Janetta was naturally very anxious to know something of the progress of affairs between Wyvis and Margaret, but she heard little for a rather considerable space of time. She was now entirely severed from Helmsley Court, and had no correspondence with Margaret. As the summer holidays had begun, little Julian did not come every morning to Gwynne Street, but Tiny and Curly were invited to spend a month at the Red House in charge of Nora, who was delighted to be so much with Cuthbert, and who had the power of enlivening even the persistent gloom of Mrs. Brand. Janetta was thus obliged to live a good deal at home, and Wyvis seemed to shun her society. His relations at home had heard nothing of his proposal for Margaret's hand, and Janetta, like them, did not know that it had ever been actually made. Another event drove this matter into the background for some little time—for it was evidently fated that Janetta should never be quite at peace.
Mrs. Colwyn summoned her rather mysteriously one afternoon to a conference in her bedroom.
"Of course I know that you will be surprised at what I am going to say, Janetta," began the good lady, with some tossings of the head and flourishings of a handkerchief which rather puzzled Janetta by their demonstrativeness; "and no doubt you will accuse me of want of respect of your father's memory and all that sort of thing; though I'm sure I don't know why, forhemarried a second time, and I am a young woman still and not without admirers."
"Do you mean," said Janetta, "that you think——?"
She could go no further: she stood and looked helplessly at her stepmother.
"Do I think of marrying again? Well, yes, Janetta, I do; and more for the children's good than for my own. Poor things, they need a father: and I am tired of this miserable, scraping, cheeseparing life that you are so fond of. I have been offered a comfortable home and provision for my children, and I have decided to accept it."
"So soon!"
"It will not be announced just yet, of course. Not until the end of the summer. But it is really no use to wait."
Janetta stood pale and wide-eyed: she did not dare to let herself speak just yet. Mrs. Colwyn grew fretful under what she felt to be silent condemnation.
"I should like to know what harm it can do to you?" she said. "I've waited quite as long as many widows do, and toiled and suffered more than most. Poor James was the last man to grudge me a little rest and satisfaction as a reward for all that I have undergone. My own children will not repine, I am sure, and I look to you, Janetta, to explain to them how much for their good it will be, and how advantageous for them all."
"You can hardly expect me to try to explain away an act of disrespect to my father's memory," said Janetta, coldly.
"There is no disrespect to the dead in marrying a second time."
"After a decent interval."
Mrs. Colwyn burst into tears. "It's the first time in my life that I've ever been told that I was going to do a thing that wasn't decent," she moaned. "And when it's all for his dear children's good, too! Ah, well! I'll give it up, I'll say no, and we will all starve and go down into the grave together, and then perhaps you will be satisfied."
"Mamma, please do not talk such nonsense. Who is it that has asked you to be his wife?"
"Dr. Burroughs," said Mrs. Colwyn, faintly.
Janetta uttered an involuntary exclamation. Dr. Burroughs was certainly a man of sixty-five, but he was strong and active still; he had a good position in the town, and a large private income. His sister, who kept his house, was a good and sensible woman, and Dr. Burroughs himself was reputed to be a sagacious man. His fondness for children was well known, and a little thought convinced Janetta that his choice of a wife had been partly determined by his liking for Tiny and Curly, to say nothing of the elder children. He had been a close friend of Mr. Colwyn, and it was not likely that Mrs. Colwyn's infirmity had remained a secret from him: he must have learned it from common town-talk long ago. Angry as Janetta was, and petrified with surprise, she could not but acknowledge in her heart that such a marriage was a very good one for Mrs. Colwyn, and would probably be of immense advantage to the children. And the old physician and his sister would probably be able to keep Mrs. Colwyn in check: Janetta remembered that she had heard of one or two cases of intemperance which had been cured under his roof. As soon as she could get over her intense feeling that a slur was thrown on her father's memory by this very speedy second marriage of his widow, her common-sense told her that she might be very glad. But it was difficult to rid herself all at once of her indignation of what she termed "this indecent haste."
She made an effort to calm Mrs. Colwyn's fretful sobbing, and assured her with as much grace as she had at command that the marriage would not at all displease her if it took place at a somewhat later date. And she reflected that Dr. and Miss Burroughs might be depended upon not to violate conventionalities. Her own soreness with regard to the little affection displayed by Mrs. Colwyn to her late husband must be disposed of as best it might: there was no use in exhibiting it.
And as Mrs. Colwyn had hinted, it fell to Janetta to inform the rest of the family of their mother's intention, and to quell symptoms of indignation and discontent. After all, things might have been worse. The children already liked Dr. Burroughs, and soon reconciled themselves to the notion of living in a large, comfortable house, with a big garden, and unlimited treats and pleasures provided by their future stepfather and aunt. And when Janetta had had an interview with these two good people, her mind was considerably relieved. They were kind and generous; and although she could not help feeling that Dr. Burroughs was marrying for the sake of the children rather than their mother, she saw that he would always be thoughtful and affectionate to her, and that she would probably have a fairly happy and luxurious life. One thing was also evident—that he would be master in his own house, as James Colwyn had never been.
The marriage was to take place at Christmas, and the house in Gwynne Street was then to be let. Cuthbert and Nora began to talk of marrying at the same time, for Nora was somewhat violently angry at her mother's proceeding, and did not wish to go to Dr. Burroughs' house. The younger members of the family would all, however, migrate to The Cedars, as Dr. Burroughs' house was called; and there Miss Burroughs was still to maintain her sway. On this point Dr. Burroughs had insisted, and Janetta was thankful for it, and Miss Burroughs was quite able and willing to perform the duty of guardian not only to her brother's step-children, but to her brother's wife.
"And of course you will come to us, too, dear?" Miss Burroughs said to Janetta. "This will be your home always: Andrew particularly wished me to say so."
"It is very kind of Dr. Burroughs," said Janetta, gratefully. "I have no claim on him at all: I am not Mrs. Colwyn's daughter."
"As if that made any difference! James Colwyn was one of Andrew's best friends, and for his sake, if for no other, you will be always welcome."
"I am very much obliged to you," Janetta replied, "and I shall be pleased to come to you now and then as a visitor; but I have made up my mind that now—now that my duty seems to be done, I had better go out into the world and try to make a career for myself. I shall be happier at work than leading an idle, easy life. But please do not think me ungrateful—only Imustget away."
And Miss Burroughs, looking into the girl's worn face, and noticing the peculiar significance of her tone, refrained from pressing the point. She was sure from both that some hidden pain existed, that there was some secret reason why Janetta felt that she "mustget away." She was anxious to help the girl, but she saw that it would be no true kindness to keep her in Beaminster against her will.
These matters took some time to arrange, and it was while some of them were still pending that Janetta was startled by a visit from Margaret Adair.
