"Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been,And I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."
"Look in my face: my name is Might-have-been,And I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Thedays following Barbara's return to Chancton Priory went slowly by, and she received no sign, no word from Berwick. She had felt quite sure that he would come—if not that same evening of her leaving Fletchings, then the next morning; if not in the morning, then in the afternoon.
During those days she went through every phase of feeling. She learnt the lesson most human beings learn at some time of their lives—how to listen without appearing to do so for the sounds denoting arrival, how to hunger for the sound of a voice which to the listener brings happiness, however indifferently these same accents fall on the ears of others. She schooled herself not to flinch when the days went by bringing no successor to that letter in which Berwick had promised her so much more than she had ever asked of him.
Even in the midst of her restless self-questioning and unhappiness, she was touched and pleased at the gladness with which she had been welcomed home again by Madame Sampiero, and even by Doctor McKirdy. It seemed strange that neither of them spoke of the man who now so wholly occupied her thoughts; no one, with the exception perhaps of his old nurse, noted Berwick's absence, or seemed to find it untoward. Barbara had at first been nervously afraid that Madame Sampierowould make some allusion to the few moments they had spent together that Sunday morning, that she would perhaps ask her what had induced her eager wish to leave Fletchings; but no such word was said, and Barbara could not even discover whether Doctor McKirdy was aware that her sudden return to the Priory had been entirely voluntary.
And then, as the short winter days seemed to drag themselves along, Mrs. Rebell, almost in spite of herself, again began to see a great deal of Oliver Boringdon. There was something in his matter-of-fact eagerness for her society which soothed her sore heart; her manner to him became very gracious, more what it had been before Berwick had come into her life; and again she found herself taking the young man's part with Madame Sampiero and the old Scotchman. Boringdon soon felt as happy as it was in his nature to be. He told himself he had been a jealous fool, for Barbara spoke very little of her visit to Fletchings, and not at all of Berwick; perhaps she had seen him when there at a disadvantage.
As Oliver happened to know, Berwick had left Sussex; he was now in London, and doubtless they would none of them see anything of him till Easter. The young man took the trouble to go down to the Grange and tell Mrs. Kemp that he had been mistaken in that matter of which he had spoken to her. He begged her, rather shamefacedly, to forget what he had said. Lucy's mother heard him in silence, but she did not repeat her call on Mrs. Rebell. So it was that during those days which were so full of dull wretchedness and suspense to Barbara Rebell, Oliver Boringdon also went through a mental crisis of his own, the upshot of which was that he wrote a long and explicit letter to Andrew Johnstone.
They were both men to whom ambiguous situationswere utterly alien. Boringdon told himself that Johnstone might not understand, or might understand and not approve, his personal reason for interference; but Johnstone would certainly agree that Mrs. Rebell's present position was intolerable from every point of view, and that some effort should be made to set her legally free from such a man as was this Pedro Rebell. Once Barbara was free,—Oliver thrust back the leaping rapture of the thought—
After much deliberation he had added, as a postscript: "I have no objection to your showing this letter to Grace."
Doctor McKirdy watched Mrs. Rebell very narrowly during these same early December days, and as he did so he became full of wrath against James Berwick. He and Madame Sampiero had few secrets from one another. The old Scotchman had heard of Barbara's sudden Sunday morning appearance at the Priory, and of her appeal—was it for protection against herself? He made up his mind that she and Berwick must have had, if not a quarrel, then one of those encounters which leave deeper marks on the combatants than mere quarrels are apt to do.
More than once the rough old fellow was strongly tempted to say to her: "If you wish to make yourself ill, you are just going the way to do it!" but Mrs. Rebell's determination to go on as usual, to allow no one to divine the state of her mind, aroused his unwilling admiration, nay more, his sympathy. He had known, so he told himself, what it was to feel as Barbara felt now, but in his case jealousy, an agony of jealousy, had been added to his other torments, and shame too for the futility of it all.
Nine days after Barbara had left Fletchings shereceived a letter from Berwick. It bore the London postmark, but was dated the evening of the day they had parted,—of that day when she had successfully eluded his desire, his determination, to see her alone.
A certain savagery of anger, hurt pride, over-mastering passion breathed in the few lines of the short note which began abruptly, "I have no wish to force my presence on you," and ended "Under the circumstances perhaps it were better that we should not meet for a while." Something had been added, and then erased; most women would have tried to find out what that hasty scrawl concealed, but if it hid some kinder sentiment the writer, before despatching his missive, had repented, and to Barbara the fact that he did not wish her to read what he had added was enough to prevent her trying to do so.
With deep trouble and self-reproach she told herself that perhaps she had been wrong in taking to flight—nay, more, that she had surely owed Berwick an explanation. No wonder he was hurt and angry! And he would never know, that was the pity of it, that it was of herself she had been afraid—
Then those about her suddenly began to tell Mrs. Rebell that which would have made such a difference before the arrival of Berwick's letter. "I suppose you know that James Berwick is in London? He was sent for suddenly," and Boringdon mentioned the name of the statesman who had been Prime Minister when Berwick held office.
"Has he been gone long?"—Barbara's voice sounded indifferent.
"Yes, he seems to have had a wire on a Sunday, on the day you came back from Fletchings."
And Boringdon had never told her this all-important fact! Barbara felt a sudden secret resentment againstthe young man. So it had lain with him to spare her those days of utter wretchedness; of perpetually waiting for one whom she believed to be in the near neighbourhood; nay more, those moments of sick anxiety, for at times she had feared that Berwick might be ill, physically unable to leave Fletchings or Chillingworth. But this most unreasonable resentment against Oliver she kept in her own heart.
The next to speak to her of Berwick had been Mrs. Turke. "So our Mr. Berwick's in London? But he'll be back soon, for he hasn't taken Dean with him. Sometimes months go by without our seeing the dear lad, and then all in a minute he's here again. That's the way with gentlemen; you never know when you have 'em!" And she had given Barbara a quick, meaning look, as if the remark had a double application.
Then came a day, the 8th of December, which Mrs. Rebell became aware was not like other days. For the first time since she had been at the Priory Madame Sampiero inquired as to the day of the month. Doctor McKirdy was more odd, more abrupt even than usual, and she saw him turn Boringdon unceremoniously from the door with the snarling intimation that Madame Sampiero did not wish to-day to be troubled with business matters. Mrs. Turke also was more mysterious, less talkative than usual; she went about her own quarters sighing and muttering to herself.
A sudden suspicion came into Barbara's heart; could it be that James Berwick was coming back, that they expected him to-day, and that none of them liked to tell her? If so, how wise of McKirdy to have sent away Oliver Boringdon! But then cold reason declared that if such was indeed the case, to make so great a mystery of the matter would be an insult to her,surely the last thing that any of them, with the exception perhaps of the old housekeeper, would dare to do?
