CHAPTER XXII
Philip, who knew every step of the road between Wynford and London, had some very disquieting thoughts as he rode down to the cross roads to meet Carrie.
Everything depended upon whether they could reach the half-way house at Wyntown before Dr. Shepley. For after Wyntown there were several roads which each led to town; but between Wynford and Wyntown there was only one road. Therefore if they met, they would in all probability meet upon that road. Phil determined to keep his fears to himself. It was a pleasant morning, and a pleasant ride. He found Carrie already waiting for him under the flickering shade of the beech-trees.
‘You see I can make haste when I please, sir,’ she said, trying to smile. The smile, however, was rather forced, and after a few ineffectual attempts at conversation they rode along in silence.
‘The deuce take that horse of your aunt’s!’ at last quoth Phil in despair; ‘can you not make him go a better pace, Carrie?’
Carrie smiled, and shook her head. ‘My aunt will never permit her steeds to go beyond a slow trot,’ she explained.
‘Oh, your aunt be ——,’ began Phil, and Carrie actually laughed outright at his irritation.
‘Now you resemble a little boy I once knew who used bad words,’ she said, looking up at him under her eyelashes.
‘I ask your pardon, Carrie; ’tis that old cow you are riding irritates me,’ he said, with an impatient flick of his riding-whip.
Phil affected more assurance than he felt, however, as they dismounted before the door of the inn at Wyntown. ‘Heaven send Shepley is not here before us!’ he thought as he lifted Carrie down and gave the horses to the ostler.
‘We shall come up-stairs and dine, Carrie,’ he said. ‘Do you not feel as though you were my wife already?’ He drew Carrie’s rather limp little hand through his arm as he spoke, and they went up-stairs to the inn parlour, which overlooked the courtyard.
‘You are wearied, I fear, Carrie,’ he said.
‘Hot wearied, Phil, in the least, but not very happy,’ said Carrie, with a stifled sob.
Phil affected deafness, and requested the landlady to bring up dinner as quickly as might be. ‘For I am near famished with the morning air, Mistress Heathe,’ said he, with a smile to the good woman, an old acquaintance, ‘and so is this lady also; but she is somewhat weary, so see no stranger comes in while we are here.’
‘Just as you please, sir; just as you please,’ said Mistress Heathe, as she bustled round the table, and made bold to ask for his father’s health.
‘The same I did serve with a bottle of wine yesterday at this very hour. “Bad roads they are to-day, Mistress Heathe,” said he, for your father, sir, is ever so affable in the passing by, ’tis a pleasure serving such gentry as he, to be sure.’ And she gave a curious squint at Carrie meanwhile.
That young woman made a show of eating a little, but in truth it was Phil who cleared off the viands, and Lady Mallow would have been quite pleased by the genteel appetite of her niece, if she could have seen how she toyed with a scrap of chicken, and shook her head at sight of an apple tart.
‘I am sorry, Phil, I cannot eat,’ she said, ‘and somehow I cannot talk either, so perhaps we had best not try to talk.’
‘Never fear, Carrie; ’twill be all right soon,’ said Phil, and he crossed over to the window and sat there looking out into the yard.
Wyntown was nearly equidistant between London and Wynford, so, calculating that Dr. Shepley had left town at the same hour as they had left Wynford, he must arrive at Wyntown not much later than themselves—so calculated Philip. He had no real reason to suppose that Dr. Shepley would come at all; everything depended on the contents of that letter, but if he did——
There was a rumble of wheels over the cobble-paved courtyard, and Phil saw a very tall grave-faced man jump down from the seat of a post-chaise and come up to the door. Carrie, at the sound of the wheels, came to the window. She laid her hand on Phil’s shoulder, and glanced out.
‘Phil! Phil!’ she cried, ‘ ’tis my dear father.’
In the one glance she had got of his face Carrie marked there a new stamp of anxiety she had never seen before—and it was she who had stamped it there! She turned away and buried her face on the cushions of the settle. Phil, trying to be hard-hearted, affected no sympathy with her grief, but when at last there came a succession of quick gasping sobs, he crossed the room and bent over her.
‘Come, Carrie, you must not grieve so,’ he said rather lamely. Carrie sat up and dried her pretty eyes, that were all reddened with tears.
‘O Phil,’ she said, with a little choke in her voice, ‘I have never seen him look thus. Ah, I must see him—speak with him—I shall explain!’
She rose and hurried to the door, but Phil barred her exit.
‘ ’Tis madness, Carrie—sheer madness this,’ he expostulated; ‘you’ll never see my face again if Dr. Shepley discovers you here with me.’