It was a sultry day towards the end of July, and Miss Adair looked for once hot and dusty. She was much thinner than she had been, and had a harassed expression which Janetta could not fail to remark. As she hurriedly explained, she had walked some little distance, leaving Alicia Stone at the Post Office, and it afterwards transpired, giving her mother the slip at a confectioner's, in order to see Janetta once again.
"It is very kind of you, dear," said Janetta, touched, rather against her will, by so unwonted a proof of affection. "But I am afraid that Lady Caroline would not be pleased."
"I know she would not," said Margaret, a little bitterly. "She did not want me to see any more of you. I told her how unjust it was to blame you, but she would not believe me."
"It does not matter, Margaret, dear, I do not much mind."
"I thought I should like to see you once again." Margaret spoke with unusual haste, and almost in a breathless manner. "I want to know if you would do something for me. You used to say you would do anything for me."
"So I will, if I can."
"We were going abroad in a few days. I don't know where, exactly: they won't tell me. They are angry with me, Janetta, and I can't bear it," cried Margaret, breaking suddenly into tears which were evidently very heartfelt, although they did not disfigure that fair and placid face of hers in the slightest degree; "they were never angry with me before, and it is terrible. They may take me away and keep me away for years, and I don't know what to do. The only thing I can think of is to ask you to help me. I want to send a message to Wyvis—I want to write to him if you will give him the letter."
"But why do you not write him through the post?"
"Oh, because I promised not to post anything to him. Mamma said she must supervise my correspondence unless I promised not to write to him. And so I keep my word—but a few lines through you, Janet, darling, would not be breaking my word at all, for it would not be a letter exactly. And I want to arrange when I can see him again."
Janetta drew back a little. "It would be breaking the spirit of your promise, Margaret. No, I cannot help you to do that."
"Oh, Janetta, you would never be so hard as to refuse me! I only want to tell Wyvis that I am true to him, and that I don't mind what the world says one bit, because I know how people tell lies about him! You know you always promised to stand by me and to be my best friend."
"Yes, but I never promised to do a dishonorable action for you," said Janetta, steadily.
Margaret started up, her face a-flame directly.
"How dare you say such a thing to me, Janetta?" she exclaimed.
"I cannot help it, Margaret, you know that I am right."
The two looked at each other for a moment, and then Margaret turned away with the mien of an insulted princess.
"I was wrong to come. I thought that you would be true to the old bond of friendship between us. I shall never come to you again."
Poor Janetta's heart was very tender, although her resolution was impregnable. She ran after Margaret, putting her hands on her arm, and imploring her with tears to forgive her for her refusal. "If it were only anything else, Margaret, dear! If only you did not want me to do what your father and mother do not wish! Don't you see that you are trying to deceive them? If you were acting openly it would be a different thing! Don't be angry with me for wanting to do right!"
"I am not at all angry," said Margaret, with stateliness. "I am very disappointed, that is all. I do not see that I am deceiving anybody by sending a message to Wyvis. But I will not ask you again."
"If only I could!" sighed Janetta, in deep distress and confusion of mind. But her anchor of truth and straightforwardness was the thing of all others that she relied on for safety, and she did not let go her hold. In spite of Margaret's cold and haughty displeasure, Janetta kissed her affectionately, and could not refrain from saying, "Dear, I would do anything for you that I thought right. But don't—don't deceive your father and mother."
"I will not, as you shall see," returned Margaret, and she left the house without again looking at her former friend. Janetta felt very bitterly, as she watched the graceful figure down the street, that the old friendship had indeed become impossible in its older sense. Her very faithfulness to the lines in which it had been laid down now made it an offence to Margaret.
Janetta's direct and straightforward dealing had the effect of driving Margaret, though chiefly out of perversity, to do likewise. Miss Adair was not accustomed to be withstood, and, during the unexpected opposition with which her wishes had been met, her mind had turned very often to Janetta with unswerving faith in her old friend's readiness to help her at an emergency.
In this faith she considered that she had been cruelly disappointed. And her mingled anger, shame, and sorrow so blinded her to the circumstances in which she stood, that she walked quietly up to Lady Caroline and Alicia Stone in Beaminster High Street, and did not think of hiding her escapade at all.
"My dearest child, wherehaveyou been?" cried Lady Caroline, who was always caressing, if inflexible.
"I have been to Janetta Colwyn's, mamma," said Margaret, imperturbably, "to ask her to give a message to Mr. Brand."
"Margaret! Have you quite forgotten yourself? Oh, that unsuitable friendship of yours!"
"I don't think you need call it unsuitable, mamma," Margaret rejoined, with a weary little smile. "Janetta absolutely refused to give the message, and told me to obey my parents. I really do not see thatyoucan blame her."
Lady Caroline replied only by a look of despair which spoke unutterable things, and then she walked onward to the spot where she had left the carriage. The three ladies drove home in complete silence. Lady Caroline was seriously displeased, Alicia curious, Margaret in rebellion and disgrace. The state of things was becoming very grave, for the whole tenor of life at Helmsley Court was disturbed, and Margaret's father and mother wanted their daughter to be a credit and an ornament to them, not a cause of disturbance and irritation. Margaret had kept up a gallant fight: she had borne silence, cold looks, absence of caresses, with unwavering courage; but she began now to find the situation unendurable. And a little doubt had lately been creeping into her heart—was it all worth while? If Wyvis Brand were really as undesirable apartias he was represented to be, Margaret was not sure that her lot would be very happy as his wife. Hitherto she had maintained that the stories told about him, his habits and his position, were falsehoods. But if—she began to think—if they were true, and if a marriage with him would exclude her from the society to which she had been accustomed, was it worth while to fight as hard as she had done? Perhaps, after all, her mother and her father were right.
Lady Caroline, not knowing of these weaknesses in Margaret's defence, was inclined for once to be more severe than caressing. She went straight to her husband when she entered the Court, and had a long conversation with him. Then she proceeded to Margaret's room.
"I have been talking to your father, Margaret," she said coldly, "and we are both very much distressed at the course which things are taking."
"So am I, mamma," said Margaret.
"Of course we cannot proceed in the mediæval fashion, and lock you up in your own room until you are reasonable," said Lady Caroline, with a faint smile. "I should have thought that your own instinct as a lady would have precluded you from doing anything that would make it necessary for us to lay any restraint upon you; but to-day's occurrence really makes me afraid. You have promised not to write to Mr. Brand, I think?"
"Yes. But I meant to send him a little note to-day."
