Beatrice.--"I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains
to thank me."
_Much Ado about Nothing_.
An hour or so later on this eventful afternoon--or evening, rather, it
was fast growing dark--a cloaked and hooded figure was to be seen
hastening along the lane which was the shortest way from Hathercourt
Rectory to the Edge Farm. The figure had good need to be cloaked and
hooded, in the waterproof sense of the term, and goloshed too, for the
beautiful spring day had ended in, superficially speaking, very
unbeautiful rain. It came pouring down--the foot-path was a mass of mud
already, and before long threatened to be indistinguishable from the
road. Lilias--for it was she--had begun by picking her steps, but soon
gave this up in despair. It was all she could do to get on at all,
laden as she was with a rather cumbersome parcel under her cloak. But
her step nevertheless was light and buoyant, and her face and eyes, had
there been any one there to see them, or any light to see them by, would
have told of eagerness and some excitement, instead of fatigue and
depression, as, taking into consideration her seven miles' walk to
Withenden and back, and her present uncomfortable surroundings, might
not unreasonably have been expected.
"It is horrible of me--I don't understand myself," she said, suddenly,
aloud. Then she hurried on faster than before, pursuing, nevertheless,
the same train of thought. "Why should I feel more buoyant and hopeful
than I have done for long, just when such a terrible thing--or what may
prove such a terrible thing--has happened to that poor girl? I _know_ I
am sorry for her--and even if I were not, I should be sorry to think how
it will grieve Arthur; but yet--ah, yes, it is just the feeling of
having, as it were, something to do with him again--of perhaps hearing
him spoken of and of seeing the house where he was so lately. His own
house?"
She had never been inside the farm-house. Often they had passed it in
their walks with Arthur, and more than once he had tried to persuade the
Rectory family to organise some sort of picnic party to his bachelor
quarters; but to this Mrs Western had so decidedly objected that the
project had never been fulfilled. So Lilias was rather in the dark,
mentally as well as physically, as to the exact approach to the front
door, if front door there was to a house whose three entrances were all
much on a par, and in the end she hit upon the one which Mrs Wills
decidedly considered the back door. It had the advantage, however, in
the present state of the weather, of being near the kitchen, so her rap
was answered without delay.
"My sister is still here, is she not? Miss Western--Miss Mary Western,
I mean," she explained, in reply to Mrs Wills's mute look of bewildered
inquiry.
"Oh, yes, miss, to be sure she is, and what we should have done without
her I don't know, and what we shall do now if she--"
She was interrupted.
"Shut that door, if you please, Mrs Wills," a man's voice called out,
"it sets all the other doors in the house rattling," and from an inner
room Mr Cheviott came out to enforce his directions. He had almost
shut the door in Lilias's face before he perceived her. Then--"I beg
your pardon," he said instinctively, but, dim as the light was, Lilias
felt certain he had recognised her.
"He will think he is going to have the whole Western family down upon
him," she thought, with a smile. Then she came forward a little.
"I am Miss Western," she said, calmly, and something in the voice, a
certain cheery yet half-defiant ring, reminded her hearer of Mary--he
had never come into personal contact with Lilias before. "I have come
for my sister--it was too stormy for my mother to come out, but she was
getting uneasy, and my little sister could not quite explain. I hope
Miss Cheviott is not seriously hurt?"
"Thank you," he replied, "we can hardly tell. Will you be so good as to
come in, and I will tell your sister you are here."
Lilias came in, and depositing her parcel--bundle, rather--on the table,
stood, nothing loth, beside the welcome blaze of the kitchen fire.
"How queer it is," she thought, "Mary seems quite established here! In
the very heart of the enemy's camp, according to _her_ opinion, at
least, for she has always persisted that Mr Cheviott's interference was
to be blamed for it all. I don't think it was. Arthur would not be so
fond of him if he were that sort of man, and besides," with an
unconscious slight elevation of her pretty head, "_he_ is not the sort
of man to be interfered with."
