Miss Farrell did not add to her pupil’s trouble. When she heard the
state of affairs, she gave up with noble magnanimity her intention of
going away. “You must not ask me to meet any one--till the visitors
come,” she said. “I shall remain to give you what help I can; but you
know my rule. When I am treated with rudeness, I make no complaint, I
take no offence, but I go away.”
“You would not have the heart to desert me,” Winifred said.
“No, that is just how it is--I have not the heart; but I will take my
meals in my room, my dear. Your dear father”--habit was too strong in
Miss Farrell’s mind even for resentment--“no doubt his meaning was quite
innocent; but we can’t meet again--at all events for the present,” she
added, with much dignity.
“So long as you do not forsake me,” cried Winnie, and Miss Farrell,
touched, declared “I will never forsake you!” with fervour.
This added an element which was tragi-comic to Winifred’s distress. With
all the grave and terrible things that surrounded her, the misery of her
new position, the sense of falsehood in her tacit acceptance of all her
father was doing, her fears for him, the chill of alarm of another kind
with which Edward’s composure filled her--there was something ludicrous
in having to provide for Miss Farrell’s retirement into her own rooms,
and the two different spheres thus established in the house. Perhaps it
gave her a little relief in the more serious miseries that were always
so near. It threw a slight aspect of the fictitious into the sombre air
of the house, which seemed charged with trouble.
But in the meantime the preparations went on for the expected guests.
Mr. Chester meant that they should be received magnificently. Some of
the rooms were entirely refurnished with a luxury and wealth of
upholstering enough to fill even a millionaire with envy. Nothing so
fine existed in the county as the two rooms which were being ornamented
for the use of the very active-minded and energetic woman who was the
young Earl’s mother. To describe the sensation with which Winifred saw
all this is well-nigh impossible. She had been made to consent in
consequence of the arguments used by the very man whose interests were
assailed. But for Edward she would have refused to be any party to the
proposed arrangement--and now she asked herself how far it was to go?
Was she to be forced to consent if a further proposal were made to her?
Was she to be driven to the very church door, in order to avert an evil
which began, to her, every day to appear more visionary? Could it be
that Edward--Edward himself, who had always been the soul of honour in
her eyes--had lent himself to the conspiracy against her? Her heart
cried out so against the coil of falsehood in which her feet seemed to
be caught that life truly became a misery to her--false to her brothers,
false to her father, false to herself. She could not say false to
Edward, since it was Edward himself who exacted this extraordinary proof
of devotion. Every principle in her being rose up against it as it went
on from day to day. She asked herself whether it was doing a less wrong
to her father thus to deceive him by pretended submission than to tell
him the truth even at the risk of an illness. And he had not to her the
least air of being ill. He was a strong man, stronger than almost any
other man of his age, more ruddy, more active. Her head swam with the
multitude of her thoughts. Winifred’s mind was too simple and
straightforward to accept that idea of faith unfaithful. It became like
a yoke of iron upon her shoulders. Mr. Chester grew stronger and more
active, and louder and gayer every day; while she faded and shrank
visibly, unable to make any head against that sea of troubles that
carried her soul away.
The eve of the appointed visit had arrived, and all the preparations
were complete. Mr. Chester insisted that his daughter should go with him
over all the redecorated rooms to see the effect. “You think perhaps
that this is all for my lady’s gratification,” he said; “that’s a
mistake. It’s for the gratification of Winifred, the new Countess, when
she comes home.”
“If you mean me, papa”--
“Oh no, of course not! how could I mean you?” cried her father, rubbing
his hands. “I mean Miss Chester, who is going to marry the Earl. Perhaps
you don’t know that young lady? She will bring her husband a pretty
estate and a pretty bit of money in her apron, and please her father
down to the ground.”
“But, papa-- Oh, I cannot, I cannot deceive you! It is deceiving you even
to seem to--even to pretend to”--
“You had better hold your tongue, Winnie,” he said sternly. “You had
better not go any farther or you may be sorry for it. You should know
very well by this time what I’m capable of when I’m crossed. But I don’t
mean to be crossed this time, I can tell you. It would be hard if a man
couldn’t do what he likes with his own daughter. Go along with you, and
don’t speak back to me.”
