At Christmas-time Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst joined the Yelverton party unexpectedly. She wore her beautiful sables, and looked quite radiant when she arrived. As usual, she seemed to charge the atmosphere with excitement of a pleasant nature.
"It issonice to be here!" she declared. "You can't think how tired I am of foreign beds and cooking. Agnes, I hope you are going to give me beef and plum-pudding every day."
Mrs. Brenton received her beautiful guest warmly; nevertheless, it was quickly evident to Camilla that there was something on the older woman's mind.
"Don't hesitate to send me away if you don't want me," she said easily. "I can easily go back to town, or to Lea Abbey, or—well, anywhere, you know."
"Of course I shan't turn you away," said Agnes Brenton. Then she added, colouring a little, "Only I must wire to Rupert; we expected him for Christmas."
Camilla laughed ever so prettily.
"Dear soul, why should you? We have met already several times. You see," she added, quite seriously, "when things went so horribly bad with Cuthbert and me two months ago, I was obliged to send and ask Rupert to come and help me. And he wassokind. He arranged everything. You know, don't you, that Cuthbert and I have agreed to separate—at any rate, for a little while? Perhaps when he does not find life quite so easy he may alter. His temper, my dear Agnes, is something beyond description; and he is so lazy, andsodifficult! And then there are the children. My duty is really to them first of all; and I have neglected them terribly. Rupert suggests I should go back to my own little house, and have a chaperone to live with me. I supposed that Caroline would be quite enough, but from something Rupert said, I fancied, perhaps, she had some new plans in her mind."
"I have heard nothing," said Mrs. Brenton.
She had listened to this speech with a confusion of feeling. Camilla's easy acceptance of a most difficult position was not, perhaps, so very extraordinary, but other people worked a little more slowly.
"I don't quite approve of the little house. Why not stay here?" Mrs. Brenton added.
"My dear Agnes! Have I not already outraged your friendship? Do you realize that you have been burdened with my children over a year?"
"What is a year! Besides, you know perfectly well there has been no burden. Haven't I been clamouring to have the children with me for ages? It has given both Dick and me a new spell of life to have these little souls about us, and if you will only make up your mind to stay on indefinitely, it will be a real happiness."
"Thank you, darling," said Camilla; "it sounds delightful. I will talk it over with Rupert when he comes."
She said this in the most natural way possible.
But Haverford was not at Yelverton for Christmas. He wired from the north that he was ill—had caught a violent cold, and was unable to travel.
He was not too ill, however, to forget his Christmas remembrances.
Packages kept arriving by every post, and the children were in a ferment of excitement. They rushed to their mother as each new gift arrived, and Camilla confessed to Caroline that she was frantically jealous of the attachment between Rupert and the little creatures.
"Of course, it is the best thing that could happen, I know that; but, after all, they are my children, and I ought to come first. As it is, I believe I am not even placed now. Rupert comes first—before any one; you are second; and Agnes a good third."
"You are talking nonsense," said Caroline, in her calmest way; "the children love you more and more every day."
Camilla smiled, frowned, and sighed.
"Well, it may be so; at all events, I don't mind Rupert, or you, or Agnes. It would have killed me if the old man had taken them, and turned them against me, as he certainly would have done. Oh, Caroline, that reminds me; has Betty chosen something for Violet Lancing's girl? If not, let her send this bangle. I mean to be kind to that girl for Horace's sake."
A moment or two later Camilla said with a laugh—
"I wonder if Rupert will send me a Christmas present.... I suppose I must not expect it."
But she got one—a very lovely and unique necklace, composed of pieces of jade strung on a fine chain, alternated with emeralds.
Caroline's gift was a writing-table, and when the heavily laden post-bag was opened on Christmas morning there was a letter also.
She kept it for several hours unopened, and then stole out into the cold garden to read it. It was not very long. He had the trick of going straight to the point. But it was a letter that moved her deeply—that made her heart beat and her eyes dim. He called her "dearest," and once he wrote "dear capricious Caroline."
He did not claim her boldly this time, nor did he plead too much. There was a directness in his simplicity that almost made her waver. But she delayed answering till the morrow; and all that evening, as she felt the old irresistible fascination of Camilla's beautiful presence hold her in sway, she felt equally her heart grow steady and that strange rush of joy die down.
"It is impossible ... impossible," she said to herself; and though she put her words as gently as she knew how, she wrote and for a second time refused to be his wife.
When the question of a return to that little town house was mooted in earnest, Caroline joined issue with Mrs. Brenton in pronouncing the suggestion impracticable.
