He laughed in a hurried, breathless way, then said quickly, "Is it true that the people who were there are gone?"
"Quite true. They seem to have melted away without any one knowing, in a single night. They were not desirable people."
"So I heard: and gone without leaving any sign?"
"Have they not paid their rent?" said Mrs. Warrender.
"Oh, I don't mean to say that. I know nothing about that. My uncle——" and here he stopped, with an embarrassment which, though Mrs. Warrender was an unsuspicious woman, attracted her notice. "I mean," said Cavendish, perceiving this, and putting force upon himself, "he will of course be glad to get rid of people who apparently could do his property no good."
And after this his spirits seemed to rise a little. He told them that he had some friends near Highcombe, who sometimes in the autumn offered him a few days' shooting. If he got such an invitation this autumn might he come? "It is quite a handy distance from London, just the Saturday-to-Monday distance," he added, looking at Mrs. Warrender with an expression which meant a great deal, which had in it a question, a supplication. And she was so imprudent a woman! and no shadow of Minnie at hand to restrain her. It was on her very lips to give the invitation he asked. Some good angel of a class corresponding in the celestial world to that of Minnie in this, only stopped her in time, and gave a little obliqueness to the response.
"I hope we shall see you often," she said, which was pleasant but discouraging, and then began to talk about the Eustace Thynnes, who were at present of great use to her as a diversion to any more embarrassing subject of conversation. Chatty scarcely spoke during this drive, which seemed to her the last they should take together. The streets flying behind them, the scenes of the brief drama falling back into distance, the tranquillity of home before, and all this exciting episode of life becoming as if it had never been, occupied her mind. She had settled all that in her evening meditation. It was all over; this was what she said to herself. She must not allow even to her own heart any thought of renewal, any idea that the break was temporary. Chatty was aware that she had received all his overtures, all his amiabilities (which was what it seemed to come to) with great and unconcealed pleasure. To think that he had nothing but civility in his mind all the time gave a blow to her pride, which was mortal. She did not wear her pride upon her sleeve, though she had worn her heart upon it. Her nature indeed was full of the truest humility; but there was a latent pride which, when it was reached, vibrated through all her being. No more, she was saying to herself. Oh, never more. She had been deceived, though most likely he had never wished to deceive her. It was she who had deceived herself; but that was not possible, ever again.
"We have not thanked you half enough," said Mrs. Warrender, as he stood at the door of the railway carriage. "I will tell Theo that you have been everything to us. If you are as good to all the mothers and sisters of all your old schoolfellows——"
"You do me a great wrong," he said, "as if I thought of you as the mother of——" His eyes strayed to Chatty, who met them with a smile which was quite steady. She was a little pale, but that was all. "Some time," he added hastily, holding Mrs. Warrender's hand, "I may be able to explain myself a little better than that."
"Shall I say if you are as kind to all forlorn ladies astray in London?"
Dick's face clouded over as if (she thought) he were about to cry. Men don't cry in England, but there is a kind of mortification, humiliation, a sense of being persistently misunderstood, and of having no possibility of mending matters, which is so insupportable that the lip must quiver under it, even when garnished with a moustache. "I hope you don't really think that of me," he cried. "Don't! there is no time to tell you how very different—But surely you know—something more than that——"
The train was in motion already and Chatty had shaken hands with him before. She received the last look of his eyes, half indignant, appealing, though in words it was to her mother he was speaking; but made no sign. And it was only Mrs. Warrender who looked out of the window and waved her hand to him, as he was left behind. Chatty—Chatty who was so gentle, so little apt to take anything upon her, even to judge for herself, was it possible that on this point she was less soft-hearted than her mother? This thought went through him like an arrow as he stood and saw the carriages glide away in a long curving line. She was gone and he was left behind. She was gone, was it in resentment, was it in disdain? thinking of him in his true aspect as a false lover, believing him to have worn a false semblance, justly despising him for an attempt to play upon her. Was this possible? He thought (with that oblique sort of literary tendency of his) of Hamlet with the recorder. Can you play upon this pipe?—and yet you think you can play upon me! As a matter of fact there could nothing have been found in heaven or earth less like Hamlet than Chatty Warrender; but a lover has strange misperceptions. The steady soft glance, the faint smile, not like the usual warm beaming of her simple face, seemed to him to express a faculty of seeing through and through him which is not always given to the greatest philosophers. And he stood there humiliated to the very dust by this mild creature, whom he had loved in spite of himself, to whom even in loving her he had attributed no higher gifts, perhaps had even been tenderly disrespectful of as not clever. Was she the one to see through him now?
If she only knew! but when Dick, feeling sadly injured and wounded, came to this thought, it so stung him that he turned round on the moment, and, neglecting all the seductions of waiting cabmen, walked quickly, furiously, to Lincoln's Inn, which he had been sadly neglecting. If she knew everything! it appeared to Dick that Chatty's clear dove's eyes (to which he all at once had attributed an insight and perception altogether above them) would slay him with the disdainful dart which pierces through and through subterfuge and falsehood. That he should have ventured, knowing what he knew, to approach her at all with the semblance of love: that he should have dared,—oh, he knew, well he knew, how, once the light of clear truth was let down upon it, his conduct would appear,—not the mere trifler who had amused himself and meant no more, not the fool of society, who made a woman think he loved her, and "behaved badly," and left herplanté là. What were these contemptible images to the truth! He shrank into himself as he pursued these thoughts and skulked along. He felt like a man exposed and ashamed, a man whom true men would avoid. "Put in every honest hand a whip,"—ah no, that was not wanted. Chatty's eyes, dove's eyes, too gentle to wound, eyes that knew not how to look unkindly, to conceal a sentiment, to veil a falsehood—one look from Chatty's eyes would be enough.
