man who is good and loves you dearly to a caprice of your heart. Hush!
don't interrupt me; I dare say you don't think it a caprice; you think it
is to last for ever. But there is no 'for ever' in these matters; the
thing comes to us like an ordinary disease; some of us take it strongly,
and it half kills us; some of us are only a very little ill; but we all
get over it. There is a pain that goes right through one's heart: it is
worse to bear than any physical suffering: but, thank God, that pain
always wears itself out. My dear, I, who speak to you, have felt it, and
I tell you that no man is worth it. You can cure yourself of it if you
will; and the remedy is work and change of the conditions of your life.
You don't think I look very much like a blighted being, do you? and yet I
did not marry the man I loved. I could not; he was poor, and my parents
would not allow it. I thought I should die, but you see I did not. I took
up my life bravely, and I married a most estimable man; I lived an active
and healthy life, so that by degrees it became a happy one. Now, Vera,
why should you not do the same? Your people have a right to expect that
you should marry; they cannot afford to support you for always. Because
you are disappointed in one thing, why are you not to make the best you
can of your life?"
"I do mean to marry--in time," said Vera, brokenly, with tears in her
eyes.
"Then why not marry John?"
There was a minute's silence. Was it possible that Lady Kynaston did not
know? Vera asked herself. Was it possible that she could, in cold blood,
advise her to marry one son whilst the other one loved her! That was what
was so terrible to her mind. To marry was simple enough, but to marry Sir
John Kynaston! She thought of what such an action might bring upon them
all. The daily meetings, the struggles with temptation, the awful
tampering with deadly sin. Could any one so constituted as she was walk
deliberately and with open eyes into such a situation?
She shuddered.
"I cannot do it," she said, wringing her hands together; "don't ask me;
I cannot do it!"
Lady Kynaston got up, and went and stood by her chair.
"Vera, I entreat you not to let any false pride stand in the way of
this. Do not imagine that I ask you to do anything that would wound your
vanity, or humble you in your own eyes. It would be so easy for me to
arrange a meeting between you and John; it shall all come about simply
and naturally. As soon as he sees you again, he will speak to you."
"It is not that, it is not that!" she murmured, distractedly; but Lady
Kynaston went on as if she had not heard her.
"You must know that I should not plead like this with you if I were not
deeply concerned. For myself, I had sooner that John remained unmarried.
I had sooner that Maurice's children came into Kynaston. It is wrong, I
know, but it is the case, because Maurice is my favourite. But when we
hear of John shutting himself up, of his refusing to see any of his
friends, and of his talking of going to Australia, why, then we all feel
that it is you only who can help us; that is why I have promised Maurice
to plead with you."
She looked up quickly.
"You promised Maurice! It is _Maurice_ who wants me to marry his
brother." She turned very pale.
"Certainly he does. You don't suppose Maurice likes to see his brother so
unhappy."
The darkened room, the spindle-legged furniture, Lady Kynaston's little
figure, in her black dress and soft white tulle cap, the bright garden
outside, the belt of trees beyond the lawn, all swam together before her
eyes.
She drew a long breath; then she rose slowly from her place, a little
unsteadily, perhaps, and walked across the Persian rug to the empty
fireplace. She stood there half a minute leaning with both hands upon the
mantelshelf, her head bent forwards.
_Maurice wished it!_ To him, then, there were no fears, and no dangers.
He could look forward calmly to meeting her constantly as his brother's
wife; it would be nothing to him, that temptation that she dreaded so
much; nothing that an abyss which death itself could never bridge over
would be between them to all eternity!
And then the woman's pride, without which, God help us, so many of us
would break our hearts and die, came to her aid.
Very well, then, if he was strong, she would learn to be strong too;
if the danger to him was so slight that he could contemplate it with
calmness and with indifference, then she, too, would show him that it was
nothing to her. Only, then, what a poor thing was this love of his! And
surely the man she had loved so fatally was not Maurice Kynaston at all,
but only some creature of her own imagination, whom she had invested with
things that the man himself had not lost because he had never possessed
them.
If this was so, then why, indeed, listen to the voice of her heart when
everything urged her to stifle it? Why not make Sir John Kynaston happy
and herself prosperous and rich, as everybody round her seemed to
consider it her duty to do?
It passed rapidly through her mind what a fine place Kynaston was; how
dear everything that wealth can bring had always been to her, what a wise
and prudent match it was in every way for her, and what a good indulgent
husband Sir John would be.
Who in the wide world would blame her for going back to him? Would not
everybody, on the contrary, praise her for reconsidering her folly, and
for becoming Lady Kynaston, of Kynaston? The errors of the successful
in this world's race are leniently treated; it is only when we are
unfortunate and our lives become failures that our friends turn their
backs upon our misdeeds in righteous condemnation.
"So long as thou doest well unto thyself men will speak good of thee."
Surely, surely, it was the best and the wisest thing she could do. And
yet even at that moment Eustace Daintree's pale, earnest face came for
one instant before her. What side in all this would he take--he of the
pure heart, of the stainless life? If he knew all, what would he say?
Pooh! he was a dreamer--an idealist, a man of impossible aims; his
theories, indeed, were beautiful, but impracticable. Vera knew that he
expected better things of her; but she had striven to be what he would
have desired, and if she had failed, was it her fault? was it not rather
the fault of the world and the generation in which her life had been
cast?
She had struggled, and she had failed; henceforth let her life be as fate
should ordain for her.
"What is it you wish me to say, Lady Kynaston?" she asked, turning
suddenly towards Maurice's mother.
"My dear child, I only want you to say that if John asks you again to be
his wife, you will consent, or say only, if you like it better, that you
will agree to meet him here. There shall be nothing unpleasant for you; I
will write to him and settle everything."
"If you write to him, I will come," she said, briefly, and then Lady
Kynaston came up to her and kissed her, taking her hands within her own,
and drawing her to her with motherly tenderness. "My dear, everybody will
think well of you for this."
And the words ran so nearly in the current of her own bitter thoughts
that Vera laughed, shortly and disdainfully, a low laugh of scorn at the
world, whose mandates she was prepared to obey, even though she despised
herself for doing so.
"You will be glad by-and-by that you were so sensible and so reasonable,"
said Lady Kynaston.
"Yes--I dare say I shall be glad by-and-by; and now I am going, dear Lady
Kynaston; I have a hansom waiting all this time, and Mrs. Hazeldine will
be wondering what has become of me."
At this moment they both heard the sound of a carriage driving up to the
door.
"It must be some visitors," said Lady Kynaston; "wait a minute, or you
will meet them in the hall. Oh, stay, go through this door into the
dining-room, and you can get through the dining-room window by the garden
round to the front of the house; I dare say you would rather not meet
anybody--you might know them."
"Thank you--yes, I should much prefer to get away quickly and quietly--I
will go through the dining-room; do not come with me, I can easily find
my way."
She gathered up her gloves and her veil and opened the door which
communicated between the morning-room and the dining-room. She heard the
chatter of women's voices and the fluttering of women's garments in the
hall; it seemed as though they were about to be ushered into the room she
was leaving.
She did not want to be seen; besides, she wanted to get away quickly and
return to London. She closed the morning-room door behind her, and took a
couple of steps across the dining-room towards the windows.
Then she stopped suddenly short; Maurice sat before her at the table. He
lifted his eyes and looked at her; he did not seem surprised to see her,
but there was a whole world of grief and despair in his face. It was as
though he had lived through half a lifetime since she had last seen him.
Pride, anger, wounded affection, all died away within her--only the woman
was left, the woman who loved him. Little by little she saw him only
through the blinding mist of her own tears.
Not one single word was spoken between them. What was there that they
could say to each other? Then suddenly she turned away, and went swiftly
back into the room she had just left, closing the door behind her.
It was empty. Lady Kynaston was gone. Vera stooped over the
writing-table, and, taking up a sheet of paper, she wrote in pencil:--
"Do not write to Sir John--it is beyond my strength--forgive me and
forget me. Vera." And then she went out through the other door,
and got herself away from the place in her hansom.
Twenty minutes later, when her bevy of chattering visitors had left her,
Lady Kynaston came back into her morning-room and found the little pencil
note left upon her writing-table. Wondering, perplexed and puzzled beyond
measure, she turned it over and over in her fingers.
What had happened? Why had Vera so suddenly altered her mind again? What
had influenced her? Half by accident, half, perhaps, with an instinct of
what was the truth, she softly opened the door of communication between
the morning-room and the dining-room, opened it for one instant, and then
drew back again, scared and shocked, closing it quickly and noiselessly.
What she had seen in the room was this--
Maurice, half stretched across the table, his face downwards upon his
arm, whilst those tearless, voiceless sobs, which are so terrible to
witness in a man, sobs which are the gasps of a despairing heart, shook
the strong broad shoulders and the down-bent head that was hidden from
her sight.
And then the mother knew at last the secret of her son's heart. It was
Vera whom Maurice loved.
CHAPTER XXV.
ST. PAUL'S, KNIGHTSBRIDGE.
Hide in thy bosom, poor unfortunate,
That love which is thy torture and thy crime,
Or cry aloud to those departed hosts
Of ghostly lovers! can they be more deaf
To thy disaster than the living world?
Who, with a careless smile, will note the pain
Caused by thy foolish, self-inflicted wound.
Violet Fane, "Denzil Place."
Upon the steps of the Charing Cross Hotel stood, one morning in June, a
little French gentleman buttoning his lavender gloves. He wore a glossy
new hat, a frock-coat, and a flower in his button-hole; he had altogether
a smart and jaunty appearance.
He hailed a passing hansom and jumped into it, taking care as he did so
to avoid brushing against the muddy wheel, lest he should tarnish the
glories of his light-coloured trousers. Monsieur D'Arblet was more than
usually particular about his appearance this morning. He said to himself,
with a chuckle, as he was driven west-ward, that he was on his way to win
a bride, and a rich bride, too. It behoved him to be careful of his outer
man on such an occasion.
He had heard of Mr. Harlowe's death and of his grand-daughter's good
fortune when he was at Constantinople, for he had friends in London who
kept him _au courant_ with the gossip of society, and he had straightway
made his preparations to return to England. He had not hurried himself,
however, for what he had not heard of was that clause in the old man's
will which made his grand-daughter's marriage within two months the _sine
quâ non_ of her inheriting his fortune. Such an idea as that had never
come into Monsieur D'Arblet's head; he had no conception but that he
should be in plenty of time.
When he got to the house in Princes Gate he found it shut up. This,
however, did not disconcert him, it was no more than he expected. After
a considerable amount of ringing at both bells, there was a grating sound
within as of the unfastening of bolts and chains, and an elderly woman,
evidently fresh from her labours over the scouring of the kitchen grate,
appeared at the door, opening it just a couple of inches, as though she
dreaded the invasion of a gang of housebreakers.
"Will you please tell me where Mrs. Romer is now living?"
The woman grinned. "She has been living at Walpole Lodge, at Kew--Lady
Kynaston's, sir."
"Oh, thank you;" and he was preparing to re-enter his hansom.
"But I don't think you will see her to-day, sir."
"Why not?" turning half-round again.
"It is Mrs. Romer's wedding-day."
"_What?_"
That elderly female, who had been at one time a housemaid in Mr.
Harlowe's household, confided afterwards to her intimate friend, the
kitchenmaid next door, that she was so frightened at the way that
foreign-looking gentleman shouted at her, that she felt as if she should
have dropped. "Indeed, my dear, I was forced to go down and get a drop of
whisky the very instant he was gone, I felt so fluttered, like."
