GOOD-BYE.
On the same afternoon in which we have seen Mark and Vincent walk home
together for the last time, Mrs. Langton and her eldest daughter Mabel
were sitting in the pretty drawing-room of their house in Kensington
Park Gardens.
Mrs. Langton was the wife of a successful Q.C. at the Chancery Bar,
and one of those elegantly languid women with a manner charming enough
to conceal a slight shallowness of mind and character; she was pretty
still, and an invalid at all times when indisposition was not
positively inconvenient.
It was one of her 'at home' days, but fewer people than usual had made
their appearance, and these had filtered away early, leaving traces of
their presence behind them in the confidential grouping of seats and
the teacups left high and dry in various parts of the room.
Mrs. Langton was leaning luxuriously back in a low soft chair, lazily
watching the firebeams glisten through the stained-glass screen, and
Mabel was on a couch near the window trying to read a magazine by the
fading light.
'Hadn't you better ring for the lamps, Mabel?' suggested her mother.
'You can't possibly see to read by this light, and it's so trying for
the eyes. I suppose no one else will call now, but it's very strange
that Vincent should not have come to say good-bye.'
'Vincent doesn't care about "at homes,"' said Mabel.
'Still, not to say good-bye--after knowing us so long, too! and I'm
sure we've tried to show him every kindness. Your father was always
having solicitors to meet him at dinner, and it was never any use; and
he sails to-morrow. I think he _might_ have found time to come!'
'So do I,' agreed Mabel. 'It's not like Vincent, though he was always
shy and odd in some things. He hasn't been to see us nearly so much
lately, but I can't believe he will really go away without a word.'
Mrs. Langton yawned delicately. 'It would not surprise me, I must
say,' she said. 'When a young man sets himself----' but whatever she
was going to say was broken off by the entrance of her youngest
daughter Dolly, with the German governess, followed by the man bearing
rose-shaded lamps.
Dolly was a vivacious child of about nine, with golden locks which had
a pretty ripple in them, and deep long-lashed eyes that promised to be
dangerous one day. 'We took Frisk out without the leash, mummy,' she
cried, 'and when we got into Westbourne Grove he ran away. Wasn't it
too bad of him?'
'Never mind, darling, he'll come back quite safe--he always does.'
'Ah, but it's his running away that I mind,' said Dolly; 'and you know
what a dreadful state he always _will_ come back in. He must be cured
of doing it somehow.'
'Talk to him very seriously about it, Dolly,' said Mabel.
'I've tried that--and he only cringes and goes and does it again
directly he's washed. I know what I'll do, Mabel. When he comes back
this time, he shall have a jolly good whacking!'
'My _dear_ child,' cried Mrs. Langton, 'what a dreadful expression!'
'Colin says it,' said Dolly, though she was quite aware that Colin was
hardly a purist in his expressions.
'Colin says a good many things that are not pretty in a little girl's
mouth.'
'So he does,' said Dolly cheerfully. 'I wonder if he knows? I'll go
and tell him of it--he's come home.' And she ran off just as the
door-bell rang.
'Mabel, I really think that must be some one else coming to call after
all. Do you know, I feel so tired and it's so late that I think I will
leave you and Fräulein to talk to them. Papa and I are going out to
dinner to-night, and I must rest a little before I begin to dress.
I'll run away while I can.'
Mrs. Langton fluttered gracefully out of the room as the butler
crossed the hall to open the door, evidently to a visitor, and
presently Mabel heard 'Mr. Holroyd' announced.
'So you really have come after all,' said Mabel, holding out her hand
with a pretty smile of welcome. 'Mamma and I thought you meant to go
away without a word.'
'You might have known me better than that,' said Holroyd.
'But when your last afternoon in England was nearly over and no sign
of you, there _was_ some excuse for thinking so; but you have come at
last, so we won't scold you. Will you have some tea? It isn't very
warm, I'm afraid, but you are so very late, you know. Ring, and you
shall have some fit to drink.'
