A NEW TERROR.
“It is not for what he would be to me now, If he still were here,
that I mourn him so: It is for the thought of a broken vow, And for
what he was to me long ago.”
Lord Houghton.
LAST days are generally sad, sometimes terrible things. Sad enough
were these last days at Greystone: Cicely felt thankful when they
were over, though once gone, she would have given years of life to
recall them. It was a relief to both her mother and herself when
Geneviève left them, and they were free to take farewell of the
places they had loved so dearly, without the painful associations of
her presence, gentle and subdued as she remained to the end. It was a
relief to them, and they were conscious too that it could not but be
a relief to her.
“I shall tell my mother all,” she had said to Cicely, and Cicely
was glad to hear of her intention.
“You are right to tell her, Geneviève,” she said, “though no
one else would ever have done so.”
But Geneviève’s confession was deferred. She did not, after all,
return to Hivèritz as proposed, for there came news from Madame
Casalis of a fever having broken out in the household, which
threatened to be of a serious kind and without doubt infectious; one
of the boys and little Eudoxie were already prostrated by it; the
latter, it was feared, likely to have it badly. Under these
circumstances, therefore, it was proposed by Geneviève’s parents
that she should only go as far as Paris and stay there under the care
of an old school friend of Madame Casalis, who was by no means averse
to receiving as a visitor the ‘promise’ of a wealthy young
‘milord.’ Geneviève shed tears over her mother’s letter,
expressed herself désolée at the thought of the anxiety in her
family, but ended by deciding that her persisting in returning home
to the modest little house in the Rue de la Croix blanche, would only
add to her mother’s trouble and distress.
“It is best I should go to Madame Du plessis,” she said
resignedly. “As mamma wishes it, it is best I should not ask still
to go home.”
And her satisfaction with her own decision was not a little increased
when, the night before she was to leave, her aunt gave her, to expend
upon her trousseau, a sum of money which was now to Mrs. Methvyn by
no means the trifle it would have been a few weeks before.
“She is my relation, however she has behaved,” said Cicely’s
mother. “It would never do for her to enter the Fawcetts’ family
without a proper outfit.”
“And I can get everything in Paris,” thought Geneviève
delightedly. And her expressions of gratitude were so evidently
sincere that even Mrs. Methvyn’s heart was a little softened to
her, and she bade her good-bye with more kindliness of manner than
might have been expected.
It ended in Geneviève’s remaining in Paris till her marriage—her
father and mother joining her there only a few days before it took
place. How much or how little, therefore, of the true history of her
daughter’s love affairs was confided to Madame Casalis, Cicely did
not till long afterwards know, though from the tone of her letters to
Mrs. Methvyn it was evident that “poor Caroline’s” satisfaction
in Geneviève’s brilliant prospects was not unalloyed.
“I would not conceal from you, my dear and kind Helen,” she
wrote, “that I am glad for my child to be well settled in life. But
my grief and sorrow for you prevent my being able to rejoice as I
might otherwise have done. And though you tell me, and it is no doubt
the case that the breaking off of your Cicely’s engagement was by
her own desire, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that it is
unnatural and strange that Geneviève should so quickly have
succeeded her in Mr. Fawcett’s regard. I trust neither he nor my
daughter may regret what seems to have been done hastily. She tells
me she will explain all when we meet; she says your goodness and that
of the dear Cicely is beyond words. I trust, when I understand more,
I may not learn that my child has not been deserving of it.”
“She is so simple and unworldly!” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Poor
Caroline—how can her daughter have become so different!”
But after reading this letter, she did not again repeat her wish that
Cicely had allowed her to tell Geneviève’s mother the whole truth.
When they first left the Abbey, it was the intention of Mrs. Methvyn
and her daughter at once to make a new home for themselves at
Leobury, a quaintly pretty, quiet little town, far away from
Greystone and its associations. It was at Leobury that Mrs.
Methvyn’s former widowhood had been spent, and it was there too
that after a separation of ten years she had again met her first
love—Philip Methvyn. Leobury was endeared to her for this reason,
and Cicely was only too glad to find her mother able to express
interest on the subject of their home, not to consent readily to what
she proposed. But their plans were not at once carried out. There was
no suitable house to be had at Leobury at the time they left
Greystone. So for nearly a year after Colonel Methvyn’s death, his
widow and daughter were without a settled home.
Summer was again on the wane—it had seemed a short summer to Cicely
compared with that of the previous year—when they at last found
themselves in possession of a pretty little house in the place where,
more than a quarter of a century before, young Mrs. Bruce had come to
live with her two years old Amiel. She had been poor then; poorer far
than now, but in those old days poverty had seemed a smaller matter.
