Edward Langton had never meant to forsake his love. He intended no more
to give her up because she did not agree with him, because he thought
her mistaken, or even because she had rejected his guidance and wounded
his pride, than he meant to give up his life. But he had been very
deeply wounded by her acceptance of his withdrawal at that critical
moment. She had not chosen to put him, her natural defender, between her
brothers and herself. She had refused, so his thoughts went on to say,
his intervention. She had preferred to keep her interests separate from
his, to give him no share in what might be the most important act of
her life. He would not believe it possible when he left her. As he
crossed the hall and hurried down the avenue, he thought every moment
that he heard some one, a messenger hastening after him to bring him
back. But there was no such messenger. He expected next morning a letter
of explanation, of apology, at least of invitation imploring him not to
forsake her--but there was none. While Winifred’s heart sank lower and
lower at the absence of any communication from him, he was waiting with
a mingled sense of dismay, astonishment, and indignation for something
from her. It seemed incredible to him that she should not write to
soothe away his offence, to explain herself. His first sensation indeed
had been that the offence given to him was deadly and not to be
explained, and that she who would not have him to help her in her
trouble, could not want him in her life; but before the next morning
came he had reasoned himself into a certainty that he should have as
full an explanation as it was possible to make, that she would excuse
herself by means of a hundred arguments which his own reason suggested
to him, and call him to her with every persuasion of love. But nothing
of the kind took place-- Winifred, sick and miserable, awaited on her
side the letter, the inquiry which never came, and felt herself forsaken
at the moment when every generous heart, she thought, must have felt how
much she needed support and sympathy. She did not want his interference;
she had been able to manage her family business--to do without him; he
had been _de trop_ between her brothers and herself. Then let it be so!
he said at last to himself, and plunged into his work, riding hither and
thither, visiting even patients who needed him no longer, to prove to
himself that he was too much and too seriously offended to care. To be
sure, he was not the man to stand cap in hand and plead for her favour.
He went over all the district in those three days, dashing along the
roads, hurrying from one hamlet to another. It was not the life he had
been so foolish as to imagine to himself, the life--he felt himself
blush hotly at the recollection--of the master of Bedloe, restoring the
prestige of the old name, changing the aspect of the district,
ameliorating everything as only (he thought) a man who was born the
friend and master of the place could do. It had been an ideal life which
he had imagined for himself, not one of selfishness. He had meant to
brighten the very face of the country, to mend everything that needed
mending, to do good to the poor people, who were his own people. He
remembered now that there were those who thought it humiliating and base
for a man to be enriched by his wife, and the subtle contempt of women
embodied in that popular prejudice rose up in hot and painful shame to
his heart and his face. A man is never so sure that women are inferior,
as when a woman has neglected or played him false. Edward Langton’s
heart was very sore, but he began to say to himself that it served him
right for his meanness in depending on a woman, and that a man ought to
be indebted to his own exertions and not look for advancement in so
humiliating a way. These thoughts grew more and more bitter as the days
went on. He flung himself into his work: an epidemic would have pleased
him better than the mild little ailments or lingering chronic diseases
which were the only visitations known among those healthy country folk;
but such as they were he made the most of them, frightening the sick
people by the unnecessary energy of his attendance, and saying to
himself that this, and not a fiction of the imagination or anything so
degrading as a wife’s fortune, was his true life. That he flew about the
country without many a lingering unwilling look towards Bedloe, it would
be false to say. His way wherever he went led him past the park gates,
which he found always closed, silent, giving no sign. On the one
occasion when Winifred perceived him descending the hill, by one of
those hazards which continually arise to confuse human affairs, he, for
the moment half-happy in the entrancement of a case which presented
dangerous complications, did not see or recognise the little pony
carriage lingering under the russet trees, and thus missed the only
chance of a meeting and explanation; but he did meet, when that chance
was over, next day, in the afternoon, Mr. Babington driving his heavy
old phaeton from the gates of Bedloe. Langton’s heart gave a leap even
at this means of hearing something of Winnie; but perhaps his pride
would still have prevented any clearing up, had not the old lawyer taken
it into his own hands. He stopped his horse and waited till Edward, who
was walking home from the house of a patient in the village, came up.