Vincent accepted tea, chiefly because he wanted to be waited upon once
more by her with the playful, gracious manner, just tinged with
affectionate mockery, which he knew so well; and then he talked to her
and Fräulein Mozer, with a heavy sense of the unsatisfactory nature of
this triangular conversation for a parting interview.
The governess felt this too. She had had a shrewd suspicion for some
time of the state of Holroyd's feelings towards Mabel, and felt a
sentimental pity for him, condemned as he was to disguise them under
ordinary afternoon conversation.
'He is going away,' she thought; 'but he shall have his chance, the
poor young man.' 'You will not think it very rude, Mr. Holroyd,' she
said, rising: 'it will not disturb you if I practise? There is a piece
which I am to play at a school concert to-morrow, and do not yet know
it.'
'Vincent won't mind, Ottilia dear,' said Mabel. 'Will you, Vincent?'
So the governess went to the further room where the piano stood, and
was soon performing a conveniently noisy German march. Vincent sat
still for some moments watching Mabel. He wished to keep in his memory
the impression of her face as he saw it then, lighted up by the soft
glow of the heavily shaded lamp at her elbow; a spirited and yet
tender face, with dark-grey eyes, a sensitive, beautiful mouth, and
brown hair with threads of gold in it which gleamed in the lamplight
as she turned her graceful head.
He knew it would fade only too soon, as often happens with the face we
best love and have reason chiefly to remember. Others will rise
unbidden with the vividness of a photograph, but the _one_ face eludes
us more and more, till no effort of the mind will call it up with any
distinctness.
Mabel was the first to speak. 'Are you _very_ fond of music, Vincent?'
she said a little maliciously. 'Would you rather be allowed to listen
in peace, or talk? You _may_ talk, you know.'
'I came late on purpose to see as much of you as possible,' said poor
Vincent. 'This is the last time I shall be able to talk to you for so
long.'
'I know,' said Mabel, simply; 'I'm very sorry, Vincent.' But there was
only a frank friendliness in her eyes as she spoke, nothing more, and
Vincent knew it.
'So am I,' he said. 'Do you know, Mabel, I have no photograph of you.
Will you give me one to take away with me?'
'Of course, if I have one,' she said, as she went to a table for an
album. 'Oh, Vincent, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid there's not one left.
But I can give you one of mother and father and Dolly, and I think
Colin too.'
'I should like all those very much,' said Vincent, who could not
accept this offer as a perfect substitute, 'but can't you find one of
yourself, not even an old one?'
'I think I can give you one after all,' said Mabel; 'wait a minute.'
And as she came back after a minute's absence she said, 'Here's one I
had promised to Gilda Featherstone, but Gilda can wait and you can't.
I'll give you an envelope to put them all in, and then we will talk.
Tell me first how long you are going to be away?'
'No longer than I can help,' said Vincent, 'but it depends on so many
things.'
'But you will write to us, won't you?'
'Will you answer if I do?'
'Of course,' said Mabel. 'Don't you remember when I was a little girl,
and used to write to you at school, and at Trinity too? I was always a
better correspondent than you were, Vincent.'
Just then Dolly came, holding a cage of lovebirds. 'Champion said you
were here,' she began. 'Vincent, wait till I put Jachin and Boaz down.
Now you can kiss me. I knew you wouldn't go away without saying
good-bye to me. You haven't seen my birds, have you? Papa gave them to
me. They're such chilly birds, I've brought them in here to get warm.'
'They're very much alike,' said Vincent, looking into the cage, upon
which each bird instantly tried to hide its head in the sand
underneath the other.
'They're exactly the same,' said Dolly, 'so I never know which is
Jachin and which is Boaz; but they don't know their own names, and if
they did they wouldn't answer to them, so it doesn't matter so very
much after all, _does_ it?'
