The summer goes by drowsily. Before the brambles are tinted a purplish
red, before the leaves of the spotted sycamore and tawny beech strew
the crisp carpet of the grove, the name, almost the memory, of Adelaide
Lefroy has passed from Nutshire. Fresher scandals have cropped up.
A certain great lady, mature in years, has seen fit to elope one
morning with her brother's stud-groom, a good-looking lad of twenty,
and so the more commonplace misdemeanor of the younger woman has to
make way for this startling event. Then the races come on, followed
by a big fancy-ball and a lawn-tennis tournament--the first held in
the county. Altogether the people have enough to busy their minds and
their tongues about besides those unfortunate and disreputable Lefroys,
who, moreover, have had the grace to retire from the scene at once and
supply no further food for popular comment for the time being.
Pauline and her sister go to Aunt Jo, under whose protection the former
intends to remain until the new year, when she is to return to her
native soil as Mrs. Everard of Broom Hill.
Robert has established himself in London, and is reading steadily for
his "exam." He refused at first to continue preparing for the army,
and offered to take his young brother with him and emigrate to some
fever-haunted colony on the coast of Brazil; but Armstrong vehemently
interposed, and pointed out to him that his only chance of success
lay in sticking to the profession that he had chosen. And so Master
Robert, after some demur, gave in, and Hal remained a pupil at Dr.
Jellett's, where, in the course of the summer, having worked himself
into the first cricket eleven, he speedily forgets the fate, bitterer
than death, that divides him forever from her who was more of mother
than sister to him during his boyhood. He forgets her more easily and
naturally than his elder brother, who, in the early vehemence of his
indignation, thrust the slippers her fingers worked for him into the
fire, mutilated half a dozen handkerchiefs marked with her hair, his
last birthday-gift from her just before he joined the militia, tore to
shreds the picture of a grinning chubby baby seated on Aunt Jo's _moire
antique_ knee which he found in an album on that lady's table, besides
other acts of theatrical repudiation, which called forth a murmur of
remonstrance from Pauline--Pauline, too scared and cowed at first to
realize as she does later the full measure, the heartless selfishness
of her sister's conduct.
The first month after the catastrophe is a very trying one to poor
Miss Darcy, whose grief is almost dumb, paralyzed by the shock that
has come to her without a word or sign of preparation, but which
is none the less bitter for all that. Pauline makes no effort to
lighten her burden, but sits all day long, when she is not writing to
her betrothed, in gloomy apathy, brooding over her wrongs, over the
comforts, the luxury she has lost, the position as wife of a wealthy
baronet she almost grasped, now out of her reach forever, _et cætera_.
And Lottie--poor, foolish Lottie--the child's tearful questions and
piteous pertinent inquiries for her dearest Addie, so painful to parry,
make the hours of day so unbearable that Miss Darcy at last packs her
off to a day-school in the neighborhood, where soon the variety of her
new life and the excitement of making friends have the desired effect.
Addie's name comes day by day less often to her lips, and at last is
heard no more.
Nutsgrove is closed; every window is heavily barred, carpets and
curtains are rolled up in cumbrous bundles, the pieces of furniture
in their holland blouses looking like ungainly ghosts in the deadened
light to poor Sally Turner, as she wanders weekly through the house,
incensing her master's property with red pepper to keep away the moths,
laying the dust with her fruitless tears.
Armstrong is re-established in his old quarters at Kelvick, both in
appearance and manner so little affected by his domestic calamity that
even his nearest friends forbear to sympathize with him, and come in
time to believe that Mrs. Armstrong's elopement has, after the first
sting, been accepted by the husband as an unqualified blessing rather
than a painful bereavement. But he steadfastly refuses the suggestion
of Robert Lefroy and of others to seek redress and freedom through the
arm of the law, grimly stating that divorce to him would be a useless
instrument, as he has had quite enough of matrimony to last him his
life.
In July the election comes on; and, after a most exciting and energetic
contest with a skillful and popular opponent, whose father is one of
the Government leaders, Armstrong is returned as Liberal member for his
native town, which for many years he represents, to the unqualified
satisfaction of his constituents.
The county sees little of him; he courteously but persistently refuses
all invitations to return to the society to which his marriage
introduced him, but, _en revanche_, seeks distraction in unlimited
aldermanic feasts, sober supper and card parties, and all kinds of
corporate festivities, and entertains also very successfully in his own
house--only gentlemen, of course. Young ladies no longer look on him
with eyes of interest or speculation, and Miss Challice never beckons
him to her tea-table now; but, when, toward the end of the year, that
young lady marries one of the curates who has vainly sighed at Miss
Deane's feet, his wedding-gift to her is viewed both by her mother and
her female friends as a fitting act of compensation for the unmeaning
and deceptive attention he paid her in the old days, before his own
most disastrous connection with that wretched young woman who inveigled
him so disastrously.
One evening in late December he sits in his office frowning
discontentedly at the contents of a letter lying on his desk in Aunt
Jo's old-fashioned spider-web handwriting. The note is affectionate and
mournful in tone, and contains a request--it is almost an appeal--that
he will be present at Pauline's marriage on the 14th proximo.
"I suppose I shall have to go; but it will be an awful nuisance," he
thinks fretfully. "From the way she puts it, I don't see how I can well
refuse; and, poor old soul, she has had so much to contend against, so
much trouble in her old age, that it would be churlish of--By Jove,
here comes the bridegroom-elect to enforce the invitation. No quarter
for me now! Well, Everard, how are you? Come in, come in--I'm quite
alone."