Then she glanced round the kitchen--a pleasant, old-fashioned farm-house
kitchen, not unpicturesque as seen in the flickering firelight,
alternately lighting up and hiding the dark rafters and the
quaintly-carved oak settle, where for so many years old John Birley had
sat and smoked his pipe, and mused on the fallen fortunes of his house.
The last of the Hathercourt Beverleys, Mawde's great-great-grandson, to
have come down to the bent, blue-stockinged old farmer, whose figure,
hobbling into church, Lilias had been familiar with ever since she could
remember.
"Fancy Mawde Beverley, beautiful and refined as she almost certainly
was--the Maynes of Southcote are said to have been very
beautiful--_fancy_ her looking forward along the centuries to that old
rough man as one of her great-grandchildren!" thought Lilias. "If she
could have looked forward to _Arthur_--what a difference! Life is a
very queer thing--queer and sad too, I suppose. Still I am glad to be
alive, and to take my chance of the goods and bads."
Unconsciously to herself, hope was re-asserting itself in Lilias's
heart; she could not have spoken or felt thus a few days previously.
Her soliloquy was soon interrupted.
"Lily," exclaimed a voice behind her, and turning round Lilias saw Mary
entering the kitchen. "I could hardly believe Mr Cheviott when he said
you were here," Mary went on. "And all alone, too! Lily, I do believe
he thinks us all half mad!" She gave a little laugh, but checked it
suddenly.
Lilias looked at her in surprise.
"Why should he?" she said, quickly. "I don't see anything particularly
mad in my coming down to look after you. I am your elder sister.
Mother could not come. I don't think you are quite fair on that man,
Mary."
"Long may you think so," said Mary, sarcastically.
Lilias's face flushed.
"Mary," she said, nervously, "you don't mean that--that there is
anything indelicate in my coming here, to this house? It did not strike
me so, or--"
"Indelicate!--no, of course not. It is very, very good of you to have
come," said Mary, warmly; "only you see, I was so astonished."
"But what were you intending?--what were you going to do?" said Lilias.
"You can't stay here all night without clothes, and you sent no message.
We didn't know what to think."
"No," said Mary, "I was just beginning to wonder what I _should_ do. At
first, you see, I was so taken up about that poor girl I could think of
nothing else."
"But she is not badly hurt," interrupted Lilias; "you were laughing a
minute ago; you don't seem in bad spirits."
"I don't know," said Mary, her voice saddening. "I think I was laughing
out of a sort of nervousness. I really do not know whether she is much
hurt or not, and the doctor either would not or could not say. I
suppose to-morrow will show. But, Lilias, what am I to do? She cannot
bear the idea of my leaving her."
"Has she no maid with her?" asked Lilias.
"Yes, but she is a mere girl who has not been long with her. And the
old housekeeper, Mrs Golding," continued Mary, with a curious tone in
her voice, "has sprained her ankle or something and cannot leave Romary.
It would seem almost barbarous for me to leave her--Alys--Miss
Cheviott, I mean--to-night, any way."
"Don't then; there is no objection to your staying under the
circumstances. Why do you look so unhappy about it?" said Lilias. "Is
it all your dislike to her brother?"
"No," said Mary with some hesitation, "I don't think that would affect
me one way or the other, and _as_ her brother, he is some degrees less
odious than I could have expected. No, my feeling is, _under the
circumstances_, Lilias, an intense dislike to putting them--him, I
should say, in a position of obligation to us. It is like forcing him
to be civil to us."
"And why shouldn't he be?" said Lilias, "it is much better than forcing
him to be uncivil to us, anyway."
"I don't know that it is," said Mary, smiling faintly. "I can't
altogether explain my feeling, but it is most uncomfortable altogether.
He hates my staying as much as I do, and yet I can't do a cruel thing.
Why, I stayed up three nights in Bevan's cottage when Jessie broke her
leg, without a second thought?"
"Of course you did," said Lilias, "and that's the right way to put it.
Forget all about her being Mr Cheviott's sister, and just think of
doing a kind thing. Mary, it's very queer, but somehow it seems as if
my troubles had, in a sense, done you more harm than me. Your sympathy
for me has made you morbid."
