CHAPTER XIII.
‘A SMILE OF THINE SHALL MAKE MY BLISS.’
Bywhat serpentine twists and windings Bella Scratchell reached the end she had in view need not be recorded. She was by nature a creature of many curves, and all her progress in life was devious and indirect. Enough that she succeeded in making Beatrix Harefield believe her lost lover false and fickle, and thus undermined the girl’s respect for the man who had renounced her. So long as Beatrix could believe that Cyril had sacrificed his heart’s desire to his duty as priest and teacher, she would have continued to reverence and love him. Present or absent, he would have remained the one central figure in her life. From the moment she was persuaded to think him the shallow lover of a day—or indeed, worse than this, a lover who had been drawn to her by the lure of her wealth, and who at thebottom of his heart had always preferred Bella’s lilies and roses—from that moment she despised him, and concentrated all the forces of her mind in the endeavour to forget him.
‘I will never pray for him or his work again,’ she vowed to herself, and the vow had all the savagery of a pagan oath. ‘His name shall never pass my lips or find a place in my heart. It shall be to me as if such a man had never lived.’
From this time there was a marked change in her manner. It was brighter, gayer, harder than it had been before. That mournful resignation which had distinguished her since her father’s death gave place to a proud indifference, a careless scorn of all things and all men, save the few friends she liked and trusted. That disgust of life which attacks most of us at odd times, and which sometimes afflicts even the young, had seized upon her. All things in this world were hateful to her. Solomon, sated with wealth and glory, could not have felt the emptiness of earthly joys more deeply than this girl of nineteen, whose lips had scarcely touched the cup of life. She knew herself rich, and with all good things ather disposal—beautiful enough to command the love of men; and yet, because that one man whom she loved had proved false and unworthy, she turned with a sickened soul from all that earth held of hope or pleasure. Unhappily she had not yet learned to look higher for comfort. She was not irreligious. She firmly believed all her Church taught her to believe, but she had not learned, like Hezekiah, to lay her trouble before the Lord. She locked up her grief in her own heart, as something apart from her spiritual life; and she went on conforming outwardly to all the duties of religion, but deriving no inward solace from her faith.
Beatrix was in this mood when Mrs. Dulcimer, delighted at Bella’s speedy success, but opining, nevertheless, that something more must be done, was seized with a happy idea.
‘Kenrick,’ she exclaimed at tea one evening, when Kenrick had announced his intention of going to have one more peep at Culverhouse Castle before he embarked on board the P. and O. steamship that was to carry him on the first stage of his journey to India—‘Kenrick,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, with an excitedair, ‘I really think it is the oddest thing in the world.’
‘What, dear Mrs. Dulcimer?’ asked Kenrick, while everybody else looked curious.
‘Why, that after knowing you all these years, and hearing you talk so much about Culverhouse Castle, we should never have seen it.’
‘I don’t know whom you mean by we,’ said Mr. Dulcimer, ‘but I beg to say that I spent three weeks at Culverhouse in one of my long vacations, and a capital time I had there. The Avon is one of the finest salmon rivers I ever fished in.’
‘Ah, that was in Kenrick’s father’s time,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer; ‘but though you may be perfectly quainted with the place, Clement, I have never seen it.’
‘That is your own fault,’ exclaimed Kenrick. ‘Nothing would make me happier than to receive you there. It would be something in the style of the famous reception at Wolf’s Crag, perhaps, especially if it were in the close time for salmon; but you should have a hearty welcome, and I shouldn’t feel my position so keenly as the Master of Ravenswood felt his.’
‘There would be no Lucy Ashton in the case,’ put in the Vicar, innocently.
‘And should we really not put you out if we came?’ asked Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘Not the least in the world. You would have to live as plainly as Eton boys, that is all. My housekeeper can roast a joint and boil a potato. I think she might even manage a bit of fish, and a rhubarb tart. We would not quite starve you, and I know you would be charmed with the dear old place; but if you are coming you must make up your minds very quickly. My time is up on the 24th.’
‘We could make up our minds in half an hour, if Clement would consent,’ answered Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘It would be such a delightful change for Beatrix. Mr. Namby has been recommending her a change of air and scene for ever so long; and it is much too cold for the sea-side. A week in Hampshire would do her a world of good.’
