THE PARTING.
Sir William dined with his cousin that day. He was to say good-bye to
her that evening; for, although he did not intend leaving the
neighbourhood before the day after next, he had put off some business
until the last hour, and had been compelled to give up his remaining day
to dry detail and humdrum affairs.
It was only latterly, within the past few days--in fact, since he had
come into the neighbourhood of Daneford--he had discovered dry detail
and humdrum affairs. Of old details had been to him fascinating, and
affairs a passion. When a new subject came to his hand he devoured it.
When a novel situation presented itself, he dashed at it as impetuously
as a brave soldier at a breach.
Now all was changed. When he saw the Castle first his impulse was to set
men at work on it instantly. He wished to have it put in order at once;
and nothing but the appearance of indecent haste deterred him from doing
so. To-morrow he had to meet, among others, the people to whom he had
entrusted the work, and he wished them all at the bottom of the
Weeslade.
"I never knew until now I had such a taste for rural scenery. When I was
away I used to think that if I got back to England I should spend all my
time in London. Now the 'Warfinger Hotel,' overlooking the broad placid
Weeslade, seems to me all I could desire, with now and then a visit to
the Island--a stroll through its grounds and halls alone, or with
Cousin Maud.
"How cool and fresh the air is around here! Coming into a place like
this out of the great cities of the world is like escaping from a
riotous street into a cathedral where a choir is practising hymns.
"I wonder does she sing? I know she loves pansies best of all the
flowers.
"But, as I was saying, it is strange how one's most settled ideas change
as one grows older. Of course, that is but natural. When I got that pony
first I thought all living creatures must admire and envy me. There was
only one thing I envied of those around me, and that was their privilege
of standing and seeing such a splendid sight as I and my pony going
past. I would freely have given all my possessions, except my pony, for
the power of admiring on foot at the roadside the fine spectacle I and
my mount made riding by.
"Fancy Sir Alexander not keeping a horse and groom for Maud! He didn't
ride of late years, but that is no reason why she should not. She can
ride; she told me so. It is too bad to think of the dark seclusion the
poor girl has been kept in. I wonder how she lived. Upon my soul it was
a shame! There all day long, all the year round, in this gloomy relic of
the cold past, with no other change than a few hours in this sleepy
place--this humdrum city of Daneford. I am surprised she did not die. It
was enough to kill anyone. Fancy passing a whole lifetime away in that
old place and this dull town! Monstrous!
"Of course I shouldn't mind it, as I was saying a moment ago, for I have
been in the world and seen as much as I want to see. I should feel quite
content to live here always. I should never care for anything better
than a bed at the 'Warfinger Hotel,' and a stroll now and then about the
Midharsts' old place where the Fleureys once lived, a power in the
state. But Maud living here! Monstrous!
"I know what I'll do when I come back--I never thought of that
before--I'll get the house in St. James's Square put in order, and she
and Mrs. Grant shall go up there, and someone will bring out Maud, and
she shall be the beauty of the year. All the town will talk of the
lovely Miss Midharst. Then I can go and stay at Warfinger and--and see
to improvements, and so on; and then if Maud wanted me she can write or
telegraph. I can fill up a telegraph-form with only the word 'Come,' and
she can keep it in her purse and send it off the moment she wishes to
see me. I'll leave word at the telegraph-office in Daneford, that
anyone bringing me that telegram in half an hour shall have a
sovereign.
"I daresay I could have a wire to the Island, so there need be no delay.
But it would look strange. I'll make the messenger's fee five pounds,
that will be better.
"I shall keep a portmanteau always ready packed, so that there will be
no delay after getting the telegram. Even supposing the telegram does
not come for a week or fortnight, I may run up to London to see Maud and
Mrs. Grant, and make my mind easy about them.
"While they are away I can have alterations made. I can have all the
repairs and alterations done while I am in Egypt overhauled and
perfected. Maud may like many things changed; and, of course, anything
Maud wants to be done shall be done. Of course. Fancy Maud saying she
would like something or other done, and my saying, 'No, Maud; I cannot
do that!' Fancy such a thing! I wish she would ask me for something. It
is so dull to have nothing to do for Maud.