Still, when at last, late in the morning, she was sent for by Doctor McKirdy, and informed curtly that someone was waiting for her in the grass walk, she made no doubt of who it could be. In her passion of relief, in her desire to bear herself well, to return, if it might be possible, to the old ideal terms on which she and Berwick had been before he had been seized with what she to herself now characterised as a passing madness, Barbara hardly noticed how moved, how unlike himself the old Scotchman seemed to be, and how, again and again, he opened his lips as if to tell her something which native prudence thrust back into his heart.
So great, so overwhelming was Barbara's disappointment when she saw that the man leaning on the iron gate leading to the now leafless rosery was Lord Bosworth, and not James Berwick, that she had much ado to prevent herself from bursting into tears. But she saw the massive figure before she herself was seen, and so was able to make a determined effort to conceal both her bitter deception, and also her great surprise at finding him there.
"As you are doubtless aware," Lord Bosworth began abruptly, "I come here three or four times a year, and McKirdy is good enough to arrange that on those occasions I can visit my child's grave without fear of interruption. I ventured to ask that you might be told that I wished to see you here, because I have a request to make you—"
He hesitated, and with eyes cast down began tracing with the heavy stick he bore in his hand imaginary geometrical patterns on the turf.
"If my daughter Julia had lived, she would have been seventeen to-day, and so it seemed to me—perhaps I was wrong—to be a good opportunity to make anothereffort to soften Barbara's heart." He put his hand on Mrs. Rebell's shoulder, and smiled rather strangely as he quickly added, "You understand? I mean my own poor Barbara's heart, not that of this kind young Barbara, who I am hoping will intercede for me, on whom I am counting to help me in this matter. I do not know how far I should be justified in letting her know what is undoubtedly the truth, namely, that I have not very long to live. McKirdy absolutely refuses to tell her; but perhaps, if she knew this fact, it would alter her feeling, and make her more willing to consider the question of—of—our marriage."
And then, as Barbara started and looked at him attentively, he went on slowly, and with a quiet dignity which moved his listener deeply: "Of course you know our story? Sometimes I think there is no one in the whole world who does not know it. There were years, especially after the birth of our little Julia, when I think I may say we both had marriage on the brain. And then, when at last Barbara was free, when Napoleone Sampiero"—his face contracted when he uttered the name—"was dead, she would not hear of it. She seemed to think—perhaps at the time it was natural she should do so—that the death of our poor child had been a judgment on us both. But now, after all these years, I think she might do as I ask. I even think—perhaps you might put that to her—that she owes me something. No husband was ever more devoted to a wife than I have been to her. Now, and Heaven knows how many years it is since we last met, I think of her constantly. She is there!—there!" He struck his breast, then went on more calmly: "My niece knows my wishes, there would be no trouble with her; and as for my nephew, James Berwick, you know how attached he has always been to Barbara.Why, I'm told he's much more here now than he is at Chillingworth!"
He turned abruptly, and they walked slowly, side by side, down the broad grass path till there came a spot where it became merged in the road under the beeches. Here he stopped her.
"You are surely not going to walk back all the way alone!" she cried, for she saw with emotion that he looked older even in the few days which had elapsed since he had bade her good-bye at Fletchings.
"No, the carriage is waiting for me down there. I only walked up through the park. Then I have your promise to speak to Madame Sampiero?" he held her hand, and looked down with peculiar earnestness into her face. As she bent her head, he added, "You'll let me have word when you can? Of course, if she's still of the same mind, I'll not trouble her." He walked on, and then turned suddenly back and grasped Barbara's hand once more. "Better not use the health argument," he said, "doctors do make mistakes—an old friend of mine married his cook on, as he thought, his death-bed, and then got quite well again!" He smiled at her rather deprecatingly, "I know my cause is in good hands," and she watched him walk with heavy, deliberate steps down the leaf-strewn way.
For the first time Barbara drew the parallel those about her had so often drawn. Was James Berwick capable of such constancy, of such long devotion as his uncle had shown? Something whispered yes; but even if so, how would that affect her, how would that make her conduct less reprehensible, were she ever to fall short of what had been her own mother's standard?
Before her interview with Lord Bosworth, it had seemed to Barbara that she constantly spent long hoursalone with her god-mother; but, after that memorable eighth of December, she felt as if those about Madame Sampiero had entered into a conspiracy to prevent her being ever left alone with her god-mother for more than a very few moments at a time. Doctor McKirdy suddenly decided to have his house repapered, and he accordingly moved himself bodily over to the Priory, where Barbara could not complain of his constant presence in "Madam's" room, for he always found something to amuse or interest his patient.
Twice he spoke to Barbara of Lord Bosworth, each time with strange bitterness and dislike. "No doubt his lordship was after seeing Madam?" and, as Barbara hesitated: "Fine I knew it!—but he might just as well go and kill her outright. I've had to tell him so again and again"—
Barbara kept her own counsel, but she could not resist the question, "Then he comes often?"
"Often?—that he does not! He's never been one to put himself out, he's far too high! He just sends for me over to Fletchings, and I just go, though I've felt more than once minded to tell him that I'm not his servant. Madam's determined that he shall never see her as she is now, and who can blame her? Not I, certainly! Besides, he hasn't a bit of right to insist on such a thing." And he looked fiercely at Barbara as he spoke, as if daring her to contradict him.
"I think he has a right," she said in a low tone—then with more courage, "Of course he has a right, Doctor McKirdy! I'm sure if my god-mother could see Lord Bosworth, could hear him——" her voice broke, and she bit her lip, sorry at having said so much.
But the interview with Madame Sampiero's old friend, and the little encounters with Doctor McKirdy,did Barbara good. They forced her to think of something else than of herself, of another man than James Berwick; and at last she made up her mind that she would tell her god-mother she wished to speak to her without this dread of constant, futile interruption. At once her wish was granted, for the paralysed mistress of the Priory could always ensure privacy when she chose.
But, alas for Barbara, the result of the painful talk was not what she had perhaps been vain enough to think herself capable of achieving on behalf of Lord Bosworth: indeed, for a moment she had been really frightened, on the point of calling Doctor McKirdy, so terrible, so physically injurious had been Madame Sampiero's agitation.
"I cannot see him! He must not see me in this state—he should not ask it of me." Such, Mrs. Rebell had divined, were the words her god-mother struggled over and over again to utter. "Marriage?"—a lightning flash of horror, revolt, bitter sarcasm, had illumined for a moment the paralysed woman's face. Then, softening, she had added words signifying that she was not angry, that she forgave—Barbara!
Very sadly, with a heart full of pain at the disappointment she knew she was about to inflict, Mrs. Rebell wrote to Lord Bosworth. She softened the refusal she had to convey by telling, with tenderness and simplicity, how much the man to whom she was writing seemed to be ever in her god-mother's thoughts, how often Madame Sampiero spoke of him, how eagerly she had cross-questioned her god-daughter as to the days Barbara had spent at Fletchings and her conversations with her host.
