For a moment even the stout-hearted Rector was appalled. But Enid, although she was watching him intently, could not read anything but unfaltering sympathy and ready cheer in the glance that he gave her and the words that rose almost immediately to his tongue.
"Courage! Doctors are very often wrong," he said. "Besides, I do not see why such an ending should be feared, even if there were any constitutional tendency of the kind in your family, which there is not."
"No," said Enid, less timidly than before; "I believe there is not. I have asked."
"Your attacks are only nervous, my dear Miss Vane. The very fact of your having—foolishly, I think—been, told the doctor's theories has made it less possible for you to strive against the malady; and yet you say that it has not made progress lately. You have not been ill in this way for six months?"
"No, not for six months."
"Don't you see that the excitement and fatigue of to-day's expedition, and the sad scene which we have just witnessed, would be likely to increase any ailment of the nervous system? You must not argue anything from what has happened to-day. Forgive me," the Rector broke off to say, with a smile—"I am talking like a doctor to you, and my medical skill is small indeed. It is onlylarge enough to enable me to assure you, Miss Vane, of my conviction that your fears are ungrounded, and that you are tormenting yourself to no purpose. Will you try to take my advice and turn your thoughts away from this unhappy subject?"
"I will try," answered Enid, with rather a bewildered look. "But," she added a moment later, "I thought that I ought to be always on my guard; and one cannot be on one's guard without thinking about the matter."
"Who told you that you ought to be always on your guard?"
"Flossy—I mean Mrs. Vane. She is very kind, and watches me constantly. Oh, I forgot," said the girl, starting to her feet, and clasping her hands before her with a look of wretched nervous terror which went to the Rector's heart—"I forgot—I forgot——"
"What did you forget?" said Evandale, wondering for a moment whether her mind was not unhinged by all that she had passed through that afternoon. Then, touched by her evident distress, he went on more lightly, "I have been forgetting that you will be missed from the Hall by this time, and that the whole country-side will be out after you if we do not go back at once. I will send for a carriage and drive down with you, if you will allow me."
Enid sank back on the sofa and assented listlessly. Mr. Evandale left the room, and sent in his absence a comfortable-looking old housekeeper with wine and biscuits, offers of tea and coffee, and all sorts of medicaments suitable to a young lady who had been faint and unwell—as was only to be expected after witnessing the death of Mrs. Meldreth, that troublesome old person having expired quite suddenly that afternoon when Miss Vane and Mr. Evandale were both at her bedside. Enid was not inclined to accept any of Mrs. Heale's attentions, but, out of sheer dislike to hurting her feelings, she at last accepted a cup of tea, and was glad of the reviving warmth which it brought to her cold and tired limbs. And then Mr. Evandale returned.
"There is no carriage at the inn," he said; "and I am sorry to say, Miss Vane, that I do not possess one that would suit you—I have only a high dog-cart and a kicking mare; so I have taken the liberty of sending down to the Hall and telling Mrs. Vane that you are here; and shewill no doubt send a carriage for you. I wrote a little note to her—it was the best thing, I thought, that I could do."
"Yes," said Enid, almost inaudibly. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes, looking as if she felt sick and faint.
Mrs. Heale glided away, in obedience to a nod from her master, and the Rector was once more alone with Enid Vane.
"I hope," he said, with a slight hesitation, which was rather graceful in a man of his commanding stature and singular loftiness of bearing—"I hope, Miss Vane, you will not think that I have been intrusive when I tell you that I entreated Sabina Meldreth to confess anything that might weigh upon her conscience, as her mother had confessed to you."
A great wave of crimson suddenly passed over Enid's pallid cheeks and brow. She raised a pair of startled eyes to the Rector's' face, and then said quickly—
"Did she tell you?"
"No, Miss Vane, she did not."
"Then will you promise me," said Enid, with sudden earnestness, "never to ask her again?"
"How can I do that? It may be my duty to ask her for her soul's sake; you would be the last to counsel me to be silent then."
"Oh, but you do not understand! I know now—I know what is weighing on Sabina Meldreth's mind; and I have forgiven her."
"It was a wrong done to you?"
"Yes—to me."
"And to no one else?" Enid's head drooped.
"I don't know—I can't tell. I must think it over."
"Yes—think and pray," said the Rector gravely but tenderly; "and remember that truth should always prevail."
"I know—I believe it; but it would do more harm than good."
"Miss Vane, if I am indiscreet, I trust you will pardon me. If by any chance this confession has reference to the death of your father, Mr. Sydney Vane, it is your duty to make it known, at any cost to your own feelings."
The girl looked up with an expression of relief.
"It does not bear on that subject at all, Mr. Evandale."
"I am glad. You will forgive me for alluding to it? A wild fancy crossed my mind that it had something to do with that."
"I shall never forget your kindness," said Enid gratefully.