Monsieur Le Vicomte turned round to her, with his foot midway between the
pavement and the step of the hansom, and shouted at her again.
"_What_ did you say it was, woman?"
"Why, Mrs. Romer's wedding-day, to be sure, sir; and no such wonder after
all, I should say; and a lovely morning for the wedding it be, too."
Lucien D'Arblet put his hand vaguely up to his head, as though he had
received a blow; she had escaped him, then, after all.
"So soon after the old man's death," he murmured, half aloud; "who could
have expected it?"
"Well, sir, and soon it is, as you say," replied the ancient
ex-housemaid, who had caught the remark; "but people do say as how Mr.
Harlowe, my late master, wished it so, and of course Mrs. Romer, she were
quite ready, so to speak, for the Captain had been a-courting her for
ever so long, as we who lived in the house could have told."
The vicomte was fumbling at his breast-coat pocket, his face was as
yellow as the rose in his button-hole.
"Where was the wedding to be? At Kew?"
"No, sir; at Saint Paul's church, in Wilton Crescent. Mrs. Romer would
have it so, because that's the place of worship she used to go to when
she lived here. You'd be in time to see them married now, sir, if you was
to look sharp; it was to be at half-past eleven, and it's not that yet;
my niece and a young friend has just started a-foot to go there. I let
her go, because she'd never seen a grand wedding. I'd like to have gone
myself, but, in course, we couldn't both be out of the house----"
The gentleman was listening no longer; he had sprung into his hansom.
"Drive to Saint Paul's, Knightsbridge, as fast as your horse can go," he
called out to the cabman. "I might even now be in time; it would be a
_coup d'état_," he muttered.
Round the door of Saint Paul's church a crowd had gathered, waiting to
see the bridal party come out; there was a strip of red cloth across the
pavement, and a great many carriages were standing down the street; big
footmen were lounging about, chatting amicably together; a knot of
decently-dressed women were pressing up as close to the porch as the
official personage, with a red collar on his coat and gold lace on his
hat, would allow them to go; and an indiscriminate collection of those
chance passers-by who never seem to be in any hurry, or to have anything
better to do than to stand and stare at any excitement, great or small,
that they may meet on their road, were blocking up the pavement on either
side of the red cloth carpeting.
Two ladies came walking along from the direction of the Park.
"There's a wedding going on; do let us go in and see it, Vera."
"My dear Cissy, I detest looking at people being married; it always makes
me low-spirited."
"And I love it. I always get such hints for dresses from a wedding. I'd
go anywhere to see anybody married. I've been to the Jewish synagogue, to
Spurgeon's tabernacle, and to the pro-cathedral, all in one week, before
now just to see weddings."
"There must be a sameness about the performances. Don't you get sick of
them?"
"Never. I wonder whose wedding it is; there must be thirty carriages
waiting. I'll ask one of these big footmen. Whose wedding is it?"
"Captain Kynaston's, ma'am."
"Oh, I used to know him once; he is such a handsome fellow. Come along,
Vera."
"Cissy, I _cannot_ come."
"Nonsense, Vera; don't be so foolish; make haste, or we shan't get in."
Somebody just then dashed up in a hansom, and came hurrying up behind
them. Somehow or other, what with Mrs. Hazeldine dragging her by the arm,
and an excited-looking gentleman pushing his way through the crowd behind
her, Vera got swept on into the church.
"You are very late, ladies," whispered the pew-opener, who supposed them
to belong to the wedding guests; "it is nearly over. You had better take
these seats in this pew; you will see them come out well from here." And
she evidently considered them to be all one party, for she ushered them
all three into a pew; first, Mrs. Hazeldine, then Vera, and next to her
the little foreign-looking gentleman who had bustled up so hurriedly.
It was an awful thing to have happened to Vera that she should have been
thus entrapped by a mere accident into being present at Maurice's
wedding; and yet, when she was once inside the church, she felt not
altogether sorry for it.
"I can at least see the last of him, and pray that he may be happy," she
said to herself, as she sank on her knees in the shelter of the pew, and
buried her face in her hands.
The church was crowded, and yet the wedding itself was not a particularly
attractive one, for, owing to the fact that the bride was a widow, there
was, of course, no bevy of bridesmaids in attendance in diaphanous
raiment. Instead of these, however, there was a great concourse of the
best-dressed women in London, all standing in rows round the upper end of
the nave; and there was a little old lady, in brown satin and point lace,
who stood out conspicuously detached from the other groups, who bent her
head solemnly over the great bouquet of exotics in her hands, and prayed
within herself, with a passionate fervour such as no other soul present
could pray, save only the pale, beautiful girl on her knees, far away
down at the further end of the church. Surely, if God ever gave happiness
to one of his creatures because another prayed for it, Maurice Kynaston,
with the prayers of those two women being offered up for him, would have
been a happy man.
And the mother, by this time, knew that it was all a mistake--a mistake,
alas, which she, in her blindness, had fostered.
No wonder that she trembled as she prayed.
The service, that portion of it which makes two people man and wife,
was over; the clergyman was reading the final exhortation to the
newly-married pair.
They stood together close to the altar rails. The bride was in a pale
lavender satin, covered with lace, which spread far away behind her
across the tesselated pavement. The bridegroom stood by her side, erect
and handsome, but pale and stern, and with a far-away look in his eyes
that would have made any one fancy, had any one been near enough or
attentive enough to remark it, that he was only an indifferent spectator
of the scene, in no way interested in what was going on. He looked as if
he were thinking of something else.
He was thinking of something else. He was thinking of a railway carriage,
of a train rushing onwards through a fog-blotted landscape, and of two
arms, warm and soft, cast up round his neck, and a trembling, passionate
voice, ever crying in his ears--
"While you live I will never marry another man."
That was what the bridegroom was thinking about.
As to the bride, she was debating to herself whether she should have the
body of her wedding-dress cut V or square when she left it with her
dressmaker to be altered into a dinner-dress.
Meanwhile the clergyman, who mumbled his words slightly, and whose
glasses kept on tumbling off his nose, waded through the several duties
of husbands towards their wives, and of wives towards their husbands, as
expounded by Scripture, in a monotonous undertone, until, to the great
relief of the weary guests, the ceremony at last came to an end.
Then the best man, Sir John, who stood behind his brother, looking, if
possible, more like a mute at a funeral even than the bridegroom himself,
stepped forward out of the shadow. The new-married couple went into the
vestry, followed by Sir John, his mother, and a select few, upon which
the door was closed. All the rest of the company then began to chatter
in audible whispers together; they fidgeted backwards and forwards,
from one pew to the other. There were jokes, and smiles, and nods, and
hand-shakings between the different members of the wedding party. All in
a low and decorous undertone, of course, but still there was a distinct
impression upon every one that all the religious part of the business
being well got over, they were free to be jolly about it now, and to
enjoy themselves as much as circumstances would admit of.
All at once there was a sudden hush, everybody scuffled back into their
places. The best man put his nose out of the vestry door, and the
"Wedding March" struck up. Then came a procession of chorister boys down
the church, each bearing a small bouquet of fern and white flowers. They
ranged themselves on either side of the porch, and the bride and
bridegroom came down the aisle alone.
Then it was that Monsieur D'Arblet, leaning forward with the rest to see
them pass, caught sight of the face of the girl who stood by his side.
She was pale as death; a look as of the horror of despair was in her
eyes, her teeth were set, her hands were clenched together as one who has
to impose a terrible and dreadful task upon herself. Nobody in all that
gaily-dressed chattering crowd noticed her, for were not all eyes fixed
upon the bride, the queen of the day? Nobody save the man who stood by
her side. Only he saw that fixed white look of despair, only he heard the
long shuddering sigh that burst from her pale lips as the bridegroom
went by. Monsieur D'Arblet said, to himself:
"This woman loves Monsieur le Capitaine! _Bon!_ Two are better than one;
we will avenge ourselves together, my beautiful incognita."
And then he looked sharply at her companion, and found that her face was
familiar to him. Surely he had dined at that woman's house once. Oh, yes!
to be sure, it was that insufferable little chatterbox, Mrs. Hazeldine.
He remembered all about her now.
There was a good deal of pushing and cramming at the doorway. By the time
Vera could get out of the stifling heat of the crowded church most of the
wedding party had driven off, and the rest were clamouring wildly for
their carriages; she herself had got separated from her companion, and
when she could rejoin her in the little gravelled yard outside, she found
her shaking hands with effusion with the foreign-looking gentleman who
had sat next her in the church, but whom, truth to say, she had hardly
noticed.
"Let me present to you my friend," said Cissy. "Miss Nevill, Monsieur
D'Arblet--you will walk with us as far as the park, won't you?"
"I shall be enchanted, Mrs. Hazeldine."
"And wasn't it a pretty wedding," continued Mrs. Hazeldine, rapturously,
as they all three walked away together down the shady side of the street;
"so remarkably pretty considering that there were no bridesmaids; but
Mrs. Romer is so graceful, and dresses so well. I don't visit her myself,
you know; but of course I know her by sight. One knows everybody by sight
in London; it's rather embarrassing sometimes, because one is tempted to
bow to people one doesn't visit, or else one fancies one ought not to bow
to somebody one does. I've made some dreadfully stupid mistakes myself
sometimes. Did you notice the rose point on that old lady's brown satin,
Vera?"
"That was Lady Kynaston."
"Oh, was it? By the way, of course, you must know some of the Kynastons,
as they come from your part of the world. I wonder they didn't ask you to
the wedding."
Vera murmured something unintelligible. Monsieur D'Arblet looked at her
sharply. He saw that she had in no way recovered her agitation yet, and
that she could hardly bear her companion's brainless chatter over this
wedding.
"That has been no ordinary love affair," said this astute Frenchman to
himself. "I must decidedly cultivate this young lady's acquaintance, for
I mean to pay you out well yet, ma belle Hélène."
"How fortunate it was we happened to be passing just as it was going on.
I wouldn't have missed seeing that lovely lavender satin the bride wore
for worlds; did you notice the cut of the jacket front, Vera; it was
something new; she looked as happy as possible too. I daresay her first
marriage was a _coup manqué_; they generally are when women marry again."
"Suppose we take these three chairs in the shade," suggested Monsieur
D'Arblet, cutting short, unceremoniously the string of her remarks, which
apparently were no more soothing to himself than to Miss Nevill.
They sat down, and for the space of half an hour Monsieur D'Arblet
proceeded to make himself politely agreeable to Miss Nevill, and he
succeeded so well in amusing her by his conversation, that by the time
they all got up to go the natural bloom had returned to her cheeks, and
she was talking to him quite easily and pleasantly, as though no
catastrophe in her life had happened but an hour ago.
"You will come back with us to lunch, Monsieur D'Arblet?"
"I shall be delighted, madame."
"If you will excuse me, Cissy, I am not going to lunch with you to-day,"
said Vera.
"My dear! where are you going, then?"
"I have a visit to pay--an engagement, I mean--in--in Cadogan Place. I
will be home very soon, in time for your drive, if you don't mind my
leaving you."
"Oh, of course, do as you like, dear."
Lucien D'Arblet was annoyed at her defection, but, of course, having
accepted Mrs. Hazeldine's invitation, there was nothing for it but to go
on with her; so he swallowed his discomfiture as best he could, and
proceeded to make himself agreeable to his hostess.
As to Vera, she turned away and retraced her steps slowly towards St.
