little; "John, if you are quite sure you will never live there yourself,
why should not Maurice have it?"
"Maurice! Has he told you to ask for it?" He sat bolt upright in
his chair; he was attentive enough now; the idea that Maurice had
commissioned his mother to ask for something he had not ventured to ask
for himself was not pleasant to him. "Is it Maurice who has sent you?"
"No, no, my dear John; certainly not; why, I haven't seen Maurice for
weeks and weeks; he never comes to town now. But I'll tell you why the
idea came to me. I called just now in Princes Gate; poor old Mr. Harlowe
has had a stroke--it is certain he cannot live long now, after the severe
attack he had of bronchitis, too, two months ago. I just saw Helen for a
minute, she reported him to be unconscious. If he dies, he must surely
leave Helen something; it may not be all, but it will be at least a
competency; and I was thinking, John, that if you did not want Kynaston,
and would let them live there, the marriage might come off at last; they
have been attached to each other a long time, and to live rent free would
be a great thing."
"How are they to keep it up? Kynaston is an expensive place."
"Well, I thought, John, perhaps, if Maurice looks after the property, you
might consider him as your agent, and allow him something, and that and
her money----"
"Yes, yes, I understand; well, I will see; wait, at all events, till Mr.
Harlowe is dead. I will think it over. No, I don't see any reason why
they should not live there if they like;" he sighed, wearily, and his
mother went away, feeling that she had reason to be satisfied with her
morning's work.
She was in such a hurry to install her darling there--to see him viceroy
in the place where now it was certain he must eventually be king. Why
should he be doomed to wait till Kynaston came to him in the course of
nature; why should he not enter upon his kingdom at once, since Sir John,
by his own confession, would never marry or live there himself?
Lady Kynaston was very far from wishing evil to her eldest son, but for
years she had hoped that he would remain unmarried; for a short time she
had been forced to lay her dreams aside, and she had striven to forget
them and to throw herself with interest into her eldest son's engagement;
but now that the marriage was broken off, all her old schemes and plans
came back to her again. She was working and planning again for Maurice's
happiness and aggrandisement. She wanted to see him in his father's
house, "Kynaston of Kynaston," before she died, and to know that his
future was safe. To see him married to Helen and living at Kynaston
appeared to her to be the very best that she could desire for him. In
time, of course, the title and the money would be his too; meanwhile,
with old Mr. Harlowe's fortune, an ample allowance from his brother, and
all the prestige of his old name and his old house, she should live to
see him take his own rightful place among the magnates of his native
county. That would be far better than to be a captain in a line regiment,
barely able to live upon his income. That was all she coveted for him,
and she said to herself that her ambition was not unreasonable, and that
it would be hard indeed if it might not be gratified.
As she drove homewards to Walpole Lodge she felt that her schemes were in
a fair way for success. She was not going to let Maurice know of them too
soon; by-and-by, when all was settled, she would tell him; she would keep
it till then as a pleasant surprise.
All the same, she had been unable to refrain from telling Helen Romer
something of what was in her mind.
"If John does not marry, he might perhaps make Maurice his agent and let
him live at Kynaston," she had said to her a few days ago when they had
been speaking of old Mr. Harlowe's illness.
"How would Maurice like to leave the army?" Helen had asked.
"If he marries, he must do so," his mother had replied, significantly;
and Helen's heart had beat high with hope and triumph.
Again to-day, on her way to her eldest son's rooms, she had stopped at
Princes Gate and had alluded to it.
"I am on my way to see Sir John; I shall sound him about his intentions
with regard to Kynaston, but, of course, I must go to work cautiously;"
and Helen had perfectly understood that she herself had entered into the
old lady's scheme for her younger son's future.
Sitting alone in the hushed house, where the doctors are coming and
going in the darkened room above, Helen feels that at last the reward
of all her long waiting may be at hand. Love and wealth at last seemed
to beckon to her. Her grandfather dead; his fortune hers; and this offer
of a home at Kynaston, which Maurice himself would be sure to like so
much--everything good seemed coming to her at last.
And there was something about the idea of living at Kynaston that
gratified her particularly. Helen had not forgotten the week at
Shadonake. Too surely had her woman's instinct told her that Maurice and
Vera had been drawn to each other by a strong and mutual attraction. The
wildest jealousy and hatred against Vera burnt fiercely in her lawless,
untutored heart. She hated her, for she knew that Maurice loved her. To
live thus under her very eyes as Maurice's wife, in the very house her
rival herself had once been on the point of inhabiting, was a notion that
commended itself to her with all the sweetness of gratified revenge, with
all the charm of flaunting her success and triumph in the face of the
other woman's failure which is dear to such a nature as Helen's.
She alone, of all those who had heard of Vera's broken engagement, had
divined its true cause. She loved Maurice--that was plain to Helen; that
was why she had thrown over Sir John, and at her heart Helen despised her
for it. A woman must be a fool indeed to wreck herself at the last moment
for a merely sentimental reason. There was much, however, that was
incomprehensible to Helen Romer in the situation of things, which she
only half understood.
If Maurice loved Vera, why was it that he was in Manchester whilst she
was still in Meadowshire? that was what Helen could not understand. A
sure instinct told her that Maurice must know better than any one why his
brother's marriage had been broken off. But, if so, then why were he and
Vera apart? It did not strike her that his honour to his brother and his
promises to herself were what kept him away. Helen said to herself,
scornfully, that they were both of them timid and cowardly, and did not
half know how to play out life's game.
"In her place, with her cards in my hand, I would have married him by
this," she said to herself, as she sat alone in her grandfather's
drawing-room, while her busy fingers ran swiftly through the meshes of
her knitting, and the doctor and the hired nurse paced about the room
overhead. "But she has not the pluck for it; his heart may be hers, but,
for all that, I shall win him; and how bitterly she will repent that she
ever interfered with him when she sees him daily there--my husband! And
in time he will forget her and learn to love me; Maurice will never be
false to a woman when once she is his wife; I am not afraid of that. How
dared she meddle with him?--_my_ Maurice!"
The door softly opened, and one of the doctors stepped in on tip-toe.
Helen rose and composed her face into a decorous expression of mournful
anxiety.
"I am happy to tell you, Mrs. Romer," began the doctor. Helen's heart
sank down chill and cold within her.
"Is he better?" she faltered, striving to conceal the dismay which she
felt.
"He has rallied. Consciousness has returned, and partial use of the
limbs. We may be able to pull your grandfather through this time, I
trust."
Put off again! How wretched and how guilty she felt herself to be! It was
almost a crime to wish for any one's death so much.
She sank down again pale and spiritless upon her chair as the doctor left
the room.
"Never mind," she said to herself, presently; "it can't last for ever. It
must be soon now, and I shall be Maurice's wife in the end."
But all this time she had forgotten Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet, whom
she had not seen again since the night she had driven him home from
Walpole Lodge.
He had left England, she knew. Helen privately hoped he had left this
earth. Any way, he had not troubled her, and she had forgotten him.
CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT SHE WAITED FOR.
Go, forget me; why should sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go, forget me, and to-morrow
Brightly smile and sweetly sing.
Smile--though I shall not be near thee;
Sing--though I shall never hear thee.
Chas. Wolfe.
All this time what of Vera? Would any one of them at the vicarage ever
forget that morning when she had come in after her walk with Sir John
Kynaston, and had stood before them all and, pale as a ghost, had said to
them,
"I am not going to be married; I have broken it off."
It had been a great blow to them, but neither the prayers of her weeping
sister, nor the angry indignation of old Mrs. Daintree, nor even the
gentle remonstrances of her brother-in-law could serve to alter her
determination, nor would she enter into any explanation concerning her
conduct.
It was not pleasant, of course, to be reviled and scolded, to be
questioned and marvelled at, to be treated like a naughty child in
disgrace; and then, whenever she went out, to feel herself tabooed by her
acquaintances as a young woman who had behaved very disgracefully; or
else to be stared at as a natural curiosity by persons whom she hardly
knew.
But she lived through all this bravely. There was a certain amount of
unnatural excitement which kept up her courage and enabled her to face
it. It was no more than what she had expected. The glow of her love and
her impulse of self-sacrifice were still upon her; her nerves had been
strung to the uttermost, and she felt strong in the knowledge of the
justice and the right of her own conduct.
But by-and-by all this died away. Sir John left the neighbourhood;
people got tired of talking about her broken-off marriage; there was no
longer any occasion for her to be brave and steadfast. Life began to
resume for her its normal aspect, the aspect which it had worn in the old
days before Sir John had ever come down to Kynaston, or ever found her
day-dreaming in the churchyard upon Farmer Crupps' family sarcophagus.
The tongue of the sour-tempered old lady, snapping and snarling at her
with more than the bitterness of old, and the suppressed sighs and
mournful demeanour of her sister, whose sympathy and companionship she
had now completely forfeited, and who went about the house with a face
of resigned woe and the censure of an ever implied rebuke in her voice
and manner.
Only the vicar took her part somewhat. "Let her alone," he said,
sometimes, to his wife and mother; "she must have had a better reason
than we any of us know of; the girl is suffering quite enough--leave her
alone."
And she was suffering. The life that she had doomed herself to was almost
unbearable to her. The everlasting round of parish work and parish talk,
the poor people and the coal-clubs--it was what she had come back to. She
had been lifted for a short time out of it all, and a new life, congenial
to her tastes and to her nature, had opened out before her; and yet with
her own hands she had shut the door upon this brighter prospect, and had
left herself out in the darkness, to go back to that life of dull
monotony which she hated.
And what had she gained by it? What single advantage had she reaped
out of her sacrificed life? Was Maurice any nearer to her--was he not
hopelessly divided from her--helplessly out of her reach? She knew
nothing of him, no word concerning him reached her ears: a great blank
was before her. When she went over the past again and again in her mind,
she could not well see what good thing could ever come to her from what
she had done. There were moments indeed when the whole story of her
broken engagement seemed to her like the wild delusion of madness. She
had had no intention of acknowledging her love to Maurice when she had
gone up to the station to see him off; she had only meant to see him
once more, to hold his hand for one instant, to speak a few kind words;
to wish him God speed. She asked herself now what had possessed her that
she had not been able to preserve the self-control of affectionate
friendship when the unfortunate accident of her being taken on in the
train with him had left her entirely alone in his society. She did not
go the length of regretting what she had done for his sake; but she did
acknowledge to herself that she had been led away by the magnetism of his
presence and by the strange and unexpected chance which had thus left her
alone with him into saying and doing things which in a calmer moment she
would not have been betrayed into.
For a few kisses--for the joy of telling him that his love was
returned--for a short moment of delirious and transient happiness, and
alas! for nothing more--she had thrown away her life!
She had behaved hardly and cruelly to a good man who loved her, and whose
heart she had half broken, and she had lost a great many very excellent
and satisfactory things.
And Maurice was no nearer to her. With his own lips he had told her
that he could not marry her. There had been mention, indeed, of that
problematical term of five years, in which he had bound himself to await
Mrs. Romer's pleasure--but, even had Mrs. Romer not existed, it was plain
that Maurice was the last man in the world to take advantage of a woman's
weakness in order to supplant his brother in her heart.
Instinctively Vera felt that Maurice must be no less miserable than
herself; that his regret for what had happened between them must be as
great as her own, and his remorse far greater. They were, indeed, neither
of them blameless in the matter; for, if it was Maurice who had first
spoken of his love to his brother's promised wife, it was Vera who had
made that irrevocable step along the road of her destiny from which no
going back was now possible.
