"`But methinks,' quoth I, under my breath,
`'Twas but cowardly work.'"
_Songs of Two Worlds_.
The next morning gave promise of a fine day, and Mary felt that she must
be in readiness to seize any favourable opportunity for her meditated
expedition.
"For to-morrow," she said to herself, while she was dressing, "may be
wet and stormy, and I must not weaken my position by making myself look
ridiculous, if I can help it. And I certainly should look the reverse
of dignified if I trudged over to Romary in a waterproof and goloshes!
I very much doubt if I should get a sight of Mr Cheviott at all in such
a case."
She was trying to laugh at herself, by way of keeping up her spirits,
but of real laughter there was very little in her heart. Even
yesterday's excitement seemed to have deserted her, and but for a
curious kind of self-reliance, self-trust rather, which Mary possessed a
good deal of, the chances are that she would have given up her intention
and returned to Hathercourt and to Lilias, feeling that the attempt to
interfere had been impossible for her.
"But I foresaw this," she said to herself, re-assuringly. "I knew I
should lose heart and courage when it came to close quarters--but close
quarters is not the best position for deciding such an action as this.
I must remember that I resolved upon what I am going to do deliberately
and coolly. It seemed to me a right thing to do, and I must have faith
in my own decision. At the worst, at the _very_ worst, all that can
happen to me will be that that man will think I am mad, or something
like it, to take such a step--perhaps he will make a good story of it,
and laugh me over with his friends--though I must say he hasn't the look
of being given to laugh at anything! But why need I care if he does? I
care nothing, _less_ than nothing, what he thinks of me. I can keep my
own self-respect, and that is all I need to care about."
And so speaking to herself, in all sincerity, with no bravado or
exaggeration, Mary more firmly riveted her own decision, and determined
to go back upon it no more.
But she was paler than usual this, morning when she made her appearance
at Mrs Greville's breakfast-table, and her eyes had an unmistakable
look of anxiety and weariness.
"Have you not slept well, my dear Mary?" asked Mrs Greville, kindly.
"You look so tired, and last night you looked so _very_ well."
Mary's colour rose quickly at these words and under the consciousness of
a somewhat searching glance from Mr Morpeth, who was seated opposite
her.
"I am _perfectly_ well, thank you," she replied, to her hostess, "but
somehow I don't think I did sleep quite as soundly as usual."
"Miss Western's room is not haunted, surely?" said Mr Morpeth,
laughing. "All this sounds so like the preamble to some ghostly
revelation."
"No, indeed. There is no corner of this house that we could possibly
flatter ourselves was haunted. I wish there were--it is all so _very_
modern," said Mrs Greville. "At Romary, now, there is such an
exquisite haunted room--or suite of rooms rather. They are never used,
but I think them the prettiest rooms in the house. It _is_ so provoking
that the Cheviotts are at home just now. I should so have liked you and
Cecilia to see the house, Frances--and you, too, Mary, as you had never
been there, and we can get an order from the agent any time."
"I think the outside of the house as well worth seeing as any part of
it," said Mr Greville. "It is so well situated, and seen from the high
road it looks very well indeed. By-the-bye, I shall be driving that way
this afternoon if any of you young ladies care to come with me in the
dog-cart? I am going on to Little Bexton, but if you don't care to come
so far, I could drop you about Romary, and you could walk back. The
country is not pretty after that. Would you like to come, Frances?
Cecilia has a cold, I hear."
"Yes," said Cecilia, "but not a very bad one. But I don't think either
of us can go, Mr Greville, for Miss Bentley is coming to see us this
afternoon, and we must not be out."
"Mary, then?" said Mr Greville.
Mary's heart was beating fast, and she was almost afraid that the
tremble in her voice was perceptible as she replied that she would enjoy
the drive very much, she was sure.
"But I will not go all the way to Little Bexton, I think, if you don't
mind dropping me on the road. I should like the walk home," she said to
Mr Greville, and so it was decided. And for a wonder nothing came in
the way.
It was years and years since Mary had been at Romary. When Mr Greville
"dropped her" on the road, at a point about half a mile beyond the lodge
gates, all about her seemed so strange and unfamiliar that she could
scarcely believe she had ever been there before. Strange and
unfamiliar, even though she was not more than ten miles from her own
home, and though the general features of the landscape were the same.
For to a real dweller in the country, differences and variations, which
by a casual visitor are unobservable, are extraordinarily obtrusive.
Mary had lived all her life at Hathercourt, and knew its fields and its
trees, its cottages and lanes, as accurately as the furniture of her
mother's drawing-room. It was strange to her to meet even a dog on the
road whose ownership she was unacquainted with, and when a countryman or
two passed her with half a stare of curiosity instead of the familiar
"Good-day to you, Miss Mary," she felt herself "very far west" indeed,
and instinctively hastened her steps.
