"BUT HERE IS ONE WHO LOVES YOU AS OF OLD."
After this Leonard sulked, and the aspect of home life at Mount Royal
became cloudy and troubled. He was not absolutely uncivil to his cousin,
but he was deeply resentful, and he showed his resentment in various
petty ways--descending so low as to give an occasional sly kick to
Randie. He was grumpy in his intercourse with his mother; he took every
opportunity of being rude to Miss Bridgeman; he sneered at all their
womanly occupations, their charities, their church-going. That domestic
sunshine which had so gladdened the widow's heart, was gone for ever, as
it seemed. Her son now snatched at every occasion for getting away from
home. He dined at Bodmin one night--at Launceston, another. He had
friends to meet at Plymouth, and dined and slept at the "Duke of
Cornwall." He came home bringing worse devils--in the way of ill-temper
and rudeness--than those which he had taken away with him. He no longer
pretended the faintest interest in Christabel's playing--confessing
frankly that all classical compositions, especially those of Beethoven,
suggested to him that far-famed melody which was fatal to the
traditional cow. He no longer offered to make her a fine
billiard-player. "No woman ever could play billiards," he said,
contemptuously--"they have neither eye nor wrist; they know nothing
about strengths; and always handle their cue as if it was Moses's rod,
and was going to turn into a snake and bite 'em."
Mrs. Tregonell was not slow to guess the cause of her son's changed
humour. She was too intensely anxious for the fulfilment of this chief
desire of her soul not to be painfully conscious of failure. She had
urged Leonard to speak soon--and he had spoken--with disastrous result.
She had seen the angry cloud upon her son's brow when he came home from
that tête-à-tête ride with Christabel. She feared to question him, for
it was her rash counsel, perhaps, which had brought this evil result to
pass. Yet she could not hold her peace for ever. So one evening, when
Jessie and Christabel were dining at Trevalga Rectory, and Mrs.
Tregonell was enjoying the sole privilege of her son's company, she
ventured to approach the subject.
"How altered you have been lately"--lately, meaning for at least a
month--"in your manner to your cousin, Leonard," she said, with a feeble
attempt to speak lightly, her voice tremulous with suppressed emotion.
"Has she offended you in any way? You and she used to be so very sweet
to each other."
"Yes, she was all honey when I first came home, wasn't she, mother?"
returned Leonard, nursing his boot, and frowning at the lamp on the low
table by Mrs. Tregonell's chair. "All hypocrisy--rank humbug--that's
what it was. She is still bewailing that fellow whom you brought
here--and, mark my words, she'll marry him sooner or later. She threw
him over in a fit of temper, and pride, and jealousy; and when she finds
she can't live without him she'll take some means of bringing him back
to her. It was all your doing, mother. You spoiled my chances when you
brought your old sweetheart's son into this house. I don't think you
could have had much respect for my dead father when you invited that man
to Mount Royal."
Mrs. Tregonell's mild look of reproach might have touched the hardest
heart; but it was lost on Leonard, who sat scowling at the lamp, and did
not once meet his mother's eyes.
"It is not kind of you to say that, Leonard," she said gently; "you
ought to know that I was a true and loving wife to your father, and that
I have always honoured his memory, as a true wife should. He knew that I
was interested in Angus Hamleigh's career, and he never resented that
feeling. I am sorry your cousin has rejected you--more sorry than even
you yourself can be, I believe--for your marriage has been the dream of
my life. But we cannot control fate. Are you really fond of her, dear?"
"Fond of her? A great deal too fond--foolishly--ignominiously fond of
her--so fond that I am beginning to detest her."
"Don't despair then, Leonard. Let this first refusal count for nothing.
Only be patient, and gentle with her--not cold and rude, as you have
been lately."
"It's easy to talk," said Leonard, contemptuously. "But do you suppose I
can feel very kindly towards a girl who refused me as coolly as if I had
been asking her to dance, and who let me see at the same time that she
is still passionately in love with Angus Hamleigh? You should have seen
how she blazed out at me when I mentioned his name--her eyes
flaming--her cheeks first crimson and then deadly pale. That's what love
means. And, even if she were willing to be my wife to-morrow, she would
never give me such love as that. Curse her," muttered the lover between
his clenched teeth; "I didn't know how fond I was of her till she
refused me--and now, I could crawl at her feet, and sue to her as a
palavering Irish beggar sues for alms, cringing and fawning, and
flattering and lying--and yet in my heart of hearts I should be savage
with her all the time, knowing that she will never care for me as she
cared for that other fellow."