As it never occurred to Dolly that anybody could have the bad taste to
prefer any one else's conversation to her own, she took entire
possession of Vincent, throwing herself into the couch nearest to him,
and pouring out her views on lovebirds generally to his absent ear.
'They don't know me yet,' she concluded, 'but then I've only had them
six months. Do you know, Harold Caffyn says they're little humbugs,
and kiss one another only when people look at them. I _have_ caught
them fighting dreadfully myself. I don't think lovebirds ought to
fight. Do you? Oh, and Harold says that when one dies I ought to time
the other and see how long it takes him to pine away; but Harold is
always saying horrid things like that.'
'Dolly dear,' cried the governess from the inner room, 'will you run
and ask Colin if he has taken away the metronome to the schoolroom?'
Dolly danced out to hunt for that prosaic instrument in a desultory
way, and then forget it in some dispute with Colin, who generally
welcomed any distraction whilst preparing his school-work--a result
which Fräulein Mozer probably took into account, particularly as she
had the metronome by her side at the time. 'Poor Mr. Vincent!' she
thought; 'he has not come to talk with Dolly of lovebirds.'
'You will be sure to write and tell us all about yourself,' said
Mabel. 'What do you mean to do out there, Vincent?'
'Turn coffee-planter, perhaps,' he said gloomily.
'Oh, Vincent!' she said reproachfully, 'you used to be so ambitious.
Don't you remember how we settled once that you were going to be
famous? You can't be very famous by coffee-planting, can you?'
'If I do that, it is only because I see nothing else to do. But I am
ambitious still, Mabel. I shall not be content with that, if a certain
venture of mine is successful enough to give me hopes of anything
better. But it's a very big "if" at present.'
'What is the venture?' said Mabel. 'Tell me, Vincent; you used to tell
me everything once.'
Vincent had very few traces of his tropical extraction in his nature,
and his caution and reserve would have made him disposed to wait at
least until his book were safe in the haven of printer's ink before
confessing that he was an author.
But Mabel's appeal scattered all his prudence. He had written with
Mabel as his public; with the chief hope in his mind that some day she
would see his work and say that it was well done. He felt a strong
impulse to confide in her now, and have the comfort of her sympathy
and encouragement to carry away with him.
If he had been able to tell her then of his book, and his plans
respecting it, Mabel might have looked upon him with a new interest,
and much that followed in her life might have been prevented. But he
hesitated for a moment, and while he hesitated a second interruption
took place. The opportunity was gone, and, like most opportunities in
conversation, once missed was gone for ever. The irrepressible Dolly
was the innocent instrument: she came in with a big portfolio of black
and white papers, which she put down on a chair. 'I can't find the
metronome anywhere, Fräulein,' she said. 'I've been talking to Colin:
he wants you to come and say good-bye before you go, Vincent. Colin
says he nearly got "swished" to-day, only his master begged him off
because he'd done nothing at all really. Wasn't it nice of him? Ask
him to tell you about it. Oh, and, Vincent, I want your head for my
album. May I cut it out?'
'I want it, myself, Dolly, please,' said Vincent; 'I don't think I can
do without it just yet.'
'I don't mean your real head,' said Dolly, 'I believe you know
that--it's only the outline I want!'
'It isn't a very dreadful operation, Vincent,' said Mabel. 'Dolly has
been victimising all her friends lately, but she doesn't hurt them.'
'Very well, Dolly, I consent,' said Vincent; 'only be gentle with me.'
'Sit down here on this chair against the wall,' said Dolly,
imperiously. 'Mabel, please take the shade off the lamp and put it
over here.' She armed herself with a pencil and a large sheet of white
paper as she spoke. 'Now, Vincent, put yourself so that your shadow
comes just here, and keep perfectly still. Don't move, or talk, or
anything, or your profile will be spoilt!'
'I feel very nervous, Dolly,' said Vincent, sitting down obediently.
