genuine anxiety, at the fallen pipe. It was beautifully colored--it had
cost him ten shillings. “I’ll pick up my pipe first,” he said. His face
brightened pleasantly--he looked handsomer than ever--as he examined the
precious object, and put it back in the case. “All right,” he said to
himself. “She hasn’t broken it.” His attitude as he looked at her again,
was the perfection of easy grace--the grace that attends on cultivated
strength in a state of repose. “I put it to your own common-sense,” he
said, in the most reasonable manner, “what’s the good of bullying me?
You don’t want them to hear you, out on the lawn there--do you? You
women are all alike. There’s no beating a little prudence into your
heads, try how one may.”
There he waited, expecting her to speak. She waited, on her side, and
forced him to go on.
“Look here,” he said, “there’s no need to quarrel, you know. I don’t
want to break my promise; but what can I do? I’m not the eldest son.
I’m dependent on my father for every farthing I have; and I’m on bad
terms with him already. Can’t you see it yourself? You’re a lady, and
all that, I know. But you’re only a governess. It’s your interest as
well as mine to wait till my father has provided for me. Here it is in a
nut-shell: if I marry you now, I’m a ruined man.”
The answer came, this time.
“You villain if you _don’t_ marry me, I am a ruined woman!”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t look at me in that way.”
“How do you expect me to look at a woman who calls me a villain to my
face?”
She suddenly changed her tone. The savage element in humanity--let the
modern optimists who doubt its existence look at any uncultivated man
(no matter how muscular), woman (no matter how beautiful), or child (no
matter how young)--began to show itself furtively in his eyes, to utter
itself furtively in his voice. Was he to blame for the manner in which
he looked at her and spoke to her? Not he! What had there been in the
training of _his_ life (at school or at college) to soften and subdue
the savage element in him? About as much as there had been in the
training of his ancestors (without the school or the college) five
hundred years since.
It was plain that one of them must give way. The woman had the most at
stake--and the woman set the example of submission.
“Don’t be hard on me,” she pleaded. “I don’t mean to be hard on _you._
My temper gets the better of me. You know my temper. I am sorry I forgot
myself. Geoffrey, my whole future is in your hands. Will you do me
justice?”
She came nearer, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm.
“Haven’t you a word to say to me? No answer? Not even a look?” She
waited a moment more. A marked change came over her. She turned slowly
to leave the summer-house. “I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr.
Delamayn. I won’t detain you any longer.”
He looked at her. There was a tone in her voice that he had never heard
before. There was a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them
before. Suddenly and fiercely he reached out his hand, and stopped her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She answered, looking him straight in the face, “Where many a miserable
woman has gone before me. Out of the world.”
He drew her nearer to him, and eyed her closely. Even _his_ intelligence
discovered that he had brought her to bay, and that she really meant it!
“Do you mean you will destroy yourself?” he said.
“Yes. I mean I will destroy myself.”
He dropped her arm. “By Jupiter, she _does_ mean it!”
With that conviction in him, he pushed one of the chairs in the
summer-house to her with his foot, and signed to her to take it. “Sit
down!” he said, roughly. She had frightened him--and fear comes seldom
to men of his type. They feel it, when it does come, with an angry
distrust; they grow loud and brutal, in instinctive protest against it.
“Sit down!” he repeated. She obeyed him. “Haven’t you got a word to say
to me?” he asked, with an oath. No! there she sat, immovable, reckless
how it ended--as only women can be, when women’s minds are made up.
He took a turn in the summer-house and came back, and struck his hand
angrily on the rail of her chair. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give way on
his side, or run the risk of something happening which might cause an
awkward scandal, and come to his father’s ears.
“Look here, Anne,” he began, abruptly. “I have got something to
propose.”
She looked up at him.
“What do you say to a private marriage?”
Without asking a single question, without making objections, she
answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:
“I consent to a private marriage.”
He began to temporize directly.
“I own I don’t see how it’s to be managed--”
She stopped him there.
“I do!”
“What!” he cried out, suspiciously. “You have thought of it yourself,
have you?”
“Yes.”
“And planned for it?”
“And planned for it!”
“Why didn’t you tell me so before?”
She answered haughtily; insisting on the respect which is due to
women--the respect which was doubly due from _him,_ in her position.
“Because _you_ owed it to _me,_ Sir, to speak first.”
“Very well. I’ve spoken first. Will you wait a little?”
“Not a day!”
The tone was positive. There was no mistaking it. Her mind was made up.
