"AND THUS WE PARTED THERE."
Roland Dorrien walked from his father's door with quick, angry strides.
Everything had turned out exactly as he had expected, and the halle of
his ancestors would know him no more. Why should he regret it? Within
them he had known nothing but coldness--had met with scant measure of
affection--and now he was leaving them for ever. He passed out through
the park gates with the Dorrien arms engraved upon the stone pillars--a
mailed hand grasping by the neck a writhing serpent, which, with crest
reared and fangs gaping wide and threatening, was in keeping with the
motto underneath, "I strike"--and reached the high road. Even then he
smiled satirically as he reflected that the lodge-keeper's obsequious
curtsey would probably be much less profound were the good woman aware
that it was only Roland Dorrien, the disinherited heir, who walked past,
instead of, as she supposed, her future lord.
Suddenly he became aware of a scuffle in the park behind him, and,
turning, he beheld the deer look up from their feeding and trot away in
alarmed groups. Then the cause of this appeared--something red and
white, tearing at full speed down the drive. A moment more, and the
object dashed against him, panting, and nearly knocking him down.
"Why, Roy!" he cried in concern. "Dear old Roy! I had clean forgotten
you. And they were quite capable of having you knocked on the head if
they had known you were there. Perhaps he did try, as it was," he went
on, with a dark look in the direction of the Hall.
But his reflections on the General were in this case unmerited. What
had happened was this. Roy, who had been incarcerated in a disused
coach-house, finding that his master did not come to emancipate him at
the usual time, had raised his voice in doleful protest, but when his
subtle ears detected the sound of his master's receding footsteps, whose
firm tread could mean nothing else than "gone for good," his piteous
howls increased tenfold, emphasised by a series of frantic plunges
against the large double doors. Now, it happened that Johnston, the
head-gardener, who hated Roy's master with an undying hatred on account
of more than one snubbing which his own impudent presumption had earned
for him, and by an inverse rendering of the proverb, likewise hated Roy,
thought it an excellent opportunity of wreaking his spite on the dog.
So, arming himself with a broomstick, he proceeded to the scene of poor
Roy's restraint.
"Hold yer rouw, ye beast--wull ye!" said Johnston spitefully, just
opening a crack in the door and raising the stick cunningly. But Roy
was not quite such a fool. He had withdrawn from the door and crouched
away at the back of the room, growling savagely.
"Aha, ye cowardly beastie," jeered the man. "Iss-ss!" and he poked at
him with the stick.
Roy wae now walking to and fro, growling, and every time drawing nearer
and nearer to the door, but keeping carefully out of reach of the blows
which the biped brute every now and then aimed at him. Suddenly, with a
terrific snarl, he made a rush. The trap-door let into the large ones
flew open as he flung himself against it, and Johnston, knocked aside by
the unexpected weight, rolled sprawling in the dust, and the dog was
free. Pausing a moment to make his teeth meet in the thigh of his enemy
as he lay, now thoroughly frightened, Roy darted off like an arrow on
the track of his master, and came up with him, as we have seen.
"My dear old beauty!" said Roland, passing his hand lovingly over the
smooth head, and looking down into the soft, faithful eyes. "You're
worth a regiment of mere human animals! And yet they call you only a
dumb, soulless brute. Well, you won't be sorry to shake the Cranston
dust off your paws, anyhow. Come along!"
He turned into the footpath across the fields, which saved a mile of
hot, shelterless high road, and his face never relaxed its hard frown as
he went over that terrible interview again. "Well, the old man and I
opened our minds to one another with a refreshing candour, at any rate,"
he said, half aloud.--"Hallo!"
He stood staring blankly, not quite certain whether he was dreaming or
not. For there, as if she had started out of the earth itself, was
Olive--Roy meanwhile leaping around her and thrusting his importunate
nose into her hand, and otherwise claiming his meed of attention.
Roland paused for a moment, staggered. She was looking very lovely, in
the neatest of cool walking-dresses, and the blood rose softly to the
bewitching face as she met his astonished gaze. She had seen him long
before he had caught sight of her, and half shyly, half mischievously
had noted the effect of the surprise. But overhearing his last
reflection, the glad look changed into one of concern.
"What has happened, dear?" she began.
Instead of immediately replying he gave a couple of quick looks around,
and--a few seconds afterwards Olive was readjusting a somewhat displaced
hat, a soft, bright blush suffusing her face.
"There! I feel better now?" cried he who had treated her so
unceremoniously, speaking with quick vehemence. "What has happened?