'What a coward you must be! Why, one of the boys at Colin's school
said he rather liked it. Will you hold his head steady, Mabel,
please?--no, you hold the paper up while I trace.'
Vincent sat still while Mabel leaned over the back of his chair, with
one hand lightly touching his shoulder, while her soft hair swept
across his cheek now and then. Long after--as long as he lived, in
fact--he remembered those moments with a thrill.
'Now I have done, Vincent,' cried Dolly, triumphantly, after some
laborious tracing on the paper. 'You haven't got _much_ of a profile,
but it will be exactly like you when I've cut it out. There!' she
said, as she held up a life-size head cut out in curling black paper;
'don't you think it's like you, yourself?'
'I don't know,' said Vincent, inspecting it rather dubiously, 'but I
must say I hope it isn't.'
'I'll give you a copy to take away with you,' said Dolly, generously,
as she cut out another black head with her deft little hands. 'There,
that's for you, Vincent--you won't give it away, _will_ you?'
'Shall I promise to wear it always next to my heart, Dolly?'
Dolly considered this question. 'I think you'd better not,' she said
at last: 'it would keep you warm certainly, but I'm afraid the black
comes off--you must have it mounted on cardboard and framed, you
know.'
At this point Mrs. Langton came rustling down, and Vincent rose to
meet her, with a desperate hope that he would be asked to spend the
whole of his last evening with them--a hope that was doomed to
disappointment.
'My dear Vincent,' she said, holding out both her hands, 'so you've
come after all. Really, I was quite afraid you'd forgotten us. Why
didn't somebody tell me Vincent was here, Mabel? I would have hurried
over my dressing to come down. It's so very provoking, Vincent, but I
have to say good-bye in a hurry. My husband and I are going out to
dinner, and he wouldn't come home to change, so he will dress at his
chambers, and I have to go up and fetch him. And it's so late, and
they dine so ridiculously early where we're going, and he's sure to
keep me waiting such a time, I mustn't lose another minute. Will you
see me to the carriage, Vincent? Thanks. Has Marshall put the
footwarmer in, and is the drugget down? Then we'll go, please; and I
wish you every success in--over there, you know, and you must be
careful of yourself and bring home a nice wife.--Lincoln's Inn, tell
him, please.--Good-bye, Vincent, good-bye!'
And she smiled affectionately and waved her long-gloved hand behind
the window as the carriage rolled off, and all the time he knew that
it would not distress her if she never saw him again.
He went slowly back to the warm drawing-room, with its delicate
perfume of violets. He had no excuse for lingering there any
longer--he must say his last words to Mabel and go. But before he
could make up his mind to this another visitor was announced, who must
have come up almost as Mrs. Langton had driven off.
'Mr. Caffyn,' said Champion, imposingly, who had a graceful way of
handing dishes and a dignified deference in his bow which in his own
opinion excused certain attacks of solemn speechlessness and
eccentricity of gait that occasionally overcame him.
A tall, graceful young man came in, with an air of calm and ease that
was in the slightest degree exaggerated. He had short light hair,
well-shaped eyes, which were keen and rather cold, and a firm,
thin-lipped mouth; his voice, which he had under perfect control, was
clear and pleasant.
'Do you mean this for an afternoon call, Harold?' asked Mabel, who did
not seem altogether pleased at his arrival.
'Yes, we're not at home now, are we Mabel?' put in audacious Dolly.
'I was kept rather late at rehearsal, and I had to dine afterwards,'
explained Caffyn; 'but I shouldn't have come in if I had not had a
commission to perform. When I have done it you can send me away.'
Harold Caffyn was a relation of Mrs. Langton's. His father was high up
in the consular service abroad, and he himself had lately gone on the
stage, finding it more attractive than the Foreign Office, for which
he had been originally intended. He had had no reason as yet to regret
his apostasy, for he had obtained almost at once an engagement in a
leading West-end theatre, while his social prospects had not been
materially affected by the change; partly because the world has become
more liberal of late in these matters, and partly because he had
contrived to gain a tolerably secure position in it already, by the
help of a pleasant manner and the musical and dramatic accomplishments
which had led him to adopt the stage as his profession.
