"HAVE I MADE IT WORSE?"
"Give me good fortune, I could strike him dead,
For this discomfort he hath done the house!"
_Elaine_.
So it was not really for from "this time to-morrow" that Lilias had so
confidently anticipated, when Mrs Western opened the envelope,
addressed to her by Captain Beverley, and read its contents.
"What can it mean? I cannot understand," she said to herself,
tremulously, for she was alone at the time. Then a second thought
struck her, and the tremulousness gave place to hot indignation.
"Can he have been playing with her only? My child--my poor Lilias, is
it _possible_?" she exclaimed aloud in her agitation. "What shall I do?
How can I tell her?"
Just then a light, firm step sounded along the passage. Mrs Western
shivered.
"If it is Lilias!" she whispered.
But it was not Lilias.
"Oh, Mary, my dearest, how thankful I am it is you!" she cried, as her
second daughter entered the room. "Mary, what does this mean? Read it.
How can we ever tell Lilias?" and as she spoke she held out the paper
that trembled in her hands.
Mary trembled too, for an instant only, however. Then she drew herself
together, as it were, by a vigorous effort, and read:
"_Romary_, February 19.
"My Dear Mrs Western,--
"I hardly know how to find words in which to apologise sufficiently
for the ingratitude and discourtesy of which I shall _appear_ guilty
when I tell you that this note is to bid you all good-bye. For a time
only, I trust and believe, but a time which seems terribly long for me
to look forward to--for I am absolutely obliged to leave this
neighbourhood at once, and for _two years_. I do not know how to
thank you for all your goodness. I have never, in all my life, been
so happy as under your roof, yet I have no choice but to go, without
even bidding you all farewell in person.
"Will you think of me as kindly as you can, and will you _allow_ me to
send, through you, my farewell to Miss Western and her sisters, and
the rest of the family? and believe me,--
"Yours most gratefully and truly,--
"Arthur Kenneth Beverley."
Mary stood motionless. Her face grew pale, her lips compressed, but she
did not speak.
"What does it mean? Mary, speak, child, tell me what it means," said
Mrs Western, with the petulance born of extreme anxiety. "It cannot be
that Lilias has refused him?"
"No, mother, it is not that," said Mary, "I wish it were."
"What is it, then? _Can_ he be so utterly base and dishonourable?"
"Not of himself," replied Mary, bitterly; "weak fool that he is, he is
not so bad as that. No, mother, he is not, or has been made to think he
is not, his own master; it is all that man--that _bad_ man's doing."
"_Whose_ doing?" said Mrs Western, bewilderedly. "That Mr Cheviott--
Mr Cheviott of Romary. Don't you see the note is dated from there? I
see it all; he found it out at the ball. Very likely he went there for
the purpose of finding it out, having heard rumours of it, and at once
used all his influence, whatever it is, to make that poor fool give it
up. And yet he _isn't_ a poor fool! That is the worst of it; there is
so much good in him, and Lilias cares for him--yes, _that_ is the worst
of it. Mother, she does care for him. Will it break her heart?"
And Mary, in her innocence and ignorance, looked up to her mother who
had gone through life, who must know how it would be, and repeated,
wistfully, "Mother, will it break her heart?"
Mrs Western shook her head.
"I do not know--I cannot say; she is so proud. Either it will harden or
break her utterly. Oh, Mary, my dear, my instincts were right. Do you
remember how I dreaded it from the first?"
"Yes, mother, you were right; nowadays if people are poor, they must
forget they are gentle-people. It would be well to bring up Alexa and
Josey not to `look high,' as the servants say; a respectable tradesman--
Mr Brunt, the Withenden draper's eldest son, for instance, is the sort
of man that girls like us should be taught to encourage--eh, mother?"
"Mary, don't; you pain me. It is not like you to talk so. If what you
say _were_ true, it would make me go back upon it all and think I was
wrong to marry your father. He might have done so much better--he, so
attractive and popular as he was; he might have married some one rich
and--"
"Hush, mother--_dear_ mother, hush," said Mary, kissing her; "it is
wicked of me to pain you," and in saying these words she determined to
tell her mother nothing of her own personal part of the affair, her
bitter indignation at the way in which Mr Cheviott had tried to win her
over to take part against her sister; and for this reticence she had
another, as yet hardly understood, motive--a terrible misgiving was
creeping upon her. Was _she_ to blame? Had her plainly expressed
defiance and indignation raised Mr Cheviott to more decisive action
than he had before contemplated? She could not tell.
"But so mean as he has shown himself, it is perfectly possible that it
is so," she reflected. "He is small-minded enough to be stung into
doing what he has by even my contempt, yet how could I have spoken
otherwise? though for Lilias's sake I could _almost_ have made a
hypocrite of myself."
But as yet she was not at leisure to think this over; she only felt
instinctively that it was better it should not be told, and thus
deciding, her mother's voice recalled her to the present.
