That winter dragged heavily to more than one of those whose stories I
have been telling in a broken one-sided fashion enough. Anthony, one of
whose failings, perhaps, was the procrastination which is often joined
to a certain eager impetuosity, was going on from day to day without
taking a decided step as to his marriage. The spring had been the time
originally proposed; and though at one time he had been disposed to
hasten matters, his wish had received a check which he had not
forgotten. Ada, indeed, did not encourage him to press it. She had
lost her old brightness, and the constant smiles were exchanged for a
kind of listless irritability, which sometimes broke out into querulous
complaint. Nothing had been heard of Mr Warren since he had left them;
it seemed as if the young man were trying to forget Underham, or were
ashamed of his feelings. At Hardlands life was very quiet. Mrs Orde
was doing her best to act as a mother to the two girls; people said how
fortunate it was that she was able to live with them, which was true
enough; and yet poor Winifred sometimes wondered how many little jars
and frets had grown into her life. Frank Orde, who was there again soon
after Easter, sometimes wondered sadly, too. His step-mother was a
true-hearted woman, full of practical common-sense, but there was a want
of sympathy between her and Winifred which could not be explained. The
girl was always admiring her and blaming herself for it, but it is
probable that it was one of those contrarieties which could hardly have
been otherwise. There are people who, quite unconsciously, seem to
place us at a disadvantage. We may like them, even love them, but it is
from some force of circumstances: they destroy our ease, banish our
ideas, and reduce us in some strange fashion to nonentities. Winifred
used to puzzle herself by trying to think how this could be. She had a
strong sweet nature, to which people turned instinctively for help, but
she would shrink at some little speech of her aunt's which yet was quite
free from any sting of unkindness. The fear of bringing it down upon
herself would often hamper her, even prevent her from doing what she
longed to do. One is struck sometimes by the boundaries with which
certain lives are hedged in. They seem so small, a word, an allusion,--
perhaps no more than a thread, and yet the thread is as impassable as
any fence. Frank Orde, who loved Winifred with all his heart, used to
wonder sadly, as I have said, at the want of harmony between the two
women who were to him the best and dearest in the world. Perhaps, if he
had but known it, here was a little unfolding of the riddle, a touch of
jealousy making the mother cold and sarcastic. It was not much, but it
caused Winifred's life to be a little harder than it need have been, at
a time when it was hard enough, poor child!
She and Anthony met but seldom through the winter, for after that one
interview, which Winifred blamed herself for holding in tender
remembrance, they knew that it was better not to see each other more
than was necessary. But when the spring came, the time when all
beautiful things seem possible, the burden weighed more heavily, and she
longed feverishly to hear that the marriage day was fixed.
Anthony, too, felt that the delay must not last much longer. Ada could
not accuse him of having given her no time in which to make her
resolution, and these months of waiting seemed to be eating the heart
out of more lives than one. Without coming to a determination
beforehand, he one morning obeyed a sudden impulse and started for
Underham to see Mr Bennett and let matters be set in train.
His mother went to the gate with him, where Nat Wills was at work,
putting in some plants which Mr Robert had sent over. Anthony turned
round more than once to see her nodding at him, and smiling with happy
content. As he passed through the village the little gardens were
bright with clumps of blue gentianellas, out of the midst of which
scarlet anemones blazed. Inside the school the children were singing
and marching, and stamping merrily as they marched; the rooks were hard
at work, the air was full of sound: here was Anthony setting off to fix
his wedding-day. They are sad hearts sometimes that go on what should
be the happiest errands.
He had scarcely got out of the village, however, when, to his surprise,
he saw Mr Bennett himself driving towards him. He did not notice
Anthony until he was close upon him, and then pulled up suddenly.
"I was coming to Thorpe to see you, Miles," he said in an oddly
constrained voice. "I suppose you are on the road to our house?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, would you mind driving a mile towards Appleton with me instead?
I've some things I must talk over with you quietly, and should be glad
to feel secure from interruptions."
At any other time Anthony might have been struck with the contradiction
that after he had jumped into the dog-cart, Mr Bennett, instead of
plunging at once into his subject in his usual good-tempered, pompous
fashion, remained silent, and seemed to have a difficulty in beginning
the conversation. But Anthony was too much absorbed in his own
difficulties to notice those of another, and the silence was too great a
relief for him to think it strange.