"Leonard, if you knew how it pains me to hear you talk like that," said
Mrs. Tregonell. "It makes me fearful of your impetuous, self-willed
nature."
"Self-will be----! somethinged!" growled Leonard. "Did you ever know a
man who cultivated anybody else's will? Would you have me pretend to be
better than I am--tell you that I can feel all affection for the girl
who preferred the first stranger who came in her way to the playfellow
and companion of her childhood?"
"If you had been a little less tormenting, a little less exacting with
her in those days, Leonard, I think she would have remembered you more
tenderly," said Mrs. Tregonell.
"If you are going to lecture me about what I was as a boy we'd better
cut the conversation," retorted Leonard. "I'll go and practise the
spot-stroke for half an hour, while you take your after-dinner nap."
"No, dear, don't go away. I don't feel in the least inclined for sleep.
I had no idea of lecturing you, Leonard, believe me; only I cannot help
regretting, as you do, that Christabel should not be more attached to
you. But I feel very sure that, if you are patient, she will come to
think differently by-and-by."
"Didn't you tell me to ask her--and quickly?"
"Yes, that was because I was impatient. Life seemed slipping away from
me--and I was so eager to be secure of my dear boy's happiness. Let us
try different tactics, Leo. Take things quietly for a little--behave to
your cousin just as if there had been nothing of this kind between
you--and who knows what may happen."
"I know of one thing that may and will happen next October, unless the
lady changes her tune," answered Leonard, sulkily.
"What is that?"
"I shall go to South America--do a little mountaineering in the
Equatorial Andes--enjoy a little life in Valparaiso, Truxillo--Lord
knows where! I've done North America, from Canada to Frisco, and now I
shall do the South."
"Leonard, you would not be so cruel as to leave me to die in my
loneliness; for I think, dear, you must know that I have not long to
live."
"Come, mother, I believe you fancy yourself ever so much worse than you
really are. This jog-trot, monotonous life of yours would breed vapours
in the liveliest person. Besides, if you should be ill while I am away,
you'll have your niece, whom you love as a daughter--and perhaps your
niece's husband, this dear Angus of yours--to take care of you."
"You are very hard upon me, Leonard--and yet, I went against my
conscience for your sake. I let Christabel break with her lover. I said
never one word in his favour, although I must have known in my heart
that they would both be miserable. I had your interest at heart more
than theirs--I thought, 'here is a chance for my boy.'"
"You were very considerate--a day after the fair. Don't you think it
would have been better to be wise before the event, and not to have
invited that coxcomb to Mount Royal?"
He came again and again to the charge, always with fresh bitterness. He
could not forgive his mother for this involuntary wrong which she had
done to him.
After this he went off to the solitude of the billiard-room, and a
leisurely series of experiments upon the spot-stroke. It was his only
idea of a contemplative evening.
He was no less sullen and gloomy in his manner to Christabel next
morning at breakfast, for all his mother had said to him overnight. He
answered his cousin in monosyllables, and was rude to Randie--wondered
that his mother should allow dogs in her dining-room--albeit Randie's
manners were far superior to his own.
Later in the morning, when Christabel and her aunt were alone, the girl
crept to her favourite place beside Mrs. Tregonell's chair, and with her
folded arms resting on the cushioned elbow, looked up lovingly at the
widow's grave, sad face.
"Auntie, dearest, you know so well how fondly I love you, that I am sure
you won't think me any less loving and true, if I ask you to let me
leave you for a little while. Let me go away somewhere with Jessie, to
some quiet German town, where I can improve myself in music, and where
she and I can lead a hard-working, studious life, just like a couple of
Girton girls. You remember, last year you suggested that we should
travel, and I refused your offer, thinking that I should be happier at
home; but now I feel the need of a change."
"And you would leave me, now that my health is broken, and that I am so
dependent on your love?" said Mrs. Tregonell, with mild reproachfulness.