"Indeed? Then what I have to say is all the more necessary. We do not restrict you to any part of the house, but you must understand that when you come out of your own room, Margaret, you are never to be alone. Alicia will sit with you, if I am engaged. She will walk with you, if you wish to go out into the garden. I have no doubt it will be a little unpleasant," said Lady Caroline, with a slight, agreeable smile, "to be constantly undersurveillance, and of course it will last only until we leave home next week; but in the meantime, my dear, unless you will give up yourpenchantfor Mr. Brand, you must submit to be watched. You cannot be allowed to run off with messages to this man as if you were a milliner's girl or a servant maid:wemanage these matters differently."
And then Lady Caroline withdrew, though not too late to see the girl sink down into a large arm-chair and burst into a very unwonted passion of sobs and tears.
"So tiresome of Margaret to force one to behave in this absurd manner!" reflected Lady Caroline. "So completely out of date in modern days!"
Two or three days after Margaret's visit to Gwynne Street, Janetta availed herself of Mrs. Colwyn's temporary absence in Miss Burroughs' company to pay a visit to the Red House. Her anxiety to know what was occurring between Wyvis and Margaret had become almost uncontrollable and, although she was not very likely to hear much about it from Wyvis or his mother, she vaguely hoped to gather indications at least of the state of affairs from her cousin's aspect and manners.
It was plain that Wyvis was not in a happy mood. His brow was dark, his tone sarcastic; he spoke roughly once or twice to his mother and to his little son. He evidently repented of his roughness, however, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, for he went over to Mrs. Brand's side and kissed her immediately afterwards, and gave some extra indulgence to Julian by way of making up for his previous severity. Still the irritation of feeling existed, and could not be altogether repressed when he spoke; and when he was silent he fell into a condition of gloom which was even more depressing than his sharpness. Janetta did her best to be cheerful and talkative to Mrs. Brand, and she fancied that he liked to listen; for he sat on with them in the blue room long after Nora and Cuthbert had disappeared into the garden and the children were romping in the wood. Certainly he did not say much to her, but he seemed greatly disinclined to move.
After a time, Mrs. Brand and Janetta adjourned to the hall, which was always a favorite place of resort on summer evenings. Traces of the children's presence made the rooms more cheerful than they used to be—to Janetta's thinking. Tiny's doll and Julian's ball were more enlivening to the place than even Cuthbert's sketches and Nora's bunches of wild flowers. And here, too, Wyvis followed them in an aimless, subdued sort of way; and, having asked and obtained permission to light a cigarette, he threw himself into a favorite chair, and seemed to listen dreamily, while Janetta held patient discourse with his mother on the ailments of the locality and the difficulty of getting the housework done. Janetta glanced at him from time to time; he sat so quietly that she would have thought him sleeping but for the faint blue spirals of smoke that went up from his cigarette. It was six o'clock in the evening, and the golden lights and long shadows made Janetta long to be out of doors; but Mrs. Brand had a nervous fear of rheumatism, and did not want to move.
"What is that?" said Wyvis, suddenly rousing himself.
Nobody else had heard anything. He strode suddenly to the door, and flung it open. Janetta heard the quavering tones of the old man-servant, an astonished, enraptured exclamation from Wyvis himself; and she knew—instinctively—what to expect. She turned round; it was as she had feared. Margaret was there. Wyvis was leading her into the room with the fixed look of adoration in his eyes which had been so much commented upon at Lady Ashley's party. When she was present, he evidently saw none but her. Janetta rose quickly and withdrew a little into the back ground. She wished for a moment that she had not been there—and then it occurred to her that she might be useful by and by. But it was perhaps better for Margaret not to see her too soon. Mrs. Brand, utterly unprepared for this visit, not even knowing the stranger by sight, and, as usual, quite unready for an emergency, rose nervously from her seat and stood, timid, awkward, and anxious, awaiting an explanation.
"Mother, this is Margaret Adair," said Wyvis, as quietly as if his mother knew all that was involved in that very simple formula. He was still holding the girl by the hand and gazing in his former rapt manner into her face. It was not the look of a lover, to Janetta's eye, half so much as the worship of a saint. Margaret embodied for Wyvis Brand the highest aspirations, the purest dreams of his youth.
As to Margaret, Janetta thought that she was looking exquisitely lovely. Her thinness added to the impression of ethereal beauty; there was a delicacy about her appearance which struck the imagination. Her color fluctuated; her eyes shone like stars; and her whole frame seemed a little tremulous, as if she were shaken by some strange and powerful emotion to her very soul. Her broad-brimmed straw hat, white dress, and long tan gloves belonged, as Janetta knew, only to her ordinary attire when no visitors were to be seen; but simplicity of dress always seemed to garnish Margaret's beauty, and to throw it into the strongest possible relief. She was sufficiently striking in aspect to frighten poor, timid Mrs. Brand, who was never happy when she found herself in the company of "fashionable" people. But it was with a perfectly simple and almost child-like manner that Margaret drew her finger away from Wyvis' clasp and went up to his mother, holding out both hands as if in appeal for help.
"I am Margaret," she said. "I ought not to have come; but what could I do? They are going to take me away from the Court to-morrow, and I could not go without seeing you and Wyvis first."
"Wyvis?" repeated Mrs. Brand, blankly. She had not taken Margaret's hands, but now she extended her right hand in a stiff, lifeless fashion, which looked like anything but a welcome. "I do not know—I do not understand——"
"It is surely easy enough to understand," said Wyvis, vehemently. "She loves me—she has promised to be my wife—and you must love her, too, for my sake, as well as for her own."
"Won't you love me a little?" said Margaret, letting her eyes rest pleadingly on Mrs. Brand's impassive face. She was not accustomed to being met in this exceedingly unresponsive manner. Wyvis made a slight jesture of impatience, which his mother perfectly understood. She tried, in her difficult, frozen way, to say something cordial.
"I am very pleased to see you," she faltered. "You must excuse me if I did not understand at first. Wyvis did not tell me."
Then she sank into her chair again, more out of physical weakness than from any real intention to seat herself. Her hand stole to her side, as if to still the beating of her heart; her face had turned very pale. Only Janetta noticed these signs, which betrayed the greatness of the shock; Margaret, absorbed in her own affairs, and Wyvis absorbed in Margaret, had no eyes for the poor mother's surprise and agitation. Janetta made a step forward, but she saw that she could do nothing. Mrs. Brand was recovering her composure, and the other two were not in a mood to bear interruption. So she waited, and meanwhile Margaret spoke.
"Dear Mrs. Brand," she said, kneeling at the side of the trembling woman, and laying her clasped hands on her lap, "forgive me for startling you like this." Even Janetta wondered at the marvelous sweetness of Margaret's tones. "Indeed, I would not have come if there had been any other way of letting Wyvis know. They made me promise not to write to him, not to meet him in the wood where we met before you know, and they watched me, so that I could not get out, or send a message or anything. It has been like living in prison during the last few days." And the girl sobbed a little, and laid her forehead for a moment on her clasped hands.