It was a time of utter misery to her. If she sat indoors there was
the persecution of Mrs. Daintree's ill-natured remarks, and Marion's
depression of spirits and half-uttered regrets; and there was also the
scaffolding rising round the chancel walls to be seen from the windows,
and the sound of the sawing of the masonry in the churchyard, as a
perpetual, reproachful reminder of the friend whose kindness and
affection she had so ill requited. If she went out, she could not go up
the lane without passing the gates of Kynaston, or towards the village
without catching sight of the venerable old house among its terraced
gardens, which, so lately, she had thought would be her home. Sometimes
she met her old friend, Mrs. Eccles, in her wanderings, but she did not
venture to speak to her; the cold disapproval in the housekeeper's
passing salutation made her shrink, like a guilty creature, in her
presence; and she would hurry by with scarcely an answering sign, with
downcast eyes and heightened colour.
Somehow, it came to pass in these days that Vera drifted into a degree
of intimacy with Beatrice Miller that would, possibly, never have come
about had the circumstances of her life been different. Ever since her
accidental meeting with the lovers outside Tripton station Vera had,
perforce, become a confidant of their hopes and fears; and Beatrice was
glad enough to have found a friend to whom she could talk about her
lover, for where is the woman who can completely hold her tongue
concerning her own secrets?
Against all the long category of female virtues, as advantageously
displayed in contradistinction to masculine vices, there is still this
one peculiarity which, of itself, marks out the woman as the inferior
animal.
A man, to be worthy of the name, holds his tongue and keeps the
secret of his heart to himself, enjoying it and delighting in it the
more, possibly, for his reticence. A woman may occasionally--very
occasionally--be silent respecting her neighbour, but concerning herself
she is bound to have at least one confidant to whom she will rashly tell
the long story of her loves and her sorrows; and not a consideration
either of prudence or of worldly wisdom will suffice to restrain her too
ready tongue.
Beatrice Miller was a clever girl, with a fair knowledge of the world;
yet she was in no way dismayed that Vera should have discovered her
secret; on the contrary, she was overjoyed that she had now found some
one to talk to about it.
Vera became her friend, but Beatrice was not Vera's friend--the
confidences were not mutual. Over and over again Beatrice was on the
point of questioning her concerning the story that had been on every
one's lips for a time; of asking her what, indeed, was the truth about
her broken engagement; but always the proud, still face restrained her
curiosity, and the words died away unspoken upon her lips.
Vera's story, indeed, was not one that could be easily revealed. There
was too much of bitter regret, too great an element of burning shame at
her heart, for its secrets to be laid bare to a stranger's eye.
Nevertheless, Beatrice's society amused and distracted her mind, and kept
her from brooding over her own troubles. She was glad enough to go over
to Shadonake; even to sit alone with Beatrice and her mother was better
than the eternal monotony of the vicarage, where she felt like a prisoner
waiting for his sentence.
Yes, she was waiting. Waiting for some sign from the man she loved.
Sooner or later, whether it was for good or for evil, she knew it must
come to her; some token that he remembered her existence; some indication
as to what he would have her do with the life that she had laid at his
feet. For, after all, when a woman loves a man, she virtually makes him
the ruler of her destiny; she leaves the responsibility of her fate in
his hands. For the nonce, Maurice Kynaston held the skein of Vera's life
in his grasp; it was for him to do what he pleased with it. Some day,
doubtless, he would tell her what she had to do: meanwhile, she waited.
What else, indeed, can a woman do but wait? To sit still with folded
hands and bated breath, to possess her soul in patience as best she may,
to still the wild beatings of her all too eager spirit--that is what a
woman has to do, and does often enough. God help her, all too badly.
It is so easy when one is old, and the pulses are sluggish, and the hot
passions of youth are quelled, it is so easy then to learn that lesson
of waiting; but when we are young, and our best days slipping away, and
life's hopes all before us, and life's burdens well-nigh unbearable; then
it is that it is hard, that waiting in itself becomes terrible--more
terrible almost than the worst of our woes.
So wearily, feverishly, impatiently enough, Vera waited.
Winter died away into spring. The rough wind of March, worn out with its
own boisterous passions, sobbed itself to rest like a tired child, and
little green buds came cropping up sparsely and timidly out of the brown
bosom of the earth; and, presently, all the glory of the golden crocuses
unfolded itself in long golden lines in the vicarage garden; and there
were twittering of birds and flutterings of soft breezes among the
tree-tops, and a voice seemed to go forth over the face of the earth.
The winter is over, and summer is nigh at hand.
And then it came to her at last. An envelope by the side of her plate
at breakfast; a few scrawled words in a handwriting she had never seen
before, and yet identified with an unfailing instinct, ere even she broke
the seal. One minute of wild hope, to be followed by a sick, chill
numbness, and the story of her love and its longings shrank away into
the despair of impossibility.
How small a thing to make so great a misery! What a few words to make a
wilderness of a human life!
_"Her grandfather is dead, and she has claimed me. Good-bye; forget me
and forgive me."_
That was all; nothing more. No passionate regrets, no unavailing
self-pity; nothing to tell her what it cost him to resign her; no word to
comfort her for the hopelessness of his desertion; nothing but those two
lines.
There was a chattering going on at the table around her. Tommy was
clamouring for bread and butter; the vicar was reading out the telegrams
from the seat of war; Marion was complaining that the butter was not
good; the maid-servant was bringing in the hot bacon and eggs--it all
went on like a dream around her; presently, like a voice out of a fog,
somebody spoke to her:
"Vera, are you not feeling well? You look as if you were going to faint."
And then she crunched the letter in her hand and recalled herself to
life.
"I am quite well, thanks," and busied herself with attending to the wants
of the children.
The vicar glanced up over his spectacles. "No bad news, I hope, my dear."
Oh! why could they not let her alone? But somehow she sat through the
breakfast, and answered all their questions, and bore herself bravely;
and when it was over and she was free to go away by herself with her
trouble, then by that time the worst of it was over.
There are some people whom sorrow softens and touches, but Vera was not
one of them. Her whole soul revolted and rebelled against her fate. She
said to herself that for once she had let her heart guide her; she had
cast aside the crust of worldliness and self-indulgence in which she had
been brought up. She had listened to the softer whisperings of the better
nature within her--she had been true to herself--and lo! what had come of
it?
But now she had learnt her lesson; there were to be no more dreams of
pure and unsullied happiness for her,--no more cravings after what was
good and true and lovely; henceforth she would go back to the teachings
of her youth, to the experience which had told her that a handsome woman
can always command her life as she pleases, and that wealth, which is a
tangible reality, is better worth striving after than the vain shadow
called love, which all talk about and so few make any practical
sacrifices for. Well, she, Vera Nevill, had tried it, and had made her
sacrifices; and what remained to her? Only the fixed determination to
crush it down again within her as if it had never been, and to carve out
her fortunes afresh. Only that she started again at a disadvantage--for
now she knew to her cost that she possessed the fatal power of
loving--the knowledge of good and evil, of which she had eaten
the poisoned fruit.
There were no tears in Vera's eyes as she wandered slowly up and down the
garden paths between the straight yellow lines of the crocus heads.
Her lover had forsaken her. Well, let him go. She told herself that, had
he loved her truly, no power on earth would have been great enough to
keep him from her. She said to herself scornfully--she, Vera Nevill, who
was prepared to sell herself to the highest bidder--that it was Mrs.
Romer's money that kept him from her. Well, let him go to her, then? but
for herself life must begin afresh.
And then she set to work to think about what she could do. To remain here
at Sutton any longer was impossible. It was absolutely necessary that she
should get away from it all, from the family upon whose hands she was
nothing now but a beautiful, helpless burden, and still more from the
haunting memories of Kynaston and all the unfortunate things that had
happened to her here.
Suddenly, out of the memories of her girlhood, she recollected the
existence of a woman who had been her friend once in the old happy days,
when she had lived with her sister Theodora. It was one of those passing
friendships which come and go for a month or two in one's life.
A pretty, spoilt girl, married four, perhaps five, years ago to a rich
man, a banker; who had taken a fancy to Vera, and had pleased herself by
decking her out in a quaint costume to figure at a carnival party; who
had kissed her rapturously at parting, swearing eternal friendship,
giving her her address in London, and making her promise never to be in
England without going to see her. And then she had gone her way, and had
never come back again the next winter, as she had promised to do; a
letter or two had passed between them, and afterwards Vera had forgotten
her. But somewhere upstairs she must have got her direction still.
It was to this friend she would go; and, turning her back for a time
at least upon Meadowshire and its memories, she would see whether, in
the whirl of London life, she could not crush out the pain at her heart,
and live down the fatal weakness that had led her astray from all the
traditions of her youth, and from that cold and prudent wisdom which had
stood her in good stead for so many years.
CHAPTER XX.
A MORNING WALK.
And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy.
Goldsmith.
A bright May morning, cold, it is true, and with a biting wind from the
east--as indeed our English May mornings generally are--but sunny and
cloudless as the heart can desire. On such a morning people do their best
to pretend that it is summer. Crowds turn out into the park, and sit
about recklessly on the iron chairs, or lounge idly by the railings; and
the women-folk, with that fine disregard of what is, when it is
antagonistic of what they wish it to be, don their white cottons and
muslins, and put up their parasols against the sun's rays, and, shivering
inwardly, poor things, openly brave the terrors of rheumatism and
lumbago, and make up their minds that it _shall_ be summer.
The sunblinds are drawn all along the front windows of a house in Park
Lane, and though the gay geraniums and calceolarias in the flower-boxes,
which were planted only yesterday, look already nipped and shrivelled up
with the cold, the house, nevertheless, presents from the exterior a
bright and well-cared-for appearance.
Within the drawing-room are two ladies. One, the mistress of the house,
is seated at the writing-table with her back to the room, scribbling off
invitations for dear life, cards for an afternoon "at-home," at the rate
of six per minute; the other sits idle in a low basket-chair doing
nothing.
There is no sound but the scratching of the quill pen as it flies over
the paper, and the chirping of a bullfinch in a cage in the bow-window.
"What time is it, Vera?"
"A quarter to twelve."
"Almost time to dress; I've only ten more cards to fill up. What are you
going to wear--white?"
Vera shivers. "Look how the dust is flying--it must be dreadfully cold
out--I should like to put on a fur jacket."
"_Do_," says the elder lady, energetically. "It will be original, and
attract attention. Not that you could well be more stared at than you
are."
Vera smiles, and does not answer.
Mrs. Hazeldine goes on with her task.
"There! that's done!" she cries, at last, getting up from the table, and
piling her notes up in a heap on one side of it. "Now, I am at your
orders."
She comes forward into the room--a pretty, dark-eyed, oval-faced woman,
with a figure in which her dressmaker has understood how to supplement
all that nature has but imperfectly carried out. A woman with restless
movements and an ever-ready tongue--a thorough daughter of the London
world she lives in.
Vera leans her head back in her chair, and looks at her. "Cissy," she
says, "I must really go home, I have been with you a month to-day."
"Go home! certainly not, my dear. Don't you know that I have sworn to
find you a husband before the season is out? I must really get you
married, Vera. I have half a mind," she adds, reflectively, as she
smooths down her shining brown hair at the glass, and contemplates, not
ill satisfied, her image there--"I have really half a mind to let you
have the boy if I could manage to spare him."
"Do you think he would make a devoted husband?" asks Vera, with a lazy
smile.