Chatty knew nothing of the tragic terror which had come upon him at the mere apprehension of this look of hers. She had no thought of any tragedy, except that unknown to men which often becomes the central fact in a life such as hers; the tragedy of an unfinished chapter in life, the no-ending of an episode which had promised to be the drama in which almost every human creature figures herself (or himself) as the chief actor, one time or other. The drama indeed had existed, it had run almost all its course, for the time it lasted it had been more absorbing than anything else in the world. The greatest historical events beside it had been but secondary. Big London, the greatest city in the world, had served only as a little bosquet of evergreens in a village garden might have done, as the background and scene for it. But it had no end; the time of the action was accomplished, the curtain had fallen, and the lights had been put out, but the comedy had come to no conclusion. Comedy-tragedy; it does not matter much which words you use. The scenes had all died away in incompleteness, and there had been no end. To many a gentle life such as that of Chatty might be, this is all that ever happens beyond the level of the ordinary and common. It was with a touch of insight altogether beyond her usual intellectual capacity that she realised this as she travelled very quietly with her mother from London to Highcombe, not a very long way. Mrs. Warrender was very silent too. She had meant the visit to town to be one of pleasure merely,—pleasure for herself, change after the long monotony, and pleasure to her child who had never known anything but that monotony. It was not, this little epoch of time only three weeks long, to count for anything. It was to be a holiday and no more. And lo! with that inexplicableness, that unforeseenness which is so curious a quality of human life, it had become a turning point of existence, the pivot perhaps upon which Chatty's being might hang. Mrs. Warrender was not so decided as Chatty. She saw nothing final in the parting. She was able to imagine that secondary causes, something about money, some family arrangements that would have to be made, had prevented any further step on Dick's part. To her the drama indeed was not ended: the curtain had only fallen legitimately upon the first act without prejudice to those which were to follow. She did not talk, for Chatty's silence, her unusual dignity, her retirement into herself, had produced a great effect upon her mother; but her mind was not moved as Chatty's was, and she was able to think with pleasure of the new home awaiting them, and of what they were to find there. The Eustace Thynnes! she said to herself, with a laugh, thanking Providence within herself that there had been no Minnie to inspect the progress of the relations between Dick and Chatty, and probably to deliver her opinion very freely on that subject and on her mother's responsibility. Then there was the more serious chapter of Theo and his affairs which must have progressed in the meantime. Mrs. Warrender caught herself up with a little fright as she thought of the agitation and doubt which wrapped the future of both her children. It was a wonderful relief to turn to the only point from which there was any amusement to be had, the visit of the Eustace Thynnes.
The return of the Warrenders to their home was not the usual calm delight of settling again into one's well-known place. The house at Highcombe was altogether new to their experiences, and meant a life in every way different, as well as different surroundings. It was a tall red brick house, with a flight of steps up to the door, and lines of small, straight, twinkling windows facing immediately into the street, between which and the house there was no interval even of a grass plot or area. The garden extended to the right with a long stretch of high wall, but the house had been built at a period when people had less objection to a street than in later times. The rooms within were of a good size but not very high; some of them were panelled to the ceiling with an old-fashioned idea of comfort and warmth. The drawing-room was one of these, a large oblong room to the front with a smaller one divided from it by folding-doors, which looked out upon the garden. It possessed, as its great distinction, a pretty marble mantelpiece, which some one of a previous generation had brought from Italy. It is sad to be obliged to confess that the panelling here had been painted, a warm white, like the colour of a French salon, with old and dim pictures of no particular merit let in here and there,—pictures which would have been more in keeping with the oak of the original than with the present colour of the walls. The house had been built by a Warrender, in the end of the seventeenth century, and though it had been occupied by strangers often, and let to all sorts of people, a considerable amount of the furniture, and all the decorations, still belonged to that period. The time had not come for the due appreciation of these relics of ancestral taste. Chatty thought them all old-fashioned, and would gladly have replaced them by fresh chairs and tables from the upholsterers: but this was an expense not to be thought of, and, perhaps, even to eyes untrained in any rules of art, there was something harmonious in the combination. Something harmonious, too, with Chatty's feelings was in the air of old tranquillity and long established use and wont. The stillness of the house was as the stillness of ages. Human creatures had come and gone, as the days went and came, sunshine coming in at one moment, darkness falling the next, nothing altering the calm routine, the established order. Pains and fevers and heartbreaks, and death itself, would disappear and leave no sign, and all remain the same in the quaint rose-scented room. The quiet overawed Chatty, and yet was congenial. She felt herself to have come "home" to it, with all illusions over. It was not just an ordinary coming back after a holiday,—it was a return, a settling down for life.
It would be difficult to explain how it was that this conviction had taken hold of her so strongly. It was but a month since she had left the Warren with her mother, with some gentle anticipations of pleasure, but none that were exaggerated or excessive. All that was likely to happen, as far as she knew, was that dinner party at Mrs. Benson's, and a play or two, and a problematical ball. This was all that the "vortex" meant about which her mother had laughed; she had not any idea at that time that the vortex would mean Dick Cavendish. But now that she fully understood what it meant, and now that it was all over, and her agitated little bark had come out of it, and had got upon the smooth calm waters again, there had come to Chatty a very different conception both of the present and the past. All the old quiet routine of existence seemed to her now a preface to that moment of real life. She had been working up to it vaguely without knowing it. And now it had ended, and this was the Afterwards. She had come back—after. These words had to her an absolute meaning. Perhaps it was want of imagination which made it so impossible for her to carry forward her thoughts to any possible repetition, any sequel of what had been; or perhaps some communication, unspoken, unintended, from the mind of Cavendish had affected hers and given a certainty of conclusion, of the impossibility of further development. However that might be, her mind was entirely made up on this subject. She had lived (for three weeks), and it was over. And now existence was all Afterwards. She found scarcely any time for her habitual occupations while she was in London, but now there would be time for everything. Afterwards is long, when one is only twenty-four, and it requires a great deal of muslin work and benevolence to fill it up in a way that will be satisfactory to the soul; but still, to ladies in the country it is a very well known state, and has to be faced, and lived through all the same. To a great many people life is all afternoon, though not in the sense imagined by the poet: not the lotus-eating drowsiness and content, but a course of little hours that lead to nothing, that have no particular motive except that mild duty which means doing enough trimming for your new set of petticoats and carrying a pudding or a little port wine to the poor girl who is in a consumption in the lane behind your house. This was the Afterwards of Chatty's time, and she settled down to it, knowing it to be the course of nature. Nowadays, matters have improved: there is always lawn tennis and often ambulance lectures, and far more active parish work. But even in those passive days it could be supported, and Chatty made up her mind to it with a great, but silent courage. But it made her very quiet, she who was quiet by nature. The land where it is always afternoon chills at first and subdues all lively sentiments. The sense of having no particular interest, took possession of her mind as if it had been an absorbing interest, and drew a veil between her and the other concerns of life.
This was not at all the case with Mrs. Warrender, who came home with all the agreeable sensations of a new beginning, ready to take up new lines of existence, and to make a cheerful centre of life for herself and all who surrounded her. If any woman should feel with justice that she has reached the Afterwards, and has done with her active career, it should be the woman who has just settled down after her husband's death to the humbler house provided for her widowhood apart from all her old occupations and responsibilities. But in reality there was no such sentiment in her mind. "You'll in your girls again be courted." She had hanging about her the pleasant reflection of that wooing, never put into words, with which Dick Cavendish had filled the atmosphere, and which had produced upon the chief object of it so very different an effect; and she had the less pleasurable excitement of Theo's circumstances, and of all that was going on at Markland, a romance in which her interest was almost painful, to stimulate her thoughts. The Eustace Thynnes did not count for much, for their love-making had been very mild and regular, but still, perhaps, they aided in the general quickening of life. She had three different histories thus going on around her, and she was placed in a new atmosphere, in which she had to play a part of her own. When Chatty and she sat down together in the new drawing-room for the first time with their work and their plans, Mrs. Warrender's talk was of their new neighbours and the capabilities of the place. "The rector is not a stupid man," she said, in a reflective tone. The proposition was one which gently startled Chatty. She lifted her mild eyes from her work, with a surprised look.