Mrs. Rebell wrote this difficult letter in the drawing-room, sitting at the beautiful bureau which had beenthe gift of the man to whom she was writing, and which even now contained hundreds of his letters. Suddenly, and while she was hesitating as to how she should sign herself, James Berwick walked, unannounced, into the room, coming so quietly that for a moment he stood looking at Barbara before she herself became aware that he was there. So had Barbara looked, on that first evening he had seen her; but then he had been outside the window and gazing at the woman bending over the bureau with cool, critical eyes.
Now, he was aware of nothing, save that the hunger of his eyes was appeased, and that he had come to eat humble pie and make his peace, for in his case that prescription which is said to be so excellent for lovers—absence—had only made him feel, more than he had done before, that he could not and would not live without her.
An hour later Berwick was gone, as Barbara believed in all sincerity, for ever. He knew better, but even he felt inclined to try another dose of that absence, of that absorption in the business that he loved, to compel forgetfulness. It was clear—so he told himself when rushing back to Chillingworth through the December night air—it was clear that what this woman wanted was a stone image, not a man, for her friend!
For a while, perhaps for half the time he had been with her, standing by the mantel-piece while she sat two or three yards off, there had been a truce of God. Berwick had thought out a certain line of action, and he tried to be, as some hidden instinct told him she wished to see him, once more the tender, self-less, sexless friend. He even brought his lips to mutter something like a prayer for forgiveness, and the tearscame into her eyes as with uplifted hand she checked the words. Poor Barbara! She was so divinely happy, for his mere presence satisfied her heart. She had never known him quite so gentle, quite so submissive, as to-day. So glad had she been to see him that for a moment she had felt tempted to show him how welcome he was! But he had chosen,—and she was deeply grateful to him for this—to behave as if he had only parted from her the day before. Fletchings, all that happened there, was to be as if it had not been—as if the scene in the music gallery had been blotted out from their memories.
Then came an allusion on his part to his forthcoming visit to Scotland, and to the invitation which he knew his sister had been at some pains to procure for Mrs. Rebell, and which Barbara would receive the next morning.
"I cannot accept it; it is very kind of Miss Berwick, but how could I leave my god-mother again so soon?"
"Is that the only reason?" he said, and she heard with beating heart the under-current of anger, of suppressed feeling in his voice. "If so, I am sure I can make it all right. It would only be ten days, and Madame Sampiero would like you to meet the people who will be there. But perhaps"—he came nearer and stood glowering down at her—"perhaps that is not your only reason!"
And Barbara, looking up at him with beseeching eyes, shook her head.
"Do you mean"—Berwick spoke so quietly that his tone deceived her, and made her think him in amicable agreement with herself—"Do you mean that you do not wish to find yourself again under the same roof with me? Did what happened at Fletchings make that difference?"
She hesitated most painfully. "I have been very unhappy," she whispered at last, "I know we have both regretted——"
"By God, I have regretted nothing—excepting your coldness!" He grasped her hands not over-gently, and the look came into his eyes which had come there in the music room at Fletchings. "Do you wish us to go back to coldly-measured friendship?" Then he bent down and gathered her into his arms, even now not daring to kiss her. "Tell me," he said with sudden gentleness, "am I—am I—disagreeable to you, my dearest? I shall not be angry if you say yes." And Barbara, lying trembling, and as he thought inertly, unresponsively, in his arms, found the courage to answer, "I do care—but not as you wish me to do. Why cannot we go back to where we were?"
On hearing the whispered words he quickly released her, and, turning, made his way to the door. Barbara, for an agonised moment, nearly called out to him to come back and learn from her arms—her lips—how untrue were the words which were driving him away.
But in a moment, or so it seemed to her, he had thrust her from him and had gone, hastening down the great hall, and out through the porch into the air.
By the morning she had taught herself to think it was better he should never come back, for never would she find the strength to send him away again as she had done last night.
"Nay, but the maddest gambler throws his heart."George Meredith."L'orgueil, remède souverain, qui n'est pas à l'usage des âmes tendres."Stendhal.
"Nay, but the maddest gambler throws his heart."
George Meredith.
"L'orgueil, remède souverain, qui n'est pas à l'usage des âmes tendres."
Stendhal.
Thepretty Breton legend setting forth that, during the night, angels take sanctuary from evil spirits in the neighbourhood of sleeping maidens, often came to Mrs. Kemp's mind when she said good-night to Lucy. There was something very virginal, very peaceful and bright, in the girl's room, of which the window overlooked the paddock of the Grange, the walled kitchen garden of the Priory, and beyond that a splendid stretch of meadow land and beechwood.
Small low-shelved mahogany bookshelves, put together at a time of the world's history when women's hands were considered too fragile and delicate to hold heavy volumes, made squares of dark colour against the blue walls. Lucy Kemp had always been a reader, both as child and as girl. Here were all her old books, from that familiar and yet rather ill-assorted trio, "The Fairchild Family," "The Swiss Family Robinson," and "The Little Duke," to "Queechy," "Wives and Daughters," and "The Heir of Redclyffe," for their owner's upbringing had been essentially old-fashioned.
Lucy lay back in the dreamless sleep of girlhood. It was a cold January morning, and the embers of lastnight's fire still slumbered in the grate. Suddenly there broke on the intense stillness the rhythmical sound of pebbles being thrown with careful, sure aim against the window, open some inches from the top. The sleeper stirred uneasily, but she slept on till a small stone, aimed higher than most of those which had preceded it, fell into the room. Then Lucy Kemp woke with a great start and sat up in bed listening.
Yes, there could be no doubt about it, someone was standing in the paddock below trying to attract her attention! She got up, wrapped something round her, and then lifted the window-sash. In the dim light she saw a man standing just below, and Boringdon's hoarse, quick tones floated up to her.
"Lucy—Miss Kemp! Would you ask your mother if she could come to the Priory as soon as possible? There's been an accident there—a fire—and I fear Mrs. Rebell has been badly burnt."
His voice filled Lucy with varying feelings—joy that he had instinctively turned to the Grange for help, horror and concern at what he had come to tell.
"Mother's away," she cried in a troubled tone. "She and father have gone over to Berechurch for three nights. Should I be of any use? I shouldn't be a moment getting ready."
In less than ten minutes she joined him, and together they hastened through a seldom opened door giving access from the garden of the Grange into the Priory Park. Soon Oliver was hurrying her up the path, walking so quickly that she could scarcely keep up with him, towards the great silent mass of building the top windows of which, those which lay half hidden by the Tudor stone balcony, were now strangely lit up, forming a coronal of light to the house beneath.
"What happened?" she asked breathlessly.
"It's impossible to say what happened," Boringdon spoke in sharp preoccupied tones, "Mrs. Rebell seems to have been reading in bed and to have set fire to a curtain. She behaved, as she always does, with great good sense, and she and McGregor—heaven knows how—managed to put out the flames; not, however, before the fire had spread into the sitting-room next her bedroom. McKirdy, it seems, has always insisted that there should be buckets of water ready on every landing." Oliver would have scorned to defraud his enemy of his due. "When the whole thing was over, then they all—that stupid old Mrs. Turke and the maids—saw that she was badly burnt!"