Paul's Church. It was a foolish romantic fancy, she could not tell what
impelled her to it, but she felt as though she must go back there once
more.
The church was not closed. She pushed open the swing-door and went in. It
was all hushed and silent and empty. Where so lately the gay throng of
well-dressed men and women had passed in and out, chattering, smiling,
nodding--displaying their radiant toilettes one against the other, there
were only now the dark, empty rows of pews, and the bent figure of one
shabbily-dressed old woman gathering together the prayer-books and
hymn-books that had been tumbled out of their places in the scuffle, and
picking up morsels of torn finery that had dropped about along the nave.
Vera passed by her and went up into the chancel. She stood where Maurice
had stood by the altar rails. A soft, subdued light came streaming in
through the coloured glass window; a bird was chirping high up somewhere
among the oak rafters of the roof, the roar of the street without was
muffled and deadened; the old woman slammed-to the door of a pew, the
echo rang with a hollow sound through the empty building, and her
departing footsteps shuffled away down the aisle into silence.
Vera lifted her eyes; great tears welled down slowly, one by one, over
her cheeks--burning, blistering tears, such as, thank God, one sheds but
once or twice in a lifetime--that seem to rend our very hearts as they
rise.
Presently she sank down upon her knees and prayed--prayed for him, that
he might be happy and forget her, but most of all for herself, that she
might school her rebellious heart to patience, and her wild passion of
misery into peace and submission.
And by degrees the tempest within her was hushed. Then, ere she rose from
her knees, something lying on the ground, within a yard of where she
knelt, caught her eye. It was a little Russia-leather letter-case. She
recognized it instantly; she had often seen Maurice take it out of his
pocket.
She caught at it hungrily and eagerly, as a miser clutches a
treasure-trove, pressing it wildly to her bosom, and covering it with
passionate kisses. Dear little shabby case, that had been so near his
heart; that his hand, perchance, only on hour ago had touched. Could
anything on earth be more priceless to her than this worn and faded
object!
It seemed to be quite empty. It had fallen evidently from his pocket
during the service. If he ever missed it, there was nothing in it to
lose; and now it was hers, hers by every right; she would never part with
it, never. It was all she had of him; the one single thing he had touched
which she possessed.
She rose hurriedly. She was in haste now to be gone with her treasure,
lest any one should wrest it from her. She carried it down the church
with a guilty delight, kissing it more than once as she went. And then,
as she opened the church door, some one ran up the steps outside, and she
stood face to face with Sir John Kynaston.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE RUSSIA-LEATHER CASE.
"Never again," so speaketh one forsaken,
In the blank desolate passion of despair:
Never again shall the bright dream I cherished
Delude my heart, for bitter truth is there:
The Angel Hope shall still my cruel pain;
Never again, my heart--never again!
A. Procter.
"Vera!"
Sir John Kynaston fell back a step or two and turned very white.
"How do you do?" said Vera, quietly, and put out her hand.
They stood in the open air. There was a carriage passing, some idle
cabmen on the stand with nothing to do but to stare at them, a gaping
nursery-maid and her charges at the gate. Whatever people may feel on
suddenly running against each other after a deadly quarrel, or a
heart-rending separation, or after a long interval of heart-burnings and
misunderstandings, there are always the externals of life to be observed.
It is difficult to rush into the tragedy of one's existence at a gulp; it
is safer to shake hands and say, "How do you do?"
That is what Vera felt, and that was what these two people did. Sir John
took her proffered hand, and responded to her stereotyped greeting. By
the time he had done so he had recovered his presence of mind.
"What an odd thing to meet you at the door of this church," he said,
rather nervously. "Do you know that my brother was married here this
morning?"
"Yes; I was in the church."
"Were you? How glad I am I did not know it," almost involuntarily.
There was a little pause; then Vera asked him if he was going to Walpole
Lodge.
"Eventually; but I have come back here to look for something. My brother
has lost a little Russia-leather case; he thinks he may have dropped it
in the church; there were two ten-pound notes in it. I am going in to
look for it. Why, what is that in your hand? I believe that is the very
thing."
"I--I--just picked it up," stammered Vera. She began searching in the
pockets of the case. "I did not think there was anything in it. Yes, here
are the notes, quite safe."
She took them out and gave them to him. He held out his hand mechanically
for the case also.
"Thank you; you have saved me the trouble of looking for it. I will take
it back to him at once."
But she could not part with her treasure; it was all she had got of him.
"The letter-case is very shabby," she said, crimsoning with a painful
confusion. "I do not think he can want it at all; it is quite worn out."
Sir John looked at her with a slight surprise.
"It can be very little use to him. One likes sometimes to have a little
remembrance of those--of people--one has known; he would not mind my
keeping it, I think. Tell him--tell him I asked for it." The tears were
very near her voice; she could scarcely keep them back out of her eyes.
John Kynaston dropped his hand, and Vera slipped the little case quickly
into her pocket.
"Would you mind walking a little way with me, Vera?" he said, gently and
very gravely.
She drew down her veil, and went with him in silence. They had walked
half-way down Wilton Crescent before he spoke to her again; then he
turned towards her, and looked at her earnestly and sadly.
"Why did you go back again into the church, Vera?"
"I wanted to think quietly a little," she murmured. There was another
pause.
"So _that_ is what parted us!" he exclaimed, with a sudden bitterness, at
length.
She looked up, startled and pale.
"What do you mean?" she stammered.
"Oh, child! I see it all now. How blind I have been. Ah, why did you not
trust me, love? Why did you fear to tell me your secret? Do you not think
that I, who would have laid down my life for you to make you happy, do
you not suppose I would have striven to make your path smooth for you?"
She could not answer him; the kind words, the tender voice, were too much
for her. Her tears fell fast and silently.
"Tell me," he said, turning to her almost roughly, "tell me the truth.
Has he ill-treated you, this brother of mine, who stole you from me, and
then has left you desolate?"
"No, no; do not say that; it was never his fault at all, only mine; and
he was always bound to her. He has been everything that is good and loyal
and true to you and to her; it has been only a miserable mistake, and now
it is over. Yes, thank God, it is over; never speak of it again. He was
never false to you; only I was false. But it is ended."
They were walking round Belgrave Square by this time, not near the
houses, but round the square garden in the middle. All recollection of
his brother's marriage, of the wedding breakfast at Walpole Lodge, of the
speech the best man would be expected to make, had gone clean out of his
head; he thought of nothing but Vera and of the revelation concerning her
that had just come to him. It was the quiet hour of the day; there were
very few people about; everybody was indoors eating heavy luncheons,
with sunblinds drawn down to keep out the heat. They were almost as much
alone as in a country lane in Meadowshire.
"What are you going to do with yourself?" he said to her, presently.
"What use are you going to make of your life?"
"I don't know," she answered, drearily; "I suppose I shall go back to
Sutton. Perhaps I shall marry."
"But not me?"
She looked up at him piteously.
"Listen, child," he said, eagerly. "If I were to go away for a year, and
then come back to you, how would it be? Oh, my darling! I love you so
deeply that I could even be content to do with but half your heart, so
that I could win your sweet self. I would exact nothing from you, love,
no more than what you could give me freely. But I would love you so well,
and make your life so sweet and pleasant to you, that in time, perhaps,
you would forget the old sorrow, and learn to be happy, with a quiet kind
of happiness, with me; I would ask for no more. Look, child, I have
grieved sorely for you; I have sat down and wept, and mourned for you as
though I had no strength or life left in me. But now I am ashamed of my
weakness, for it is unworthy of _you_. I am going away abroad, across the
world, I care not where, so long as I can be up and doing, and forget the
pain at my heart. Vera, tell me that I may come back to you in a year.
Think with what fresh life and courage I should go if I had but that hope
before my eyes. In a year's time your pain will be less; you will have
forgotten many things; you will be content, perhaps, to come to me,
knowing that I will never reproach you with the past, nor expect more
than you can give me in the future. Vera, let me come back and claim you
in a year!"
How strange it was that the chance of marrying this man was perpetually
being presented to her. Never, perhaps, had the temptation been stronger
to her than it was now. He had divined her secret; there would be no
concealment between them; he would ask her for no love it was not in her
power to give; he would be content with her as she was, and he would love
her, and worship her, and surround her with everything that could make
her life pleasant and easy for her. Could a man offer more? Oh! why could
she not take him at his word, and give him the hope he craved for?
Alas! for Vera; she had eaten too deeply of the knowledge of good and
evil--that worldly wisdom in whose strength she had started in life's
race, and in the possession of which she had once deemed herself so
strong--so absolutely invulnerable to the things that pierce and wound
weaker woman--this was gone from her. The baser part of her nature,
wherewith she would so gladly have been content, was uppermost no longer;
her heart had triumphed over her head, and, with a woman of strong
character, this is generally only done at the expense of her happiness.
To marry Sir John Kynaston, to be lapped in luxury, to receive all the
good things of this world at his hands, and all the while to love his
brother with a guilty love, this was no longer possible to Vera Nevill.
"I cannot do it; do not ask me," she said, distractedly. "Your goodness
to me half breaks my heart; but it cannot be."
"Why not, child? In a year so much may be altered."
"I shall not alter."
"No; but, even so, you might learn to be happy with me."
"It is not that; you do not understand. I daresay I could be happy
enough; that is not why I cannot marry you."
"Why not, then?"
"_I dare not_," she said, in a low voice.
He drew in his breath. "Ah!" he said, between his teeth, "is it so bad
with you as that?"
She bent her head in silent assent.
"That is hard," he said, almost to himself, looking gloomily before him.
Presently he spoke again. "Thank you, Vera," he said, rather brokenly.
"You are a brave woman and a true one. Many would have taken my all,
and given me back only deception and falseness. But you are incapable of
that, and--and you fear your own strength; is that it?"
"Whilst he lives," she said, with a sudden burst of passion, "I can know
no safety. Never to see his face again can be my only safeguard, and with
you I could never be safe. Why, even to bear your name would be to scorch
my heart every time I was addressed by it. Forgive me, John," turning to
him with a sudden penitence, "I should not have pained you by saying
these things; you who have been so infinitely good to me. Go your way
across the world, and forget me. Ah! have I not been a curse to every one
who bears the name of Kynaston?"
He was silent from very pity. Vera was no longer to him the goddess of
his imagination; the one pure and peerless woman, above all other women,
such as he had once fancied her to be. But surely she was dearer to him
now, in all her weakness and her suffering, than she had ever been on
that lofty pedestal of perfection upon which he had once lifted her.
He pitied her so much, and yet he could not help her; her malady was past
remedy. And, as she had told him, it was no one's fault--it was only a
miserable mistake. He had never had her heart--he saw it plainly now.
Many little things in the past, which he had scarcely remembered at the
time, came back to his memory--little details of that week at Shadonake,
when Maurice had lived in the same house with her, whilst he had only
gone over daily to see her. Always, in those days, Maurice had been by
her side, and Vera had been dreamily happy, with that fixed look of
content with which the presence of the man she loves best beautifies and
poetises a woman's face. Sir John was not a very observant man; but now,
after it was all over, these things came back to him. The night of the
ball, Mrs. Romer's mysterious hints, and his own vague disquietude at her
words; later on Maurice's reasonless refusal to be present at his
wedding, and Vera's startled face of dismay when he had asked her to go
and plead with him to stay for it.