"It would be very sad for us if he was stupid," she said.
"And Mrs. Barham still less so. What I am thinking of is society, not edification. Then there is Colonel Travers, whom we used to see occasionally at home, the brother, you know, of ——. An old soldier is always a pleasant element in a little place. The majority will of course be women like ourselves, Chatty."
"Yes, mamma, there are always a great many ladies about Highcombe."
Mrs. Warrender gave forth a little sigh. "In a country neighbourhood we swamp everything," she said; "it is a pity. Too many people of one class are always monotonous: but we must struggle against it, Chatty."
"Dear mamma, isn't ladies' society the best for us? Minnie always said so. She said it was a dreadful thing for a girl to think of gentlemen."
"Minnie always was an oracle. To think of gentlemen whom you were likely to fall in love with, and marry, perhaps—but I don't think there are many of that class here."
"Oh no," said Chatty, returning to her work, "at least I hope not."
"I am not at all of your opinion, my dear. I should like a number of them; and nice girls too. I should not wish to keep all these dangerous personages for you."
"Mamma!" said Chatty, with a soft reproachful glance. It seemed a desecration to her to think that ever again—that ever another——
"That gives a little zest to all the middle-aged talks. It amuses other people to see a little romance going on. You were always rather shocked at your light-minded mother, Chatty."
"Mamma! it might be perhaps very sad for—for those most concerned, though it amused you."
"I hope not, my darling. You take things too seriously. There is, to be sure, a painful story now and then, but very rarely. You must not think that men are deceivers ever, as the song says."
"Oh no," said Chatty, elevating her head with simple pride, though without meeting her mother's eyes, "that is not what I would say. But why talk of such things at all? why put romances, as you call them, into people's heads? People may be kind and friendly without anything more."
Mrs. Warrender here paused to study the gentle countenance which was half hidden from her, bending over the muslin work, and for the first time gained a little glimpse into what was going on in Chatty's heart. The mother had long known that her own being was an undiscovered country for her children; but it was new to her and a startling discovery that perhaps this innocent creature, so close to her, had also a little sanctuary of her own, into which the eyes most near to her had never looked. She marked the little signs of meaning quite unusual to her composed and gentle child—the slight quiver which was in Chatty's bent head, the determined devotion to her work which kept her face unseen—with a curious confusion in her mind. She had felt sure that Dick Cavendish had made a difference in life to Chatty; but she had not thought of this in any but a hopeful and cheerful way. She was more startled now than she dared say. Had there been any explanation between them which she had not been told of? Was there any obstacle she did not know? Her mind was thrown into great bewilderment, too great to permit of any exercise of her judgment suddenly upon the little mystery—if mystery there was.
"I did not mean to enter into such deep questions," she said, in a tone which she felt to be apologetic. "I meant only a little society to keep us going. Though we did not go out very much in London, still there was just enough to make the blank more evident if we see nobody here."
Chatty's heart protested against this view: for her part she would have liked that life which had lasted three weeks to remain as it was, unlike anything else in her experience, a thing which was over, and could return no more. Had she not been saying to herself that all that remained to her was the Afterwards, the long gray twilight upon which no other sun would rise? In her lack of imagination, the only imagination she had known became more absolute than any reality, a thing which once left behind would never be renewed again. She felt a certain scorn of the attempt to make feeble imitations of it, or even to make up for that light which never was on sea or shore, by any little artificial illuminations. A sort of gentle fury, a wild passion of resistance, rose within her at the thought of making up for it. She did not wish to make up for it: the blank could not be made less evident whatever any one might do or say. But all this Chatty shut up in her own heart. She made no reply, but bent her head more and more over her muslin work, and worked faster and faster, with the tears collecting, which she never would consent to shed, hot and salt behind her eyes.
Mrs. Warrender was silent too. She was confounded by the new phase of feeling, imperfectly revealed to her, and filled with wonder, and self-reproach, and sympathy. Had she been to blame to leave her child exposed to an influence which had proved too much for her peace of mind?—that was the well-worn conventional phrase, and it was the only one that seemed to answer the occasion, too much for her peace of mind! The mother, casting stealthy glances at her daughter, so sedulously, nervously busy, could only grope at a comprehension of what was in Chatty's mind. She thought it was the uncertainty, the excitement of suspense, and all that feverish commotion which sometimes arises in a woman's mind when the romance of her life comes to a sudden pause and silence follows the constant interchange of words and looks, and the doubt whether anything more will ever follow, or whether the pause is to be for ever, turns all the sweeter meditations into a whirl of confusion and anxiety and shame. A mother is so near that the reflection of her child's sentiments gets into her mind, but very often with such prismatic changes, and oblique catchings of the light, that even sympathy goes wrong. Mrs. Warrender thus caught from Chatty the representation of an agitated soul in which there was all the sensitive shame of a love that is given unsought, mingled with a tender indignation against the offender who perhaps had never meant—But the mother on this point took a different view, and there rose up in her mind on the moment, a hundred cheerful, hopeful plans to bring him back and to set all right. Naturally there was not a word said on the subject, which was far too delicate for words; but this was how Mrs. Warrender followed, as she believed, with an intensity which was full of tenderness, the current of her daughter's thoughts.
And yet these were not Chatty's thoughts at all. If she felt any excitement it was against those plans for cheering her, and the idea that any little contrivances of society could ever take the place of what was past—conjoined with a sort of jealousy of that past, lest any one should interfere with it, or attempt to blur the perfect outline of it as a thing which had been, and could be no more, nor any copy of it. This was what the soul most near her own did not divine. They sat together in the silence of the summer parlour, the cool sweet room full of flowers, with the July sun shut out, but the warm air coming in, so full of mutual love and sympathy, and yet with but so disturbed and confused an apprehension each of each. After some time had passed thus, without any disturbance, nothing but the softened sounds of morning traffic in the quiet street, a slow cart passing, an occasional carriage, the voices of the children just freed from school, there came the quick sound of a horse's hoofs, a pause before the door, and then the bell echoing into the silence of the house.
"That must be Theo," cried Mrs. Warrender. "I was sure he would come to-day. Chatty, after luncheon, will you leave us a little, my dear? Not that we have any secrets from you: but he will speak more freely, if he is alone with me."
"I should have known that, mamma, without being told."
"Dear Chatty, you must not be displeased. You know many things more than I had ever thought."
"Displeased, mamma!"