"Mary," she repeated again, "how are we to tell Lilias?"
"Leave it to me, mother dear," she replied, for a moment's consideration
satisfied her that nothing in the shape of sympathy or pity--not even
her mother's--was likely to be acceptable to her sister at the first.
"She may soften afterwards, but she is sure to be hard at first," Mary
said to herself, "and, dear mother," she went on, aloud, "the less
notice we seem to take of his going, to the others, the better, don't
you think? Not even to papa. If he sees Lily looking much the same as
usual--and you may trust her to do that--he will not think anything
about it, and Alexa and Josey must just be well snubbed if they begin
any silly chatter. And you will leave Lilias to me?"
"Yes, dear; but can I do nothing? If we could arrange for her to go
away somewhere for a while, for instance?"
"After a time, perhaps, but not at first. Mother, you will try not to
take _any_ notice of it at first, won't you? Just allude to it in a
commonplace way; it will be far the best and easiest for Lilias."
"Yes, I understand."
"It is so horrible!" said Mary, with a little shudder, "so utterly
_horrible_ that a girl should be exposed to this--that even you and I,
mother--mother and sister though we are to her, should be discussing her
feelings as if we were doctors and she a patient! Oh, it is
_horrible_!"
Lilias was not in her room; she was down-stairs in the drawing-room
practising duets with Alexa, while Josey hovered about chattering, and
interrupting, and trying to extract gossip from her elder sister on the
subject of last night's ball.
"Josey," said Mary, as she came in, "it is past your bed-time, and you,
too, Alexa, had better go I think. Mamma is in the study, so go and say
good-night to her there."
"Is mother not coming in here again?" asked Lilias. "I hate the
evenings papa has to go out; we all seem so unsettled and straggling.
Yes, do go to bed, children. I am beginning to feel a little tired,
Mary; aren't you?"
"No--yes, a little. I really don't know," said Mary.
Lilias laughed merrily.
"Why, I believe you are half asleep, child!" she exclaimed. "We are
evidently not intended to be fine ladies, if one ball knocks us up so.
I wonder what all the people who were there last night are doing with
themselves now? Very likely they are having carpet dances to-night, and
all sorts of fun. The Cleavelands party is broken up, though. The
Cheviotts were going back to Romary last night."
"Yes," said Mary.
"No note has come for me, I suppose?" asked Lilias, with a little
hesitation. "I did not like to ask you before the girls, but one of
them said something about a groom on horseback having been at the stable
door a little while ago."
"There was no note for you," said Mary, her voice sounding even to
herself set and hard, "but there was one for mamma. She told me to
bring it to you. Here it is."
Lilias took it, but something in Mary's manner startled her.
"What is it?" she said, hastily. "Why do you look so strange, Mary?"
"Read the note, Lily, please," said Mary. "I'm going back to mamma--I
won't be a minute," and as she spoke she turned to leave the room.
"Don't go, Mary!" cried Lilias, but Mary had already gone.
Ten minutes after she returned to the drawing-room, but no Lilias was
there. Mary's heart failed her.
"Was I wrong to leave her?" she said to herself. "I thought it would be
so horrid for me to seem to be watching how she took it."
She flew up-stairs to her sister's bedroom. The door was shut, but not
locked. Mary knocked.
"Come in," said Lilias's voice, and hardly knowing what she was going to
see, Mary entered.
There stood Lilias in the centre of the room, her beautiful fair hair
all loosened, hanging about her like a cloud, her face pale, but eyes
very bright--brighter than usual it seemed to Mary.
"Lily!" she exclaimed.
"Why do you say `Lily,' and look at me like that?" replied her sister,
sharply. "There's nothing the matter. I'm tired, and going to bed
early, that's all. Please tell mamma so, and do ask her not to come to
say good-night to me. No, don't kiss me, please, Mary. I'm cross, I
suppose, just say good-night."
"Very well," said Mary, submissively.
She turned sadly to go, but had not reached the door when her sister's
voice recalled her.
"Oh! Mary," it cried, and the sharp accent of pain which rang through
the two little words went straight to Mary's heart, "don't misunderstand
me. I want to be unselfish and brave, and just now it seemed to me
that, if any one seemed to feel for me, I could not manage to get on.
But I don't want to _make you_ unhappy, and you may talk to me if you
like."
Mary gently closed the door, then she came back to her sister, and drew
her down on to a seat.
"What am I to say Lily? I wish I knew."
"Anything," replied Lilias; "you may say _anything_, Mary, except one
thing."
"And what is that?"
"Blame of _him_," said Lilias, her eyes sparkling, "that, Mary, is the
one thing I could not bear. I have made up my mind absolutely about
this--if--if it is _never_ explained, I will still keep to it, he is, in
some way, not his own master."
"But if it is so, Lilias, it still does not free him from blame, though
it alters the kind. If he is not his own master, he should not have let
himself got to care for you, and, still worse, have taught you to care
for him."