Christabel bent down to kiss the thin, white hand that lay on the
cushion near her--anxious to hide the tears that sprang quickly to her
eyes.
"You have Leonard," she faltered. "You are happy, are you not, dearest,
now Leonard is at home again?"
"At home--yes, I thank God that my son is under my roof once more. But
how long may he stay at home? How much do I have of his company--in and
out all day--anywhere but at my side--making every possible excuse for
leaving me? He has begun, already, to talk of going to South America in
the autumn. Poor boy, he is restless and unhappy; and I know the reason.
You must know it too, Belle. It is your fault. You have spoiled the
dream of my life."
"Auntie, is this generous, is this fair?" pleaded Christabel, with her
head still bent over the pale wasted hand.
"It is natural at least," answered the widow, impetuously. "Why cannot
you care for my boy, why cannot you understand and value his devotion?
It is not an idle fancy--born of a few weeks' acquaintance--not the last
new caprice of a battered _roué_, who offers his worn-out heart to you
when other women have done with it. Leonard's is the love of long
years--the love of a fresh unspoiled nature. I know that he has not
Angus Hamleigh's refinement of manner--he is not so clever--so
imaginative--but of what value is such surface refinement when the man's
inner nature is coarse and profligate. A man who has lived among impure
women must have become coarse; there must be deterioration, ruin, for a
man's nature in such a life as that," continued Mrs. Tregonell,
passionately, her resentment against Angus Hamleigh kindling as she
thought how he had ousted her son. "Why should you not value my boy's
love?" she asked again. "What is there wanting in him that you should
treat him so contemptuously? He is young, handsome, brave--owner of
this place of which you are so fond. Your marriage with him would bring
the Champernowne estate together again. Everybody was sorry to see it
divided. It would bring together two of the oldest and best names in the
county. You might call your eldest son Champernowne Tregonell."
"Don't, Auntie, don't go on like that," entreated Christabel,
piteously: "if you only knew how little such arguments influence me:
'the glories of our rank and state are shadows, not substantial
things.' What difference do names and lands make in the happiness
of a life? If Angus Hamleigh had been a ploughman's son, like
Burns--nameless--penniless--only just himself, I should have loved him
exactly the same. Dearest, these are the things in which we cannot be
governed by other people's wisdom. Our hearts choose for us; in spite of
us. I have been obliged to think seriously of life since Leonard and I
had that unlucky conversation the other day. He told you about it,
perhaps?"
"He told me that you refused him."
"As I would have refused any other man, Auntie. I have made up my mind
to live and die unmarried. It is the only tribute I can offer to one I
loved so well."
"And who proved so unworthy of your love," said Mrs. Tregonell, moodily.
"Do not speak of him, if you cannot speak kindly. You once loved his
father, but you seem to have forgotten that. Let me go away for a little
while, Auntie--a few months only, if you like. My presence in this house
only does harm. Leonard is angry with me--and you are angry for his
sake. We are all unhappy now--nobody talks freely--or laughs--or takes
life pleasantly. We all feel constrained and miserable. Let me go, dear.
When I am gone you and Leonard can be happy together."
"No, Belle, we cannot. You have spoiled his life. You have broken his
heart."
Christabel smiled a little contemptuously at the mother's wailing.
"Hearts are not so easily broken," she said, "Leonard's least of all. He
is angry because for the first time in his life he finds himself
thwarted. He wants to marry me, and I don't want to marry him. Do you
remember how angry he was when he wanted to go out shooting, at eleven
years of age, and you refused him a gun? He moped and fretted for a
week, and you were quite as unhappy as he was. It is almost the first
thing I remember about him. When he found you were quite firm in your
refusal, he left off sulking, and reconciled himself to the inevitable.
He will do just the same about this refusal of mine--when I am out of
his sight. But my presence here irritates him."
