JILTED.
‘NO wedding!’ screamed Mrs. Dulcimer, putting down the old silver
teapot and staring aghast into space.
‘No wedding?’ repeated the Vicar.
‘No,’ answered Kenrick, hoarsely, and with a hardness of manner which
he maintained all through that painful day. ‘Beatrix has been fooling
me all this time. She has written to tell me that she never loved
me--and--at the last--it came into her head that she ought not to marry
me without loving me. An afterthought. And she flings me fifty thousand
pounds as a peace-offering. As you throw an importunate dog a biscuit,
when you don’t want him to follow you.’
‘It is most extraordinary,’ exclaimed the Vicar. ‘She was in such a
hurry to pay off those mortgages before her marriage. I thought she
was romantically in love with you.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Kenrick. ‘That was how she meant to make
amends to me. She valued my love, my manhood, my self-respect at fifty
thousand pounds. I am paid in full, she thinks, and I have no right to
complain.’
‘Women are an inscrutable species,’ said the Vicar.
‘I am a most unlucky woman,’ wailed Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘I took such a pride
in bringing Kenrick and Beatrix together--such an excellent match--so
well suited to each other--a large fortune--a fine position in the
county--title--everything.’
‘My love, it will not mend the matter for you to get hysterical,’
remonstrated the Vicar. ‘Where are you going, Kenrick?’ he asked, as
Kenrick moved towards the door.
‘To the Water House. Where is Cyril?’
‘He got an early cup of tea from Rebecca, and went round to see some of
his old parishioners. He promised to be at the church before eleven.’
‘A superfluous civility,’ said Kenrick. ‘No doubt he knew there would
be no wedding.’
‘Kenrick,’ remonstrated Mrs. Dulcimer, but Kenrick was gone.
He walked down to the Water House faster than he had ever walked there
in his life, though Love had lent him Mercury’s winged sandals. To-day
rage and baffled love, and gnawing jealousy, drove him as fast as if
they had been palpable scourges wielded by the Furies.
Everything looked very quiet at the old house by the river. The butler
came to the door. Miss Harefield had gone away with Madame Leonard at
six o’clock that morning. The carriage had taken them to the railway
station at Great Yafford. No one had gone with them but the coachman,
and he had not left his box. The porters had carried the luggage into
the station. Yes, there was a good deal of luggage. The big cases were
to be sent to a furniture warehouse in London.
The house was to remain in the care of the butler, and Mrs. Peters, the
housekeeper. The servants were to be on board wages. Mr. Scratchell was
to arrange everything.
Mr. Scratchell came in while Sir Kenrick was questioning the butler.
He too had received a letter from Beatrix, which he allowed Kenrick to
read.
‘DEAR MR. SCRATCHELL,--I am going abroad, most likely for a long
time. Please receive the rents, as usual, attend to all repairs, and
pay in all moneys to the bank, as heretofore. I shall be obliged if
you will give the servants whatever allowance is liberal and proper
for board wages. This had better be paid monthly, in advance. Please
see that the house and grounds are kept in good order, and that all
my subscriptions to local and other charities are regularly paid.
‘Mr. Dulcimer is to have any money he may require for his poor.’
‘Yours very truly,
‘BEATRIX HAREFIELD.’
‘Business-like,’ said Mr. Scratchell, ‘but I’m afraid the poor young
woman is not quite right in her mind. Do you know what she has done
about the mortgages on your property?’
‘Yes,’ answered Kenrick. ‘You don’t suppose I am going to keep the
money?’
‘I don’t suppose you’d be so demented as to give it back,’ said Mr.
Scratchell. ‘You’d better keep it. If she doesn’t make ducks and drakes
of it one way, she will another. What was your quarrel about?’
‘Quarrel,’ echoed Kenrick, and then it occurred to him that it was just
as well to let this vulgarian Scratchell believe that he and Beatrix
had quarrelled.
How could a piece of such common clay as Mr. Scratchell comprehend the
finer feelings of human porcelain? He only thought it cracked.
There was nothing more to be discovered at the Water House. Beatrix
and her companion had gone. That was all. Miss Harefield had made her
arrangements with coolness and promptitude. It might be just possible
to follow her. But to what end?
Kenrick went in quest of Cyril. After a good deal of inquiry he found
him with a bedridden old woman, listening to a doleful story of the
winter’s sufferings.
