AFTER THE BALL.
“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh
and fair; How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary, fu’
o’ care! Ye’ll break my heart, ye warbling birds That wanton
through the flow’ry thorn; Ye mind me o’ departed joys, Departed
never to return.”
IT was a very dark night. The full moon, whose services had been
reckoned upon to light the guests to and from the Lingthurst ball,
was not in an obliging humour. She had gone to bed again in the
clouds so early, and the curtains behind which she had hidden herself
were so thick, that, for all the use she had been of, she might as
well not have risen at all. It was so dark that the cautious old
Greystone coachman thought it necessary to drive extra slowly; it
seemed to Cicely that hours, if not whole days, or nights rather, had
passed, when at last they turned in at the Abbey gates.
Not that she cared. She was not eager to be home now—what comfort
could meet her there?—anywhere? What was anything in life to her
now? What was life itself? A horrible mockery, a delusion, a sham
from beginning to end. There was no goodness, no loyalty, no truth.
All these things she had once—long ago it seemed already—believed
in so firmly, that till now she had never realised how largely such
faith had formed a part of her existence, or how frightful could be
the results of its destruction. Already she had tasted the bitterest
drop of the bitter cup; she had been deceived by her nearest and
dearest—by the one of all the world who should have been true to
her.
“If even he had trusted me,” she moaned, “if he had come and
told me all, I could have borne it. I am not beautiful as she is, I
could have forgiven him; I could have believed that this new love had
come upon him unawares, and that he had fought against it. If he had
trusted me!”
To Geneviève, to her share in the whole, Cicely, in this first chaos
of misery and indignation somehow hardly gave a thought. She shrank
from her, it is true. She was thankful that Geneviève’s silence
prevented the necessity of addressing her, but whatever Geneviève
had done, however great her portion of responsibility, she was only
Geneviève—a new-comer, a comparative stranger. False-hearted,
scheming, unscrupulous she might be—in a sense it did not seem to
matter; for her conduct there was at least the possibility of the
excuse of ignorance and inexperience,—there was not the aggravation
of a broken vow, of life-long affection trampled under foot.
Over and over again during the three quarters of an hour’s drive
from Lingthurst these bitter thoughts chased each other round
Cicely’s excited brain. The practical results of her discovery, the
explanation she must come to with Trevor, what she must say to her
parents, how they would look upon Geneviève—all these points she
as yet forgot to consider. Extreme misery makes even the best of us
selfish for the time. In Cicely’s nature there was no lack of
magnanimity, but the first instinct of the victim is not to heap
coals of fire upon the head of him whose hand has dealt the cruel
blow. Forgiveness, sincere and generous, would come in due time; but
not yet. It was no small injury which Cicely Methvyn had received;
that it would leave a life-long scar there could be no doubt: would
the wound ever heal? was the question at present. Could the faith,
once shattered so cruelly, ever again be made whole?
“If I live to be a hundred I can never endure greater suffering
than that of this evening,” thought Cicely, as the carriage stopped
at last and the cousins got out. That her present suffering could be
increased—even, in a sense, overwhelmed by an anguish of a totally
different nature—she would have maintained to be all but
impossible. At twenty we are apt to be over hasty in declaring that
we have already drunk of misery to the very dregs.
The hall-door was opened quickly. The light streaming out into the
darkness dazzled Cicely’s eyes for the instant; she did not notice
who it was that was standing just inside, evidently awaiting her. She
was passing on, followed by Geneviève and the maid, when a slight
exclamation from the latter startled her, and almost at the same
moment the sound of her own name caused her to stop short.
“Miss Methvyn,” said a voice, which at first in her bewilderment
she failed to recognise, “Miss Methvyn, will you wait a moment.”
