A SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.
A beautiful peace had descended upon Wyngham House on the departure of
the Graham-Shutes. There were no more scurryings up and down stairs on
unimportant errands; no more conversations carried on at opposite ends
of the house. Mrs. Abercarne rejoiced articulately in the change; but
to Chris the satisfaction brought by the change was tempered by many
things.
For one thing, the girl was troubled by the consciousness that she was
not acting quite openly, and by a fear of what the consequences would
be if she were to do so. Her first meetings with Mr. Richard she had
concealed from her mother for a perfectly good and honest reason, the
fear of giving Mrs. Abercarne unnecessary alarm. Later, when she had
begun to feel sure that Mr. Richard was not so mad as was supposed,
Chris had thought it a pity to worry her mother with her story while
Mrs. Abercarne spent her days in a tempest of irritation against her
declared enemy, Mrs. Graham-Shute.
But now these excuses for reticence had disappeared, and still she
hesitated to confide in her mother. For her confidence, if it was to
be in any way genuine or whole-hearted, must now be in the nature of
a confession. She did not now try to cheat herself into the belief
that she had no deeply personal interest in the occupant of the east
wing; indeed, all her thoughts were occupied in wondering why he was
kept there, and in devising schemes for releasing him from his unhappy
position. Certain words he had used in his letter had struck her to
the heart. He had mentioned the infirmity she must have noticed; so
that Chris, even in spite of herself, was obliged to admit that her
lover, although not insane, for that she refused to believe, suffered
from sudden lapses of memory, or fits of unconsciousness, which would
certainly make him, in her mother’s eyes, a “most ineligible person,”
while his eccentric habit of silence would increase this impression.
For Mrs. Abercarne would not be ready, as Chris was, to explain these
things tenderly away, and account for them by his long and enforced
seclusion.
So that Chris seemed rather depressed than exhilarated by the departure
of the noisy relations, whose presence had made it easier for her to
hide her secret troubles from her mother.
Mr. Bradfield also suffered from the departure of his guests; at
least, that was the inference Mrs. Abercarne drew, with some asperity,
from his gloomy looks. But, in truth, although the sudden change from
excessive noise to excessive tranquillity proved trying to his nerves,
the causes of Mr. Bradfield’s uneasiness had a much deeper root than
this.
He was brooding over the consciousness of a crime which would not have
troubled him in the least, but for the fear he now entertained that he
would be found out.
Now John Bradfield’s roughness and abruptness of manner were not
accompanied by as much energy of character as might have been
supposed. Nor was he a man possessed of much fertility of invention
or resource. Therefore, although conscious that the cunning Stelfox
was in possession of certain knowledge which he had concealed from his
master, John Bradfield vacillated between two courses; the one was to
come to an understanding with the servant, the other was to let things
go on for a while and await fresh developments before embarking on a
hazardous course of action.
He decided on the latter course.
In the meantime, Chris had felt bound to answer Mr. Richard’s letter.
She had not dared to confide even in Stelfox, partly because he was too
reticent, and partly from a delicacy in letting the man know of her
secret correspondence with his charge. It was with a fast-beating heart
that she, after watching for her opportunity, slipped under the locked
door of the east wing the following answer to Mr. Richard’s letter:
“I received your letter. I must tell you first that I have never
before received a letter without showing it to my mother, at
least since I was a little girl, when I had lots of letters, with
toffee and flowers, from my boy-sweethearts, which I did not show,
because my mother would have made me give up the toffee. I do not
like writing now without telling her about it, and yet, on the
other hand, I cannot bear to leave your note unanswered. So please
do not write to me again, not, at least, unless you have something
very, _very_ particular to say about anything, for instance, in
which I can help you. I am very much troubled by what you say
about the person you mentioned. I cannot believe that person
guilty of the deliberate cruelty and wickedness you suggest. Won’t
you let me speak? It would be better, believe me. I know that I
am not a proper person to give advice to anybody; I am supposed
to be too silly to be capable of such a thing. But if I were a
person of more authority, who would be listened to, I would say:
Go to that person and ask that person to tell you about yourself,
and _insist_ upon knowing. Then I believe that person will have to
give way.