"Perhaps so," replied Mary. "And I dare say you are right. But all the
same," she added, "I am not fond of `coals of fire;' there always seems
to me something mean in heaping them on."
"But suppose you have no choice between that and letting your enemy
hunger?" asked Lilias. "But `enemy' and `coals of fire'--what absurdly
strong expressions--only you _will_ have it poor Mr Cheviott is the
cause of it all."
"Poor Mr Cheviott!" repeated Mary.
"I must be going," said Lilias. "George is coming to meet me; he was to
start just half an hour after me, so I cannot miss him, and I don't want
your friend to offer to see me home, so good-night, dear. You'll find
all you want in that bundle, and a good deal you won't want, for mother
would put in all manner of things she thought might be useful for Miss
Cheviott--from cotton-wool to a hop pillow, and no doubt you have got
all you want from Romary."
"No," said Mary, "that maid has no sense, and forgot nearly everything
she should have remembered. I am very glad of your _olla podrida_,
Lily. Good-night, and thank you."
They kissed each other, and Lilias went out again into the rain and the
darkness. Mary came back again into the kitchen, wishing, "dreadfully,"
as the children say, that she could have gone with her sister. She
stood by the fire feeling dull and lonely, and, to tell the truth,
though the Rectory was only a mile away, rather homesick! She was
tired, too, which state of things has more to do with our moods of
depression than we, in youth anyway, take into sufficient account.
"I must go back to Miss Cheviott," she said to herself; "how I do hope
the doctor will think her better to-morrow. I may as well see what Lily
has brought. How kind poor mother is!"
She was turning to examine the bundle when the half-closed door was
pushed open and Mr Cheviott came in.
"My sister seems to be falling asleep," he said. "Perhaps it will be as
well if we leave her for a little. I promised her you would go back in
half an hour, and in the mean time--why, has your sister gone, and
alone?"
"My brother was to meet her, thank you," said Mary. "And you? Can
you--are you really going to stay with Alys all night?"
"Yes," replied Mary. "My sister is going to explain to my mother."
"It is exceedingly kind of you," said Mr Cheviott; "but really--I feel
ashamed."
"You need not feel so," said Mary, quietly. "I have--well not _often_,
perhaps, but certainly several times--done far more for the poor people
about here, and would do so again at any moment for _any_ one in
trouble."
Mr Cheviott was silent. Then his glance happening to fall on a basket
standing unopened on a side table, he started and crossed the room to
where it stood.
"I am forgetting," he said; and then, taking a small knife out of his
pocket, he proceeded to cut the strings which fastened it, and to lift
out its contents. It had all been a pious fiction of Alys's about
fancying she would go to sleep better if left alone. She had been
making herself unhappy about Mary's having had nothing to eat all the
evening, and a basket of provisions having been sent from Romary by Mrs
Golding, she had begged her brother to do the honours of the farm-house
by unpacking them for Miss Western's benefit. She was full, too, of a
secret wish that somehow or other a better understanding might be
brought about between her brother and this girl, to whom from the first
she had felt so strongly attracted.
"They are both so good," said Alys to herself, as she lay, far from
sleeping, alas! poor girl, on Mrs Wills's best bed. "Laurence, of
course, I do believe to be the noblest man in the world, except for his
prejudices, and Mary, I can _feel_, is as good as gold. Why should they
dislike each other so? For, though she tries to hide it from me, I can
see that she dislikes him quite as much as he does her. And I am almost
sure it was she whom I saw the other day coming down our avenue and
crying. What can it all be? There is something I don't know about--
that I'm sure of."
Then her thoughts took another flight.
"I wish Laurence would marry," she said to herself. "I wish he would
marry just such a girl as Mary Western. How nice it would be for me!
Or--supposing I don't get better from this accident--supposing I get
worse and die--how dreadfully lonely Laurence will be! Poor Laurence--"
and Alys's eyes filled with tears at the very thought.