Cicely turned; there before her stood the man from whom but a few
hours before she had parted, as he said, for ever. What was he doing
here again? What had brought him to Greystone in the middle of the
night? Once, only once before had he been there at so unseasonable an
hour. Cicely shuddered as she recalled that once before. He saw the
shudder, even then, through the great unselfish pity which was
softening his voice and shining out of his grave eyes; he caught the
involuntary movement and groaned in his heart.
“It is hard, very hard upon me to have to break it to her,” he
said to himself. “I, that am already repulsive to her. What can I
say to soothe or comfort? Why did they not send for Mr. Fawcett?”
Cicely stood still. Her pale face had little colour to lose; but what
there was faded out of it utterly as she gazed, in but half-conscious
terror, at Mr. Guildford. Quick as lightning the thought flashed
through her mind, “I had forgotten about papa—I had actually
forgotten about papa!” Aloud she only said, in a voice that even to
herself sounded unnaturally hard and cold, “What is it, Mr.
Guildford? What is it you have to tell me. If it is—any thing
wrong, why did you not send for me before?”
“I have not been here very long,” began Mr. Guildford with a sort
of apology in his manner very new to him. “It was by Mrs.
Methvyn’s wish I waited here to see you when you first came in. We
should have sent for you at once, an hour ago that is to say, if—if
it had been any use.”
“What do you mean?” said Cicely fiercely.
Mr. Guildford glanced round him with a silent appeal. “Will no one
help me?” his look seemed to say. Parker had disappeared, but
Geneviève was still standing close behind Cicely, and to her his
eyes travelled. She understood him, but instead of responding to his
unspoken request, she covered her face with her hands, uttered a
smothered cry, and rushed away.
“Little fool,” muttered Mr. Guildford, between his teeth.
But Cicely did not seem to have observed her cousin’s defalcation.
She stood there, still in the same attitude, before Mr. Guildford,
and still there was an approach to fierceness in her tone, as she
repeated her inquiry. “What do you mean? Tell me what you mean.”
Then the young man gathered up his courage.
“I mean,” he said slowly, speaking with an effort which he did
not attempt to conceal, “I mean that even if you had been sent for
the very moment Colonel Methvyn was taken ill, it would have been no
use. He was utterly unconscious from the first he never spoke
again—from the very commencement of the attack there was nothing
whatever to be done; not all the doctors in Europe could have
restored him to consciousness, or prolonged his life, for five
minutes. And, I think,” he added, speaking still more slowly and
reluctantly, “I think it was better so.”
Cicely had kept her eyes fixed upon him while he spoke; they seemed
to drag the unwilling words out of him by the intensity of their
gaze, something in their expression made him instinctively conscious
that any attempt at softening what he had to tell, any common-place
expressions of sympathy and regret would have been utterly futile;
the girl could not have taken in their meaning. Now, when he left
off speaking, the strain seemed to slacken; the terrible stony stare
left her eyes; she threw out her hands like a child in terror—as if
for protection and support. “You mean,” she said, “oh! I know
what you mean—but you mustn’t say it. Why didn’t you do
anything? Why didn’t you come sooner? I can’t, indeed I can’t
bear it.”
What could he do—what could he say? The relentless summons had gone
forth—Cicely Methvyn was fatherless. It was very hard upon him!
“I would have given ten years of my life to save him for you, if he
could have been saved. I would have cut off my right hand rather than
have been the one to tell you. I cannot bear to see you suffer,” he
broke out passionately. Then he turned away from her, in despair,
ashamed of his want of self-control, heart-broken that he could say
nothing to comfort her.
The sight of his distress awoke the unselfishness that seldom
slumbered long in Cicely’s heart.
“Forgive me,” she exclaimed, “forgive me. I didn’t know what
I was saying. I will try to bear it, indeed I will. I know nothing
could have been done, if you say so. Tell me about it—tell me how
it was—but must I not go to mamma?”
Mr. Guildford shook his head. “No, not yet,” he said, “she was
very much excited. I was a little alarmed about her, and gave her
something to soothe her. I think she has fallen asleep. I promised to
wait here to meet you, and that seemed to satisfy her.”