"Hush, Chatty, here is my poor boy."
Her poor boy! the triumphant lover, the young man at the height of his joy and pride. They both rose to meet him, eager, watching to take the tone which should be most in harmony with his. But Mrs. Warrender had a pity in her heart for Theo which she did not feel for Chatty—perhaps because in her daughter's case her sympathy was more complete.
Warrender met his mother and sister with a face somewhat cloudy, which, however, he did his best to clear as he came in, in response to their pleasure at the sight of him. It did not become him in his position to look otherwise than blessed: but a man has less power of recognising and adapting himself to this necessity than a woman. He did his best, however, to take an interest in the house, to have all its conveniencies pointed out to him, and the beauty of the view over the garden, and the coolness of the drawing-room in which they sat. What pleased him still more, however, or at least called forth a warmer response, was the discovery of some inconveniencies which had already been remarked. "I am very glad you told me," he said. "I must have everything put right for you, mother. A thing that can be put right by bricks and mortar is so easy a matter."
"It is the easiest way, perhaps, of setting things right," she said, not without an anxious glance; "but even bricks and mortar are apt to lead you further than you think. You remember Mr. Briggs, inPunch?"
"They will not lead me too far," said Theo. "I am all in the way of renovation and restoration. You should see—or rather, you should not see, for I am afraid you would be shocked—our own house——"
"What are you doing? No, I should not be shocked. I never was a devotee of the Warren. I always thought there were a great many improvements I could make."
"Oh, mamma!"
"You must remember, Chatty, I was not born to it, like you. What are you doing? Are you building? Your letters are not very explicit, my dear."
"You shall see. I cannot describe. I have not the gift." Here the cloud came again over Theo's face, the cloud which he had pushed back on his entrance as if it had been a veil. "We have let in a little light at all events," he said, "that will always be something to the good. Now, mother, let me have some lunch; for I cannot stay above an hour or so. I have to see Longstaffe. There has been a great deal to do."
"Mr. Longstaffe, I am sure, will not give you any trouble that he can help."
"He is giving me a great deal of trouble," said the young man, with lowering brows. Then he cleared up again with an effort. "You have not told me anything about your doings in town."
"Oh, we did a great deal in town." Here Mrs. Warrender paused for a moment, feeling that neither did the auditor care to hear, nor the person concerned in those doings care to have them told. Between these two, her words were arrested. Chatty's head was more than ever bent over her muslin, and Theo had walked to the window, and was looking out with the air of a man whose thoughts were miles away. No one said anything more for a full minute, when he suddenly came back, so to speak, and said, with a sort of smile:—
"So you were very gay?" as if in the meantime she had been pouring forth an account of many gaieties into his ear. So far as Theo was concerned, it was evidently quite unnecessary to say any more, but there was now the other silent listener to think of, who desired that not a word should be said, yet would be equally keen to note and put a meaning to the absence of remark. Between the two, the part of Mrs. Warrender was a hard one. She said, which, perhaps, was the last thing she ought to have said: "We saw a great deal of your friend Mr. Cavendish."
"Ah, Dick! yes, he's about town I suppose—pretending to do law, and doing society. Mother, if you want me to stay to luncheon——"
"I will go and see after it," said Chatty. She gave her mother a look, as she put down her work. A look—what did it mean, a reproach for having mentioned him? an entreaty to ask more about him? Mrs. Warrender could not tell. When they were left alone, her son's restlessness increased. He felt, it was evident, the dangers of being left with hertête-à-tête.
"I hope you didn't see too much of him," he said hastily, as if picking up something to defend himself. "Cavendish is a fellow with a story, and no one knows exactly what it is."
"I am sure he is honourable and good," said Mrs. Warrender, and then she cried, "Theo! don't keep me in this suspense—there is something amiss."
He came at once, and sat down opposite to her, gazing at her across the little table. "Yes," he said with defiance, "you have made up your mind to that beforehand. I could see it in your eyes. What should be amiss?"
"Theo, you do me wrong. I had made up my mind to nothing beforehand—but I am very anxious. I know there must be difficulties. What are your negotiations with Mr. Longstaffe? Is it about settlements?—is it——"
"Longstaffe is an old fool, mother: that is about what it is."
"No, my dear. I am sure he is a kind friend, who has your interests at heart."
"Whose interests?" he said, with a harsh laugh. "You must remember there are two sides to the question. I should say that the interests of a husband and wife were identical, but that is not the view taken by those wretched little pettifogging country lawyers."
"Dear Theo, it is never, I believe, the view taken by the law. They have to provide against the possibility of everything that is bad—they must suppose that it is possible for every man to turn out a domestic tyrant."
"Every man!" he said, with a smile of scorn: "do you think I should be careful about that? They may bind me down as much as they please. I have held out my hands to them ready for the fetters. What I do grudge," he went on, as if, the floodgates once opened, the stream could not be restrained, "is all that they are trying to impose upon her, giving her the appearance of feelings entirely contrary to her nature—making her out to be under the sway of—— That's what I can't tolerate. If I knew her less, I might imagine—but thank God, I am sure on that point," he added, with a sharpness in his voice which did not breathe conviction to his mother's ear.
She laid her hand upon his arm, soothing him. "You must remember, that in the circumstances a woman is not her own mistress. Oh, Theo, that was always the difficulty I feared. You are so sensitive, so ready to start aside like a restive horse, so intolerant of anything that seems less than perfect."
"Am I so, mother?" He gathered her hand into his, and laid down his head upon it, kissing it tremulously. "God bless you for saying so. My own mother says it—a fastidious fool, always looking out for faults, putting meanings to everything—starting at a touch, like a restive horse."
How it was that she understood him, and perceived that to put his faults in the clearest light was the best thing she could do for him, it would be hard to tell. She laid her other hand upon his bent head. "Yes, my dear, yes, my dear! that was always your fault. If your taste was offended, if anything jarred—though it might be no more than was absolutely essential, no more than common necessity required."
"Mother, you do me more good than words can say. Yes, I know, I know—I never have friends for that cause. I have always wanted more, more——"
"More than any one could give," she said softly. "Those whom you love should be above humanity, Theo: their feet should not tread the ground at all. I have always been afraid, not knowing how you would take it when necessary commonplaces came in."
"I wonder," he said, raising his head, "whether mothers are always as perfect comforters as you are. That was what I wanted: but nobody in the world could have said it but you."
"Because," she said, carrying out her rôle unhesitatingly, though to her own surprise and without knowing why, "only your mother could know your faults, without there being the smallest possibility that any fault could ever stand between you and me."