“But, papa”--
“Go, I tell you, before you put me in a passion,” her father cried. And
Winifred was terrified by the glare in his eyes, and the quick recurring
fear that she might harm him took all power from her. She hurried away,
leaving him to admire his upholstery by himself. And that afternoon and
evening her distress reached its climax. She would not consult Miss
Farrell. She would not see Edward. Things had gone too far indeed to be
talked of, or submitted to any other decision than that of her own
heart. Once or twice, nay a hundred times, the desire of the coward, to
run away, occurred to her. But how could she, to think of nothing more,
leave her father in the lurch, and expose him to all the comments of
the recent unfriendly acquaintances whom he thought friends? Winifred
was one of those to whom the abandonment of a post was impossible; but
such was the confusion of her misery, that flight, now or at another
moment,--flight alone, hopeless, without leaving any trace behind
her,--seemed to be the only way of escape. At dinner her father seemed
to have forgotten her attempt at rebellion. He talked incessantly of the
guests, rolling their titles with an enjoyment which was half ludicrous,
half pitiful. “You must try and persuade old Farrell to show,” he said.
“She’s very well thought of by all these grandees, and she can talk to
them of people they know--besides, there’s her music, Winnie, that’s
first rate. I’ll come and apologise if she pleases, but we must take
care my lady’s not dull of an evening, and she must show.” He was in
such good spirits that after dinner, with much clearing of his throat,
and something like a blush, he made her sit down to the piano and
accompany him in one of the old songs for which he had been famous
before he began to fear the memory of the singing man at Chester
Cathedral. He had the remains of a beautiful voice, and still sang well
in the old-fashioned style which he had learned when a boy. To hear him
carolling forth a love-song of that period when Moore was monarch, was
to Winnie a wonder and portent which took away her very breath. She
trembled so in her part of the performance that the piano became
inaudible in competition with the fine roll of Mr. Chester’s
grace-notes. “Why, I thought you could play at least,” he said roughly.
“I’ll have old Farrell--she knows what she’s about--to-morrow night.”
“Well, my dear,” Miss Farrell said, when this conversation was reported
to her, “you know what my feelings are; but I am not dull to the credit
of the family. It being fully understood what my motive is, I shall
certainly appear to-morrow evening, and do my very best to make things
go off well. I will play your dear father’s accompaniment with the
greatest pleasure. He has the remains of a very fine voice, and he has
science, too, though it is old-fashioned. So has your brother George a
beautiful voice; I always wished him to cultivate it. We must do
everything, Winnie, both you and I, to make things go off well. You are
not in good spirits, it is true,--neither am I,--but we must forget all
that for the credit of the house. And how do you think he is himself?”
she added after a pause.
“He looks very well,” said Winnie. “I see no signs of illness.
Edward”--she paused a little with a faint smile,--“I think I should say
Dr. Langton, for I never see him”--
“Oh, my dear, don’t judge him unjustly!--he thinks that is necessary.”
“You all think it is necessary,” cried Winnie, with a little outburst of
feeling, “to make me as unhappy as possible. I mean to say that I
think--I hope he is mistaken. Even doctors,” she said, with a smile,
“have been mistaken before now.”
“That is very true,” said Miss Farrell gravely, and then she rose and
kissed the pale face opposite to her. “Anyhow, my dear, you and I will
do our best for him as long as there are strangers in the house.”
Winifred was worn out by the strain of these troubled days, and by the
self-controversy that had been going on within her. She fell asleep
early in profound exhaustion, the dead sleep of forces overstrained and
heart stupefied with trouble. She woke suddenly in the early dawn of
the morning, while as yet everything was indistinct. What had woke her,
or if it was any external incident at all that had done so, she could
not tell at first; there seemed a tingle and vibration in the pale air.
Was it the early twittering which had begun faintly among the thick
foliage outside? She listened, rising up in her bed, with an intensity
for which there seemed no reason, for no definite alarm occurred to her
mind. Everything was still, not a sound audible but those first faint
chirpings, interrogative, tentative, from the trees. She was about to
compose herself to rest again, when suddenly there sounded tingling
through the silence the sound of a bell, a little angry, impatient
jingle repeated, tearing the stillness. Winifred was too much startled
and confused to realise what it was, but she got up hastily, and,
throwing her dressing-gown round her, opened her door to hear better.