‘I cannot help it. Ah, Phil, do not be cruel! See him I must—then I shall go with you—then we will be married.’
‘You are a fool, Carrie!’ cried Phil, carried away by one of his sudden, hot fits of temper. ‘ “Then we will be married!”—do you suppose for one moment your father would permit our marriage?’
‘Yes,’ said Carrie, ‘I think he would.’
‘Then you think nonsense.’
‘I know him better than you do, Phil.’
‘Well, explain me this then—if so be he will not oppose our marriage, why doth he hasten from London at first hint of your meeting me?’
‘He could not forbid it did he understand all I shall tell him; ’twould not be like my father to do so. Phil, you do not know him. You do not guess even at his generous heart—you——’
‘Generous!’ laughed Phil; ‘no, no, not so generous as that.’
‘Phil, I shall see him—whatever you say, I shall see him!’ cried Carrie, and she tried once more to escape towards the door.
And Phil, fairly mastered now by his temper, flung the door wide open, crying out: ‘Go to him then, if you love him the best.’
A moment later he saw Carrie swirl down the narrow panelled passage of the inn into the very arms of Sebastian, who had appeared at the far end of it.
‘Lord, Carrie!’ he heard Sebastian exclaim, as he laughed his jolly whole-hearted laugh and kissed his daughter on either cheek with more fervour than gentility. Then there was an incoherent murmur of exclamation and sobs from Carrie, then Sebastian’s voice again:—
‘And how are you here, my girl? Have you run away from her Ladyship and the influenza?’
‘Yes, sir—with Philip Meadowes, sir,’ said Carrie, whose downright nature equalled her father’s.
Phil held his breath to hear what Sebastian would reply.
‘And where is Philip Meadowes?’ he heard Sebastian say. A minute later Carrie came into the parlour, leading her father by the hand. There fell a moment of ominous silence. Neither of the men spoke, but Carrie, as she took a hand of each, and looked from one to the other in puzzled, pretty confusion, was the first to speak.
‘This is Philip, sir,’ she said; ‘and indeed I am sure you cannot choose but love him.’
‘There may be two opinions on that point mayhap,’ said Sebastian grimly.
For all the antagonism of their mutual relations at the moment, Phil, with his extraordinarily sensitive nature, felt a sudden impulse of liking to this man, Carrie’s father. ‘Why have I not a father like that?’ he thought—‘some one to rely on without a shadow of distrust.’ Poor Philip, for all his charm, was sadly alone in the difficult places of life, and youth, in spite of all its self-assertion, is conscious enough of its own need. Beside this resolute masterful man, Phil felt himself, of a sudden, boyish and foolish, as he had never felt before. But, assuming a great deal more self-confidence than he felt, he bowed to Dr. Shepley and ‘feared the circumstances of their meeting would scarce conduce to an agreeable acquaintance between them.’
The older man did not reply to this remark; but drew back the window-curtain so that the light might fall full across Phil’s face, and gazed intently at him for a few moments. Annie’s son! Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone—and Annie cold in her grave these twenty years! How say some among us that there is no resurrection? This is, instead, a world of resurrections, in which that man or woman is fortunate who can succeed in burying the past so deep that it cannot rise. Phil and Carrie, hot with their own impatient young desires, were only irritated by Sebastian’s silence. How could they guess at that blinding back-flash of memory that held him silent at sight of Phil? How could they hear the voice Sebastian heard—an urgent tearful voice, ‘Phil, that hath gotten half my soul’; and again, ‘If ever you can help Phil you’ll do it, because I gave him half my soul,’ . . . and . . . ‘God give Phil a white heart,’ . . . and . . . ‘Come, Sebastian?’
‘Sir, sir, speak!’ cried Carrie, catching hold again of her father’s hand.
At the touch of her hand, at the sound of her voice, Sebastian came back to the present—the important present.
‘By Heaven!’ he cried. ‘Once in life is enough to be robbed by Richard Meadowes!’
‘But, sir, I am not Richard Meadowes,’ said Phil.
‘His son; and twice accursed by that token. Never shall daughter of mine have my consent to marry with son of his—black-hearted lying devil that he is.’
Carrie shrank back, scared at her father’s violence; she had never heard him speak like this before.
‘Perhaps, sir, ’twould be better for you and me to discuss this matter by ourselves,’ suggested Phil. There had, in fact, been no explanation given on either side as yet, a fact which Phil was the first to realise. Sebastian, beside himself with anger, at the sight of Carrie in company with the son of his enemy, had never stopped to ask any questions one way or other.
