THE ANSWER.
A girl of eighteen is popularly supposed to be grown up--to have all
wisdom and knowledge necessary for her guidance and protection through
the supreme difficulties of a woman's lot. When one gets ten years
older, one is apt to think that this is a mistake. Life is not so easy
to learn. The treasures of love, like visions of the Holy Grail, are not
revealed to those who have known none of the waiting, and yearning, and
suffering, and sacrifice that teach their divine nature and their
immeasurable worth.
And to all the vast meanings and solemn mysteries that surround the
great question of right and wrong--the great question of human life--the
spiritual eyesight is blind, or worse than blind, until the experience
of years of mistakes and disillusions brings, little by little, dim
apprehensions of light and truth.
Rachel Fetherstonhaugh, with the snare of her beauty and her sensuous
love of luxurious surroundings newly laid about her feet, entered upon
her kingdom more than ordinarily unprepared.
Poor little, helpless, foolish child! How was she to know that marriage
meant something better than a richly-appointed house and a kind
protector? How could she be held accountable for the commission, or
contemplation, of a crime against her youth and womanhood of whose
nature and consequences she was absolutely ignorant?
She was flitting in and out through the French windows of the
drawing-room one fine morning, with a basket of flowers on her arm,
busily engaged in rearranging the numerous little bouquets that she made
it her business to keep in perennial freshness all about the house, when
Mr. Kingston was announced.
She had seen him several times since the night of the opera; he had left
his card twice when she had been away from home; and Mrs. Hardy had had
polite messages respecting the horse, which had been duly sent for her
approval. He came in now, with his light and jaunty step, bowing low,
and smiling so that his white teeth shone under his Napoleonic
moustache, carrying a large roll of paper in his hand.
"Good morning, Miss Fetherstonhaugh," he exclaimed gaily. "I must
apologise for this early call; but I can never find you at home after
lunch these fine days."
Rachel, who had not seen his approach nor heard him enter the house,
whose hall-door was standing open for her convenience, turned round with
her hands full of flowers. In the sunshine of the morning she looked
more fair and refined than he had ever seen her, he thought. The
plainest little black gown showed her graceful shape to perfection; her
complexion, always so delicate, was flushed and freshened with the wind
and her embarrassment.
As for her hair, half-covered with a shabby garden hat on the back of
her head, it was the central patch of light and colour in the
bright-hued room; he was sure he had never seen hair so silky in texture
and so rich in tint.
His ideal woman, hitherto, had been highly polished and elaborately
appointed; she had been a woman of rank and fashion, in Parisian
clothes, a queen of society, always moving about in state, with her
crown on. But now, in the autumn of his years, all his theories of life
were being overturned by an ignorant little country girl, sprung from
nobody knew where; and a coronet of diamonds would not have had the
charm of that old straw hat, with a wisp of muslin round it, which
framed the sweetest face he had ever seen or dreamed of.
"My aunt is in her room," she stammered hastily; "I will send to tell
her you are here. She will be very glad to see you."
And she called back the servant who had admitted him, and sent a message
upstairs.
Mrs. Hardy, however, did not hurry herself. She was a thrifty
housekeeper still, as in her early days, and devoted her forenoons
religiously to her domestic affairs. Just now she was sorting linen
that had returned from the wash; and, hearing that her niece was in the
drawing-room, she had no scruple about remaining to finish her task.
"Say I will be down directly," she said. And she did not go down for
considerably more than half an hour.
In the meantime Rachel tumbled her flowers into the basket, took off her
hat, and seated herself demurely in a green satin chair.
"It is a lovely morning," she remarked.
"Oh, a charming morning--perfectly charming! You ought to be having a
ride, you know. Have you tried Black Agnes yet?"
"No, not yet. My habit has not come home. They promised to send it last
night, but they did not. I am very anxious to try her. She is the
prettiest creature I ever saw. I--I," beginning to blush violently,
"have not half thanked you for your kindness, Mr. Kingston."
"Pray don't mention it," he replied, waving his hand; "I shall be only
too glad if I am able to give you a little pleasure."
"It is the _greatest_ pleasure," she said, smiling. "But she is so
good--so much too good--I am half afraid to take her out, for fear
anything should happen to her. Uncle Hardy says she is a much better
horse than he wants for me."
"Your uncle had better mind his own business," said Mr. Kingston, with
sudden irritation. "If you are to have a horse at all, you must have one
that is fit to ride, of course."
"But I think it is his business," suggested Rachel, laughingly.
"No; just now it is mine. I mean," he added hastily, a little alarmed at
the expression and colour of her face, "that Black Agnes is mine. And
while I lend her to you she is yours. And I trust you will use her in
every way as if she were actually yours."
"Thank you; you are very kind. I hope nothing _will_ happen to her. I
shall take great care of her, of course. I will not jump fences or
anything of that sort."