“I want to speak to you,” Mr. Babington said. “Will you jump up and come
with me along the road, or will you offer me your hospitality and a bit
of dinner? There is full moon to-night and I don’t mind being late. Oh,
if it’s not convenient, never mind.”
Edward’s pride had made him hesitate--his good breeding came to his aid,
showing it to be inevitable that he should obey the hungry longing of
his heart.
“Certainly it is convenient, and I am too glad--drive on to my house,
and I shall be with you in a moment.”
Though he had felt it to be his only salvation to hold fast by his
profession and present tenor of existence, Langton’s heart beat loud as
he hurried on. Now, he said to himself, he should know what it meant,
now he should have some light thrown upon the position at least which
Winifred had assumed.
Mr. Babington, however, ate his dinner, which was simple and not
over-abundant, having been prepared for the doctor alone, with steady
composure, and it was only when the meal was over that he opened out.
Langton had apologised, as was inevitable, for the simple fare.
“Don’t say a word,” said the lawyer, with a wave of his hand. “It was
all excellent, and I’m glad to see you’ve such a good cook. You don’t
know what a comfort it is to come out of a confused house like _that_,
with lengthy fine dinners that nobody understands, to a comfortable chop
which a man can enjoy and which it is a pleasure to see.”
“Bedloe was not a confused house in former days,” said Langton, with a
feeling that Winifred’s credit was somehow assailed.
“Ah, nothing is as it was in former days,” said Mr. Babington, shaking
his head; “everything is topsy-turvy now. I suppose you know all about
the last turn the affair has taken. I wonder you were not there, though,
to support poor Miss Winifred, poor thing, who has had a great deal to
go through.”
“You will be surprised,” said Langton, forcing a somewhat pale smile,
“if I tell you that I don’t know anything about it. Miss Chester
preferred that the question between her brothers and herself should be
settled among themselves. And perhaps she was right.”
“My dear Langton,” said Mr. Babington, laying his hand on the young
man’s arm, “I hope there’s no coolness on this account between that poor
girl and you?”
“I see no reason why she should be called a poor girl,” Langton said
quickly.
“Ah, well, you have not seen her then during the last two or three days.
Poor thing! between making the best of these fellows, and struggling to
keep up a show of following her father’s directions--between acting
false and meaning true”--
“Mr. Babington,” said Langton, with a dryness in his throat, “unhappily,
as you say, there has been--no coolness, thank Heaven--but a little--a
momentary silence between Miss Chester and me. Perhaps I have been to
blame. I thought she-- Tell me what has happened, and how everything is
settled, for pity’s sake!”
“Yes,” said the old lawyer, “I haven’t the slightest doubt, my young
friend, that you have been to blame. That is why the poor child looked
so white and pathetic when she said to me that she had no one to
consult. When you come to have girls of your own,” Mr. Babington said
somewhat severely, “you’ll know how it feels to see a little young
creature you are fond of look like that.”
Heaven and earth! as if all the old fogeys in the world, if they had a
thousand daughters, could feel half what a young lover feels! The blood
rose to young Langton’s temples, but he did not trust himself to reply.
“Well,” Mr. Babington continued, “it’s all comfortably settled at the
last. I had my eye on this solution all along. I may say it was my doing
all along, for I carefully refrained from pointing out to him what of
course, in an ordinary way, it would have been my duty to point
out--that in case of Miss Winifred’s refusal there was no after
settlement. You don’t understand our law terms, perhaps? Well, it was
just this, that if she refused to accept, there was no provision for
what was to follow. I knew all along she would never accept to cut out
her brothers--so here we come to a dead stop. He had not prepared for
that contingency. I don’t believe he ever thought of it. She had obeyed
him all her life, and he thought she would obey him after he was dead.
She refused the condition, and here we are in face of a totally
different state of affairs. The other wills were destroyed, and this was
as good as destroyed by her refusal. What is to be done then but to
return to the primitive condition of the matter? He dies intestate, the
property is divided, and everybody, with the exception of that scamp
Tom, is content.”
“I don’t understand,” Langton said: it was true so far, that the words
were like an incoherent murmur in his ears--but even while he spoke, the
meaning came to his mind like a flash of light. He had put aside all
such (as he said to himself) degrading imaginations, and had made up
his mind that his work was his life, and that a country doctor he was,
and should remain; but, all the same, the sensation of knowing that
Bedloe had become unattainable in fact and certainty, not only by the
temporary alienation of a misunderstanding, went through his heart like
a sudden knife.