Squalls--breakers--high seas--everything. To put it tersely, my
venerable ancestor and I have been exchanging opinions of each other in
terms far more forcible than polite." But Olive looked very grave.
"Oh, Roland. Was it about--about--I mean anything to do with
ourselves?"
"H'm! H'm! Well, as to that, it was about things in general. But
don't distress yourself, darling. It was bound to come sooner or later,
and for some time past the South Cone has been hoisted on that
particular coast. And now we have agreed to keep carefully out of each
other's way henceforth."
"But you'll make it up again, dear. People get in a rage with each
other and quarrel, but it doesn't last for ever. It would be awful if
it did."
"But this will. Olive, you don't know him, and I'm afraid, darling, you
don't half know me. He would have to sing very abjectly small indeed,
before I could forgive what he said--certainly no consideration of loss
or gain would induce me to do so. So here I stand--as here I came--
nobody."
"You are everybody to me, love," she answered bravely and cheerfully.
"All will come right one of these days, and even if not, we cannot do
without each other, whatever we can do without."
Sunshine after storm: balm to the wounded spirit. It is probable that,
for the time being, all considerations were forgotten, except that they
were alone together. The summer air breathed warm and free around them.
Underfoot the grass, recently mown, was short and turfy, beneath the
shade of the trees couched a few lazy, ruminating sheep, and the drowsy
roll of a mill-wheel, with its accompanying drip-drip of water, was just
audible, but everything was soft and slumbrous in the silent meadows.
They were alone--and he who had just bartered away his splendid
birthright for the love of this girl beside him, felt that he had his
reward. He could hardly believe that not an hour had passed since that
tornado scene of wrathful passion in yonder Hall, which they could just
discern through the trees.
"But, Olive, how on earth did you put in an appearance here just in the
nick of time?" he asked presently.
"Pure accident. I had been visiting two bed-ridden crones whom Margaret
had promised to go and see, but couldn't. The path leading home struck
into yours--so--so I couldn't help being behind you and hearing your
wicked words--and they were dreadfully wicked," she answered
mischievously. "But--hark!"
A male voice was heard approaching, alternately whistling and singing
snatches of a popular song of the day, then a tall, active figure
cleared the stile in front of them and drew up short.
"Hallo!"
"Oh, Eusty, you disgraceful defaulter. Is that how you keep your
promises?" cried Olive. "Didn't you vow you would come and meet me, and
now I've had to walk through two fields full of horrid cows all by
myself--and it's no thanks to you that I haven't been frightened to
death."
"Oh, here--ahem--I say, hold hard!" cried the Oxonian, quizzically
surveying the pair. "All by yourself--eh? Well, it strikes me, young
woman, you've fallen in with a pretty substantial escort."
"But not until I had passed the cows, you detestable boy," replied she,
with a tinge of colour in her bright, laughing face.
"I say, Dorrien, she implies that you're nobody," went on her brother,
without heeding her. "Says she had to come along all by herself. Rough
on you, that--eh?"
Roland laughed, and coming to the rescue turned the scale of "chaff"
against Eustace, who was fain to acknowledge at last that he was in a
minority, and to cry quarter.
"Hallo, Dorrien, don't sheer off," cried Eustace, as, having reached the
town, a halt suddenly took place. "Tack in and get your eye-teeth into
some cold sirloin, _anglice_--lunch!"
But the other shook his head.
"Oh, stow all that," went on the reckless youth in response to some
excuse. "Now, don't let's have any more talk over it, but 'bout ship
and steer for the ecclesiastical hang-out. There are only our two
selves. The reverend Padre won't be in till this afternoon, and the
other girls have gone out to lunch at the Gaskells. Olive, tell him he
must. He'll obey orders from you."
Roland hesitated. He had frequently dropped in in this informal way,
and now the temptation to sit for an hour at the same table with Olive,
with the prospect of a whole afternoon of her society, was strong. But
he remembered that his negotiations with her father were still pending,
and he had a shrewd idea that the next interview might not go off quite
so pleasantly. Meanwhile, it might strike the rector in the light of a
shabby thing, were he in a sort of way to steal a march upon him in his
absence. So he heroically and steadfastly refused. Had he known what
was to happen within the next twenty-four hours he would probably have
yielded.
"I'll look round later," he said. "I want to see the rector as soon as
he comes in. That'll do instead, Eustace, won't it?"
"Hang it! I suppose it must!" was the careless reply.