"Oh, pray do," urged Mr. Kingston. "She is trained to jump. She has
carried a lady over fences scores of times." The fact was he had only
bought her a few days before, and had selected her from a large and
miscellaneous assortment on account of this special qualification. "I
hope you will let me ride out with you, and show you my old
cross-country hunting leaps. You will not mind jumping fences with her,
if I am with you, and make you do it?"
"No," she said, "for I shall show you that it is not the fault of my
riding if accidents happen."
"Exactly. I am sure it will not be your fault. But we will not have any
accidents--I will take too good care of you. Can't we go out this
afternoon? Oh, I forgot that habit. I'll call on your tailor, if you'll
allow me, and 'exhort' him; shall I? I have done it before, on my own
account, with the most satisfactory results."
"No, thank you," said Rachel, "I would not give you that trouble. He
will send it home when it is ready, I suppose."
And she rose from her chair and began to move about the room, wondering
whether her aunt was ever coming downstairs.
Mr. Kingston thought it would be expedient to change the conversation.
"I have brought you the plans of my house," he said, taking up his roll
of papers, and beginning to spread great sheets on a table near him. "I
meant to have asked your opinion before I began to build it, but--well,
I took it for granted that you would like it as it was."
"Ah, yes," responded Rachel brightly, coming to his side. "Uncle Hardy
said you had begun. And you know I can see all the men and carts from my
window. Oh! oh!"
This enthusiastic exclamation greeted the unrolling of the "front
elevation," which, in faint outlines, filled in with pale washes of grey
and blue and pink, showed her the towers and colonnades of her ideal
palace. When he heard it, Mr. Kingston's heart swelled. He was more
charmed with his pretty creature than ever.
"This, you see," said he, "is the main entrance--fifteen steps. But
won't you sit down? You will see better. And this wing is where the
drawing-rooms are to be," he added, when she had seated herself, and he
had taken a chair beside her. "There are three large rooms in a line,
that can all be thrown together on occasions--when necessary. I have not
decided about the furniture yet, nor the colours of the walls. You must
help me with those things presently. The dados, which are being designed
at home, are to be of carved wood, most of them; mantelpieces to match.
Some of the dados will be of inlaid stone, tiles, and that sort of
thing. I suppose you don't know what a dado is, do you?"
"No," said Rachel, meekly. Whereupon he entered into elaborate
explanations.
"I think I should not like tiles on the wall," she ventured to remark;
"they would feel very cold, wouldn't they?"
"They tell me tile is the proper thing," he replied; "and of course I
want to have everything that is proper. But whatever my--my wife wishes
shall be law, of course. In her own rooms, at any rate, she shall
consult her own taste entirely."
Rachel stared at him, coloured and laughed. "Oh, you did not tell me
about your wife before," she said. "I did not know you were engaged to
be married. That is why you are making haste to build your house? I am
very glad. I congratulate you."
"Do not; do not," he stammered earnestly. "I speak of a possible wife,
because I hope to have a wife some day. I am not engaged. I wish I
were."
"Oh!" she said, looking down bashfully, with oleander blossoms
everywhere. "I beg your pardon."
"I wish I were," he repeated. "But I am going to get ready for that
happy time against it does come. See, these are to be her rooms. They
face the south, and I am going to have a rose garden below them. This is
to be her boudoir. I thought of having the walls and the ceiling painted
in coral. I have noticed that pink lights in a room are very becoming to
a lady's complexion, rather pale on the walls, for the sake of the
pictures. You said you liked plenty of pictures?"
"I? Oh, yes, I like pictures."
"And I did mean to have a dado of very fine, rich tiles to make a
foundation of colour, you know; but you don't like tiles?"
"Oh, but _I_ don't know anything about it, Mr. Kingston! You had better
do what you said--furnish the other rooms, and leave your wife, when you
get one, to choose the decorations of her own herself."
"She _shall_ choose them herself. But, Miss Fetherstonhaugh--"
"Rachel, my dear, your habit has come," said Mrs. Hardy, appearing at
this interesting moment. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Kingston? Pray forgive
me for leaving you so long. I hope you have come to lunch? Oh, yes, you
must stay to lunch, of course. We'll take you into town afterwards, when
we go out to drive."
Mr. Kingston stayed to lunch, and made himself very agreeable. But then
he went into town by himself, and returned in an incredibly short space
of time in riding costume, mounted on a powerful brown horse. During his
absence, Rachel had put on her habit, and found that it fitted her
beautifully; and Black Agnes had been caparisoned, and was pawing the
gravel before the hall door. Mrs. Reade, magnificently attired for a
series of state calls, had appeared upon the scene, and was regulating
all these pleasant circumstances.
"Now then, Mr. Kingston, you must only take her along quiet roads. And
she is not to jump any fences when Ned is not with her."
"Why, Ned?" inquired Mr. Kingston. "I am as learned in fences as Ned,
don't you think?"