"My dear child, don't be a fool. What is the use of devotion in a
husband? All one wants is a good fellow, who will let one alone. After
all, the boy might not answer. I am afraid, Vera," turning round suddenly
upon her, "I am very much afraid that boy is in love with you; it's
horrid of you to take him from me, because he is so useful, and I really
can't well do without him. I am going to pay him out to-night though: he
is to sit opposite you at dinner; he will only be able to gaze at you."
"That is hard upon us both."
"Pooh! don't waste your time upon him. I shall do better than that for
you; he is an eldest son, it is true, but Sir Charles looks as young as
his son, and is quite as likely to live as long. It is only married women
who can afford the luxury of ineligibles. Go and dress, child."
Half-an-hour later Mrs. Hazeldine and Miss Nevill are to be found upon
two chairs on the broad and shady side of the Row, where a small crowd of
men is already gathered around them.
Vera, coming up a stranger, and self-invited to the house of her old
acquaintance a few weeks ago, had already created a sensation in London.
Her rare beauty, the strange charm of her quiet, listless manner, the
shade of melancholy which had of late imperceptibly crept over her,
aroused a keen admiration and interest in her, even in that city, which
more than all others is satiated with its manifold types of beautiful
women.
There was a rush to get introduced to her; a _furore_ to see her. As she
went through a crowd people whispered her name and made way for her to
pass, staring at her after a fashion which is totally modern and
detestably ill-bred; and yet which, sad token of the _decadence_ of
things in these later days, is not beneath the dignity or the manners
of persons whose breeding is supposed to be beyond dispute.
Already the "new beauty" had been favourably contrasted with the
well-known reigning favourites; and it was the loudly expressed opinion
of more than one-half of the _jeunesse dorée_ of the day that not one of
the others could "hold a candle to her, by Jove!"
Mrs. Hazeldine was delighted. It was she to whom belonged the honour of
bringing this new star into notice; the credit of launching her upon
London society was her own. She found herself courted and flattered and
made up to in a wholly new and delightful manner. The men besieged her
for invitations to her house; the women pressed her to come to theirs. It
was all for Miss Nevill's sake, of course, but, even so, it was very
pleasant, and Mrs. Hazeldine dearly loved the importance of her position.
It came to pass that, whereas she had been somewhat put out at the letter
of her old Roman acquaintance, offering to come and stay with her, and
had been disposed to resent the advent of her self-invited guest as an
infliction, which a few needlessly gushing words in the past had brought
upon herself, she had, in a very short time, discovered that she could
not possibly exist without her darling Vera, and that she would not and
could not let her go back again to her country vicarage.
It was, possibly, what Vera had counted upon. It was pretty certain to
have been either one thing or the other. Either her beauty would arouse
Mrs. Hazeldine's jealousy, and she would be glad to be rid of her as
quickly as possible, or else she would be proud of her, and wish to
retain her as an attraction to her house. Fortunately for Vera, Cissy
Hazeldine, worldly, frivolous, pleasure-loving as she was, was,
nevertheless, utterly devoid of the mean and petty spitefulness which
goes far to disfigure many a better woman's character. She was not
jealous of Vera; on the contrary, she was as unfeignedly proud of her as
though she had created her. Besides, as she said to herself, "Our style
is so different, we are not likely to clash."
When she found that in a month's time Vera's beauty had made her house
the most popular one in London, and that people struggled for her
invitation-cards and prayed to be introduced to her, Mrs. Hazeldine was
at the zenith of her delight and self-importance. If only Vera herself
had been a little more practicable!
"I don't despair of getting you introduced to royalty before the season
is out," she would say, triumphantly.
"I don't want to be introduced to royalty," Vera would answer
indifferently.
"Oh! Vera, how can you be so disloyal? And it's quite wicked too; almost
against Scripture. Honour the King, you know it says somewhere; of course
that means the Prince of Wales too."
"I can honour him very well without being introduced to him," said Vera,
who, however, let me assure you, was filled with feelings of profound
loyalty towards the reigning family.
"But only think what a triumph it would be over those other horrid women
who think themselves at the top of the tree!" Mrs. Hazeldine would urge,
with a curious conglomeration of ideas, sacred and profane.
But Vera was indifferent to the honour of becoming acquainted with his
Royal Highness.
Another of Mrs. Hazeldine's troubles was that she absolutely refused to
be photographed.
"Your portrait might be in every shop window if you chose!" Mrs.
Hazeldine would exclaim, despairingly.
"I may be very depraved, Cissy," Vera would answer, indignantly, "but I
have not yet sunk so low as to desire that every draper's assistant may
have the privilege of buying my likeness for a shilling to stick up on
his mantelshelf, with a tight-rope dancer on one side, and a burlesque
actress on the other!"
"My dear, it is done by every one; and women who are beautiful as you are
ought not to mind being admired."
"But I prefer being admired by my friends only, and by those of my own
class. I have no ambition to expose myself, even in effigy, in a shop
window for the edification of street boys and city clerks."
"Well, you can't help your name having been in _Vanity Fair_ this week!"
"No, and I only wish I could get hold of the man who put it there!" cried
Miss Nevill, viciously; and it is certain that unfortunate literary
person would not have relished the interview.
A "beauty" with such strange and unnatural views was, it must be
confessed, as much of a trial as a triumph to an anxious chaperon.
There was a certain amount of fashionable routine, the daily treadmill
of pleasure, to which, however, Vera submitted readily enough, and even
extracted a good deal of enjoyment out of it. There was the morning
saunter into the Row, the afternoons spent at garden parties or
"at-homes," the evenings filled up with dinner parties, to be followed
almost invariably by balls lasting late into the night. All these things
repeat themselves year after year: they are utter weariness to some of
us, but to her they were still new, and Vera entered into the daily whirl
of the London season with an amount of zest which was almost a surprise
to herself.
Just at first there had been a daily terror upon her, that of meeting Sir
John Kynaston or his brother; but London is a large place, and you may go
out to different houses for many nights running without ever coming
across the friend or the foe whom you desire or dread most to encounter.
After a little while, she forgot to glance hurriedly and fearfully around
her every time she entered a ball-room, or to look up shudderingly each
time the door was opened and a fresh guest announced at a dinner-party.
She never met either of them, nor did the name of Kynaston ever strike
upon her ear.
She told herself that she had forgotten the two brothers, whose fate had
seemed at one time so intimately bound up with her own--the one as well
as the other. They were nothing more to her now--they had passed away out
of her life. Henceforth she had entered upon a new course, in which her
beauty and her mother wit were to exact their full value, but in which
her heart was to count for nothing more. It was to be smothered up within
her. That, together with all the best, and sweetest, and truest part of
her, once awakened for a brief space by the magic touch of love, was now
to be extinguished within her as though they had never been.
Meanwhile Vera enjoys herself.
She looks happy enough now as she sits by her friend's side in the park,
with a little knot of admirers about her; not taking very much trouble to
talk to them, indeed, but smiling serenely from one to the other, letting
herself be talked to and amused, with just a word here and there, to show
them she is listening to what they say. It is, perhaps, the secret of her
success that she is so thoroughly indifferent to it all. It matters so
little to her whether they come or go; there is so little eagerness about
her, so perfect an _insouciance_ of manner. Other women lay themselves
out to attract and to be admired; Vera only sits still, and waits with a
certain queenliness of manner for the worship that is laid at her feet,
and which she receives as her due.
Behind her, with his hand on the back of her chair, stands a young fellow
of about two or three and twenty; he does not speak to her much, nor join
in the merry, empty chatter that is going on around her; but it is easy
to see by the way he looks down at her, by the fashion in which he
watches her slightest movement, that Vera exercises no ordinary influence
over him.
He is a tall, slight-figured boy, with very fair yellow hair and delicate
features; his blue eyes are frank and pleasant, but his mouth is a trifle
weak and vacillating, and the lips are too sensitively cut for strength
of character, whilst his chest is too narrow for strength of body. He is
carefully dressed, and wears a white, heavy-scented flower in his coat,
a flower which, five minutes ago, he had ineffectually attempted to
transfer to Miss Nevill's dress; but Vera had only gently pushed back his
hand. "My dear boy, pray keep your gardenia; a flower in one's dress is
such a nuisance, it is always tumbling out."
Denis Wilde, "the boy," as Mrs. Hazeldine called him with a flush on his
fair face, had put it back quietly in his button-hole, too well bred to
show the pain he felt by flinging it, as he would have liked to do, over
the railing, to be trampled under the feet of the horses.
The little group kept its place for some time, the two well-dressed and
good-looking women sitting down, the two or three idlers who stood in
front of them gossiping about nothing at all--last night's ball, to-day's
plans, a little bit of scandal about one passer-by, somebody's rumoured
engagement, somebody else's reported elopement. Denis Wilde stood behind
Vera's chair and listened to it all, the well-known familiar chatter
of a knot of London idlers. There was nothing new or interesting or
entertaining about it. Only a string of names, some of which were strange
to him, but most of which were familiar; and always some little story,
ill-natured or harmless as the case might be, about each name that was
mentioned. And Vera listened, smiling, assenting, but only half
attentive, with her eyes dreamily fixed upon the long procession of
riders passing ever ceaselessly to and fro along the ride.
Suddenly Denis Wilde felt a sudden movement of the chair beneath his
hand. Vera had started violently.
"Here comes Sir John Kynaston," the man before her was saying to his
companion. "What a time it is since he has shown himself; he looks as if
he had had a bad illness."
"Some woman jilted him, I've heard," answered the other man: "some girl
down in the country. People say, Miss Nevill, he is going to die of that
old-fashioned complaint, which you certainly will not believe in, a
broken heart! Poor old boy, he looks as if he had been buried, and had
come up again for a breath of air!"
Vera followed the direction of their eyes. Sir John was walking slowly
towards them; he was thin and careworn; he looked aged beyond all belief.
He walked slowly, as though it were an effort to him, with his eyes upon
the ground. He had not seen her yet; in another minute he would be within
a couple of yards of her. It was next to impossible that he could avoid
seeing her, the centre, as she was, of that noisy, chattering group.
A sort of despair seized her. How was she to meet him--this man whom she
had so cruelly treated? She could _not_ meet him; she felt that it was an
impossibility. Like an imprisoned bird that seeks to escape, she looked
about instinctively from side to side. What possible excuse could she
frame? In what direction could she fly to avoid the glance of reproach
that would smite her to the heart.
Suddenly Denis Wilde bent down over her.
"Miss Nevill, there goes a _Dachshund_, exactly like the one you wanted;
come quickly, and we shall catch him up. He ran away down here."
She sprang up and turned after him; a path leading away from the crowded
Row, towards the comparatively empty park at the back, opened out
immediately behind her chair.
Young Wilde strode rapidly along it before her, and Vera followed him
blindly and thankfully.
After a few minutes he stopped and turned round.
"Where is--the dog--wasn't it a dog, you said? Where is it?" She was
white and trembling.
"There is no dog," he answered, not looking at her. "I--I saw you wanted
to get away for a minute. You will forgive me, won't you?"
Vera looked at him with a sudden earnestness. The watchfulness which had
seen her distress, the ready tact which had guessed at her desire to
escape, and had so promptly suggested the manner of it, touched her
suddenly. She put forth her hand gently and almost timidly.
"Thank you," she said, simply. "I did not imagine you were so clever--or
so kind."