"It's a shame—a shame! It must not go on," exclaimed Wyvis, indignantly.
"In one way it will not go on," said Margaret, raising her head. "They are going to take me away, and we are not to come back for the whole winter—perhaps not next year at all. I don't know where we are going. I shall never be allowed to write. And I thought it would be terrible to go without letting Wyvis know that I will never, never forget him. And I am only nineteen now, and I can't do as I like; but, when I am twenty-one, nobody can prevent me——"
"Why should anybody prevent you now?" said Wyvis gloomily. He drew nearer and laid his hand upon her shoulder. "Why should you wait? You are safe: you have come to my mother, and she will take care of you. Why need you go back again?"
"Is that right, Wyvis?" said Janetta. She could not keep silence any longer. Wyvis turned on her almost fiercely. Margaret who had not seen her before started up and faced her, with a look of something like terror.
"It is no business of yours," said the man. "This matter is between Margaret and myself. Margaret must decide it. I do not ask her to compromise herself in any way. She shall be in my mother's care. All she will have to do is to trust to me——"
"I think we need hardly trouble you, Mr. Brand," said another voice. "Margaret will be better in the care of her own mother than in that of Mrs. Brand or yourself."
Lady Caroline Adair stood on the threshold. Lady Caroline addressed the little group, on which a sudden chill and silence fell for a moment, as if her appearance heralded some portentous crash of doom. The door had been left ajar when Margaret entered; it was not easy to say how much of the conversation Lady Caroline had heard. Mrs. Brand started up; Margaret turned very pale and drew back, while Wyvis came closer to her and put his arm round her with an air of protective defiance. Janetta drew a quick breath of relief. A disagreeable scene would follow she knew well; and there were probably unpleasant times in store for Margaret, but these were preferable to the course of rebellion, open or secret, to which the girl was being incited by her too ardent lover.
Janetta never admired Lady Caroline so much as she did just then. Margaret's mother was the last person to show discomposure. She sat down calmly, although no one had asked her to take a chair, and smilingly adjusted the lace shawl which she had thrown round her graceful figure. There were no signs of haste or agitation in her appearance. She wore a very elegant and becoming dress, a Paris bonnet on her head, a pair of French gloves on her slender hands. She became at once the centre of the group, the ornamental point on which all eyes were fixed. Every one else was distressed, frightened, or angry; but Lady Caroline's pleasing smile and little air of society was not for one moment to be disturbed.
"It is really very late for a call," she said, quietly, "but as I found that my daughter was passing this way, I thought I would follow her example and take the opportunity of paying a visit to Mrs. Brand. It is not, however, the first time that we have met."
She looked graciously towards Mrs. Brand, but that poor woman was shaking in every limb. Janetta put her arms round Mrs. Brand's shoulders. What did Lady Caroline mean? She had some purpose to fulfil, or she would not sit so quietly, pretending not to notice that her daughter was holding Wyvis Brand by the hand and that one of his arms was round her waist. There was something behind that fixed, agreeable smile.
"No," said Lady Caroline, reflectively, "not the first time. The last time I saw you, Mrs. Brand——"
"Oh, my lady, my lady!" Mrs. Brand almost shrieked, "for heaven's sake, my lady, don't go on!"
She covered her face with her hands and rocked herself convulsively to and fro. Wyvis frowned and bit his lip: Margaret started and unconsciously withdrew her hand. It crossed the minds of both that Mrs. Brand's tone was that of an inferior, that of a servant to a mistress, not that of one lady to her equal.
"Why should I not go on?" said Lady Caroline, glancing from one to another as if in utter ignorance. "Have I said anything wrong? I only meant that I was present at Mrs. Brand'sfirstwedding—when she married your father, Mr. Wyvis—not your adopted father, of course, but John Wyvis, the ploughman."
There was a moment's silence. Then Wyvis took a step forward and thundered. "What?" while the veins stood out upon his forehead and his eyes seemed to be gathering sombre fire. Mrs. Brand, with her head bowed upon her hands, still rocked herself and sobbed.
"I hope I have not been indiscreet," said Lady Caroline, innocently. "You look a little surprised. It is surely no secret that you are the son of Mary Wyvis and her cousin, John Wyvis, and that you were brought up by Mr. Brand as his son simply out of consideration for his wife? I am sure I beg your pardon if I have said anything amiss. As Mrs. Brand seems disturbed, I had better go."
"Not until my mother has contradicted this ridiculous slander," said Wyvis, sternly. But his mother only shook her head and wailed aloud.
"I can't, my dear—I can't. It's true every word of it. My lady knows."
"Of course I know. Come, Mary, don't be foolish," said Lady Caroline, in the carelessly sharp tone in which one sometimes speaks to an erring dependant. "I took an interest in you at the time, you will remember, although I was only a child staying at Helmsley Court at the time with Mr. Adair's family. I was fourteen, I think; and you were scullery-maid or something, and told me about your sweetheart, John Wyvis. There is nothing to be ashamed of: you were married very suitably, and if Wyvis, the ploughman, had not been run over when he was intoxicated, and killed before your baby's birth, you might even now have been living down at Wych End, with half a dozen stalwart sons and daughters—of whom you, Mr. Wyvis, or Mr. Wyvis Brand, as you are generally known, would have been the eldest—probably by this time a potman or a pugilist, with a share in your grandfather's public-house at Roxby. How ridiculous it seems now, does it not?"
Astonishment had kept Wyvis silent, but his gathering passion could not longer be repressed.
"That is enough," he said. "If you desire to insult me you might have let it be in other company. Or if you will send your husband to repeat it——"
"I said a pugilist, did I not?" said Lady Caroline, smiling, and putting up her eye-glass. "Your thews and sinews justify me perfectly—and so, I must say, does your manner of speech." She let her eye run over his limbs critically, and then she dropped her glass. "You are really wonderfully like poor Wyvis; he was a very strong sort of man."
"Will you be so good as to take your leave, Lady Caroline Adair? I wish to treat you with all due courtesy, as you are Margaret's mother," said Wyvis, setting his teeth, "but you are saying unpardonable things to a man in his own house."
"My dear man, there is nothing to be ashamed of!" cried Lady Caroline, as if very much surprised. "Your father and mother were very honest people, and I always thought it greatly to Mark Brand's credit that he adopted you. The odd thing was that so few people knew that you were not his son. You were only a month or two old when he married Mary Wyvis, however; for your father died before your birth; but there was no secret made of it at the time, I believe. And it is nearly thirty years. Things get forgotten."
"Mother, can this be true?" said Wyvis, hoarsely. He was forced into asking the question by Lady Caroline's cool persistence. He was keenly conscious of the fact that Margaret, looking scared and bewildered, had shrunk away from him.