And then he bade good-bye to Olive. Only a pressure of the hand, and a
look into each other's eyes--no sweet, clinging embrace. An
unceremonious good-bye, as between people who expect to meet again in
the course of the same day, no murmured word of love and trust and
moving farewell. Yet perhaps it was better so. A little nod and a
bright smile as she turned away, and thus they parted, these two.
Little recked they how and where they would meet again.
Roland turned away in a very restless, dissatisfied frame of mind.
Everything seemed to be working round unfavourably. The rector might
not return home till late, and meanwhile he was condemned to these hours
of waiting. Though cool enough in an emergency, he was of a nervous
disposition, and uncertainty and inaction in a matter of this kind was
intolerable. Everything assumed an exaggerated aspect. What if the
rector should, after all, refuse his consent? Hitherto he had not
believed Dr Ingelow would offer any serious opposition; now, on turning
things over, it seemed first possible, then only too probable, that he
might. And Olive--he felt pretty certain she would, however
reluctantly, refuse to disregard her father's wishes, once they were
clearly laid down; nor in his heart of hearts would he have desired that
she should, paradoxical as it may seem. Lovers are proverbially
selfish, and it might be that Roland Dorrien was less so than the
general man. He had lived his life very much alone, with the result
that he had thought much, and developed a maturity of judgment
considerably beyond his years. How could he expect this girl to give up
her bright, happy home--how happy he himself had had ample opportunity
of observing--to wound, beyond all healing, those who had surrounded her
life with every tenderness and care, at the bidding of one whom, six
months ago, she had hardly heard of? He knew that he had won her heart
as no man would ever again win it, yet he would despise himself were he
to require such a sacrifice of her. No, the only thing would be to wait
for more favourable times.
So the afternoon wore on, and his restlessness increased more and more.
He could not read, thinking was worse, and there was no one to talk to.
Well, he would stroll round towards the Rectory again. This time luck
favoured him. As he approached it he caught sight of Dr Ingelow coming
from the opposite direction, and the two met at the gate.
"Ah, I was half expecting you yesterday," said the rector, as they shook
hands. "But come into the study. There we shan't be disturbed."
"And I fully intended to have returned yesterday," replied Roland, when
they were seated. "But the fact is, my father didn't get back till
late, and I had no opportunity of speaking to him until this morning."
"Yes. And--"
"The result was precisely what I expected. He was utterly unreasonable
and impracticable. In short, Dr Ingelow, I don't see how I can avoid
explaining that he has a violent prejudice against you and yours. That
may have had a great deal to do with it, but he had reasons of his own,
which, as they concern others, I am hardly at liberty to mention.
Anyhow, I could not for a moment think of falling in with his views, and
the result was a regular row."
"Do you mean that you quarrelled?" asked the rector.
"If a tolerably brisk interchange of compliments, and a mutual agreement
to keep carefully out of each other's way for the rest of our mutual
lives constitute a quarrel--and I rather think they do--why, then I must
admit we did," was the grim reply, and his face grew dark over the
recollection thus revived.
"Excuse me, Dorrien--you see I always consider myself to a certain
extent privileged--but I can see at a glance that you're a
quick-tempered man. Now, isn't it just possible that you were rather
hasty?" said the rector, in his kindest manner, bending a searching
glance upon the young man. "I mean," he went on in response to a
decided shake of the head, "you may have forgotten that, however harsh--
even unjust, as you think--your father may be, you still owe him a
certain amount of respect--of duty. Nothing can get rid of that fact."
Roland looked up quickly.
"Duty?" he echoed, with an intensity of bitterness which was not lost
upon the other. "Duty! My dear sir, I can assure you that that very
word formed subject matter for a pretty lively discussion between us,
ending as I have described. However, to drop these wretched family
details, which must be most tedious to you, you see now I have done my
best to meet your wishes, and if I have failed it has been through no
fault of my own--that I can say with a perfectly clear conscience." He
spoke with a suppressed eagerness which had been absent from his speech
in their first interview. Then the last thing he had anticipated was
failure in this quarter; now it was different.
The rector shook his head deprecatorily.
"I don't like to hear you take that tone. I fear your view of the
relation between father and son cannot be borne out. The Fifth
Commandment is explicit on the point. But there, this isn't the time
for sermonising, you'll say," he added with a grave, kind smile. "Only,
the idea of a breach of this relationship is, to my mind, one of the
most painful things in the world."