The boy blushed deeply with pleasure. He did not know her trouble, but
the keen eye of love had guessed at its existence. It had been easy for
him who watched her every look, who knew every shade and every line of
her face, to tell that she was in distress, to interpret her pallor and
her trembling terror aright.
"You don't want to go back?" he asked.
"Oh, no, I cannot go back! Besides, I am tired; it is time to go home."
"Stay here, then, and I will call Mrs. Hazeldine."
He left her standing alone upon the grass, and went back to the crowded
path. Presently he returned with her friend.
"My dear Vera, what is the matter? The boy says you have such a headache!
I am so sorry, and I wouldn't let any of those chattering fools come back
to lunch. Why, you look quite pale, child! Will it be too much for you to
have the boy, because we will send him away, too, if you like?"
But Vera turned round and smiled upon the boy.
"Oh, no, let him come, certainly; but let us go home, all three of us at
once, if you don't mind."
The thoughtfulness that had kept her secret for her, even from the eyes
of the woman who was supposed to be her intimate friend, surely deserved
its reward.
They walked home slowly together across the park, and, when Vera came
down to luncheon, a white gardenia had somehow or other found its way to
the bosom of her dress.
That was Denis Wilde's reward.
CHAPTER XXI.
MAURICE'S INTERCESSION.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
B. Disraeli, "Coningsby."
Two or three days later the east wind was still blowing, and the chilled
sunshine still feebly shining down upon the nipped lilac and laburnum
blossoms. The garden at Walpole Lodge was shorn of half its customary
beauty, yet to Helen Romer, pacing slowly up and down its gravel walks,
it had never possibly presented a fairer appearance. For Mrs. Romer had
won her battle. All that she had waited for so long and striven for so
hard was at length within her grasp. Her grandfather was dead, his money
had been all left to her, her engagement to Captain Kynaston was an
acknowledged fact, and she herself was staying as an honoured and welcome
guest in her future mother-in-law's house. Everything in the present and
the future seemed to smile upon her, and yet there were drawbacks--as are
there not in most earthly delights?--to the full enjoyment of her
happiness.
For instance, there was that unreasonable and unaccountable codicil to
her grandfather's will, of which no one had been able to discern either
the sense or the meaning, and which stated that, should his beloved
grand-daughter, Helen Romer, be still unmarried within two months of the
date of his death, the whole of the previous bequests and legacies were
to be revoked and cancelled, and, with the exception of five thousand
pounds which she would retain, the whole bulk of his fortune was to
devolve upon the Crown, for the special use of the pensioners of
Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals.
Why such an extraordinary clause had been added to the old man's will it
was difficult to say. Possibly he feared that his grand-daughter might be
tempted to remain unmarried, in order that she might the more freely
squander her newly-acquired fortune in selfish pleasures; possibly he
desired to ensure her future by the speedy shelter and support of a
husband's name and authority, or perhaps he only hoped at his heart that
she would be unable to fulfil his condition; and, whilst his memory would
be left free from blame towards his daughter's orphaned child, his money
might go away from her by her own fault, and enrich the institutions of
his country at the expense of the grand-daughter, whom he had always
disliked.
Be that as it may, it was sufficient to place Helen in a very awkward and
uncomfortable position. She had not only to claim Maurice's promised
troth to her, but she had also to urge on him an almost immediate
marriage; the task was a thankless and most unpleasant one.
Besides that, there was the existence of a certain little French vicomte
which caused Mrs. Romer not a little anxiety. Now, if ever, was the time
when she had reason to dread his re-appearance with those fatal letters
with which he had once threatened to spoil her life should she ever
attempt to marry again.
But her grandfather had died and had left her his money, and her
engagement and approaching marriage to another man was no secret, yet
still Monsieur Le Vicomte D'Arblet made no sign, and gave forth no token
of his promised vengeance.
Helen dared not flatter herself that he was dead, but she did hope,
and hoped rightly, that he was not in England, and had not heard of
the change in her fortunes. She had been afraid to make any inquiries
concerning him; such a step might only excite suspicion, and defeat her
own object of remaining hidden from him. If only she could be safely
married before he heard of her again--all, she thought, might yet be well
with her. Of what use, then, would be his vengeance? for she did not
think it likely he could be so cruel as to wreak an idle and profitless
revenge upon her after she herself and her fortune were beyond his power.
Perhaps, had she known that her enemy had been on a distant journey to
Constantinople, from which he was now returning, and that every hour she
lived brought him nearer and nearer to her, she would have been less easy
in her mind concerning him. As it was, she consoled herself by thinking
in how short a time her marriage would put her out of his power, and
hoped, for the rest, that things would all turn out right for her.
Nevertheless, strive how she would, she could not quite put away the
dread of it out of her mind--it was an anxiety.
And then there was Maurice himself. She had known, of course, for long,
how slight was her hold upon her lover's heart, but never had he appeared
so cold, so unloving, so full of apathetic indifference towards her as he
had seemed to be during the few days since he had arrived at his mother's
house. His every word and look, the very change in his voice when he
turned from his mother to her, told her, as plainly as though he had
spoken it, that she was forcing him into a marriage that was hateful and
repulsive to him, and which duty alone made him submit to. However little
pride a woman may retain, such a position must always bring a certain
amount of bitterness with it.
To Helen it was gall and wormwood, yet she was all the more determined
upon keeping him. She said to herself that she had toiled, and waited,
and striven for him for too long to relinquish him now that the victory
was hers at length.
Poor Helen, with all her good looks, and all her many attractions, she
had been so unfortunate with this one man whom she loved! She had always
gone the wrong way to work with him.
Even now she could not let him alone; she was foolishly jealous and
suspicious.
He had come to her, all smarting and bleeding still with the sacrifice
he had made of his heart to his duty. He had shut the woman he loved
determinedly out of his thoughts, and had set his face resolutely to do
his duty to the woman whom he seemed destined to marry. Even now a little
softness, a little womanly gentleness and sympathy, and, above all, a
wise forbearance from probing into his still open wounds, might have won
a certain amount of gratitude and affection from him. But Helen was
unequal to this. She only drove him wild with causeless and senseless
jealousy, and goaded him almost to madness by endless suspicions and
irritating cross-questioning.
It is difficult to know what she expected more of him. He slept under
the same roof with her, he dined at his mother's table, and spent the
evenings religiously in her society. She could not well expect to keep
him also at her side all day long; and yet his daily visits to town,
amounting usually to between three and four hours of absence, were a
constant source of annoyance and disquiet to her. Where did he go? What
did he do with himself? Whom did he see in these diurnal expeditions into
London? She wore herself into a fever with her perpetual effort to fathom
these things.
Even now she is fretting and fuming because he has promised to be home to
luncheon, and he is twenty minutes late.
She paces impatiently up and down the garden. Lady Kynaston opens the
French window and calls to her from the house:
"Come, my dear, lunch is on the table; are you not coming in?"
"I had rather wait for Maurice, please; do sit down without me," she
answers, with the irritation of a spoilt child. Lady Kynaston closes the
window. "Oh, these lovers!" she groans to herself, somewhat impatiently,
as she sits down alone to the well-furnished luncheon-table; but she
bears it pretty composedly because Helen has her grandfather's money, and
is to bring her son wealth as well as love, and Lady Kynaston is not at
all above being glad of it. One can stand little faults of manner and
temper from a daughter-in-law, who is an heiress, which one would be
justly indignant at were she a pauper.
A sound of wheels turning in at the lodge-gates--it is Maurice's hansom.
Helen hurries forward to meet him in the hall; Captain Kynaston is
handing a lady out of the hansom; Helen peers at her suspiciously.
"I am bringing you ladies a friend to lunch," says Maurice, gaily, and
Mrs. Romer's face clears when she sees that it is Beatrice Miller.
"Oh, Beatrice, it is you! I am delighted to see you! Go in to the
dining-room, you will find Lady Kynaston. Maurice," drawing him back a
minute, "how late you are again! What have you been doing?"
"I waited whilst Miss Miller put her bonnet on."
"Why, where did you meet her?"
"I met her at her mother's, where I went to call. Have you any
objection?" He looked at her almost defiantly as he answered her
questions; it was intolerable to him that she should put him through
such a catechism.
"You can't have been there all the morning," she continued, suspiciously;
unable or unwilling, perhaps, to notice his rising displeasure. "Where
did you go first?"
Maurice bit his lip, but controlled himself with an effort.
"My dear child," he said, lightly, "one can't sell out of the army, or
prepare for the holy estate of matrimony, without a certain amount of
business on one's hands. Suppose now we go in to lunch." She stepped
aside and let him pass her into the dining-room.
"He is shuffling again," she said to herself, angrily; "that was no
answer to my question. Is it possible that he sees _her_? But no, what
folly; if she is at Sutton, how can he get at her?"
"Oh, Helen," cried out Beatrice to her from the table as she entered,
"you and Lady Kynaston are positively out of the world this season. You
know none of the gossip."
"I go nowhere, of course, now; my grandfather's death is so recent. I
have so many preparations to make just now; and dear Lady Kynaston is
good enough to shut herself up on my account."
"Exactly; you are a couple of recluses," cried Beatrice. "Now, I daresay
you will never guess who is the new beauty whom all the world is talking
about; no other than our friend Vera Nevill. She is creating a perfect
sensation!"
"Indeed!" politely, but with frigid unconcern, from Lady Kynaston.
"Yes; I assure you there is a regular rage about her. Oh, how stupid I
am! Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned her, Lady Kynaston, for of
course she did not behave very well to Sir John, as we all know; but now
that is all over, isn't it? and everybody is wild about her beauty."
"I am glad to hear that Miss Nevill is prospering in any way," said her
ladyship, stiffly. "I owe her no ill-will, poor girl."
Helen Romer is looking at Maurice Kynaston; he has not said one single
word, nor has he raised his eyes once from his plate; but a deep flush
has overspread his handsome face at the sound of Vera's name.
"_That_ is where he goes," said Helen, to herself. "I knew it; he has
seen her, and he loves her still."
The conversation drifted on to other matters. Beatrice passed all the
gossip and scandal of the town under review for Lady Kynaston's benefit;
presently Maurice roused himself, and joined in the talk. But Mrs. Romer
uttered not a word; she sat in her place with a thunder-cloud upon her
brow until the luncheon was over; then, as they rose from the table, she
called her lover to her side.
"I want to speak to you," she said, and detained him until the others had
left the room.
"You knew that Vera Nevill was in town, and you have seen her!" she burst
forth impetuously.
"If I had seen her, I do not know that it would signify, would it?" he
answered, calmly.
"Not signify? when you knew that it was for _your_ sake that she threw
over John, because----"
"Be silent, Helen, you have no right to say that, and no authority for
such a statement," he said, interrupting her hotly.
"Do you suppose you can deceive me? Did not everybody see that she could
not keep her eyes off you? What is the use of denying it? You have seen
her probably; you have been with her to-day."
"As it happens, I have _not_ been with her either to-day or any day; nor
did I know she was in town until Beatrice Miller told us so just now."
"You have not seen her?"
"No, I have not."
"I don't believe you!" she answered, angrily. Now, no man likes to be
given the lie direct even by a lady; and Maurice was a man who was
scrupulously truthful, and proud of his veracity; he lost his temper
fairly.
"I have never told you a lie yet," he began furiously; "and if you think
so, it is time----"
"Maurice! Maurice!" she cried, frantically, stopping the outspoken words
upon his lips, and seeing in one minute that she had gone too far. "My
darling, forgive me; I did not mean to say it. Yes, of course, I believe
you; don't say anything unkind to me, for pity's sake. You know how much
I love you; kiss me, darling. No, Maurice, I won't let you go till you
kiss me, and say you forgive your foolish, jealous little Helen!"