"And if you are in perplexity—in any trouble—will you trust me to do all for you that is in my power? If you ever want help, you will remember that I am ready—ready for all—all that you might require——"
He never finished his speech, which was perhaps fortunate for him. With Enid's soft eyes, slightly distressed and appealing in expression, looking straight into his own, with the sight before him of her pale, wistful face, the lovely lips which had fallen into so pathetic a curve of weariness and sorrow, how could the Rector be expected to preserve his self-possession? His thoughts and his words became confused; he did not quite know what he was saying, nor whether she heard and understood him aright. He was glad to remember afterwards that the expression of her countenance did not change; he brought neither alarm nor astonishment into her eyes; there were only gentle gratitude and a kind of hopelessness, the meaning of which he could not fathom, in the girl's still raised listening face. But at that very moment a knock came to the door; and half to the Rector's relief, half to his embarrassment, the General himself walked in.
"Ah, thank Heaven, she is here!" were the old man's first words. "We thought she was lost, Mr. Evandale—we did indeed. I met your messenger on the way to the Hall, and sent him on for the carriage. A pretty time you've given us, young lady!" he said, smiling at Enid and pinching her chin, and then grasping the Rector's hand with a look of relief and gratitude which told its own story.
"Miss Vane has been a good deal distressed and upset," said Mr. Evandale. "She was at Mrs. Meldreth's bedside when the old woman died this afternoon, and the scene was naturally very painful. I brought her here that she might rest and recover herself a little before going home."
He wanted to explain and simplify matters for Enid's benefit; he had grasped the fact that her uncle's entrancewas making her exceedingly nervous. He put it down to fear of the General's anger, but it afterwards occurred to him that Mrs. Meldreth's confession might, for some reason or other, be the cause of her agitation. Certainly her distress and confusion were at that moment very marked. She had risen from her seat at his entrance, her color changing to crimson and then to dead white more than once during the Rector's speech. It settled at last into a painful pallor, which so impressed the General that he did not even administer the gentle rebuke which he had intended Enid to receive for her infringement of the rules on which her life was based. He could not scold her when she stood before him, pale to the very lips, her eyelids cast down, her hands joined together and nervously trembling, a very embodiment of conscious guilt and shame.
"Bless my soul, she does look upset, and no mistake!" he exclaimed, in his hearty and impulsive way. "Come, my dear—don't be so miserable about it! I daresay you did not know how late it was, and the poor woman could not be left. Yes, I quite understand; and I will explain it all to your aunt. Sit down and rest until the carriage comes, as the Rector does not mind our invasion of his study."
Mr. Evandale made some polite but slightly incoherent rejoinder, to which nobody listened, for the General's attention was at that moment completely monopolised by Enid, who on feeling his arm around her, suddenly hid her white face on his shoulder and burst into tears.
"Oh, uncle," she sobbed, "you are so kind—so good! Forgive me!"
"Forgive you, my dear? There is nothing to forgive!" said the astonished General, in a slightly reproving tone. "Of course I do not like your staying out so late on a winter afternoon, but you need not make such a fuss about it, my child. You must control yourself, control yourself, you know. There, there—don't cry! What will Mr. Evandale think of you? Why, bless me, Evandale has gone! Well, well, you need not cry—I am not angry at all—only stop crying—there's a good girl!"
"Say you forgive me, uncle!" moaned Enid, heedless of his rather disconnected remarks, which certainly had no bearing at all on the dilemma forced upon her by the nature of Mrs. Meldreth's confession.
"Forgive you, my dear? Why, of course I do! You're a little upset, are you not? But you must not give way like this—it'll never do—never do," said the General, patting her on the back benevolently. "There now—dry your eyes, like a good girl; and I think I hear the carriage in the lane, so we must be going. You've no idea how anxious about you poor dear Flossy has been all the afternoon."
He was pleased to see that her tears were checked. She raised herself from his shoulder and brushed away the salt drops with which her cheeks were wet; but she sobbed no longer, and she stood perfectly still and calm. He was not a man of keen observation; and, if the cold white look which suddenly overspread her countenance had any meaning, it was not one that he was likely to read aright.
A servant brought the intelligence that the carriage was at the door, and shortly afterwards the Rector appeared. He had slipped away when Enid burst into tears, hoping that she might confide to the General what she had refused to confide to him; but a glance at the faces of the two told him that his hopes had not been realised. The kindly complacency which characterised the General's countenance was undisturbed, while Enid's face bore the impress of mingled perplexity and despair. It seemed to Maurice Evandale that each expression would have been changed if Enid had bared her heart to her uncle. He did not know—he could not even guess—what her secret was; but he instinctively detected the presence of trouble, perhaps of danger.
The two men parted very cordially; for the General was deterred from seeing much of the Rector only by Mrs. Vane's dislike of him, and his kindly feeling was all the more effusive because he had so few opportunities of expressing it. Enid took leave of the Rector with a look, a wan little smile which touched him inexpressibly.