The speaker's voice altered; he paused for a moment, and then continued, "They sent for McKirdy, who, as bad luck would have it, went back to his own house last week, and found him away, for he's been helping that Scotch doctor at Halnakeham with a bad case. Then they came on to me. Even now they're like a pack of frightened sheep! Madame Sampiero knows nothing of what has happened, and Mrs. Rebell is extremely anxious that her god-mother should not be agitated—why, she actually wanted to go down herself to tell her that everything was all right."
Lucy listened in silence. How Oliver cared, how dreadfully he cared! was the thought which would thrust itself into the girl's mind. "Is Mrs. Rebell very badly hurt?" she asked. "Oh! I wish that mother was here. Have you sent for another doctor?"
"I don't know how far she is hurt," he muttered, "her arm and shoulder, some of her hair—" then, more firmly, "No, she won't let me send for anyone but McKirdy. Besides, by the time we could get a man over from Halnakeham, he would certainly be back. But it will be everything to her to have youthere, if only to keep order among the frightened, hysterical women."
Lucy had never before been inside Chancton Priory; and now, filled though she was by very varying emotions, she yet gazed about her, when passing through into the great hall, with feelings of deep interest and curiosity: it looked vast, cavernous, awe-inspiring in the early morning light.
A moment later they were hastening up the corner staircase. At the first landing, they were stopped by Madame Sampiero's French maid, who put a claw-like hand on Boringdon's arm—"Do come in and see my mistress, Sir. She divines something, and we cannot calm her."
Boringdon hesitated, then he turned to Lucy.
"I must go," he said, "I promised I would. You go on straight upstairs, as far as you can go; once there you will be sure to find someone to show you the way to the room where we have put Mrs. Rebell." And the girl went on alone, groping her way up the dark, to her they seemed the interminable, stairs.
An amazing figure—Mrs. Turke indéshabillé—awaited Lucy on the top landing, and greeted her with considerable circumstance.
"The young lady from the Grange, I do declare! A sad day for your first visit to the Priory, missy! But la, never mind. I've often seen you, you and your dear papa, and I read all about him in a book I've got. What a brave gentleman! But reading about it gave me the shivers, that it did—I would like to see that Victoria Cross of his! So Mr. Boringdon thinks you may be of use to Mrs. Rebell? Well, miss, I'll take you in to her. But she's made us all go away and leave her—she says she'd rather be alone to wait for the doctor."
Mrs. Turke preceded Lucy down the passage, and finally opened the door of a pretty, old-fashioned bedroom; the girl went in timidly and then gave a sigh of relief; the woman whom Oliver Boringdon had described as having been "badly burnt" was sitting up in a large armchair. She was wrapped in some kind of ample white dressing-gown, and a large piece of wadding had been clumsily attached to her left arm, concealing the left side of her face and hair.
Mrs. Rebell's eyes were fixed eagerly on the door through which Lucy had just come in. She did not show any surprise at seeing the girl, but at once began talking to her eagerly; and as she did so Lucy saw that she was shivering, for the room was very cold. A fire was laid in the grate, but evidently no one had thought of lighting it. Three candles, placed on the narrow mantel-piece, threw a bright light on as much of Barbara's face as Lucy could see. Her cheeks were red, her dark eyes bright, with excitement.
"It is kind of you to have come," she said. "Mr. Boringdon told me he would fetch your mother. I suppose Doctor McKirdy will be here soon? Has Mr. Boringdon gone to fetch him?"
"No," Lucy looked at her doubtfully; was it possible that anyone who looked as Mrs. Rebell did now, so excited, so—so strangely beautiful, could be really hurt, in pain? "He has gone to tell Madame Sampiero that all danger is over, that there is nothing more to fear."
A look of great anxiety crossed Barbara's face. "My god-mother is very brave. I do not think she will give much thought to the fire, but I hope he will tell her that I am not really hurt. Perhaps, after Doctor McKirdy has come, I can go down, and show her that there is really nothing the matter."
As she spoke, she winced. "Are you much hurt?" asked Lucy in a low voice, and her shrinking eyes again glanced at the sheet of wadding which wholly concealed Mrs. Rebell's arm, left breast, and one side of her head.
Barbara looked at her rather piteously. "I don't know," she said; "It hurt dreadfully at first, but now I feel nothing, only a slight pricking sensation." She repeated, "It hurt dreadfully till they fetched Mr. Boringdon, and then he found—I don't know where or how—the oil and wadding, which he made poor old Mrs. Turke put on. He was so good and kind!" She smiled at the girl, a friendly smile, and the look in her eyes brought a burning blush to Lucy's cheeks.
There was a pause; then Lucy, having taken off her hat and jacket, lighted the fire.
"Miss Kemp," Barbara's voice sank to a whisper, "I want you to do something for me. That fire which you have so kindly lighted has made me think of it. Will you go into my room, two doors from here, and bring me a packet of letters you will find in my dressing-table drawer? The drawer is locked, but the key is in my purse. When you have brought it, I want you to burn the letters, here, before me," and as Lucy was turning to obey her, she added, "Take one of the candles. Mr. Boringdon said the two rooms were to be left exactly as they are, and everything must be dripping with water, and in fearful confusion."
Lucy never forgot her little expedition down the dark passage, and the strange scene which met her eyes in the two rooms which had evidently been, till that night, as neat, as delicately clean, as was her own at the Grange. Well was it for poor Barbara that she had so few personal treasures. But the dressing-table had escaped injury save from the water, which in the bedroom had actually done more harm than the fire.
When she got back into the room where Mrs. Rebell was sitting, it seemed to Lucy that Barbara had changed in the short interval—that she looked, not well, as she had done when Lucy had first seen her half an hour before, but very, very ill. The colour now lay in patches on her cheek, and she watched with growing feverishness the burning of the few letters, from each of which, as she put it in the bright crackling fire, Lucy averted her eyes, a fact which Mrs. Rebell, in spite of her increasing dizziness and pain, saw and was grateful for.
"Miss Kemp," the speaker's voice was very low, "come here, close to me. Someone may come in, and I am feeling so strange——Perhaps I may forget what I want to tell you. You know Mr. Berwick?" Lucy was kneeling down by the arm-chair, and Barbara put her right hand on the girl's slight shoulder—"But of course you do, I was forgetting the ball——Why, he danced with you. If I die, only if I die, promise me——" an agonised look came into the dark eyes—
"I promise," said Lucy steadily; "only if you die——"
"If I die, you are to tell him that I cared as he wished me to care,—that when I sent him away, and in the letters I have written to him since, I said what was not true——"
Lucy felt the burning hand laid on her shoulder press more heavily: "No one else must ever know, but you promise that you will tell him——"
"I promise," said Lucy again. "I will tell him exactly what you have told me, and no one else shall ever know."
A slight noise made her look round. Doctor McKirdy stood in the doorway. He was bare-headed, but he still wore the great coat in which he had driven from Halnakeham. He was pale, his plain face set in awatchful, alert grimace, as his eyes took in every detail of the scene, of the room before him.