She was young, and she had then never known what it was to be rich;
the husband she had lost had caused her far sorer griefs than that of
his death—she had suffered enough in her short married life to
realise even loneliness as a relief. Now, how different everything
was! For twenty-two years she had been happier than it falls to the
lot of many women to be; hardly a wish of hers had remained
ungratified; till Colonel Methvyn’s accident she had not known a
care—when suddenly the whole had collapsed—for the second time
she found herself a widow, and in comparatively speaking straitened
circumstances, her companion this time a daughter even dearer to her
than little Amiel—a daughter who, young as she was, had known
sorrow and disappointment neither slight nor passing, troubles enough
to have soured a less healthy nature, which her mother was powerless
to soften or heal. It is hardly to be wondered at that, weakened in
strength and nerve, Mrs. Methvyn sometimes found it difficult to look
on the bright side of things.
But what she could not do, time and nature had not neglected. Already
Cicely was recovering from the crushing effects of the blow that had
fallen upon her so unexpectedly. She could look back now without
flinching upon all that had happened, could feel that she was still
young and strong and hopeful, and that the light had not all died out
of her life. To her their loss of riches had been by no means an
unmitigated evil; for though they were not so reduced as to come into
unlovely proximity with poverty, the change in their circumstances
had necessitated the exertion of energy and forethought in their
arrangements, which had been for Cicely a healthy and invigorating
discipline. She felt that she was of use; that, without her, life
would have been a terrible blank to her enfeebled mother; and the
consciousness gave her, as nothing else could have done, strength and
cheerfulness. One thought only she could not face—what would life
be to her now, how would it be possible to endure it were her one
interest removed, her mother taken from her?
“I am risking my all in a frail bark,” she would sometimes say to
herself with a shudder, “but surely if mamma were to die I should
die too. No one could live in such utter desolation.” Yet even as
she said so, a misgiving would suggest itself that such things had
been and might be again; that life, the awful yet priceless gift,
though bestowed unasked, is not therefore so easily to be laid down
as at times we would fain imagine. The “sharp malady” must run
its course; the “appointed bounds” cannot be passed; the “few
days and full of trouble” are to some lonely men and women
lengthened into the many, before there comes the longed-for order of
release, the permission to depart for the unseen land which, wherever
and whatever it may be, is to them more real than any other, since
thither have journeyed before them all whose presence made this earth
a home—the “faces loved and lost awhile;”—yes, there are some
strangely solitary beings in this crowded world of ours.
The first two or three Sundays at Leobury, Cicely was not able to go
to church. Her mother was not very well and shrank from being left
alone. But, at last, by the end of September, there came a Sunday
when there was nothing to prevent Cicely’s at tending the morning
service in the fine old church, but a stone’s throw from her
mother’s house.
It was a beautiful day, soft and balmy; yet already, through the
trees and in the breezes, there came the first far-off notes of the
dying year’s lament—the subdued hush of autumn was perceptible.
“The swallows have gone, I feel sure,” thought Cicely, as she
walked slowly up the quiet village street (for after all Leobury was
hardly deserving of the name of town). “I can always feel that they
are gone.”
She gazed up into the sky, the blue was mellowed and yet paled by the
golden haze of harvest-time. “The summer has gone again,” she
murmured as she passed into the church by an old porch-way with stone
seats at each side, which reminded her of the entrance to Greystone
Abbey—“the old porch at home”—and it was in a sort of dream
that she made her way to a seat in a quiet corner. She hardly noticed
when the service began; she stood up mechanically with those about
her, but her thoughts were far away. Suddenly, without knowing what
had suggested it, she found herself thinking of that Sunday morning,
more than a year ago now, in Lingthurst church—the first Sunday
after Geneviève’s arrival. She remembered how the sunshine bad
streamed into the ugly little building, brightening into brilliant
pink the old woman’s brick dust cloaks, making also more
conspicuous the mildew stains and patches on the plastered walls. She
recalled her feelings of commiseration for the new clergyman on this
his first introduction to his church. What had put all this into her
mind just now? There was nothing in the place to recall
Lingthurst—Leobury church was as picturesque and impressive as
Lingthurst was commonplace; the one was perfect of its kind, the
other glaringly bare and unattractive—the familiar words of the
service had been listened to by Cicely in many churches during the
last few months without recalling any special association. Suddenly
the riddle was solved Two clergymen were officiating; the one, an old
white-headed man with a feeble quavering voice, which contrasted
curiously with the firm clear tones of his assistant priest. From
where Cicely sat, the younger man was not visible, but by moving a
little she obtained a view of him, and understood the trick which the
“quaint witch” had been playing her—she saw before her the
grave, boyish face of Mr. Hayle!