"Before I knew Maud--it seems a long time, and yet it is only a few
days: it is strange to think how long ago my previous life seems--how
much time the past ten or a dozen days cover. I have often seen
painters, when they had painted-in the solid objects of their pictures,
go over parts with thin transparent colour, and, as if by magic, the
ruin or the mountain that a moment ago pressed offensively forward
retired into its proper place in the composition, and gathered round it
mellow repose and forgetfulness. This glaze takes the heat and worry out
of the picture. It gives it moist perfume and collected dignity. The few
days I have spent here have acted like the glaze on the substantial
background of facts in my past life. Why?
"Why? Never mind why; I am content. I like the collectedness that has
come upon me. It cannot arise from the title or the estates. I am
leaving all the money behind me, and for all practical purposes the
title also. When I go away I shall be nothing more than a Government
clerk in the foreign service. When I get there, the few Europeans I know
may not have heard of Sir Alexander's death. It is not the title or the
money. What has done it?
"Before I knew Maud I always fancied anyone called Maud should be young
and fragile and exquisitely fair; and my Maud (she is mine, for are we
not of the one house?) is young and fragile and exquisitely fair.
"Maud.
"What a musical name it is! The lips and ears never tire of it. The
oftener you say it the more beautiful it seems. It is a name you must
speak softly. You cannot shout it out or fancy yourself saying it
angrily. Imagine for a moment my speaking angrily to my Maud!
"Speaking angrily to Maud! The mere supposition is like a blow. Maud is
sanctified to me doubly, as being the last daughter of our family, and
as being friendless.
"When I go away I shall leave my fortune and my title behind me. Shall I
leave anything else? Yes, everything else. Maud.
"If I leave my fortune and my title and Maud behind me, what do I take
with me?
"Nothing worth the carriage.
"Bounteous God, I thank Thee with all my heart, and all my soul, and all
the faculties of my nature, for having given love to man, and having
given me to love!"
The evening of the day Grey had visited the Island after his return from
London, the two cousins sat alone in the little drawing-room after
dinner.
"Maud, will you take great care of yourself while I am away?" he asked
very earnestly.
She was sitting by a small ebony table in front of the fire. He reclined
in an easy-chair at the opposite side of the grate.
She looked up with a childish amused smile, and answered:
"Yes; I will try and take care of myself while you are away. This is a
very safe place to live in. No one can get near us without a boat, and
everyone knows that a farmer's house would be better for thieves than
Island Castle."
"And yet, Maud, though no man come, something very precious might be
stolen by a thief while I am away." He spoke gravely, with that old
far-away look in his eyes.
"And who is the thief, and what is the thing?" she asked, with a bright
smile.
"Ruffian Death," he answered, for a moment overwhelmed by some dark
dread and chilling foreboding.
She grew paler in her black dress; the hand resting on the table seemed
whiter than life.
"But, William, I am quite well; I never felt better in all my life; and
I think, considering what has lately happened, that is very wonderful."
She was anxious, and looked into his face with eyes of grave solicitude.
Still he was following up the chain of his thoughts, and for the moment,
unaware, he uttered them:
"There is death in every day, danger in every hour; you must encounter
the danger. The way in which you meet the danger decides your relations
with death. Life is a series of compromises with death. I wish I were
not going away."
"So do I, indeed, William," she said earnestly. "But you must not be
uneasy on my part; I am quite well, and shall keep quite well while you
are away. I should be most unhappy if I thought you went away
uncomfortable on my account."
The tone of the girl's voice brought him back to a consciousness of the
situation. His manner changed. He looked up at her and smiled.
"Unhappy about you, Maud! Not I. You must not think that. I was talking
generalities; I was not alluding to your case. You see, when a man has
been a long time in a foreign country, where the speech of the people
in the streets is unknown to him, and where, among the few people who
speak European languages, there are only a couple for whose society he
cares, he falls into one bad habit certainly, that of looking at all
things in the abstract; and into another bad habit probably, that of
muttering aloud to himself. I am afraid I have been treating you to a
small example of both vices." He smiled brightly, and held out his hand
to her.
She took the small white hand off the ebony table and placed it in his.
The brown fingers closed over the white ones, and looking down at the
joined hands he said:
"Like the rough brown sheath of the cocoa-nut, and the snow-white fruit
within."