"You have part of my secret," it seemed to say. "Help me to bear the burden; I am weak and need your aid." He vowed to himself that he would do all that a man could do—all that she might ever ask. But Enid was quite unconscious of having made that mute appeal.
She lay back in a corner of the carriage, saying she was too tired to talk. The General left her in peace, but took one of her little hands and held it tenderly between hisown. He could not imagine why it trembled and fluttered so much, why once it seemed to try to drag itself away. The poor girl must be quite overdone, he thought to himself; she was far too kind, too tender-hearted to go about amongst the village people and witness all their woes; she was not strong enough to do such work—he must speak to Flossy about it. And, while he was thus thinking, the carriage turned in at the park gates and presently halted at the great front-door. The servants came forward to assist the General, who was a little stiff in his joints now and then; and he, in his turn, gave an arm to Enid as she alighted. The old butler looked at her curiously as she entered and stood for a moment, dazed and bewildered, in the hall. Miss Enid was always pale, but he had never seen her look so white and scared. She must be ill, he decided, and especially when she shrank so oddly as he deferentially mentioned his mistress' name.
"My mistress hoped that you would come to her sitting room as soon as you arrived, ma'am," he said.
She made a strange answer.
"No, no—I cannot—I cannot see her to-night!"
The General was instantly at her side.
"Enid, my dear, what do you mean? Your aunt wants to see you. She won't be vexed with you—I'll make it all right with her," he added, in a lower tone. "She has been terribly anxious about you. Come—I will take you to her room."
"Not just now, uncle—not to-night," said the girl, in a tone of mingled pain and dread. "I—I can't bear it—I am ill—I must be alone now!"
"My dear child, you must go to bed and rest. I'll explain it all to Flossy. She will come to see you."
"No, no—I can't see any one! Forgive me, uncle; I hardly know what I am saying or doing. I shall be better to-morrow. Till then—till then at least I must be left in peace!"
She broke from his detaining hand with something so like violence, that the General looked after her in wonder as she ran up-stairs.
"She must be ill indeed!" he murmured thoughtfully to himself, as he wended his way to his wife's boudoir, to make his report to Flossy.
Meanwhile Enid's progress up-stairs was barred for amoment by her little playmate and scholar, Dick, who ran out of his nursery to greet her with a cry of joy. To his surprise and mortification, cousin Enid did not stop to kiss him—did not even give him a pleasant word or smile. With a stifled cry she disengaged her frock from his hand, breaking from him as she had broken from the General just before, and sped away to her own room. He heard her turn the key in her door, and, for the first time realising the enormity of the woe that had come upon him—the unprecedented fact that cousin Enid had been unkind—he lifted up his voice and bursted into a storm of sobs, which would at any ordinary time have brought her instantly to his side to comfort and caress.
But this time Enid either did not hear or did not heed. She was crouching down by the side of her bed, with her face hidden in the coverlet, and her hands pressed over her ears, as if to exclude all sound of the world without; and between the difficult passionate sobs by which her whole frame was shaken, one phrase escaped from her lips from time to time—a phrase which would have been unintelligible enough to an ordinary hearer, but would have recalled a long and shameful story to the minds of Florence Vane and one other woman in the world.
"Sabina Meldreth's child!" she muttered to herself not knowing what she said. "How can I bear it? Oh, my poor uncle! Sabina Meldreth's child!"
Hubert Lepel had promised to spend Christmas Day at Beechfield, but for some unexplained reason he stayed away, sending at the last moment a telegram which his sister felt to be unsatisfactory. Flossy did not often exert herself to obtain a guest; but on this occasion she wrote a rather reproachful letter to her brother, and begged him not to fail to visit them on New Year's eve. "The General was disappointed," she wrote, "and so was someone else." Hubert thought that she meant herself, felt a thrill of wondering compassion, and duly presented himself at the Hall on the thirty-first of December.
He saw Flossy alone in her luxurious boudoir beforeanyone else knew of his arrival. He thought her looking ill and haggard, and asked after her health. To his surprise, the question made her angry.
"Of course I am not well—I am never well," she answered; "but I am no worse than usual. There is someone else in the house whose appearance you had better enquire after."
"You are fond of talking in riddles. Do you mean the General?" said Hubert drily.
"No, not the General," Florence answered, setting her lips.
Hubert shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject. He had not an idea of what she meant; but when, shortly before dinner, he first saw Enid, a light flashed across his mind—Flossy meant that the girl was ill. He had certainly been rather dense and rather unkind, he thought to himself, not to ask after her. And how delicate she was looking! What was the matter with her? It was not merely that she was thinner and paler, but that an indefinable change had come over her countenance. The shadow that had always lurked in her sweet eyes seemed to have fallen at last over her whole face, darkening its innocent candor, obscuring its tranquil beauty; the look of truthfulness and of ignorance of evil had gone. No child-face was it now—rather that of a woman who had been forced to look evil in the face, and was repelled and sickened at the sight. There was no joy in the eyes with which Enid now looked upon the world.