‘Pray do not think of me,’ said Beatrix, ‘I had rather go home while you are away.’
‘I thought this was your home now, Beatrix,’ remonstrated the Vicar.
‘It is the only house that has ever seemed like home,’ the heiress answered, sadly.
‘Of course you will go with us, if we go,’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘You are our adopted daughter, and we expect you to go everywhere with us. We don’t even consult you. It is quite a matter of course. I have set my heart on seeing Culverhouse Castle, and the visit will be the very thing to do you good. I am sure Mr. Namby would say so if I asked him about it. So, Clement dear, if you would let Mr. Rodger do duty for just one Sunday, we might spend ten days at Culverhouse very easily.’
Mr. Rodger was the new curate, a painstaking youth, with sandy hair and a large round face like the setting sun.
Mr. Dulcimer was at first disinclined to listen to his wife’s suggestions. The journey was long and expensive, and there seemed to be no justifiable reason for undertaking it; but the Vicar was an indulgent husband, and he was very fond of salmon fishing, so the discussion ended by his giving his consent, and it was arranged that he and the twoladies should join Sir Kenrick at the castle two days after the young man’s arrival there.
Beatrix consented to go to Culverhouse, just as she would have consented to go to Buxton, Harrogate, or Scarborough, if Mrs. Dulcimer had wished her to go there. That disgust of life which had taken possession of her, since the overthrow of her faith in Cyril, left her indifferent to all things. She let her maid pack a portmanteau, and get all things ready for the journey. The girl, Mary, who had waited upon her at the Water House, had accompanied her to the Vicarage. She was not an accomplished attendant, but she was faithful, and Beatrix liked her.
Culverhouse Castle was six miles from a railway station; one of its chief merits, as Kenrick asserted proudly. He was standing on the platform when the train arrived, and received his guests with as much enthusiasm as if he had not seen them for a year or so. He had a carriage ready to drive them across to Culverhouse.
It was a lovely drive in the spring evening, the sun setting behind the wooded hills, and all thesoft rustic scene steeped in warm yellow light. Culverhouse was on the edge of the New Forest, and the road from the station to the castle went through a region of alternate pasture and woodland. Meadows and banks were yellow with primroses; the earliest ferns were showing their tender green; the dog-violets shone like jewels amongst the grass; and the woods were full of white wind-flowers that shivered at every whisper of the April breeze. To Beatrix it all seemed very lovely. She breathed more freely in this unknown world, where nobody had ever spoken evil of her. There was an infinite relief in having left Little Yafford.
When Culverhouse Castle rose before them on the other side of the river, Beatrix thought it the loveliest place she had ever seen. The Avon widened to a smooth lake, and beyond it rose the grave old Gothic towers, like a castle in a fairy tale. Beatrix turned to Kenrick, with the kindest smile she had ever bestowed upon him.
‘It is a delicious old place,’ she exclaimed. ‘I cannot wonder that you are proud of it.’
Kenrick was delighted. His face glowed withpride of race and love for the house of his birth. They were driving through the little village street, all the old men and women, young men and maidens, doing them obeisance as they passed. Then they crossed the bridge and drove under the gateway, which was a couple of centuries older than the castle itself, and a minute later Kenrick passed into the banquet-hall of his ancestors, with Beatrix on his arm. He had offered his arm to Mrs. Dulcimer, but that match-making matron had bidden him take care of Miss Harefield, so he had the happiness of leading Beatrix across the threshold. ‘Jest as if they’d been married and he’d been a-bringin’ she home,’ old Betsy Mopson said afterwards to her husband, gardener and man-of-all-work. ‘Her be a rare beauty, her be.’
Kenrick had done wonders in his two days of preparation. He had got in a brace of apple-faced young women, from the village, one a housemaid out of place, the other her younger sister, still on her promotion, but ready to do anything she was bidden. The old rooms had been furbished up. Traces of decay were still visible in every partof the house, but dust and cobwebs had been swept away, and a general air of freshness and purity pervaded the good old rooms.