Barbara gave a cry—or was it a moan?—of relief. He turned and slipped the bolt in the door. "Time for talking secrets will come next week," then he took off his great coat, washed his hands—with a gruff word of commendation at the fact that there were water, soap, a towel, in what had been a disused room—turned up his sleeves, and bade Lucy stand aside.
"Now," he said, quickly, "would ye rather go away, Miss Lucy? If yes, there's the door!"
"Can I help you?" Lucy was very pale; she felt sick, a little faint.
"If ye were ye're mother, I should sayyes——"
"Then I'll stay," said Lucy.
"'Twould be an ill thing if such a brave pair had produced a chicken-livered lass, eh?"
He did not speak again till everything there was to see had been seen, till everything there was to do had been done; it seemed a very long business to Lucy, and by the time the doctor had finished tears were rolling down her face. How could she have thought that perhaps Mrs. Rebell was not much hurt after all? "Now ye're just to have a good sip of that brandy ye've been giving Mrs. Rebell. I'm well pleased with ye both!" And when Lucy shook her head, he gave her such a look that she hastened to obey him, and suddenly felt a flash of sympathy for drunkards. How wonderful that a few spoonfuls of this horrid stuff should check her wish to cry, and make her feel sensible again!
As Doctor McKirdy unceremoniously signified that he could dispense with her presence, as he unlocked the door for her to pass through, something in Lucy's face made him follow her, unwillingly, into the passage. "What is it?" he said sharply.
"Oh, Doctor McKirdy! Do you think she will die?"
"Die? Are ye mad, my poor lass? There's no question of such a thing. She's more likely to die o' cold than anything else! Now go downstairs and send your fine friend Mr. Boringdon and McGregor this way. We've got to move her to the Queen's Room. There have been big fires there all this week—regard for the furniture, the apple of Mrs. Turke's eye, I said they were to get it ready—but we shall have a business getting her down there."
The long, painful progress down the winding staircase was safely over. Barbara was comfortably settled in the great square canopied bed, where, if tradition could be believed, Queen Elizabeth and her less magnificent successor had both, at intervals of fifty years, reposed. Madame Sampiero's Scotch attendant was installed as nurse, and there was nothing left for Lucy Kemp to do but to go home to her solitary breakfast at the Grange. Boringdon, after having done his part, and a very useful one, in lifting and carrying Mrs. Rebell down the two flights, had retreated into the broad corridor, and was walking up and down waiting—he himself hardly knew for what.
But Doctor McKirdy had quite made up his mind as to the next thing to be done. "Now then, you must just take Miss Kemp home again, and I charge you to see that she has a good breakfast! Take her down through the Park. The village will be a buzzing wasps' nest by this time; half of them seem to think—so Mrs. Turke's just told me—that we're all burnt to cinders! You just stay with the poor lass as long as you can, and don't let Miss Vipen or any other havering woman get at her to be asking her useless questions. If I want you I'll send to the Grange."
And so it was to Doctor McKirdy that Lucy owed the happy, peaceful hours spent by her that morning. Boringdon had dreaded the going back to the Cottage, to his mother's excited questionings and reflections, to her annoyance that he had gone to the Grange, rather than to her, for help. He knew he would have to tell her everything. She was not a woman from whom it was possible to conceal very much, and in the long run she always got at the truth, but just now it was much to be able to put off his return home.
Dear Lucy! How good, how sensible, howquietshe had been! She stumbled over the porch flag-stone, and he drew her arm through his. So together they walked down to the Grange. Oliver had never before breakfasted with the Kemps; how comfortable, how homely everything was! The eggs and bacon seemed crisper and fresher, also better, than those ever eaten at the Cottage; the tea poured out by Lucy was certainly infinitely nicer—not for a moment would Oliver have admitted that this was owing to the fact of its being a shilling a pound dearer than that made by his mother!
Each tacitly agreed not to speak of all that had just happened at the Priory. They talked of all sorts of other things. Lucy heard with startled interest that Oliver was thinking very seriously of giving up his land agency, and of going back, if it were in any way possible, to London. What had become the great central desire of his life must never be mentioned to any human being, not even to his dear friend Lucy, till its realisation was possible—legally possible. But even to talk of his plans, as he was now doing, was a comfort; his present listener, unlike his mother, always seemed to understand his point of view, and to realise why he had altered his mindwithout his being compelled to go into tiresome explanations.
After to-day Lucy and Mrs. Rebell would surely become friends. Even within the last few days Barbara had said to him, "I should like to see more of Miss Kemp. It was a pity she and her mother called when I was away." He liked to think of these two in juxtaposition. If the thought of life without Barbara was intolerable, not indeed to be considered,—once she was free from that West Indian brute, his great love must, in the long run, win return,—the thought of existence with no Lucy Kemp as friend was distinctly painful. He, Barbara, and Lucy, would all be happy; and then, not yet, but in some years to come, for she was still so young, his and Barbara's friend would marry some good honest fellow—not Laxton, no, but such a man as he himself had been till Mrs. Rebell came to the Priory, one to whom Lucy's fortune would be useful in promoting a public career.
At last, about twelve, he reluctantly rose, and Lucy went with him to the door. Suddenly it struck him that she looked very tired, "Lucy," he exclaimed—they had just said good-bye, but he still held her hand—"promise me that you will rest all this afternoon. Perhaps you would be wiser to go to bed, and then no one—not even Miss Vipen—can come and trouble you!" He spoke with his usual friendly—one of those near and dear to Lucy would have described it as priggish—air of authority. She drew away her hand, and laughed nervously,—but he again repeated, "Please promise me that you will have a good rest."
"I promise," said Lucy.
"I promise"—Lucy, sleeping restlessly through the winter afternoon and evening, found herself repeatingthe two words again and again. What had she promised? That she would rest. Well, she was fulfilling that promise. As soon as Oliver had left her, she had gone up, full of measureless lassitude, to bed. Then she would wake with a start to hear Mrs. Rebell's imploring voice, "Promise—if I die—" and then, "No one must know—"
How would Mr. Berwick take the piteous message? Lucy had always felt afraid of him, but she had promised—
Then came the comforting recollection of Doctor McKirdy's gruff whisper. Oh no, poor Mrs. Rebell was not going to die, and she, Lucy, would never have to redeem her promise. But if Mrs. Rebell cared for Mr. Berwick, would not Oliver be unhappy?
And Lucy, sitting up in bed, pushed her fair hair off her hot forehead. The whole thing seemed so unreal! Barbara Rebell was not free to care for anyone. Of course there were horrid women in the world who cared for other people than their own husbands, though Lucy had never met any of them, but she knew they existed. But those were the sort of women who rouged and were "fast"—not gentle, kindly souls like poor brave Mrs. Rebell.
General and Mrs. Kemp, paying a short visit to Anglo-Indian friends who had taken a house in the neighbourhood, little knew the physical and mental ordeal to which their absence had exposed their darling.