Then he told her all he knew. He had been sent for about ten
o’clock, but, by the time he reached Greystone, even Mrs. Methvyn
had seen that his coming would be of no avail; the life had all but
flickered out already. “It was as I always feared it would be,”
said Mr. Guildford, hesitating again. “I always dreaded the effect
of any great shock.”
He looked at Cicely inquiringly. Had she anticipated anything of the
kind; was she in the least acquainted with the nature of the shock,
which for some time must have been impending?
“A great shock,” she repeated, “what great shock? He did not
know—”
She stopped short. With lightning-like rapidity her mind flew back to
the events of that evening—could her father have come to the
knowledge of what she had discovered? But almost before she had time
to dismiss the idea as wild and improbable in the last degree, Mr.
Guildford’s next words put it altogether to flight.
“It was some news that came in a telegram this evening, that—that
brought on this attack,” he said reluctantly, not feeling sure of
his ground with Cicely, but judging it wisest to put her in
possession at once of all that there was to tell. By the expression
of her face, he saw at once that she did not in the least know to
what he referred.
“What was the telegram about? Did you see it?” she demanded.
He hesitated again. “You had better tell me,” said Cicely,
“that is, unless mamma did not want me to know.”
“Oh! no; Mrs. Methvyn wished me to tell you everything. The
telegram was about the failure of some company in which Colonel
Methvyn had largely invested. It told him of a great loss of
property.”
“And was that all?” said Cicely. “As if that would have
mattered! Oh! Mr. Guildford, why should he have taken that to heart
so?”
“It was only natural that he should do so,” said Mr. Guildford.
There was no necessity at present for telling her how great he
suspected the extent of the calamity to be, and indeed just now the
loss of a few hundred pounds or of a quarter of a million would have
been looked upon by Cicely as matters of equal indifference. “It
was only natural he should have felt it as he did,” he repeated.
“That is why I think, perhaps, it is best his consciousness never
returned. He would only have awakened to distress and anxiety, and at
the very best his life could only have been prolonged for a few
hours.”
“But he would have known us, he could have said good-bye; we could
have told him how little we cared about the loss of the money,”
cried Cicely. “Oh! I cannot think it is better never to have seen
him again—I cannot.”
For the first time the tears came into her eyes. She sat down and
cried unrestrainedly, refusing to be comforted.
Mr. Guildford left her. He was anxious to know if Mrs. Methvyn was
asleep. On the staircase he met the housekeeper.
“Miss Cicely is in the hall—alone,” he said. “She knows. I
have told her. Do you think you can get her to go to bed?”
Poor Mrs. Moore’s eyes were streaming. She could not speak, but she
nodded her head and set off in the direction of the hall, so Mr.
Guildford felt that his task was accomplished.
Cicely went to bed, and, strange as it may seem, to sleep. She was
only twenty; she had never been really ill in her life, and sorrow
was unfamiliar to her; there were vigour and vitality enough in her
to stand a much more prolonged attack from adversity, though, as she
laid her head on her pillow, she said to herself that but for her
mother she would pray never to wake again.
“It could not be wrong,” she thought. “Except mother nobody
wants me. Amiel has her husband, but poor mamma has only me now.”
And the thought seemed a something to cling to; it made the idea of
living on, notwithstanding the wreck of her future, endurable, if
nothing more. So Cicely slept.
Who does not know the awful agony of the first waking after some
overwhelming sorrow has befallen us? The shuddering glimmer of
recollection that something has happened, the frantic clutch at the
blessed unconsciousness of the sleep that is leaving us, the wild
refusal to recall the truth! And, oh! the unutterable loathing at
life, at existence even when at last we realize the whole and find
that another day has dawned, that the heartless sunshine is over the
world again, that we ourselves must eat and drink and clothe
ourselves, and live! If we could see that our individual misery made
its mark, if the birds would only leave off singing, if the flowers
would all wither, if a veil could be drawn over the sun, would it
seem quite so bad?