"It is a good thing no one does know me about here," she said to
herself; "but how strange it seems! What a different life we have led
from most people nowadays! I dare say it would never occur to Miss
Cheviott, for instance, to think it at all strange to meet people on the
road whose names and histories she knew nothing of. Young as she is, I
dare say she has more friends and acquaintances than she can remember.
How different from Lilias and me--ah, yes, it is _that_ that makes what
her brother has done so awfully wrong--so _mean_--but will he
understand? Shall I be able to show it him?"
Mary stopped short--she was close to the lodge gates now. She stood
still for a moment in a sort of silence of excitement and
determination--then resolutely walked on again and hesitated no more.
These Romary lodge gates had become to her a Rubicon.
It was a quarter of a mile at least from the gates to the house, but to
Mary it seemed scarcely half a dozen yards. As in a dream she walked on
steadily, heedless of the scene around her, that at another time would
have roused her keen admiration--the beautiful old trees, beautiful even
in leafless February; the wide stretching park with its gentle ups and
downs and far-off boundary of forestland; the wistful-eyed deer, too
tame to be scared by her approach; the sudden vision of a rabbit
scuttering across her path--Mary saw none of them. Only once as she
stood still for an instant to unlatch a gate in the wire fence inclosing
the grounds close to the house, she looked round her and her gaze rested
on a cluster of oaks at a little distance.
"When I see that clump of trees next," she said to herself, "it will be
over, and I shall know Lilias's fate."
Then she walked on again.
The bell clanged loudly as she pulled it at the hall door--to Mary, at
least, it sounded so, and the interval was very short between its tones
fading away into silence and the door's being flung open by a footman,
who gave a little start of astonishment when Mary's unfamiliar voice
caught his ear.
"I thought it was Miss Cheviott; I beg your pardon, ma'am," he said,
civilly enough, and the civility was a relief to Mary. "Is it Miss
Cheviott you wish to see?"
"No, thank you," said Mary, quietly. "I want to see _Mr_ Cheviott, if
he is at home--on a matter of business, perhaps you will be good enough
to say."
The man looked puzzled, and, for a moment, hesitated.
"If it is anything I could say, perhaps," he began. "Unless it was
anything very particular. My master is very busy to-day, and gave
orders not to be disturbed."
"It is something particular--that is to say, I wish to see Mr Cheviott
himself. Perhaps you will _inquire_ if he is to be seen," said Mary,
more coldly.
The man looked at her again, and Mary felt glad she had not her old
waterproof cloak on. As it was, she was prettily, at least not
unbecomingly, dressed in a thick, rough tweed and small, close-fitting
felt hat. Her boots were neat, and her gloves--the only new pair she
had had this winter--fitted well. There was nothing about her attire
plainer or poorer than what would be worn by many a girl of her age,
"regardless of expense," for a country ramble. And Mr Cheviott's
servant was not to know it was all her Sunday best! Then she was tall!
An immense advantage, now and then, in life.
"Certainly, ma'am, I will inquire at once," said the man. He was a
new-comer who had served a town apprenticeship to the dangers of
indiscriminate admittance, and felt, despite appearances, he must be on
his guard against a young woman who so resolutely demanded a personal
interview with a gentleman. A man in disguise--what might she not be?
But something in Mary's low-toned "thank you" re-assured him.
"Will you step into the library while I ask?" he said, amiably, and Mary
judged it best to do as he proposed.
There was no one in the library, and one of Mary's but half-acknowledged
wild hopes faded away as she entered the empty room. She had had a
dream of perhaps meeting with Alys in the first place--the girl with the
beautiful face and bewitching smile--of her guessing her errand, and
pleading on her side.
"She looked so sympathisingly at me that night at Brocklehurst," thought
Mary--"almost as if she suspected my anxiety. Oh! if only I could talk
to _her_, instead of that proud, cold brother of hers!"
But there was no Alys in the library, and an instant's thought reminded
Mary that of course she, a stranger calling on "business," would not
have been ushered except by mistake into Miss Cheviott's presence, and
she gave a little sigh as she mechanically crossed the room and stood
gazing out of the window.
The servant's voice recalled her thoughts.
"Your name, if you please, ma'am?" he was asking.
Mary was prepared for this.
"It would be no use giving my name," she said quietly. "If you will be
so good as to say to Mr Cheviott that I am only in this neighbourhood
for a day or two, and have called to see him purely on a matter of
business, I shall be much obliged to you."
The man left the room. He went into Mr Cheviott's Study by another
door than the one by which it communicated with the library, but through
this last, firmly closed though it was, in a moment or two the murmur of
voices caught Mary's quick ears, then some words, spoken loudly enough
for her to distinguish their Sense.