His eyes had the look of being strained and hot, yet there seemed a little moisture in the corners, a moisture which corresponded with the slight quiver in his lip, rather than with the light in his eyes. He held her hand still in his and caressed it almost unconsciously. "I am not like you in that," he said. Alas no! he was not like her in that: though the accusation of being fastidious, fantastic, intolerant of the usual conditions of humanity, was, for the moment, the happiest thing that could be said to him, yet a fault! a fault would stand between him and whosoever was guilty of it, mother even—love still more. A fault: he was determined that she should be perfect, the woman whom he had chosen. To keep her perfect he was glad to seize at that suggestion of personal blame, to acknowledge that he himself was impatient of every condition, intolerant even of the bonds of humanity. But if there ever should arise the time when the goddess should be taken from her pedestal, when the woman should be found fallible like all women, heaven preserve poor Theo then. The thought went through Mrs. Warrender's mind like a knife. What would become of him? He had given himself up so unreservedly to his love, he had sacrificed his own fastidious temper in the first place, had borne the remarks of the county, had supported Geoff, had allowed himself to be laughed at and blamed. But now if he should chance to discover that the woman for whom he had done all this was not in herself a piece of perfection—— His mother felt her very heart sink at the thought. No one was perfect enough to satisfy Theo; no one was perfect at all so far as her own experience went. And when he made this terrible discovery, what would he do?
In the meantime they went to luncheon, and there was talk of the repairs wanted in the house, and of what Theo was doing "at home." He was very unwilling, however, to speak of "home," or of what he had begun to do there. He told them indeed of the trees that had been cut down, over which Chatty made many exclamations, mourning for them; but even Chatty was not vigorous in her lamentations. They sat and talked, not interested in anything they were saying, the mother seated between them, watching each, herself scarcely able to keep up the thread of coherent conversation, making now and then incursions on either side from which she was obliged to retreat hurriedly; referring now to some London experience which Chatty's extreme dignity and silence showed she did not want to be mentioned, or to something on the other side from which Theo withdrew with still more distinct reluctance to be put under discussion. It was not till this uncomfortable meal was over that Theo made any further communication about his own affairs. He was on his way to the door, whither his mother had followed him, when he turned round as if accidentally. "By the bye," he said, "I forgot to tell you.Shewill be here presently, mother. She wanted to lose no time in seeing you."
"Lady Markland!" said Mrs. Warrender, with a little start.
He fixed his eyes upon her severely. "Who else? She is coming about three. I shall come back, and go home with her."
"Theo, before I meet your future wife—— You have never given me any details. Oh, tell me what has happened and what is going to happen. Don't leave me to meet her in ignorance of everything."
"What is it you want to know?" he said, with his sombre air, setting his back against the wall. "You know all that I know."
"Which is no more than that she has accepted you, Theo."
"Well, what more would you have? That is how it stands now, and may for months for anything I can tell."
"I should have thought it would have been better to get everything settled quickly. Why should there be any delay?"
"Ah, why? You must ask that of Mr. Longstaffe," he said, and turned away.
Mrs. Warrender was much fluttered by the announcement of this visit. She had expected no doubt to meet Lady Markland very soon, to pay her perhaps a solemn visit, to receive her so to speak as a member of the family, which had been an alarming thought. For Lady Markland, though always grateful to her, and on one or two occasions offering something that looked like a close, confidential friendship, had been always a great lady in the opinion of the squire's wife, a more important person than herself, intimacy with whom would carry embarrassments with it. She had not been even, like other people in her position, familiarly known in the society of the county. Her seclusion during her husband's lifetime, the almost hermit life she led, the pity she had called forth, the position as of one apart from the world which she had maintained, all united to place Lady Markland out of the common circle on a little eminence of her own. She had been very cordial especially on the last evening they had spent together, the summer night when she had come to fetch Geoff. But still they had never been altogether at their ease with Lady Markland. Mrs. Warrender went back into the drawing-room, and looked round upon it with eyes more critical than when she had regarded it in relation to herself, wondering if Lady Markland would think it a homely place, a residence unworthy her future husband's mother. She made some little changes in it instinctively, put away the work on which she had been engaged, and looked at Chatty's little workbox with an inclination to put that too out of the way. The rooms at Markland were not so fine as to make such precautions necessary; yet there was a faded splendour about them very different from the limitation and comfortable prim neatness of this. When she had done all that it was possible to do, she sat down to wait for her visitor, trying to read though she could not give much attention to what she read. "Lady Markland is to be here at three," she said to Chatty, who was slightly startled for a moment, but much less than her mother, taking a strip of muslin out of her box, and beginning to work at it as if this was the business of life and nothing else could excite her more. The blinds were all drawn down for the sunshine, and the light came in green and cool though everything was blazing out-of-doors. These lowered blinds made it impossible to see the arrival though Mrs. Warrender heard it acutely—every prance of the horses, every word Lady Markland said. It seemed a long time before, through the many passages of the old-fashioned house, the visitor appeared. She made a slight pause on the threshold, apparently waiting for an invitation, for a special reception. Mrs. Warrender, with her heart beating, had risen, and stood with her hands clasped in tremulous expectation. They looked at each other for a moment across the parlour maid, who did not know how to get out of the room from between the two ladies, neither of whom advanced towards the other. Then Mrs. Warrender went hurriedly forward with extended hands.
"Theo told me you were coming. I am very glad to see you." They took each other's hands, and Mrs. Warrender bent forward to give the kiss of welcome. They were two equal powers, meeting on debatable ground, fulfilling all the necessary courtesies. Not like this should Theo's mother have met his wife. It should have been a young creature whom she could have taken into her arms, who would have flung herself upon the breast of his mother, or at her knees, like a child of her own. Instead of this, they were two equal powers, if, indeed, Lady Markland were not the principal, the one to give and not receive. Mrs. Warrender felt herself almost younger, less imposing altogether than the new member of the family, to whom it should have been her part to extend a tender patronage, to draw close to her, and set at her ease. Things were better when this difficult first moment was over. It was suitable and natural that Lady Markland should give to Chatty that kiss of peace—and then they all seated themselves in a little circle. "You have just arrived," Lady Markland said.
"Yesterday. We have scarcely settled down."
"And you enjoyed your stay in town? Chatty at least —Chatty must have enjoyed it." Lady Markland turned to her with a soft smile.
"Oh yes, very much," said Chatty, almost under her breath.
And then there was a brief pause, after which, "I hope Geoff is quite well," Mrs. Warrender said.
"Quite well, and I was to bring you his love." Lady Markland hesitated a little, and said, "I should like if I might—to consult you about Geoff."
"Surely," Mrs. Warrender replied, and again there was a pause.
In former times, Chatty would not have perceived the embarrassment of her two companions: but she had learned to divine since her three weeks' experience. She rose up quietly. "I think, mamma, you will be able to talk better if I go away."
"I don't know, my dear," said Mrs. Warrender, with a slight tremulousness. Lady Markland did not say anything. She retained the advantage of the position, not denying that she wished it, and Chatty accordingly, putting down her work, went away. Mrs. Warrender felt the solemnity of the interview more and more; but she did not know what to say.