“I can make you understand in a moment,” said Mr. Babington. “Miss
Winifred made the will void by refusing to fulfil its condition, and no
provision had been made for that emergency; therefore, in fact, it is as
if poor Chester had never made a will at all: in which case the landed
property goes to the eldest son. The personalty is divided. They will
all be very well off,” the lawyer added. “There is nothing to complain
of, though Tom is wild that he is not the heir, and Miss Winifred, poor
girl--she was very anxious to do justice, but when it came to giving
over her house to that pink-and-white creature, much too solid for her
age, George’s wife--Well, it was her own doing; but she could not bear
it, you know. Her going off like that left them all very much confused
and bewildered, but I think on the whole it was the wisest thing she
could do.”
“How going off?” cried Langton, starting to his feet.
“My dear fellow, didn’t you know? Come now, come now,” said the old
lawyer, patting him on the arm, “this is carrying things too far. You
should not have left her when she wanted all the support that was
possible. And she should not have gone away without letting you
know--but poor thing, poor thing! I don’t think she knew whether she was
on her head or her heels. She couldn’t bear it. She just turned and fled
and took no time to think.”
“Turned and fled? Do you mean to say--do you mean to tell me”-- The
young man, though he was no weakling, changed colour like a girl: his
sunburnt, manly countenance showed a sudden pallor under the brown,
something rose in his throat. He took a turn about the room in his
sudden excitement, then came back, mastering himself as best he could.
“I beg your pardon; this news is so unexpected, and everything is so
strange. Of course,” he added, forcing himself into composure, “I shall
hear.”
“Yes, of course you’ll hear; but if I were you, I should not wait to
hear, I should insist on knowing, my young friend. Don’t let pride spoil
your whole existence, as I’ve seen some things do with boys and girls.
She is well enough off, to be sure. I wish my girls had the half or
quarter of what she will have; but still it’s a come-down from Bedloe.
And to give it up to Mrs. George, that was harder than she thought. She
thought only of her brothers, you know, till she saw the wife. What the
wife did to disgust her, I can’t tell, but I’ve always noticed that when
there are two women in a case like this, they always feel themselves
pitted against each other, and the men count for nothing with them. As
soon as the thing was done, Miss Winnie forgot her brother: she saw only
Mrs. George, and to give up to her was a bitter pill. She is a good
girl, and meant everything that was good, but Mrs. George is a bitter
pill: when it came to that, she felt that she could not put up with it.
And you were not there, excuse me for reminding you. And she took it
into her head that everything was against her, as girls do--and fled.
That is the worst of girls, they are so hasty. You will know when you
have daughters of your own.”
Thus the good man went on maundering, quite unconscious that his
companion could have risen and slain him every time that he mentioned
those daughters of his own. What had his daughters to do with Winnie?
Mr. Babington talked a great deal more on that and every branch of the
subject, until it seemed to him that it was time “to be driving on,” as
he said. And then Edward had leisure for the first time to contemplate
the situation in which he found himself. Self-reproach, anger,
disappointment, coursed through his veins. He was wroth with the woman
he loved, wroth with himself: one moment attributing to her a desire to
cast him off, a want of confidence in him which it was unendurable to
think of; the next, bitterly blaming his own selfish pride, which had
driven him from her at the moment of her need. The high tide of
conflicting sentiments was so hot within him that he went out to walk
off his excitement, returning, to the consternation of his household, an
hour or more after midnight, the most unhallowed of all promenadings in
the opinion of the country folk. When he got back again to his dim
little surgery and study, returning, as it seemed, to a dull life
deprived of her and of all things, and to the overmastering
consciousness that she was gone from him, perhaps by his own fault, the
young doctor had a moment of despair: then he rose up and struck his
hand upon the table, and laughed aloud at himself. “Bah!” he said to
himself; “nobody disappears at this time of day. What a fool one is! as
if these were the middle ages! Wherever she has gone, she must have left
an address!” He laughed loud and long, though his laugh was not
mirthful, at this bringing down of his despair to the easy possibilities
of modern life. That makes all the difference between tragedy, which is
mediæval, and comedy, which is of our days: though the comedy of common
living involves a great many tragedies in every age, and even in our
own.