How had he come there? How strange it seemed! A little shiver passed
through her as she recalled the last time she had seen him—it had
been on the night of the Lingthurst ball, the night so full of misery
for her. She had never seen him since then, for though he had called
at the Abbey after her father’s death, she had shrunk from meeting
him again, though far from ungrateful for his kindness and
consideration. And now here he was at Leobury!
“I shall not mind seeing him again now,” thought Cicely, “I
think I am rather glad he is here. Mother liked him. I don’t think
she will have any painful feeling to him, poor little man!”
But the rest of the service passed like a dream. Cicely’s thoughts
were away in the past—wandering in the land of long ago.” She
recalled her happy childhood, her girl hood so full of love and
promise—the sunny days when trouble and sorrow seemed such remote,
all but impossible, possibilities! How Trevor seemed associated with
it all—there was not a walk she had ever taken, not a summer ramble
or winter skating expedition in which his figure did not seem
prominent.
“I wish he had been my brother, really,” sighed Cicely, “then
no one and nothing could ever have separated us!”
It was a torn out page—a page which it would ever be painful to
miss. But she was beginning to realise that the book held
others—others which hereafter she would not shrink from looking
back to and lingering over with loving tenderness of remembrance.
When the service was over, Cicely walked slowly homewards. She was
near her mother’s house, when the sound of her own name made her
look round. Mr. Hayle was behind her.
“Miss Methvyn,” he exclaimed eagerly, his face flushed with
pleasure and the quick rate at which he had been walking, “I
thought it was you. I was sure I could not be mistaken.”
“Did you see me in church?” said Cicely, shaking hands with him
as she spoke. She was pleased to see him, but again, at this first
moment of meeting, there rushed over her the remembrance of the last
time she had spoken to him, and unconsciously a slight constraint
showed itself in her manner.
“Yes,” said Mr. Hayle. “But I was on the look-out for you. I
heard yesterday evening quite accidentally that a lady of your name
had taken a house here, and I began to hope it might be you. I trust
Mrs. Methvyn is well. I—I hope I may come to see her?”
His tone had sobered down to its usual slightly formal gravity, and
his last words sounded somewhat ill-assured and hesitating. Cicely
felt vexed with herself for chilling him.
“I am sure mamma will be pleased to see you,” she said, “when I
tell her of your being here. I was so surprised to see you,” she
continued, “we did not know you had left Lingthurst.” She uttered
the word firmly and distinctly. Mr. Hayle looked more guilty than she.
“I left some months ago,” he said. “I am only here temporarily
however—staying with my uncle who is the rector of Leobury. He is
old and infirm, and I do what I can to help him.”
“Then have you no plans for the future? Why did you leave
Lingthurst? Was it not very sudden?” questioned Cicely.
“I got discouraged there,” he replied. “No one—after you
left—took any interest in things. There was very little I, alone
and unassisted, could do, and that little a less strong man—perhaps
I may say a less energetic man—could do quite as well or better.
So I gave it up. I have plans, but—”
“Did my cousin—Mr. Fawcett, I mean—did he take no interest in
things?” interrupted Cicely. She looked up in Mr. Hayle’s face
without flinching. He could see that she wanted an answer.
“No,” he said hesitatingly. “He is not much there now,
and—and when they are there Lingthurst is generally full of
company. Mrs. Fawcett is fond of amusement.”
“Yes,” said Cicely, “she is young—it is natural she should
be. But Trevor used to speak so much, after you came, about doing
something really to improve Notcotts and all that neglected part; I
am disappointed.”
“He may do so in time. He has had plenty of other things to think
of this last year,” said Mr. Hayle. Then he grew scarlet with fear
that Miss Methvyn should think he was alluding to the past. But
fortunately by this time they had reached Cicely’s home, and it was
easy for her to affect not to notice his discomposure.
“Will you come in?” she said, with her hand on the gate. “I
think mamma will be downstairs—it is half-past twelve—she is
generally dressed by this time.
“Is Mrs. Methvyn not as well as she used to be, then?” inquired
Mr. Hayle, recalling the early hours and active habits of Greystone.
“Oh! dear, yes; she is very well—perfectly well,” said Cicely
quickly. “She says she has grown lazy, that is all. Won’t you
come in and see her for yourself?”