It was the old story over again; angry reproaches--bitter words--insults
upon her side; to be succeeded, the minute he turned round upon her, by
wild cries of regret and entreaties for forgiveness, and by the pleading
of that love which he valued so little.
She drove him wild with anger and indignation; but she never would let
him go--no, never, however much he might strain against the chain by
which she held him.
The quarrel was patched up again; he stooped and kissed her. A man must
kiss a lady when she asks him. How, indeed, is he to refuse to do so? A
woman's kisses are the roses of life--altogether sweet, and lovely, and
precious. No man can say he dislikes a rose, nor refuse so harmless and
charming a gift when it is freely offered to him without absolute
churlishness. Maurice could not well deny her the embrace for which her
upturned lips had pleaded. He kissed her, indeed; but it will be easily
understood that there was very little spontaneity of affection in that
kiss.
"Now let me go," he said, putting her from him gently but coldly; "I want
to speak to my mother."
The two younger ladies wandered out into the garden, whilst Maurice
sought his mother's room.
"Mother, I have been to see John this morning. I am afraid he is really
very ill," he said, gravely.
Lady Kynaston shrugged her shoulders. "He is like a baby over that
foolish affair," she said, impatiently. "He does not seem able to get
over it; why does he shut himself up in his rooms? If he were to go out
a little more----"
"He has been out; it is that that has made him ill. He went out a few
mornings ago--the wind was very cold; he says it is that which gave him a
chill. But, from what he says, I fancy he saw, or he thinks he saw, Miss
Nevill."
Lady Kynaston sat at her davenport with all the litter of her daily
correspondence before her; her son stood up by the mantelpiece, leaning
his back against it, and looked away out of window at the figures of
Beatrice and his future wife sauntering up and down the garden walks. She
could not well see his face as he spoke these last words.
"Tiresome woman!" cried Lady Kynaston, angrily; "there is no end to the
trouble she causes. John ought to be thankful he is well rid of her. Did
you hear what Beatrice Miller said at lunch about her? I call it shocking
bad taste, her coming up to town and flirting and flaunting about under
poor John's nose--heartless coquette! Creating 'a sensation,' indeed!
That is one of those horrible American expressions that are the fashion
just now!"
"It is no wonder she is admired," said Maurice, dreamily: "she is very
beautiful."
"I wish to goodness she would keep out of John's way. Where did he see
her?"
"It was in the Row, I think, and, from what he said, he only fancied he
saw her back, walking away. I told him, of course, it could not be her,
because I thought she was down at Sutton; but, after what Beatrice told
us at lunch, I make no doubt that it was her, and that John really did
see her."
"I should have thought that your brother would have had more spirit than
to sit down and whine over a woman in that way," said her ladyship,
sharply; "it is really contemptible."
"But if he is ill in body as well as in mind, poor fellow?"
"Pooh! fiddlesticks! I am quite sure, if Helen jilted you, you would bear
it a great deal better--losing the money and all--than he does."
Maurice smiled.
"That is very possible; but a man can't help his disposition, and John
has been utterly shattered by it."
"Well, I am sorry for him, of course; but I confess that I don't see that
anybody can do anything for him."
And then Maurice was silent for a minute. God only knew what passed
through his soul at that minute--what agonies of self-renunciation, what
martyrdom of all that makes life pleasant and dear to a man! It is
certain his mother did not know it.
"I think," he said, after a minute, and only a slight harshness in his
voice marked the internal struggle that the words were to cost him--"I
think, mother, _you_ might do a great deal for him. Miss Nevill is in
town. Could you not see her?"
"I see her! What on earth for?"
"If you were to tell her how ill John is, how desperately he feels her
treatment of him--how----"
"Stop, stop, my dear! You cannot possibly suppose that I am going down
upon my knees to entreat Miss Nevill to marry my son after she has thrown
him over!"
"It is no question of going on your knees, mother. A few words would
suffice to show her the misery she is causing to John, and if those few
words would restore his lost happiness----"
"How can I tell that anything I can say would influence her? I suppose
she had good reasons for throwing him over. She cared for some one else,
I suppose, or, at all events, she did not care for him."
"I am quite certain, on the contrary, that she had a very sincere
affection for my brother; and, as to the some one else, I do not think
that will prevent her returning to him. Oh, mother!" he cried, with a
sudden passion, "the world is full of miserable misunderstandings and
mistakes. For God's sake, let us try to put some of its blunders right!
Do not let any poor, mean feelings of false pride stand in our way if we
can make one single life happy!"
She looked up at him, wondering a little at his earnestness. It did not
strike her at the minute that his interest in Vera was unusual, but only
that his affection for his brother was stronger than she imagined it to
be. "You know," she said, "I do not want things to come right in that
way. I do not want John to marry. I want the old place to come to you and
your children; and now that John has agreed to let you and Helen live
there----"
He waved his hand impatiently. "And you know, mother dear, that such
desires are unlawful. John is the eldest, and I will never move a step to
take his birthright from him. To stand in the way of his marriage for
such a cause would be a crime. Is it not better that I should speak
plainly to you, dear? As to my living at Kynaston, I think it highly
unlikely that I should do so in any case, much as you and Helen seem to
wish it. But that has nothing to do with John's affairs. Promise me,
little mother, that you will try and set that right by seeing Miss
Nevill?"
"I do not suppose I should do any good," she answered, with visible
reluctance.
"Never mind; you can but try."
"You can't expect me to go and call upon her for such a purpose, nor
speak to her, without John's authority."
"You might ask her to come here, or go to some house where you will meet
her naturally in public."
"Yes, that would be best; perhaps she will be at Lady Cloverdale's ball
next week."
"It is easy, at all events, to ensure her an invitation to it; ask
Beatrice Miller to get her one."
"Oh, yes; that is easy enough. Oh, dear me, Maurice, you always manage to
get your own way with me; but you have given me a dreadfully hard task
this time."
"As if a woman of your known tact and _savoir faire_ was not capable of
any hard and impossible task!" answered her son, smiling, as he bent and
kissed her soft white face.
The gentle flattery pleased her. The old lady sat smiling happily to
herself, with her hands idle before her, for some minutes after he had
left her.
How dear he was to her, how good, how upright, how thoroughly generous
too, and unselfish to think so much of his brother's troubles just now,
in the midst of all his own happiness.
She got up and went to the window, and watched him as he strolled across
the garden to join the ladies, smiling and kissing her hand to him when
he looked back and saw her.
"Dear fellow, I hope he will be happy!" she said to herself, turning away
with a half sigh. And then suddenly something brought back the ball at
Shadonake to her recollection. There flashed back into her memory a
certain scene in a cool, dimly-lit conservatory: two people whispering
together under a high-swung Chinese lamp, and a background of dark-leaved
shrubs behind them.
She had been puzzled that night. There had been something going on that
she had not quite understood. And now again that feeling of unsatisfied
comprehension came back to her. For the first time it struck her
painfully that the son whom she idolized so much--whose life and
character had been her one study and her one delight ever since the day
of his birth--was nevertheless a riddle to her. That the secret of his
inner self was as much hidden from her--his mother--as though she had
been the merest stranger; that the life she had striven so closely to
entwine with her own was nothing after all but a separate existence, in
the story of whose soul she herself had no part. He was a man struggling
single-handed in all the heat and turmoil of the battle of life, and she,
nothing but a poor, weak old woman, standing feebly aside, powerless to
help or even to understand the creature to whom she had given birth.
There fell a tear or two down upon her wrinkled little hands as she
thought of it. She could not understand him; there was something in his
life she could not fathom. Oh, what did it all mean?
Alas, sooner or later, is not that what comes to every mother concerning
the child she loves best?
CHAPTER XXIL.
MR. PRYME'S VISITORS.
For courage mounteth with occasion.
Shakespeare, "King John."
Mr. Herbert Pryme stood by a much ink-stained and littered table in his
chambers in the Temple, with his hands in his trousers pockets, whistling
a slow and melancholy tune.
It was Mr. Pryme's habit to whistle when he was dejected or perplexed;
and the whistling generally partook of the mournful condition of his
feelings. Indeed, everything that this young man did was of a ponderous
and solemn nature; there was always the inner consciousness of the
dignity of the Bar vested in his own person, to be discerned in his outer
bearing. Even in the strictest seclusion of the, alas! seldom invaded
privacy of his chambers Mr. Pryme never forgot that he was a
barrister-at-law.
But when this young gentleman was ill at ease within himself he was in
the habit of whistling. He also was given to the thrusting of his hands
into his pockets. The more unhappy he was, the more he whistled, and the
deeper he stuffed in his hands.
Just now, to all appearances, he was very unhappy indeed.
The air he had selected for his musical self-refreshment was the lively
and slightly vulgar one of "Tommy make Room for your Uncle;" but let
anybody just try to whistle that same vivacious tune to the time of the
Dead March in "Saul," and with a lingering and plaintive emphasis upon
each note, with "linked sweetness long drawn out," and then say whether
the gloomiest of dirges would not be festive indeed in comparison.
Thus did Herbert Pryme whistle it as he looked down upon the piles of
legal documents heaped up together upon his table.
All of them meant work, but none of them meant money. For Herbert was
fain to accept the humble position of "devil" to a great legal light who
occupied the floor below him, and who considered, and perhaps rightly,
that he was doing the young man above him, who had been sent up from the
country with a letter of introduction to him from a second cousin, a
sufficient and inestimable benefit in allowing him to do his dirty work
gratis.
It was all very useful to him, doubtless, but it was not remunerative;
and Herbert wanted money badly.
"Oh, if I could only reckon upon a couple of hundred a year," he sighed,
half aloud to himself, "I might have a chance of winning her! It seems
hard that heaps of these fellows can make hundreds a week by a short
speech, or a few strokes of the pen, that cost them no labour and little
forethought, whilst I, with all my hard work, can make nothing! What
uphill work it is! Not that the Bar is not a fine profession; quite the
finest there is," for not even to himself would Herbert Pryme decry the
legal muse whom he worshipped; "but, I suppose, like every other
profession, it is overstocked; there are too many struggling for the same
prizes. The fact is, that England is over-populated. Now, if a law were
to be passed compelling one-half of the adult males in this country to
remain in a state of celibacy for the space of fifteen years----" but
here he stopped short in his soliloquy and smiled; for was not the one
desire of his life at present to marry Beatrice Miller immediately? And
how was the extra population to be stayed if every one of the doomed
quota of marriageable males were of the same mind as himself?
Presently Mr. Pryme sauntered idly to the window, and stood looking
drearily out of it, still whistling, of course.
The prospect was not a lively one. His chambers looked out upon a little
square, stone-flagged court, with a melancholy-looking pump in the centre
of it. There was an arched passage leading away to one side, down which a
distant footstep echoed drearily now and then, and a side glimpse of the
empty road at the other end, beyond the corner of the opposite houses.