In the mean time Mr Cheviott was unpacking the basket, and handily
enough, as Mary, watching him with some curiosity, was forced to allow.
All sorts of good things made their appearance--a cold ham, two
chickens, a packet of tea, fine bread, wine, etc, etc. Mr Cheviott
looked about him in perplexity.
"Are there no dishes of any kind to be had, I wonder?" he said, at last.
"I don't like to disturb Mrs Wills--she is giving her husband his
supper in the back kitchen, I see. Poor people, we have put them about
quite enough already."
Mary could no longer stand aloof. She had felt half inclined to be
nettled by Mr Cheviott's calm manner of ignoring what she could not but
own to herself had been, in its inference at least, a rude speech.
"He still feels he _is_ under an obligation to me," she had said to
herself, hotly, "and therefore he won't resent anything I say. I don't
agree with Lilias. I would much prefer his being uncivil, to civility
of that patronising `I couldn't-do-otherwise' kind." But the quiet
good-nature with which he now turned to her for assistance appealed to
something in Mary which could not but respond; the mixture of comicality
too in the whole position was not without its attraction for her.
"You are not accustomed to kitchen arrangements," she said, smiling a
little; "there are the dishes--lots of real willow pattern, `all in a
row'--just above your head. Stay, don't you see? I can reach them."
She stepped forward, put her foot lightly on a three-legged stool
standing just under the shelf of dishes. But three-legged stools are
cantankerous articles--they require to be treated with a certain
consideration mysterious to the uninitiated. Mary, perhaps for
the first time in her life, suffering from some amount of
self-consciousness, gave no thought to the three-leggedness of the
stool, and, light as was her spring upon it, it proved too much for its
equilibrium; the stool tilted forward, and Mary would have fallen
ignominiously--perhaps worse than ignominiously, for the kitchen floor
was tiled with hard bricks--to the ground, had not Mr Cheviott darted
forward just in time to catch her. Mary was exceedingly, ridiculously
annoyed--she flushed scarlet, but before she had time to do more than
spring back from Mr Cheviott's supporting arms, he said with a smile,
in which, notwithstanding her mortification, Mary _could_ not detect any
approach to a sneer:
"_You_ are not accustomed to three-legged stools, it is very evident,
Miss Western. Thank you all the same for your kind intentions, however.
I think _I_ can reach the dishes--"
He stretched upwards and got down two or three. Mary, to hide her
discomfort, was glad to help in the "dishing up" that ensued, till
between them a very appetising sort of picnic supper was spread out on
the table, and Mary, to tell the truth, being really hungry, did not
refuse her host's invitation to fall to. He was hungry too,
notwithstanding his anxiety, and for a few minutes the repast went on in
silence. Then the ludicrousness of the scene struck Mary anew, more
forcibly than ever. She could not restrain a smile, and Mr Cheviott,
looking up at the moment, caught sight of it. He smiled too.
"What is it that amuses you so, Miss Western?" he asked.
"I don't know. Everything I think," she replied.
Mr Cheviott glanced round--then his eyes returned to the table.
"Mrs Golding has certainly sent us provisions enough to stand a siege,"
he said.
"I suppose she thinks you and Miss Cheviott would starve outright
without her to take care of you," said Mary.
"Just exactly what she does think," he replied. "How do you--have you
ever seen her?"
Mary wished her remark had remained unspoken, but judged it best to put
a good face upon it. "Yes," she said, bravely, her traitorous cheeks
flaming again, nevertheless; "I saw her that--that ill-starred day when
I got locked up in your haunted room."
"Ah, yes, of course," said Mr Cheviott. Then he hesitated. "Why do
you call it `that ill-starred day'?" he asked, with some curiosity. "It
did not do you any harm, did it? You were not so very frightened,
surely?"