“Not just now, thank you,” he replied. “If I may call
to-morrow, I should like very much to see Mrs. Methvyn.”
“Come to-morrow then, by all means,” said Cicely brightly. She
smiled as she spoke—she was so anxious to convince him of her
cheerfulness and well-being.
“Thank you,” he said simply, with something in his expression
which she did not understand. Then he shook hands again and went away.
“What energy and powers of endurance she has,” he said to
himself. “Such a woman has it in her to do great things.”
Mrs. Methvyn was not in the drawing room when Cicely went in. The
girl ran upstairs.
“Mamma,” she called out, tapping at her mother’s door.
“Come in,” replied Mrs. Methvyn’s voice, and Cicely entered.
Her mother was dressed, sitting in an arm-chair near the fire.
“You are very lazy this morning, mother,” she said laughingly.
“I was very nearly bringing an old friend in to see you. Whom do
you think I met at church?”
“An old friend,” repeated Mrs. Methvyn. “Was it could it have
been Mr. Guildford?”
She spoke so eagerly that Cicely looked at her in surprise; and now
for the first time she observed that her mother was exceedingly pale.
“Mother dear, I am afraid I have startled you,” she said
penitently. “No, it wasn’t Mr. Guildford. It was Mr. Hayle. Shall
you dislike his coming to see you to-morrow.”
“Oh! no. I shall be very glad to see him,” replied Mrs. Methvyn.
But the interest had died out of her voice. She leaned back in her
chair as if exhausted. “Will you see if Parker has come in,
Cicely?” she said. “I sent her out on a message a few minutes
ago. I shall come downstairs in a little while, and then you can
tell me about Mr. Hayle. I did not know he had left—Lingthurst.”
By her the word was pronounced with an evident effort. Just then
Parker came in. “I think this is the same as the last you had,
ma’am,” she said, “but it is not often different chemists
prepare things quite alike.”
She had a small phial in her hand, she did not observe Cicely
standing by.
“What have you been getting mamma medicine for, Parker?” she
said. “She’s not ill.”
Parker started. “It is only the same tonic that Dr. Farmer gave me
long ago,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Go and take off your things, dear.
I shall be down directly.”
Cicely was not satisfied, but she left the room. Later in the
afternoon when she and her mother were alone together, she recurred
to what had been said. “Mamma,” she began, “what made you think
of Mr. Guildford to-day when I told you I had met an old friend?”
“I think I should have been glad if it had been he,” said Mrs.
Methvyn. “I had great confidence in him. I think him very clever.”
“But what about it? You are not ill; you don’t want a doctor,”
said Cicely.
“I don’t know, dear. I don’t think I am very well,” replied
Mrs. Methvyn tremulously. “Long ago—years ago I used to have now
and then a sudden sort of attack, a kind of spasm, which some doctors
thought had to do with my heart. Then for some time these attacks
almost ceased, and I thought it must have been a mistake—but lately
they have returned much more frequently and violently than before.
And—Cicely dear—when I went up to town with Parker that day from
Brighton—I would not let you come, you know—it was to see
Dr.——, the great authority on that class of disease.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said that there was nothing to be done. It was true what I had
been told. He said that—that I might not get worse for a long time,
but that—it is not certain that I shall not.”
“Mamma,” cried Cicely gazing up in her mother’s face with
wildly agonised eyes, “mamma, you are going to die and leave me.
That is what you mean. Why didn’t you tell me before? oh! why
didn’t you?”
“My child, my darling, I could not,” said her mother, the tears
coursing down her thin pale cheeks. “How could I break your heart
again? And it is only quite lately that I have begun to be afraid
about myself—only quite lately. It may pass off again—I may be
with you for many years yet.”
“No,” said Cicely, “no. I feel it coming. Mother, oh! mother,
what shall I do? How can God be so cruel? May not I die too? Oh,
mamma, mamma!”
She burst into an anguish of wild weeping, and for some moments Mrs.
Methvyn did not check her. Then at last she whispered, “Cicely
dearest, will you not try to be calm? For my sake—I cannot bear to
see you go.”
The words recalled Cicely to herself. Yes, she must be calm. The pain
of witnessing such stormy grief would assuredly weaken her mother’s
already feeble hold on life. With a violent effort she checked her
sobs, and fought for self-control. Then she listened to all her
mother had to say; listened, and pretended to believe that her fears
had exaggerated the danger; but in her heart of hearts she knew the
truth—the last drop of bitter sorrow had been poured into the cup
of which, for one so young, she had already drunk deeply.