Roland looked unconvinced. He conjectured rightly that the good
priest's early youth had been fortunate in its natural guardians, and
now his own children adored him, which made all the difference.
"You will think me bold in stating that the religious side of the
question does not weigh with me in the least--circumstances alter
cases," was his reply. "And at any rate, Dr Ingelow, you will allow
that I have never tried to win your favour by feigning a religion which
I did not feel. However, to confine ourselves to the matter in hand. I
have tried my utmost to satisfy you in what you asked, and have failed.
But as I am perfectly in a position to marry independently of my
father's consent, I trust your answer will be favourable."
Outwardly calmness itself, the rector was in reality much perplexed. A
terrible family quarrel had taken place, indirectly owing to him and
his--a reflection sufficiently distressing to one of his refinement of
feeling. Then, again, this young man must not be allowed to throw up
his prospects for life in a fit of rash impulse and hot temper. No--at
all costs this must be prevented.
"We will waive the question of duty," he said. "But is there no chance
of a reconciliation? Surely there is. When you get to my age you will
realise that life is too short for these prolonged feuds; quarrels
between blood relations are of all things the most heart-rending, and
the day may come when you will bitterly regret this one. And then, to
take a lower ground. How can you, in a moment of anger, and all for the
sake of a few hasty words, throw up your really splendid prospects? And
how can I be a party to your doing so. Surely you must see that it is
impossible."
"There is no chance of any reconciliation," answered Roland
deliberately. "I would hardly forgive one or two of the things he dared
to say, even if he were to go down on his knees and beg me to--and I
think even you would hardly expect him to do that. As for what you are
good enough to call `a few hasty words,' I tell you we exchanged
opinions of each other that would have made your hair stand on end could
you have heard us; nor was that all. In the matter of prospects, I have
always considered my chances of ever possessing Cranston to be so very
vague and shadowy as not seriously worth reckoning in the light of
prospects. And then, look what such `prospects' would involve. Perhaps
twenty years of absolute slavery to the whims and caprices of the
hardest and most unloving of masters. Only think of that! And at fifty
I might find myself in possession, and Heaven knows I should deserve to.
So, in renouncing these most shadowy prospects, this morning, I could
not feel that I was actually undergoing any real loss. But I thought I
had made all this clear to you yesterday--I mean as regarded the
uncertainty of any prospects beyond the actual means in my possession,"
he added in an anxious tone.
"I don't think you understand me, Mr Dorrien," said the rector, rather
stiffly. "I might have hoped you would have known me better than to
suppose that I was reasoning otherwise than disinterestedly in this
matter of your eventually possessing Cranston or not; or that the latter
contingency would detract in my eyes from your eligibility to become my
daughter's husband, you being otherwise in a satisfactory position.
What I did mean to convey was this. You are young now; all your
feelings and aspirations are strong, and warm, and healthful, and you
are capable of self-sacrifice; you dearly love my child. I can see that
readily enough, although you are not one of the effusive order of
lovers," he went on, his tone softening, and a quiet, kindly smile
gleaming in his eyes. "You would make any sacrifice for her--and for
all this I honour you. But, as I said before, you are young. Well.
You give up this inheritance, and you do so cheerfully. Middle age
comes on, and you see what should have been yours in other hands. You
are a stranger in the home of your ancestors--you have the cares and
vexations--ay, and the disappointments of life crowding upon you, while
another enjoys in ease and luxury your noble birthright, which has then
passed away from you for ever. How will you feel then? Will you have
the strength resolutely to bear up against this most mortifying
contrast, to banish the thought of it far from you--or will it
embitter--eventually perhaps crush the remainder of your existence?
This is what I have been thinking of while we have been sitting here.
Now have _you_ thought of it?"
He laid his hand on the other's arm with an affectionate gesture, and
his dark eyes were full of sympathy as he bent his glance upon the young
man's face, awaiting the answer.
"I have thought of it, Dr Ingelow," was the quiet reply. "I had
already done so--had weighed the pros and cons most carefully before I
spoke to you yesterday. And--"
He stopped short. He was nearly giving the rector an inkling of the
other insurmountable obstacle which stood in the way of reconciliation,
and any material advantage it might bring with it, but with a natural
distaste for discussing family matters with an outsider--however
sympathetic--he forebore. Had he not done so, it is possible that the
answer to his wishes might have been different; as it was, Dr Ingelow
would not give up the notion that the quarrel between Roland and his
father, however grave, was yet capable of being healed, and it was not
for him, a Christian priest, irrespective of other considerations, to be
the means of widening the breach.