"Yes, yes, it is true," said Mrs. Brand, with a burst of despairing tears. "We did not mean any harm, and nobody made any inquiries. There was nothing wrong about it—nothing. It was better for you, Wyvis, that was all."
"Is it better for anybody to be brought up to believe a lie?" said the young man. His lips had grown white, and his brow was set in very ominous darkness. "I shall hear more of this story by and by. I have to thank you, Lady Caroline, for letting in a little light upon my mind. Your opposition to my suit is amply explained."
"I am glad you take it in that way, Mr. Brand," said Lady Caroline, for the first time giving him his adopted name, and smiling very amicably. "As I happened to be one of the very few people who knew or surmised anything about the matter, I thought it better to take affairs into my own hands—especially when I found that my daughter had come to your house. But for this freak of hers I should not, perhaps, have interfered. As you are no doubt prepared now to resign all hope of her, I am quite satisfied with the result of my afternoon's work. Come, Margaret."
"Then I am to understand," said Wyvis, a sudden glow breaking out over his dark face, "that you did not make this communication carelessly, as at first I thought, but out of malice prepense?"
"If you like to call it so—certainly," said Lady Caroline, with a slight shrug of her shoulders.
"This was your revenge?—when you found that Margaret had come to me!"
"You use strange words, Mr. Wyvis Brand. Revenge is out of date—a quite too ridiculous idea. I simply mean that I never wish to intermeddle with my neighbors' affairs, and should not have thought of bringing this matter forward if your pretentions could have been settled in an ordinary way. If Margaret"—glancing at her daughter, who stood white and thunderstricken at her side—"had behaved with submission and with modesty, I should not have had to inflict what seems to be considerable pain upon you. But it is her fault and yours. Young people should submit to the judgment of their elders: we do not refuse to gratify their wishes without good reason."
Lady Caroline spoke with a cold dignity, which she did not usually assume. Margaret half covered her face with one hand, and turned aside. The sight of the slow tears trickling through her fingers almost maddened Wyvis, as he stood before her, looking alternately at her and at Lady Caroline. Mrs. Brand and Janetta were left in the background of the little group. The older woman was still weeping, and Janetta was engaged in soothing and caressing her; but neither of them lost a word which passed between the man for whom they cared and the woman whom at that moment they both sincerely hated.
"But is it a good reason?" said Wyvis at last. His eye flashed beneath his dark brow, his nostril began to quiver. "If I had been Mark Brand's son, you mean, you would have given me Margaret?"
"There would then have been no disqualification of birth," said Lady Caroline, clearly. "There might then have been disqualifications of character or of fortune, but these we need hardly consider now. The other—the primary—fact is conclusive."
"Mamma, mamma!" broke out Margaret; "don't say these terrible things—please don't. It isn't Wyvis' fault."
"God bless you, my darling!" Wyvis muttered between his teeth.
"No, it is not his fault; it is his misfortune," said Lady Caroline.
"I am to understand, then, Lady Caroline," said Wyvis, to whom Margaret's expostulation seemed to have brought sudden calmness and courage, "that my lowly origin forms an insurmountable barrier to my marriage with Miss Adair?"
"Quite so, Mr. Brand."
"But that there is no other obstacle?"
"I did not say so. Your domestic relations have been unfortunate, and Mr. Adair strongly objects to giving his daughter to a man in your position. But we need not go into that matter; I don't consider it a subject suitable for discussion in my daughter's presence."
"Then I appeal to Margaret!" said Wyvis, in a deep, strong voice. "I call uponherto decide whether my birth is as much of an obstacle as you say it is."
"That is not fair," said Lady Caroline, quickly. "She will write to you. She can say nothing now."
"She must say something. She was on the point of giving me herself—her all—when you came in. She had promised to be my wife, and she was prepared to keep her promise almost immediately. She shall not break her word because my father was a ploughman instead of a landowner and a gentleman."
For once Lady Caroline made a quick, resistant gesture, as if some impulse prompted her to speak sharply and decisively. Then she recovered herself, leaned back in her chair, and smiled faintly.
"Is the battle to be fought out here and now?" she said. "Well, then, do your worst, Mr. Brand. But I must have a word by and by, when you have spoken."
Wyvis seemed scarcely to hear her. He was looking again, at Margaret. She was not crying now, but one hand still grasped a handkerchief wet with her tears. She had rested the other on the back of her mother's chair. Janetta marveled at her irresolute attitude. In Margaret's place she would have flung her arms round Wyvis Brand's neck, and vowed that nothing but death should sever her from him. But Margaret was neither passionately loving nor of indomitable courage.
Wyvis stepped forward and took her by the hand. Lady Caroline's eyebrows contracted a little, but she did not interfere. She seemed to hold herself resolutely aloof—for a time—and listened, Janetta thought, as if she were present at a very interesting comedy of modern manners.
"Margaret, look at me!" said the man.
His deep, vibrating voice compelled the girl to raise her eyes. She looked up piteously, and seemed half afraid to withdraw her gaze from Wyvis' dark earnestness of aspect.
"Margaret—my darling—you said you loved me."
"Yes—I do love you," she murmured; but she looked afraid.
"I am not altered, Margaret: I am the same Wyvis that you loved—the Wyvis that you kissed down by the brook, when you promised to be my wife. Have you forgotten? Ah no—not so soon. You would not have come here to-day if you had forgotten."
"I have not forgotten," she said, in a whisper.
"Then, darling, what difference does it make? There is no stain upon my birth. I would not ask you to share a dishonored name. But my parents were honest if they were poor, and what they were does not affect me. Margaret, speak, tell me, dear, that you will not give me up!"
Margaret tried to withdraw her hand. "I do not know what to say," she whispered.
"Say that you love me."
"I—have said it."
"Then, that you will not give me up?"
"Mamma!" said Margaret, entreatingly. "You hear what Wyvis says. It is not his fault. Why—why—won't you let us be happy?"
"Don't appeal to your mother," said Wyvis, the workings of whose features showed that he was becoming frightfully agitated. "You know that she is against me. Listen to your own heart—what does it say? It speaks to you of my love for you, of your own love for me. Darling, you know how miserable my life has been. Are you going to scatter all my hopes again and plunge me down in the depths of gloom? And all for what? To satisfy a worldly scruple. It is not even as if I had been brought up in my early years in the station to which my father belonged. I have never known him—never known any relations but the Brands; and they are not so very much beneath you. Don't fail me, Margaret! I shall lose all faith in goodness if I lose faith in you!"
"I think," said Lady Caroline, in the rather disheartening pause which followed upon Wyvis' words—disheartening to him, at least, and also to Janetta, who had counted much upon Margaret's innate nobility of soul!—"I think that I may now be permitted to say a word to my daughter before she replies. What Mr. Wyvis Brand asks you to do, Margaret, is to marry him at once. Well, the time for coercion has gone by. Of course, we cannot prevent you from marrying him if you choose to do so, but on the other hand we shall never speak to you again."