They had struggled against their hearts, it was clear, these poor lovers,
whose lives were both tied up and bound before ever they had met each
other. But nature had been too strong for them; and the woman, at least,
had torn herself free from the chains that had become insupportable to
her.
They walked on silently, side by side, round the square. Some girls were
playing at lawn-tennis within the garden. There was an occasional shout
or a ringing laugh from their fresh young voices. A footman was walking
along the pavement opposite, with two fat pugs and a white Spitz in the
last stage of obesity in tow, which it was his melancholy duty to parade
daily up and down for their mid-day airing. An occasional hansom dashing
quickly by broke the stillness of the "empty" hour. Years and years
afterwards every detail of the scene came back to his memory with the
distinctness of a photograph when he passed once more through the square.
"You have been no curse to me, Vera," he said, presently, breaking the
silence. "Do not reproach yourself; it is I who was a madman to deem that
I could win your love. Child, we are both sufferers; but time heals most
things, and we must learn to wait and be patient. Will you ever marry,
Vera?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I may be obliged to. It might be better for me. I
cannot say. Don't speak of it. Why, is there nothing else for a woman to
do but to marry? John, it must be late. Ought you not to go back--to--to
your mother's?"
Insensibly, she resumed a lighter manner. On that other subject there was
nothing left to be said. She had had her last chance of becoming John
Kynaston's wife. After what she had said to him, she knew he would never
ask her again. That chapter in her life was closed for ever.
They parted, unromantically enough, in front of St. George's Hospital. He
called a hansom for her, and stood holding her hand, one moment longer,
possibly, than was strictly necessary, looking intently into her face as
he did so.
"Will you think of me sometimes?"
"Yes, surely."
"Good-bye, Vera."
"Good-bye, John. God bless you wherever you may go."
She got into her hansom, and he told the cabman where to drive her; then
he lifted his hat to her with grave politeness, and walked away in the
opposite direction. It was a common-place enough parting, and yet these
two never saw each other's faces again in this world.
So it is with our lives. Some one or other who has been a part of our
very existence for a space goes his way one day, and we see him no more.
For a little while our hearts ache, and we shed tears in secret for him
who is gone, but by-and-by we get to understand that he is part of our
past, never, to be recalled, and after a while we get used to his
absence; we think of him less and less, and the death of him, who was
once bound up in our very lives, strikes us only with a mild surprise,
hardly even tinged with a passing melancholy.
"Poor old so-and-so, he is dead," we say. "What a time it is since we
met," and then we go our way and think of him no more.
But Vera knew that, in all human probability, she would never see him
again, this man, who had once so nearly been her husband. It was another
link of her past life severed. It saddened her, but she knew it was
inevitable.
The little letter-case, at all events, was safely hers; and for many a
night Vera slept with it under her pillow.
CHAPTER XXVII.
DINNER AT RANELAGH.
Here is the whole set, a character dead at every word.
Sheridan.
It was the fag end of the London season; people were talking about
Goodwood and the Ryde week, about grouse and about salmon-fishing.
Members of Parliament went about, like martyrs at the stake, groaning
over the interminable nature of every debate, and shaking their heads
over the prospect of getting away. Women in society knew all their own
and their neighbours' dresses by heart, and were dead sick of them all;
and even the very gossip and scandal that is always afloat to keep up the
spirits of the idlers and the chatterers had lost all the zest, all the
charm of novelty that gave flavour and piquancy to every _canard_ that
was started two months ago.
It was all stale, flat, and unprofitable.
What was the use of constantly asserting, on the very best authority,
that Lady So-and-so was on the eve of running away with that handsome
young actor, whose eyes had taken the female population by storm, when
Lady So-and-so persisted in walking about arm-in-arm with her husband day
after day, with a child on either side of them, in the most provoking
way, as though to prove the utter fallacy of the report, and her own
incontestable domestic felicity? Or, what merit had a man any longer who
had stated in May that the heiress _par excellence_ of the season was
about to sell herself and her gold to that debauched and drunken marquis,
who had evidently not six months of life left in him in which to enjoy
his bargain, when the heiress herself gave the lie to the _on dit_ in
July by talking calmly about going to Norway with her papa for a month's
retirement and rest after the fatigues of the season?
What a number of lies are there not propounded during the months of May
and June by the inventive Londoner, and how many of them are there not
proved to be so during the latter end of July!
Heaven only knows how and where the voice of scandal is first raised. Is
it at the five o'clock tea-tables? Or, is it in the smoking-rooms of the
clubs that things are first spoken of, and the noxious breath of slander
started upon its career? Or, are there evil-minded persons, both men and
women, prowling about, like unclean animals, at the skirts of that
society into whose inner recesses they would fain gain admittance,
picking up greedily, here and there, in their eaves-dropping career,
some scrap or morsel of truth out of which they weave a well-varnished
tale wherewith to delight the ears of the vulgar and the coarse-minded?
There are such men and such women; God forgive them for their wickedness!
Do any of these scandal-mongers ever call to mind, I wonder, an ancient
and, seemingly, a well-nigh forgotten injunction?
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," said the same Voice who has also
said, "Thou shalt do no murder."
And which is the worst--to kill a man's body, or to slay a man's honour,
or a woman's reputation?
In truth, there seems to me to be but little difference between the two;
and the man or the woman who will do the one might very possibly be
guilty of the other--but for the hanging!
We should all do a great many more wicked things than we do if there were
no consequences.
It is a very trite observation, which is, nevertheless, never spoken with
more justice or more truth than at or about Hyde Park Corner between May
and July, that the world we live in is a very wicked one.
Well, the season, as I have said, was well-nigh over, and all the scandal
had run dry, and the gossip, for the most part, been proved to be
incorrect, and there was nobody in all London who excited so much
irritation among the talkers as the new beauty, Vera Nevill.
For Vera was Miss Nevill still, and there was every prospect of her
remaining so. What on earth possessed the girl that she would not marry?
Had not men dangled at her elbow all the season? Could she not have had
such and such elder sons, or such and such wealthy commoner? What was she
waiting for? A girl without a penny, who came nobody knew from where,
ushered in under Mrs. Hazeldine's wings, with not a decent connection
in the world to her name! What did she want--this girl who had only her
beauty to depend upon? and everybody knows how fleeting _that_ is!
And then, presently, the women who were envious of her began to whisper
amongst themselves. There was something against her; she was not what she
seemed to be. The men flirted, of course--men will always flirt! but
they were careful not to commit themselves! And even that mysterious word
"adventuress," which has an ugly sound, but of which no one exactly knows
the precise meaning, began to be bruited about.
"There was an unpleasant story about her, somebody told me once," said
one prettily-dressed nonentity to another, as they wandered slowly up and
down the velvet lawns at Ranelagh. "She was mixed up in some way with the
Kynaston family. Sir John was to have married her, and then something
dreadful came out, and he threw her over."
"Oh, I thought she jilted him."
"I daresay it was one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas
or other. I believe her mother was--hum, hum--you understand--she
couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been
thankful to get out of it."
"It looks very bad, her not marrying any one, with all the fuss there has
been made over her."
"Yes; even Cissy Hazeldine told me, in confidence, yesterday, she could
not try her again next season. It wouldn't do, you know; it would look
too much as if she had some object of her own in getting her married.
Cissy must find something else for another year. Of course, with a
husband, she could sail her own course and make her own way; but a girl
can't go on attracting attention with impunity--she gets herself talked
about--it is only we married women can do as we like."
"Exactly. Do you suppose _that_ will come to anything?" casting a glance
towards the further end of the lawn, where Vera Nevill sat in a low
basket-chair, under the shadow of a spreading tulip-tree, whilst a slight
boyish figure, stretched at her feet, alternately chewed blades of grass
and looked up worshippingly into her face.
"_That!_" following the direction of her companion's eyes. "Oh dear, no!
Denis Wilde is too wideawake to be caught, though he is such a boy! They
say she is crazy to get him; everybody else has slipped through her
fingers, you see, and he would be better than nothing. Now we are in the
last week in July, I daresay she is getting desperate; but young Wilde
knows pretty well what he is about, I expect!"
"He seems to admire her."
"Oh, yes, I daresay; those large kind of women do get admired; men look
upon them as fine animals. _I_ should not care to be admired in that way,
would you?"
"No, indeed! it is disgusting," replied the other, who was fain to
conceal the bony corners of her angular figure with a multiplicity of
lace ruchings and puffings.
"As to Miss Nevill, she is nothing else. A most material type; why, her
waist must be twenty-two inches round!"
"Quite that, dear," with sweetness, from the owner of a nineteen-inch
article, which two maids struggled with daily in order to reduce it to
the required measurement.
"Well, I never could--between you and me--see much to admire in her."
"Neither could I, although, of course, it has been the fashion to rave
over her."
And, with that, these two amiable young women fell at it tooth and nail,
and proceeded to cry down their victim's personal appearance in the most
unmeasured and sweeping terms.
After the taking away of a fellow-woman's character, comes as a natural
sequence the condemnation of her face and figure, and it is doubtful
which indictment is the most grave in eyes feminine. Meanwhile the
object of all this animadversion sat tranquilly unconscious under her
tulip-tree, whilst Denis Wilde, that astute young gentleman, whom they
had declared to be too well aware of what he was about to be entrapped
into matrimony, was engaged in proposing to her for the fourth time.
"I thought we had settled this subject long ago, Mr. Wilde," says Vera,
tranquilly unfolding her large, black, feather fan--for it is hot--and
slowly folding it up again.
"It will never be settled for me, Vera; never, so long as you are
unmarried."
"What a dreadful mistake life is!" sighs Vera, wearily, more to herself
than to the boy at her feet. Was anybody ever happy in this world? she
began to wonder.
"I know very well," resumed Denis Wilde, "that I am not good enough for
you; but, then, who is? My prospects, such as they are, are very distant,
and your friends, I daresay, expect you to marry well."
"How often must I tell you that that has nothing to do with it," cries
Vera, impatiently. "If I loved a beggar, I should marry him."
Young Wilde plucked at the grass again, and chewed a daisy up almost
viciously. There was a supreme selfishness in the way she had of
perpetually harping upon her lack of love for him.
"There is always some fellow or other hanging about you," grumbles the
young man, irritably; "you are an inveterate flirt!"
"No woman is worthy of the name who is not!" retorts Vera, laughing.
"I _hate_ a flirt," angrily.
"This is very amusing when you know that your flirtation with Mrs.
Hazeldine is a chronic disease of two years' standing!"
"Pooh!--mere child's play on both sides, and you know it is! You are very
different; you lead a fellow on till he doesn't know whether his very
soul is his own, and then you turn round and snap your fingers in his
face and send him to the devil."
"What an awful accusation! Pray give me an instance of a victim to this
shocking conduct."
"Why, there's that wretched little Frenchman whom you are playing the
same game with that you have already done with me; he follows you like
a shadow."
"Poor Monsieur D'Arblet!" laughed Vera, and then grew suddenly serious.
"But do you know, Mr. Wilde, it is a very singular thing about that
man--I can't think why he follows me about so."
"_Can't_ you!" very grimly.
"I assure you the man is in no more love with me than--than----"
"_I_ am! I suppose you will say next."
"Oh dear, no, you are utterly incorrigible and quite in earnest; but
Monsieur D'Arblet is _pretending_ to be in love with me."
"He makes a very good pretence of it, at all events. Here he comes,
confound him! If I had known Mrs. Hazeldine had asked _him_, I would
never have come."