Hubert watched her steadily through the long and elaborate meal which the General thought appropriate to New Year's eve, noting her weariness, her languor, her want of interest in anything that went on, and could not understand the change. Was this girl—sick apparently in body and mind—the guileless maiden who had listened with such flattering attention to the stories of his wanderings in foreign lands, when he last came down to Beechfield Hall? He tried her with similar tales—they had no interest for her now. She was silent,distraite, preoccupied. Still gentle and sweet to every one, she was no longer bright; smiles seemed to be banished for ever from her lips.
She and Florence scarcely spoke to each other. The General did not seem to notice this fact; but Hubert hadnot been half an hour in their company before he recognised its force. They must have quarrelled, he said to himself rather angrily—Flossy had probably tried to tyrannise, and the girl had resented her interference. Flossy was a fool; he would speak to her about it as soon as he had the opportunity, and get the truth from her—forgetting for the moment that, if ever a man set himself an impossible task, it was this one of getting the truth from Flossy.
Before dinner was ended, the sound of footsteps, the tuning of instruments; the clearing of voices could be distinguished in the hall. Hubert glanced at his host for explanation, which was speedily given.
"It is the village choir," he said confidentially. "They come on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and sing in the hall. When they have finished, they all have a glass of wine and drink our healths before they go down to supper in the kitchen. It's an old custom."
"And a very disagreeable one," said Mrs. Vane calmly. "Your ears will be tortured, Hubert, by the atrocious noise they make. With your permission, Enid and I will go to the drawing-room;" and, glancing at Enid, she rose from her chair.
"My dear Flossy, I entreat of you to stay!" said the General. "You have never gone away before—it would hurt their feelings immensely. I have sent word for Dick to be brought down; I mean them to drink his health too, bless the little man! It will be quite a slight to us all if you go away."
Flossy smiled ironically, but she looked at Enid in what Hubert thought a rather peculiar way. He knew his sister's face very well, and he could not but fancy that there was some apprehension in the glance. Enid sat still, looking at the tablecloth before her. Her face had grown perceptibly paler, but she did not move. A little spot of red suddenly showed itself on each of Mrs. Vane's delicate cheeks.
"Well, Enid, what do you say?" she asked, with less languor of utterance than usual. "Do you wish to suffer a purgatory of discord? Come—let us go to the drawing-room; nobody will notice whether we are here or not."
"My dear, I said I wished you to stay," began the General anxiously; but Florence only laughed a little wildly, and beat her fan once or twice upon the table.
"Come, Enid. We have had music enough, surely! You are coming?"
"No, I am going to stay here," said the girl, without raising her eyes. Her tone was exceedingly cold.
Flossy bit her lip, laughed again, and sank back into her chair with an air of would-be indifference.
"If you stay, I suppose I must," she said lightly; but there was a strange glitter in her narrowed eyes, and she bit her lip with her little white teeth so strongly and so sharply as to draw the blood.
"Here comes Dick," said the General, whose placidity was quite restored by his wife's consent to stay—"here he comes! There, my boy—seen Uncle Hubert yet? Go and kiss him, and then come back to me and I'll give you some dessert."
The fair-haired little fellow looked smaller and shyer than Hubert remembered him. He had very little color in his face, but his eyes lighted up joyfully when he saw the visitor, and he put his arms around Hubert's neck with such evident satisfaction that his uncle felt quite flattered. But, when Dick was perched upon his father's knee, and the singers had struck up their first florid chant, he was surprised to find that Enid had raised her blue eyes and was steadily regarding him with a searching yet sorrowful look, which seemed as if it would explore the inmost recesses of his soul. For various reasons Hubert felt that he could not long endure that gaze. The best way of stopping it was to return it, and therefore, although with an effort which was almost agonising, he suddenly looked back into her eyes with a composure and resolute boldness which caused her own very speedily to sink. The color rose to her face, she gave a slight quickly-suppressed sigh, and she did not look up again. Puzzled, troubled, vaguely suspicious, Hubert wondered whether his calm reception of her gaze had silenced the doubt of him, which he was nearly sure that he read in those sad blue eyes. He knew that Flossy was watching him and watching her, and he envied the General his guileless enjoyment of all that was going on, and little Dick's innocent pleasure in what was to him a great and unwonted treat.
