"In my own heart love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success."
_Paracelsus_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada's frame of mind at this time was one of thorough content and
satisfaction. She had always taken life smoothly and with a certain
ease, perhaps inherited from her aunt, and she could manage either to
slip round its little angles and roughnesses, or else to exert a faculty
of not perceiving or comprehending them, to a really remarkable extent.
She was so well satisfied with herself that it never appeared possible
that others should not share the satisfaction to the full; and this
armour, call it amiability or self-complacency or what you will, made
her absolutely impervious to the darts which prick and goad more
thin-skinned victims. Even to good-natured Mrs Bennett it had
sometimes become apparent that Anthony was not so ardent a lover as
might have been expected, that he expressed no anxiety about the
wedding-day, that he was often late in coming, and not infrequently
stayed away when there was no reason to account for his absence; but Ada
was never ruffled by such reflections. It was a matter of course that
Anthony should be most happy when he was by her side, and if he were
obliged to stay away, she expressed a little contented pity, and smiled,
worked, and talked, with a serene absence of misgivings. Hers was not a
nature to be quickened into rare moments of deep delight; Anthony was
simply one of the things which had been sent to make her life what she
had always expected; it was a good match, as her uncle had repeatedly
assured her, they would have money, comforts, an excellent position; but
she had never been troubled with any doubt that in due time all these
would naturally come to her, and everything seemed only moving in the
sequence that was to be expected. Of any unfulfilled dream, or sense of
dissatisfaction in the relations between herself and Anthony, she was
unconscious, for the reason that it never entered her mind to conceive
of herself as other than she was.
Nevertheless, although her reflections could not so much as touch the
possibility of discontent on her lover's part, she was aware now and
then that he was both dull and moody, and it was in her eyes one of the
appointed pleasures of her lot that Mr Warren should be more attentive
and bent upon displaying his devotion than in the days which preceded
her engagement Mr Bennett used to laugh, and declare that Miles would
be jealous; but he was an honourable and unsuspicious man, more pleased
at an occasion for a joke than troubled by fear of mischief-making, nor
indeed had the thought of an actual preference to Anthony--Anthony, be
it observed, comprising all that he could give--entered further into
Ada's head than her uncle's. It was simply that Mr Warren's attentions
and little compliments were agreeable to her, and she had never been
accustomed to deny herself what she liked. Anthony himself was
indifferent about the matter, considering young Warren an empty-pated
and harmless youth, and wondering a little that Ada should make him
welcome to the house, but beyond that not troubling his head. The
Bennetts were so hospitable, their house so open, that it was hardly
possible to conceive a shutting of doors upon any one; and if such a
thing were needed, there was a natural solution in the kindly interest
Mr Bennett was known to show towards the young men who worked with him.
Both Mr Bennett and Anthony were ignorant of a good deal that passed,
such as meetings which were certainly not the result of chance, and
which Underham discussed actively. But after what has been told,
Anthony Miles could scarcely have borne to have found fault with Ada,
even if he had known the utmost. He was oppressed with a terrible sense
of wronging her, which, though it often produced intense nervous
irritation, made him the more scrupulously polite in every word and
action. Moreover, he was hesitating between two courses, and rather
bent upon dissection of his own motives than upon weighing Adas merits
and demerits, from which, with an instinctive generosity, he recoiled at
such a time. Since the discovery of his own feelings, it was impossible
for him not to realise the question of right or wrong involved, that
there were conflicting claims; he tried to think of it with cold words,
to force himself to judge as if from the outside, but more often he felt
with a blank despair that he could do nothing except let matters drift
on where the current carried them. Men sometimes call that resignation
which is no more than a fear of facing pain, and the deception may be so
subtle that it evades discovery until too late.
There had been an idea, on Anthony Miles's part, of his spending three
months of the early winter in London; for although his dreams had lost
their brilliancy, there are other motive-powers besides enthusiasm, and
he was feeling the need of work as a refuge from thought, and talked of
seeking occupation of some sort with more determination than he had yet
employed. But the days went on and he remained at Thorpe. To a certain
extent he had resumed his old position. He no longer avoided his
neighbours, and if he kept up any coldness towards the brothers at the
Red House, it was only now and then shown by an increase of the reserve
which had grown on him. To Hardlands he went by fits and starts,
sometimes finding one or another pretext for a daily visit, sometimes
absenting himself for a week at a time. Mrs Orde, the Squire's sister,
was for the present remaining at Hardlands, Mr Chesters will having
expressed a desire to that effect; and Bessie's despair at the idea of
leaving was sufficient to reconcile Winifred to the arrangement,
although she herself had a longing to go away. But she was happier in
Anthony's return to friendliness; of any other feelings on his part she
was spared the knowledge, since her own peculiar loyalty and
faithfulness prevented her from thinking such feelings possible.
