I didn't suppose _Hugh_ had been the one to discover her merits."
"I assure you, mother, I was quite as discreet as Arthur or Hugh either.
But what made Mademoiselle Mattei a subject of conversation?"
"Why, she is at Miss Venning's at school."
"Good heavens!" ejaculated Jem, utterly off his guard; then, catching
himself up: "_At school_! Extraordinary!"
"Yes, but I believe there's nothing extraordinary about her. So pray,
my dear, don't go and do anything foolish."
"Why am I always to be the black sheep?" said Jem, in an injured tone,
but with inward laughter. "Hugh and Arthur saw _quite_ as much of her
as I did."
"Well, we may put poor Arthur out of the question, and as for Hugh, do
you think I've any reason to be anxious in that way about him?"
"So you wouldn't like an Italian daughter-in-law?"
"My dear, don't be absurd," said Mrs Crichton, contemplating her
wool-work. "How can you talk of such a thing? I should like to see
both you and Hugh married, but I dread your doing something foolish when
I think of the number of times you have been on the verge of it--and as
for Hugh--"
"Well, as for Hugh?"
"I really despair of his ever turning his thoughts in that direction."
"How are you all getting along together?" said Jem, rather glad to
change the conversation.
"Oh, pretty well," said Mrs Crichton, sighing. "Of course, Arthur,
poor dear boy, has ups and downs; but he is very cheerful, in and out,
and I make a point of going on as usual."
"And he and Hugh get on comfortably?"
"Yes. I tell Hugh it is absurd to expect that he should not flag
sometimes. Now, Sunday was a trial. He went to church in the morning,
but he was more knocked up afterwards than I have seen him at all; but
the next day he was quite ready to be interested in these pleasant
Dysarts who have come to Ashenfold. Hugh was quite angry with me for
making him come in to see them; but we can't shut ourselves up, and I
must ask them to dinner in a quiet way. It is much better for Arthur.
Then, there was another thing. I wanted him to come to the Rectory with
me--to get it over, you know--but Hugh interfered, and said no-one
should urge him to make such an effort, in such a peremptory way I had
to give it up."
"I should avoid discussions," said James.
"It's hard work for them both. By the way, mamma," he added, having
conducted the conversation well away from its former matrimonial
channel, "do you know that there is going to be a great choir festival
at H--, in the cathedral in Easter week--shall you go?"
"Is there? Oh, no, I hadn't thought of it."
"I expect it will be rather fine. I shall run down, and if you did care
about taking Freddie I daresay the Haywards would get you good places."
"The Haywards?"
"The Archdeacon, you know. He is a Canon of H--. Young Hayward's in
the War Office. I know him. There are some daughters."
"Oh, I know Mrs Hayward very well. She was at the only ball to which I
ever took dear Mysie at H--, with her daughters; tall, fine girls,
rather insipid."
"They're very superior," said Jem, in an odd, meek voice; but, as he was
not much in the habit of admiring superior young ladies, his mother only
said:
"Are they? Their mother is a very ladylike woman. Well, I should not
mind going over if Freddie wished it. I daresay Flossy Venning might
like to go with us."
"Oh, thank you," began Jem. "I mean the organist is a friend of mine.
Oh, there's Hugh. How d'ye do?"
"I didn't know you were here, Jem," said Hugh, as he came into the room.
"I came by the early train. Where's Arthur?"
"He preferred walking. How long shall you be here, Jem?"
"Till Tuesday."
"Oh, then," said Mrs Crichton, "Hugh, I think I shall ask the Dysarts
to excuse a short notice and come here quite quietly on Monday night.
As it is Lent, that is a reason for having no party."
"There can be no reason wanted for that," interrupted Hugh. "Mother,
how can you think of such a thing? It is not suitable, and must be
intolerable to Arthur."
"Really, Hugh," said his mother, for once offended, "I am the best judge
of what is suitable. You talk as if I wished to give a ball; and Arthur
does not dislike a little society."
"If he does not," said Hugh, and then broke off, "Perhaps he does not."
"Why don't you ask him?" suggested James.
"Because he has never shown any of this foolish reluctance," said Mrs
Crichton; "and, indeed, my dear, I can't give into you about it."
She rose and went away as she spoke, and James said:
"How's this, Hugh? Things going all crooked?"
"Of course they are," said Hugh, bitterly. "How could they go right?