Wyvis uttered a short laugh, as if he were scornfully ready to meet that contingency, but Margaret's look of startled horror recalled him to decorum.
"You would be no longer any child of ours," said Lady Caroline, calmly. "Your father concurs with me in this. You have known our views so long and so well that we feel it almost necessary to explain this to you. Mr. Brand wishes you to choose, as a matter of fact, between his house and ours. Make your choice—make it now, if you like; but understand—and I am very sorry to be obliged to say a thing which may perhaps hurt the feelings of some persons present—that if you marry the son of a ploughman and a scullery-maid—I do not mean to be more offensive than I can help—you cannot possibly expect to be received at Helmsley Court."
"But, mamma! he ranks as one of the Brands of the Red House. Nobody knows."
"But everybodywillknow," said Lady Caroline, calmly. "I shall take care of that. I don't know how it is that Mr. Brand has got possession of the family estate—to which he has, of course, no right; but it has an ugly look of fraud about it, to which public attention had better be drawn at once. Mr. Brand may have been a party to the deception all along, for aught I know."
"That statement needs no refutation," said Wyvis, calmly, though with a dangerous glitter in his eyes. "I shall prove my integrity by handing over the Red House to my bro——to Cuthbert Brand, who is of course the rightful owner of the place."
"You hear. Margaret?" said Lady Caroline. "You will not even have the Red House in your portion. You have to choose between your mother and father and friends, position, wealth, refinement, luxury—and Wyvis Brand. That is your alternative. He will have no position of his own, no house to offer you; I am amazed at his selfishness, I must own, at making such a proposition."
"No, madam," said Mrs. Brand, breaking into the conversation for the first time, and seeming to forget her timidity in the defence of her beloved son Wyvis; "we are not so selfish as you think. The estate was left to Wyvis by my husband's will. He preferred that Wyvis should be master here; and we thought that no one knew the truth."
"But I shall not be master here any longer," said her son. "I will hand over the place to Cuthbert at once. I will take nothing on false pretences. So, Margaret, choose between me and the advantages your mother offers you. It is for you to decide."
"Oh, I can't, I can't! Why need I decide now?" said Margaret, clasping her hands. "Let me have time to think!"
"No, you must decide now, Margaret," said Lady Caroline. "You have done a very unjustifiable thing in coming here to-day, and you must take the consequences. If you still wish to marry Mr. Wyvis Brand, you had better accept the offer of his mother's protection and remain here. If you come away with me, it must be understood that you give up any thought of such a marriage. You must renounce Mr. Wyvis Brand from this time forth and for ever. Pray, don't answer hastily. The question is this—do you mean to stay here or to come away with me?"
She rose as she spoke, and began to arrange the details of her dress, as though preparing to take her departure. Margaret stood pale, irresolute, miserable between her mother and her lover. Wyvis threw out his hands to her with an imploring gesture and an almost frenzied cry—"Margaret—love—come to me!" Janetta held her breath.
But in that moment of indecision, Margaret's wavering eye fell upon Mrs. Brand. The mother was an unlovely object in her abject sorrow and despair. Her previous coldness and awkwardness told against her at that moment. It suddenly darted through Margaret's mind that she would have to accept this woman, with her common associations, her obscure origin, her doubtful antecedents, in a mother's place. The soul of the girl who had been brought up by Lady Caroline Adair revolted at the thought. Wyvis she loved, or thought she loved; Wyvis she could accept; but Wyvis' mother for her own, coupled with exclusion from the home where she had lived so many smooth and tranquil years, exclusion also from the society in which she had been taught that it was her right to take a distinguished place—this was too much. Her dreams fell from her like a garment. Plain, unvarnished reality unfolded itself instead. To be poor and obscure and unfriended, to be looked down upon and pitied, to be snubbed and passed by on the other side—this was what seemed to be the reality of things to Margaret's mind. It was too much for her to accept. She looked at it and passed by it.
She stretched out her hand timidly and touched her mother's arm. "Mamma," she said falteringly, "I—I will come with you." And then she burst into tears and fell upon her mother's neck, and over her shoulder Lady Caroline turned and smiled at Wyvis Brand. She had won her game.
"Of course you will, darling," she said, caressingly. "I did not think you could have been so wicked as to give us up. Come with me! this is nor the place for us."
And in the heart-struck silence which fell upon the little group that she left behind, Lady Caroline gravely bowed and led her weeping daughter from the room.
"Oh, Margaret, Margaret!" Janetta suddenly cried out; but Margaret never once looked back. Perhaps if she had seen Wyvis Brand's face just then, she might have given way. It was a terrible face; hard, bitter, despairing; with lines of anguish about the mouth, and a lurid light in the deep-set, haggard-looking eyes. Janetta, in the pity of her heart, went up to her cousin, and took his clenched hand between her own.
"Wyvis, dear Wyvis," she said, "do not look so. Do not grieve. Indeed, she could not have been worthy of you, or she would not have done like this. All women are not like her, Wyvis. Some would have loved you for yourself."
And there she stopped, crimson and ashamed. For surely she had almost told him that she loved him!—that secret of which she had long been so much ashamed, and which had given her so much of grief and pain. But she attached too much importance to her own vague words. They did not betray her, and Wyvis scarcely listened to what she said. He broke into a short, harsh laugh, more hideous than a sob.
"Are not all women like her?" he said. "Then they are worse. She was innocent, at any rate, if she was weak. But she has sold her soul now, if she ever had one, to the devil; and, as I would rather be with her in life and death than anywhere else, I shall make haste to go to the devil too."
He shook off her detaining hand, and strode to the door. There he turned, and looked fixedly at his mother.
"It is almost worse to be weak than wicked, I think," he said. "If you had told me the truth long ago, mother, I should have kept out of this complication. It's been your fault—my misery and my failure have always been your fault. It would have been better for me if you had left me to plough the fields like my father before me. As it is, life's over for me in this part of the world, and I may as well bid it good-bye."
Before they could stop him, he was gone. And Janetta could not follow, for Mrs. Brand sank fainting from her chair, and it was long before she could be recovered from the deathlike swoon into which she fell.