Unfortunately, he had caught the trick of comparing her with Ada, and
there was but one end to all such comparisons, for although, had he only
known the one after the other, things might have seemed different, the
pang was very acute of perceiving to what he had wilfully blinded
himself; and every fresh instance of Winifred's sweet nobility of nature
came to him like a revelation. Perceiving his continued gloom, people
began to talk curiously again. Mr Robert could not feel as kindly
towards him as in the old days, yet Anthony's looks worried him; and had
he not unfortunately begun by getting hold of the wrong end of the
string, or had Anthony been magnanimous enough to understand and forgive
the error, he might have been the young man's best counsellor. As it
was, Anthony had to meet this second complication, which had grown out
of the first, with a sore perplexed heart, and no friend to help him.
He felt utterly humiliated as well as miserable, for although a happy
love is not the one thing needful to a man, and if it is denied him
there are other things worth living for, such a mistake as he had made
is apt for a time at least to destroy the spring of energy and doing.
Frank Orde soon followed his step-mother to Hardlands. He had taken his
long leave before Christmas, with the intention of spending it at
Thorpe. Anthony had never liked the thought of this arrangement, and
when he arrived there was something so attractive about him that he felt
all his prejudices confirmed. It was like a breath of fresh air coming
into the midst of the little household who were moving about with
saddened quiet faces, and already falling into the little feminine ways
which mark the absence of the more vigorous race. Captain Orde had the
physical activity which made him send his luggage in the carriage, and
himself walk from Underham on the day of his arrival; he had also a
taste for exploring and geological theories, the enthusiasm of which
roused his cousins into interest; indeed he was so full of energy, so
open-hearted, and so secure of sympathy, that to withhold it was as
difficult as to avoid being warmed by the sun of midsummer.
They were all at dinner one evening when the day had been so
persistently rainy that only Captain Orde, to whom weather was
apparently a matter of indifference, had faced it, coming in just in
time to avoid breaking the punctual routine which the Squire had
established at Hardlands. Mrs Orde sat with her back to the fire: a
thin woman, with a plain pleasant face, high cheek-bones, rugged
features, and an upper lip too long for proportion, but curving in to a
well-closed mouth; there were the two girls in their black dresses, and
Captain Orde, unlike them all with his dark twinkling eyes and a fresh
look of unbroken health. He had been telling them, with the vivid
enjoyment that characterised his talk, his adventures in the muddy lanes
round Thorpe, and of the difficulties he had met with in the way of
extracting information; but it was not until the old butler had left the
room, and they had drawn their chairs after a pleasant old-fashioned
winter custom round the fire, that he said,--
"By the way, I fell in again to-day with my friend the local Wesleyan,
as he tells me he calls himself. You haven't any of you taken to him
more kindly, have you?"
"Do you mean that dreadful David Stephens?" Bessie said, setting a
chestnut on the bar of the grate, and holding up her hand to screen
herself.
"It has been hard to do anything for him," said Winifred, thinking of
Captain Orde's old words, "almost impossible, although I dare say you
cannot believe it. How can one help him?"
"He would say, build him a chapel."
"Frank!" Bessie said indignantly, from her knees before the fire.
"I thought you were in earnest," said Winifred with a touch of
disappointment.
"I only say that is what he would choose. I don't recommend you to do
it. There is something he really wants a good deal more."
"Tell us what you mean," said Bessie, tossing a hot chestnut into his
lap.
"Never mind. It is nothing you will ever give, my dear," said Frank,
who was looking at Winifred, while his mother looked at him.
"I should think not, if it is for that man," said Bessie defiantly, "and
the sooner he goes away the better. We were all as glad as could be
when Anthony put a stop to his horrid plans."
But Winifred asked no more questions. Perhaps there had come to her
already, through the patient teaching of life, perceptions of a broader,
kindlier horizon than used to bound her view. Perhaps she saw dimly
what once seen can no more cease to grow upon our sight than the
daylight which from the first eastern flush grows into the glory of the
great day, that the blessed good in our fellow-man is that which we must
look for, and help, and nourish; that so best wrong may be made right,
and evil conquered, and weakness strengthened.
Bessie was not satisfied. "What did he mean?" she said in the
drawing-room, nestling against Mrs Orde, of whom she was fond by fits
and starts. "What did Frank think that I should never give?"
"I suppose he was talking about sympathy, my dear," said Mrs Orde,
dryly. She was a kind-hearted woman herself, but a little timid over
other people's kind-heartedness. I am not certain that she did not
consider it a dangerous doctrine, at any rate for young men.
"He had no business to say so," Bessie replied petulantly. "I am sure I
am as sorry as can be when any one is ill or anything. No sympathy,
indeed! What does he know about it?"
"What do you know about it," Mrs Orde said decidedly, "a young thing
like you? Frank was quite right. Go and play that sonata: I don't
believe you have practised it at all, and your lesson is to-morrow."
"There's a ring," Bessie announced, going slowly. "It must be Anthony,
for no one else comes at this time of night."