At which Vera, who had heard these outbursts of indignant jealousy
before, and knew how little poor Denis meant the terrible threats he
uttered, only laughed with the pitiless amusement of a woman who knows
her own power.
Lucien D'Arblet came towards her smiling, and sank down into a vacant
basket-chair by her side with the air of a man who knows himself to be
welcome.
He had been paying a great deal of attention latterly to the beautiful
Miss Nevill; he had followed her about everywhere, and had made it patent
in every public place where he had met her that she alone was the sole
aim and object of his thoughts. And yet, with it all, Monsieur Le Vicomte
was only playing a part, and not only that, but he was pretty certain
that she knew it to be so. He gazed rapturously into her beautiful face,
he lowered his voice tenderly in speaking to her, he pressed her hand
when she gave it to him, and even on occasions he raised it furtively to
his lips; but, with all this, he knew perfectly well that she was not one
whit deceived by him. She no more believed him to be in love with her
than he believed it of himself. She was clever and beautiful, and he
admired and even liked her, but in the beginning of their acquaintance
Monsieur D'Arblet had had no thought of making her the object of any
sentimental attentions. He had been driven to it by a discovery that he
had made concerning her character.
Miss Nevill had a good heart. She was no enraged, injured woman,
thirsting for revenge upon the woman who had stolen her lover from
her--such as he had desired to find in her; she was only a true-hearted
and unhappy girl, who was not in any case likely to develop into the
instrument of vengeance which he sought for.
It was a disappointment to him, but he was not completely disheartened.
It was through her that he desired to punish Helen for daring to brave
him, and he swore to himself that he would do it still; only he must now
set about it in a different way, so he began to make love to Miss Nevill.
And Vera was shrewd enough to perceive that he was only playing a part.
Nevertheless, there were times when she felt so completely puzzled by his
persistent adoration, that she could hardly tell what to make of it. Was
he trying to make some other woman jealous? It even came into her head,
once or twice, to suspect that Cissy Hazeldine was the real object of his
devotion, so utterly incomprehensible did his conduct appear to her.
If she had been told that Lucien D'Arblet's real quest was not love, but
revenge, she would have laughed. An Englishman does not spend his time
nor his energies in plotting a desperate retaliation on a lady who has
disregarded his threats and evaded his persecution; it is not in the
nature of any Briton, however irascible, to do so; but a Frenchman is
differently constituted. There is something delightfully refreshing to
him in an atmosphere of plotting and intrigue. There is the same instinct
of the chase in both nationalities, but it is more amusing to the
Frenchman to hunt down his fellow-creatures than to pursue unhappy little
beasts of the field; and he understands himself in the pursuit of the
larger game infinitely better.
Nevertheless, Monsieur D'Arblet had no intention of getting himself into
trouble, nor of risking the just fury of an indignant British husband,
who stood six feet in his stockings, nor did he desire, by any anonymous
libel, to bring himself in any way under the arm of the law. All he meant
to do was to dig his trench and to lay his mine, to place the fuse in
Vera Nevill's hands--leave her to set fire to it--and then retire
himself, covered with satisfaction at his cleverness, to his own side
of the Channel.
Who could possibly grudge him so harmless an entertainment?
Monsieur D'Arblet, as he sat down by her side under the tulip-tree, began
by paying Miss Nevill a prettily turned compliment upon her fresh white
toilette; as he did so Vera smiled and bent her head; she had seen him
before to-day.
"Fine evening, Mr. Wilde," said the Frenchman, turning civilly, but with
no evident _empressement_, towards the gentleman he addressed.
Denis only answered by a sulky grunt.
Then began that process between the two men which is known in polite
society as the endeavour to sit each other out.
Monsieur D'Arblet discoursed upon the weather and the beauty of the
gardens, with long and expressive pauses between each insignificant
remark, and the air of a man who wishes to say, "I could talk about much
more interesting things if that other fellow was out of the way."
Denis Wilde simply reversed himself, that is to say, he lay on his
back instead of his face, stared up at the sky, and chewed grass
perseveringly. He had evidently no intention of being driven off the
field.
"I had something of great importance to say to you this evening,"
murmured Monsieur D'Arblet, at length, looking fixedly at his enemy's
upturned face.
"All right, go ahead, don't mind me," says the young gentleman, amiably.
"I'm never in the way, am I, Miss Nevill?"
"Never, Mr. Wilde," answers Vera, sweetly. Like a true woman, she quite
appreciates the fun of the situation, and thoroughly enjoys it; "pray
tell me what you have to say, monsieur."
"Ah! Ces choses-là ne se disent qu'à deux!" murmurs he Frenchman, with a
sentimental sigh.
"It is no use your saying it in French," says Denis, with a chuckle,
twisting himself round again upon his chest, "because I have the good
fortune, D'Arblet, to understand your charming language like a native,
absolutely like a native."
"You have a useful proverb in English, which says, that two is company,
and three is none," retorts D'Arblet, with a smile.
"I'm awfully sorry, old fellow; but I am so exceedingly comfortable, I
really can't get up; if I could oblige you in any other way, I certainly
would."
"Come to dinner!" cries out Mrs. Hazeldine, coming towards them from the
garden side of the lawn; "we are all here now."
The two men sprang simultaneously to their feet. This is, of course, the
moment that they have both been waiting for. Each offers an arm to Miss
Nevill; Monsieur D'Arblet bends blandly and smilingly forward; Denis
Wilde has a thunder-cloud upon his face, and holds out his arm as though
he were ready to knock somebody down with it.
"What am I to do?" cries Vera, laughing, and looking with feigned
indecision from one to the other.
"Make haste and decide, my dear," says Mrs. Hazeldine; "for whichever of
you two gentlemen does _not_ take in Miss Nevill must go and take that
eldest Miss Frampton for me."
The eldest Miss Frampton is thirty-five if she is a day; she is large and
bony, much given to beads and bangles, and to talking about the military
men she has known, and whom she usually calls by their surnames alone,
like a man. She goes familiarly amongst her acquaintance by the name of
the Dragoon.
A cold shiver passes visibly down Mr. Wilde's back; unfortunately Miss
Nevill perceives it, and makes up her mind instantly.
"I would not deprive you of so charming a companion," she says, smiling
sweetly at him, and passes her arm through that of the French vicomte.
At dinner, poor Denis Wilde curses Monsieur D'Arblet; Miss Frampton, and
his own fate, indiscriminately and ineffectually. He is sitting exactly
opposite to his divinity, but he cannot even enjoy the felicity of
staring at her, for Miss Frampton will not let him alone. She chatters
unceasingly and gushingly. At an early period of the repast the string of
her amber-bead necklace suddenly gives way with a snap. The beads trickle
slowly down, one by one; half a dozen of them drop with a cracking noise,
like little marbles, upon the polished floor, where there is a general
scramble of waiters and gentlemen under the table together after them;
two fall into her own soup, three more on to Denis Wilde's table-napkin;
as fast as the truants are picked up others are shed down in their wake
from the four apparently inexhaustible rows that garnish her neck.
Miss Frampton bears it all with serene and smiling good temper.
"Dear me, I am really very sorry to give so much trouble. It doesn't
signify in the least, Mr. Wilde--thanks, that is one more. Oh, there goes
another into the sweet-breads; but I really don't mind if they are lost.
Jameson, of the 17th, gave them to me. Do you know Jameson? cousin of
Jameson, in the 9th; he brought them from Italy, or Turkey, or somewhere.
I am sure I don't remember where amber comes from; do you, Mr. Wilde?"
Mr. Wilde, if he is vague as to where it comes from, is quite decided
as to where he would desire it to go. At this moment he had crunched a
tender tooth down upon one of these infernal beads, having helped himself
to it unconsciously out of the sweetbread dish.
Is he doomed to swallow amber beads for the remainder of the repast? he
asks himself.
"Did you ever meet Archdale, the man who was in the 16th?" continues Miss
Frampton, glibly, unconscious of his agonies; "he exchanged afterwards
into the 4th--he is such a nice fellow. I lunched every day at Ascot this
year on the 16th's drag. The first day I met Lester--that's the major,
you know--and Lester is _such_ a pet! He told me to come every day to
lunch, and bring any of my friends with me; so, of course, I did, and
there wasn't a better lunch on the course; and, on the cup-day, Archdale
came up and talked to me--he abused the champagne-cup, though; he said
there was more soda-water than champagne in it--the more he drank of it
the more dreadfully sober he got. However, I am invited to lunch with the
4th at Goodwood. They are going to have a spread under the trees, so I
shall be able to compare notes about the champagne-cup. I know two other
men in the 4th; Hopkins and Lambert; do you know them?" and so on, until
pretty well half the army list and all the luncheon-giving regiments in
the service had been passed under review.
And there, straight opposite to him, was Vera, laughing at his
discomfiture, he was sure, but also listening to the flattering rubbish
which that odious little Frenchman was pouring into her ears.
Did ever young man sit through such a detestable and abominable repast?
If Denis Wilde had been rash enough to nourish insane hopes with regard
to moonlight wanderings in the pleasant garden after dinner, these hopes
were destined to be blighted.
They were a party of twelve; the waiting was bad, and the courses
numerous; the dinner was a lengthy affair altogether. By the time it was
over, and coffee had been discussed on the terrace outside the house, the
carriages came round to the door, and the ladies of the party voted that
it was time to go home.
Soon everybody stood clothed in summer ulsters or white dust-cloaks,
waiting in the hall. The coach started from the door with much noise
and confusion, with a good deal of plunging from the leaders, and some
jibbing from the wheelers, accompanied by a very feeble performance on
that much-abused instrument, the horn, by an amateur who occupied a back
seat; and after it had departed, a humble train of neat broughams and
victorias came trooping up in its wake.
"You will see," said nonentity number one, in her friend's ear; "you will
see that Nevill girl will go back in some man's brougham--that is what
she has been waiting for; otherwise, she would have perched herself up on
the box-seat of the coach, in the most conspicuous place she could find."
"What a disgraceful creature she must be!" is the indignantly virtuous
reply.
The "Nevill girl," however, disappointed the expectations of both these
charitable ladies by quietly taking her place in Mrs. Hazeldine's
brougham, by her friend's side, amid a shower of "Good-nights" from the
remainder of the party.
"Ah!" said the nonentity, with a vicious gasp, "you may be sure she has
some disreputable supper of men, and cigars, and brandies and sodas
waiting for her up in town, or she would never go off so meekly as that
in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham. Still waters run deep, my dear!"
"She is a horrid, disreputable girl, I am quite sure of that," is the
answer. "I am very thankful, indeed, that I haven't the misfortune of
knowing her."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MRS. HAZELDINE'S "LONG ELIZA."
Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the
dove; that is, more knave than fool.
Christopher Marlowe.
For every inch that is not fool is rogue.
Dryden.
The scene is Mrs. Hazeldine's drawing-room, in Park Lane, the hour is
four o'clock in the afternoon, and the _dramatis personæ_ are Miss
Nevill, very red in the face, standing in a corner, behind an oblong
velvet table covered with china ornaments, and Monsieur Le Vicomte
D'Arblet, also red in the face, gesticulating violently on the further
side of it.
Miss Nevill, having retired behind the oblong table, purely from
prudential motives of personal safety, is devoured with anxiety
concerning the too imminent fate of her hostess' china. There is a little
Lowestoft tea-service that was picked up only last week at Christie and
Manson's, a turquoise blue crackle jar that is supposed to be priceless,
and a pair of "Long Eliza" vases, which her hostess loves as much as she
does her toy terrier, and far better than she loves her husband.