As for Arthur, I don't profess to understand him. I daresay he does
like amusement, but he can't bear this place. How they can say he is
less altered than they expected! I can feel the chance allusions stab
him!"
"Then do you think he is putting a great force on himself?"
"No, no," said Hugh, in an odd, restless tone. "It's just as it comes,
I believe. But they say he bears it beautifully, because his spirits
come back in and out. He is boyish enough still. I daresay in a year's
time it will all be pretty well over."
"It strikes me, Hugh, you are more out of sorts than Arthur."
"I?" said Hugh. "If Arthur feels one half--No, he could not choose to
be always with me."
Hugh knitted his brows and walked over to the window. His was the
perplexity of an erring, earnest nature watching another live over a
difficult piece of life, by means of a more gracious temperament,
succeeding, as he felt, without the struggles that went towards his own
failures. Arthur behaved much better to him than he did to Arthur, but
he did not take half so much pains about it. This is always an
unsatisfactory consciousness, and in Hugh's case it was intensified by
the morbid interest that he was forced to take in his cousin.
"Mother's been telling me all the news," said James, to change the
subject.
Hugh understood his marked tone at once.
"Remember, Jem, that is closed for ever," he said. "If you breathe one
word of the past, in joke or earnest, to my mother or Arthur, it will be
past forgiveness."
"I'm sure I don't want to stir it up," said Jem; "but it is a strange
turn of fate."
"It will make no difference," said Hugh, in a tone that meant "it
_shall_ not."
James was silent. Hugh's resolve was exactly what he had always
counselled him to make, yet he could not help thinking of Violante's
look of joy at seeing him, and wondering whether that light was quenched
in her soft eyes for ever.
In the meantime, Arthur had not taken his solitary walk without a
purpose. However far Hugh might be right in supposing that he allowed
his feelings to drift as they would, he was becoming conscious that
there was some cowardice in shrinking from anything that could excite
them. He must stand by Mysie's grave--and he must stand there alone;
for on Sunday he had not dared to lift his eyes as he walked down the
path. She was buried in a corner of the churchyard where it was
especially green and still close by the wall of the Rectory garden, over
which a bright pink almond-tree was visible. Snowdrops and violets were
thrusting their heads through the short turf between the graves, and
were blooming in sweet abundance round the white cross that marked where
she lay, while several half-faded wreaths were placed above them. There
was nothing here to make Arthur nervous,--he wondered why he had stayed
away so long. He was full of grief, yet something of the peaceful
spirit of the past came shining back into his heart as he knelt there in
the spring sunshine, and kissed the letters of Mysie's name. It was
better, he thought, than being far away. He had risen to his feet, and
was still dreamily gazing, when he heard a startled step at his side,
and, turning, saw Florence Venning, bright, tall, and blooming, with a
basket of flowers in her hand.
"Flossy!"
"Oh, I did not see you--I--I'll go!" said Flossy, crimson with the sense
of intrusion.
"No, don't go. I am very glad to see you," he said, as he took her hand
and held it, while they looked down at the grave together.
"Did you put these?" he said, touching the wreaths.
"Only this cross. The school-girls bring them on Sunday," faltered
Flossy, as she bent down and showed how the frame of the cross was made
to hold water, which she now replenished from a little jug she had
brought with her. Arthur, with a look of entreaty, and with trembling
inapt fingers took the flowers and began to place them in the cross.
Poor fellow, he did it very badly; but she refrained from helping him,
and let him put the last snowdrop in himself.
"Flossy," he said, suddenly, "if I were lying there, and she were left,
do you think she could have--have endured to live?"
"Yes, Arthur," Flossy said, in her full tones, which vibrated with
intense feeling, "I think she could. I think she would have found a
good life somehow; like--like a robin in the snow," as one fluttered
down beside them. "She was so clear and real--I think she would."
Arthur had sat down on a broad, flat stone near, still gazing at the
flowers.
"She was not so weak," he murmured.
"Oh, Arthur, you have not been weak. Everyone says--"
"No one knows," he answered. "All that should help me has no reality
apart from _her_."
"But it is not apart from her, Arthur," said Flossy, earnestly. "I--"
"Yes?" said Arthur, looking up.
"_Even_ I," said Flossy, humbly, "I think of her at church, and doing my
work, or on beautiful days like this."
"Yes, dear Flossy, I'm sure you do," said Arthur, gratified; but not as
if he took the words home.
"And I hope," said Flossy, "that it will make me a better girl, and more
like her."