"Christabel, if you leave me I shall know that you have never loved me,"
said Mrs. Tregonell, with sudden vehemence. "You must know that I am
dying--very slowly, perhaps--a wearisome decay for those who can only
watch and wait, and bear with me till I am dead. But I know and feel
that I am dying. This trouble will hasten my end, and instead of dying
in peace, with the assurance of my boy's happy future--with the
knowledge that he will have a virtuous and loving wife, a wife of my own
training, to guide him and influence him for good--I shall die
miserable, fearing that he may fall into evil hands, and that evil days
may come upon him. I know how impetuous, how impulsive he is; how easily
governed through his feelings, how little able to rule himself by hard
common-sense. And you, who have known him all your life--who know the
best and worst of him--you can be so indifferent to his happiness,
Christabel. How can I believe, in the face of this, that you ever loved
me, his mother?"
"I have loved you as _my_ mother," replied the girl, with her arms round
her aunt's neck, her lips pressed against that pale thin cheek. "I love
you better than any one in this world. If God would spare you for years
to come, and we could live always together, and be all in all to each
other as we have been, I think I could be quite happy. Yes, I could feel
as if there were nothing wanting in this life. But I cannot marry a man
I do not love, whom I never can love."
"He would take you on trust, Belle," murmured the mother, imploringly;
"he would be content with duty and good faith. I know how true and loyal
you are, dearest, and that you would be a perfect wife. Love would come
afterwards."
"Will it make you happier if I don't go away, Auntie?" asked Christabel,
gently.
"Much happier."
"Then I will stay; and Leonard may be as rude to me as he likes; he may
do anything disagreeable, except kick Randie; and I will not murmur. But
you and I must never talk of him as we have talked to-day: it can do no
good."
After this came much kissing and hugging, and a few tears; and it was
agreed that Christabel should forego her idea of six months' study of
classical music at the famous conservatoire at Leipsic.
She and Jessie had made all their plans before she spoke to her aunt;
and when she informed Miss Bridgeman that she had given way to Mrs.
Tregonell's wish, and had abandoned all idea of Germany, that
strong-minded young woman expressed herself most unreservedly.
"You are a fool!" she exclaimed. "No doubt that's an outrageous remark
from a person in my position to an heiress like you; but I can't help
it. You are a fool--a yielding, self-abnegating fool! If you stay here
you will marry that man. There is no escape possible for you. Your aunt
has made up her mind about it. She will worry you till you give your
consent, and then you will be miserable ever afterwards."
"I shall do nothing of the kind. I wonder that you can think me so
weak."
"If you are weak enough to stay, you will be weak enough to do the other
thing," retorted Jessie.
"How can I go when my aunt looks at me with those sad eyes, dying
eyes--they are so changed since last year--and implores me to stop? I
thought you loved her, Jessie?"
"I do love her, with a fond and grateful affection. She was my first
friend outside my own home; she is my benefactress. But I have to think
of your welfare, Christabel--your welfare in this world and the world to
come. Both will be in danger if you stay here and marry Leonard
Tregonell."
"I am going to stay here; and I am not going to marry Leonard. Will that
assurance satisfy you? One would think I had no will of my own."
"You have not the will to withstand your aunt. She parted you and Mr.
Hamleigh; and she will marry you to her son."
"The parting was my act," said Christabel.
"It was your aunt who brought it about. Had she been true and loyal
there would have been no such parting. If you had only trusted to me in
that crisis, I think I might have saved you some sorrow; but what's done
cannot be undone."
"There are some cases in which a woman must judge for herself,"
Christabel replied, coldly.
"A woman, yes--a woman who has had some experience of life: but not a
girl, who knows nothing of the hard real world and its temptations,
difficulties, struggles. Don't let us talk of it any more. I cannot
trust myself to speak when I remember how shamefully he was treated."
Christabel stared in amazement. The calm, practical Miss Bridgeman spoke
with a passionate vehemence which took the girl's breath away; and yet,
in her heart of hearts, Christabel was grateful to her for this sudden
flash of anger.
"I did not know you liked him so much--that you were so sorry for him,"
she faltered.
"Then you ought to have known, if you ever took the trouble to remember
how good he always was to me, how sympathetic, how tolerant of my
company when it was forced upon him day after day, how seemingly
unconscious of my plainness and dowdiness. Why there was not a present
he gave me which did not show the most thoughtful study of my tastes and
fancies. I never look at one of his gifts--I was not obliged to fling
his offerings back in his face as you were--without wondering that a
fine gentleman could be so full of small charities and delicate
courtesy. He was like one of those wits and courtiers one reads of in
Burnet--not spotless, like Tennyson's Arthur--but the very essence of
refinement and good feeling. God bless him! wherever he is."