What will become of her, Vera Nevill, if Mrs. Hazeldine comes in
presently and finds these treasures lying in a thousand pieces upon the
floor? And yet this is what she is looking forward to, as only too
probable a catastrophe.
Vera feels much as must have felt the owner of the proverbial bull
in the crockery shop--terror mingled with an overpowering sense of
responsibility. All personal considerations are well-nigh merged in
the realization of the danger which menaces her hostess' property.
"Monsieur D'Arblet, I must implore you to calm yourself," she says,
desperately.
"And how, mademoiselle, I ask you, am I to be calm when you speak of
shattering the hopes of my life?" cries the vicomte, who is dancing about
frantically backwards and forwards, in a clear space of three square
yards, between the different pieces of furniture by which he is
surrounded, all equally fragile, and equally loaded with destructible
objects.
"_Pray_ be careful, Monsieur D'Arblet, your sleeve nearly caught then in
the handle of that Chelsea basket," cries Vera, in anguish.
"And what to me are Chelsea baskets, or china, or trash of that kind,
when you, cruel one, are determined to scorn me?"
"Oh, if you would only come outside and have it out on the staircase,"
murmurs Vera, piteously.
"No, I will never leave this room, never, mademoiselle, until you give
me hope; never will I cease to importune you until your heart relents
towards the _miserable_ who adores you!"
Here Monsieur D'Arblet made an attempt to get at his charmer by coming
round the end of the velvet table.
Vera felt distracted. To allow him to execute his maneuver was to run
the chance of being clasped in his arms; to struggle to get free was the
almost certainty of upsetting the table.
She cast a despairing glance across the room at the bell-handle, which
was utterly beyond her reach. There was no hope in that direction.
Apparently, moral persuasion was her only chance.
"Monsieur D'Arblet, I _forbid_ you to advance a step nearer to me!"
He fell back with a profound sigh.
"Mademoiselle, I love you to distraction. I am unable to disobey your
commands."
"Very well, then, listen to me. I cannot understand this violent outburst
of emotion. You have done me the honour to propose to marry me, and I
have, with many thanks for your most flattering distinction, declined
your offer. Surely, between a lady and a gentleman, there can be nothing
further to say; it is not incumbent upon you to persecute me in this
fashion."
"Miss Nevill, you have treated me with a terrible cruelty. You have
encouraged my ardent passion for you until you did lift me up to Heaven."
Here Monsieur D'Arblet stretched up both his arms with a suddenness which
endangered the branches of the tall Dresden candelabra on the high
mantelpiece behind him. "After which you do reject me and cast me down
to hell!" and down came both hands heavily upon the velvet table between
them. The blue crackle jar, the two "Long Eliza" vases, and all the
Lowestoft cups and saucers, literally jumped upon their foundations.
"For Heaven's sake!" cried Vera.
"Ah!" in a tone of deep reproach, "do not plead with me, mademoiselle;
you have broken my heart."
"And you have nearly broken the china," murmured Vera.
"What is this miserable china that you talk about in comparison with my
happiness?" and the vicomte made as though he would tear his hair out
with both hands.
The comedy of the situation began to be too much for Vera's self-control;
another ten minutes of it, and she felt that she should become
hysterical; all the more so because she knew very well that the whole
thing was nothing but a piece of acting; with what object, however, she
was at a loss to imagine.
"For goodness sake, do be reasonable, Monsieur D'Arblet; you know
perfectly well that I never encouraged you, as you call it, for the very
good reason that there has never been anything to encourage. We have been
very good friends, but never anything more."
"Mademoiselle, you do me injustice."
"On the contrary, I give you credit for a great deal more common sense,
as a rule, than you seem disposed to evince to-day. I am quite certain
that you have never entertained any warmer feeling towards me than
friendship."
This was an injudicious statement. Monsieur D'Arblet felt that his
reputation as a _galant homme_ and an adorer of the fair sex was
impugned; he instantly flew into the most violent passion, and jumped
about amongst the gipsy tables and the _étagères_, and the dainty little
spindle-legged cabinets more vehemently than ever.
"_I_, not love you! Lucien D'Arblet profess a sentiment which he does not
experience! _Ah! par exemple, Mademoiselle, c'est trop fort!_ Next you
will say that I am a _menteur_, a _fripon_, a _lâche_! You will tell me
that I have no honour, and no sense of the generosity due to a woman;
that I am a brute and an imbecile," and at every epithet he dashed his
hands violently out in front of him, or thrust them wildly through his
disordered locks. The whole room shook, every ornament on every table
shivered with the strength of his agitation.
"Oh, I will say any single thing you like," cried Vera, "if only you will
keep still----"
"Do not insult me by denying my affection!"
"I will deny nothing," said poor Vera, at her wits' ends. "If what I have
said has pained you, I am sincerely sorry for it; but for Heaven's sake
control yourself, and--and--_do_ go away!"
Then Monsieur D'Arblet stood still and looked at her fixedly and
mournfully; his hands had dropped feebly by his side, there was an air
of profound melancholy in his aspect; he regarded her with a searching
intensity. He was asking himself whether his agitation and his despair
had produced the very slightest effect upon her; and he came to the
conclusion they had not.
"_Peste soit de cette femme!_" he said to himself. "She is the first I
ever came across who refused to believe in vows of eternal love. As a
rule, women never fail to give them credit, if they are spoken often
enough and shouted out loud enough the more one despairs and declares
that one is about to expire, the more the dear creatures are impressed,
and the more firmly they are convinced of the power of their own charms.
But this woman does not believe in me one little bit. Love, despair,
rage--it is all the same to her--I might as well talk to the winds! She
only wants to get rid of me before her friend comes in, and before I
break her accursed china. Ah it is these miserable little pots and jugs
that she is thinking about! Very well, then, it is by them that I will do
what I want. A great genius can bend to small things as well as soar to
large ones--Voyons done, ma belle, which of us will be the victor!"
All this time he was gazing at her fixedly and dejectedly.
"Miss Nevill," he said, gloomily, "I will accept your rejection;
to-morrow I will say good-bye to this country for ever!"
"We are all going away this week," said Vera, cheerfully: "this is the
end of July. You will come back again next year, and enjoy your season as
much as ever."
"Never--never. Lucien D'Arblet will visit this country no more. The words
that I am about to speak to you now--the request that I am about to make
of you are like the words of a dying man; like the parting desire of one
who expires. Mademoiselle, I have a request to make of you."
"I am sure," began Vera, politely, "if there is anything I can do
for you----" She breathed more freely now he talked about going away
and dying; it would be much better that he should so go away, and so
die, than remain interminably on the rampage in Mrs. Hazeldine's
drawing-room. Vera had stood siege for close upon an hour. The moment of
her deliverance was apparently drawing near; in the hour of victory she
felt that she could afford to be generous; any little thing that he liked
to ask of her she would be glad enough to do with a view to expediting
his departure. Perhaps he wanted her photograph, or a lock of her hair;
to either he would be perfectly welcome.
"There is something I am forced to go away from England without having
done; a solemn duty I have to leave unperformed. Miss Nevill, will you
undertake to do it for me?"
"Really, Monsieur D'Arblet, you are very mysterious; it depends, of
course, upon what this duty is--if it is very difficult, or very
unpleasant."
"It is neither difficult nor unpleasant. It is only to give a small
parcel to a gentleman who is not now in England; to give it him yourself,
with your own hands."
"That does not sound difficult, certainly," said Vera, smiling; after
all, she was glad he had not asked for a photograph, or a lock of hair;
"but how am I to find this friend of yours?"
"Miss Nevill, do you know a man called Kynaston? Captain Maurice
Kynaston?" He was watching her keenly now.
Vera turned suddenly very white: then controlling herself with an effort,
she answered quietly.
"Yes, I know him. Why?"
"Because that is the man I want you to give my parcel to." He drew
something out of his breast coat-pocket, and handed it to her across the
oblong table that was still between them. She took it in her hands, and
turned it over doubtfully and uneasily. It was a small square parcel,
done up in brown paper, fastened round with string, and sealed at both
ends.
It might have been a small book; it probably was. She had no reason to
give why she should not do his commission for him, and yet she felt a
strange and unaccountable reluctance to undertake it.
"I had very much rather that you asked somebody else to do this for you,
Monsieur D'Arblet," she said, handing the packet back to him. He did not
attempt to take it from her.
"It concerns the most sacred emotions of my heart, mademoiselle," he
said, sensationally. "I could not entrust it to an indifferent person.
You, who have plunged me into such an abyss of despair by your cruel
rejection of my affection, cannot surely refuse to do so small a thing
for me."
Miss Nevill was again looking at the small parcel in her hands.
"Will it hurt or injure Captain Kynaston in any way?" she asked.
"Far from it; it will probably be of great service to him. Come, Miss
Nevill, promise me that you will give it to him; any time will do before
the end of the year, any time that you happen to see him, or to be near
enough to visit him; I only want to be sure that it reaches him. All you
have to do is to give it him into his hands when no one else is near.
After all, it is a very small favour I ask you."
"And it is precisely because it is so small, Monsieur D'Arblet," said
Vera, decidedly, "that I cannot imagine why you should make such a point
of a trifle like this; and as I don't like being mixed up in things I
don't understand, I must, I think, decline to have anything to do with
it."
"_Allons donc!_" said the vicomte to himself. "I am reduced to the
china."
He took an excited turn up and down the room, then came back again to
where she stood.
"Miss Nevill!" he cried, with rising anger, "you seem determined to wound
my feelings and to insult my self-respect. You reject my offers, you
sneer at my professions of affection; and now you appear to me to throw
sinister doubts upon the meaning of the small thing I have asked you to
do for me." At each of these accusations he waved his arm up and down to
emphasize his remarks; and now, as if unconsciously, his hand suddenly
fell upon the neck of one of the "Long Eliza" vases on the table before
him. He lifted it up in the air.
"For Heaven's sake, Monsieur D'Arblet, take care--please put down that
vase," cried Vera; suddenly returning to her former terrors.
He looked at the object in his hand as though it were utterly beneath
consideration.
"Vase! what is a vase, I ask? Do you not suppose, before relinquishing
what I ask of you, I would dash a hundred vases such as this into ten
thousand fragments to the earth?" He raised his arm above his head as
though on the point of carrying his threat into execution.
Vera uttered a scream.
"Good gracious! What on earth are you doing? It is Mrs. Hazeldine's
favourite piece of china; she values it more than anything she has got.
If you were to break it, she would go half out of her mind."
"Never mind this wretched vase. Answer me, Mademoiselle Nevill, will you
give that parcel to Captain Kynaston?"
"I am not at all likely to meet him; I assure you nothing is so
improbable. I know him very little. Ah! what are you doing?"
The infuriated Frenchman was whirling the blue-and-white treasure madly
round in the air.
"You are, then, determined to humiliate and to insult me; and to prove to
you how great is my just indignation, I will dash----"
"No, no, no!" cried Vera, frantically; "for Heaven's sake, do not be so
mad. Mrs. Hazeldine will never forgive me. Put it down, I entreat you.
Yes, yes, I will promise anything you like. I am sure I have no wish to
insult you."
"Ah, then, you will give that to him?" He paused with the vase still
uplifted, looking at her.