"You are right, Flossy," said Arthur, after a pause, with more spirit.
"I don't want to give up, and everyone is so kind to me; they all think
of what I like. But," he added, in a passionate undertone, "she was my
angel; and all prayers, Sundays, all the things that comfort a good girl
like you, are filled with longing for her!"
"But they won't be less dear for that?" whispered Flossy.
"No," he said, "No, I'll hold on!"
And he felt then that through such holy associations his lost love might
still be a star in his path, and lead him, not back to his old self, but
on to something better, and even brighter. But, then, how could he tune
his life to such a solemn melody as this? He longed for the joy-bells,
and even the jingling tunes of his old, easy boyhood. He was so weary
of his heavy heart. He knew, as Flossy could not know, why men plunged
into folly, and even sin, to drown grief. He would, not do that; but he
thought how incredible it would have been to Flossy that there were
times when he wanted to forget Mysie--times that came oftener as the
months went by. He would have walked so contentedly on the easy,
unheroic meadows of every-day life, and fate, or the hand of God, had
forced him on to the rocky paths of sorrow. Just at that moment he
caught a glimpse of the golden gate above them.
"How many birds there are here!" he said, after a silence.
"Do you know why?" said Flossy. "Mrs Harcourt comes and feeds them
here every morning and evening, because _she_ was so fond of birds."
"And I have never been to see her. I'll go now," said Arthur, rising
with sudden energy.
"I came from there," said Flossy. "This is Mrs Harcourt's jug."
"Well, then, let us come," he said, without giving himself time to
hesitate, and Florence took up her basket and followed him into the
garden.
PART FIVE, CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.
PIN-PRICKS.
"The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one.
But the light of a whole life dies
When love is done."
The Rectory drawing-room window was open to the sunshine, and Mrs
Harcourt was standing by it, waiting for Flossy. But Arthur turned
aside from it, and went round to the door in front.
"Who is that, my dear?" said the old lady, as Flossy ran up to her.
"It is Arthur," she said. "I met him _there_. He said he ought to come
and see you."
"Ah, poor boy, I'm glad," said Mrs Harcourt, as she went to let him in,
while Flossy exclaimed nervously:
"Oh, Violante, I forgot you. Never mind, it will be just as well."
"Is it Signor Arthur?" asked Violante, who sometimes accompanied Miss
Florence on half-holiday walks, and had needed no teaching to consider
Redhurst sacred ground.
"Yes," said Flossy, as Arthur and Mrs Harcourt came in. He looked very
pale, while Mrs Harcourt, half-tearful, half-hospitable, was eagerly
welcoming him.
"Ah, my dear Arthur, we have been longing to see you; but I can't get
out much now; and I know--I know you could hardly come. It is very good
of you."
"I am almost all day in Oxley," he said, "but I hope you are well, and
the Rector?"
"Pretty well, my dear, for our time of life. We have had a lonely
winter; but we push along together, you see."
Arthur managed to smile, but his face went to Flossy's heart, though
neither she nor Mrs Harcourt knew exactly how the fifty years which the
old husband and wife had "had wi' ane anither" had once seemed to
stretch before the young lovers, who never saw of them a single day.
"You have been getting some tea for us, Mrs Harcourt?" she said.
"Oh, yes, my dear. Now, do you pour it out, and Arthur will have some.
But will your young Italian friend drink tea?"
"Oh, yes, signora, I like tea," and, with a start of relief, Arthur
turned at the sound of her voice.
"Mademoiselle Mattei!" he said; "I did not know you;" and, in truth,
Violante was much altered at first sight by her dark winter dress and
jacket, and little black hat with a red plume.
Arthur shook hands with her, and asked her how she liked England.
"I like it very much."
"Why, we were very near an explanation. If you had told me where you
were going to school I could have enlightened you much better as to what
your life would be like there."
"But I did not know myself," said Violante, colouring as she thought of
what a difference a few explanations might have made. "I did not know
anything," and her sweet voice faltered with its weight of meaning.
"But I was right, wasn't I, when I gave you good advice? You have
found--"
"Miss Florence," said Violante, with a grateful look.
She felt as if Signor Arthur was quite an old friend. He had seen Rosa
and her father, and she began to tell him about them, while Flossy made
a few words of explanation to Mrs Harcourt as to their previous
meeting.
"I expect to find my cousin James at home," he said. "You remember
him?"