‘I want to talk to you, Cyril,’ said Kenrick, and, with a gentle
apology, Cyril cut short the dame’s rambling account of her bodily ills.
‘What is the matter, Ken?’ asked Cyril, when they were outside in the
windy road. ‘You look as pale as a ghost.’
‘There is to be no marriage. Beatrix has gone away--and you know
all about it. You planned it together yesterday when you met in the
churchyard.’
‘Upon my honour, Kenrick, I know nothing,’ answered the other, solemnly.
‘Why should I believe you? She, whom I thought the noblest of women,
has fooled and jilted me. In whose honour am I to believe after that?’
‘Kenrick, I am deeply sorry for you.’
‘Pray spare me that. Your pity would be the last drop of gall in my
cup. Will you swear to me that you do not know where she is gone--that
you had nothing to do with her going?’
‘Directly, nothing,’ answered Cyril, very pale.
His conscience smote him for that scene of yesterday. He had given
the reins to passion, he, a man who had hitherto shaped his life upon
principle. He felt himself guilty.
‘Directly, no. You are equivocating with me, as only your virtuous man
can equivocate. You are Pharisees, every one of you, straining at
gnats and swallowing camels. What about your indirect influence? It was
that which broke off my marriage.’
‘I met your betrothed wife yesterday, by accident. I was taken off
my guard. In the bewilderment of that moment I may have said foolish
things--’
‘Yes, you urged her to break off her marriage. You left her a year ago,
of your own accord. And now, finding that I had won her, it came into
your head to try and take her away from me. A manly course throughout.’
‘Kenrick, when I went away conscience was my dictator. Yesterday I let
passion master me. I confess it with deepest humiliation. But trust me,
if Beatrix did not love you, it is better--infinitely better--that you
and she should be parted for ever. No happiness would have come out of
your union----’
‘Preach your sermons to more patient listeners,’ cried Kenrick,
savagely. ‘I will have none of them.’
And so the cousins parted. Kenrick went to Great Yafford to make
inquiries at the station, but at that busy place there had been
nobody with leisure enough to particularize two ladies--one tall
and the other short--going away by the seven o’clock train. Neither
Miss Harefield’s carriage nor Miss Harefield’s person had made any
impression upon the mind of the porter who had carried her luggage into
the station.
There was a train that started for London at seven, there was another
that went northward at a quarter past. There was the Liverpool train at
7.30. She might have travelled by any one of these.
Kenrick went back to the Vicarage in a savage humour. No good could
have come from the pursuit of his lost bride, but it was hard not to
know where she had gone. Fortunately Cyril passed him unawares on the
road between the town and the village, so those two did not meet again.
‘I shall go to London to-morrow,’ Kenrick told the Dulcimers that
evening, ‘and present myself at the War Office next day.’
‘You want to go back to India directly?’ asked the Vicar.
‘Yes, I shall cut short my leave by a month or six weeks.’
‘Dear Kenrick, why not stop with us till you recover your spirits after
this cruel blow?’ urged Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘My kindest of friends, I could never recover my spirits at Little
Yafford. Forgive me for saying so, but the place has become hateful to
me. Even your kindness could not make it endurable.’
‘Kenrick is right,’ said the Vicar. ‘He has been very badly treated,
and his profession will be his best consolation.’
‘There is one thing that must be settled before I go back to India,’
said Kenrick. ‘I must give--Miss Harefield--back her money. I cannot
carry that burden away with me. You are her guardian and one of her
trustees, Vicar. You and Mr. Scratchell must manage the business
between you. I can only raise the money by a new mortgage. Would it not
be best for Miss Harefield’s trustees to take a mortgage on my estate
for the amount they have advanced? I paid the other people only four
per cent. I might pay her five.’
‘I do not think she will take a mortgage. I do not believe she will
take her money back in any form whatsoever,’ said the Vicar. ‘She has
written me a letter, which I shall show you when you are calmer and
more disposed to forgiveness. It is a very touching letter, full of
truth and generous feeling. She has treated you very badly--she has
been foolish, mistaken; but she is a noble girl, and she is much to be
pitied. You will be ungenerous if you insist on giving her back the
money. She has more than enough without it.’
‘I shall be a mean hound if I keep it,’ said Kenrick.