Vera felt convinced by this time that she had to do with a raving
lunatic. After all, was it not better to do this small thing for him, and
to get rid of him. She knew that, sooner or later, down at Sutton, or up
in London, she and Maurice were likely to meet. It would not be much
trouble to her to place the small parcel in his hands. Surely, to deliver
herself from this man--to save Cissy's beloved china, and, perchance,
her own throat--for what might he not take a fancy to next!--from the
clutches of this madman, it would be easier to do what he wanted.
"Yes, I will give it to him. I promise you, if you will only put that
vase down and go away."
"You will promise me faithfully?"
"Faithfully."
"On your word of honour, and as you hope for salvation?"
"Yes, yes. There is no need for oaths; if I have promised, I will do it."
"Very well." He placed the vase back upon the table and walked to the
door. "Mademoiselle," he said, making her a low bow, "I am infinitely
obliged to you;" and then, without another word, he opened the door and
was gone.
Three minutes later Mrs. Hazeldine came in. She was just back from
her drive. She found Vera lying back exhausted and breathless in an
arm-chair.
"My dear, what have you done to Monsieur D'Arblet? I met him running out
of the house like a madman, and laughing to himself like a little fiend.
He nearly knocked me down. What has happened! Have you accepted him?"
"No, I have refused him," gasped Vera; "but, thank God, I have saved your
'Long Eliza,' Cissy!"
Early the following morning one of Mrs. Hazeldine's servants was
despatched in a hansom with a small brown paper parcel and a note to the
Charing Cross Hotel.
During the night watches Miss Nevill had been seized with misgivings
concerning the mysterious mission wherewith she had been charged.
But the servant, the parcel, and the note all returned together just as
they had been sent.
"Monsieur D'Arblet has left town, Miss; he went by the tidal train last
night on his way to the Continent, and has left no address."
So Vera tore up her own note, and locked up the offending parcel in her
dressing-case.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A WEDDING TOUR.
Thus Grief still treads upon the heels of Pleasure;
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
Congreve.
We all know that weddings are as old as the world, but who is it
that invented wedding tours? Owing to what delusion were they first
instituted?
For a wedding feast there is a reasonable cause, just as there is for
a funeral luncheon, or a christening dinner. There has been in each
instance a trying ordeal to be gone through in a public church. It is
quite right that there should be eating and drinking, and a certain
amount of jollification afterwards amongst the unoffending guests who
have been dragged in as spectators on the occasion. But why on earth,
when the day is over, cannot the unhappy couple be left alone to eat
a Darby-and-Joan dinner together in the house in which they propose to
live, and return peacefully on the morrow to the avocation of their
daily lives? Why must they be sent off amid a shower of rice and
shabby satin shoes into an enforced banishment from the society of their
fellow-creatures, and so thrown upon each other that, in nine cases out
of ten, for want of something better to do, they have learnt the way to
quarrel, tooth and nail, before the week is out?
I believe that a great many marriages that are as likely as not to turn
out in the end very happily are utterly prevented from doing so by that
pernicious and utterly childish custom of keeping up the season known as
the honeymoon. "Honey," by the way, is very sweet, doubtless; but there
is nothing on earth which sensible people get sooner tired of. Three days
of an exclusively saccharine diet is about as much as any grown man or
woman can be reasonably expected to stand; after that period there comes
upon the jaded appetite unlawful longings after strong meats and
anchovies, after turtle-soup and devilled bones, such as no sugar-fed
couple has the poetic right to indulge in. Nevertheless, like a snake in
the grass, the insidious desire will creep into the soul of one or other
of the two. There will be, doubtless, a noble struggle to stifle the
treacherous thought; a vigorous effort to bring back the wandering mind
into the path of duty; a conscientious effort to go on enjoying honeycomb
as though no flavour of richer viands had been wafted to the nostrils of
the imagination. The sweet and poetical food will be lifted once more
resolutely to the lips, but only to create a sickening satiety from which
the nauseated victim finally revolts in desperation. Then come yearnings
and weariness, loss of appetite, and consequent loss of temper; tears on
the one side, an oath or two on the other, and the "happy couple" come
home eventually very much wiser, as a rule, than they started, and
certainly in a position to understand several unpleasant truths
concerning each other of which they had not a suspicion before they went
away.
Now, if this is too often the melancholy finale to a wedding trip, even
with regard to persons who start forth on it full of hopes of happiness,
of faith in each other, and of fervent affection on both sides, how much
worse is not the case when there are small hopes of happiness, no faith
whatever on one side, and of affection none at all on the other?
This was how it was with Captain and Mrs. Maurice Kynaston on their six
weeks' wedding trip abroad. They went to a great many places they had
neither of them seen before. They stayed a week in Paris, where Helen
bought more dresses and declared herself supremely happy; they visited
the falls of the Rhine, which Maurice said deafened him; and ran
through Switzerland, which they both voted detestably uncomfortable and
dirty--the hotels, _bien entendu_, not the mountains. They stopped a
night on the St. Gothard, which was too cold for them, and a week or two
at the Italian lakes, which were too hot. They sauntered through the
picture-galleries of Milan and Turin, at which places Maurice's yawns
became prolonged and audible; and they floated through the canals of
Venice in gondolas, which Helen asserted to be more ragged and full of
fleas than any London four-wheeler. And then they turned homewards, and
by the time they neared the shores of the Channel once more they had had
so many quarrels that they had forgotten to count them, and they had both
privately discovered that matrimony is an egregious and, alas! an
irreparable mistake. Such a discovery was possibly inevitable; perhaps
they would have come in time to the same conclusion had they remained at
home, but they certainly found it out all the quicker for having gone
abroad.
Helen, perhaps, was the most to be pitied of the two. For Maurice there
had been no illusions to dispel, no dreams to be dissipated, no castles
built upon the sand to fall shattered into atoms; he had known very well
what he had to expect; he did not love the wife he was marrying, and he
did love somebody else. It had not, therefore, been a brilliant prospect
of bliss. Nevertheless, he had certainly hoped, with that vague kind of
hope in which Englishmen are prone to indulge, that things would "come
right" in some fashion, and that he and Helen would manage "to get on"
together. That they did not do so was an annoyance, but hardly a surprise
to him.
But to Helen there was a good deal of unexpected grief and mortification
of soul. She, at all events, had loved him; it was her own strength of
will, the fervour of her own lawless passion for him that had carried the
day, and had, in the end, made her his wife. And she had said to herself
that, once married to him, she would make him love her.
Alas, in love there is no such thing as compulsion! The heart that loves,
loves freely, spontaneously, unreasonably; and, where love is dead, there
neither entreaties nor prayers, nor yet a whole ocean of tears can serve
to re-awaken the frail blossom into life.
But Helen had made sure that, once absolutely her own, once irrevocably
separated from the girl whom instinct had taught her to regard as her
rival, Maurice would return to the old allegiance, and learn to love her
once more, as in days now long gone by.
A very short experience served to convince her of the contrary. Maurice
yawned too openly, was too evidently wearied and bored with her society,
too utterly indifferent to her sayings and her doings, for her to delude
herself long with the hope of regaining his affection. It was all the
same to him whatever she did. If she showered caresses upon him, he
submitted meekly, it is true, but with so evident a distaste to the
operation that she learnt to discontinue the kisses he cared for so
little; if she tried to amuse him with her conversation, he appeared to
be thinking of other things; if she gave her opinion, he hardly seemed to
listen to it. Only when they quarrelled did the slightest animation enter
into their conjugal relations; and it was almost better to quarrel than
to be at peace on such terms as these.
And then Helen got angry with him; angry and sore, wounded in her heart,
and hurt in her vanity. She said to herself that she had been ready to
become the best and most devoted of wives; to study his wishes, to defer
to his opinion, to surround him with loving attentions; but since he
would not have it so, then so much the worse for him. She would be no
model wife; no meek slave, subservient to his caprices. She would go her
own way, and follow her own will, and make him do what she liked, whether
it pleased him or not.
Had Maurice cared to struggle with her for the mastery, things might have
ended differently, but it did not seem worth his while to struggle; as
long as she let him alone, and did not fret him with her incessant
jealousies and suspicions, he was content to let her do as she liked.
Even in that matter of living at Kynaston he learnt, in the end, to
give way to her. Sir John, who had already started for Australia, had
particularly requested him to occupy the house. Lady Kynaston did nothing
but urge it in every letter. Helen herself was bent upon it. There was
no good reason that he could bring forward against so reasonable and
sensible a plan. The house was all ready, newly decorated, and newly
furnished; they had nothing to do but to walk into it. It would save
all trouble in looking out for a country home elsewhere, and would,
doubtless, be an infinitely pleasanter abode for them than any other
house could be. It was the natural and rational thing for them to do.
Maurice knew of only one argument against it, and that one was in his own
heart, and he could speak of it to no one.
And yet, after all, what did it matter, what difference would it make? A
little nearer, a little further, how could it alter things for either of
them? How lessen the impassable gulf between her and him? It was in the
natural course of things that he must meet her at times; there would be
the stereotyped greeting, the averted glance, the cold shake of hands
that could never hope to meet without a pang; these things were almost
inevitable for them. A little oftener or a little seldomer, would it
matter very much then?
Maurice did not think it would; bound as he was to the woman whom he had
made his wife--tied to her by every law of God and of man, of honour, and
of manly feeling--that there should be any actual danger to be run by the
near proximity of the woman he had loved, did not even enter into his
head. If he had known how to do his duty towards Helen before he had
married her, would he not tenfold know how to do so now? Possibly he
over-rated his own strength; for, however high are our principles,
however exalted is our sense of honour--after all, we are but mortals,
and unspeakably weak at the very best.
It did not in any case occur to him to look at the question from Vera's
point of view. It is never easy for a man to put himself into a woman's
place, or to enter into the extra sensitiveness of soul with which she is
endowed.
So it was that he agreed to go straight back to Kynaston, and to make the
old house his permanent home according to his wife's wishes.
It was whilst the newly-married couple were passing through Switzerland
on their homeward journey that they suddenly came across Mr. Herbert
Pryme, who had been performing a melancholy and solitary pilgrimage in
the land of tourists.
It was at the table d'hôte at Vevay, upon coming down to that lengthy
and untempting repast, chiefly composed of aged goats and stringy hens,
which the inventive Swiss waiter exalts, with the effort of a soaring
imagination, into "Chamois," and "Salmi de Poulet," that Captain and Mrs.
Kynaston, who had scarcely recovered from a passage of arms in the
seclusion of their bed-chamber, suddenly descried a familiar face amongst
the long array of uncongenial people ranged down either side of the
table.
What the print of a hob-nailed boot must be to the lonely traveller
across the desert, what the sight of a man from one's own club going down
Pall Mall is in mid-September, or as a draught of Giesler's '68 to an
epicure who has been about to perish on ginger-beer--so did Herbert
Pryme's face shine upon Maurice Kynaston out of the arid waste of that
Vevay _salle-à-manger_.
In England he had been only an acquaintance--at Vevay he became his most
intimate friend. The delight of having a man to speak to, and a man who
knew others of his friends, was almost intoxicating. To think of getting
one evening--nay, one hour of liberty from that ever-present chain of
matrimonial intercourse which was galling him so sorely, was a bliss for
which he could hardly find words to express his gratitude.
Herbert, who could not quite understand the reason of it, was almost
overpowered by the warmth of Captain Kynaston's greeting. To have his
place removed next to his own, and to grasp him heartily by both hands,
wringing them with affectionate fervour, was the work of a few seconds.
And then, who so lively, so full of anecdote and laughter, so interested
in all that could be said to him, as Maurice Kynaston during that dinner?