"_Where_, do you say--in the library? A lady! Nonsense, it must be
some mistake."
Then the servant's voice again in explanation. Mary moved away from the
vicinity of the treacherous door.
A minute or two passed. Then the man appeared again.
"I am sorry, ma'am," he began, apologetically, "but particularly obliged
by your sending my master your name. He is so much engaged to-day--
would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and--" He
hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to Mr Cheviott that
very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a
school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him.
"It _is_ something particular," said Mary, chafing inwardly not a little
at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of Mr Cheviott--"as if he
were a royal personage almost," she said to herself. "You can tell Mr
Cheviott that the business on which I wish to see him is something
particular; and my name is Miss Western."
Again the envoy disappeared. Again the murmuring voices through the
door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in
impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and
some one came into the library. Not the man-servant this time, nor did
he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his
curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for Mr Cheviott, advancing but one
step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned
sharply and closed the door in the man's face before giving any sign of
recognition of his visitor--before, in fact, seeming to have perceived
her at all. Then he came forward slowly.
Mary was still standing; as Mr Cheviott came nearer her, she bowed
slightly, and began at once to speak.
"I can hardly expect you to recognise me," she said, calmly. "I am Miss
Western, the _second_ Miss Western, from Hathercourt."
Mr Cheviott bowed.
"I had the pleasure of being intro--I had the honour of meeting you at
one of the Brocklehurst balls," he said, inquiringly.
"Yes," said Mary, "and once before--at Hathercourt Church one Sunday
when you and your friends came over to the morning service. Before that
day I do not think I ever heard your name, and yet I have come to your
house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old
friend--to ask you to listen while I try to make you see that you have
been interfering unwarrantably in other people's affairs; that what you
have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that
I believe you _will_ repent, Mr Cheviott, if you are not already doing
so?"
She raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and,
for the first time, looked up, straight into Mr Cheviott's face. She
had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without
hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her,
as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. Now
she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined
beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to
say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. It
seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and
theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for Mr Cheviott to speak
first.
She looked at him, and for an instant there was silence. His
countenance was not so stern and impassive as she had once before seen
it, but its expression was even more unpromising. It bespoke extreme
annoyance and surprise, "disgusted surprise," said Mary to herself; "he
thinks me lost to all sense of propriety, I can see."
She could _not_ see her own face; she was unconscious of the pale
anxiety which overspread it, of the wistful questioning in the brown
eyes which Mr Cheviott remembered so bright and sunny; she could not
know that it would have needed a more than hard heart, an actually cruel
one, not to be touched by the intensity in her young face--by the pathos
of her position of appeal.
At first some instinct--a not unchivalrous instinct either--urged Mr
Cheviott to refrain from a direct reply to Mary's unmistakably direct
attack.
"Will she not regret this fearfully afterwards?" he said to himself.
"When she finds that I remain quite untouched, when she decides, as she
_must_, that I am a brute! I will give her time to draw back by showing
her the uselessness of all this before she commits herself further."
But Mary saw his hesitation, and it deepened the resentment with which
she heard his reply.
"Miss Western," he said, "you must be under some extraordinary delusion.
I will not pretend entire ignorance of what your words--words that, of
course, from a lady I cannot resent--of what your words refer to, but
pray stop before you say more. I ventured once before to try to warn
you--or rather another through you, and this, I suppose, has led to your
taking this--this very unusual step," ("what a mean brute I am making of
myself," he said to himself, "but it is the kindest in the end to show
her the hopelessness at once")--"under, I must repeat, some delusion, or
rather complete misapprehension of my possible influence in the matter."
Mary was silent.
"You must allow me to remind you," continued Mr Cheviott, hating
himself, or the self he was obliged to make himself appear, more and
more with each word he uttered, "that you are very young and
inexperienced, and little attentions--passing trivialities, in fact,
which more worldly-wise young ladies would attach no significance to,
may have acquired a mistaken importance with you and your sister. I am
very sorry--_very_ sorry that any one connected with me should have
acted so thoughtlessly; but you must allow, Miss Western, that I warned
you--Went out of my way to warn you, as delicately as I knew how, when I
saw the danger of--of--any mistake being made."
Mary heard him out. Then she looked up again, with no appeal this time
in her eyes, but in its stead righteous wrath and indignation.
"You are not speaking the truth," she said, "at least, what you are
_inferring_ is not the truth. If it were the case that Captain
Beverley's `attentions' to my sister were so trifling and meaningless--
such as he may have paid to other girls scores of times--_why_ did you
go out of your way to warn us? It could not possibly have been out of
respect for us; you knew and cared as little about us as we about you,
and if you had said it was out of any care for us, the saying so would
have been an unwarrantable freedom. No, Mr Cheviott, you knew Captain
Beverley was in earnest, and your pride took fright lest he should make
so poor a marriage. That is the truth, but I wish you had not made
matters worse by denying it."