Captain Orde had also heard the ring, and the young men met in the
passage and came in together, making a contrast, more marked than usual,
as they stood side by side. Frank dark, high-shouldered, keen-eyed, and
Anthony with his slight, wiry, nervous build, and a face depending for
all beauty upon the expression which happened to be uppermost. It was
not at its best now, for he was angry with himself for coming, and
therefore, by a not unusual consequence, angry with those among whom he
had come. His own heart was warning him. And yet he would not listen
to his heart, lest it should shut him out from this haven. Other things
made it only too easy. Mrs Orde liked him. She knew nothing--having
so lately arrived, and from the circumstances having entered not at all
into society--of the story of the letter, which might have influenced
her judgment; but she knew that he was engaged to be married, and
perceiving that he was unhappy, which, indeed, he took no pains to hide
from the world, she mentally put two and two together, as she said, and
drew her own conclusions. Sensible, steady-going people are the most
romantic of all. Mrs Orde, who never did a foolish thing, began to
reflect what would be Frank's case if he were engaged to a woman who was
not worthy of him,--a supposition so possible that she could only
shudder, and be kinder than ever to Anthony. As for Winifred, she saw
quickly enough that he was gloomy and unhappy, and had not the heart to
put obstacles in the way. If anything were worrying him, it seemed only
natural that he should come back to his oldest friends, and it was a
sign of that reconciliation which she liked to think death had not
really hindered. Her own burden was made the heavier, but a woman does
not think of this. Anthony, who knew what Winifred did not, should not
have come, but--he was there. And he used to get hurt and sulky with
Captain Orde. That night Bessie, who was affronted with her cousin, and
anxious for an ally, began in the intervals of a little idle running up
and down on the keys of the piano,--
"What do you think, Anthony? Frank has struck up an acquaintance with
David Stephens. He is going to help him to build a chapel, and then to
hear him preach."
"Really!"
There was a good deal not very pleasant in the "really," and Frank
looked up from the newspaper he was turning over as he stood before the
fire, and laughed.
"Bessie's facts are indisputable," he said. "It is all true, of course.
By the way, I am afraid my ally is no ally of yours?"
"I've done my best to keep him out of the place," said Anthony, with
some bitterness. "The fellow is a rank dissenter to begin with, and
does a great deal of underground mischief of other kinds. I say nothing
against his character; I believe he deludes himself with the belief he
is in the right, and I dare say makes a good enough clerk, though it's a
pity he should have found an employment to keep him here. But I do not
consider it advisable to listen to his talk."
Frank took no notice of Anthony's tone, which had in it an imperious
touch. He said as if he were replying to a calmly conducted argument,--
"The question is scarcely whether or no one will listen. Merely as a
matter of cold prudence, it is surely better policy to help a stream to
find safe channels than to refuse it a passage through your land."
"That is the talk which will ruin the country," Anthony said coldly.
"Every doctrine nowadays has but one basis,--expediency."
"I don't understand what you are talking about," said Bessie, who was
playing, a gigue with quaint trills and turns in an undertone, "but I am
quite sure that Anthony is right."
"Yes, I think he is right," said Mrs Orde, sighing. She was looking at
her son, and admiring his sweet temper, but for all that she thought it
was necessary to oppose his opinions, lest they should carry him too
far. Winifred was glancing from one to the other, with her eyes
dilating and then melting.
"Well," Frank said good-humouredly, "it sometimes requires greater
courage to stick to the popular side than to go against it. If my
doctrine is ruining the country, the want of it is injuring David
Stephens, unless I am much mistaken."
"All the better,--if it drives him out of the place."
"O Anthony!" said Winifred, in a low tone of hurt reproach. He looked
round and saw she was on the other side, and grew a little white. Frank
looked at the same moment and brightened.
"It is wiser not to mix one's self up with such persons," said Mrs
Orde, talking exactly contrary to what she would have done, as people
often do.
"No, mother," said Captain Orde, becoming grave, "that is a very
helpless receipt. I suppose you don't want me to say that I don't agree
with the end to which this man's thoughts have led him? But they have
surely in some measure been forced upon him, and I hold that we are to
blame for it, and are responsible. I should be very glad to convince
him that we have a common interest, instead of dwelling with such
persistence upon our points of antagonism."
"You must excuse my doubting the wisdom of your plan," Anthony said in
the tone the conversation seemed to have awakened in him. "My own
conviction is that, for the sake of others, these men should be put down
with a strong hand."
He was too bitter to be anything but unjust, and Winifred looked sadly
at him, thinking of his own troubles, and the misjudging which she had
thought might have softened him towards others. She knew nothing of
that other trouble which had its grip upon his heart as he glanced round
at the bright room with its warm lights, and at Winifred and Frank,
thinking angrily that he had cut himself off from her, and another had
come in and filled his place. Nobody knew the wild, mad thoughts that
were battling with him that night. All that could be seen were four or
five people smiling and chatting, the fire crackling and leaping round a
log of wood, and throwing dancing shadows on the pretty chintzes, and
the bits of quaint old china, and the piano where Bessie was playing
soft visionary music with tears in her eyes; for the Squire had liked
the dreamy chords, and the girl had gone back to him, as she did more
often than they fancied. And yet to one of the number the pleasant and
kindly harmony of the hour was full of sharp discords, of things that
fretted and jarred him. He made up his mind that he would not come
again. He looked reproachfully at Winifred.
And yet, as he walked home across the silent fields, on which the moon
was casting cold silvery streaks, he felt as he had never felt before,
as if he could not marry Ada Lovell.