"Yes, Arthur," said Flossy. "It's the strangest thing that she should
have met you without knowing that Mr Crichton and James were your
cousins, and that then she should come here!"
"Mr Hugh never comes to see me," said Mrs Harcourt.
"Doesn't he?" said Arthur. "I will tell him that he should. There's
the Rector."
Mr Harcourt, with more tact than his wife, only gave Arthur a warm
handshake. Violante rose and curtsied to him in a pretty reverential
fashion that pleased and touched him, and while he complimented her, in
a little old-fashioned Italian, Flossy said aside:
"It makes Violante very shy to hear of anyone who saw her act; and, as
Mary isn't very fond of the subject, we say very little about it."
"Ah, yes, poor child! It's a mortifying recollection if she made a
failure of it. She's a lovely creature. What on earth does she do with
herself?"
"Oh, many things. Surely, Arthur, you don't think she need be useless
because she's pretty?" and, in the little laugh that followed Flossy's
return to her natural inclination for argument, Arthur took his leave.
It was a great relief to have got this afternoon's work over, and
comfortable to find Jem at home when he got there, cheerful and chatty,
and taking no apparent notice of his words or looks, yet with a little
undercurrent of sympathy that he felt all the time. James amused
everybody, and put them into good-humour, taking the burden of
cheerfulness off their shoulders; and yet he avoided every word that
could have touched painfully on his cousin or brother--or would have
done so, had not some mention of a new opera recalled Violante to Arthur
after dinner, when both he and Freddie demanded a description of her
performances, as he stood on the hearthrug, looking round at his
audience. Hugh was sitting on one side of the fire, holding up a
"Quarterly Review;" the ladies looked expectant over their work; and
Arthur, leaning back in a low chair in front of him, was looking right
up in his face.
"Well," said Jem, apparently measuring his beard, hair by hair; "I only
saw her once. She acted badly and sang well, but it was a failure--"
"How so? She was enough applauded," abruptly said Hugh; and then could
have bitten his tongue out for speaking.
"She is pretty, you know," said Jem.
"Lovely," said Arthur. "There's a sort of pathetic grace about her; but
I suppose it didn't tell at a distance."
It would be difficult to say whether their admiration, or the careless,
critical tone in which it was uttered, enraged Hugh the most.
"Since her public career has ceased," he said, "it seems a pity to
discuss it."
"Yes. It's hardly fair," said Arthur; "but she interested me, poor
child, and I was very glad to see her with Flossy. She is sure to be
well taken care of, and, perhaps, she'll forget her troubles."
"What troubles?" said Hugh, sternly.
"Why, I told you the other day," said Arthur, regardful of Frederica's
presence. "She looks twice as bright as she did in Italy."
"Now it seems to me," said Mrs Crichton, "that you are all making a
very unnecessary talk about her. Miss Venning has decidedly stretched a
point in having her here. I don't altogether approve of it. Young
ladies shouldn't have histories, and they should keep her and hers in
the background."
"Aunt Lily, I think that would be mean," said Frederica.
"Aunt Lily's never seen her," said Arthur.
"No, my dear, I don't feel any curiosity about her," said Mrs Crichton,
didactically.
Jem--no other word will express it--giggled; Hugh sprang to his feet,
and, happily for the preservation of his secret, knocked over the lamp
beside him, and in the confusion that followed Violante was forgotten,
and he contrived to apologise and make his escape.
Such discussions rendered him furious, far more so than any amount of
opposition could have done while he had had the one purpose of marrying
Violante clear and straight before him. Then he would have borne
patiently with his mother's natural opposition, and would have smiled at
anyone else's. But now that they should all dare to praise her, and
judge her, and "take an interest" in her! It made him very angry, and
yet he was ashamed of his own connection with it. He would not have had
it discovered for the world; and then, when he knew this feeling to be
despicable, it was justified by the knowledge of the pain and
disturbance any discovery would cause, and increased by his jealousy of
Violante's reported confidences and conversations. Arthur had been
eager about nothing else. Hugh had an unbounded belief in Violante's
irresistible charms, and none in the depth and permanency of Arthur's
sorrow, even while that sorrow made his own. He was never in the same
mind for five minutes at a time, angry, miserable, jealous, and
self-reproachful. He was sacrificing himself, of course, in giving up
all his chances of winning her, and yet he could not quite rid himself
of the suspicion that he was false and cruel, and that he had been his
best self when he defied the world for her sake. If accident had thrown
her in his way the whole current of events might have been changed; but
he could not and would not seek her, though he thought about her enough
to make chance allusions far more his dread than they ever were
Arthur's, who never thought of them till they came; and he bemoaned
himself over the Dysart dinner-party, the announcement of which his
cousin hardly heeded.