She was honest enough to confess that her objection was to a large degree based on sentiment.
"Oh, don't go back there; you had so many, many dark days there," she urged. "Besides, the house is let till March. Why not let us go to Paris for a few months? Don't you think that is a good idea?"
"Oh!" said Camilla, delightedly; "then youarecoming with me?"
It was Caroline who looked surprised.
"Of course. I should love to stay six months in Paris. I want to pick up French if I can, and it would be so good for the children."
Camilla agreed.
"And if Cuthbert should pass through Paris we need not see him," she mused. "Happily he would not be able to stay for more than a few days; he owes too much. Caroline, wewilldo this!"
So it was settled, despite Mrs. Brenton's protestations; but, as usual, Camilla upset the arrangement. She was happy at Yelverton for a week or two, but all at once she got restless, and went up to town for a few days. From thence she announced that she was going to pay one or two country visits.
Caroline was still making preparations for the migration to Paris, when the children's mother wrote announcing that their plans would be changed.
"I have some news for you," she scribbled; "Sammy is going to be married! My little matrimonial scheme has 'panned out' successfully. I can't say that Sammy is exactly my idea of a husband; but this girl is apparently wildly in love, and thinks herself ever so lucky. They are both staying here. It seems that old Lady Broxbourne is delighted, and the wedding is to be in a few weeks' time. For my sins I have promised to do all I can for the bride this season; she is quite provincial, you know, and has everything to learn, and she clings to me almost pathetically. So I am afraid our little jaunt abroad will be knocked on the head till the summer, at all events; and then I think we ought to coax a yacht out of Rupert, and have a real good time. What do you think?"
Yelverton was very quiet without Camilla, and the children fretted for her a good deal.
Caroline herself was actually conscious of a sensation of void and loneliness. She could never pass the room where Camilla had been without a sort of pang.
Long ago she had ceased to question or to speculate on the extraordinary power of this other woman; to ask herself why or why not certain things should be! She simply recognized that, despite all that had gone and all that might come, she loved Camilla with a deep, and an anxious love, and would always give homage to the caressing, the bewitching influence of this beautiful, this most unreliable of women.
Sometimes, indeed, Caroline confessed to herself that even with her eyes widely opened as they now were, she would still do what she had done in the past, and if protection were needed, exert every effort of wit and courage to stand beside Camilla and keep trouble away.
And this although she had sacrificed her own feelings so vainly, although she knew Camilla would have been totally unable of comprehending what that apparent friendship with Broxbourne had cost her, and what real suffering had come to her through it.
On the day the letter came containing the news of the approaching Broxbourne marriage, Caroline left the children playing hide-and-seek in the hall, and went out for a little walk.
The day was bleak, and she felt the cold penetrate her heart.
She pushed on quickly till she left the house well behind her, and then she sat down and closed her eyes. Of late there had been many moments when she had felt tired out in spirit, when life would seem empty and unprofitable; such a mood fell upon her now. She was not sure if it was disappointment or a sense of relief that followed on the realization that she was not to be uprooted from the life of the last six months. All she knew was that she had become so nervous that she winced when the children screamed either in play or temper, and that she had a strong desire to scream herself sometimes.
"I think I will go off somewhere all by myself for a week or two," she mused now. "I know I must be horrid to live with just now. When I banged my books down on the table last night, I saw Mr. Brenton look at me as if he thought I had gone mad. I believe I ought to have taken Mr. Haverford's advice, and have travelled a little last year. I should hate to leave the children now, but I am not at all sure it would not be a good thing for them. Perhaps I will talk it over with Mrs. Brenton." A moment later she said, "No, I don't think I will. If I do she will only question, and if she wants to know what is wrong, and why I want to go away, what on earth am I to say to her? If I cannot satisfy myself I am not likely to satisfy her."
With a sharp sigh she relinquished this train of thought, and leaning back, she closed her eyes, and remained with them closed for a little while. Then all at once she was conscious that some one was watching her, and she opened her eyes quickly. In reality, Rupert was not looking at her, but was pacing to and fro in front of the bench.
As she sat forward with a jerk, he turned and came hurriedly towards her.
"What madness brought you out here to sleep?" he queried, almost sharply.
Caroline knit her brows.
"I don't think I have been asleep," she answered. Then confusedly, "How long have you been here?"
"Ten minutes—a quarter of an hour?"
He continued to look at her fixedly.
"You are ill," he said; "you look very white. Mrs. Brenton wrote me she was anxious about you; that is what brought me down to-day."
This brought the colour flaming to her cheeks.
"I am perfectly well. I am always well!"
