Philip, who knew every step of the road between Wynford and London, had
some very disquieting thoughts as he rode down to the cross roads to
meet Carrie.
Everything depended upon whether they could reach the half-way house at
Wyntown before Dr. Shepley. For after Wyntown there were several roads
which each led to town; but between Wynford and Wyntown there was only
one road. Therefore if they met, they would in all probability meet upon
that road. Phil determined to keep his fears to himself. It was a
pleasant morning, and a pleasant ride. He found Carrie already waiting
for him under the flickering shade of the beech-trees.
‘You see I can make haste when I please, sir,’ she said, trying to
smile. The smile, however, was rather forced, and after a few
ineffectual attempts at conversation they rode along in silence.
‘The deuce take that horse of your aunt’s!’ at last quoth Phil in
despair; ‘can you not make him go a better pace, Carrie?’
Carrie smiled, and shook her head. ‘My aunt will never permit her steeds
to go beyond a slow trot,’ she explained.
‘Oh, your aunt be ——,’ began Phil, and Carrie actually laughed
outright at his irritation.
‘Now you resemble a little boy I once knew who used bad words,’ she
said, looking up at him under her eyelashes.
‘I ask your pardon, Carrie; ’tis that old cow you are riding irritates
me,’ he said, with an impatient flick of his riding-whip.
Phil affected more assurance than he felt, however, as they dismounted
before the door of the inn at Wyntown. ‘Heaven send Shepley is not here
before us!’ he thought as he lifted Carrie down and gave the horses to
the ostler.
‘We shall come up-stairs and dine, Carrie,’ he said. ‘Do you not feel as
though you were my wife already?’ He drew Carrie’s rather limp little
hand through his arm as he spoke, and they went up-stairs to the inn
parlour, which overlooked the courtyard.
‘You are wearied, I fear, Carrie,’ he said.
‘Hot wearied, Phil, in the least, but not very happy,’ said Carrie, with
a stifled sob.
Phil affected deafness, and requested the landlady to bring up dinner as
quickly as might be. ‘For I am near famished with the morning air,
Mistress Heathe,’ said he, with a smile to the good woman, an old
acquaintance, ‘and so is this lady also; but she is somewhat weary, so
see no stranger comes in while we are here.’
‘Just as you please, sir; just as you please,’ said Mistress Heathe, as
she bustled round the table, and made bold to ask for his father’s
health.
‘The same I did serve with a bottle of wine yesterday at this very hour.
“Bad roads they are to-day, Mistress Heathe,” said he, for your father,
sir, is ever so affable in the passing by, ’tis a pleasure serving such
gentry as he, to be sure.’ And she gave a curious squint at Carrie
meanwhile.
That young woman made a show of eating a little, but in truth it was
Phil who cleared off the viands, and Lady Mallow would have been quite
pleased by the genteel appetite of her niece, if she could have seen how
she toyed with a scrap of chicken, and shook her head at sight of an
apple tart.
‘I am sorry, Phil, I cannot eat,’ she said, ‘and somehow I cannot talk
either, so perhaps we had best not try to talk.’
‘Never fear, Carrie; ’twill be all right soon,’ said Phil, and he
crossed over to the window and sat there looking out into the yard.
Wyntown was nearly equidistant between London and Wynford, so,
calculating that Dr. Shepley had left town at the same hour as they had
left Wynford, he must arrive at Wyntown not much later than
themselves—so calculated Philip. He had no real reason to suppose that
Dr. Shepley would come at all; everything depended on the contents of
that letter, but if he did——
There was a rumble of wheels over the cobble-paved courtyard, and Phil
saw a very tall grave-faced man jump down from the seat of a post-chaise
and come up to the door. Carrie, at the sound of the wheels, came to the
window. She laid her hand on Phil’s shoulder, and glanced out.
‘Phil! Phil!’ she cried, ‘’tis my dear father.’
In the one glance she had got of his face Carrie marked there a new
stamp of anxiety she had never seen before—and it was she who had
stamped it there! She turned away and buried her face on the cushions of
the settle. Phil, trying to be hard-hearted, affected no sympathy with
her grief, but when at last there came a succession of quick gasping
sobs, he crossed the room and bent over her.
‘Come, Carrie, you must not grieve so,’ he said rather lamely. Carrie
sat up and dried her pretty eyes, that were all reddened with tears.
‘O Phil,’ she said, with a little choke in her voice, ‘I have never seen
him look thus. Ah, I must see him—speak with him—I shall explain!’
She rose and hurried to the door, but Phil barred her exit.