When two songs had been sung, with much growling of the bass and a general misconception of the functions of a tenor, with great scraping of violin strings and much wantof harmony amongst the 'cellos, the General called the butler and told him to open the door. The dining-room had two wide folding-doors opening into the hall, and, when they were flung open, a motley crowd of village faces could be seen. A row of shrill-voiced chorister boys, much muffled up in red comforters, stood foremost; behind them came the singing men and the performers on instruments—a diverse little crowd of men and youths. In the background, some six or eight singing women and girls presented a half-bold, half-shy appearance, as knowing that they were there on sufferance only, and that the Rector had been doing his best to prevent their going out at nights to sing with the village choir. But the General had "backed them up;" he did not like the discontinuance of old customs, and was inclined to think the Rector unduly strict. Accordingly they stood in their accustomed places, but, as most of them felt, probably for the last time on New Year's Eve.
The faces of men and women and children, with one exception, were wreathed in smiles; but that one exception was notable indeed. Hubert, with his trained powers of keen observation, observed a lowering face directly. It was that of tall young woman neatly dressed in black—a young woman with fair hair curled over her forehead and rather prominent blue eyes—a coarse-looking girl, he thought, in spite of her pale coloring and sombre garments. Her brows were drawn together over her eyes in an angry frown; she was biting her lip, much as Flossy had been doing, and there was not a gleam of good humor or pleasure in her eyes. Hubert wondered idly why she had come, when she seemed to enjoy her occupation so very little.
The opening of the doors was the signal for a volley of clapping, stamping, and shouting. When this was over, the butler and his helpers appeared with trays of well-filled glasses, which were taken by the members of the choir, down to the smallest child present, with great alacrity. The fair woman in the background was once more an exception—she took no wine.
The General filled his own glass and signed for Hubert to do the same for the ladies. He then stood up and prepared to make his usual New Year's Eve speech. But this time he did what he had never done before—he lifted hislittle son on to the chair on which he had been sitting, and made his oration with one arm round little Dick's slender shoulders. To Hubert it seemed a pretty sight. Why did it give no pleasure to Florence and to Enid? Florence's eyes glittered, and a spot of blood was painfully conspicuous on her white lips; but Enid, sitting silent with downcast eyes, was now unusually flushed. A student of character might have said that, while Flossy seemed merely excited, Enid—the timid, delicate, pure-minded Enid—looked ashamed.
"My dear friends," the General began, "I'm very much obliged to you for coming, you know—very much obliged. So are my wife and my niece, and my little boy here—so far as he understands anything about it—very much obliged to you all. You know I ain't much of a speech-maker—'actions speak louder than words' was always my maxim"—great cheering—"and I take leave to say that I think it is a very good maxim too"—tremendous applause. "My friends, it's the end of one year, and it will soon be the beginning of another. Let's hope that the new year will be better than the last. I don't suppose I shall have many more to spend amongst you, and that is why I wish to introduce—so to speak—my little boy to you. As my son and heir, my friends, he will one day stand in the place which I now occupy, and speak to you perhaps as I am speaking now. I can only ask you to behave as well to him as you have always behaved to me. I trust that he will prove himself worthy of his name and of his race, and that generations yet unborn will bless the day when Beechfield Hall came into the hands of a younger Richard Vane. My friends, if you drink my health to-night, I shall ask you also to drink the health of my boy—to wish him happiness, and that he may prove a better landlord, a better magistrate, and a better man than ever I have been."
There was a tumult of applause, mingled with cries of "No, no!"—"Can't be better than you have been, sir!" and "Hurrah for the General!"
Hubert, smiling with pleasure at his host's genial tone, was amazed at the gloom which sat upon the brows of three persons in the room—Florence, Enid, and the woman in black. There was no other likeness between them, but that air of reserve and gravity made them look as if some incommunicable bond, some similarity of feeling or experience, held them back from the general hilarity which surrounded them.
"A happy New Year to you all, my friends!" said the General, in his hearty voice. "Here's to your good healths! There, Dick, my man—drink too, and say, 'A happy New Year to all of you!'"
Little Dick took a sip from his father's glass, and gravely uplifted his childish treble.
"A happy New Year to all of you!" he said; and men and women alike broke out into delighted response.
"Same to you, sir, and many of them!" "Bless his little heart," one of the women was heard to murmur, "he's just the image of his mamma!" But, if she thought to give pleasure by this remark, she was far from successful. Mrs. Vane threw so angry a glance in her direction that the woman shrank back aghast; and the girl in black, who stood in the background, laughed between her teeth.
The function was over at last. The choir trooped away to the servants' premises, where a substantial supper awaited them; the General kissed little Dick, and strode away with him to his nurse; and Mrs. Vane rose from the table with an air of studied weariness and disgust.
"Thank Heaven, that is over!" she said. "I am tired to death of this senseless old practice! If we have it another year, I shall say I am ill and go to bed. Come, Enid—let us go to the drawing-room and have some music."
The girl rose and followed obediently; but she vouchsafed no answer to Mrs. Vane's remarks. As the General had disappeared, Hubert thought that he too might as well accompany the ladies to the drawing-room, especially if Enid were about to play. But it did not seem that she was inclined to do so. She sat down in the darkest corner of the room, and leaned her head upon her hand. Flossy established herself in a luxurious lounging-chair, and took up a novel. Hubert hesitated for a moment or two, then went over to Enid's side.