He bent forward, took both her cold hands, and drew her to her feet. For an instant he chafed her hands almost unconsciously. Then they walked on a little, Caroline as in a dream.
Suddenly he paused, and catching her hands again more closely, faced her. There were tears in her eyes just ready to run down her cheeks.
"If you are well, why are you crying?" he asked abruptly. Then tenderly, "Come, Caroline, be honest with me. Something is wrong, and I must know what that something is. Don't you realize that I would give my life itself to be sure that you were happy? Have you the least idea what you are to me—how much I love you?"
She shook her head; and then she looked up, and her lips smiled for an instant.
"How should I know these things? You have never told them to me."
"Surely yes," he said.
"Surely no," she answered. "That day you spoke to me just after you came back from America, you simply dictated to me the fact that you found you required a wife, and that you considered me a suitable person for the situation; and your letter at Christmas was just the same thing."
"I knew I had done some clumsy thing," he said remorsefully. "But dearest, sweetest heart, you must have known that I love you!"
He unloosened her hands as he spoke, meaning to gather her into his arms, but she placed those two little hands in protecting fashion against his heart.
"No. Wait," she said. "It can't be true. Remember what she was to you. If you are the man I imagine you to be, then you are not one to easily forget. You—you can't love me if you loved her."
He smiled, but he answered her gravely.
"Since you have apparently studied me and my nature so well, the whole situation should be clear to you. Other people might doubt, but not you, Caroline. You were so closely mingled in with that episode, and you must have realized that when she took herself out of my life everything appertaining to her faded absolutely into the background. The way had been prepared for this so thoroughly. You know that evening I came down here that I was clinging to a last hope, even though I knew how poor it was. I confess," he said, with a faint smile, "that had we separated differently, some sentiment might have lingered. It was the way she did this that swept my heart clean. And yet," he added, "I am wrong to deny all sentiment. I am her friend—I am glad to be her friend—and I shall never cease trying to help her to the happiness she craves for; but I shall never succeed. No one can help her. It is her destiny to be a disappointment to herself, and to all who have her interest at heart."
Caroline shivered a little. Her hands had dropped. They were standing apart now.
"And still she holds one. There is a sort of spell about her," she said, in a low voice—"you must recognize that. I, too, have suffered through her, and yet——" Then she bit her lip, flushed crimson, and said passionately, "I could never share! Don't think I am only sensible, and practical, and quiet ... I ... I know myself better, I am capable of horrid feelings, and my temper can be quite savage.... I don't want to fill a gap.... I want all for myself. Why, even when I realize what she was to you, I feel as if I could suffocate...."
She was turning away, but he caught her by the shoulder and wheeled her round.
"Do you know what that means?" he said, in a curious voice; "that means that you love me. And do you suppose I am going to let you slip out of my life now that I know this? Caroline, youshallnot deny me my right! I have stood by all these months I even came here to-day with the intention of saying nothing more to you on this subject, because I said to myself, 'I have no right to force myself upon her; if she cared a toss of a button about me she would not play with me;' but the temptation to speak was too strong, and now that you have confessed that I am indeed so much to you ... you will never get rid of me!"
He was holding her so tightly that he almost hurt her.
The colour waned in her face, and came back with a rush as she tried to look at him and could not meet his eyes.
"When will you marry me?" he asked.
She gasped.
"Oh, please," she said, "I don't think I said anything to ... to ... but if ... suppose that I should care for you a little, that does not mean that ..." she broke off.... "Really, I cannot marry you," she said then, with a note of desperation in her voice.
Haverford laughed.
"Why? Give me one good reason, and I will let you go."
She had to laugh too, but she would not yield easily.
She enumerated many reasons.
"The children need me ... it is so soon. I have ever so many things I want to do this year...." Then finally and a little weakly, "I don't want to marry at all."
Rupert looked at her intently.
"There is not one honest reason in all these, and the last is the weakest of the lot," he said coolly. "I really cannot listen to it. You must think of something else...."
"I can hear the children," Caroline said, in a hurry. "Listen! don't you hear them calling for me? I am convinced they will have forgotten their coats, and this wind is so cold."
Rupert's eyes glistened.
"Let them come.... I will refer the matter to Betty.... She will soon settle everything."
Caroline turned crimson, and then she put out her hand.
"Perhaps ... I will marry you ... but it must be ever so far off.... Wait ... will you wait?" she asked half wistfully.
He stooped, and despite the fact that the children were so very near now, he kissed her hands and then her lips.
"You know I will ... all my life, if you insist," he answered.
But Caroline did not keep him waiting quite so long.