And throughout that evening, and for days to come, Margaret Adair, although petted and caressed and praised on every hand, and persuaded into feeling that she had not only done the thing that was expected of her, but a very worthy and noble thing, was haunted by an uneasy consciousness, that the argument which had prevailed with her was not the love of home or of her parents, which, indeed, might have been a very creditable motive for her decision, but a shrinking from trouble, a dislike to effort of any kind, and an utter distaste for obscurity and humility. Janetta's reproachful call rang in her ears for days. She knew that she had chosen the baser part. True, as she argued with herself, it was right to obey one's parents, to be submissive and straightforward, to shrink from the idea of ingratitude and rebellion; and, if she had yielded on these grounds, she might have been somewhat consoled for the loss of her lover by the conviction that she had done her duty. But for some little time she was distressfully aware that she had never considered her parents in the matter at all. She had thought of worldly disadvantage only. She had not felt any desire to stand by Wyvis Brand in his trouble. She had felt only repugnance and disgust; and, having some elements of good in her, she was troubled and ashamed by her failure; for, even if she had done right in the main, she knew that she had done it in the wrong way.
But, of course, time changed her estimate of herself. She was so much caressed and flattered by her family for her "exquisite dutifulness," as they phrased it, that she ended by believing that she had behaved beautifully. And this belief was a great support to her during the winter that she subsequently spent with her parents in Italy.
For my part, I am inclined to think that Margaret was more right than she knew. There was really no inherent fitness between her temperament and that of Wyvis Brand; and his position in the County was one which would have fretted her inexpressibly. She, who had been the petted favorite of a brilliant circle in town and country, to take rank as the wife of a ploughman's son! It would not have suited her at all; and her discontent would have ended in making Wyvis miserable.
He was, he considered, miserable enough already. He was sore all over—sore and injured and angry. He had been deceived in a manner which seemed to him unjustifiable from beginning to end. The disclosure of his parentage explained many little things which had been puzzling to him in his previous life, but it brought with it a baffling, passionate sense of having been fooled and duped—not a condition of things which was easy for him to support. Little by little the whole story became clear to him. For, when he flung out of the Red House after Margaret's departure, in a tumult of rage and shame, announcing his determination to go to the devil, he did not immediately seek out the Prince of Darkness: he only went to his lawyer. His lawyer told him a good deal, and Mrs. Brand, in a letter dictated to Janetta, told him more.
Mary Wyvis, the daughter of the village inn-keeper at Roxby, was brought up to act as his barmaid, and early became engaged to marry her cousin, John Wyvis, ploughman. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, when Mark Brand appeared upon the scene, and fell desperately in love with the handsome barmaid. She returned his love, but was too conscientious to elope with him and forget her cousin, as he wished her to do. Her father supported John's claim, and threatened to horsewhip the fine gentleman if he visited the Roxby Arms again. By way of change, Mary then went into domestic service for a few weeks at Helmsley Manor. It was not expected that she would remain there, and it was thought by her friends that she distinctly "lowered herself" by accepting this position, for her father was a well-to-do man in his way; but Mary Wyvis made the break with Mark Brand by this new departure which she considered it essential for her to make; and she was thereby delivered from his attentions for a time. At Helmsley Manor she was treated with much consideration, being considered a superior young person for her class; and although only a scullery maid in name, she was allowed a good deal of liberty, and promoted to attend on Lady Caroline Bertie, who, as a girl of fourteen, was then visiting Mrs. Adair, the mother of the man whom she afterward married. Mary Wyvis was lured into confiding one or two of her little secrets to Lady Caroline; and when she left Helmsley Court to marry John Wyvis, that young lady took so much interest in the affair that she attended the wedding and gave the bride a wedding-present. And as she often visited the Adairs, she seldom failed to asked after Mary, until that consummation of Mary's fate which effectually destroyed Lady Caroline's interest in her.
Wyvis the ploughman was accidentally killed, and Mary's child, named John after his father, was born shortly after the ploughman's death. It was then that Mark Brand sought out his old love, and to better purpose than before. His passion for her had been strengthened by what he was pleased to call her desertion of him. He proposed marriage, and offered to adopt the boy. Mary Wyvis accepted both propositions, and left England with him almost immediately, in order to escape mocking and slanderous tongues.
It was inevitable that evil should be said of her. Mark Brand's pursuit of her before her marriage to Wyvis had been well known. That she should marry him so soon after her first husband's death seemed to point to some continued understanding between the two, and caused much gossip in the neighborhood. Such gossip was really unfounded, for Mary was a good woman in her way, though not a very wise one; but the charges against her were believed in many places, and never disproved. It was even whispered that the little boy was Mark Brand's own son, and that John Wyvis had met his death through some foul play. Rumors of this kind died down in course of time. But they were certainly sufficient to account for the disfavor with which the County eyed the Brands in general, and Mrs. Brand in particular. Mark Brand lived very little at the Red House after his marriage. He knew what a storm of indignation had been spent upon his conduct, and he was well aware of the aspersions on his wife's character. He was too reckless by nature to try to set things straight: he considered that he did his best for his family when he left England behind him, and trained the boys, Wyvis and Cuthbert, to love a foreign land better than their own.
He grew very fond of Mary's boy during the first few years of his married life. This fondness led him to wish that the boy were his own, and the appearance of Cuthbert did not alter this odd liking for another man's son. He never cared very much for Cuthbert, who was delicate and lame from babyhood; but Wyvis was the apple of his eye. The boy was called John Wyvis: it was easy enough in a foreign country to let him slip into the position of the eldest of the family as Wyvis Brand. A baby son was born before Cuthbert, and dying a month old, gave Mark all the opportunity that he needed. He sent word to old Wyvis at Roxby that John's boy was dead; and he then quietly substituted Wyvis in place of his own son. Every year, he argued, would make the real difference of age between John's boy and the dead child less apparent: it would save trouble to speak of Wyvis as his own, and troublesome inquiries were not likely to be made. Time and use made him almost forget that Wyvis did not really belong to him; and but for his wife's insistence he would not even have made the will which secured the Red House to his adopted son. Cuthbert was of course treated with scandalous injustice by this will; but the secret had been well kept, and the story was fully known to nobody save the Brands' lawyer and Mary Brand herself.
The way in which Lady Caroline had ferreted out the secret remained a mystery to the Brands. But they never gave her half enough credit for her remarkable cleverness. When she saw Wyvis Brand, she had been struck almost at once by his likeness to John Wyvis, the man who married her old favorite, Mary. She leaped quickly to the conviction that he was not Mark Brand's son. And when Margaret's infatuation for him declared itself, she went straight to her husband's man of business, and commissioned him to find out all that could be found out about the Brands during the period of their early married life in Italy. The task was surprisingly easy. Mark Brand had taken few precautions, for he had drifted rather than deliberately steered towards the substitution of Wyvis for his own eldest son. A very few inquiries elicited all that Lady Caroline wanted to know. But she had not been quite sure of her facts when she entered the Red House, and, if Mrs. Brand had been a little cooler and a little braver, she might have defeated her enemy's ends, and carried her secret inviolate to her grave.