‘There is little to discuss, I know, Mr. Meadowes,’ he said. ‘I have information this very day of your intentions, sent me by your father, and these intentions I cannot even discuss with you; I cannot give you my daughter. Even had you asked her hand of me in a fair and honourable manner, I would have denied it. Now doubly I do so since you thought to obtain it by stealth—a coward’s trick, that savours of the man you have the honour to name your father.’
Carrie, who knew the hot temper of her lover, held her breath for fear. But Phil did not fly into a sudden passion. He looked Sebastian full in the face, but though he flushed with anger, his words were quiet enough.
‘Did I not know the bitter provocation which makes you speak so, I would not stand here and listen to you in silence,’ he said. ‘My father may be all that you say, sir, but’—here Phil hesitated for a breath—‘he is all the father I have, and moreover has been a kind parent enough to me, as the world counts kindness.’
‘There—the boy speaks rightly,’ said Sebastian. ‘My words were perhaps over hasty; but the larger fact of our quarrel remains—that you have induced my daughter to leave her home with you, instead of honestly asking her hand from me.’
‘I knew, as you have indeed just told me, that that would be wasted breath; ’twas the only thing left me to do; now Carrie hath spoilt it all, and I suppose she means to return with you,’ said Phil, his anger redoubled.
‘I presume that to be her intention,’ said Sebastian, turning to Carrie as he spoke.
‘Sir, dearest sir, I must do as you command me now,’ said Carrie. ‘But’—and here she laid her hand in Phil’s—‘some day I must go with Phil, for he hath all my heart.’
‘When you are old enough to take your own will against mine?’ asked Sebastian.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When that day comes, you choose betwixt him and me.’
‘If so be I must make the choice,’ said Carrie, ‘I must choose Phil; I cannot, cannot forsake him.’
There fell a short silence, then Philip spoke.
‘You must admit, sir,’ he said, ‘ ’tis hard that Carrie and I should be parted by reason of your and my father’s old quarrels. But I, in my turn, must admit I did wrong to make her leave home with me as I did—for that I must ask your forgiveness, but, as I live, sir, I swear you’d have done the same at my age!’
It was scarcely possible for Phil to harp very long on the serious string; inevitably his buoyant nature resented the restraint it was under, and broke through it. Frustrated, disappointed, angry, on the eve of being parted from Carrie, he must still find something to laugh at. And Sebastian, in spite of himself, very much in spite of himself, found it impossible not to laugh also.
‘ ’Pon my soul! the boy does not lack assurance! Yes, that I would!’ he said, but added a moment later, ‘I laugh, but that doth not retract my displeasure one whit, nor alter a word of what I have said: Carrie shall never marry you an I can prevent it.’
‘How long must I wait ere you consider Carrie of an age to choose for herself?’ asked Phil.
‘Two years, at the earliest. You will then be of an age to judge for yourself, though young enough to marry, in all conscience.’
‘And during these two years how much may I see of Carrie?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I may write to her at times?’
‘No, never; you forget, Mr. Meadowes, that my object is that you should forget one another so speedily as may be.’
Philip bowed, accepting the inevitable.
‘If that be all, there remains nothing but that I should say my farewells,’ said he.
‘Nothing; the sooner and the shorter they are the better,’ said Sebastian. He looked at the two young people before him. Carrie stood scared and silent by the window.
Phil crossed over to where she stood and gathered her up in his arms, kissing her long and fondly.
‘If it must be.—Good-bye, sweetheart, I shall never forget,’ he said. And Carrie, as she raised her lips to his, smiled an almost happy smile.
They vowed at that moment an unspoken vow, and parted undoubtingly.
‘Come, dearest sir!’ said Carrie a moment later, when Phil was gone; ‘shall we return to London to-night—you and I?’
‘There! if you wish to see the last of him,’ said Sebastian. He pointed out to the courtyard, where the ostler had led out Phil’s horse.
‘Lord! what a temper the boy hath!’ said Sebastian, for Phil, without one backward look to the window where Carrie stood, gave a savage lash at the horse, which bounded out through the archway, and swung round the turn that led into the Wynford road with scant direction from its rider.
‘The Lord send him safe at Fairmeadowes,’ said Carrie softly, under her breath.
CHAPTER XXIII
Carrie and her father found it a little difficult to explain her sudden flight to Lady Mallow; but they patched up some sort of story that held together after a fashion, and before very long her Ladyship had forgotten all about Carrie’s escapade, as she considered it.