“Where’s the hurry?”
“Have you eyes?” she asked, vehemently. “Have you ears? Do you see how
Lady Lundie looks at me? Do you hear how Lady Lundie speaks to me? I am
suspected by that woman. My shameful dismissal from this house may be
a question of a few hours.” Her head sunk on her bosom; she wrung her
clasped hands as they rested on her lap. “And, oh, Blanche!” she
moaned to herself, the tears gathering again, and falling, this time,
unchecked. “Blanche, who looks up to me! Blanche, who loves me! Blanche,
who told me, in this very place, that I was to live with her when she
was married!” She started up from the chair; the tears dried suddenly;
the hard despair settled again, wan and white, on her face. “Let me
go! What is death, compared to such a life as is waiting for _me?_” She
looked him over, in one disdainful glance from head to foot; her voice
rose to its loudest and firmest tones. “Why, even _you_; would have the
courage to die if you were in my place!”
Geoffrey glanced round toward the lawn.
“Hush!” he said. “They will hear you!”
“Let them hear me! When _I_ am past hearing _them_, what does it
matter?”
He put her back by main force on the chair. In another moment they must
have heard her, through all the noise and laughter of the game.
“Say what you want,” he resumed, “and I’ll do it. Only be reasonable. I
can’t marry you to-day.”
“You can!”
“What nonsense you talk! The house and grounds are swarming with
company. It can’t be!”
“It can! I have been thinking about it ever since we came to this house.
I have got something to propose to you. Will you hear it, or not?”
“Speak lower!”
“Will you hear it, or not?”
“There’s somebody coming!”
“Will you hear it, or not?”
“The devil take your obstinacy! Yes!”
The answer had been wrung from him. Still, it was the answer she
wanted--it opened the door to hope. The instant he had consented to hear
her her mind awakened to the serious necessity of averting discovery by
any third person who might stray idly into the summer-house. She held
up her hand for silence, and listened to what was going forward on the
lawn.
The dull thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball was no longer to
be heard. The game had stopped.
In a moment more she heard her own name called. An interval of another
instant passed, and a familiar voice said, “I know where she is. I’ll
fetch her.”
She turned to Geoffrey, and pointed to the back of the summer-house.
“It’s my turn to play,” she said. “And Blanche is coming here to look
for me. Wait there, and I’ll stop her on the steps.”
She went out at once. It was a critical moment. Discovery, which meant
moral-ruin to the woman, meant money-ruin to the man. Geoffrey had not
exaggerated his position with his father. Lord Holchester had twice paid
his debts, and had declined to see him since. One more outrage on his
father’s rigid sense of propriety, and he would be left out of the will
as well as kept out of the house. He looked for a means of retreat,
in case there was no escaping unperceived by the front entrance.
A door--intended for the use of servants, when picnics and gipsy
tea-parties were given in the summer-house--had been made in the back
wall. It opened outward, and it was locked. With his strength it was
easy to remove that obstacle. He put his shoulder to the door. At the
moment when he burst it open he felt a hand on his arm. Anne was behind
him, alone.
“You may want it before long,” she said, observing the open door,
without expressing any surprise, “You don’t want it now. Another person
will play for me--I have told Blanche I am not well. Sit down. I have
secured a respite of five minutes, and I must make the most of it. In
that time, or less, Lady Lundie’s suspicions will bring her here--to see
how I am. For the present, shut the door.”
She seated herself, and pointed to a second chair. He took it--with his
eye on the closed door.
“Come to the point!” he said, impatiently. “What is it?”
“You can marry me privately to-day,” she answered. “Lis ten--and I will
tell you how!”
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
THE PLAN.
SHE took his hand, and began with all the art of persuasion that she
possessed.
“One question, Geoffrey, before I say what I want to say. Lady Lundie
has invited you to stay at Windygates. Do you accept her invitation? or
do you go back to your brother’s in the evening?”
“I can’t go back in the evening--they’ve put a visitor into my room. I’m
obliged to stay here. My brother has done it on purpose. Julius helps me
when I’m hard up--and bullies me afterward. He has sent me here, on
duty for the family. Somebody must be civil to Lady Lundie--and I’m the
sacrifice.”
She took him up at his last word. “Don’t make the sacrifice,” she said.
“Apologize to Lady Lundie, and say you are obliged to go back.”
“Why?”
“Because we must both leave this place to-day.”
There was a double objection to that. If he left Lady Lundie’s, he would
fail to establish a future pecuniary claim on his brother’s indulgence.