“No,” thought Cicely, “if the trees and the flowers and all the
living things seemed to care, I think I could endure it. But they
don’t—they don’t! The world is brighter than ever this morning,
though the brightness has died out of my life for ever.”
She was standing by the open window in her room. She had forgotten
that the blinds should be drawn down, and was gazing with reproachful
appreciation at the beauty of the autumn morning. Yesterday it would
have filled her with delight, to-day its very perfection repelled and
wounded her. Even Nature, with whose varying moods she had been ever
so ready to sympathize, whose face she had learnt to know so well,
had played her false. “Why is it so fine to-day?” she said to
herself; “why is it not cloudy and raining? Why should it ever be
anything else, there must always have been, there always must be,
thousands of people to whom the sunshine is as dreadful as it is
to-day to me.”
She turned wearily away, and began to think what she had to do. She
had been with her mother already this morning, and poor Mrs. Methvyn
had clung to her in a way that was pitiful to see.
“You won’t leave me just yet, my darling,” her mother had
whispered, and Cicely felt thankful that she could give her the
assurance she asked for, without at present adding to her sorrows by
explaining the real state of the case. And this reflection led to
another. Her father had at least been spared the knowledge of
Trevor’s faithlessness.
“Yes,” thought Cicely, “I can be thankful for that.”
Then suddenly she recollected what Mr. Guildford had told her of the
news contained in the fatal telegram. Her mother had not alluded to
it. “We will talk about everything afterwards. Not yet,” she had
said to Cicely. What could “everything” mean? Could it be that
the loss of property, the tidings of which had, she reflected with a
shudder, actually killed her father; could it be that this loss was
something very great? For herself she did not care; but when she
thought of her delicate mother, a vague apprehension for the first
time made itself felt. She wished that she had asked Mr. Guildford to
tell her more; from his manner she fancied he was in possession of
fuller details than he had mentioned to her; but for this it was now
too late. Mr. Guildford had gone back to Sothernbay; the chances were
that she would not see him again, as in all probability he would now
hasten his departure from the neighbourhood.
“He need not have asked me to release him from his promise,” she
said to herself with a sort of sorrowful bitterness.
There came a knock at the door. It was Parker.
“If you please, Miss Cicely,” she began timidly, “Miss Casalis
has been asking how you are. She would be so pleased if you would let
her come and sit with you, or do anythink; anythink she says she
would be so pleased to do.”
“Tell her there is nothing whatever she can do to help me, or my
mother. And for to-day, at least, Parker, I wish to be left quite
alone.”
The cold tone was discouraging, but the pale wan face and poor
swollen eyes, moved Parker to another effort.
“Miss Casalis do seem very miserable,” she said insinuatingly.
“I should not have thought she was a young lady as would have taken
it to heart so. I don’t think she closed a eye last night. I do
wish, Miss Cicely, my dear, you would let her come and sit with you.
She’s wandering about like a ghost. She seems as if she could
settle to nothing.”
Parker’s conscience was pricked by the sight of Geneviève’s
distress. She felt that she had done her injustice. Only the evening
before, she had been far from amiably disposed to the girl, whose
fresh loveliness had won the universal admiration which, according to
the old servant’s way of thinking, belonged of right to “her own
young lady,” and any appearance of indifference or carelessness
would have confirmed her prejudice. But that Geneviève was in real
distress, no one could doubt. “She must have a tender heart, for
all her flighty, foreign ways,” thought Parker, and she waited with
some anxiety for the result of her second appeal.
“I am sorry for her,” said Cicely slowly. The thought of the
miserable little figure wandering about alone in the desolate rooms
downstairs, the remembrance of Geneviève’s great brown, velvety
eyes with the tears in them, moved her in spite of herself. “I am
very sorry for her,” she repeated with a quiver in her voice. “I
dare say she is very unhappy, but, Parker, I really cannot see her. I
don’t want to see any one—not even, remember, Parker, not even
Mr. Fawcett if he calls to-day.”