But courage and coolness were the last things that could be expected from Mrs. Brand. She had never possessed a strong mind and the various chances and changes of her life had enfeebled instead of strengthening it. Mark Brand had proved by no means a loving or faithful husband, and did not scruple to taunt her with her inferiority of position, and to threaten that he would mortify Wyvis' pride some day by a revelation of his true name and descent. He was too fond of Wyvis to carry his threat into effect but he made the poor woman, his wife, suffer an infinity of torture, the greater part of which might have been avoided if she had chanced to be gifted with a higher spirit and a firmer will.
Wyvis Brand went immediately to London after the interview with his lawyer in Beaminster, and from London, in a few days, he wrote to Cuthbert. The letter was curt, but not unfriendly. He wished, he said, to repair the injustice that had been done, and to restore to Cuthbert the inheritance that was his by right. He had already instructed his lawyers to take the necessary steps, and he was glad to think that Cuthbert and Nora would now be able to make the Red House what it ought to be. He hoped that they would be very happy. For himself, he thought of immigrating: he was heartily sick of modern civilization, and believed that he would more easily find friends and fellow-workers amongst the Red Skins of the Choctaw Indians than in "County" drawing-rooms. And only by this touch did Wyvis betray the bitterness that filled his heart.
Cuthbert rushed up to town at once in a white heat of indignation. He was only just in time to find Wyvis at his hotel, for he had taken his passage to America, and was going to start almost immediately. But there was time at least for a very energetic discussion between the two young men.
"If you think," said Cuthbert, hotly, "that I'm going to take your place, you are very much mistaken."
"It is not my place. It has been mine only by fraud."
"Not a bit of it. It is yours by my father's will. He knew the truth, and chose to take this course."
"Very unfair to you, Cuth," said Wyvis, a faint smile showing itself for the first time on his haggard face.
Cuthbert shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, do you suppose it's any news to me that my father cared more for your little finger than for my whole body? He chose—practically—to disinherit me in your favor; and a very good thing it's been for me too. I should never have taken to Art if I had been a landed proprietor."
"I don't understand it," said Wyvis, meditatively. "One would have expected him to be jealous of his wife's family—and then you're a much better fellow than I am."
"That was the reason," said Cuthbert, sitting down and nursing his lame leg, after a characteristic fashion of his own "I was a meek child—a sickly lad who didn't get into mischief. I was afraid of horses, you may remember, and hated manly exercises of every kind. Now you were never so happy as when you were on a horse's back——"
"A strain inherited from my ploughman father, I suppose," said Wyvis, rather grimly.
"And you got into scrapes innumerable; for which he liked you all the better. And you—well you know, old boy, you were never a reproach to him, as the sight of me was!"
Cuthbert's voice dropped. He had never spoken of it before, but he and Wyvis knew well enough that his lameness was the result of his father's brutal treatment of Mary Brand shortly before the birth of her second son.
"He ought to have been more bent on making amends than on sacrificing you to me," said Wyvis, bitterly.
"Oh, don't look at it in that way," Cuthbert answered. The natural sweetness of his disposition made it painful to him to hear his father blamed, although that father had done his best to make his life miserable. "He never meant to hurt me, the poor old man; and when he had done it, the sight of my infirmity became exquisitely painful to him. I can forgive him that; I can forgive him everything. There are others whom it is more difficult to forgive."
"You mean——"
"I mean women who have not the courage to be true," said Cuthbert, in a low voice. He did not look at his brother, but he felt certain that a thrill of pain passed through him. For a minute or two Wyvis did not speak.
"Well," he said at last, forcing an uneasy laugh, "I think that she was perhaps right. She might not have been very happy. And I doubt, after all, whether I ought to have asked her. Janetta thought not, at any rate."
"Janetta is generally very wise."
"So she is very wise. I am legally quite free, but she thinks me—morally—bound."
"Well, so do I," said Cuthbert, frankly. "On all moral and religious grounds, I think you are as much bound as ever you were. And if Miss Adair refused you on those grounds, she has more right on her side than I thought."
"Ah, but she did not," answered Wyvis, dryly. "She refused me because I was not rich, not 'in society,' and a ploughman's son."
"That's bad," said his brother. And then the two sat for a little time in silence, which is the way of Englishmen when one wishes to show sympathy for another.
"But we are not approaching what I want to say at all," said Cuthbert, presently. "We must not let our feelings run away with us. We are both in a very awkward position, old boy, but we shan't make it better by publishing it to the world. If you throw up the place in this absurd fashion—excuse the term—youwillpublish it to the world at large."
"Do you think that matters to me?" asked Wyvis, sternly.
"Perhaps not to you. But it matters to mother, and to me. And it affects our father's character."
"Your father's, not mine."
"He was the only father you ever knew, and you have no reason to find fault with him."
Wyvis groaned impatiently. "One has duties to the living, not to the dead."
"One has duties to the dead, too. You can't give up the Red House to me—even if I would take it, which I won't—without having the whole story made public. My father hasn't a very good reputation in the County: people will think no better of him for having lamed me, disinherited me, and practiced a fraud on them. That's what they will say about the affair, you know. We can't let the world know."
"Then I'd better go and shoot myself. It seems to me the only thing I can do."
"And what about Julian? The estate would pass to him, of course," said Cuthbert, coolly. He saw that Wyvis' face changed a little at the mention of Julian's name.
"No, I could will it to you—make it over to you, with the condition that it should go to the Foundling Hospital if you wouldn't accept it."
"I think that a will of that kind could be easily set aside on the ground of insanity," said Cuthbert, with a slight smile.
"I could find a way out of the difficulty, if I tried, I have no doubt," said Wyvis, frowning gloomily and pulling at his moustache.
"Don'ttry," said his brother, leaning forward and speaking persuasively. "Let things continue much as they are. I am content: Nora is content. Why should you not be so, too?" Then, as Wyvis shook his head: "Make your mind easy then if you must do something, by giving me a sum down, or a slice of your income, old man. Upon my word I wouldn't live in the old place if you gave it to me. It is picturesque—but damp. Come let's compromise matters."
"I love every stick and stone in the place," said Wyvis grimly.
"I know you do. I don't. I want to live in Paris or Vienna with Nora, and enjoy myself I don't want to paint pot-boilers. I say like the man in the parable, 'Give me the portion that belongeth to me,' and I'll go my way, promising, however, not to spend it in riotous living. Won't that arrangement suit you?"
Wyvis demurred at first, but was finally persuaded into making an arrangement of the kind that Cuthbert desired. He retained the Red House, but he bestowed on his brother enough to give him an ample income for the life that Cuthbert and Nora wished to lead. During his absence from England, Mrs. Brand and Julian were still to inhabit the Red House. And Wyvis announced his intention of going to South America to shoot big game, from which Cuthbert inferred that his heart, although bruised, was not broken yet.