The thought that came first to her mind was, that the summons was at the
door, and that it meant one of the boys coming home. Her heart leaped to
her throat with excitement. The boys had come home at all sorts of hours
in the time which was past, but now, what could this summons be? It came
again while she stood trembling, wondering; and then, with a cry,
Winifred flew along the corridor. Mr. Chester’s room was in the wing, at
some distance from the other sleeping-rooms of the house. Everything was
silent, an atmosphere of profound sleep, calm tranquillity in the dim
air, through which the night-lamp in the hall below burned with a weird
glimmer. The blueness of the dawn in its faint pervasion seemed more
ghostly than the night.
As Winifred hurried along, another door opened with a hasty sound, and
old Hopkins stumbled forth. “What is it, Miss Winifred?”
She had no breath to reply. She put him before her, trembling as they
reached Mr. Chester’s door. She was terrified by the thoughts of what
she might see. But there was nothing that was terrible to see. A voice
came out of the curtains, querulous, with an outburst of abuse at old
Hopkins, who never could be made to hear.
“Send for Langton,” Mr. Chester said.
“It’s the middle of the night, please sir,” old Hopkins replied.
“Send for Langton,” repeated the voice. It had a curious stammer in it;
a sibilant sound. “S--s--send for Langton,” with another torrent of
exclamations.
The old butler hurried out of the room, muttering to himself, “It will
be half an hour before I can wake one of those grooms, and he’ll take
the skin off me before that. Miss Winifred, oh, it’s only the doctor he
wants; it’s nothing out of the common!”
“I will go,” she said.
“You? But it’s the middle of the night, and not a soul awake.”
“Is he very ill? Tell me the truth. I will go quicker than any one
else.”
“Miss Winifred, you’ve no call to be frightened. He’s been the same
fifty times. He don’t want the doctor no more than I do. Oh, goodness,
there he is at it again!”
Then the bell sent a wild, irritated peal into the air, which evidently
ended abruptly in the breaking of the bell-rope.
“I will go!” Winifred said, and the old man, relieved, hurried back to
his master. She put on quickly a long ulster, which covered her from
head to foot, and hurried out into the strange coolness and freshness of
the unawakened world. There was no need, she said to herself, but it
was a relief and almost pleasure to do something. The great stillness,
the feeling of the dawn, the faint blue-tinted atmosphere, a something
which came before the light, all breathed peace about her. It was like a
disembodied world, another state of existence in which nothing real or
tangible was. She flew along, the only creature moving save those too
early, questioning birds, and felt in herself a curious elevation above
mortal boundaries, as if she too was disembodied and could move like a
spirit. The strange abstractedness of the atmosphere, the keen yet soft
coolness, the unimaginable solitude possessed her like a vision. She
felt no sensation of anxiety or fear, but seemed carried along upon her
errand like a creature of the air, unfamiliar with the emotions of the
world. As it happened, Langton’s groom was already preparing his
master’s horse for some early visit. He stared at Winifred as if she
had dropped from the skies, but made no remark, except that his master
would be ready instantly; and she turned back through the sleeping
village, still wrapped in the same abstraction, walking along as in a
dream. One labourer, setting out to work at distant fields, passed, and
stared dumb and awe-stricken at her, as if she had been a ghost. His was
the only figure save her own that was visible. When she was half-way
home, Edward galloped past, waving his hand to her as he hastened on.
For her part, Winifred felt that there was no longer any need to hurry.
She wandered on under the trees, where now all the birds were awake,
chatting to each other--forming their little plans for the endless
August day, the age of sunshine and sweet air before them, now that
night once more was over--before they began to sing. She was
unspeakably eased, consoled, rested by that universal tranquillity. The
dew fell upon her very heart. She lingered to look at a hundred things
which she had seen every day all her life, which she had never noticed
before. It was not sunrise as yet; the world was still a land of dreams,
waiting the revelation of the reality to come. Thus it was some time
before she reached the house, and yet she was surprised when she reached
it, having got so far away from that centre of human life with all its
throbbings, into the great quiet of the morning world.
Something, an indefinable disturbance, a change of a kind which made
itself felt, was in the place. The door stood wide open, a scared groom
was walking Langton’s horse up and down, the windows were still closed,
except one, at which two or three indistinct figures seemed looking out.
There arose a flutter, she could not tell why, in Winifred’s breast.
She almost smiled at herself for the involuntary sensation which marked
her return from a world of visions to that of real life. Then Edward
Langton appeared coming out, as if to meet her in the open door.