Carrie meantime had returned to London with her father, and the time passed slowly enough at first. But Carrie had not the nature that broods over the inevitable, and she quieted her heart better than most girls of her age would have done in the same trying circumstances. There were all the cheerful businesses of home to attend to—Carrie was a notable housekeeper,—and these, after the forced idleness and gentility of her stay at Lady Mallow’s, seemed doubly delightful. It was much more agreeable to eat the pasties and cakes of one’s own making, she thought, than those prepared by the most practised cook, and, moreover, there was a new and inspiring thought at work in Carrie’s brain. Some day she would be cooking all these good things for Philip! She did not stop to consider that Phil, like Lady Mallow, had servants to cook for him, so every day she would be trying new dishes, till Sebastian complained that thecuisinewas too rich for his simple tastes, and Carrie blushed, and murmured something about her book of recipes. The afternoons, when her father was busy and her housekeeping labours were over for the day, were the longest time to get through. Carrie would take her needlework then and sit by the window, but she found plenty time for thought while she sewed, and her thoughts seemed always to travel in the direction of Wynford. Had Phil gone back to Oxford yet? she wondered; or was it possible he was come to town? When could she see him again? What was he doing? All the ingeniously ridiculous questions and suppositions of lovers passed through her head in these long afternoons of sewing. In the evenings Sebastian would take her out to walk or to the play, and Carrie could not be insensible of the admiration she excited in public places. Then summer wore away and winter was come. Carrie indulged in some new and very becoming winter garments, and was more fidgety than was her wont over the fit and the style of them. When these were ready she persuaded her father one fine Saturday afternoon to take her for an airing in the Mall. Sebastian hesitated a little, and professed himself too busy, but at last consented, and Carrie—exquisitely bewitching in her furry hood—walked at a slow pace down the Mall by his side, the admired of all admirers. Now there exists between some people a mysterious sympathy—telepathy, we call it in the nineteenth century, in the eighteenth it was not named—which premonishes them of meeting, just as the quicksilver in an aneroid will foretell the weather of the coming day. When Carrie dressed herself in all her bravery, and prayed her father for his escort, she was convinced deep down in her heart that she would meet Phil that day. She had no reason whatever to suppose that he was in town; she had walked out every day since they parted and never met him, but to-day she felt certain she would do so. It came to her therefore as no surprise to hear her father say—
‘Carrie, there comes Philip Meadowes.’ She did not need to be admonished of the fact.
‘May I speak with him, sir?’
‘No.’
They had passed almost before the question and answer were spoken. Carrie did not even bow to him in the passing, but she smiled a brilliant flashing smile and blushed like a rose.
‘Phil looks older, does he not, sir?’ she asked, as they walked along—only her quick-drawn breath and the excited little pinch she gave to her father’s arm betrayed her excitement.
Sebastian did not reply.
It was the next Sunday that Carrie made a delightful discovery: Phil had begun to come to church at St. Mary Minories! Carrie was just stifling a yawn behind her hand, when, across the little church, she caught sight of Phil. He sat just opposite her—why, why was the service so very short? Carrie, who was as regular a slumberer as she was an attendant upon Church services, now sat forward in the great square pew, wide awake, and any observant person must have noted how her eyes wandered across the church, and met those of the young man who occupied the opposite pew. Then she would flicker her eyelids and look down and blush an enchanting blush under the shade of the great feathered hat she wore, and then the same thing would be gone through over again. Phil, on his part, leant forward, staring unabashedly at Carrie. He was delighted to observe that her sole guardian during church hours was Lady Mallow, and Lady Mallow, like her niece, slept whenever it was possible to do so. After they had mutually made these pleasant discoveries I suppose it would have been difficult to find two happier young people than they were that morning. Every circumstance seemed to be fortunate for them, for Phil saw to his delight that Lady Mallow, whose pew was near the door, seemed to be in the habit of letting all the congregation disperse before she left it. This quite suited Phil. He walked slowly down the aisle and passed so near Carrie that his sleeve brushed hers for a moment—for Carrie had risen, and now fumbled at the door of the pew in the most opportune manner.
Carrie said nothing about this to her father; she thought the meeting had been accidental; but when another, and yet another, and yet another Sunday passed, and on each day she saw Phil, Carrie, out of the depth of her honest heart, found it necessary to tell Sebastian about it. She came and stood behind his chair, let her pretty white hands fall one over each shoulder, and laid her cheek against his.
‘Dear sir,’ she said, ‘I think I should tell you something—I think ’tis scarce honest in me to be silent about it.’
‘Eh?’ queried Sebastian, as he turned to kiss one of Carrie’s hands.
‘I must tell you, sir, that I see Philip Meadowes each Lord’s day at church in St. Mary Minories. I have never spoken with him, but I fear we look at each other most part of the morning.’
‘Well,’ said Sebastian, ‘what of it?’