"Hugh has become exceedingly cross," Freddie said to Jem, with the
freedom of speech of the Redhurst household.
"Then, don't make him more so," was Jem's advice, given with equal
openness.
The party was merely to consist of Colonel and Mrs Dysart, their two
elder daughters, and one of their sons, who was discovered to be at home
and invited at the last minute. It was difficult to see why a few extra
people should make any difference, but Jem dressed himself with a sense
of preparing to walk on egg-shells, and Arthur felt suddenly reluctant,
and as if the sense of even this small festivity was depressing.
"My dear Jem," his mother had said, "I look to you to make it go off
well." But the second Miss Dysart was very pretty, and just in the
style Jem admired, and he was speedily absorbed in discussing a new
novel with her, and forgot to guide the rest of the party, who talked of
the neighbourhood and the society in the manner of people entertaining
new comers. The ladies of the Dysart party were very conscious of the
recent history of their entertainers; and, perhaps, Miss Dysart was a
little disappointed that Arthur's manner and conversation were so much
like other people's. The gentlemen were less well-informed, or more
forgetful; and about half-way through dinner--after the shops of Oxley,
and the excellence of Miss Venning's school for girls, and the doubtful
advantages of the grammar-school for boys, had been well discussed--the
inevitable subject of a country dinner-party made its appearance, and
young Dysart, across the table, began to ask Arthur about the shooting.
Hugh paused suddenly in what he was saying, as Arthur answered: "I am
afraid you haven't much at Ashenfold; but ours is pretty good."
"You shoot, I suppose?" said young Dysart.
"Oh, yes," said Arthur, but with a catch in his breath.
"We shall take a day together, now and then, I hope, Mr Crichton?" said
Colonel Dysart to Hugh.
"No. I have given it up," said Hugh, with sudden abrupt emphasis. "I
shall let my shooting." He spoke as if he were confessing his faith on
the scaffold; and, in the midst of the dead silence that ensued, James
was heard wildly asking his little country-bred neighbour if she had
ever been to a pigeon-match at Hurlingham; while Arthur, at the sound of
his voice, said, with an effort that he could not conceal:
"The Ribstones are the great sportsmen in these parts. Sir William
always has plenty of pheasants;" and Mrs Dysart caught up the
Hurlingham shuttlecock and conducted the conversation safely on to the
Princess of Wales. Arthur joined in, but his eyes looked absent, and
once or twice he missed the answers to what he had said; while Jem's
pretty neighbour looked at him with the tears in her eyes. No one could
forget what, had passed; and, indeed, in such a household as Redhurst,
this matter of the shooting was a practical difficulty, and a subject
that could not be tabooed.
The guests had hardly departed when Hugh said suddenly:
"To set this matter at rest for ever--as long as I live I shall never
touch a gun again. Rest assured of it."
No one answered, till Arthur said, moving away:
"Good night, Aunt Lily, I'll go to bed. I'm tired."
Then James broke out:
"Really, Hugh, I am surprised at you!"
"Would you have me let anyone--would you have me let Arthur think that I
could ever shoot again?"
"Who cares whether you do or not?" said Jem, angrily. "Neither you nor
Arthur can live without hearing the subject mentioned, and the only way
is to pass it off quietly. He would have got over it in a minute if you
had been silent, and next time it would have been a matter of course to
him. Now you have raised up a scarecrow for ever."
"Yes," said Mrs Crichton. "It would be all very well to let the
shooting for a time--"
"Of course, mother, I meant with your permission," said Hugh, who was
very punctilious as to invading his mother's rights.
"Nonsense, my dear. As if I should interfere with you about it! But
now you have made our friends uncomfortable, and Arthur will feel the
impossibility of it, instead of slipping back to it naturally by
degrees. And you have made a most painful scene." Here Mrs Crichton
herself ended in tears--half-nervous and half-sorrowful.
"It only shows," said Hugh, passionately, "that life here is impossible
for Arthur and me. It is a problem that cannot be worked out. What is
there left that has not that awful mark on it: the fields, the river--
and would you have it supposed that I do not feel it?"
"I thought," said James, drily, "that it was Arthur's feelings, not
yours, that were in question."