"What?"
"My hand round yours."
She said nothing.
He released her hand.
"You will take care of that hand, Maud, while I am away? Some time
someone will value that hand more than the regalia in the Tower. It will
be to him above all price. He would like to set guards over it as they
set guards over the royal jewels, and yet would allow no one to act as
sentinel but himself."
Such talk was new to her. She did not say anything.
"We have grown good friends in the few days we have been meeting one
another?"
"Oh, yes."
"The best of friends?"
"The best of friends."
"And all the time I am away you will never cease to think of me as your
best friend?"
"Never."
It almost made her cry, she could not tell why, to hear him asking such
a question.
"And should you be in any need of aid or advice, you will let me know at
once?"
"At once."
There was a pause during which Mrs. Grant entered the room.
The baronet got up, and sitting down beside the widow, said to both the
women:
"I had a chat with Mr. Grey to-day apropos of my going, and nothing
could have been nicer or more gratifying. He is, without exception, the
most straightforward and honourably-minded man I have ever met. He has,
Mrs. Grant, not only undertaken to keep his eye on the workmen when they
come here, but he has without any hint or suggestion on my part,
proposed not to do anything final with Maud's fortune until I return.
And, in addition to all this, he will pay all the legacies out of his
own pocket and at his own risk. Maud, I cannot say how grateful I am
that you have fallen into such excellent hands. You may place yourself
wholly under his direction while I am away. You need not consult me on
any subject of business; you will be quite safe with him, and he has a
thousand times my knowledge of business."
"Did I not tell you so?" asked Mrs. Grant of Miss Midharst.
"Yes," answered Maud softly.
"What was it?" asked the baronet, turning with a gratified smile towards
the widow.
"I told dear Maud long ago that she might have full confidence in Mr.
Grey," answered Mrs. Grant, with lively self-satisfaction.
"And you told her what was perfectly true. I must go now. I shall not
see you again, Mrs. Grant, until I come back from Egypt. I cannot tell
you how happy it makes me to know how good, how loyal Maud's two
friends are--yourself and Mr. Grey."
He had shaken both Maud's hands, and kissed her lips for the first time,
and shaken hands with Mrs. Grant, and was gone.
Her cousin William was gone, and she should not see him again for
months. What a pity he had to go! When he was by her side, or in
Daneford, she felt quite safe; nothing could harm her while he was near.
When her father died she had felt alone and cold in the world. She had
been susceptible to attack on all sides. She had no confidence in
herself; and although Mr. Grey had done everything man could do for her,
she owned no claim upon him.
But this cousin, this man of her own family, who, finding her timid and
unguarded, sought the privilege of shielding her from the world and the
bleak unknown lying beyond Island Castle--was a new experience, a
delightful improvement on the present.
But no sooner had she learned to lean upon his reassuring strength than
he must hurry away. What a pity!
Her cousin William would come back, no doubt; but Egypt was far off,
very far off, and the power of his protection was reduced greatly by
distance.
Why should she think she would need protection of any kind? Surely Mrs.
Grant and Mr. Grey were protection enough in a quiet well-ordered place
like Daneford and its neighbourhood?
Yes; but Cousin William had been more than a protector; he had been a
companion as well, and there was something in his talk and manner
neither Mrs. Grant nor Mr. Grey possessed. She was always content with
what Mrs. Grant said, or what Mr. Grey said. Their words always
exhausted the topic; but when he had spoken she felt led on to wonder
what lay behind and beyond what he had said.
She had told Mrs. Grant truly he had interested her; and although he
always had spoken to her as though there could be no question of the
supremacy of his will over hers, she liked that.
When Mrs. Grant told her to do a certain thing, the doing of it was dry
and uninteresting. When Cousin William had told her to do a thing, she
always did it with the sound of his voice in her ears; or she had
thought what mystery of Egypt he had before his eyes when he gave her
the command; or she had tried to fathom his mind as to the manner in
which he would best like to see the thing done.
But now all was cold and monotonous and dull. Really the place had got
so quiet of late that she found her chief delight in her old books of
Egypt, and in the geography of that country, and in following on the map
the overland route he had taken to Africa.