"Oh! yes, I dare say that is true enough--at least, it sounds so," said
Lilias; "but in some way or other it isn't true, though I can't explain
it, and can't argue about it. Besides, Mary," she went on, with some
hesitation, her pale face flushing crimson as she spoke, "it isn't as if
he had said good-bye for ever. He says distinctly, `two years'."
"Ah! yes, and that is _the_ mean bit of it," said Mary, indignantly; "he
had no right to allude to any future at all. He should leave you
absolutely free, if he cannot claim you openly--leave you, I mean,
absolutely free for those two years, even if he really expects to be
able to return at their end. What right has he to expect you to waste
your youth and happiness for him? If you were engaged a separation of
two years would be nothing, or if even he had said that at the end of
the time he would be free to ask you to marry him."
"But that would have been binding me unfairly, most people would say,"
replied Lilias, softly. "I believe he means to leave me quite free, but
that he could not help catching at a straw, as it were, and therefore
said that about two years."
"I don't believe in the two years," persisted Mary; "even if he does not
come into his property for two years, you might have been engaged,
though not marrying for that time. No, I see no sense in it--it is some
clever pretext of that--" "that scheming Mr Cheviott's," she was going
to have said, but she stopped in time.
"Mary," said Lilias, drawing away the hand which her sister had held in
hers, "I told you I would not let you speak against him."
"Forgive me. I won't," said Mary, penitently.
"Whatever the future brings--if he marry some one else within the two
years," said Lilias, "I shall still always believe in the Arthur
Beverley I have known. He may change--circumstances and other
influences may change him, but the man _I_ have known is true and
honourable, and has wished and tried to act rightly. This I shall
always believe--till I am quite an old woman--an old maid," she added
with an attempt at a smile.
"Lily," exclaimed Mary, with a touch of actual passion in her
tone--"Lily, don't. You are so beautiful, my own Lily, why should you
be so tried? So beautiful and so good!" And Mary, Mary the calm, Mary
the wise, ended up her attempt at strengthening and consoling her sister
by bursting into tears herself.
It did Lilias good. Now it was her turn to comfort and support.
"I am not an old woman yet, Mary," she said, caressingly, "and I don't
intend to become one any sooner than I can help. My hair isn't going to
turn grey by to-morrow morning. To-morrow, oh! Mary, do you remember
what I said yesterday about `this time to-morrow'? I was so happy this
time yesterday, and he said he would be here to-day--it was the very
last thing he said to me. What _can_ have happened to change it all?"
Again the misgiving shot through Mary's heart. Had she done harm? She
said nothing, and after a moment's pause Lilias spoke again:
"The great thing you can do to help me just now, Mary, is to prevent any
of the others thinking there is anything the matter. Outside people may
say what they like--I don't care for that--but it is at home I couldn't
stand it. Besides, we have so few neighbours and friends, we are not
likely to be troubled with many remarks. Except Mrs Greville, perhaps,
I don't suppose any one has heard anything about Captain Beverley's
knowing us."
"Only at the ball," said Mary, hesitatingly; "he picked you out so."
"Yes," said Lilias, smiling sarcastically, "no doubt all the great
people said I was behaving most unbecomingly; but they may say what they
like. I know I don't care for that part of it. Mary, you will say
something to mother to prevent her asking me about it."
"Yes," said Mary. "Lilias, would you like to go away from home for a
while?"
"I don't know. How could I? There is nowhere I could go, unless you
mean that I should be a governess, after all, and--" She stopped, and
her face flushed again.
"And what?"
"I don't like to say it; you will not enter into my feelings--I don't
like to do anything _he_ would not like."
Mary looked at her sadly.
"Poor Lilias!" she thought, "is `he' worthy of it all?"--"I was not
thinking of that," she said aloud. "I meant, if it could be arranged,
for you to go away for a visit for a little. Mrs Greville's sister
asked you once."
"Yes, but ever so long ago, and I wouldn't on any account propose such a
thing to Mrs Greville just now."
"Very well," said Mary.
Then they kissed each other, and said good-night.
"Two years--two long years!" were the words that Lilias said to herself
over and over again that night--words that mingled themselves in the
dreams that disturbed such sleep as came to her. "Two years!--what can
it all mean? But I will trust you, Arthur--I _will_ trust you!"
"Two years!" thought Mary. "That part of it _can_ be nothing but a
pretext. And if Lilias goes on trusting and hoping, it will make it all
the worse for her in the end. She has never had any real trouble, and
she thinks herself stronger to bear it than she really is. I have
always heard that that terrible sort of waiting is worse for a girl than
anything. Oh! Lily, what can I do for you? And _have_ I made it
worse? If I had been gentler, perhaps, to that hard, proud man--there
was a kind look in his eyes once or twice; he cannot know that it is no
piece of idle flirtation--he cannot know how Lilias cares. If I could
see him again! I feel as if I could say burning words that would make
him realise the wretchedness of separating those two."