the
sunshine, you mean,” said the young man in a low voice. They were all in
the porch, but he had gone out to meet her, on pretence of playing with
little Jean.
“But no,” said Giovanna, smiling, “not at all. I am very well here; but
when M. Herbert will marry, then I must go away. Little Jean will be no
more the heir.”
“Then I shall never marry,” said the young man, though still in tones so
low as not to reach the ears of the others. Giovanna turned her face
toward him with a mocking laugh.
“Bah! already I know Madame Herbert’s name, her little name!” she cried,
and picked up the boy with one vigorous, easy sweep of her beautiful
arms, and carried him off, singing to him--like a goddess, Herbert
thought, like the nurse of a young Apollo. He was dreadfully
disconcerted with this sudden withdrawal, and when Miss Augustine,
coming in, addressed him in her usual way, he turned from her
pettishly, with an impatient exclamation:
“I wish you would give over,” he said; “you are making a joke of a
serious matter. You are putting all sorts of follies into people’s
heads.”
It was only at Whiteladies, however, that he entertained this feeling.
When he was away from home he would now and then consider the question
of throwing the handkerchief, and made up his mind that there would be a
kind of justice in it if the petit nom of the future Mrs. Herbert turned
out to be either Sophy or Kate.
Things went on in this way until, one day in August, it was ordained
that the party, with its usual military attendants, should vary its
enjoyments by a day on the river. They started from Water Beeches,
Everard’s house, in the morning, with the intention of rowing up the
river as far as Marlow, and returning in the evening to a late dinner.
The party consisted of Kate and Sophy, with their father, Reine and
Herbert, Everard himself, and a quantity of young soldiers, with the
wife of one of them, four ladies, to wit, and an indefinite number of
men. They started on a lovely morning, warm yet fresh, with a soft
little breeze blowing, stirring the long flags and rushes, and floating
the water-lilies that lurked among their great leaves in every corner.
Reine and Everard had not seen much of each other for some time. From
the day that he went off in an injured state of mind, reminding them
half indignantly that they knew where to find him when he was wanted,
they had met only two or three times, and never had spoken to each other
alone. Everard had been in town for the greater part of the time,
purposely taking himself away, sore and wounded, to have, as he thought,
no notice taken of him; while Reine, on her part, was too proud to make
any advances to so easily affronted a lover. This had been in her mind,
restraining her from many enjoyments when both Herbert and Miss Susan
thought her “quite happy”. She was “quite happy,” she always said; did
not wish to go to town, preferred to stay at Whiteladies, had no desire
to go to Court and to make her début in society, as Miss Susan felt she
should. Reine resisted, being rather proud and fanciful and capricious,
as the best of girls may be permitted to be under such circumstances;
and she had determinedly made herself “happy” in her country life, with
such gayeties and amusements as came to her naturally. I think, however,
that she had looked forward to this day on the river, not without a
little hope, born of weariness, that something might happen to break the
ice between Everard and herself. By some freak of fortune, however, or
unkind arrangement, it so happened that Reine and Everard were not even
in the same boat when they started. She thought (naturally) that it was
his fault, and he thought (equally naturally) that it was her fault; and
each believed that the accident was a premeditated and elaborately
schemed device to hold the other off. I leave the reader to guess
whether this added to the pleasure of the party, in which these two, out
of their different boats, watched each other when they could, and
alternated between wild gayety put on when each was within sight of the
other, to show how little either minded--and fits of abstraction.
The morning was beautiful; the fair river glided past them, here shining
like a silver shield, there falling into heavenly coolness under the
shadows, with deep liquid tones of green and brown, with glorified
reflections of every branch and twig, with forests of delicious growth
(called weeds) underneath its clear rippling, throwing up long blossomed
boughs of starry flowers, and in the shallows masses of great cool flags
and beds of water-lilies. This was not a scene for the chills and heats
of a love-quarrel, or for the perversity of a voluntary separation. And
I think Everard felt this, and grew impatient of the foolish caprice
which he thought was Reine’s, and which Reine thought was his, as so
often happens. When they started in the cooler afternoon, to come down
the river, he put her almost roughly into his boat.
“You are coming with me this time,” he said in a half-savage tone,
gripping her elbow fiercely as he caught her on her way to the other,
and almost lifted her into his boat.
