Upon the following day she was not half so wretched and lamentable as
was expected of her. She even showed a brisk and pleasant air to the
chief seamstress, and bade her keep some pretty things for the time of
her own wedding. Even to her father she behaved as if there had been
nothing more than happens every day. The worthy baron went to fold her
in his arms, and let her cry there; but she only gave him a kiss,
and asked the maid for some salt butter. Lord de Wichehalse, being
disappointed of his outlet, thought (as all his life he had been forced
to think continually) that any sort of woman, whether young or old, is
wonderful. And so she carried on, and no one well could understand her.
She, however, in her own heart, knew the ups and downs of it. She alone
could feel the want of any faith remaining, the ache of ever stretching
forth and laying hold on nothing. Her mind had never been encouraged--as
with maidens nowadays--to-magnify itself, and soar, and scorn the heart
that victuals it. All the deeper was her trouble, being less to be
explained.
For a day or two the story is that she contrived to keep her distance,
and her own opinion of what had been done to her. Child and almost baby
as her father had considered her, even he was awed from asking what she
meant to do about it. Something seemed to keep her back from speaking
of her trouble, or bearing to have it spoken of. Only to her faithful
hound, with whom she now began again to wander in the oak-wood, to him
alone had she the comfort of declaring anything. This was a dog of fine
old English breed and high connections, his great-grandmother having
owned a kennel at Whitehall itself--a very large and well-conducted dog,
and now an old one, going down into his grave without a stain upon him.
Only he had shown such foul contempt of Aubyn Auberley, proceeding to
extremes of ill-behaviour toward his raiment, that for months young
Frida had been forced to keep him chained, and take her favourite walks
without him.
“Ah, Lear!” now she cried, with sense of long injustice toward him; “you
were right, and I was wrong; at least--at least it seems so.”
“Lear,” so called whether by some man who had heard of Shakspere, or (as
seems more likely) from his peculiar way of contemplating the world at
his own angle, shook his ears when thus addressed, and looked too wise
for any dog to even sniff his wisdom.
Frida now allowed this dog to lead the way, and she would follow,
careless of whatever mischief might be in the road for them. So he led
her, without care or even thought on her part, to a hut upon the beach
of Woody Bay; where Albert had set up his staff, to think of her and
watch her. This, her cousin and true lover, had been grieving for her
sorrow to the utmost power of a man who wanted her himself. It may have
been beyond his power to help saying to himself sometimes, “How this
serves her right, for making such a laughing-stock of me!” Nevertheless,
he did his utmost to be truly sorrowful.
And now, as he came forth to meet her, in his fishing dress and boots
(as different a figure as could be from Aubyn Auberley), memories of
childish troubles and of strong protection thrilled her with a helpless
hope of something to be done for her. So she looked at him, and let him
see the state her eyes were in with constant crying, when there was not
anyone to notice it. Also, she allowed him to be certain what her hands
were like, and to be surprised how much she had fallen away in her
figure. Neither was she quite as proud as might have been expected, to
keep her voice from trembling or her plundered heart from sobbing. Only,
let not anybody say a word to comfort her. Anything but that she now
could bear, as she bore everything. It was, of course, the proper thing
for everyone to scorn her. That, of course, she had fully earned, and
met it, therefore, with disdain. Only, she could almost hate anybody who
tried to comfort her.
Albert de Wichehalse, with a sudden start of intuition, saw what her
father had been unable to descry or even dream. The worthy baron's time
of life for fervid thoughts was over; for him despairing love was but
a poet's fiction, or a joke against a pale young lady. But Albert felt
from his own case, from burning jealousy suppressed, and cold neglect
put up with, and all the other many-pointed aches of vain devotion, how
sad must be the state of things when plighted faith was shattered also,
and great ridicule left behind, with only a young girl to face it,
motherless, and having none to stroke dishevelled hair, and coax the
troubles by the firelight. However, this good fellow did the utmost he
could do for her. Love and pity led him into dainty loving kindness; and
when he could not find his way to say the right thing, he did better--he
left her to say it. And so well did he move her courage, in his old
protective way, without a word that could offend her or depreciate
her love, that she for the moment, like a woman, wondered at her own
despair. Also, like a woman, glancing into this and that, instead of
any steadfast gazing, she had wholesome change of view, winning sudden
insight into Albert's thoughts concerning her. Of course, she made
up her mind at once, although her heart was aching so for want of any
tenant, in a moment to extinguish any such presumption. Still, she would
have liked to have it made a little clearer, if it were for nothing else
than to be sure of something.
Albert saw her safely climb the steep and shaly walk that led, among
retentive oak trees, or around the naked gully, all the way from his
lonely cottage to the light, and warmth, and comfort of the peopled
Manor House. And within himself he thought, the more from contrast of
his own cold comfort and untended state:
“Ah! she will forget it soon; she is so young. She will soon get over
that gay frippard's fickleness. To-morrow I will start upon my little
errand cheerfully. After that she will come round; they cannot feel as
we do.”
Full of these fond hopes, he started on the following morning with set
purpose to compel the man whom he had once disliked, and now despised
unspeakably, to render some account of despite done to such a family.
For, after all, the dainty viscount was the grandson of a goldsmith, who
by brokerage for the Crown had earned the balls of his coronet. In quest
of this gay fellow went the stern and solid Albert, leaving not a word
about his purpose there behind him, but allowing everybody to believe
what all found out. All found out, as he expected, that he was gone to
sell his hay, perhaps as far as Taunton; and all the parish, looking
forward to great rise of forage, felt indignant that he had not doubled
his price, and let them think.
Alack-a-day and all the year round! that men perceive not how the women
differ from them in the very source of thought Albert never dreamed
that his cousin, after doing so long without him, had now relapsed quite
suddenly into her childish dependence upon him. And when she heard, on
the following day, that he was gone for the lofty purpose of selling his
seven ricks of hay, she said not a word, but only felt her cold heart so
much colder.