Now and then some member of the learned profession passed rapidly across
the small open space with the pre-occupied air of a man who has not a
minute to spare, or a clerk, bearing the official red bag, ran hastily
along the passage; for the rest, the London sparrows had it pretty much
to themselves. As things were, Mr. Pryme envied the sparrows, who were
ready clothed by Providence, and had no rates and taxes to pay, as well
as the clerks, who, at all events, had plenty to do and no time to
soliloquize upon the hardness and hollowness of life. To have plenty of
brains, and an indefinite amount of spare time to use them in; to desire
ardently to hasten along the road towards fortune and happiness, and to
be forced to sit idly by whilst others, duller-witted, perchance, and
with less capacity for work, are amassing wealth under your very
nose--when this is achieved by sheer luck, or good interest, or any other
of those inadequate causes which get people on in life independent of
talent and industry--that is what makes a radical of a man. This is what
causes him to dream unwholesome dreams about equality and liberty, about
a republic, where there shall be no more principalities and powers, where
plutocracy, as well as aristocracy, shall be unregarded, and where every
good man and true shall rise on his own merits, and on none other.
Oh, happy and impossible Arcadia! You must wait for the millennium, my
friend, before your aspirations shall come to pass. Wait till jealousy,
and selfishness, and snobbism--that last and unconquerable dragon--shall
be destroyed out of the British heart, then, and only then, when jobbery,
and interest, and mammon-worship shall be abolished; then will men be
honoured for what they are, and not for what they seem to be.
Something of all this passed through our friend's jaundiced mind as he
contemplated those homely and familiar little birds, born and bred and
smoke-dried in all the turmoil of the City's heart, who ruffled their
feathers and plumed their wings with contented chirpings upon the dusty
flags of the little courtyard.
Things were exceptionally bad with Herbert Pryme just now. His exchequer
was low--had never been lower--and his sweetheart was far removed out of
his reach. Beatrice had duly come up with her parents to the family
mansion in Eaton Square for the London season, but although he had, it is
true, the satisfaction, such as it was, of breathing the same air as she
did, she was far more out of his reach in town than she had been in the
country. As long as she was at Shadonake Mr. Pryme had always been able
to run down to his excellent friend, the parson of Tripton, and once
there, it had been easy to negotiate a surreptitious meeting with
Beatrice. The fields and the lanes are everybody's property. If Tom and
Maria are caught love-making at the stile out of the wood, and they both
swear that the meeting was purely accidental, I don't see how any one is
to prove that it was premeditated; nor can any parents, now that it is no
longer the fashion to keep grown women under lock and key, prevent their
daughters from going out in the country occasionally unattended, nor
forbid strange young men from walking along the Queen's highway in the
same direction.
But remove your daughter to London, and the case is altered at once. To
keep a girl who goes out a great deal in the whirl of London society out
of the way of a man who goes out very little, who is not in the inner
circle of town life, and is not in the same set as herself, is the
easiest thing in the world.
So Mrs. Miller found it. She kept Beatrice hard at work at the routine of
dissipation. Not an hour of her time was unoccupied, not a minute of her
day unaccounted for; and, of course, she was never alone--it is not yet
the fashion for young girls to dance about London by themselves--her
mother, as a matter of course, was always with her.
As a natural sequence, the lovers had a hard time of it. Beatrice had
been six weeks in London, and Herbert, beyond catching sight of her once
or twice as she was driven past in her mother's carriage down Bond
Street, or through the crowd in the Park, had never seen her at all.
Mrs. Miller was congratulating herself upon the success of her tactics;
she flattered herself that her daughter was completely getting over that
unlucky fancy for the penniless and briefless barrister. Beatrice gave no
sign; she appeared perfectly satisfied and contented, and seemed to be
enjoying herself thoroughly, and to be troubled by no love-sick
hankerings after her absent swain.
"She has forgotten him," said Mrs. Miller, to herself.
But the mother did not take into account that indomitable spirit and
stubborn determination in her own character which had served to carry out
successfully all the schemes of her life, and which she had probably
transmitted to her child.
In Beatrice's head, under its short thick thatch of dark rough hair, and
in her sturdily-built little frame, there lurked the tenacity of a
bulldog. Once she had taken an idea firmly into her mind, Beatrice Miller
would never relinquish it until she had got her own way. Herbert, in
the dingy solitude of his untempting chambers, might despair and look
upon life and its aims as a hopeless enigma. Beatrice did not despair at
all. She only bided her time.
One day, if she waited for it patiently, the opportunity would come to
her, and when it came she would not be slow to make use of it. It came to
her in the shape of a morning visit from Captain Maurice Kynaston.
"Come down and see my mother," Maurice had said to her; "she has not seen
you for a long while. I am just going back to Walpole Lodge to lunch."
"I should like to come very much. You have no objection, I suppose,
mamma?"
No; Mrs. Miller could have no possible objection. Lady Kynaston was
amongst her oldest and most respected friends; under whose house could
Beatrice be safer? And even Maurice, as an escort, engaged to be married
so shortly as he was known to be, was perfectly unobjectionable.
Beatrice went, and, as we have seen, lunched at Walpole Lodge. She had
told her mother not to expect her till late in the afternoon, as, in all
probability, Lady Kynaston would drive her into town and would drop her
in Eaton Square at the end of her drive. Mrs. Miller, to whose watchful
maternal mind the Temple and Kew appeared to be in such totally different
directions that they presented no connecting suggestions, agreed,
unsuspiciously, not to expect her daughter back until after six o'clock.
In this way Beatrice secured the whole afternoon to herself to do what
she liked with it. She was not slow to make use of it. There was all
the pluck of the Esterworths in her veins, together with all the
determination and energy which had raised her father's family from
a race of shopkeepers to take their place amongst gentlemen.
As soon as Captain Kynaston joined the two ladies in the garden at
Walpole Lodge after luncheon Beatrice requested him to order a hansom to
be fetched for her.
"Why should you hurry away?" said Maurice, politely. "My mother will take
you back to town in the carriage if you will wait."
Helen was stooping over the flower-beds, gathering some violets. Beatrice
stepped closer to Maurice.
"Don't say a word, there's a good fellow, but get me the
hansom--and--and--please don't mention it at home."
Then Maurice, who was no tyro in such matters, understood that it was
expected of him that he should ask no questions, but do what he was told
and hold his tongue.
The sequence of which proceedings was, that a hansom cab drew up at the
far corner of the little stone-flagged court in the Temple between four
and five that afternoon.
Mr. Pryme was no longer by the window when it did so, so that he was
totally unprepared for the visitor, whose trembling and twice-repeated
tap at his door he answered somewhat impatiently--
"Come in, and be d----d to you, and don't stand rapping at that door all
day."
The people, as a rule, who solicited admittance to his chambers were
either the boy from the legal light below, who came to ask whether the
papers were ready that had been sent up this morning, or else they were
smiling and sleek-faced tradesmen who washed their hands insinuatingly
whilst they requested that Mr. Pryme would be kind enough to settle that
little outstanding account.
Either of these visitors were equally unwelcome, which must be some
excuse for the roughness of Mr. Pryme's language.
The door was softly pushed ajar.
"Now, then--come in, can't you; who the deuce are you--_Beatrice_!"
Enter Miss Miller, smiling.
"Oh, fie, Herbert! what naughty words, sir."
"Beatrice, is it possible that it is you! Where is your mother? Are you
alone?" looking nervously round at the door, whilst he caught her
outstretched hand.
"Yes, I am quite alone; don't be very shocked. I know I am a horrid, bold
girl to come all by myself to a man's chambers; it's dreadful, isn't it!
Oh, what would people say of it if they knew--why, even _you_ look
horrified! But oh, Herbert, I did want to see you so. I was determined to
get at you somehow--and now I am here for a whole hour; I have managed it
beautifully--no one will ever find out where I have been. Mamma thinks I
am driving with Lady Kynaston!"
And then she sat down and took off her veil, and told him all about it.
She had got at her lover, and she felt perfectly happy and secure,
sitting there with his arm round her waist and her hand in his. Not so
Herbert. He was pleased, of course, to see her, and called her by a
thousand fond names, and he admired her courage and her spirit for
breaking through the conventional trammels of her life in order to come
to him; but he was horribly nervous all the same. Supposing that boy were
to come in from below, or the smiling tradesman, or, still worse, if the
great Q.C. were to catch a glimpse of her as she went out, and recognize
her from having met her in society, where would Miss Miller's reputation
be then?
"It is very imprudent of you--most rash and foolish," he kept on
repeating; but he was glad to see her all the same, and kissed her
between every other word.
"Now, don't waste any more time spooning," says Beatrice, with decision,
drawing herself a little farther from him on the hard leather sofa. "An
hour soon goes, and I have plenty to say to you. Herbert," with great
solemnity, "_I mean to elope with you!_"
Herbert gives an irrepressible start.
"_Now!_ this minute?" he exclaims, in some dismay, and reflects swiftly
that, just now he possesses exactly three pounds seven and sixpence in
ready money.
"No; don't be a goose; not now, because I haven't any clothes." Herbert
breathes more freely. "But some day, very soon, before the end of the
season."
"But, my pet, you are not of age," objects her lover; whilst sundry
clauses in the laws concerning the marriages of minors without the
consent of their parents pass hurriedly through his brain.
"What do I care about my age?" says Beatrice, with the recklessness of an
impetuous woman bent upon having her own way. "Of course, I don't wish to
do anything disreputable, or to make a scandal, but mamma is driving me
to it by never allowing me to see you, and forbidding you to come to the
house, and by encouraging all sorts of men whom she wants me to marry."
"Ah! And these men, do they make love to you?" The instinct of the lover
rises instantly superior to the instinct of legal prudence within him.
"That is hard for me to bear."
"Now, Herbert, don't be a fool!" cries Beatrice, jumping up and making a
grimace at herself in the dusty glass over his mantelpiece. "Do I look
like a girl whom men would make love to? Am I not too positively hideous?
Oh, you needn't shake your head and look indignant. Of course I am ugly,
everybody but you thinks so. Of course it's not me, myself, but because
papa is rich, and they think I shall have money. Oh, what a curse this
money is!"
"I think the want of it a far greater one," says Herbert, ruefully.
"At any rate," continues Beatrice, "I am determined to put an end to this
state of things; we must take the law into our own hands."
"Am I to wait for you in a carriage and pair at the corner of Eaton
Square in the middle of the night?" inquires Herbert, grimly.
"No; don't be foolish; people don't do things now-a-days in the way our
grandmothers did. I shall go to morning service one day at some out
of-the-way church, where you will meet me with a licence in your pocket;
it will be the simplest thing in the world."
"And afterwards?"
"Afterwards I shall go home to lunch."
"And what am I to do?"
"Oh! you will come back here, I suppose."
"I don't think that will be very amusing," objects the bridegroom elect,
dubiously.
"No; but then we shall be really married, and when we know that no one
can part us, we shan't mind waiting; and then, some day, after about six
months or so, I shall confess to papa, and there will be a terrible
scene, ending in tears on my part, and in forgiveness on the part of my
parents. Once the deed is done, you see, they will be forced to make the
best of it; and, of course, they will not allow us to starve. I think it
is a very ingenious plan. What do you think of it, Herbert? You don't
look very much delighted at the idea."
"I don't think that I should play a very noble part in such a scheme as
that. Dearly as I love you, Beatrice, I do not think I could consent to
steal you away in such a pitiful and cowardly manner."
"Pooh! you would have nothing to do with it; it is all my doing, of
course. Hush! is not that somebody coming up the stairs?"
They were silent for half a minute, listening to the sound of advancing
steps upon the wooden staircase.
"It is nothing--only somebody to see the man above me. By Jove, though,
it _is_ for me!" as somebody suddenly stopped outside and knocked at the
door. "Wait one minute, sir! Good heavens, Beatrice, what am I to do with
you?"