When Mr. Hayle called the next day, he was shown into the
drawing-room and there found Mrs. Methvyn alone. He stayed with her a
considerable time, but he did not see Cicely at all. When he came
away from the house, his face looked sad and careworn, and he sighed
deeply: “Poor things, poor things!” he murmured to himself. Yet
he was well used to sorrow and suffering! “I will call again in a
day or two if you will allow me,” he said to Mrs. Methvyn at
parting. And she thanked him warmly and begged him to come. “Cicely
will be better again before long,” she said, “and she will like
to see you. It is the first shock that has, as it were, overwhelmed
her,” she added, with a sort of gentle apology of manner that
touched Mr. Hayle greatly. “I will come again soon,” he repeated.
And the next time he came, he found Cicely in the drawing-room with
her mother. They were sitting quietly working and talking, these two
all but broken-hearted women, as if no terrible tragedy hung over
them, as if they found life the easy, even, pleasant thing it looks
to some, till their time of trouble comes too, as in due course it
must.
At first they talked about commonplace things—the weather and
Leobury and some of the people they had come to know there. Then Mr.
Hayle told the two ladies something of his own plans; how he was
likely to get a living in the east end of London, where there would
certainly be no lack of work for mind and body. At another time
Cicely would have listened with the greatest interest—even to-day
her sorrowful absorption of thought could not altogether enchain her.
“And you will throw yourself altogether utterly—into your work, I
suppose,” she said to Mr. Hayle. “I wish I were you. I suppose
with so intense an interest, no personal sorrow would be unendurable.
If you were without a friend on earth, you could still find happiness
in a life so spent.”
“I hope so—I believe so,” replied he, his eyes sparkling with
enthusiasm. “Or if not happiness, something better—better at
least than what we commonly understand by happiness—blessedness.”
“It is the old martyr spirit in another form, I suppose,”
murmured Cicely in a low voice. “I wish I could catch it.”
There fell a little pause. Then with a little hesitation the girl
turned to the young clergyman again.
“Mr. Hayle,” she said, “you remember Mr. Guildford, the
Sothernbay doctor who was so good to my father. You liked him, did
you not? I wonder if by any chance you have kept up correspondence
with him. I should so like to know where he is.”
“I can tell you where he is,” said Mr. Hayle. “I did hear from
him once after he left Sothernshire. Yes I liked him very much
indeed. He is no longer a doctor. He gave up practising when he left
Sothernbay, and accepted some sort of professorship—I forget what
exactly; he had to lecture on scientific subjects, that is about all
I know. And he writes a good deal too; he is becoming very well
known—too well known I fear; for I have heard it said that he is
overworking himself dreadfully. But he is not in England now; he is,
I think, in India, travelling with a party sent out by one of those
learned societies, so I fear my information isn’t of much use.”
“In India,” Cicely repeated sadly, but she said no more.
Soon after, Mr. Hayle left. But he went away, again promising to call
in a day or two.
“Has it tired you, mother?” said Cicely anxiously when he had
gone.
“No, dear. I like him; he is gentle and kind, and I like to see
some one who knew us at home,” she sighed a little. “At one time
I shrank from reviving any of the associations with our old life, but
I am losing that feeling.”
Cicely looked at her with wistful, anguished eyes. “Mother
dearest,” she said, “I don’t think I knew how much you loved
Greystone. Should I have kept it for you? Would you not have got ill
then? I might have hidden it all from you; Trevor would have been
glad to do so, and you need have never known there was any trouble
between us. Was I selfish and hasty—did I sacrifice you to my
pride? Have I done wrong, and is this my punishment?”
“My darling, no—a thousand times no,” replied her mother.
“You could not have married Trevor after—after his disappointing
you so terribly. You could not love where you did not respect. And
you must try to be more hopeful about me, dear, or I shall regret
having told you. I have felt better to-day than for some time past.”
Cicely tried to smile. “I think you do look a little better,” she
said. “Oh! I do so wish Mr. Guildford could have seen you.”
“He could not have done anything more. He said just the same as
Dr.——” replied Mrs. Methvyn. “My wishing to see him was more
a matter of feeling. He was so good to your father, I had learnt to
trust him; for your sake too, I wish he had been able to see me. He
would have understood it all so well.”
“Yes,” said Cicely. “I think he would.”
“He must be becoming quite a great man,” she went on after a
pause; “did you hear what Mr. Hayle said about him?”—“I dare
say,” she added to herself, “I dare say he has forgotten all
about that fancy of his. Men are better off than women; they can
always bury trouble in work.”