And if he left with Anne, the eyes of the world would see them, and the
whispers of the world might come to his father’s ears.
“If we go away together,” he said, “good-by to my prospects, and yours
too.”
“I don’t mean that we shall leave together,” she explained. “We will
leave separately--and I will go first.”
“There will be a hue and cry after you, when you are missed.”
“There will be a dance when the croquet is over. I don’t dance--and I
shall not be missed. There will be time, and opportunity to get to
my own room. I shall leave a letter there for Lady Lundie, and a
letter”--her voice trembled for a moment--“and a letter for Blanche.
Don’t interrupt me! I have thought of this, as I have thought of every
thing else. The confession I shall make will be the truth in a few
hours, if it’s not the truth now. My letters will say I am privately
married, and called away unexpectedly to join my husband. There will be
a scandal in the house, I know. But there will be no excuse for sending
after me, when I am under my husband’s protection. So far as you are
personally concerned there are no discoveries to fear--and nothing which
it is not perfectly safe and perfectly easy to do. Wait here an hour
after I have gone to save appearances; and then follow me.”
“Follow you?” interposed Geoffrey. “Where?” She drew her chair nearer to
him, and whispered the next words in his ear.
“To a lonely little mountain inn--four miles from this.”
“An inn!”
“Why not?”
“An inn is a public place.”
A movement of natural impatience escaped her--but she controlled
herself, and went on as quietly as before:
“The place I mean is the loneliest place in the neighborhood. You have
no prying eyes to dread there. I have picked it out expressly for that
reason. It’s away from the railway; it’s away from the high-road: it’s
kept by a decent, respectable Scotchwoman--”
“Decent, respectable Scotchwomen who keep inns,” interposed Geoffrey,
“don’t cotton to young ladies who are traveling alone. The landlady
won’t receive you.”
It was a well-aimed objection--but it missed the mark. A woman bent on
her marriage is a woman who can meet the objections of the whole world,
single-handed, and refute them all.
“I have provided for every thing,” she said, “and I have provided for
that. I shall tell the landlady I am on my wedding-trip. I shall say
my husband is sight-seeing, on foot, among the mountains in the
neighborhood--”
“She is sure to believe that!” said Geoffrey.
“She is sure to _dis_believe it, if you like. Let her! You have only
to appear, and to ask for your wife--and there is my story proved to be
true! She may be the most suspicious woman living, as long as I am alone
with her. The moment you join me, you set her suspicions at rest. Leave
me to do my part. My part is the hard one. Will you do yours?”
It was impossible to say No: she had fairly cut the ground from under
his feet. He shifted his ground. Any thing rather than say Yes!
“I suppose _you_ know how we are to be married?” he asked. “All I can
say is--_I_ don’t.”
“You do!” she retorted. “You know that we are in Scotland. You know that
there are neither forms, ceremonies, nor delays in marriage, here. The
plan I have proposed to you secures my being received at the inn, and
makes it easy and natural for you to join me there afterward. The
rest is in our own hands. A man and a woman who wish to be married (in
Scotland) have only to secure the necessary witnesses and the thing is
done. If the landlady chooses to resent the deception practiced on her,
after that, the landlady may do as she pleases. We shall have gained
our object in spite of her--and, what is more, we shall have gained it
without risk to _you._”
“Don’t lay it all on my shoulders,” Geoffrey rejoined. “You women
go headlong at every thing. Say we are married. We must separate
afterward--or how are we to keep it a secret?”
“Certainly. You will go back, of course, to your brother’s house, as if
nothing had happened.”
“And what is to become of _you?_”
“I shall go to London.”
“What are you to do in London?”
“Haven’t I already told you that I have thought of every thing? When I
get to London I shall apply to some of my mother’s old friends--friends
of hers in the time when she was a musician. Every body tells me I have
a voice--if I had only cultivated it. I _will_ cultivate it! I can live,
and live respectably, as a concert singer. I have saved money enough to
support me, while I am learning--and my mother’s friends will help me,
for her sake.”
So, in the new life that she was marking out, was she now unconsciously
reflecting in herself the life of her mother before her. Here was the
mother’s career as a public singer, chosen (in spite of all efforts to
prevent it) by the child! Here (though with other motives, and under
other circumstances) was the mother’s irregular marriage in Ireland,
on the point of being followed by the daughter’s irregular marriage in
Scotland! And here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for
it--the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and
had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world! “My Anne
is my second self. She is not called by her father’s name; she is called
by mine. She is Anne Silvester as I was. Will she end like Me?”--The
answer to those words--the last words that had trembled on the dying
mother’s lips--was coming fast. Through the chances and changes of many
years, the future was pressing near--and Anne Silvester stood on the
brink of it.