It troubled his companion, however, for he did not know how to break it,
and being a straightforward man, any roundabout course was very
unwelcome. He looked over the hedge-rows on either side, at the fields
which, owing to a wann wet winter, had lost no vividness of green, at
the apple orchards nestling round the old thatched and weather-beaten
farms, at the less frequent patches where the blue green of the young
wheat contrasted with the red earth from which it sprang; but nothing
that he saw helped him to his purpose.
"There's been too much rain for the crops," he said at last, with a
sudden vigour as if this were the thought he had been maturing all the
while. "At this rate everything will be washed up again. I saw Fisher
at the turnpike,--you know Fisher?--and he detained me for at least
fifteen minutes talking over his grievances. Otherwise I should have
met you nearer home."
"Fisher talks for a dozen people besides himself. Mr Mannering is his
landlord, is he not?"
"Ah, yes, yes. Mr Robert is a thoroughly upright man," said Mr
Bennett, vaguely. "Never in my life saw any one so pleased as he was
when I took him out news of what that poor Stephens had said,--never.
Well, I was always certain something would set that matter straight."
"You at least acted as if it had never been crooked," Anthony said
warmly, at once.
"Don't say anything about it," said Mr Bennett, getting red and
uncomfortable. "There's another thing I'm afraid is crooked, which--
which I'm ashamed to talk to you about, that's the long and short of it.
I never thought I could be driven to fence and shuffle over any
business as I've been shuffling now. I'd sooner bite my tongue out than
tell it. But there's the thing,--past my altering, and I've the shame
of it, if that's any comfort to you."
The man was speaking in short sharp sentences, as unlike as possible to
his usual genial rather over-familiar manner. Some presentiment seemed
to seize Anthony, and his face grew hard.
"Well, what is it?" he said in the deep tone he sometimes used.
"I wouldn't have had this to tell you for half a years income."
"If it has to be told I can't see that any good can be caused by delay."
Certainly Anthony's manner was not encouraging. "I only hope you will
exonerate me and her aunt," said Mr Bennett, nervously.
"Then it's about Ada?" said Anthony, after a moment's pause.
"I'm ashamed to say it is."
"Well?"
"It's anything but well. Though I am her uncle, I do say she has
behaved disgracefully. She says she did not know her own mind when she
accepted you, and that she has discovered she always cared for Adolphus
Warren. His going away, she declares, opened her eyes--"
"You should give effects their right causes," said Anthony, in a low
bitter voice. "Say the change in his position."
"I'm half afraid of it," said Mr Bennett, whipping the old grey in his
perturbation. "What can I say? Nothing can be worse. It has cut us
both to the heart. I utterly declined at first to tell you, I was so
ashamed; but she's had one fit of hysterics after another, until her
aunt is quite worn out; and, unpleasant as it was, I felt you ought to
be kept in ignorance no longer. I've always thought she was so amenable
to what was right, but I'm really afraid nothing will move her."
"You need not fear my making the attempt," said Anthony, still in the
same tone.
"You've a right to hold her to her promise," said Mr Bennett,
unheeding. "Of course you've a right, and so I told her. But women are
such irrational beings, that I really believe sometimes their minds
can't grasp the obligation of a right. You might bring an action
against her, for the matter of that. I should not oppose it. Any
possible reparation--"
"Do you suppose that would console me?" said Anthony, grimly. "But I'll
tell you the whole truth, for you have behaved just as every one in the
neighbourhood would have expected from you. It isn't pleasant for a man
to be kicked over at any time, but I had begun to think, from one or two
reasons with which I need not trouble you, that we had made a mutual
mistake. I went so far one day as to tell Miss Lovell something of the
sort--"
"You did!" said Mr Bennett, facing round in wonder.
"And if she had known her own mind,--it was not so long ago as to make
that impossible,--it would have saved some unpleasantness."
"You don't feel it so much, then?" said Mr Bennett, not quite sure
whether he liked this or not.
"I imagine you would hardly begrudge me that alleviation?"
"O, certainly not, certainly not! I'm exceedingly relieved to find the
blow not so heavy as we feared it might be. Then I presume the
unfortunate affair may be allowed to drop as quietly as we can arrange
between us?"
"I shall not call out Warren, nor begin a lawsuit, if that is what you
mean. As to the quietness, I have no doubt that by this time all
Underham knows that Miss Lovell has thrown me over."
"Confound Mrs Featherly!" muttered Mr Bennett, under his breath.
"Don't be uneasy. In these cases it is always the rejected who is the
object of scorn. Besides, is not Warren the heir to a baronetcy?"
"I don't know what you mean. It was none of my seeking," said Mr
Bennett, hotly.