"Well now, Dorrien," he went on, after pausing to allow the other to
continue the remark if he wished, "you must see yourself in what an
extremely difficult position I am placed. How can I allow my child to
marry into a family which positively refuses to receive her? I cannot
do so, I fear, with any consideration for our own self-respect. Then,
apart from that, you are man of the world enough to know that nothing
remains private for long, and that this family quarrel of yours will
soon be in everybody's mouth. Now, I ask you, how can I and mine accept
the position of arch-mischief-makers, feud fomenters, schemers--call it
what you will--in which common consent will place us when it becomes
known how you have renounced your brilliant worldly prospects for
Olive's sake? Put yourself into my place for a moment--that may bring
it home to you. No, Dorrien, surely you must see that this is a
position we cannot consent to occupy, and, honoured as we are by your
proposal, I fear we must pain you by declining it--for the present, at
any rate."
Roland did not answer at once. In the rector's decided tones he felt
that his fate was sealed. There was no getting over this opposition,
and now, day by day, an insurmountable barrier would rise between him
and his love. The room seemed to go round with him--the heavily-bound,
solemn-looking volumes, the carved chairs, the still, white Christ upon
the black cross in the niche, all passed in succession before his eyes.
"And yet I had thought, Dr Ingelow," he said at last, and his voice was
thick and unsteady, "that you, if any man, would be above mere worldly
considerations, when the life's happiness of two people was in the
balance."
"My dear boy, don't--pray don't talk in that awfully desponding tone,"
said the rector, moved to the heart by the utter dejection set forth
upon the other's countenance. "Now, listen," and going over to him he
placed his hands upon his shoulders, in heart-felt, sympathetic touch.
"Wait a little while, then do your best to make up this lamentable
difference--who knows but what you may succeed far more readily than you
think? Then you shall have my hearty consent."
"That will be never," came the reply, quiet, but decided. "The thing is
impossible. So I suppose you will tell me that it's a case of resigning
oneself to the will of Providence," he continued in a tone of
indescribable bitterness, and with an approach to a sneer.
The other made no reply, and for some moments there was silence. There
was not a spark of anger or resentment in the priest's heart at the
implied scoff, and the compassion in his countenance deepened as he
gazed upon the man before him, plunged in the depths of disappointment.
He was no mean judge of character, and he had seen much in Roland
Dorrien to like and admire--yet he felt sure that the course he himself
had adopted in the present instance was the right--in fact, the only
safe one.
And Roland himself? As he sat there he was going through a mighty
struggle. He had tried fair means and failed, now he would be justified
in employing foul, said the tempter. If he could induce Olive
surreptitiously to link her lot with his, why then, when the step was
irremediable, her father would soon forgive her. The rector was the
very last man to bear rancour, especially towards his favourite child.
He would soon come round, and then how happy they would all be! The end
in this case would amply justify the means, and then--was not all fair
in love and war? No, it was not. Roland Dorrien had a code of honour
of his own. Had Dr Ingelow been such a man as his own father, for
instance, he would have felt abundantly justified in throwing all
scruple to the winds, but now he could not do it. He had sat at this
man's table and been treated by him in every respect as a trusted
friend. His doors had ever been open to him to come and go as he
listed, he had been admitted unreservedly and welcomed in this family
circle at a time when in his own home he was a stranger. Months had
passed in this pleasant, trustful intimacy, and now he felt that he
would rather die than betray the confidence of this kindly, open-hearted
friend, for whom, in spite of what had happened, he felt no whit less of
warm regard. It would be a mean and shabby trick, the very thought of
which he would strive to put far from him.
"Forgive me," he said at length. "I am an unmannerly brute to talk like
that. A cad, in fact."
"Roland, my dear boy," answered the rector in his most affectionate
tone, casting all ceremony to the winds. "Believe me, I have already
forgotten it, whatever it was. Now try and face your trouble bravely--
you are not alone in it, remember. And, Roland, you will not--not
attempt to see Olive alone until--at any rate until I have spoken to
her. You are too honourable for that, I know."
"I will not. But, Dr Ingelow, I cannot promise to give her up
altogether. It is only fair to tell you that."
The rector shook his head sadly.
"I am afraid you must bring yourself to face facts," he replied, as they
clasped hands. "Good-bye. We need not look upon each other as enemies
on account of this, need we?" he added, laying an affectionate,
detaining hand on the other's shoulder. "Good-bye for the present--and,
God bless you!"