"I was _very_ frightened--ridiculously frightened," replied Mary; "but I
suppose my nerves, though I hate to speak or think of such things as
nerves, were hardly in their usual order that day. I had had a good
deal to try me. Yes, I was _very_ frightened. When I heard your step
approaching the door, I was nearly beside myself with fright." Here a
half-smothered exclamation from Mr Cheviott, which, had it been from
any one else, would have sounded to Mary marvellously like "poor child!"
caused her to hesitate. She looked up at him--no, he was calmly filling
his wine glass--she must have been mistaken. Still she hesitated, but
only for a moment. Could she ever hope for such an opportunity again?
Be brave, Mary, and make the most of it! "It was not on account of my
fright that I so dislike the remembrance of that day," she went on,
hurriedly. "It was because for the first--no, for the _second_ time in
my life, I felt that I had put myself into an utterly false, a most
lowering position."
"How?" said Mr Cheviott, quickly. But there was nothing impertinent in
the question--his tone of interest was too genuine.
"How?" repeated Mary; "don't you see how? If you do not, I am
increasingly thankful to be able to tell you how--to show you how
horrible it was for me to be forced into such a position. How? Why, of
course, by re-entering a house where, only the day before, I had been so
so--"
Mr Cheviott looked up, and again Mary saw the dark flush, not often
seen there, rise to his forehead.
"So--so what? Do not speak hastily," he said. "Yet perhaps it is best
to know the worst. You are not going to say `so _insulted_'?"
"No," said Mary, "I was not. So _misjudged_, I think, was the word on
my lips."
Mr Cheviott smiled--a bitter, sarcastic smile, it seemed to Mary, and
perhaps she was right. It roused her to go on.
"I don't know why I should care--the matter can have less than no
interest for you, as little as your opinion of it _ought_ to have for
me, and yet I do care--care exceedingly that you, Mr Cheviott, should,
know that I was actually _forced_ into going to your house that day--
that nothing but the risk of possible disloyalty to others, to another,
at least, made me give in to do so. But of course I never dreamed of my
going there coming to your knowledge. I may be blunt and plain-spoken,
but I am not capable of such coarse, obtrusive defiance as that would
have been."
Mr Cheviott got up from his chair and walked about for a minute or two.
"She thinks her position painful," he said to himself, "and to such a
sensitive girl it must be so, I suppose. Nothing that I could say would
ever make her believe the light in which what she did really appears to
me. And still less can she know how infinitely, unspeakably more
painful than hers _my_ position is!" Then he came back to the table,
and standing opposite Mary, he said, earnestly:
"I am glad you have told me what you have felt about it," he said; "but
will you believe me, Miss Western, when I tell you that your coming
again to Romary _never_ struck me as you think. If I thought about it
at all, it was to feel sure that, as you say was the case, you had been
forced to come. It was not likely, was it," he went on, with
considerable bitterness in his tone, "that I should imagine you would
_wish_ to come in my way after--well, never mind. It is enough for me
to say," his voice resuming its earnest kindliness, "that nothing you
could do would ever appear to me `coarse, or obtrusive, or defiant,' or
anything but brave and true and _womanly_."
Mary was mollified in spite of herself. But her prejudices and
prepossessions were far too deep-rooted to have received more than a
very passing shake. And alas! in her moment of triumph she forgot to be
generous.
"I am unaccustomed to compliments," she said, coldly. "And I did not
mean to ask you to _make allowance_ for me. No doubt my disadvantages
incline you to do so--just as you would have excused my ignorance of
French the first time I spoke to you. You have misunderstood me, Mr
Cheviott. I am not _ashamed_ of what I did, I only regret the ignorance
of the world which made me trust to not being misunderstood."
Again Mr Cheviott got up from his seat--this time more hastily.
"I wonder," he said, in a low, constrained voice,--"I wonder, Miss
Western, if you are anxious to make me unsay some of the words I just
now, in all honesty, applied to you?"
Mary did not reply.
"I have my wish," she said to herself, "I have succeeded in forcing him
to be _un_civil."
And when her conscience smote her a little she silenced it by the old
reflection that it was Lilias's enemy with whom she was doing battle.
What question could there be of hurting the feelings of the man who had
done his best to break her darling's heart?--who had even _avowed_ his
deliberate intention of destroying the happy prospects that might have
been hers?