‘’Tis madness, Carrie—sheer madness this,’ he expostulated; ‘you’ll
never see my face again if Dr. Shepley discovers you here with me.’
‘I cannot help it. Ah, Phil, do not be cruel! See him I must—then I
shall go with you—then we will be married.’
‘You are a fool, Carrie!’ cried Phil, carried away by one of his sudden,
hot fits of temper. ‘“Then we will be married!”—do you suppose for one
moment your father would permit our marriage?’
‘Yes,’ said Carrie, ‘I think he would.’
‘Then you think nonsense.’
‘I know him better than you do, Phil.’
‘Well, explain me this then—if so be he will not oppose our marriage,
why doth he hasten from London at first hint of your meeting me?’
‘He could not forbid it did he understand all I shall tell him; ’twould
not be like my father to do so. Phil, you do not know him. You do not
guess even at his generous heart—you——’
‘Generous!’ laughed Phil; ‘no, no, not so generous as that.’
‘Phil, I shall see him—whatever you say, I shall see him!’ cried
Carrie, and she tried once more to escape towards the door.
And Phil, fairly mastered now by his temper, flung the door wide open,
crying out: ‘Go to him then, if you love him the best.’
A moment later he saw Carrie swirl down the narrow panelled passage of
the inn into the very arms of Sebastian, who had appeared at the far end
of it.
‘Lord, Carrie!’ he heard Sebastian exclaim, as he laughed his jolly
whole-hearted laugh and kissed his daughter on either cheek with more
fervour than gentility. Then there was an incoherent murmur of
exclamation and sobs from Carrie, then Sebastian’s voice again:—
‘And how are you here, my girl? Have you run away from her Ladyship and
the influenza?’
‘Yes, sir—with Philip Meadowes, sir,’ said Carrie, whose downright
nature equalled her father’s.
Phil held his breath to hear what Sebastian would reply.
‘And where is Philip Meadowes?’ he heard Sebastian say. A minute later
Carrie came into the parlour, leading her father by the hand. There fell
a moment of ominous silence. Neither of the men spoke, but Carrie, as
she took a hand of each, and looked from one to the other in puzzled,
pretty confusion, was the first to speak.
‘This is Philip, sir,’ she said; ‘and indeed I am sure you cannot choose
but love him.’
‘There may be two opinions on that point mayhap,’ said Sebastian grimly.
For all the antagonism of their mutual relations at the moment, Phil,
with his extraordinarily sensitive nature, felt a sudden impulse of
liking to this man, Carrie’s father. ‘Why have I not a father like
that?’ he thought—‘some one to rely on without a shadow of distrust.’
Poor Philip, for all his charm, was sadly alone in the difficult places
of life, and youth, in spite of all its self-assertion, is conscious
enough of its own need. Beside this resolute masterful man, Phil felt
himself, of a sudden, boyish and foolish, as he had never felt before.
But, assuming a great deal more self-confidence than he felt, he bowed
to Dr. Shepley and ‘feared the circumstances of their meeting would
scarce conduce to an agreeable acquaintance between them.’
The older man did not reply to this remark; but drew back the
window-curtain so that the light might fall full across Phil’s face, and
gazed intently at him for a few moments. Annie’s son! Flesh of her
flesh, bone of her bone—and Annie cold in her grave these twenty years!
How say some among us that there is no resurrection? This is, instead, a
world of resurrections, in which that man or woman is fortunate who can
succeed in burying the past so deep that it cannot rise. Phil and
Carrie, hot with their own impatient young desires, were only irritated
by Sebastian’s silence. How could they guess at that blinding back-flash
of memory that held him silent at sight of Phil? How could they hear the
voice Sebastian heard—an urgent tearful voice, ‘_Phil, that hath gotten
half my soul_’; and again, ‘_If ever you can help Phil you’ll do it,
because I gave him half my soul_,’ . . . and . . . ‘_God give Phil a
white heart_,’ . . . and . . . ‘_Come, Sebastian?_’
‘Sir, sir, speak!’ cried Carrie, catching hold again of her father’s
hand.
At the touch of her hand, at the sound of her voice, Sebastian came back
to the present—the important present.
‘By Heaven!’ he cried. ‘Once in life is enough to be robbed by Richard
Meadowes!’
‘But, sir, I am not Richard Meadowes,’ said Phil.
‘His son; and twice accursed by that token. Never shall daughter of mine
have my consent to marry with son of his—black-hearted lying devil that
he is.’
Carrie shrank back, scared at her father’s violence; she had never heard
him speak like this before.
