“Escoutto d’ JeannettoVeux-tu d’biaux habits, laridettoEscoutto d’ JeannettoPour aller à Paris?”“Laridetto, laridetto,Baille me unbaiser, laridetto.”
rang Geneviève’s voice, then died away in the distance.
The last words of the song returned to Cicely’s mind.
“Sachez que d’ Jeannetto,Quand ell’ aimo bien,Sachez que d’ JeannettoDonno ça per rien.”
“I wonder if Geneviève is capable of deep feeling,” thought Cicely. “Will there ever come a time “quand ell’ aimo bien?” She seems like a bird.’ But amIcapable of it? I thought I cared for Trevor. I think it still; but, oh! the thought of leaving home is terrible!”
Then with slower steps she followed her cousin into the house.
Geneviève meanwhile had flown upstairs to her aunt’s room.
“Come in,” said Mrs. Methvyn in answer to her tap at the door. “Oh! it is you, my dear Geneviève. I am writing to your mother again; I always like to answer letters at once when I can, and besides, I have something I want to tell her now; and I want to tell it to you too; but I hardly think you will be surprised.”
“What is it, dear aunt?” inquired Geneviève with some curiosity,
“It is—I fancy you may have noticed Trevor has been here so much,” began Mrs. Methvyn rather confusedly. Geneviève’s heart beat faster, the blood rushed to her cheeks. Could he already have spoken to her aunt?—it was possible that out of respect to her French prejudices he might have done so. “He comes here so much,” her aunt went on, “that even though you know he is our cousin, I can’t help thinking you may have suspected there was some particular attraction; but till now Cicely did not want you to be told of it”(“Cicely,what had she to do with it?” darted through Geneviève’s mind), “because she fancied you would not so soon have felt at ease and friendly with her if you had known she was engaged.”
The room seemed to go round with Geneviève. She caught hold of the arm of the low chair on which she was sitting to prevent herself falling. But still she managed to say quietly, “Yes, dear aunt.”
“And so,” Mrs. Methvyn went on, “I agreed to say nothing about it till you had been a little while with us and felt quite at home. Besides, hitherto the engagement has been so indefinite—I mean to say no time has been fixed—but now I think we must begin to make up our minds to losing Cicely beforeverylong. Not that it will really be like losing her, of course; she will be so near, we can see her almost every day.” She spoke with a forced cheerfulness which would have touched a disinterested listener, but Geneviève was conscious just now but of one sensation, an agonising inclination to burst into hysterical weeping—she had no feeling to spare for any one but herself; she exerted all her strength in forcing herself to remain to outward appearance calm.
When her aunt stopped speaking, and waited in expectation of Geneviève’s reply, none came. Mrs. Methvyn looked up in surprise.
“Are you very much astonished, my dear?” she said. “Had you no idea of it? You are not taking it to heart, dear Geneviève, I hope? If so, I shall blame myself very much for not having prepared you for it before, though I can well understand your regret at losing Cicely just when you have begun to know her.”
Geneviève seized the suggestion. She turned to her aunt, no longer repressing her tears.
“I hadnoidea of it,” she whispered.
“My poor child,” said Mrs. Methvyn.
Then she drew the girl towards her and kissed her tenderly, and, mistaken as was the motive of the tenderness, in Geneviève’s state of overstrained feeling she had no desire to repel it. She threw her arms round her aunt and sobbed convulsively till Mrs. Methvyn cried in sympathy.
“Is it to beverysoon?” asked Geneviève at last.
“Oh! no; nothing is fixed yet as to the exact time. It will not be for six months at least. We shall have Cicely all to ourselves for some time yet, you see, dear,” replied Mrs. Methvyn soothingly. But Geneviève felt that she could not bear her present position much longer. The sound of a door opening gave her an excuse; she started up.
“There is Cicely coming,” she exclaimed. “I would not like her to see me crying so. Let me go, dear aunt, and forgive my want of self-control. I should like to go to my own room for a little.”
“Go then, dear,” said Mrs. Methvyn, kissing her again, and Geneviève hastened away.