Herbert looked frightened out of his life. Beatrice, on the contrary,
could hardly smother her laughter.
"I must hide!" she said, in a choked whisper. "Oh, Herbert, it is like
a scene out of a naughty French play! I shall die of laughter!"
Without a moment's thought, she fled into the inner room, the door of
which stood ajar, and which was none other than Mr. Pryme's bed-chamber!
There was no time to think of any better expedient. Beatrice turned the
key upon herself, and Herbert called out "Come in!" to the intruder.
Neither of them had noticed that Beatrice's little white lace sunshade
lay upon the table with her gloves and veil beside it.
If Mr. Pryme had been alarmed at the bare fact of an unknown and possibly
unimportant visitor, it may be left to the imagination to describe the
state of his feelings when the door, upon being opened, disclosed the
Member for North Meadowshire standing without!
CHAPTER XXIII.
A WHITE SUNSHADE.
For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between, and bid us part?
"Well, Mr. Pryme, how d'ye do?" said Mr. Miller, in his rough, hearty
voice, holding out his hand. "I dare say you are surprised to see me
here. I haven't met you since you were staying down with us at Christmas
time. Well, and how goes the world with you, young man?"
Herbert, who at first had thought nothing less than that Mr. Miller had
tracked his daughter to his rooms, and that he was about to have the
righteous wrath of an infuriated and exasperated parent to deal with, by
this time began to perceive that, to whatever extraordinary cause his
visit was owing, Beatrice, at all events, had nothing to do with it. He
recovered himself sufficiently to murmur, in answer to his visitor's
greeting, that the world went pretty well with him, and to request his
guest to be seated.
And then, as he pushed an arm-chair forward for him, his eye fell upon
Beatrice's things upon the table, and his heart literally stood still
within him. What was he to do? They lay so close to the father's elbow
that, to move them without attracting attention was impossible, and to
attract attention to them was to risk their being recognized.
Meanwhile Mr. Miller had put on his spectacles, and was drawing some
voluminous papers out of his breast coat-pocket.
"Now, I dare say, young man, you are wondering what brings me to see you?
Well, the fact is, there is a little matter about which I am going to
law. I'm going to bring an action for libel against a newspaper; it is
that rascally paper the _Cat o' Nine Tails_. They had an infamous
paragraph three weeks ago concerning my early life, which, let me tell
you, sir, was highly respectable in every way, sir--in every way."
"I am quite sure of that, Mr. Miller."
"I've brought the paragraph with me. Oh, here it is. Well, I've had a
good deal of correspondence with the editor, and he refuses to publish an
apology, and so I'm tired of the whole matter, and have placed it in the
hands of my solicitors. I'm going to prosecute them, sir, and I don't
care what it costs me to do it; and I'll expose the whole system of these
trumped-up fabrications, that contain, as a rule, one grain of truth to a
hundredweight of lies. Well, now, Mr. Pryme, I want a clever barrister to
take up this case, and I have instructed Messrs. Grainge, my solicitors,
to retain you."
"I am sure, sir, you are very kind; I hardly know how to thank you,"
faltered poor Herbert. Never in the whole course of his life had he felt
so overcome with shame and confusion! Here was this man come to do him a
really great and substantial benefit, whilst his own daughter was hidden
away in a shameful fashion in the next room! Herbert would sooner that
Mr. Miller had pointed a pistol at his head and threatened to shoot him.
The deception that he was practising towards this kind-hearted and
excellent gentleman struck him to the heart with a sense of guilty
remorse.
But what on earth was he to do? He could not reveal the truth to the
unconscious father, nor open the door and disclose Beatrice hiding in his
bedroom, without absolutely risking the reputation of the girl he loved.
There was nothing for it but to go on with the serio-comedy as best he
could, and to try and get Mr. Miller off the premises as speedily as
possible.
He made an effort to decline the proffered employment.
"It is most kind, most generous of you to have thought of me, but I must
tell you that there are many better men, even amongst the juniors, who
would do your case more justice than I should."
"Oh! I believe you have plenty of talent, Mr. Pryme. I've been making
inquiries about you. You only want an opportunity, and I like giving a
young fellow a chance. One must hold out a helping hand to the young ones
now and then."
"Of course, sir, I would do my very best for you, but I really think you
are risking your own case by giving it to me."
"Nonsense--take it and do what you can for me; if you fail, I shall not
blame you;" and here suddenly Mr. Miller's eyes rested upon the sunshade
and the gloves upon the table half-a-yard behind his arm. Now, had it
been Miss Miller's mother who, in the place of her father, had been
seated in Herbert's wooden arm-chair, the secret of her proximity would
have been revealed the very instant the maternal eyes had been set upon
that sunshade and those gloves. Mrs. Miller could have sworn to that
little white lace, ivory-handled toy, with its coquettish pink ribbon
bows, had she seen it amongst a hundred others, nor would it have been
easy to have deceived the mother's eyes in the matter of the gray _peau
de suède_ gloves and the dainty little veil, such as her daughter was in
the habit of wearing. But a father's perceptions in these matters are not
accurate. Mr. Miller had not the remotest idea what his child's sunshade
was like, nor, indeed, whether she had any sunshade at all. Nevertheless,
as his eyes alighted upon these indications of a feminine presence which
lay upon the young barrister's table, they remained fixed there with
distinct disapproval. These obnoxious articles of female attire of course
conveyed clearly to the elder man's perceptions, in a broad and general
sense, the fatal word "woman," and woman in this case meant "vice."
Mr. Miller strove to re-direct his attention to his case and the papers
in his hand. Herbert made a faint and ineffectual attempt to remove the
offending objects from the table. Mr. Miller only looked back at them
with an ever-increasing gloom upon his face, and Herbert's hand, morally
paralyzed by the glance, sank powerlessly down by his side. He imagined,
of course, that the father had recognized his daughter's property.
"Well, to continue the subject," said Mr. Miller, looking away with
an effort, and turning over the papers he had brought with him; "there
are several points in the case I should like to mention to you." He
paused for a minute, apparently to collect his thoughts, and to
Herbert's sensitive ears there was a sudden coldness and constraint
in his voice and manner. "You will, of course, take instructions in
the main from Grainge and Co.; but what I wished to point out to you
was--ahem----" here his voice unaccountably faltered, and his eyes, as
though drawn by a magnet, returned once more with ominous displeasure to
that little heap of feminine finery that lay between them. Mr. Miller
flung down his papers, and turning round in his chair, rested both elbows
upon the table.
"Mr. Pryme," he said, with decision, "I think it is best that I should be
frank with you!" He looked the young barrister full in the face.
"Certainly, certainly, if you please, Mr. Miller," said Herbert, not
quite knowing what he had to fear, and turning hot and cold alternately
under his visitor's scrutinizing gaze.
"Well, then, let me tell you fairly that I came to seek you to-day with
the friendliest motives."
"I am sure you did, and you are most kind to me, sir," murmured Herbert,
playing nervously with an ivory paper-cutter that lay on the table.
Mr. Miller waved his hand, as though to dispense with his grateful
acknowledgments.
"The fact is," he continued, "I had understood from Mrs. Miller that you
were a suitor for my daughter's hand. Well, sir, Mrs. Miller, as you
know, disapproves of your suit. My daughter will be well off, Mr. Pryme,
and you, I understand, have no income at all. You have no other resource
than a profession, at which, as yet, you have made nothing. There is some
reason in Mrs. Miller's objection to you. Nor should I be willing to let
my daughter marry an idle man who will live upon her money. Then, on the
other hand, Mr. Pryme, I find that my girl is fond of you, and, if this
is the case, I am unwilling to make her unhappy. I said to myself that I
would give you an opening in this case of mine, and if you will work hard
and make yourself known and respected in your profession, I should not
object, in the course of time, to your being engaged to her, and I would
endeavour to induce her mother to agree to it. I came here to-day, Mr.
Pryme, to give you a fair chance of winning her."
"You are too good, Mr. Miller," cried Herbert, with effusion, stretching
forth his hand. "I do not know how to thank you enough, nor how to assure
you of my grateful acceptance of your terms."
But Mr. Miller drew back from the young man's proffered hand.
"Wait, there is no occasion to thank me;" and again his eyes fell sternly
upon that unlucky little heap of lace and ribbon. "I am sorry to tell you
that, since I have come here, my friendly and pleasant intentions towards
you have undergone a complete change."
"Sir!"
"Yes, Mr. Pryme; I came here prepared to treat you--well, I may as well
confess it--as a son, under the belief that you were an upright and
honourable man, and were sincerely and honestly attached to my daughter."
"Mr. Miller, is it possible that you can doubt it?"
The elder man pointed with contemptuous significance to the sunshade
before him.
"I find upon your table, young man, the evidences of the recent presence
of some wretched woman in your rooms, and your confusion of manner shows
me too plainly that you are not the kind of husband to which a man may
safely entrust his daughter's happiness."
"Mr. Miller, I assure you you are mistaken; it is not so."
"Every man in this country has a right to justify himself when he is
accused. If I am mistaken, Mr. Pryme, explain to me the meaning of
_that_," and the heavy forefinger was again levelled at the offending
objects before him.
Not one single word could Herbert utter. In vain ingenious fabrications
concerning imaginary sisters, maiden aunts, or aged lady clients rushed
rapidly through his brain; the natural answer on Mr. Miller's part to all
such inventions would have been, "Then, where is she?"
Mr. Miller must know as well as he did himself that the lady, whoever she
might be, must still be in his rooms, else why should her belongings be
left on his table; and if in the rooms, then, as there was no other
egress on the staircase than the one by which he had entered, clearly,
she must be secreted in his bedroom. Mr. Miller was not a young man, and
his perceptions in matters of intrigue and adventure might no longer be
very acute, but it was plain to Herbert that he probably knew quite as
well as he did himself that the owner of the gloves and sunshade was in
the adjoining room.
"Have you any satisfactory explanation to give me?" asked Mr. Miller,
once more, after a solemn silence, during which he glared in a stern and
inquisitorial manner over his spectacles at the young man.
"I have nothing to say," was the answer, given in a low and dejected
voice.
Mr. Miller sprang to his feet and hurriedly gathered up his papers.
"Then, sir," he said, furiously, "I shall wish you good afternoon; and
let me assure you, most emphatically, that you must relinquish all claim
to my daughter's hand. I will never consent to her union with a man whose
private life will not bear investigation; and should she disobey me in
this matter, she shall never have one single shilling of my money."
There was a moment's silence. Mr. Miller was buttoning-up his coat with
the air of a man who buttons up his heart within it at the same time. He
regarded the young man fiercely, and yet there was a lingering
wistfulness, too, in his gaze. He would have given a good deal to hear,
from his lips, a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances which told
so suspiciously against him. He liked the young barrister personally, and
he was fond enough of his daughter to wish that she might be happy in her
own way. He spoke one word more to the young man.
"Have you nothing to say; Mr. Pryme?"
Herbert shook his head, with his eyes gloomily downcast.
"I can only tell you, sir, that you are mistaken in what you imagine. If
you will not believe my word, I can say nothing more."
"And what of _these_, Mr. Pryme--what of _these_?" pointing furiously
downwards to Beatrice's property.
"I cannot explain it any further to you, Mr. Miller. I can only ask you
to believe me."
"Then, I do not believe you, sir--I do not believe you. Would any man in
his senses believe that you haven't got a woman hidden in the next room?