Three days had gone by since the fire. Doctor McKirdy was quite honest in telling Madame Sampiero that he was pleased and astonished at the progress Barbara had made, and yet the paralysed woman felt that her old friend was keeping something back.
"What is it?" she muttered. "You are not telling me everything, McKirdy!"
And so he spoke out: "When a human being has gone through such an experience as that of the other night, what we doctors have to fear, quite as much as the actual injury,—which in this case, as I tell you, is not so very bad, after all,—is shock." He paused, and his listener made him feel, in some subtle fashion, that she could have well spared this preamble. "Now, the surprising thing about Mrs. Rebell is that she isnotsuffering from shock! Her mind is so full of something else, perhaps 'twould be more honest to say of someone else, that she has no thought to spare for that horrid experience of hers. She is concerned, very much so, about her appearance," the old Scotchman's eyes twinkled. "There she's as much the woman as any of them! But she has good nights—better nights, so she confesses, than she had before the fire. There she lies thinking, not of flames mind you, but of—well, you know of whom she's thinking! She's wondering if any of us have written and told Jamie of the affair; she's asking herself how he'll take it, whether he'll be hurrying back, whether, if he does come, she'll be informed of it. Then there's Boringdon's fashing himself to bits, wondering how long it will be before he is allowed to see her, trying to get news of her in devious ways, even coming to me when all else fails! Mrs. Kemp's lass is the only sensible one among 'em. I've been thinking of getting her to come and sit with Mrs. Rebell for a bit, 'twould just distract her mind——"
So it was that Lucy Kemp received a note from Doctor McKirdy asking her to be good enough to come and see Mrs. Rebell, and Mrs. Kemp was struck with the eagerness with which the girl obeyed the call.
Lucy's parents had found her still tired and listless when they came back, cutting short their visit as soon as they heard the news of the fire, and the part their daughter had played; but with the coming of the old doctor's summons all Lucy's tiredness had gone—"If you will come up after you have had your tea," so ran the note, "you might sit with her an hour. I have ascertained that she would like to see you."
"Il n'y a rien de doux comme le retour de joie qui suit le renoncement de la joie, rien de vif, de profond, de charmant, comme l'enchantement du désenchanté."
"Il n'y a rien de doux comme le retour de joie qui suit le renoncement de la joie, rien de vif, de profond, de charmant, comme l'enchantement du désenchanté."
Oliver Boringdonheld in his hand the West Indian letter which he knew was an answer to the one he had written to his brother-in-law rather more than a month before. For nearly a week he had made it his business to be always at home when the postman called, and this had required on his part a certain amount of contrivance which was intensely disagreeable to his straightforward nature. He had missed but one post—that which had come on the morning of the fire at Chancton Priory.
Three days had gone by since then, but his nerves were still quivering, not yet wholly under his own control, and to such a man as Boringdon this sensation was not only unpleasant, but something to be ashamed of. The hand holding the large square envelope, addressed in the neat clear writing of Andrew Johnstone, shook so that the letter fell, still unopened, on the gravel at Oliver's feet. He stooped and picked it up, then turned into the garden and so through a large meadow which led ultimately to the edge of the downs, at this time of the year generally deserted. Not till he was actually there, with no possibility of sudden interruption, did he break the seal of his brother-in-law's thick letter.
At once he saw with quick disappointment that whathad so weighted the envelope was one of his sister Grace's long letters; her husband's note only consisted of a few lines:—
"Grace insists on your being told more than I feel we are justified in telling. Still, I believe her information is substantially correct. There would be very serious difficulties in the way of what you suggest. By next mail you shall know more."
"Grace insists on your being told more than I feel we are justified in telling. Still, I believe her information is substantially correct. There would be very serious difficulties in the way of what you suggest. By next mail you shall know more."
For a moment he felt full of unreasoning anger against Johnstone. He had asked a perfectly plain question—namely, whether it would not be possible for Mrs. Rebell to obtain a divorce from the man of whom Grace had given so terrible an account; and in answer to that question his brother-in-law merely referred him to Grace and spoke of "serious difficulties"! Well, whatever these were, they must be surmounted. Oliver had already made up his mind to resign his post of agent to the Chancton estate, and he would use his little remaining capital in going out to Santa Maria, there to do what lay in his power to set Barbara free. Again he glanced at Johnstone's laconic note, and between the lines he read considerable disapproval of himself. He set his teeth and turned to the sheets of paper covered with Grace's large handwriting.
Then, in a moment, there leapt to his eyes a sentence which brought with it such a rush of uncontrollable relief that the sensation seemed akin to pain,—and yet he felt a species of horror that this was so, for the words which altered his whole outlook on life were these:—
"My darling Oliver, Pedro Rebell is dying."
What matter if Grace went on to qualify that first statement considerably,—to confess that she only knew of the wretched man's condition from a not verytrustworthy source, but that before next mail Andrew would go over himself, "though he does not like the idea of doing so," to see if the report was well founded? "Andrew says," she went on, "that of course it will be his duty to try and keep him alive."
Boringdon beat the turf viciously with his stick, and then felt bitterly ashamed of himself.
Only one passage in his sister's letter gave definite information—
"Is it not odd that a place where they send consumptive people from home should have so many native cases? Pedro Rebell treats himself in the most idiotic manner—he is being actually attended by a witch doctor! I am more glad than I can say that poor Barbara got safe away before he became suddenly worse. Andrew confesses that he knew the man was very ill when we moved her here, but he said nothing, so like him, because he thought that if Barbara knew she simply wouldn't leave the plantation——"
"Is it not odd that a place where they send consumptive people from home should have so many native cases? Pedro Rebell treats himself in the most idiotic manner—he is being actually attended by a witch doctor! I am more glad than I can say that poor Barbara got safe away before he became suddenly worse. Andrew confesses that he knew the man was very ill when we moved her here, but he said nothing, so like him, because he thought that if Barbara knew she simply wouldn't leave the plantation——"
Again Oliver turned to Johnstone's note—"still, I believe that her information is substantially correct;" it was curious how immensely that one dry cautious sentence enhanced the value of Grace's long letter.
Boringdon walked slowly back into the village by the lovely lane—lovely even in its present leafless bareness—down which Doctor McKirdy had accompanied Mrs. Rebell the first morning of her stay at the Priory three months ago. Oliver recalled that first meeting; it had taken place just where he was now walking, where the lane emerged on the open down. He remembered his annoyance when Berwick had stared so fixedly at the old Scotchman's companion.
James Berwick! The evocation of his friend's peculiar, masterful personality was not pleasant. But aslight, rather grim smile, came over Boringdon's lips. The moment Mrs. Rebell became a widow, she would be labelled "dangerous" in the eyes of James and Arabella Berwick. Oliver had known something of the Louise Marshall episode, and, without for a moment instituting any real comparison between the two cases, his mind unconsciously drew the old moral, "The burnt child dreads the fire." If it became advisable, but he did not think it at all likely that it would, he would certainly tell Berwick the news contained in Grace's letter.