"Are we not to have any music to-night?"
"Have you not had plenty?" she asked wearily.
"Music! You call that music?"
She did not answer; something in her voice, her attitude, seemed to show that she was shedding tears. He was intensely sorry for her trouble, whatever it might be; but he scarcely knew how to comfort her.
"It would be good for us all if you would play," he said softly. "We want consoling—strengthening—uplifting."
"Ah, but music does not always do that!" she answered, with a new note of passion in her voice. "When we are happy, music helps us—but not when we are sad."
"Why not?" said Hubert, more from the desire to make her talk than from any wish to hear her views on that particular subject.
But she spoke eagerly in reply, yet softly, so that her words should not reach the ears of the silent, graceful, languid woman by the fire.
"I can't tell why," she said; "but everything is different. Once music delighted me, even when I was a little sad; but now it seems to harrow my very soul. It brings thoughts into my mind of all the misery of the world. If I hear music, I shed tears—I don't know why. Everything is changed."
"My dear child," said Hubert, "you are unhappy!"
"Yes," she said slowly, with a pathetic tremor of the voice—"yes, I am very—very unhappy."
"Can I do nothing at all to make you happier?" he said.
The question was left unanswered.
"My dear Hubert," said Mrs. Vane, "if you cannot see what is the matter with Enid, you must be blind indeed!"
"Why should I see what is the matter with her more than anybody else?" asked Hubert, who was moving restlessly from place to place, now halting before the window of his sister's sitting-room, now plucking a leaf from one of the flowering plants in a gildedétagère, now teasing the white cockatoo in its fine cage, or stirring up the spaniel with the tip of his boot. All the teasing was good-naturedly done, and provoked no rancour in the mind of bird or beast; but it showed an unwonted excitement of feeling on his part, and was observed by his sister with a slightly ironical smile.
"If you will sit still for a little while, I will tell you perhaps," she said; "but, so long as you stray round theroom in that aimless manner, I shall keep my communications to myself."
"I beg your pardon; I did not know that I was disturbing you. Well," said Hubert, seating himself resolutely in a chair near her own, and devoting his attention apparently to the dissection of a spray of scented geranium-leaf, "tell me what is the matter, and I will listen discreetly. I am really concerned about Enid; she is neither well nor happy."
"Did she tell you so?"
"It is easy to be seen that she is not well," said Hubert, a very slight smile curving his lips under the heavy dark moustache as he looked down at the leaf which he was twisting in his hand; "and I think her unhappiness is quite as obvious. What is it, Flossy? You ought to know. You are the girl's chaperon, adviser, friend, or whatever you like to call it; you stand in the place——"
He stopped abruptly. He forgot sometimes that ghastly story of his sister's earlier life; sometimes it came back to him with hideous distinctness. At that moment he did not like to say to Flossy, "You stand in her mother's place." And yet it was the truth. Had it been for Enid's good or harm, he suddenly wondered, that Florence had become the General's wife?
"I understand what you mean," said Flossy quite sweetly, though there was no very amiable look in her velvety-brown eyes. "I assure you that I should be very glad to make more of a friend of Enid if she would allow me; but she does not like me."
"Instinct!" thought Hubert involuntarily, but he did not say it aloud. With the extraordinary quickness, however, which Florence occasionally showed, she divined the purport of his reflection almost at once.
"You think, no doubt, that it is natural," she said; "but I do not agree with you. Enid has no great penetration; she has never been able to read my character—which, after all, is not so bad as you imagine."
"I do not imagine anything about it; I do not think it bad," Hubert interposed rather hurriedly. "You have changed very much. But have we not agreed to let old histories alone?"
"I did not intend to revive them. I meant only to assure you that Enid has met with the tenderest care andguidance from me—as far, at least, as it lay in me to give it to her, and whenever she would accept it."
"You make two very important reservations."
"I know I do, but I cannot help it. I was never devotedly fond of children, and I was once Enid's governess. I do not think that she ever forgets that fact."
"Well, come to the point," said Hubert, rather impatiently. "What is the matter with her now?"
Florence laughed softly, and eyed him over her fan. She always used a fan, even in the depth of winter—and indeed her boudoir was so luxuriously warm and fragrant that it did not there seem out of place. She was wearing a loose tea-gown of peacock-blue plush over a satin petticoat of the palest rose-color—a daring combination which she had managed to harmonise extremely well—and the fan which she now held to her mouth was of pale rose-colored feathers. As Hubert looked at her and waited for his answer, he was struck by two things—first by the choiceness and beauty of her surroundings, and secondly by the fatigued expression of her eyes, which were set in hollows of purple shadows, and almost veiled by lids which had the faintly reddened tint which comes of wakefulness at night.