It made Helen angry to hear him. He could be agreeable enough, she
thought, bitterly, to a chance acquaintance, picked up nobody knew where;
he could find plenty of conversation for this almost unknown young man;
it was only when they were alone together that he sat by glumly and
silently, without a smile and without a word!
She did not take it into account how surfeited the man was with his
honeycomb. Herbert Pryme, individually, was nothing much to him; but he
came as the sight of a distant sail is to a shipwrecked mariner. It is
doubtful, indeed, whether, under the circumstances, Maurice would not
have been equally delighted to have met his tailor or his bootmaker.
After dinner was over the two men went out and smoked their cigars
together. This was a fresh offence to Mrs. Kynaston; usually she enjoyed
an evening stroll with her husband after dinner, but when he asked her to
come out with him on this occasion, she refused, shortly and
ungraciously.
"No, thank you; if you and Mr. Pryme are going to smoke, I could not
possibly come; you know that I hate smoke."
Poor Herbert was about to protest that nothing would induce him to smoke;
but Maurice passed his arm hurriedly through his.
"Come along, then, and have a cigar in the garden," he said, with
scarcely concealed eagerness; he felt like a schoolboy let out of school.
Helen went up to her bedroom, and sat sulkily by her open window, looking
over the lake on to the mountains. Long after it was dark she could see
the two red specks of their cigars wandering about like fire-flies in the
garden, and could hear the crush of the rough gravel under their
footsteps, and the low murmur of their voices as they talked.
"You are coming into Meadowshire, are you not?" asked Maurice, ere they
parted.
Herbert shook his head.
"Not to the Millers?"
"No, I am afraid I shall never be asked to Shadonake again," answered the
younger man, gloomily.
"Why, I thought you and Beatrice--forgive me--but is it not the case?"
"Her parents have stopped all that, Kynaston."
"But I am sure Beatrice herself will never let it stop; I know her too
well," said Maurice, cheerily.
"There are laws in connection with minors," began Mr. Pryme, solemnly.
"Fiddlesticks!" was Maurice's rejoinder. "There are no laws to prevent
young women falling in love, or the world would not be in such a
confounded muddle as it frequently is. Don't be downhearted, Pryme; you
stick to her, and it will all come right; and look here, if they won't
ask you to Shadonake, I ask you to Kynaston; drop me a line, and come
whenever you like--as soon as you get home."
"You are exceedingly kind; I shall be only too delighted."
"When will you be home?"
"I can be home at any time--there is nothing to keep me."
"Well, then, come as soon as you like, the sooner the better. And now
I must say good-night and good-bye too, I fear, for we are off early
to-morrow. I shall be glad enough to be home; I'm dead sick of the
travelling. Good-night, old fellow; it has been a real pleasure to meet
you."
And, positively, this was the only evening out of his whole wedding-trip
that Maurice had thoroughly enjoyed.
"What on earth kept you out so late with that solemn young prig?" says
his wife to him as he opens her door.
"I find him a very pleasant companion, and I have asked him to come to
Kynaston," answers Maurice, shortly.
"Umph!" grunts Helen, and inwardly determines that his visit shall be a
short one.
Four days later they were in England again.
It was only when the train had actually stopped at Sutton, and he was
handing his wife into her own carriage under the arch of greenery across
the road, and amid the ringing cheers of the rustics, who had gathered
to see them arrive, that Maurice began to realise how powerfully that
home-coming was to be tinged in his own mind with thoughts of her who was
once so nearly going as a bride to the same house where now he was taking
Helen.
All along the lane, as they drove under the arches of flags and flowers
that had been put up from the station to the park gates, and as they
responded to the hearty welcome from the village-folk who lined the road,
Maurice was asking himself, with a painful anxiety, whether _she_ was at
Sutton now; whether her eyes had rested upon these rustic decorations,
whether her steps had passed along under these mottoes of welcome and of
happiness. And then, as they neared the church, the clang of the bells
burst forth loudly and jarringly.
Was _she_, perchance, there in the house, kneeling alone, white and
stricken by her bedside, whilst those joy-bells rang out their deafening
clamour from the church hard by?
For the life of him, Maurice could not help casting a glance at the
vicarage as they drove swiftly by it.
The windows were wide open, but no one looked out of them, the muslin
blinds fluttered in the wind, the Gloire de Dijon roses nodded upon the
wall, the Virginia creeper hung in crimson festoons over the porch; but
there was not a living creature to be seen.
He had caught no glimpse of the woman that was ever in his heart; and it
was a great pity that he had looked for her, because his wife, whose
sharp eyes nothing ever escaped, had seen him look.
CHAPTER XXX.
"IF I COULD DIE!"
Why cannot I forgo, forget
That ever I loved thee, that ever we met?
There is not a single link or sign
To bind thy life in this world with mine.
M. W. Praed.
But it was not until Captain and Mrs. Maurice Kynaston had been at home
for more than a fortnight that Vera came back to her brother-in-law's
house.
She had kept away, poor girl, as long as she could. She had put off the
evil hour of her return as long as possible. The Hazeldines had gone to
Scotland, and Vera had, in desperation, accepted an invitation to stay
with some acquaintances whom she neither knew very well nor liked
overmuch. It had kept her from Sutton a little longer. But the visit had
come to an end at last, and what was she to do? She had no other visits
to prolong her absence, and her sister wrote to her perpetually, urging
her to return. Her home was at Sutton; she had no other place to go to.
She had told Sir John that in absence from his brother lay her only hope
of safety. But where was she to seek that safety? Where find security,
when he; reckless, or, perchance, heedless of her danger, had come to
plant himself at her very doors? They should have been far as the poles
asunder, and a malevolent fate had willed that the same parish should
contain them.
For whatever Maurice did, Vera in no way underrated the danger. Too well
she knew her own heart; too surely she estimated the strength of a
passion which, repressed and thwarted, and half-smothered, as it had been
within her, yet burnt but the fiercer and the wilder. For that is the way
with love: if it may not flourish and thrive openly and bravely before
the eyes of the world, it will eat into the very heart and life, till all
that is fair and sweet in the garden of the soul is choked and blighted
and overgrown, till the main-spring of life becomes poisoned, and all
things that are happy, withered and dried up.
In Vera's love for Maurice there had been nothing of joy, and all of
pain. There had never been for her that sweet illusion of dawning
affection--that intangible sense of delight in the consciousness of an
unspoken sympathy that is the very essence of a happy love. She had no
memories that were serene and untroubled--no days of calm and delicious
happiness to recall. His first conscious look had been a terror to her;
his words of hopeless love had given her a shock that had been almost
physical; and his few passionate kisses had burnt into her very soul till
they had seemed to have been printed upon her lips in fire. Vera's love
had brought her no good thing that she could count. But it had done one
thing for her: if it had cursed her life, it had purified her soul.
The Vera who had come back to Sutton Vicarage in August was no longer the
same woman who had stood months ago on the terrace at Kynaston among the
falling autumn leaves, and who had told herself that it was money
alone that was worth living for.
She came back to everything that was full of pain, and to much in which
there was absolute fear.
Five minutes after she had entered the vicarage drawing-room her tortures
began.
"You have not asked after the bride and bridegroom," says old Mrs.
Daintree, as she sits in her corner, darning everlastingly at those brown
worsted socks of her son's. Vera thinks she must have been sitting there
darning incessantly, day and night, ever since she had been away. "We are
all full of it down here. Such a pretty welcome home they had--arches
across the road, and processions with flags, and a band inside the
lodge-gates. You should have been here to have seen it. Everybody is
making much of Mrs. Kynaston; she is a very pretty woman, I must say,
and called here three days ago in the most beautiful Paris gown."
"She seemed very sorry not to see you," says Marion, "and quite disposed
to be friendly. I do hope you and she will get on, Vera, in spite of the
awkwardness of her being in your place, as it were."
"What do you mean?" rather sharply.
"Only, of course, dear, that it will be rather painful to you just at
first to see anybody else the mistress at Kynaston, where you yourself
might have been----"
"If you had not been a fool," interpolated the old lady, bluntly.
"I don't think I shall mind that much," says Vera, quietly. "Where is
Eustace?"
"Oh, he will be in presently; he has gone up to the Hall about the
chancel. The men have made all kinds of mistakes about the tesselated
pavement; the wrong pattern was sent down from town, and we have had so
much trouble about it, and there has been nobody to appeal to to set
things right. Captain Kynaston is all very well, and now he is back, I
hope we may get things into a little order; but I am sorry to say he
takes very little interest in the church or the parish; he is not half
so good a squire as poor dear Sir John." And there was a whole volume of
unspoken reproach in the sigh with which Marion wound up her remarks.
"Decidedly," said Vera, to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to her
own little room; "decidedly I must get away from all this. I shall have
to marry." She leant out of her open window in a frame-work of roses
and jessamine, and looked out over the lime-trees towards the Hall.
Now that the trees were in full leaf, she could catch no glimpse of its
red-stacked chimneys and its terraced gardens; but, by-and-by, when the
leaves were down and the trees were bare, she knew she should see it.
Every morning when she got up the sun would be shining full upon it;
every night when she went to bed she would see the twinkling lights of
the many windows gleaming through the darkness; she would be in her
room alone, and _he_ would be out there, happy with his wife.
"I shall not be able to bear it," said Vera, slowly, speaking aloud to
herself. "I had better marry, and go away; there is nothing else to be
done. Poor Denis! He is worthy of a better woman; but I think he will be
good to me."
For it had come to this now, that when Vera thought about marrying, it
was upon Denis Wilde that she also pondered.
To be at Sutton, and not to come face to face with Maurice, was of course
an impossibility. Carefully as Vera confined herself to the house and
garden for the next three days, she could not avoid going to church when
Sunday came. And at church were Captain and Mrs. Kynaston. During the
service she only saw his back, erect and broad-shouldered, in the seat in
front of her, for the pews had been cleared away, and open sittings had
been substituted all through the church. Maurice looked neither to the
right nor to the left; he stood, or sat, or knelt, and scarcely turned
his head an inch, but Helen's butterfly bonnet was twisted in every
direction throughout the service. It is certain that she very soon knew
who it was who had come into the vicarage seat behind her.
When Vera came out of church, having purposely lingered as long as she
could inside, until the rest of the congregation had all gone out, she
found the bride and bridegroom waiting for her in the churchyard.
Helen stood with her hand twined with easy familiarity round her
husband's arm; possibly she had studied the attitude with a view to
impressing Vera with the perfection of her conjugal happiness. She turned
quite delightedly to greet her.
"Oh, here you are at last, Miss Nevill. We have been waiting for you,
have we not, Maurice dear? We both felt how pleased we should be to see
you. I am very glad you have come back; it will make it much more
pleasant for me at Kynaston; you will come up to see me, won't you?
I should like you to see my boudoir, it is lovely!"
"You forget that Miss Nevill has seen it all long ago," said Maurice,
gravely; their hands had just met, but he had not looked at her.
"Oh, yes, to be sure; how stupid I am! Of course, I remember now, it was
all done up for _you_ by poor dear old John. Doesn't it seem funny that
I should be going to live in the house? Ah, how d'ye do, Mr. Daintree?"
as Eustace came out of the vestry door; "here we are, chattering to your
sister. What a delightful sermon, dear Mr. Daintree, and what a treat to
be in a Christian church--I mean a Protestant church--again after those
dreadful Sundays on the Continent."
Vera had turned to Maurice.
"Have you any news of Sir John yet?"