‘May I continue to go to church, sir? I feared you might forbid me,’ said Carrie, her heart bounding with hope.
‘The deuce take your honesty, Carrie. Do you think I can forbid you now?’
Carrie laughed with delight—words after all were not everything. If once each week she could sit and gaze at Philip, a year and a half would surely pass quickly enough!
CHAPTER XXIV
There is no reckoning with the infinite possibilities for variation in human character, which is one of the reasons why all ‘theories’ of education are doomed to failure. Yet you will sometimes hear the cleverest men and women lay down general axioms, forgetful of this qualifying phrase, that may upset the entire calculation.
Richard Meadowes—in other matters a man of considerable acuteness, fell into this common snare. The axiom which misled him was one which has been accepted—well-nigh proven by half the world: that youth is fickle and forgetful. Given fresh interests, new playthings, the young man does not live (said he) who will not soon forget what so lately charmed him most. Well, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this may be true; but that elusive hundredth case must also be reckoned with if one would make certain.
‘Phil must go into society and see other women; ere six months are passed he will never give another thought to this Caroline Shepley,’ said the prudent parent, who had indeed, on his way through the world, seen many a man forget. Phil showed scant desire for society; he declared his inclinations lay rather in the way of study, and expressed a special yearning for legal research. But his father opposed this with wise moderation.
‘There was of course no reason against it—Phil might please himself—he was, by now, old enough to choose his own path in life—but, if he might suggest it, a Parliamentary career offered greater scope for his peculiar talents. Nothing would be easier. A few years hence . . . time passed quickly—there was much to see and learn meantime . . . there was the world to see, not to speak of the men in it. . . . Should they go the Grand Tour of Europe together? . . . No?—ah, well, there was time enough for that . . . He preferred London? Well, there was of course no society like London, and the proper study of mankind (“clever mankind, Phil, my son”) was certainly man—learn men and manners. He did not wish to go into society? Ah, well, he might stay at home and do some reading—no time was lost in reading—he had worked too hard at Oxford and deserved a rest this winter,’ etc. etc.
Phil listened to it all and smiled and took his own way; he knew perfectly well what his father’s thoughts were.
At first, after his parting with Carrie, Phil was inclined to be rather sulky and moody, but when he returned to town with his father, and after he began to attend church with so much regularity, he came to a more Christian frame of mind, and exhibited indeed such a markedly better temper that his father smiled to himself and said all was going well.
Phil now showed no disinclination for society, and indeed entered upon its pleasures with peculiar zest. He even plunged deep into a flirtation—a hopeful sign—with a certain Lady Hester Ware, a pretty, witty young Irishwoman, without a penny to her fortune. Meadowes was delighted; he would have welcomed a daughter of the beggar Lazarus as Phil’s chosen bride at that moment.
With commendable caution he paid not the slightest attention to the affair; for he knew the contradictious human spirit, and Phil flirted on. But at last, when the matter seemed quite an established fact, he expressed to Phil his great admiration for Lady Hester.
‘There’s a clever woman!’ he exclaimed in conclusion. But his breath was taken away by Phil’s response—
‘Clever? yes, deucedly clever. I hate clever women, and if you like ’em, sir, you’re the first man that ever did!’
‘ ’Pon my soul!’ exclaimed Meadowes, with a long whistle of astonishment; then he added severely, ‘If you do not like Lady Hester, Phil, you do very wrong to trifle with her affections, as you have been doing this many a day.’
‘ ’Tis, as you say, sir, an unpardonable sin to play a woman false—may Heaven forbid I should fall into it!’ said Phil in pious tones, and Meadowes, as he met the boy’s bright eyes, turned uneasily away.
Richard Meadowes had, you see, not added this cynical axiom to his collection:—that most men, when desperate about one woman, will plunge into a flirtation with another: so he was at a loss to account for Phil’s conduct, if it was not actuated by admiration.
Phil was not really doing anything extraordinary—he was only trying to find an answer to the question ‘how best to pass two years?’—two years that seemed to him to expand into a lifetime as he looked ahead, for he was of an impatient temperament. Six months had passed before the happy expedient of seeing Carrie at church suggested itself to his mind; and by dint of this device six months more were got over. But with the spring’s return came a crowd of tender remembrances, and Phil grew very sulky and despondent again. His father had gone to Fairmeadowes, but Phil, grown now very emancipated, refused to leave London; ‘The country was dull,’ said he, who aforetime loved it so well. He had come to an end of his flirtation—and the lees of a flirtation are the sourest beverage; he could gain no distraction from it any longer: he was at his wit’s end.