Presently Lady Markland took the initiative. She rose and approached nearer to Mrs. Warrender's side. "I want you to tell me," she said, herself growing for the first time a little tremulous, "if you dislike this very much—for Theo."
"Dislike it! oh, how can you think so? His happiness is all I desire, and if you——"
"If I can make him happy? that is a dreadful question, Mrs. Warrender. How can any one tell that? I hope so; but if I should deceive myself——"
"That was not what I meant: there is no happiness for him, but that which you can give: if you think him good enough—that was what I was going to say."
"Good enough! Theo? Oh then, you do not know what he is, though he is your son; and so far I am better than you are."
"Lady Markland, you are better in a great many ways. It is this that frightens me. In some things you are so much above any pretensions of his. He has so little experience, he is not rich, nor even is he clever (though he is very clever) according to the ways of the world. I seem to be disparaging my boy. It is not that, Lady Markland."
"No; do you think I don't understand? I am too old for him; I am not the kind of woman you would have chosen, or even that he would have chosen, had he been in his right senses."
"It is folly to say that you are old. You are not old; you are a woman that any man might be proud to love. And his love—has been a wonder to me to see," said his mother, her voice faltering, her eyes filling. "I have never known such adoration as that."
"Ah, has it not!" cried the woman who was the object of it, a sudden melting and ineffable change coming over her face. "That was what gave me the courage," she said, after a moment's pause. "How could I refuse? It is not often, is it, that a man—that a woman"—here her voice died away in a confusion and agitation which melted all Mrs. Warrender's reluctance. She found herself with her arms round the great lady, comforting her, holding her head against her own breast. They shed some tears together, and kissed each other, and for a moment came so close that all secondary matters that could divide them seemed to fade away.
"But now," said Lady Markland, after this little interval, "he is worried and disturbed again, by all the lawyers think it right to do. I should like to spare him all that, but I am helpless in their hands. Oh, dear Mrs. Warrender, you will understand. There are so many things that make it more difficult. There is—Geoff."
Mrs. Warrender pressed her hands and gave her a look full of sympathy; but she said nothing. She did not make a cheerful protest that all these things were without importance, and that Geoff was no drawback, as perhaps it was hoped she might do. Lady Markland drew back a little, discouraged—waiting for some word of cheer which did not come.
"You know," she said, her voice trembling, "what my boy has been to me: everything! until this new light that I never dreamed of, that I never had hoped for, or thought of. You know how we lived together, he and I. He was my companion, more than a child, sharing every thought. You know——"
"Lady Markland, you have had a great deal of trouble, but how much with it—a child like that, and then——"
"And then—Theo! Was there ever a woman so blessed—or so—— Oh, help me to know what I am to do between them! You can understand better than any of the young ones. Don't you see," said Lady Markland, with a smile in which there was a kind of despair, "that though I am not old, as you say, I am on your level rather than on his, thatyoucan understand better than he?"
If it were possible that a woman who is a mother could cease to be that in the first place and become a friend, first of all a sympathiser in the very difficulties that overwhelm her son, that miracle was accomplished then. The woman whom she had with difficulty accepted as Theo's future wife became, for a moment, nearer to her in this flood of sympathy than Theo himself. The woman's pangs and hindrances were closer to her experience than the man's. To him, in the heat of his young passion, nothing was worth considering that interfered with the perfect accomplishment of his love. But to her—the young woman, who had to piece on the present to the past, who though she might have abandoned father and mother could never abandon her child—the other woman's heart went out with a pang of fellow-feeling. Mrs. Warrender, like most women, had an instinctive repugnance to the idea of a second marriage at all, but that being determined and beyond the reach of change, her heart ached for the dilemma which was more painful than any which enters into the possibilities of younger life. As Lady Markland leant towards her, claiming her sympathy, her face full of sentiments so conflicting, the joy of love and yet the anguish of it, and all the contrariety of a heart torn in two, the youthfulness, when all was said, of this expressive countenance, the recollection that, after all, this woman who claimed to be on her own level was not too old to be her child, seized upon Mrs. Warrender. Nothing that is direct and simple can be so poignant as those complications in which right and wrong and all the duties of human life are so confused that no sharply cut division is possible. What was she to do? She would owe all her heart to her husband, and what was to remain for her child? Geoff had upon her the first claim of nature; her love, her care, were his right—but then Theo? The old mother took the young one into her arms, with an ache of sympathy. "Oh, my dear, what can I say to you? We must leave it to Providence. Things come round when we do not think too much of them, but do our best."
How poor a panacea, how slight a support! and yet in how many cases all that one human creature can say to another! To do our best and to think as little as possible, and things will come round! The absolute mind scorns the mild consolation. To Theo it would have been an irritation, a wrong, but Theo's betrothed received it with humbler consciousness. The sympathy calmed her, and that so moderate, so humble, voucher of experience that things come round. Was it really so? was nothing so bad as it appeared? was it true that the way opened before you little by little in treading it, as she who had gone on so much farther on the path went on to say? Lady Markland regained her composure as she listened.
"You are speaking to me like a true mother," she said. "I have never known what that was. Help me, only help me! even to know that you understand me is so much—and do not blame me."
"Dear Lady Markland——"
"I have a name," she said, with a smile which was full of pain, as if marking another subject of trouble, "which is my own, which cannot be made any question of. Will you call me Frances? It would please him. They say it would be unusual, unreasonable, a thing which is never done—to give up—— Is that Theo? Dear Mrs. Warrender, I shall be far happier, now that I know I have a friend in you."
She grasped his mother's hands with a hurried gesture, and an anxious, imploring look. Then gave a hasty glance into the glass, and recovered in a moment her air of gentle dignity, her smile. It was this that met Theo when he came in eager, yet doubtful, his eyes finding her out, with a rapid question, the instant that he entered. Whatever her troubles might be, none of them were made apparent to him.
Next day Mr. Longstaffe called upon Mrs. Warrender, nominally about the alterations that had to be made in her house, but really with objects much more important. He made notes scrupulously of what she wanted, and hoped that she would not allow anything to be neglected that was necessary for her comfort. When these necessary preliminaries were over, there was a pause. He remained silent with an expectant air, waiting to be questioned, and though she had resolved if possible to refrain from doing so, the restriction was more than her faculties could bear.
"My son tells me," she said, as indifferently as possible, "that there is a great deal going on between him and you."
"Naturally," cried Mr. Longstaffe, with a certain heat of indignation. "He is making a marriage which is not at all a common kind of marriage, and yet he would have liked it to be without any settlements at all."
"He could not wish anything that was not satisfactory to Lady Markland."