‘Perhaps, sir, ’twould be better for you and me to discuss this matter
by ourselves,’ suggested Phil. There had, in fact, been no explanation
given on either side as yet, a fact which Phil was the first to realise.
Sebastian, beside himself with anger, at the sight of Carrie in company
with the son of his enemy, had never stopped to ask any questions one
way or other.
‘There is little to discuss, I know, Mr. Meadowes,’ he said. ‘I have
information this very day of your intentions, sent me by your father,
and these intentions I cannot even discuss with you; I cannot give you
my daughter. Even had you asked her hand of me in a fair and honourable
manner, I would have denied it. Now doubly I do so since you thought to
obtain it by stealth—a coward’s trick, that savours of the man you have
the honour to name your father.’
Carrie, who knew the hot temper of her lover, held her breath for fear.
But Phil did not fly into a sudden passion. He looked Sebastian full in
the face, but though he flushed with anger, his words were quiet enough.
‘Did I not know the bitter provocation which makes you speak so, I would
not stand here and listen to you in silence,’ he said. ‘My father may be
all that you say, sir, but’—here Phil hesitated for a breath—‘he is
all the father I have, and moreover has been a kind parent enough to me,
as the world counts kindness.’
‘There—the boy speaks rightly,’ said Sebastian. ‘My words were perhaps
over hasty; but the larger fact of our quarrel remains—that you have
induced my daughter to leave her home with you, instead of honestly
asking her hand from me.’
‘I knew, as you have indeed just told me, that that would be wasted
breath; ’twas the only thing left me to do; now Carrie hath spoilt it
all, and I suppose she means to return with you,’ said Phil, his anger
redoubled.
‘I presume that to be her intention,’ said Sebastian, turning to Carrie
as he spoke.
‘Sir, dearest sir, I must do as you command me now,’ said Carrie.
‘But’—and here she laid her hand in Phil’s—‘some day I must go with
Phil, for he hath all my heart.’
‘When you are old enough to take your own will against mine?’ asked
Sebastian.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When that day comes, you choose betwixt him and me.’
‘If so be I must make the choice,’ said Carrie, ‘I must choose Phil; I
cannot, cannot forsake him.’
There fell a short silence, then Philip spoke.
‘You must admit, sir,’ he said, ‘’tis hard that Carrie and I should be
parted by reason of your and my father’s old quarrels. But I, in my
turn, must admit I did wrong to make her leave home with me as I
did—for that I must ask your forgiveness, but, as I live, sir, I swear
you’d have done the same at my age!’
It was scarcely possible for Phil to harp very long on the serious
string; inevitably his buoyant nature resented the restraint it was
under, and broke through it. Frustrated, disappointed, angry, on the eve
of being parted from Carrie, he must still find something to laugh at.
And Sebastian, in spite of himself, very much in spite of himself, found
it impossible not to laugh also.
‘’Pon my soul! the boy does not lack assurance! Yes, that I would!’ he
said, but added a moment later, ‘I laugh, but that doth not retract my
displeasure one whit, nor alter a word of what I have said: Carrie shall
never marry you an I can prevent it.’
‘How long must I wait ere you consider Carrie of an age to choose for
herself?’ asked Phil.
‘Two years, at the earliest. You will then be of an age to judge for
yourself, though young enough to marry, in all conscience.’
‘And during these two years how much may I see of Carrie?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I may write to her at times?’
‘No, never; you forget, Mr. Meadowes, that my object is that you should
forget one another so speedily as may be.’
Philip bowed, accepting the inevitable.
‘If that be all, there remains nothing but that I should say my
farewells,’ said he.
‘Nothing; the sooner and the shorter they are the better,’ said
Sebastian. He looked at the two young people before him. Carrie stood
scared and silent by the window.
Phil crossed over to where she stood and gathered her up in his arms,
kissing her long and fondly.
‘If it must be.—Good-bye, sweetheart, I shall never forget,’ he said.
And Carrie, as she raised her lips to his, smiled an almost happy smile.
They vowed at that moment an unspoken vow, and parted undoubtingly.
‘Come, dearest sir!’ said Carrie a moment later, when Phil was gone;
‘shall we return to London to-night—you and I?’
‘There! if you wish to see the last of him,’ said Sebastian. He pointed
out to the courtyard, where the ostler had led out Phil’s horse.
‘Lord! what a temper the boy hath!’ said Sebastian, for Phil, without
one backward look to the window where Carrie stood, gave a savage lash
at the horse, which bounded out through the archway, and swung round the
turn that led into the Wynford road with scant direction from its rider.
‘The Lord send him safe at Fairmeadowes,’ said Carrie softly, under her
breath.