"I shall next ask what is the matter with you," he said. "You really do not look well, Florence!"
"Do I not?" She laid down her fan, took up a hand-glass set in silver from a table at her side, and studied her face in the mirror for a few seconds with some intentness. "You are right," she said, when she put it down; "I am growing hatefully old and haggard and ugly. What can one do? Would a winter in the South give me back my good looks, do you think? Perhaps I had better consult a doctor when I go up to town. I am not so old yet that I need lose all my 'beauty,' as people used to call it, am I?"
"Why do you care so much?" Hubert asked. He fancied that there was something deeper in her anxiety than the mere vanity of a pretty woman whose youth was fast fleeting away.
"Why does every woman care? For my husband's sake, of course," she answered, with a slight laugh, but a look of carking care and pain in her haggard eyes. "If I leave off looking pretty and bright, how am I to know that he will care for me any longer? And, if not——"
"If not! You are a mystery to me, Florence; you never professed before to trouble yourself about your husband's love."
"If I am a mystery, you are a perfect baby, my dear boy—I might almost say a perfect fool—in some respects. If he ceases to love me, he—don't you know that he may still leave me penniless? I had no settlements."
Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she said the words.
"Is that it?" said Hubert coldly. "I did not give you credit for so much worldly wisdom, Flossy. If that is your view of the case, I wonder that you do not pay a little more attention to the General's wishes sometimes. I have seen you treat him with very little consideration."
"He is so wearisome! One cannot always be on one's good behavior," Flossy murmured; "and, as long as one looks nice and gives him a word or two now and then, just to keep him in good-humor——"
"So long, you think, he will be kind to you? Florence, you do not understand the General's really noble nature. He is incapable of unkindness to any living soul—least of all capable of it to you, whom he loves so dearly. Do try to appreciate him a little more! He is devoted to you, both as his wife and as the mother of his child." He could not tell why she turned her head aside with a sharp gesture of annoyance.
"The child—always the child!" she exclaimed. "I wish I had never had a child at all!"
"We are straying from the point," said her brother coldly; "and we can do no good by discussing your relations with your husband. I want to know—as you say you can tell me—why Enid looks so ill."
Flossy took up her fan and began to examine the tips of the feathers.
"There is only one reason," she said slowly, "why a girl ever looks like that. Only one thing turns a girl of seventeen into a drooping, die-away, lackadaisical creature, such as Enid is just now."
"Speak kindly of her, at any rate," said Hubert. "She is a woman like yourself, and there is only one interpretation to be put upon your words."
"Naturally. You, as a novelist, dramatist, and poet, must know it well enough," said his sister calmly. "Well,remember that you have insisted on my telling you. Enid is in love. That is all. Nothing to make such a fuss about it, is it?"
Hubert was silent for a minute or two. His brow was contracted, as if with vexation or deep thought. Then he said abruptly—
"I suppose it's that good-looking parson in the village. There's no other man whom she seems to know so well. I cannot say that you have taken very great care of her, Florence."
"Are you really blind, or are you pretending?" said Mrs. Vane, looking at him with calm curiosity, "You are not quite such a fool as you make yourself out to be, are you? My dear Hubert, are you not aware that you are a singularly handsome and attractive man, and that you have laid siege to the poor child's heart ever since your first arrival here last autumn?"
Hubert started from his seat as if he had been stung.
"Impossible!" he cried.
"Not at all impossible. She has seen few men in her short life—she has been very carefully guarded, in spite of your sneer at my want of caution—and the attentions of a man like yourself were quite new to her. What could you expect?"
"Attentions!" groaned Hubert. "I never paid her any attentions, save as a cousin and a friend."
"Exactly; but she did not understand."
There was a short silence. He stood with his arm on the mantelpiece, looking through the window at the snow-covered landscape outside. His face had turned pale, and his lips were firmly set. Presently he said, in a low tone—
"You must be mistaken. Surely she can never have let you know what her feelings are on such a point? You say that she does not confide in you. How can you know?"
"There are other ways of reading a girl's heart as well as a man's coarse way of having everything in black and white," said Flossy composedly. "I am sure of it. She is in love with you, and that is why she looks so ill."
"It must not be! You must let her know—gently, but decidedly—that I am not the man for her—that there is an unsurmountable barrier between us."
"What is it? Are you married already?"
"Florence"—there was a sound of anguish in his voice, "how could I marry a girl whose father I——"
"Hush, hush! For mercy's sake, be quiet! You should never say such things—never think them even. Walls have ears sometimes, and spoken words cannot be recalled. Never say that, even to me. At the same time, I do not see the obstacle."
"Florence! Well, I might expect it from you. You have married Sydney Vane's brother!"
She did not wince. She sat steadily regarding him over the tips of her rose-colored feather fan.
"And you," she said, "will marry Sydney Vane's daughter."