"Well, well, you should allow for a man's grimacing a little when he
finds himself in such an unexpected position. Now, as the news has been
broken to me, and we are not on the way for anywhere so far as I am
concerned, I will jump out, and wish you good by."
Mr Bennett reined up the old grey so suddenly that he almost threw her
on her haunches.
"Good heavens, what am I about!" he said apologetically. "This business
has quite upset me. And I honestly tell you, Miles, I don't understand
your way of taking it. In my days, if my wife had treated me so, I--I
should have cut my throat--though I'm sure I don't want you to do
anything so rash. Still--"
Anthony had sprung into the road, and now was leaning over the wheel
with his arm against the dog-cart. He said in a changed voice, "I can't
wonder that it should puzzle you. I have been a puzzle to myself for a
long time past. I doubt whether ever any one has managed to make so
many mistakes as I. Don't blame Ada too much, I have been at least as
much in fault as she, and yet I want both you and Mrs Bennett to think
as kindly of me as you can. Nothing can ever touch the remembrance of
your goodness."
He spoke with a strong feeling which brought Mr Bennett back to his
side in a moment. He caught Anthony's hand, and began shaking it
vehemently.
"My dear fellow, you've behaved--I can't tell you how I think you've
behaved," he said, stopping only to begin again. It was the greatest
possible relief to him that he might go home and tell his wife that
matters were all comfortably settled, and that they need not be angry
with Ada any more.
"Do you think so?" said Anthony, oddly. He shook hands again to satisfy
Mr Bennett, and then drew back from the dog-cart. The old grey, a
little affronted at her unaccustomed treatment, started off with a
snort. Mr Bennett was looking back, and waving farewells so long as
the road kept Anthony in sight. Overhead the clouds were parting, a
yellow sun shone out and struck the young glistening leaves, a blackbird
was whistling with clear beautiful notes; a great heap of weeds was
burning in a field close by where some boys were shouting. Anthony
found himself noting everything, wondering idly, and shutting his mind's
door by that sort of compulsion which we have all of us in some measure
in our power. When he could no longer do this, he set off, and walked
for half a mile as quickly as if he were walking a match.
That Ada should have treated him in this manner was the utmost
humiliation his pride could have endured, the more so because she had
bestowed upon him so many gentle flatteries, had been so soft and
yielding, so free from even the small reproaches for which he
acknowledged she might at times have had an excuse. And the humiliation
became greater as he began to recollect past trifles which had been
forgotten, but which floated up to his remembrance now, as the flood
which sweeps away boundaries will bring to the surface little in
significant straws. He recalled words and actions of Ada's throughout
their engagement; the manner in which she had quoted Mr Warren, who had
been too small a figure to make an impression on Anthony; the readiness
with which she accepted his society; he recollected that evening when he
had made his appeal to Ada, and had seen two dim figures coming towards
him under the trees, and her quick excuses. He turned from himself with
a sick disgust as he realised how completely he had taken the false for
the true, the true for the false. There was a terrible satire in his
life, or so it seemed to him when he thought of his old self-reliance,
and the end of it all.
Yet it must be allowed that, although this sting of humiliation was the
first dominant feeling in his mind, it quickly began to yield before the
relief with which he felt as if a long strain had suddenly relaxed. He
stood still and stretched himself, flinging back his arms with a longing
to express this joy of freedom by some bodily action. There was a gate
close by him which had fallen off its hinges; he set to work to put it
up again, labouring with a fire and vigour which was like an old
inheritance renewed, and afterwards leaning over it and looking from the
high ground on which he stood to the wooded fields below. Where the
hedge dipped he could see the Thorpe cottages lying in rich brown
patches, the Hardlands' firs, white smote curling up from the house.
Ada and Mr Warren began to fade out of his mind like some blurred
unpleasant dream; Winifred grew into life, brown-haired Winifred looking
into his face with kind fearless eyes. He stood irresolute, an impulse
which was as strong as it was sudden urging him. How could he so
dishonour Winifred as to go to her at once, when but an hour ago he was
the accepted, lover of another woman!--and yet, how could he not go?
Even now he might be too late. Something had been said of Frank Orde in
his hearing, against which his heart had leaped up with mute rage, but
now it was a whirl of fear which shook him. It seemed as if all the
emotions he had been holding in check were ready instantaneously to
assert themselves, as if he could not endure another of those moments
which up to this hour had stretched themselves out before him in long
dull succession. His looks went yearningly down to that spot from which
the smoke was curling easily upwards, and at last he jumped over the
gate, and went with long strides down the field towards Hardlands.