As he walked moodily down the Square one morning about this time, Phil heard his name spoken, and, turning round, found Mr. Simon Prior by his side.
Now, if there was a man that Philip disliked more than another it was this Simon Prior. A tall man, with shoulders so high that he seemed to be always shrugging them, and with prominent eyes that had a look of bullying challenge in them, he certainly did not carry innocence upon his face. He always assumed great familiarity with Phil—another point against him with the young man. But he, this morning, was so at a loss for a new shiver as almost to welcome this man; could he possibly yield him any amusement?
‘Yes, my father is at Fairmeadowes, sir,’ he said in response to the elder man’s greeting, and they fell into step.
‘And you, Philip? Once upon a time you too loved Fairmeadowes—why are times so changed?’
‘Age, sir, age,’ laughed Philip. ‘And indeed I am become very old, for I can hit on nothing will amuse me these days.’
‘A sad case. What have you tried?’
Phil was prudent; he might almost have been a Scotsman from his reply—
‘What, sir, would you recommend?’
‘Oh, there are many ways for passing the time, Philip.’
‘That’s not all I wish. ’Tis—’tis—oh, there’s no new thing under the sun!’
‘Women!—there’s considerable variety there,’ began Prior, and he treated Phil to one of his bullying stares.
Phil shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
‘Well, if you do not fancy that—let me see—gaming, if you can gain or lose sufficiently large sums, is not amiss, for a distraction.’
‘Which means that you wish me to play with you?’ said Phil. ‘I shall do so gladly, sir, if so be you’ll play for large enough stakes.’
So Phil played his pockets empty that fine morning, and felt the amusing sensation of impecuniosity for a few weeks.
He came too into considerable familiarity with Simon Prior these days, a familiarity he had no wish to encourage, yet found it difficult to shake off. Wherever he went Prior was sure to appear—quite by accident, it would seem—till Philip began to suspect that his father had something to do in the matter. Once this thought had occurred to him, Phil, in sudden and hot resentment, behaved to Mr. Simon Prior with very scant courtesy. His resentment burned hotly also against his father. What was he that he should be spied upon in this way? If his father distrusted him, why could he not say so to his face instead of setting this odious man to spy upon him and report his every action? And he had been frank enough with his father when they first spoke about Carrie; he knew and, apparently, acquiesced in his resolution to win her. Why then all this curiosity?—‘Bah, it was disgusting,’ said Phil in his indignation. A day or two later he left for Fairmeadowes.
‘You had best have me under your own eye, sir,’ he said in reply to his father’s surprised greeting.
CHAPTER XXV
Carrie, as may be surmised, never spoke about Philip to her father. She was therefore rather surprised when one morning he passed her theGentleman’s Magazine, and pointed to a short paragraph in it:—
‘Mr. Richard Meadowes and Mr. Philip Meadowes left London yesterday for Paris. They purpose making the Grand Tour of Europe, a circumstance which will deprive society of two of its greatest ornaments,’ etc. etc.
Carrie blushed, and felt very miserable, thinking how long an absence that meant on Phil’s part—he would not be in church next Sunday, nor any Sunday for months to come!—‘Ah, Philip, why did you go?’ she asked herself. Sebastian on his part was well content, and this perhaps made him acquiesce more than it was natural for him to do in a plan which Lady Mallow divulged to him that very afternoon. This was no less a scheme than Carrie’s entrance into Society (with a large S).
‘For a young gentlewoman of Carrie’s parts and appearance she leads by far too quiet a life, sir,’ said her Ladyship. ‘And now that I am returned to town, I am resolved that Carrie shall make the figure she ought in Society. ’Twas her good mother’s desire, I feel certain, and, moreover, Carrie herself will delight in it.’
‘Perhaps you speak truly, Charlotte,’ said Sebastian, ‘and for certain my Carrie hath charms enough and to spare. I fear you’ll have some difficulty with her adorers ere long if you take her into Society, as you call it; but if the girl is of the same mind with yourself, I have naught to say against it.’
Lady Mallow thought Carrie rather lack-lustre over this generous proposal. She did not seem to wish much to go to balls and routs, though she was far too good-natured to show her disinclination very openly—still there was a want of that exuberant whole-heartedness in the pursuit of pleasure which used to characterise her at one time. Carrie only smiled her charming smile and said—
‘You are most kind, madam; ’twill be most agreeable, I am certain.’
She did not even kindle to great interest over her new dresses. What was the use? Philip would not see them.