“Well?” she resumed. “Are you at the end of your objections? Can you
give me a plain answer at last?”
No! He had another objection ready as the words passed her lips.
“Suppose the witnesses at the inn happen to know me?” he said. “Suppose
it comes to my father’s ears in that way?”
“Suppose you drive me to my death?” she retorted, starting to her feet.
“Your father shall know the truth, in that case--I swear it!”
He rose, on his side, and drew back from her. She followed him up. There
was a clapping of hands, at the same moment, on the lawn. Somebody had
evidently made a brilliant stroke which promised to decide the game.
There was no security now that Blanche might not return again. There
was every prospect, the game being over, that Lady Lundie would be free.
Anne brought the interview to its crisis, without wasting a moment more.
“Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn,” she said. “You have bargained for a private
marriage, and I have consented. Are you, or are you not, ready to marry
me on your own terms?”
“Give me a minute to think!”
“Not an instant. Once for all, is it Yes, or No?”
He couldn’t say “Yes,” even then. But he said what was equivalent to it.
He asked, savagely, “Where is the inn?”
She put her arm in his, and whispered, rapidly, “Pass the road on the
right that leads to the railway. Follow the path over the moor, and the
sheep-track up the hill. The first house you come to after that is the
inn. You understand!”
He nodded his head, with a sullen frown, and took his pipe out of his
pocket again.
“Let it alone this time,” he said, meeting her eye. “My mind’s upset.
When a man’s mind’s upset, a man can’t smoke. What’s the name of the
place?”
“Craig Fernie.”
“Who am I to ask for at the door?”
“For your wife.”
“Suppose they want you to give your name when you get there?”
“If I must give a name, I shall call myself Mrs., instead of Miss,
Silvester. But I shall do my best to avoid giving any name. And you will
do your best to avoid making a mistake, by only asking for me as your
wife. Is there any thing else you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Be quick about it! What is it?”
“How am I to know you have got away from here?”
“If you don’t hear from me in half an hour from the time when I have
left you, you may be sure I have got away. Hush!”
Two voices, in conversation, were audible at the bottom of the
steps--Lady Lundie’s voice and Sir Patrick’s. Anne pointed to the door
in the back wall of the summer-house. She had just pulled it to again,
after Geoffrey had passed through it, when Lady Lundie and Sir Patrick
appeared at the top of the steps.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
THE SUITOR.
LADY LUNDIE pointed significantly to the door, and addressed herself to
Sir Patrick’s private ear.
“Observe!” she said. “Miss Silvester has just got rid of somebody.”
Sir Patrick deliberately looked in the wrong direction, and (in the
politest possible manner) observed--nothing.
Lady Lundie advanced into the summer-house. Suspicious hatred of the
governess was written legibly in every line of her face. Suspicious
distrust of the governess’s illness spoke plainly in every tone of her
voice.
“May I inquire, Miss Silvester, if your sufferings are relieved?”
“I am no better, Lady Lundie.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said I was no better.”
“You appear to be able to stand up. When _I_ am ill, I am not so
fortunate. I am obliged to lie down.”’
“I will follow your example, Lady Lundie. If you will be so good as to
excuse me, I will leave you, and lie down in my own room.”
She could say no more. The interview with Geoffrey had worn her out;
there was no spirit left in her to resist the petty malice of the woman,
after bearing, as she had borne it, the brutish indifference of the man.
In another moment the hysterical suffering which she was keeping down
would have forced its way outward in tears. Without waiting to know
whether she was excused or not, without stopping to hear a word more,
she left the summer-house.
Lady Lundie’s magnificent black eyes opened to their utmost width, and
blazed with their most dazzling brightness. She appealed to Sir Patrick,
poised easily on his ivory cane, and looking out at the lawn-party, the
picture of venerable innocence.
“After what I have already told you, Sir Patrick, of Miss Silvester’s
conduct, may I ask whether you consider _that_ proceeding at all
extraordinary?”
The old gentleman touched the spring in the knob of his cane, and
answered, in the courtly manner of the old school:
“I consider no proceeding extraordinary Lady Lundie, which emanates from
your enchanting sex.”