"You are very odd sometimes, Jessie," said Christabel, kissing her
friend, "but you have a noble heart."
There was a marked change in Leonard's conduct when he and his cousin
met in the drawing-room before dinner. He had been absent at luncheon,
on a trout-fishing expedition; but there had been time since his return
for a long conversation between him and his mother. She had told him how
his sullen temper had almost driven Christabel from the house, and how
she had been only induced to stay by an appeal to her affection. This
evening he was all amiability, and tried to make his peace with Randie,
who received his caresses with a stolid forbearance rather than with
gratification. It was easier to make friends with Christabel than with
the dog, for she wished to be kind to her cousin on his mother's
account.
That evening the reign of domestic peace seemed to be renewed. There
were no thunder-clouds in the atmosphere. Leonard strolled about the
lawn with his mother and Christabel, looking at the roses, and planning
where a few more choice trees might yet be added to the collection. Mrs.
Tregonell's walks now rarely went beyond this broad velvet lawn, or the
shrubberies that bordered it. She drove to church on Sundays, but she
had left off visiting that involved long drives, though she professed
herself delighted to see her friends. She did not want the house to
become dull and gloomy for Leonard. She even insisted that there should
be a garden party on Christabel's twenty-first birthday; and she was
delighted when some of the old friends who came to Mount Royal that day
insinuated their congratulations, in a tentative manner, upon Miss
Courtenay's impending engagement to her cousin.
"There is nothing definitely settled," she told Mrs. St. Aubyn, "but I
have every hope that it will be so. Leonard adores her."
"And it would be a much more suitable match for her than the other,"
said Mrs. St. Aubyn, a commonplace matron of irreproachable lineage: "it
would be so nice for you to have her settled near you. Would they live
at Mount Royal?"
"Of course. Where else should my son live but in his father's house?"
"But it is your house."
"Do you think I should allow my life-interest in the place to stand in
the way of Leonard's enjoyment of it," exclaimed Mrs. Tregonell. "I
should be proud to take the second place in his house--proud to see his
young wife at the head of his table."
"That is all very well in theory, but I have never seen it work out well
in fact," said the Rector of Trevalga, who made a third in the little
group seated on the edge of the wide lawn, where sportive youth was
playing tennis, in half a dozen courts, to the enlivening strains of a
military band from Bodmin barracks.
"How thoroughly happy Christabel looks," observed another friendly
matron to Mrs. Tregonell, a little later in the afternoon: "she seems to
have quite got over her trouble about Mr. Hamleigh."
"Yes, I hope that is forgotten," answered Mrs. Tregonell.
This garden party was an occasion of unspeakable pain to Christabel. Her
aunt had insisted upon sending out the invitations. There must be some
kind of festival upon her adopted daughter's coming of age. The
inheritor of lands and money was a person whose twenty-first birthday
could not be permitted to slip by unmarked, like any other day in the
calendar.
"If we were to have no garden party this summer people would say you
were broken-hearted at the sad end of last year's engagement, darling,"
said Mrs. Tregonell, when Christabel had pleaded against the
contemplated assembly, "and I know your pride would revolt at that."
"Dear Auntie, my pride has been levelled to the dust, if I ever had any;
it will not raise its head on account of a garden party."
Mrs. Tregonell insisted, albeit even her small share of the
preparations, the mere revision of the list of guests--the discussion
and acceptance of Jessie Bridgeman's arrangements--was a fatigue to the
jaded mind and enfeebled body. When the day came the mistress of Mount
Royal carried herself with the old air of quiet dignity which her
friends knew so well. People saw that she was aged, that she had grown
pale and thin and wan; and they ascribed this change in her to anxiety
about her niece's engagement. There were vague ideas as to the cause of
Mr. Hamleigh's dismissal--dim notions of terrible iniquities, startling
revelations, occurring on the very brink of marriage. That section of
county society which did not go to London knew a great deal more about
the details of the story than the people who had been in town at the
time and had seen Miss Courtenay and her lover almost daily. For those
daughters of the soil who but rarely crossed the Tamar the story of Miss
Courtenay's engagement was a social mystery of so dark a complexion that
it afforded inexhaustible material for tea-table gossip. A story, of
which no one seemed to know the exact details, gave wide ground for
speculation, and could always be looked at from new points of view.