When passing the Priory gates, he met Lucy Kemp. "Mrs. Rebell must be much better," she said gladly, "for Doctor McKirdy has asked me to go and sit with her for an hour." Oliver turned and went with her up to the porch of the great house, lingered a moment to receive the latest good but colourless bulletin, and then walked down to the estate office.
He had not been there many moments when a carriage dashed furiously up the steep village street, the horses galloping past the window of the room in which Boringdon sat writing.
Doctor McKirdy was waiting in the hall, and, as Lucy came forward rather timidly, he looked at her not very pleasantly. "You've been a long while," he said crossly, "a very long while, and who was it came with you to the door? But I won't trouble ye to answer me, for I heard the voice—I've heard it more than once this day. I doubt that ye ever were told, Miss Lucy, of the bachelors' club to which Rabbie Burns belonged as a youth. Membership was only conferred on the spark who could prove his allegiance to more than one lass. Your friend Mr. Oliver Boringdon would ha' been very eligible, I'm thinking!"
"I don't think you have any right to say such a thing, Doctor McKirdy!"
"Toots! Toots!" The doctor felt like a lion confronted with an angry lamb; he saw he had gone too far. Bless us, what a spirit the girl had! He rather liked her for it. "This way," he said, more amiably; "not so far up as the other morning, eh? When you're with her, you just chatter about the things ladies like to talk about—just light nonsense, you know. No going back to the fire, mind! She doesn't trouble her head much about it, and I don't want her to begin."
He opened a door, and Lucy walked through into the beautiful room where Barbara now lay, in the immense canopied bed, her left shoulder and arm outlined by a wicker cage-like arrangement. Her hair was concealed by a white hood, Léonie's handiwork, and, as Lucy drew near, she lifted her free hand off the embroidered coverlet, and laid it on that of the girl.
Doctor McKirdy stood by. "Well, I'll tell old Jean she needn't disturb you for a bit, and now I'll be going home. You'll see me after supper." He nodded his head, but Barbara, still holding Lucy's gloved hand, was speaking. "You won't forget theScotsman——" in her eagerness she moved, and in doing so she suddenly winced.
"Never fear it! But the one we want to see won't be here till to-morrow afternoon—the meeting was only last night." He spoke in a very gentle voice, and then walked quickly to the door.
"Sit down just there, behind the leaf of the screen, and then I can see you. I'm afraid I gave you a great fright the other night? How good you were to me! Doctor McKirdy tells me that it might have been much worse, and that I shall be all right in a few weeks——"
Suddenly Barbara lifted her head a little,—"Miss Kemp! Lucy! What is the matter?"
"Nothing—nothing at all! Doctor McKirdy made a remark that annoyed me. It is stupid of me to mind." Poor Lucy tried to smile, but her lips quivered; she repeated, "It really was nothing, but you know how odd he is, and—and rude, sometimes?"
The sound of a carriage coming quickly up through the trees, and then being driven more carefully round the broad sweep of lawn, and so to the space before the porch, put an end to a moment of rather painful silence. Then the bell pealed loudly through the house—a vigorous peal. "Someone coming to inquire how you are," suggested Lucy diffidently, but Barbara made no answer, she was listening intently. Would McGregor never answer that insistent summons? At last they heard the front door being opened, and then quickly shut again. Now the carriage was driving away, quite slowly, in very different fashion from that of its arrival.
Barbara closed her eyes, absurdly disappointed. What reason had she to suppose that Berwick would hasten back as soon as he heard of the great danger she had been in? And even if something in her heart assured her that in this matter her instinct was not at fault, who would have conveyed the news to him? Not Oliver Boringdon, not Doctor McKirdy? Poor Barbara was very ignorant of the geography of her own country, but she knew that Scotland was a long way off, and the most important of the meetings he had gone there to attend had taken place only the night before.
But hark! there came a sound of quick muffled footsteps down the short corridor. A knock at the door, and Berwick was in the room—Berwick, haggard, sunken-eyed, bearing on his face, now ravaged with contending feelings, a look of utter physical fatigue. For a momenthe stood hesitating. McGregor had told him that Miss Kemp was with Mrs. Rebell, but, as he looked round with a quick searching look, the room seemed to him to hold only Barbara—he saw nothing but Barbara's little head lying propped up on a large pillow, her eyes, her lips smiling at him with an odd look of deprecating tenderness, as if his being there was the most natural thing in the world, and yet as if she understood the dreadful night and day he had gone through, and felt grieved to think he was so tired.
Very slowly, still held by her eyes, he came forward, and as he sank on his knees, and laid his cheek on the hand stretched out on the coverlet, he saw with shuddering pain by what her other hand and arm were concealed, and he broke into hard, difficult sobs.
Lucy got up, and almost ran to the door,—she felt a passion of sympathy and pity for them both. Then she waited in the corridor, wondering what she ought to do—what Barbara would wish her to do. But that point, as generally happens in this world, was settled for her. Doctor McKirdy suddenly loomed in front of her, and even before she saw him, as the staircase creaked under his heavy footsteps, Lucy heard him muttering something to himself.
"Then he's in there, eh? And they've sent you out here?"
"Nothing of the sort!" said Lucy briefly: "I came out without being sent."
"Well, now, you must just go in again, and I'll follow. A fine thing it would be for the jabbering folk of Chancton to learn of these crazy comings and goings!" And, as Lucy made no haste to obey him, he added sharply, "Now you just knock and open the door and walk right in. We don't want old Jean to be the one to disturb them, eh?"
Lucy knocked, and opened the door with hesitating fingers. What she then saw was James Berwick quietly engaged in putting some coal on the fire; as the girl and Doctor McKirdy came in, he did not look round, but went on mechanically picking up the little lumps and putting them noiselessly into the grate.
"Well now, you've had two visitors, that's quite enough for one day,"—the doctor spoke very gently. "Here's Miss Kemp come to say good-bye, and Mr. Berwick no doubt will do himself the pleasure of taking her to the Grange, for it's a very dark night." He added in an aside, "I'm always finding you cavaliers, eh, Miss Lucy?"
Berwick came forward: "Yes, of course I will! By the way, I'm staying here to-night, so will you dine with me, McKirdy?"
"Well, no, I don't think I will. By the way, I'll be staying here too, and you'll do well to have your dinner in your bed, I'm thinking." He followed Barbara's two visitors to the door: "I can't make out how you ever did it, man, if it's true the meeting didn't break up till after twelve——"
For the first time Berwick laughed. "Come," he said, "where are your wits? Specials, of course—and if we hadn't had a stupid, an inexcusable delay at Crewe, I should have been here hours ago!"
And then, without again looking at Barbara, he followed Lucy out into the corridor, and down into the hall.
"Just one moment, Miss Kemp. I must put on my boots. I took them off before coming upstairs."
"But I can go home alone perfectly well."
"No, indeed! I should like to take you. Mrs. Rebell has been telling me how good you were to her the other night."
And not another word was said by him or by Lucy till they exchanged a brief good-night at the Grange gate.