Parker gazed at her young lady in astonishment. “Not Mr. Trevor!”
she exclaimed under her breath.
“No; I wish to see no one,” repeated Cicely.
“There is never any telling how trouble will change people,”
thought the old servant philosophically. “Poor Miss Cicely
doesn’t hardly know how she feels yet; we must let her have her own
way for awhile.”
She was leaving the room when Cicely called her back. “On second
thoughts,” she said, speaking with an effort, “you may tell Miss
Casalis that if she likes to come up here in half an hour or so, I
will ask her to write some letters for me.”
Parker departed in triumph. Half an hour later Geneviève, pale,
worn-looking, with great black circles under her eyes, and dressed in
the plain black gown in which she had travelled from Hivèritz, crept
into the room; Cicely looked at her and her heart melted.
“Will you write these letters for me, Geneviève?” she said,
pointing to a slip of paper on which she had written down some
addresses. “I can easily tell you what to say. Mother asked me to
see about her mourning—and I think you had better write home to-day
to tell your mother what has happened.”
Her lips quivered, she turned her head away. Geneviève threw her
arms round her.
“Oh! Cicely, dear Cicely, I do love you. I do. I am so sorry, oh! I
am so sorry. Oh, Cicely, I wish I had never come here!”
Cicely disengaged herself gently, very gently, from her cousin’s
embrace.
“I am glad you are sorry for our sorrow, Geneviève,” she said
quietly, “even though it is impossible you should understand all
we—I—am feeling.”
Geneviève looked up at her with a puzzled air. “I thought you were
colder than you are,” she said. “Perhaps I have mistaken you
altogether. I—I don’t know what to do. Shall I go home—to
Hivèritz to-day, this afternoon? You would never hear of me again.
Would you like me to go?”
“What do you mean, Geneviève?” asked Cicely sternly. “Why
should I wish you to go? Do you know any reason why I should?”
Geneviève grew scarlet. In her excitement and confusion of thought,
she had almost persuaded herself that Cicely must suspect her secret,
or that, if this were not so, that she must confess it. But now that
the opportunity offered, her natural cowardice returned and tied her
tongue. “I do not know what I mean,” she said. “I thought,
perhaps, now that you are sad, I should be a trouble to you.”
Cicely looked at her. “You have no reason to think so,” she said
coldly. But she did not press Geneviève to explain herself further.
“I shall say what I have to say to Trevor, and to him alone,” she
resolved.
Geneviève had begun to cry again. “I am so unhappy, so very
unhappy,” she said miserably.
“I am sorry for you,” said Cicely kindly.
“You would not be if you knew the whole, why I am so unhappy,”
sobbed Geneviève.
“Yes, I should be. If I thought even that your unhappiness was of
your own causing, that you deserved it,” said Cicely impressively,
“still I should be sorry for you—more sorry, perhaps.”
“You are very good. I will never again say you are not,”
exclaimed Geneviève impulsively. “You deserve to be happy, Cicely,
and I am very sorry for your troubles. I am very sorry you have lost
a father so kind, so indulgent. And, oh! Cicely,” she continued
impetuously, “can it be that it is also true that you have lost all
your riches?”
At any other time the indescribable tragedy of Geneviève’s manner
as she reached this climax in her recital of her cousin’s
misfortunes would have provoked Cicely to smile. As it was, she
turned from her with some impatience. “What would it matter if it
were true?” she said wearily. “How can you think of such things
just now? You should not listen to servants’ gossip.”
“I did not mean to listen. I could not help hearing,” replied
Geneviève timidly. “Cicely says it would not matter to her if she
had lost all,” she said to herself. “She must then be sure he
will marry her. And I!—he will be sorry for her now; he will think
no more of me.”
And the letters Geneviève wrote that morning were plentifully
bedewed with tears.