Beatrix was enraptured with everything. She seemed to forget her sorrows amidst these new surroundings. Her life had been spent in a prison-house, and this first taste of liberty was sweet. After all, perhaps, even for her, deserted and cast off by the one man she had ever loved, life held something worth having.
Kenrick led his young guest all round the ruins next morning, before breakfast. They were both early risers, and had found each other in the garden before Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer had left their rooms. They went into the cloistered quadrangle, where the roses flourished in summertime, and where now the wallflowers flashed golden and ruby upon the old gray stones, with colours as vivid as the stained glass that had once filled the place with rainbow light. Kenrick showed Beatrix the plan of the vanished abbey—the nave here, the transept there, the chancel and apse beyond. Everything was indicated by stonesembedded at intervals in the close-cropped turf, where the sheep browsed happily, unconscious of the sanctified splendour that had preceded them, the white-robed choir, and swinging censers, the banners and jewelled crosiers that had passed beneath the Gothic arches which had once spanned that fair pasture. Kenrick seemed as sorry for the evanishment of the abbey as if he had been a papist of the deepest dye.
‘It is dreadful to think that a great part of the house is built out of the abbey stones,’ he said. ‘I sometimes wonder it doesn’t tumble on our heads. But tradition says the monks of Culverhouse were lazy and ignorant, and that there was only one book, an ancient treatise upon Hunting and Fishing, found in this abode of monastic learning, when its treasures were confiscated.’
Beatrix had explored every inch of the grounds before the long-disused gong, which in days past had called poor lonely Lady Culverhouse to her anchorite repasts, sounded hoarsely from the hall. Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer were standing in theporch, scenting the morning air, when Kenrick and his companion went in.
‘How well the dear girl looks!’ said the Vicar’s wife; ‘the change has done her good already. You are enjoying Culverhouse, are you not, Beatrix?’
‘I am very glad to be away from Little Yafford,’ Beatrix answered, frankly.
‘In that case you ought never to go back,’ said Kenrick.
‘What a selfish remark!’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, hypocritically. ‘How do you suppose I am to exist without Beatrix, after having had her as my adopted daughter for the last three months?’
‘What do you think of the weather for salmon-fishing?’ asked the Vicar, contemplating the bright blue sky with a discontented look that was hardly becoming in a Christian. ‘We could do with a little more cloud, couldn’t we, Ken? But, as time is short, we must make the best of things. I shall expect you to set off with me directly after breakfast.’
‘I shall be delighted,’ answered Kenrick; but he did not mean to give up his day to salmon-fishing.
He contrived to set the Vicar going, in a spot where there was every chance of good sport, and then, under the pretence of having orders to give about the dinner, ran home across the low-lying water meadows like a boy let loose from school. He found Mrs. Dulcimer expounding the chief features of the mansion—which she had never seen before—to Beatrix, while Betty Mopson stood by in attendance upon them, and made a running commentary, in a Hampshire dialect, which was like a foreign language to the strangers from the north.
‘Hah! Lady Culverhouse wur a good ’ooman,’ said Mrs. Mopson. ‘Thur bean’t many like she. This be the room where hur died. Her wur a rale lady. And Sir Kenrick, him takes after she.’
Kenrick came in time to hear his praises. He sent Betty back to her kitchen.
‘We shall not get a decent luncheon if you waste all your morning chattering here, Betty,’he said, and Betty departed, grinning and ducking, and with a fixed idea that the young lady with the dark ‘haiyur,’ was to be the next Lady Culverhouse.
Kenrick spent a happy day in attendance upon the two ladies. He forgot everything, in the intoxicating delight of the present, forgot that this holiday in life was to be of the briefest, and that a fortnight hence he was to be tossing off Gibraltar in a Peninsular and Oriental steamer. Beatrix seemed happy also, or, at least, she appeared to be in a condition of placid contentment which was not unpromising.
The Vicar was successful with his rod, and came home radiant. Betty Mopson had surpassed herself in the preparation of a substantial English dinner. Everything went smoothly and well with Sir Kenrick.