Like Holroyd, he had known Mabel from a child, and as she grew up had
felt her attraction too much for his peace of mind. His one misgiving
in going on the stage had been lest it should lessen his chance of
finding favour with her.
This fear proved groundless: Mabel had not altered to him in the
least. But his successes as an amateur had not followed him to the
public stage; he had not as yet been entrusted with any but very minor
_rôles_, and was already disenchanted enough with his profession to be
willing to give it up on very moderate provocation.
'Why, Holroyd, I didn't see you over there. How are you?' he said
cordially, though his secret feelings were anything but cordial, for
he had long seen reason to consider Vincent as a possible rival.
'Vincent has come to say good-bye,' explained Dolly. 'He's going to
India to-morrow.'
'Good-bye!' said Caffyn, his face clearing: 'that's rather sudden,
isn't it, Holroyd? Well, I'm very glad I am able to say good-bye too'
(as there is no doubt Caffyn was). 'You never told me you were off so
soon.'
Holroyd had known Caffyn for several years: they had frequently met in
that house, and, though there was little in common between them, their
relations had always been friendly.
'It was rather sudden,' Holroyd said, 'and we haven't met lately.'
'And you're off to-morrow, eh? I'm sorry. We might have managed a
parting dinner before you went--it must be kept till you come back.'
'What was the commission, Harold?' asked Mabel.
'Oh, ah! I met my uncle to-day, and he told me to find out if you
would be able to run down to Chigbourne one Saturday till Monday soon.
I suppose you won't. He's a dear old boy, but he's rather a dull old
pump to stay two whole days with.'
'You forget he's Dolly's godfather,' said Mabel.
'And he's my uncle,' said Caffyn; 'but he's not a bit the livelier for
that, you know. You're asked, too Juggins.' (Juggins was a name he had
for Dolly, whom he found pleasure in teasing, and who was not deeply
attached to him.)
'Would you like to go, Dolly, if mother says yes?' asked Mabel.
'Is Harold going?' said Dolly.
'Harold does not happen to be asked, my Juggins,' said that gentleman
blandly.
'Then we'll go, Mabel, and I shall take Frisk, because Uncle Anthony
hasn't seen him for a long time.'
Holroyd saw no use in staying longer. He went into the schoolroom to
see Colin, who was as sorry to say good-bye as the pile of
school-books in front of him allowed, and then he returned to take
leave of the others. The governess read in his face that her
well-meant services had been of no avail, and sighed compassionately
as she shook hands. Dolly nestled against him and cried a little, and
the cool Harold felt so strongly that he could afford to be generous
now, that he was genial and almost affectionate in his good wishes.
His face clouded, however, when Mabel said 'Don't ring, Ottilia. I
will go to the door with Vincent--it's the last time.' 'I wonder if
she cares about the fellow!' he thought uneasily.
'You won't forget to write to us as soon as you can, Vincent?' said
Mabel, as they stood in the hall together. 'We shall be thinking of
you so often, and wondering what you are doing, and how you are.'
The hall of a London house is perhaps hardly the place for
love-passages--there is something fatally ludicrous about a
declaration amongst the hats and umbrellas. In spite of a
consciousness of this, however, Vincent felt a passionate impulse
even then, at that eleventh hour, to tell Mabel something of what was
in his heart.
But he kept silence: a surer instinct warned him that he had delayed
too long to have any chance of success then. It was the fact that
Mabel had no suspicion of the real nature of his feelings, and he was
right in concluding as he did that to avow it then would come upon her
as a shock for which she was unprepared.