Reine half-resisted for the moment, her face flaming with respondent
wrath, but melted somehow by his face so near her, and his imperative
grasp, she allowed herself to be thrust into the little nutshell which
she knew so well, and which (or its predecessors) had been called
“Queen” for years, thereby acquiring for Everard a character for loyalty
which Reine knew he did not deserve, though he had never told her so.
The moment she had taken her place there, however, Reine justified all
Everard’s sulks by immediately resuming toward him the old tone. If she
had not thus recovered him as her vizier and right-hand man, she would,
I presume, have kept her anxiety in her own breast. As it was, he had
scarcely placed her on the cushions, when suddenly, without a pause,
without one special word to him, asking pardon (as she ought) for her
naughtiness, Reine said suddenly, “Everard! oh, will you take care,
please, that Bertie does not row?”
He looked at her wholly aggravated, but half laughing. “Is this all I am
ever to be good for?” he said; “not a word for me, no interest in me. Am
I to be Bertie’s dry-nurse all my life? And is this all--?”
She put her hand softly on his arm, and drew him to her to whisper to
him. In that moment all Reine’s coldness, all her doubts of him had
floated away, with a suddenness which I don’t pretend to account for,
but which belonged to her impulsive character (and in her heart I do not
believe she had ever had the least real doubt of him, though it was a
kind of dismal amusement to think she had). She put up her face to him,
with her hand on his arm. “Speak low,” she said. “Is there any one I
could ask but you? Everard, he has done too much already to-day; don’t
let him row.”
Everard laughed. He jumped out of his boat and spoke to the other men
about, confidentially, in undertones. “Don’t let him see you mean it,”
he said; and when he had settled this piece of diplomacy, he came back
and pushed off his own boat into mid-stream. “The others had all got
settled,” he said. “I don’t see why I should run upon your messages, and
do everything you tell me, and never get anything by it. Mrs. Sellinger
has gone with Kate and Sophy, who have much more need of a chaperone
than you have: and for the first time I have you to myself, Reine.”
Reine had the strings of the rudder in her hands, and could have driven
him back, I think, had she liked, but she did not. She let herself and
the boat float down the pleasanter way. “I don’t mind,” she said softly;
“for a long time I have had no talk with you--since we came home.”
“And whose fault is that, I should like to know?” cried Everard, with a
few long swift strokes, carrying the boat almost out of sight of the
larger one, which had not yet started. “How cruel you are, Reine! You
say that as if I was to blame; when you know all the time if you had but
held up a little finger--”
“Why should I hold up a little finger?” said Reine, softly, leaning back
in her seat. But there was a smile on her face. It was true, she
acknowledged to herself. She had known it all the time. A little finger,
a look, a word would have done it, though she had made believe to be
lonely and dreary and half-forsaken and angry even. At which, as the
boat glided down the river in the soft shadows after sunset, in the cool
grayness of the twilight, she smiled again.
But before they reached the Water Beeches, these cool soft shades had
given way to a sudden cold mist, what country people call a “blight.” It
was only then, I think, that these two recollected themselves. They had
sped down the shining stream, with a little triumph in outstripping the
other and larger boat, though it had four rowers, and Everard was but
one. They had gone through the locks by themselves, leaving saucy
messages for their companions, and it was only when they got safely
within sight of Everard’s house, and felt the coldness of the “blight”
stealing through them, that they recollected to wonder what had kept the
others so long. Then Reine grew frightened, unreasonably, as she felt;
fantastically, for was not Herbert quite well? but yet beyond her own
power of control.
“Turn back, and let us meet them,” she begged; and Everard, though
unwilling, could not refuse to do it. They went back through the growing
darkness, looking out eagerly for the party.
“That cannot be them,” said Everard, as the long sweep of oars became
audible. “It must be a racing boat, for I hear no voices.”
They lay close by the bank and watched, Reine in an agony of anxiety,
for which she could give no reason. But sure enough it was the rest of
the party, rowing quickly down, very still and frightened. Herbert had
insisted upon rowing, in spite of all remonstrances, and just a few
minutes before had been found half fainting over his oar, shivering and
breathless.
“It is nothing--it is nothing,” he gasped, when he saw Reine, “and we
are close at home.” But his heart panted so, that this was all he could
say.