Next day he carried off his guests to see some of the lions of the neighbourhood—a fine old abbey church sorely neglected—a castle where luckless King Charles had spent a night in safe keeping. Beatrix, who felt the unreasoning pity which allyoung and generous minds feel for that weak-minded and ill-used Stuart, contemplated the gloomy stone walls as if they had witnessed the heroic doom of an early Christian martyr. Then came the long drive home, through the spring twilight, across woods which were like glimpses of Paradise.
So the week wore on, in simple pleasures which might have seemed tame and dull to those world-weary spirits of the Sir Charles Coldstream calibre, who have done everything, and found emptiness everywhere, but which were sweet and new to Beatrix Harefield. A faint bloom began to warm her clear olive cheek, the dark depths of her Italian eyes shone with a new light. Yet she had not forgotten Cyril Culverhouse, nor one drop in the bitter cup she had drained since her father’s death.
One evening after dinner, while the golden glow was still warm in the west, Beatrix and her host found themselves alone together in the cloistered garden. Until this moment Kenrick had not said one word about his disappointed hopes. His conduct had been perfect. He hadbeen full of flattering attentions for his young guest; he had anticipated her every wish, devoted every free moment of his day to paying her homage; but he had never put on the air of a lover, nor insinuated a hope that could alarm her with the idea that Culverhouse Castle was a trap in which she was to be caught unawares.
He had his views and his hopes all the same, in spite of her unqualified rejection a few weeks ago. And now she had been a guest in his house nearly a fortnight, and she seemed happier and brighter than he had ever known her. His brief span of delight was nearly at an end. In a few days his guests would depart, the steamer would sail, and he must go back to the weary drudgery yonder under the dense blue of a Bengal sky—the early drill—the monotonous days—the narrow society—the blank sense of exile from all that is best and brightest in life. If the game were to be won ever, it must be won quickly.
It may have been some soft influence in sky or earth, the magic of the hour, that moved him to take the awful plunge this evening. His chancesof being quite alone with Beatrix were few, and this opportunity, which came by accident, might be the last. However it was, he resolved to cast the die.
This time he told no long story about his love. He had said his say that March afternoon in the Vicarage library. He only took Beatrix by the hand as they stood idly side by side, looking down at the wallflowers and polyanthuses growing among the old gray stones—the capitals and bases of columns that had fallen long ago, and said earnestly,—
‘Beatrix, I want you to be mistress of this place. I will not say another word about my love for you. I will not ask for your love. That, I hope and believe, would come to me in good time if you were my wife; for it would be the business of my life to win it. I want you to come and reign at Culverhouse. Let me be your steward—your servant.’
‘You place yourself too low and me too high,’ answered Beatrix, sadly. She had not withdrawn her hand, and Kenrick’s heart thrilled with anew-born hope. ‘You forget my tainted name. Kind as the people here are to me, I dare say there is not one among them who does not know that I have been suspected of poisoning my father.’
The pained look in her face told Kenrick how bitter this thought was, and how ever present in her mind.
‘They know nothing except that you are the loveliest and noblest of women,’ said Kenrick. ‘My love, my love, do not reject me. You can give me fortune to restore the glory of a good old name—to bring back to this place the pride and hospitality and usefulness of days gone by—and I can give you nothing in exchange, save love and reverence. It is hardly a fair bargain, perhaps; yet I am bold enough to press my suit, for I believe that you and I could be happy together.’
After a pause of a few minutes, and a long-drawn sigh, Beatrix answered him with a sweet seriousness that to him seemed simply adorable.
‘I had my dream of a very different life,’she said, ‘but that dream was rudely broken. I like you, Sir Kenrick, because you have trusted me; I am grateful to you because you have never let the evil thoughts of others influence your mind against me. If you can be content with liking and gratitude, I am content to be your wife.’
There was a tone of resignation rather than happiness in this acceptance, but it lifted Kenrick into the seventh heaven of delight.
‘Dearest, you have made me almost mad with joy,’ he cried. ‘You shall never regret—no, love, God helping me, you shall never regret your sweet consent of this blissful evening.’
He drew her to his heart, and kissed the tremulous lips, which shrank from him with an involuntary recoil. How cold those lips were! If he had kissed her in her coffin that kiss could hardly have been colder.