Mr. Everard enters with a rather rakish swagger, his face very red, his
blue eyes sparkling with what Armstrong thinks a jovial vinous glow. He
throws himself into a chair, stretches his legs well before him, and
says huskily--
"Seen the morning's paper, Armstrong?"
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"Births, deaths, and marriages?"
"No."
"No? Then there's something among them will interest you. See here, old
man."
He takes a crumpled newspaper from his breast, and lays it on the desk,
pointing with moist shaking finger to the following announcement, which
Armstrong reads aloud--
"On the 27th instant, by special license, Sir Arthur Saunderson, Bart.,
of Saunderson Park, Nutshire, Captain, Grenadier Guards, to Pauline
Rose, daughter of the late Colonel Lefroy of Nutsgrove."
"Hoax?" asks Armstrong breathlessly.
"Not a bit of it," Everard answers spasmodically--_bonâ fide_.
"Bolted three days ago; letter from the aunt last night, another from
her ladyship this morning announcing the fact, asking forgiveness,
explaining all most satisfactorily. Saunderson's been on her track for
the last month, dogging her everywhere. Found in the end she loved him
better than me; wouldn't wreck my happiness, and so bolted. Beautiful
letter; I'll show it to you."
Armstrong springs from his desk with a loud harsh laugh that echoes
weirdly through the silent room; then, going up to his flushed,
scowling visitor, seizes his hand with a grip that makes him wince:
"I congratulate you--I congratulate you, Everard, my boy: you're in
luck, and no mistake! I don't know when I heard a bit of news that gave
me greater pleasure. You're an honest lad; I liked you from the first,
and would have saved you if I could; but I saw it would have been of
no use. And now the baronet has done the job for you! Long life to
him--long life to him! Stay and dine with me, Jack, and we'll drink his
health and her ladyship's in the best bumper in my cellar. More power
to the pair of them--more power to them, I say!"
Everard frees his hand sullenly, and says, with an awkward impatience--
"All right, all right, Armstrong; you mean well, but--but--that will
do. Stay and dine with you--eh? Don't mind if I do; we ought to be good
company, by Jove, for we're both knocking about in much the same boat,
you and I."
"In much the same boat," Armstrong interrupts, with another grating
laugh--"in much the same boat, you call it--ha, ha! Not so, not so, my
boy; for you have gallantly drifted into port, your keel just a trifle
scratched, while I--I have been buffeted among the rocks and quicksands
of holy matrimony, and had the waters pitching into my raked sides.
In--in much the same boat, you call it! By Jove, that is a good one,
you know!"
"Oh, Armstrong, Armstrong, shut up! You mean well, I know," cries the
young man bitterly, his head dropping upon his breast; "but you can't
understand what I feel, or how I loved that girl almost from the first
day I saw her, how I would have crawled to the end of the world to give
her an hour's pleasure. To think--to think she'd treat me so, cast me
aside for that yellow-faced hound!"
"With his title and his twelve thousand a year. Come, Everard, come; do
her at least the justice to admit that she never tried to deceive you
as to her character, never tried to hide from you that she was vain,
worldly, ambitious, and candidly selfish, that her aim in life was to
marry as high up the tree as she could reach. You must admit that you
saw through her almost from the start, that you walked with unbandaged
eyes into the pitfall she prepared for you. Why, man alive, I've heard
you scores of times railing against her heartlessness, her selfish--"
"Oh, what does all that signify? Nothing--nothing; I loved her--I loved
her!" he reiterates irritably. "And, if you had ever loved any one
when you were my age, Armstrong, you'd find such considerations afford
precious little comfort to you in--in a crisis like this. I loved her,
her selfishness, her ambition, her worldliness, the queenly calm with
which she requited my slavish worship, her indifference--everything
about her I loved! Oh, Pauline, Pauline!"
Armstrong smiles and does not again try to pour oil on the troubled
waters, foreseeing, with a sense of relief, that the worldly violence
of his friend's woe will soon wear itself out, the scratch be healed
with the gracious aid of time.
Everard stays to dinner. During that trying repast and for many hours
afterward, far into the dismal night, he treats his patient host to the
full flavor of his bereavement in its many hysterical phases. He is by
turns morose, wrathful, fiendishly sarcastic, buoyant, bloodthirsty,
and maudlin; but, when he rises at last to depart, Armstrong has
successfully dissuaded him from his purpose of seeking death at once,
and has almost induced him to stick to his colors at Broom Hill, and
not show the white feather when the Saundersons return to Nutshire from
the honeymoon.
"Be a man, be a man, Everard!" he urges vehemently. "Show her and
him of what stuff you are made. Why in the world should you go and
leave your place in the middle of the hunting-season and wander over
the world, bellowing your woes and labeling yourself a jilted man,
an object of pity and derision to the whole county? Stay and face
them--stay and face them, my boy."
"I'll try--I'll try, by Jove, I will!" he answers, fervently wringing
his friend's hand. "I say, Armstrong, do you know, you're a thundering
good fellow, you are. And you'll come and look me up sometimes at Broom
Hill if I screw up my courage to stay, won't you? There's a bond of
union between us, you know. I'm in as bad a boat as you, any day, say
what you like. But--but there's justice and mercy somewhere, isn't
there, old fellow--if we believe what the parsons tell us--eh?"
"I hope so," says Armstrong, a little wearily. "Good-night!"