Fräulein Mozer's inclination to a sentimental view of life, and
Caffyn's tendency to see a rival in every one, had quickened their
insight respectively; but Mabel herself, though girls are seldom the
last to discover such symptoms, had never thought of Vincent as a
possible lover, for which his own undemonstrative manner and
procrastination were chiefly to blame.
He had shrunk from betraying his feelings before. 'She can never care
for me,' he had thought; 'I have done nothing to deserve her--I am
nobody,' and this had urged him on to do something which might qualify
him in his own eyes, until which he had steadily kept his own counsel
and seen her as seldom as possible.
Then he had written his book; and though he was not such a fool as to
imagine that any woman's heart could be approached through print
alone, he could not help feeling on revising his work that he had done
that which, if successful, would remove something of his own
unworthiness, and might give him a new recommendation to a girl of
Mabel's literary sympathy.
But then his father's summons to Ceylon had come--he was compelled to
obey, and now he had to tear himself away with his secret still
untold, and trust to time and absence (who are remarkably overrated as
advocates by the way) to plead for him.
He felt the full bitterness of this as he held both her hands and
looked down on her fair face with the sweet eyes that shone with a
sister's--but only a sister's--affection. 'She would have loved me in
time,' he thought; 'but the time may never come now.'
He did not trust himself to say much: he might have asked and
obtained a kiss, as an almost brother who was going far away, but to
him that would have been the hollowest mockery.
Suppressed emotion made him abrupt and almost cold, he let her hands
drop suddenly, and with nothing more than a broken 'God bless you,
Mabel, good-bye, dear, good-bye!' he left the house hurriedly, and the
moment after he was alone on the hill with his heartache.
'So he's gone!' remarked Caffyn, as she re-entered the drawing-room
after lingering a few moments in the empty hall. 'What a dear, dull
old plodder it is, isn't it? He'll do much better at planting coffee
than he ever did at law--at least, it's to be hoped so!'
'You are very fond of calling other people dull, Harold,' said Mabel,
with a displeased contraction of her eyebrows. 'Vincent is not in the
least dull: you only speak of him like that because you don't
understand him.'
'I didn't say it disparagingly,' said Caffyn. 'I rather admire
dulness; it's so restful. But as you say, Mabel, I dare say I don't
understand him: he really doesn't give a fellow a fair chance. As far
as I know him, I _do_ like him uncommonly; but, at the same time, I
must confess he has always given me the impression of being, don't you
know, just a trifle heavy. But very likely I'm wrong.'
'Very likely indeed,' said Mabel, closing the subject. But Caffyn had
not spoken undesignedly, and had risked offending her for the moment
for the sake of producing the effect he wanted; and he was not
altogether unsuccessful. 'Was Harold right?' she thought later.
'Vincent is very quiet, but I always thought there was power of some
sort behind; and yet--would it not have shown itself before now? But
if poor Vincent _is_ only dull, it will make no difference to me; I
shall like him just as much.'
But, for all that, the suggestion very effectually prevented all
danger of Vincent's becoming idealised by distance into something more
interesting than a brother--which was, indeed, the reason why Caffyn
made it.
Vincent himself, meanwhile, unaware--as all of us would pray to be
kept unaware--of the portrait of himself, by a friend, which was being
exhibited to the girl he loved, was walking down Ladbroke Hill to
spend the remainder of his last evening in England in loneliness at
his rooms; for he had no heart for anything else.
It was dark by that time. Above him was a clear, steel-blue sky; in
front, across the hollow, rose Campden Hill, a dim, dark mass,
twinkling with lights. By the square at his side a German band was
playing the garden music from 'Faust,' with no more regard for
expression and tunefulness than a German band is ever capable of; but
distance softened the harshness and imperfection of their rendering,
and Siebel's air seemed to Vincent the expression of his own
passionate, unrequited devotion.
'I would do anything for her,' he said, half aloud, 'and yet I dared
not tell her then.... But if I ever come back to her again--before it
is too late--she shall know all she is and always will be to me. I
will wait and hope for that.'