And now here was the same Miss Courtenay smiling upon her friends, fair
and radiant, showing no traces of last year's tragedy in her looks or
manners; being, indeed, one of those women who do not wear their hearts
upon their sleeves for daws to peck at. The local mind, therefore,
arrived at the conclusion that Miss Courtenay had consoled herself for
the loss of one lover by the gain of another, and was now engaged to her
cousin.
Clara St. Aubyn ventured to congratulate her upon this happy issue out
of bygone griefs.
"I am so glad," she said, squeezing Christabel's hand, during an
inspection of the hot-houses. "I like him so much."
"I don't quite understand," replied Christabel, with a freezing look:
"who is it whom you like? The new Curate?"
"No dear, don't pretend to misunderstand me. I am so pleased to think
that you and your cousin are going to make a match of it. He is so
handsome--such a fine, frank, open-hearted manner--so altogether nice."
"I am pleased to hear you praise him," said Christabel, still supremely
cold; "but my cousin is my cousin, and will never be anything more."
"You don't mean that?"
"I do--without the smallest reservation."
Clara became thoughtful. Leonard Tregonell was one of the best matches
in the county, and he had always been civil to her. They had tastes in
common, were both horsey and doggy, and plain-spoken to brusqueness. Why
should not she be mistress of Mount Royal, by-and-by, if Christabel
despised her opportunities?
At half-past seven, the last carriage had driven away from the porch;
and Mrs. Tregonell, thoroughly exhausted by the exertions of the
afternoon, reclined languidly in her favourite chair, moved from its
winter-place by the hearth, to a deep embayed window looking on to the
rose-garden. Christabel sat on a stool at her aunt's feet, her fair head
resting against the cushioned elbow of Mrs. Tregonell's chair.
"Well, Auntie, the people are gone and the birthday is over. Isn't that
a blessing?" she said lightly.
"Yes, dear, it is over, and you are of age--your own mistress. My
guardianship expires to-day. I wonder whether I shall find any
difference in my darling now she is out of leading-strings."
"I don't think you will, Auntie. I have not much inclination for
desperate flights of any kind. What can freedom or the unrestricted use
of my fortune give me, which your indulgence has not already given? What
whim or fancy of mine have you ever thwarted? No, Aunt Di, I don't
think there is any scope for rebellion on my part."
"And you will not leave me, dear, till the end?" pleaded the widow.
"Your bondage cannot be for very long."
"Auntie! how can you speak like that, when you know--when you must know
that I have no one in the world but you, now--no one, dearest," said
Christabel, on her knees at her aunt's feet, clasping and kissing the
pale transparent hands. "I have not the knack of loving many people.
Jessie is very good to me, and I am fond of her as my friend and
companion. Uncle Oliver is all goodness, and I am fond of him in just
the same way. But I never _loved_ any one but you and Angus. Angus is
gone from me, and if God takes you, Auntie, my prayer is that I may
speedily follow you."
"My love, that is a blasphemous prayer: it implies doubt in God's
goodness. He means the young and innocent to be happy in this
world--happy and a source of happiness to others. You will form new
ties: a husband and children will console you for all you have lost in
the past."
"No, aunt, I shall never marry. Put that idea out of your mind. You will
think less badly of me for refusing Leonard if you understand that I
have made up my mind to live and die unmarried."
"But I cannot and will not believe that, Belle: whatever you may think
now, a year hence your ideas will have entirely altered. Remember my own
history. When George Hamleigh died I thought the world--so far as it
concerned me--had come to an end, that I had only to wait for death. My
fondest hope was that I should die within the year, and be buried in a
grave near his--yet five years afterwards I was a happy wife and
mother."
"God was good to you," said Christabel, quietly, thinking all the while
that her aunt must have been made of a different clay from herself.
There was a degradation in being able to forget: it implied a lower kind
of organism than that finely strung nature which loves once and once
only.