The Priory and its inmates settled down to a long period of quietude. With the possible exception of Lucy Kemp and Oliver Boringdon—who both called there daily—little or nothing was known in the village save that Mrs. Rebell was slowly, very slowly, getting better. No Chancton gossip could discover exactly how much she had been injured, and even Mrs. Boringdon could learn nothing definite from her son.
At last there came a day when the mistress of Chancton Cottage thought she would make a little experiment. "Is it true that Mrs. Rebell is now allowed to be downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Then you are seeing her, I suppose?"
"Yes, sometimes, for a little while."
"Parliament met last week, didn't it?" The question sounded rather irrelevant.
Oliver looked up: "Yes, mother, of course—on the fifteenth."
"Then Mr. Berwick won't be able to be here so much. Miss Vipen tells me that the village people all think he must be in love with Mrs. Rebell!"
Mrs. Boringdon's words had an effect very different from what she had intended them to have. They drew from her son neither assent nor denial, but they confirmed and made real to him certain facts from which he had shrunk, and which he had tried to persuade himself did not exist. For five long weeks he had been alive to the knowledge that Berwick was continually with Barbara—in fact, that he was with her whenever he chose to be, excepting during those few moments when he, Boringdon, was grudgingly allowed to have a fewminutes' talk, generally in the presence of some third person, with the invalid. The state of things at the Priory had made the young man so wretched, so indignant, that more than once he had felt tempted to attack Doctor McKirdy. What did they all mean by allowing James Berwick to behave as if he were Mrs. Rebell's brother instead of a mere acquaintance?
And so Mrs. Boringdon's words spurred her son to do that which he had hoped would not be necessary. They showed him that the time had come for a clear explanation between himself and Berwick. He told himself that the latter would probably be surprised to learn how his constant visits to the Priory were regarded; still, the matter could not be to him one of vital concern, and when once the man who had been for so many years his friend told him how matters stood, he would surely leave Chancton.
Boringdon thought he knew only too well James Berwick's peculiar moral code; certain things he might be trusted not to do. Thus, Oliver had heard him speak with condemnation of the type of man who makes love to a happily-married woman, or who takes advantage of his amatory science to poach on an intimate's preserves. Surely he would withdraw from this strange sentimental friendship with Barbara Rebell the moment it was made clear to him that she would soon be free,—free to be wooed and won by any honest man, and, as a matter of fact, already loved by Boringdon, his friend of so many years' standing? Accordingly, after a day or two of painful hesitation, Oliver wrote a note, more formal in its wording than usual, and asked Berwick for an appointment.
He received his answer—life is full of such ironies—in Mrs. Rebell's presence, on the day when she was allowed to take her first drive in the little French brougham, which, as Boringdon noted with jealous eyes, had beensent over for her use from Chillingworth. Oliver happened to come up to the porch of the Priory as Berwick was actually settling her and the grim Scotchwoman, Jean, into the carriage. Barbara was flushed and smiling—a happy light in her eyes. "I'm so sorry to be going out just now," she cried, "Will you come to tea this afternoon, Mr. Boringdon? Miss Kemp is coming, and I shall be down in the Blue drawing-room for the first time. To-day is a day of first times!"
Then Berwick turned round: "I didn't answer your note because I thought I should almost certainly be seeing you to-day. Would you like to come over to Chillingworth this evening? Come to dinner, and we can have a talk afterwards——"
But Boringdon answered quickly: "Thanks, I won't come to dinner, I'll turn up about nine."
And now Berwick sat waiting for Boringdon in the room where he had spent the rest of the night after his drive with Barbara from Halnakeham Castle.
He was in that delightful state of mind which comes so rarely to thinking mortals,—when the thinker wishes to look neither backwards nor forwards. It was worth while to have gone through all he had gone through, to have won such weeks as had been his! Nay more, he was in the mood to tell himself that he would be content were life to go on as it was now for ever and a day, were his relations with Mrs. Rebell to remain as close, as tender—ay, even as platonic—as they had been during that strange period of her convalescence. With what emotion, with what sympathy she had described to him her interview with Lord Bosworth; there had been such complete comprehension of his attitude, such keen distress that Madame Sampiero had repulsed him!
But, deep in Berwick's heart, something told him that Barbara's attitude to him and to their joint future was changing, and that she was in very truth on the eve of surrender. Nature, so he assured himself to-night had triumphed over convention, and, as a still voice also whispered, proved stronger than conscience. Berwick's own conscience was not ill at ease, but he experienced many phases of feeling, and went through many moods.
Lately he had asked himself boldly whether there was any real reason why he and Barbara should not repeat, in happier fashion, the example set them by the two beings for whom they both had so sincere and—yes, it might be said, reverent—an affection? Those two, Lord Bosworth and Madame Sampiero, had shown that it was possible to be grandly faithful to a tie unsanctioned by law, unsanctified by religious faith. Already Berwick's love for Barbara had purified and elevated his nature; surely together they might use his vast fortune to better purpose than he had done alone, for he had long ago discovered how tender, how charitable were all her impulses. Then, again, he would acknowledge to himself, with something like impatient amazement, that he loved Barbara too well, too intimately, to ask her to do violence to her sensitive, rather scrupulous conscience. She could scarcely be more his own than he felt her to be now.
Of the man for whom he was now waiting, Berwick had long ago ceased to be jealous. He felt ashamed to remember that he had ever been so; nay, he now understood from Barbara that Boringdon liked Lucy Kemp. Was she not just the sort of girl whom he would have expected such a man as Oliver to choose for a wife? As to Barbara Rebell, of course Boringdon had liked to be with her,—had been perhaps, if all the truth were known, caught for a moment by her charm, as who could helpbeing? But Berwick was not in a mood to waste much thought on such speculations, and no presentiment of what Oliver was coming to say to him to-night shadowed his exquisite content, or his satisfaction with himself, with the woman he loved, and with the whole of this delightful world.
In fact, he thought he knew quite well why Boringdon wished to see him. The head of the public department in which Oliver had begun his suddenly interrupted career as a member of the Civil Service, had lately said to Berwick, "So your friend Boringdon wants to come back to us? I think in his case an exception might be made!" And Berwick had done what was in his power to gratify the other's rather inexplicable wish to get once more into official harness. The Chancton experiment had evidently been a mistake. Boringdon had not possessed the qualities necessary for such a post as that of land agent to Madame Sampiero; he had not understood, or, if he had understood, he had not chosen to take, his friend's hint to keep on the right side of old McKirdy. Well, it couldn't be helped! Of course Oliver must feel the telling of his news rather awkward, but he, Berwick, would meet him half way, and make it clear that, though he was personally sorry Boringdon was leaving Chancton, he thoroughly understood his reasons for doing so, and, what was more, sympathised with them.
As it struck nine from the various clocks which had been a special hobby of the man who had built Chillingworth, Boringdon walked in, and his first abrupt words confirmed Berwick's belief concerning the subject of their coming conversation: "I am leaving Chancton, and I felt that I ought to tell you my determination before speaking to Madame Sampiero. There seems a chance of my getting back to the old shop!"