The blood mounted to Mr Cheviott's forehead; his dark face looked
darker. That last speech of his had been a false move, and Mary knew
it, and he knew it; still his presence of mind did not desert him.
"Believing what you do, then, Miss Western--I shall not again trouble
you to believe anything _I_ say--may I ask how, supposing my cousin to
have been, as you express it, in earnest, you explain his not having
gone further?"
"How I explain it?" exclaimed Mary. "You ask me that? I explain it by
the fact that brought me here; _you_ stopped his going further."
"Influenced, no doubt, by the pride you alluded to just now."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Mary, dejectedly. "Influenced, at least, by
some motive that blinded you to what you were doing. A girl's broken
heart is a trifle, I know, but the loss of a good influence over a man's
life is not a trifle, even you will allow. Captain Beverley thinks he
owes you a great deal; I strongly suspect he owes you a great deal more
than he at present realises. Mr Cheviott, do you not _know_ that what
you have done is a wrong and bad thing?"
Again her eyes took the pleading expression. Mr Cheviott turned away
to avoid it. Then he said, very coldly:
"It is extremely unpleasant to have to say unpleasant things, but you
force me to it. Supposing, for argument's sake--supposing things were
as you believe, I should certainly act as you believe I have acted. I
should by every means in my power, endeavour to prevent my cousin's
making a marriage which would be utterly ill-advised and unsuitable,
which would destroy his happiness, and which I cannot believe would be
for the happiness of any one concerned."
Mary's face grew white as death. It was all over, then. She had
lowered herself to this man for nothing. In the misery of thoroughly
realising her defeat--the downthrow of all the hopes which unconsciously
she had been cherishing more fondly than she had had any idea of--she,
for the moment, forgot to be angry--she lost sight, as it were, of Mr
Cheviott; in the depth of her disappointment, he became simply the
incarnation of a cruel fate.
But he, at this juncture, was very far from losing sight of Mary. Her
silent pallor frightened him, he thought she was going to faint, and he
felt as if he were a murderer. A rush of pity and compunction roused
his instinct of hospitality.
"Miss Western," he said, gently, and with a look in his eyes of which
Mary, when she afterwards recalled it, could not altogether deny the
kindness and sympathy, "I fear you have overtired yourself. This
wretched business has been too much for you. Will you allow me to get
you a glass of wine?"
Mary hastily shook her head, and the effort to recover her
self-control--for she felt herself on the point of bursting into tears--
brought back the colour to her cheeks.
"I will go now," she said, turning towards the door.
Mr Cheviott interrupted her.
"Will you not allow me to say one word of regret for the pain I have
caused you?" he said, anxiously, humbly almost, "will you not allow me
to say how deeply I admire and--and respect your courage and sisterly
devotion?"
Mary shook her head.
"No," she said. "I could not believe you if you said anything of the
kind, knowing you now as I do. And I earnestly hope I may never see you
and never speak to you again."
The words were childish, but the tone and manner gave them force, and
their force went home. Mr Cheviott winced visibly. Yet once again he
spoke.
"You may resent my saying so at present," he said, "but afterwards you
may be glad to recall my assurance that no one shall ever hear from me
one word of what has been said just now."
Mary turned upon him with ineffable contempt.
"I dare say not," she said. "For your own sake you will do well to keep
silence. For _mine_ you may tell it where and to whom you choose."
Again Mr Cheviott's face flushed.
"You are a foolish child," he said, under his breath. Whether Mary
caught the words or not he could not tell, but in a gentler tone she
added, as she was passing through the door-way, "I think, however, I
should tell you that no one--my sister, of course not--_no one_ knows of
my coming here to-day."
Mr Cheviott bowed.
"I am glad to hear it," he said, with what Mary imagined to be extreme
irony.
He crossed the hall with her, and opened the large door himself. But
Mary did not look at him as she passed out. And, when she had got some
way down the carriage-drive in sight of the dump of oak trees, she burst
into a flood of bitter tears. Tears that Mr Cheviott suspected, though
he did not see them.
"Poor child," he said, as he returned to his study, "I trust she will
meet no one in the park. Those gossiping servants--Well, _surely_ I can
never have a more wretched piece of work to go through than this! What
a mean, despicable snob she thinks me!" he laughed, bitterly. "Why, I
wonder, is it the fate of some people to be constantly doing other
people's dirty work? I have had my share of it, Heaven knows; but I
think I am growing quite reckless to what people think of me. What eyes
that child has--and how she must love that sister of hers! If it had
been _she_ that Arthur had made a fool of himself about--"