Lady Mallow’s ‘circle,’ as she would have called it, received the beautiful Caroline Shepley with open arms. She might have danced her pretty little feet off had she had a mind to, and might have had her head turned round on her shoulders if the compliments she received had only seemed to her worth the getting. But, alas, Carrie listened coldly to all the compliments that were showered upon her. She judged every man she met by one standard—Philip,—and none of them ever came up to it. There was indeed about Philip a certain careless elegance quite unattainable, or at least quite unattained, by the other young men of Carrie’s acquaintance. He was not particular about anything he said or did, yet it seemed to Carrie he could say or do with impunity what, if done by any other man, would have offended her in every way. Lady Mallow made matters worse by continually urging Carrie to think seriously about this or that man who paid her attentions.
‘Indeed, my dear niece, you should not be so saucy; for all your looks and the little money your good father may leave you, you will be left a maiden lady—that pitiable being,—if you despise good offers such as those of Mr. Sedgebrooke and Captain Cole, as pretty-mannered gentlemen both as you are like to meet, of good family (though untitled), and personable men to look at. Sedgebrooke hath a thousand a year to his fortune, and the Captain, though not so well to do, is an officer and a gentleman—two very good things.’ Thus Lady Mallow.
But Carrie was obdurate.
‘I cannot abide Sedgebrooke, madam, and for Cole, the sight of his hands is enough for me—bah, I hate fat hands: the hands of a gentleman should be thin and brown by my way of thinking.’
So both of these eligible gentlemen were refused. But as time wore on Lady Mallow was pleased to observe how much brighter Carrie had become. Her eyes had an exquisite sparkle, she seemed always smiling. ‘Society hath begun to brighten Carrie,’ she said to Sebastian, who growled, and remarked that he had never thought her dull. It was not Society, however, that was brightening Carrie, but the fact that Phil had returned to town.
She had met him one afternoon as she walked with her aunt in the gardens at Vauxhall.
‘My dear Carrie, see there,’ Lady Mallow had said. ‘There is Mr. Philip Meadowes, the—I regret to say it—the natural son of Mr. Richard Meadowes of Fairmeadowes, the property which adjoins to mine at Wynford. For certain I thought it curious that he paid no attention to Sir James, but his infrequent visits to Fairmeadowes no doubt explained the circumstance, for on every hand I have accounts of the affability both of the father and the son. They are beloved in the neighbourhood.’
The good lady rattled on long after the subject of her discourse had passed by. She did not guess how much Phil was beloved in a neighbourhood very close to her at that moment. Carrie listened to her aunt’s talk with heightened colour and sparkling eyes. How different Philip had looked! how much older! He looked boyish no longer—and yet he was the same, her dearest Phil, who would come very soon to claim her now. . . . What would her father say that day? Carrie’s joy was checked at the thought.
For the last month or two of these two years of waiting Carrie could not be tender enough to her father. She was with him every moment of his spare time, and sat by him in the evening, and held his hand till he laughed and asked her the reason of all this sentiment. Carrie laughed also, but her eyes filled with tears; she knew the blow that impended over him.
At last one night she determined to speak. She sat down beside her father and laid her face against his shoulder.
‘Sir, I feel certain that ere long Philip Meadowes will come to claim your promise,’ she said.
She felt her father draw in his breath hard before he spoke.
‘I thought you had forgot Philip Meadowes,’ he said at length.
‘I—forgotten—oh, sir, so soon? What do you take me for?’ cried Carrie. She raised her face for a moment as she spoke.
‘Then you mean to have him?’
‘Yes, sir; I can do no other thing.’
Sebastian rose, and pushed Carrie from him almost with roughness.
‘If you marry this man, Carrie, you part from me; you cannot know all ’twould mean to me. You are too young, you have been ever too happy, even to guess at it. I repeat: Marry Philip Meadowes and part from me, or stay with me and part from him.’
Carrie in her agitation rose and stood beside her father. Then suddenly she flung herself into his arms in her impetuous childish fashion.
‘Oh, sir, I must—I must. I cannot part from Philip; he is grown to be like part of myself,’ she cried in a passion of tears.
Sebastian raised Carrie’s face to his and kissed her.
‘I do not blame you, Carrie—I cannot blame you, for you act too entirely as I would have acted myself. I only bid you good-bye.’
‘Could you never know him and love him, sir?’ asked Carrie timidly.
‘May the Lord forgive me!—no, Carrie; not even for your sake.’
‘ ’Twill half break my heart to leave you, sir,’ said Carrie; ‘but ’twould break quite in two if I left Phil. Oh, what am I to do?’
‘Leave me,’ said Sebastian, and without another word he turned on his heel and went out.