Do you suppose I'm a fool? I have the honour of wishing you good day,
sir, and I am sorry I ever took the trouble of calling upon you. It is,
of course, unnecessary for you to trouble yourself concerning my case, in
these altered circumstances, Mr. Pryme; I beg to decline the benefit of
your legal assistance. Good afternoon."
The door closed upon him, and the sound of his retreating footsteps
echoed noisily down the stairs. Herbert sank into a chair and covered his
face with his hands. So lately hope and fortune seemed to have smiled
upon him for one short, blissful moment, only to withdraw the sunshine
of their faces again from him more completely, and to leave him more
utterly in the dark than ever. Was ever man so unfortunate, and so
unlucky?
But for the _contretemps_ concerning that wretched sunshade, he would now
have been a hopeful, and almost a triumphant, lover. Now life was all
altered for him!
The door between the two rooms opened softly, and Beatrice, no longer
brave, and defiant, and laughing as she had been when she went in, but
white, and scared, and trembling, crept hesitatingly forth, and knelt
down by her lover's side.
"Oh, Herbert! what has happened? It was papa--I heard his voice; but I
could not hear what you talked about, only I heard that he was angry at
the last, when he went away. Oh! tell me, dearest, what has happened?"
Herbert pointed bitterly to her belongings on the table.
"What fatality made me overlook those wretched things?" he cried,
miserably; "they have ruined us!"
Beatrice uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"Papa saw them--he recognized them!"
"Not as _yours_, thank God!"
"What then?"
"He thinks me unworthy of you," answered the lover, in a low voice, and
Beatrice understood. "He has forbidden me ever to think of you now; and
he will leave you penniless if you disobey him; it is a terrible
misfortune, my darling; but still, thank God that your good name is
safe!"
"Yes, at the expense of yours, Herbert!" cried the girl, frantically; "I
see it all now, and, if I dared, I would confess to papa the truth."
"Do not think of it!"
"I dare not; but, Herbert, don't despair; I see now how wicked and how
foolish I was to come here to-day, and what a terrible risk I have run,
for if papa knew that it was I who was in the next room, he would never
forgive me; we can do nothing now but wait until brighter and happier
days; believe me, Herbert, if you will be true to me, I will be true to
you, and I will wait for you till I am old and grey."
He strained her passionately to his heart.
"I will never forget what you have done for me to-day, never!" said the
girl, as she clung to his neck.
And then she put on her gloves and veil, and took up the sunshade that
had been the cause of such a direful ending to her escapade, and went her
way. And after she was gone, Mr. Pryme, with his hands in his pockets,
began once more to whistle, as though the events of the afternoon had
never taken place.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HER SON'S SECRET.
But love is such a mystery,
I cannot find it out,
For when I think I'm best resolved,
I then am most in doubt."
Sir J. Suckling.
Lady Kynaston sat alone in her little morning-room; as far as she knew,
she was alone in the house; Mrs. Romer had driven into London, on the
cares of her trousseau intent, and she believed that Maurice had gone
with her; at all events, she had heard him state his intention of going,
and the departing carriage had, some time since, driven away from the
door.
The morning-room looked on to the garden side of the house, and the
windows were wide open; the east wind had departed, and summer had set in
at last. Real summer, coming in with a rush when it did come, with warm
whiffs of flower-scented wind, with flutterings of lime blossoms from the
trees along the high brick wall, with brown bees and saffron butterflies
hovering over the reviving flower-borders, and dragon-flies darting out
of the shadows into the hot blinding sunshine. Summer at last; and oh,
how welcome when it comes upon our rain-drenched and winter-pinched land.
The gardener was bedding out the geraniums along the straight ribbon
border. Lady Kynaston went out once to superintend his operations,
holding up a newspaper in her hand to shield her head from the rays of
the sun. But it was hot, and old McCloud, the Scotch gardener, was
intelligent enough to be safely left to his own devices, so she did not
stop out long.
She came in again, and sat down in a low basket-chair by the window, and
thought how wise she had been to settle herself down in the old house
with its velvet lawns and its wide shadowy trees, instead of in the heat
and turmoil of a London home.
She looked a little anxious and worried to-day--she was not happy about
her eldest son--somebody had told her last night that he was talking
about going to Australia, and turning sheep farmer. Lady Kynaston was
annoyed at the report; it did not strike her as seemly or right that the
head of the Kynaston family should become a sheep farmer. Moreover, she
knew very well that he only wanted to get himself away out of the country
where no one would know of his story, or remind him of his trouble again.
The man's heart was broken. He did not want to farm sheep, or to take to
any other rational or healthful employment; he only wanted, like a sick
animal, to creep away and hide his hurt. Little as Lady Kynaston had in
common with her eldest son, she was sorry for him. She would have done
what she could to help him had she known how. She had written to him only
yesterday, begging him to come to her, but he had not replied to her
letter.
The Cloverdales' ball had come and gone, and Lady Kynaston had taken
pains to ensure that an invitation might be sent to Mrs. Hazeldine and
Miss Nevill. She had also put herself to some inconvenience in order to
be present at it herself, but all to no purpose--Vera was not there.
Perhaps she had had another engagement that evening.
The old lady's promise to her youngest son was still unfulfilled. She
half repented now that she had given him any such promise. What good was
she to do by interceding between her son and Miss Nevill? and why was she
to lay herself open to the chance of a rebuff from that young lady? It
had been a senseless and quixotic idea on Maurice's part altogether.
Young women do not take back a jilted lover because the man's mother
advises them to do so; nor is a broken-off marriage likely to get itself
re-settled in consequence of the interference of a third person.
The old lady had taken out her fancy-work, a piece of crewel work such as
is the fashion of the day. But she was not fond of work; the leaves of
muddy-shaded greens grew but slowly under her fingers, and, truth to say,
the occupation bored her. It was artistic, certainly, and it was
fashionable; but Lady Kynaston would have been happier over a pair of
cross-stitch slippers for her son, or a knitted woollen petticoat for the
old woman at her lodge gate. All the same, she took out her crewels and
put in a few stitches; but the afternoon was warm, there was a humming of
insects in the summer air, a click-clicking from the gardener as he
dropped one empty red flower-pot into the other along the edge of the
ribbon border, a cawing of rooks from the elms over the wall, a very
harmony of soft soothing sounds, just enough to lull worry to rest, not
enough to scare drowsiness from one's brain.
By degrees, it all became mixed up in a delicious confusion. The rooks,
and the bees, and the gardener made one continuous murmur to her, like
the swishing of summer waves upon a sandy shore, or the moaning of soft
winds in the tree tops.
Then the crewel work slipped off her lap, and Lady Kynaston slept.
How long she was asleep she could not rightly have said: it might have
been an hour, it might have been but twenty minutes; but suddenly she
awoke with a start.
The rustle of a woman's dress was beside her, and somebody spoke her
name.
"Lady Kynaston! Oh, I am so sorry I have disturbed you; I did not see you
were asleep."
The old lady opened her eyes wide, and came back suddenly from dreamland.
Vera Nevill stood before her.
"Vera, is it _you_? Good gracious! how did you get in? I never even heard
the door open."
"I came in by the front-door quite correctly," said Vera, smiling and
reaching out her hand for a chair, "and was duly announced by the
footman; but I had no idea you were asleep."
"Only dozing. Sit down, my dear, sit down; I am glad to see you." And,
somehow, all the awkwardness of the meeting between the two vanished. It
was as though they had parted only yesterday on the most friendly terms.
In Vera's absence, Lady Kynaston had thought hard things of her, and had
spoken condemning words concerning her; but in her presence all this
seemed to be altered.
There was something so unspeakably refreshing and soothing about Vera;
there was a certain quiet dignity in her movements, a calm serenity in
her manner, which made it difficult to associate blame and displeasure
with her. Faults she might have, but they could never be mean or ignoble
ones; there was nothing base or contemptible about her. The pure, proud
profile, the broad grave brow, the eyes that, if a trifle cold, were as
true withal as the soul that looked out, sometimes earnestly, sometimes
wistfully, from their shadowy depths; everything about her bade one judge
her, not so much by her actions, which were sometimes incomprehensible,
but by a certain standard that she herself created in the minds of
all who knew her.
Lady Kynaston had called her a jilt and a heartless coquette; she had
made no secret of saying, right and left, how badly she had behaved: what
shameful and discreditable deductions might be drawn from her conduct
towards Sir John. Yet, the very instant she set eyes upon her, she felt
sorry for the hard things she had said of her, and ashamed of herself
that she should have spoken them.
Vera drew forward a chair, and sat down near her. The dress she wore was
white, of some clear and delicate material, softened with creamy lace; it
had been one of kind-hearted Cissy Hazeldine's many presents to her.
Looking at her, Lady Kynaston thought what a lovely vision of youth and
beauty she made in the sombre quiet of the little room.
"They tell me half the men in London have gone mad over you," were her
first words following the train of her own thoughts, and she liked her
visitor none the less, that world-loving little old woman, because she
could not but acknowledge the reasonableness of the madness of which
she accused her of being the object.
"I care very little for the men in London, Lady Kynaston," answered Vera,
quietly.
"My dear, what _do_ you care for?" asked her ladyship, with earnestness,
and Vera understood that she was expected to state her business.
"Lady Kynaston, I have come to ask you about your son," she answered,
simply.
"About John?"
"Of course, it is Sir John I mean," she said, quickly, a hot flush
rising for one instant to her face, and dying away rapidly again, to
leave her a trifle paler than before. "I know," she continued, with a
little hesitation--"I know that I have no right to inquire--but I cannot
forget all that is past--all his goodness and generosity to me. I shall
never forget it; and oh, I hear such dreadful things of him, that he is
ill--that he is talking of going to Australia. Oh, Lady Kynaston, is it
all true?"
She had clasped her hands together, and bent a little forward towards
the old lady in her earnestness; she looked at her piteously, almost
entreatingly.
"Does she love him after all?" thought Lady Kynaston, as she watched her;
and the meaning of the whole story of her son's love seemed more
unfathomable than ever.
"John is neither well nor happy," she said, aloud. "I think, Vera, you
must know the reason of it better than any of us."
"It is my fault--my doing," cried the girl, with a ring of deep regret in
her voice. "Yes," she added, looking away sadly out of the open window;
"that is why I have come. Do you know that I saw him once? I don't think
he saw me--it was in the Park one morning. He looked so aged, so
saddened, I realized then what I had done--his face haunts me."
"Vera, you could alter all that if you chose," said the old lady,
earnestly.
A sudden flush sprang to her face; she looked startled.
"You don't suppose I came here to say _that_, Lady
Kynaston?"
"No, my dear; but I have decided to say it to you. Vera, I entreat you to
tell me the truth. What is it that stands between you and John?"
She was silent, looking down upon her hands that lay crossed one over the
other upon her knee.
"I cannot tell you, Lady Kynaston," she answered, at length, in a low
voice.
Lady Kynaston sighed; she was a little disappointed.
"And you cannot, marry him?"
Vera shook her head.
"No, it would not be right."
The old lady bent forward and laid her hand upon her visitor's arm.
"Forgive me for asking you. Do you love some one else? is it that?"
She bent her head silently.
"Have you any hopes of marrying the man you love?"
"Oh no, none--not the slightest," she said, hurriedly; "I shall never
marry."
"Then, Vera, will you listen to an old woman's advice?"
"Yes, dear Lady Kynaston."
"My dear, if you cannot marry the man you love, put him out of your
mind."
"I must do that in any case," she said, wearily.