"Do you think so? then I must undeceive you. He would have liked Lady Markland to give herself to him absolutely with no precautions, no restrictions."
"Mr. Longstaffe, Theo is very much in love. He has always been very sensitive: he cannot bear (I suppose) mixing up business matters, which he hates, with——"
"It is all very well for him to hate business, though between you and me, if you will allow me to say so, I think it very silly. Ladies may entertain such sentiments, but a man ought to know better. If you will believe me, he wants to marry her as if she were sixteen and had not a penny! To make her Mrs. Theodore Warrender and take her home to his own house!"
"What should he do else? is not that the natural thing that every man wishes to do?"
"Yes, if he marries a girl of sixteen without a penny, as I said. Mrs. Warrender, I know you are full of sense. Perhaps you will be able to put it before him in a better light. When a man marries a lady, with an established position of her own like Lady Markland, and a great many responsibilities, especially when she is a sort of queen mother and has a whole noble family to be accountable to——"
"I do not wonder that Theo should be impatient, Mr. Longstaffe; all this must be terrible to him, in the midst of his—— Why should not they marry first, and then these things will arrange themselves?"
"Marry first! and leave her altogether unsecured."
"I hope you know that my son is a man of honour, Mr. Longstaffe."
"My dear madam, we have nothing to do with men of honour in the law. I felt sure that you would understand at least. Suppose we had left Miss Minnie dependent upon the honour (though I don't doubt it at all) of the Thynne family."
"I don't mean in respect to money," said Mrs. Warrender, with a slight flush. "He will not interfere with her money, of that I am certain."
"No: only with herself; and she has been left the control of everything; and she must be free to administer her son's property and look after his interests. If you will allow me to say it, Mrs. Warrender, Lady Markland is a much better man of business than Theo."
Mr. Longstaffe had known Theo all his life, and had never addressed him otherwise than by that name, but it seemed an over-familiarity, a want of respect, even a sign of contempt in the position in which Theo now stood. She replied with a little offence:—
"That is very possible. He has had little experience, and he is a scholar, not a person of business. But why should the marriage be delayed? This is the worst moment for them both. I know my son, Mr. Longstaffe. All this frets him beyond description now; but when the uncertainty is over, and all these negotiations, everything will come round. He will never interfere or prevent her from doing what is necessary for her son. When they are once married all will go well."
This was a long speech for Mrs. Warrender, and she made it with interruptions, with trepidation, not quite so sure perhaps of her own argument as she had thought she was. The lawyer looked at her with a kind of respectful contempt.
"There may be a certain justice in what you say, that this is the worst moment: but I for one could never agree to anything so unbusiness-like as you seem to suggest. Marriage first, and business afterwards—no, no—and then there is the little boy. You would not have him sent off to nurse while his mother goes upon her honeymoon. Poor little fellow, so devoted as she was to him before!"
"A second marriage," said Mrs. Warrender, subdued, "can never be so simple, so easy, as one in which there are no complications."
"They are better, if they so abide," said Mr. Longstaffe. "I agree with St. Paul for my part. But it would be hard upon a young woman, poor thing, that made such a failure in her first. If Theo were not so restive, if you could get him to take things a little more easy—— Dear me, of course I trust in his honour; no one doubts that. But he will lead her a pretty dance; whether it will be better for her to have a good crotchety high-tempered young fellow who adores her, or a rough young scamp who neglected her——"
"There can be no comparison between the two."
"No," said Mr. Longstaffe ruefully, but perhaps his judgment did not lean to Theo's side.
"And why should not they live at the Warren?" she asked. "It is not a fine house, but it is a good house, and with the improvements Theo is making——"
"My dear lady, to me the Warren is a delightful little place, or at least it could be made delightful. But Markland—Markland is a very different matter. To change the one for the other would be—well it would be, you won't deny, something like a sacrifice. And why should she? when Markland is all ready, wanting no alteration, an excellent house, and in the middle of the property which she has to manage, whereas the Warren——"
"I have lived in the Warren all my life," said Mrs. Warrender, with a little natural indignation. It wounded her sore that he should talk of it patronisingly as "a delightful little place." She was not in any way devoted to the Warren; still this patronage, this unfavourable comparison irritated her, and she began to range herself with more warmth upon her own side. "I can see no reason why my son's wife should not live there."
"But there are reasons why Lady Markland should not live there."
Mrs. Warrender's eyes shot forth fire. She no longer wondered that Theo was driven to the verge of distraction. Oh that he had loved some young creature on his own level, some girl who would have gone sweetly to his home with him and glorified the old life! His mother had wept over and soothed the woman of his choice only yesterday, entering into all the difficulties that beset her path, and pledging her own assistance to overcome them; but now she was all in arms in behalf of her boy, whose individuality was to be crushed among them, who was to be made into an appendage to Lady Markland, and have no place of his own. Instead of giving her assistance to tame Theo, she felt herself take fire in his defence.
"You are very right, no doubt, to consider Lady Markland in the first place," she said, "but I don't think we can argue the question further, for to me my son must be the first."
"It is the right way," said the lawyer, "but when a young man lifts his eyes——"
"We will say no more on the subject," she said quickly. And Mr. Longstaffe was too judicious to do anything else than resume the question about the garden palings, and then to bow himself out. He turned, indeed, at the door to express his regrets that he had not brought her to his way of thinking, that he lost her valuable help, upon which he had calculated: but this did not conciliate Mrs. Warrender. She had no carriage at her orders, or she would have gone to the Warren at once, with the impulsiveness of her nature, to see what Theo was doing, what he was thinking of. But Theo was at Markland, alternating between the Paradiso and the Inferno, between the sweetness of his betrothed's company and all the hard conditions of his happiness, and the Warren was in the hands of a set of leisurely country tradespeople, who if Theo had meant to carry his bride there must have postponed that happiness for a year or two—not much wonder, perhaps, since they were left by the young master to dawdle on their own way.
Mrs. Warrender, however, had another and a surprising visitor on this same day. The ladies were sitting together in their usual way, in the heat of the afternoon, waiting until it should be cool enough for their walk, when the parlour maid, not used, perhaps, to such visitors, opened the door with a little excitement, and announced, "Lord Markland." Mrs. Warrender rose quickly to her feet, with a low cry, and a sudden wild imagination such as will dart across a troubled mind. Lord Markland! had he never died then, was it all a dream, had he come back to stop it in time? A small voice interrupted this flash of thought, and brought her back to herself with a giddy sense of the ridiculous and a sensation of shame quite out of proportion to the momentary illusion. "It is only me, Geoff: but I thought when she asked me my name, I was obliged to give my right name." He seemed smaller than ever, as he came across the room twitching his face as his habit was, and paler, or rather grayer, with scanty locks and little twinkling eyes. "Did you think it was some one else?" he said.