"Oh, yes, I know all about that. But it is the look of the thing. You
remember, Rachel, you are not to jump fences."
"No, Beatrice, I won't."
"Have a good gallop, my dear, and enjoy it," the little woman added.
"I'll take care of mamma; and when we have done all our calls we will
come and meet you."
Mr. Kingston stepped jauntily to Black Agnes's side. He was an old
steeplechase rider before he was a successful city merchant, and he
looked ten years younger in his riding-dress. Rachel, with a radiant
face, approached him, and laid her small foot on his proffered palm.
In a moment she was up like a feather, and sitting square and light in
her saddle like a practised horsewoman as she was; and all her
attendants, groom included, looked up at her admiringly. Even Mrs. Hardy
forgot the expense she had been put to.
"The child certainly does look well on horseback," she remarked,
resignedly, as Black Agnes's shining haunches disappeared round a clump
of laurels. "What a figure she has, Beatrice!"
"Oh, dear me, yes!" assented the younger matron pettishly. "Why didn't
_we_ have figures like that!"
Meanwhile, the black mare and the big brown horse paced out into the
road, and for a little while the riders contented themselves with
friendly glances at one another. Rachel was crimson with pride and
bashfulness, looking lovely and riding beautifully, as she could not
but know she was. Mr. Kingston, sharing some measure of her elation and
excitement, was absorbed in looking at and admiring her.
By and bye they had a long canter, which carried them well out into the
country, where there were no houses and no people, and where the shadows
were beginning to rest on the peaceful autumn landscape. And then Mr.
Kingston made her draw rein under a clump of trees, while she looked
back at the city they had left behind, glorified in the light of the
sinking sun.
"So now there is something else you like besides operas and balls?" he
said, laying his hand upon the black mare's silky mane.
"Yes," she replied, drawing a long breath, "and I think this is best of
all! She is like a swallow--she seems to skim the ground! And I--I don't
know when I have felt so happy!"
All his years and his experience went for nothing under these
circumstances, when she looked as sweet as she did now.
"You must keep Black Agnes," he said eagerly. "I will speak to your
uncle. I will not have you riding low-bred brutes. Nothing but the best
is fit for you; you, who know how to ride so well, and enjoy it so much!
You will keep her, to please me?"
If she had been sitting in a green satin drawing-room she would
probably have checked this ardent outburst at an apparently harmless
stage. She would have blushed, and looked grave and majestic; but now
she was, in a sense, intoxicated. She lifted a pair of radiant, grateful
eyes to his face, and she held out her hand impulsively.
"How good you are to me!" she said. "How much pleasure you give me!"
And then, of course, he succumbed altogether.
"That is what I want to do, not now, but always," he said, drawing the
mare's head to his knee, and the small, weak hand to his lips, which had
kissed so many hands, though never with quite the same kind of kiss.
"That is why I am building my house. It is you I wanted to be its
mistress--didn't you know that?--to do just what you like with it, and
with me, and with all I have!" And, when once he had fairly set it
going, the flood of his eloquence, running in a well-channelled groove,
flowed freely, and overwhelmed the poor little novice, who had never
been made love to before.
"I--we--we have only seen each other a few times," she ventured to
suggest at last, but not until her imagination had been captivated by
the splendid prospect before her. She had the colour of a peony in her
cheeks, and frightened tears in her soft child's eyes; but her
experienced lover knew that his cause was gained.
"That has been enough for me," he said. "Once was enough for me." Then,
after a long pause, "Well? Is it to be 'yes' or 'no?'"
"Oh, I don't know!" she stammered desperately, turning her head from
side to side. "I have had no time. Let us wait until we know each other
better."
"_I_ know quite enough," he persisted, "and I am not so young as you are
that I can afford to wait."
She trembled and panted, gathering up her reins and dropping them in an
agony of embarrassment.
"Oh," she said at last, "what can I say? Won't you let me speak to Aunt
Elizabeth?"
"Of course, as soon as you like after you get home. I am not afraid of
Aunt Elizabeth. I know what _she_ will say. But now, dear--while we are
here by ourselves--I want you to tell me, of your own self, whether you
like me--whether you would really like to come and live with me in my
new house? You don't want anybody to help you to make up your mind about
that?"
"No," she whispered, hanging her head, feeling at once terrified and
elated, and wishing to goodness she could see Mrs. Hardy and Beatrice
driving along the lonely empty road.
"You _would_ like it? Turn your face to me and say 'Yes,' just once, and
I won't bother you any more."
She turned her face, scarlet all over her ears and all down her throat,
and she tried to meet his ardent eyes and could not. Her lips shaped
themselves to say "Yes," but no sound would come. However, sound would
have been, perhaps, less expressive than the silence which overwhelmed
her in this proud but dreadful moment. At any rate, Mr. Kingston was
satisfied.