"God keep me from committing such a sin!"
"Hubert, this is mere sentimental folly," said his sister, with some earnestness.
"We have both made up our minds that the past is dead—why do you at every moment rake up its ashes?"
"It is in some ways unfortunate that Enid should have chosen to love you; but, as the matter stands, I cannot see that you have any other choice than to marry her."
"What on earth makes you say so?"
"I thought that you would go through a good deal of unpleasantness for the sake of saving her from trouble. You have said as much."
"I have no right to save her from anything. She must forget me."
"That is sheer nonsense—cowardly nonsense too!" said Mrs. Vane. "If Enid were on the brink of a precipice, would you hesitate to draw her back? I tell you that she is breaking her heart for you, and that, if you are free to marry, and not inordinately selfish, your only way out of the difficulty is to marry her."
"She would get over it."
"No; she would die as her mother died—of a broken heart."
"You can speak so calmly, remembering who killed her mother—for what you and I are responsible!"
"Look, Hubert—if you cannot speak calmly yourself, you had better not speak at all. You seem to think that I am cold and callous. I suppose I am; and yet I am more anxious in this matter to keep Enid from grief and pain than you seem to be. I do not like to see her lookingpale and sad. I would do anything within my power to help her, and I thought—I thought that you would do the same. It seems that you shrink from the task."
"It is so horrible—so unnatural! How can I ask her to be mine—I, with my hands stained——"
"Hush! I will not have you say those words! We both know—if we are to speak of the past—that it was an honorable contest enough—a fair fight—a meeting such as no man of honor could refuse. You would have fallen if he had not. It is purely morbid, this brooding over the consequences of your actions. Everybody who knew the circumstances would have said that you were in the right. I say it myself, although at my own cost. To marry Enid now because she loves you will be the only way you can take to repair the harm that was done in the past and to shield her for the future."
It was not often that Florence spoke so long or so energetically; and Hubert, in spite of his revolt of feeling at the prospect held out to him, was impressed by her words. After a few moments' silence, he sat down again and began to argue the matter with her from every possible point of view. He told her it was probable that Enid did not know her own mind; that she would be miserable if she married a man who could not love her; that the whole world would cry shame on him if it ever learned the circumstances of her father's death; that Enid herself would be the first to reproach him, and would indeed bitterly hate him if she ever knew.
"If she ever knew—if the world ever knew!" said Florence scornfully. Hitherto she had been very quiet and let her brother say his say. "As if she or the world were ever going to know! There is no way in which the truth can be known unless one of us tells it; and I ask you, is that a thing that either of us is very likely to do? It would mean social ruin for us—utter and irretrievable ruin! If we only hold our tongues, Enid and the world will never know."
"That is true," he answered moodily; and then he sat so long in one position, with his arms crossed on his breast; and his eyes fixed on vacancy, that Florence asked him with some curiosity of what he was thinking.
"I was wondering," he said, "whether that poor wretch Westwood found his undeserved punishment more galling than I sometimes find the bonds of secrecy and falsehoodand dishonor that bind me now. He at any rate has gained his freedom; but I am in bondage still. I have my sentence—a life sentence—to work out."
"He is free now, certainly," Florence answered, with an odd intonation of her voice; "so I do not think that you need trouble yourself about him. Think of Enid rather, and of her needs."
"Free? Yes—he is dead," said Hubert quickly, replying to something in her tone rather than to her words. "He died as I told you—some time ago."
"You read it in the newspaper?"
"Yes."
"And you never saw that next day the report of his death was contradicted?"
"Florence, what do you mean?"
"You went away from England just then with a mind at ease, did you not? But I was here, with nothing to do but to think and brood and read; and I read more than that. There were two men named Westwood at Portland, and the one who died—as was stated in next day's paper—was not the one we knew."
"And he is in prison all this time? Don't you see that that makes my guilt the worse—brings back all the intolerable burden, renders it simply impossible that I should ever make an innocent girl happy?" His voice was hoarse, and the veins upon his forehead stood out like knotted cords.
"Sit down," said Flossy calmly, "and listen to me. I have an odd story to tell you. The man of whom we speak managed to do what scarcely another convict has done in recent times—he escaped. He nearly killed the warder in his flight, but not quite—so that counts for nothing. It is rumored that he reached America, where he is living contentedly in the backwoods. I can show you the newspaper account of his escape. I thought," she added a little cynically, "that it might relieve your mind to hear of it; but it does not seem to do so. I fancied that you would be glad. Would you rather that he were dead?"
"No, no; Heaven knows that I rejoice in his escape!" cried her brother, sitting down again with his forehead bowed upon his clasped hands and his elbows on his knees. "I have blood-guiltiness enough already upon my soul. Glad? I am so glad, Florence, that I can almost dare to thank God that Westwood is alive and has escaped. I—I shall never escape!"