"Of course it could be no one but you. I was startled for the moment, not thinking of you by that title. And have you come all this way alone—without any——"
"Oh, you were thinking of that other time. There is a great deal of difference since that other time. It is nearly a year since—and now I do a great many things by myself," said the boy, looking at her keenly. "I am let to go wherever I please."
"Because you are now old enough to take care of yourself," said Mrs. Warrender, "with the help of Black."
"Yes," said Geoff, "how did you know? I have got Black. But there is more in it than that. Would mamma have ruined me, if she had kept on always coddling me, Mrs. Warrender? that is what the servants say."
"My dear, one never allows the servants to say things of that kind. You should understand your mother's meaning much better than they can do."
"I see a great deal of the servants now," said Geoff—then he corrected himself with a look of sudden recollection—"that is, I am afraid I disobey mamma, Mrs. Warrender. I am rather fond of the servants, they are more amusing than other people. I go to the stables often when I know I oughtn't. To know you oughtn't, and yet to do it, is very bad, don't you think?"
"I am afraid it is, Geoff. Don't you have any lessons now?"
"They say this is holiday time," said the boy. "Of course I am glad of the holidays, but it is a little stupid too, not having any one to play with—but I may come out a great deal more than I used to. And that is a great advantage, isn't it? I read too, chiefly stories; but a whole day is a very long time, don't you think so? I did not say where I was coming this afternoon, in case the pony might get tired, or Black turn cross, or something, but it appears Black likes to come to Highcombe, he has friends here." The boy had come close to Mrs. Warrender's work-table, and was lifting up and putting down again the reels of silk, the thimbles and scissors. He went on with his occupation for some time very gravely, his back turned to the light. At length he said, "I want you to tell me one thing. They say Warrender is coming to live at our house."
"I am afraid it is true, Geoff."
"Don't you like it, then?" said the boy. "I thought if you did not like it you would not let it be."
"My dear, my son Theo is a man. I cannot tell him what he must do as your mother does to you. And if I do not like it, it is because he has a good house of his own."
"Ah, the Warren!" said Geoff: then he added, pulling all the reels about in the work-table, and without raising his eyes to her face, "If he is coming, I wish he would come, Mrs. Warrender, then perhaps I should go to school. Don't you think school is a good thing for a boy?"
"Everybody says so, Geoff."
"Yes, I know—it is in all the books. Mrs. Warrender, if—Warrender is coming to live with us, will you be a sort of grandmother to me?"
This startled her very much. She looked at the odd child with a sensation almost of alarm.
"Because," he continued, "I never had one, and I could come and talk to you when things were bad."
"I hope you will never have any experience of things being bad, Geoff."
He gave a glance at her face, his hands still busy among the threads and needles.
"Oh no, never, perhaps—but, Mrs. Warrender, if—Warrender is coming to Markland to live,Iwish he would do it now, directly. Then it would be settled what was going to be done with me—and—and other things." Geoff's face twitched more than ever, and she understood that the reason why he did not look at her was because his little eyelids were swollen with involuntary tears. "There are a lot of things—that perhaps would get—settled then," he said.
"Geoff," she said, putting her arm round him, "I am afraid you don't like it any more than I do, my poor boy."
Geoff would not yield to the demoralising influence of this caress. He held himself away from her, swaying backwards, resisting the pressure of her arm. His eyelids grew bigger and bigger, his mouth twitched and quivered. "Oh, it is not that," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "if mamma likes it. I am only little, I am rather backward, I am not—company enough for mamma."
"That must be one of the things that the servants say. You must not listen, Geoff, to what the servants say."
"But it is quite true. Mamma knows just exactly what is best. I used to be the one that was always with her—and now it is Warrender. He can talk of lots of things—things I don't understand. For I tell you I am very backward, I don't know half, nor so much as half, what some boys do at my age."
"That is a pity, perhaps; but it does not matter, Geoff, to your—to the people who are fond of you, my dear."
"Oh yes, it does," cried the boy; "don't hold me, please! I am a little beast, I am not grateful to people nor anything! the best thing for me will just be to be sent to school." Here Geoff turned his back upon her abruptly, forced thereto by the necessity of getting rid of those tears. When he had thus relieved himself, and cleared his throat of the climbing sorrow that threatened to shake his voice, he came back and stood once more by her table. The great effort of swallowing down all that emotion had made him pale, and left the strained look which the passage of a sudden storm leaves both upon the human countenance and the sky. "They say it's very jolly at Eton," he resumed suddenly, taking up with his hot little nervous fingers Mrs. Warrender's piece of work.
But at this point Geoff's confidences were interrupted by the entrance of visitors, who not only meant to make themselves agreeable to Mrs. Warrender on her first arrival at Highcombe, but who were very eager to find out all that they could about the marriage of Theo, if it really was going to take place, and when, and everything about it. It added immensely to the excitement, but little to the information acquired, when in answer to the first question Mrs. Warrender indicated to her visitors that the little boy standing at her side, and contemplating them with his hands in his pockets, was little Lord Markland. "Oh, the boy," they said under their breath, and stopped their questioning most unwillingly, all but the elder lady, who got Mrs. Warrender into a corner, and carried on the interrogatory. Was she quite pleased? but of course she was pleased. The difference of age was so little that it did not matter, and though the Markland family were known not to be rich, yet to be sure it was a very nice position. And such a fine character, not a woman that was very popular, but quite above criticism. "There never was a whisper against her—oh, never a whisper! and that is a great thing to say." Geoff did not hear, and probably would not have understood, these comments. He still stood by the work-table, taking the reels of silk out of their places and putting them back again with the gravity of a man who has something very important in hand. He seemed altogether absorbed in this simple occupation, bending over it with eyebrows contracted over his eyes, and every sign of earnestness. "What a curious thing for a boy to take pleasure in: but I suppose being always with his mother has rather spoiled him. It will be so good for the child to have a man in the house," said the lady who was interviewing Mrs. Warrender. There was a little group of the younger ladies round Chatty, talking about the parish and the current amusements, and hoping that she would join the archery club, and that she loved croquet. The conversation was very animated on that side, one voice echoing another, although the replies of Chatty were mild. Geoff had all the centre of the room to himself, and stood there as on a stage, putting the reel of red silk into the square which was intended for the blue, and arranging the colours in squares and parallels. He was much absorbed in it, and yet he did not know what he was doing. His little bosom swelled high with thought, his heart was wrung with the poignancy of love rejected—of loss and change. It was not that he was jealous; the sensations which he experienced had little bitterness or anger in them. Presently he turned round and said, "I think I shall go home, Mrs. Warrender," with a disagreeable consciousness that everybody paused and looked at him, when his small voice broke the murmur of the feminine conversation. But what did that matter to Geoff? He had much to occupy him, too much to leave him free to think how people looked, or what they said.