CHAPTER XXVI
It would seem that this marriage was to cause sad feelings to more households than one; for not many days after Carrie and Sebastian had settled matters after this sad fashion, Phil and his father also came to an understanding on the same point.
‘Philip,’ said his father, ‘I wish you would get married one of these days; ’tis a good thing for a young man to marry early: it settles him for life.’
Far from wishing Philip to marry, there was nothing his father was less anxious for; but he thought this a skilful way in which to discover whether his son still hankered after Caroline Shepley—a direct question was the last method ever employed by Richard Meadowes. He was therefore not a little taken aback at Phil’s reply:
‘Well, sir, that is exactly what I intend to do, if so be you will make me a sufficient settlement to marry upon.’
‘And—the lady?’ asked Meadowes. He looked down as he spoke, and twirled the ring he wore round and round upon his finger.
‘Is Caroline Shepley, as you cannot doubt, sir.’
‘Caroline Shepley! I thought, Phil, you had forgot all that nonsense long ago. Let me see: two years ago, is it not, since you first saw her? And since then you have not seen much of her, unless I mistake strangely.’
‘Nothing. I promised her father to see nothing of her for two years.’
‘You saw—Sebastian Shepley?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And have you had no communication with his daughter since?’
‘I as good as promised him, sir; and I am in the habit of keeping my promises.’
‘Of course—of course,’ said Meadowes hurriedly; ‘but in two years’ time that handsome young woman must have found plenty other men to adore her charms. You make too sure of yourself, Phil, if you suppose she hath waited these two years.’
‘I do not fear that I shall find myself supplanted,’ said Phil.
‘And should she think of you, are you in earnest in your intention of marrying her?’
‘More in earnest than ever before in life.’
‘You cannot expect me to provide you with the means for a marriage of which I disapprove?’
Philip leaned forward, fixing his bright eyes on his father’s face. He held him captive while he spoke.
‘Yes, sir; I do not see how you can do otherwise; for you are my father, which makes you responsible for me. You have brought me up in luxury, but you have not educated me for any profession. You could not suppose that I would always do exactly as you desired just because I happened to be dependent upon you instead of having a profession such as most men have? I may be dependent on you for money, sir, but I am so only on condition that I am entirely independent of you in the conduct of my life. ’Tis your duty to give me the fortune you have always led me to expect; but if you refuse it because I intend to marry Caroline Shepley, I must then ask you to support me for a few years more till I can learn to support myself and her. If you refuse me this money it will not keep me from marrying her—nothing will; but I must repeat again that if you educate a man to expect a fortune at your hands, you cannot blame him for calculating upon it.’
Meadowes rose and paced up and down the room.
‘What you say is true, Phil,’ he said at last; ‘the money is yours.’
‘Thank you, sir! I trust you will not regret the decision.’
‘Philip,’ cried his father suddenly, crossing over to where the young man stood, and laying his hand on his arm,—‘Philip, as you love me do not marry this girl!’
There fell a short silence before Phil spoke:—
‘But the plain fact is, sir,I do not love you!’ he said.
The whirlwind! the whirlwind! How it swept now over the man, who, for half a lifetime, had been sowing the wind! It came up and smote the four corners of the house of life where he feasted at his ease, and before the inrush of the blast he trembled and was afraid.
‘Have I not done everything for you, Philip?’ he said, in a hard, cold voice.
‘Everything, sir. Do not misunderstand me; I am quite aware of all I owe you.’
‘What more can I do, Phil, that I have not done?’
‘Nothing, sir!’
‘Then why do you not love me?’
‘Because I cannot trust you—never have and never can,—though ’tis brutal of me to say so.’
‘I think you may go, Philip,’ said his father. He did not speak angrily, nor indeed did he feel any anger at Phil. But the end had come. His last chance for love in this world had failed. He had dreaded this for long. Year by year, as Phil grew older, the separation between them had been gradually widening, an estrangement which the very similarity of their natures, in some respects, seemed to emphasise. Now the breach was open. And Phil had, without doubt, the right of the matter. ‘I scarce know how I looked that he should trust me,’ thought the unhappy man, ‘but I have renounced so much for the boy’s sake,—I have renounced marriage even, lest another son should supplant him; and I doubt if Phil hath ever realised all this, else surely he had not spoken with such cruelty to-night. For the rest of it, youth is sharp to notice, and, when I consider, do I ever speak or act straightly now? Once I did surely? I cannot now. My whole nature leans sidewise, like the tower of Pisa, toppling but still standing. . . . I’m rotten through and through, and Phil knows it,—and—— Oh, forsaken, forsaken!’
He sat forward with his head bent on his clasped hands.
‘A sword shall pierce thine own heart,’ he said.