“And now please remember that you are not to write to me, because
it puts me in a great difficulty when you do. For, on the one
hand, I cannot bear not to answer, when you are so lonely; and,
on the other hand, I can’t bear to do anything underhand, that I
can’t tell my mother about. It makes me feel quite wicked. And
yet, if I did tell her, I know she would tell a certain person,
or else she would insist upon our going away, and there would be
dreadful scenes.
“I know this is a dreadfully stupid letter, and I am almost
ashamed to send it; if I do, I shall post it under the door. But
please, please believe that I am very, very sorry about it all,
and that I do hope you will take the advice I should like to give
you if I dared.
“Yours--” (she debated within herself for a long time how
she should end, without being too forward, too formal, too
affectionate or too cold)--“sincerely,
“CHRIS ABERCARNE.”
“I can’t put ‘Christina,’ it’s simply too horrid,” she said to herself,
as she looked sideways at the letter; “it’s a dreadfully bad letter,
just such a letter as Miss Smithson used to say a lady ought not to
write; full of ‘that person,’ and ‘can’t,’ instead of ‘cannot.’ And it
gets worse, instead of better, as it goes on. However, I don’t think
there are any sentences without heads or tails, and if there are, why,
he shouldn’t write to a girl if he expects grammar. I think,” she went
on, a little blush rising to her face as the thought came into her
mind, “that I may give it just one, to help it on its way.”
And, laughing to herself, she pressed the letter to her pretty red lips.
Now if Chris had been a really conscientious and strong-minded girl,
instead of the perfect fool her kind friends declared her to be,
she would have been quite satisfied with having put an end to her
correspondence with Mr. Richard, and would have been shocked at the
idea of his wishing to carry it on. It is sad, therefore, to be obliged
to relate that every morning, while taking her walk in the enclosed
garden, as he had begged her to do (for Johnson proved delightfully
corruptible), she cast an inquiring glance towards the spot where she
had found Mr. Richard’s first letter.
And, all things considered, it is not surprising that before long she
found a second.
She had given him fresh hope, fresh courage, he said. But again he
begged her to say nothing on his behalf to anybody, assuring her that
before very long he hoped to be able to act upon her advice, for which
he thanked her most gratefully.
And then, after a day or two, during which she contented herself with
glancing shyly up at his window, at one of which he was always to be
seen watching her with very eloquent eyes, it began to seem rather
cruel not to let him have just a few lines to assure him that she had
received his letter. So that another kind little missive got posted
under the door of the east wing; and though she begged again that
he would not write to her, there was something about the injunction
which made it read to the young man like an invitation. And so, with
many qualms of conscience on the one side, at least, an intermittent
correspondence went on, which became the happiness and the misery of
the girl’s life.
In the meantime, John Bradfield laid siege to her affections with a
good deal of tact, inflicting upon her very little of his society, but
anticipating her wishes in every possible way, until she found that
he had gradually become the fountain-head of a great many pleasures
which she would never have known but for him. She could not mention
a book that she would like to read, a flower she was fond of, or a
composer whose works she would like to study, without finding, in the
course of the next few days, book, plant or music lying about as if it
had found its way into her presence by magic. These attentions made
Chris uncomfortable, and Mrs. Abercarne very happy. The latter thought
it wiser to say nothing, and was deceived by her daughter’s manner.
For Chris, grateful on the one hand for Mr. Bradfield’s kindness to
herself, and anxious on the other to pave the way for coaxing him to do
justice to his ward, acquired towards the master of the house a manner
full of a sort of pleading diffidence, so that both her mother and Mr.
Bradfield believed that the charm was beginning to work.