He bowed, and took his pinch. With a little jaunty flourish of the hand,
he dusted the stray grains of snuff off his finger and thumb, and looked
back again at the lawn-party, and became more absorbed in the diversions
of his young friends than ever.
Lady Lundie stood her ground, plainly determined to force a serious
expression of opinion from her brother-in-law. Before she could speak
again, Arnold and Blanche appeared together at the bottom of the steps.
“And when does the dancing begin?” inquired Sir Patrick, advancing to
meet them, and looking as if he felt the deepest interest in a speedy
settlement of the question.
“The very thing I was going to ask mamma,” returned Blanche. “Is she in
there with Anne? Is Anne better?”
Lady Lundie forthwith appeared, and took the answer to that inquiry on
herself.
“Miss Silvester has retired to her room. Miss Silvester persists in
being ill. Have you noticed, Sir Patrick, that these half-bred sort of
people are almost invariably rude when they are ill?”
Blanche’s bright face flushed up. “If you think Anne a half-bred person,
Lady Lundie, you stand alone in your opinion. My uncle doesn’t agree
with you, I’m sure.”
Sir Patrick’s interest in the first quadrille became almost painful to
see. “_Do_ tell me, my dear, when _is_ the dancing going to begin?”
“The sooner the better,” interposed Lady Lundie; “before Blanche picks
another quarrel with me on the subject of Miss Silvester.”
Blanche looked at her uncle. “Begin! begin! Don’t lose time!” cried the
ardent Sir Patrick, pointing toward the house with his cane. “Certainly,
uncle! Any thing that _you_ wish!” With that parting shot at her
step-mother, Blanche withdrew. Arnold, who had thus far waited in
silence at the foot of the steps, looked appealingly at Sir Patrick. The
train which was to take him to his newly inherited property would start
in less than an hour; and he had not presented himself to Blanche’s
guardian in the character of Blanche’s suitor yet! Sir Patrick’s
indifference to all domestic claims on him--claims of persons who
loved, and claims of persons who hated, it didn’t matter which--remained
perfectly unassailable. There he stood, poised on his cane, humming an
old Scotch air. And there was Lady Lundie, resolute not to leave him
till he had seen the governess with _her_ eyes and judged the governess
with _her_ mind. She returned to the charge--in spite of Sir Patrick,
humming at the top of the steps, and of Arnold, waiting at the bottom.
(Her enemies said, “No wonder poor Sir Thomas died in a few months after
his marriage!” And, oh dear me, our enemies _are_ sometimes right!)
“I must once more remind you, Sir Patrick, that I have serious reason
to doubt whether Miss Silvester is a fit companion for Blanche. My
governess has something on her mind. She has fits of crying in private.
She is up and walking about her room when she ought to be asleep. She
posts her own letters--_and,_ she has lately been excessively insolent
to Me. There is something wrong. I must take some steps in the
matter--and it is only proper that I should do so with your sanction, as
head of the family.”
“Consider me as abdicating my position, Lady Lundie, in your favor.”
“Sir Patrick, I beg you to observe that I am speaking seriously, and
that I expect a serious reply.”
“My good lady, ask me for any thing else and it is at your service. I
have not made a serious reply since I gave up practice at the
Scottish Bar. At my age,” added Sir Patrick, cunningly drifting into
generalities, “nothing is serious--except Indigestion. I say, with the
philosopher, ‘Life is a comedy to those who think, and tragedy to those
who feel.’” He took his sister-in-law’s hand, and kissed it. “Dear Lady
Lundie, why feel?”
Lady Lundie, who had never “felt” in her life, appeared perversely
determined to feel, on this occasion. She was offended--and she showed
it plainly.
“When you are next called on, Sir Patrick, to judge of Miss Silvester’s
conduct,” she said, “unless I am entirely mistaken, you will find
yourself _compelled_ to consider it as something beyond a joke.” With
those words, she walked out of the summer-house--and so forwarded
Arnold’s interests by leaving Blanche’s guardian alone at last.
It was an excellent opportunity. The guests were safe in the
house--there was no interruption to be feared, Arnold showed himself.
Sir Patrick (perfectly undisturbed by Lady Lundie’s parting speech) sat
down in the summer-house, without noticing his young friend, and asked
himself a question founded on profound observation of the female sex.
“Were there ever two women yet with a quarrel between them,” thought
the old gentleman, “who didn’t want to drag a man into it? Let them drag
_me_ in, if they can!”
Arnold advanced a step, and modestly announced himself. “I hope I am not
in the way, Sir Patrick?”