“How I have mistaken her, the poor, dear child!” thought Cicely’s mother. “I had no idea she was capable of such an amount of feeling. What a loving little creature she is!”
And Cicely was told of her cousin’s unexpected display of affection for her, and felt vexed with herself that she could not help thinking it a little ill-timed and uncalled for.
It is a mistake to suppose that suffering must be noble to be genuine and severe. Geneviève’s distress sprang from no high source: such of it as was not of the nature of mortification and wounded vanity, was principally composed of childish disappointment in the destruction of her dazzling visions of wealth and grandeur. She had some amount of regard for Trevor himself; she admired him, she liked his pleasant voice and gentle deference of manner; shethoughtshe loved him devotedly, she had long ago made up her mind to fall in love with none but a thoroughly desirableparti,therefore the fact of his wealth and position by no means interfered with her belief in the genuineness of her affection for him. That she was very thoroughly in love with the idea of marrying him, of obtaining all the pleasant things that would certainly fall to the share of his wife, there was not the shadow of a doubt. And the disappointment of her hopes fell upon her with crushing weight. There was nothing of true pathos or tragedy in her composition; her cup was but a pretty toy, brittle as egg-shell, though, unlike egg-shell, very capable of repair, but, such at it was, it was just now full to the brim with the bitter draught, which no reserve of latent heroism was at hand to render less unpalatable.
She threw herself down on the bed and sobbed.
“I wish I had never come to England I wish they had told me at first—I wish, oh! how I wish I had never seen him,” she cried.
Then her glance fell on the little bow of red ribbon which she had fastened to her dress that very morning.
“Naughty little ribbon, detestable little ribbon, I put you on to make me look pretty, that he should think me pretty,” she exclaimed, throwing the rose-coloured knot to the other end of the room, “and now I must think of him as thefiancéof my cousin! It matters not now that he thinks me pretty or ugly; he can never be anything more to me. And Cicely, she who is already rich,fétée,—who could findpartiswithout number. Ah, but it is cruel!”
“La discussion n’est vraiment possible et efficace qu’entre gens du même avis.”
Deligny.
“Perhaps, however, there is little difference between understanding and sympathising.”
Casimir Maremma.
GENEVIÈVEcame down to luncheon with hopelessly red eyes and a general air of extreme depression. Cicely looked at her kindly, and spoke to her gently; it was impossible not to be touched by the contrast between her present appearance and the bright joyousness which had attracted her cousin’s notice that very morning. Mrs. Methvyn was more demonstratively affectionate than Geneviève had ever known her.
“I am going to Greybridge this afternoon,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “would you like to come with me, Geneviève? I am going in the large carriage, so you won’t have to sit in the back seat. You cannot come, Cicely?”
“No, mother,” said Cicely.
She got up from her chair as she spoke, for luncheon was over, and went to the window.
“It looks so fine,” she remarked. “Don’t you think my father might try another drive?”
Mrs. Methvyn shook her head. “I did suggest it,” she said, “but he did not seem inclined for it. I think he might get over his nervousness about it if Mr. Guildford could go with him once or twice.”
“I wish he could,” exclaimed Cicely. “Would it be worth while to write and ask him if he could come some day soon early enough for a drive?”
“You might ask your father,” answered her mother. “Well then, Geneviève, will you come with me?”
Geneviève started. She seemed to wake out of a reverie at the sound of her own name.
“Yes, thank you. I should like very much to go,” she said. “I will go and get ready,” and she left the room.
“How nervous Geneviève seems!” remarked Cicely regretfully. “And this morning she was so bright and happy! I don’t quite understand her.”
“Not understand her, Cicely, when I have been telling you how terribly distressed she was at the thought of losing you! It is entirely that that has upset her. I think you should try to be a little more demonstrative to her, poor child, a cold word or tone chills her in an instant,” said Mrs. Methvyn reproachfully.
“Don’t say that, mother, don’t!” exclaimed Cicely in a quick tone of pain. “I do try, I have tried to be affectionate—more so a great deal than is natural to me—in my manner to Geneviève. But,” she hesitated. “Mamma, it is no use struggling against it,” she went on impetuously, “I would not say so to any one but you, but Icannotget rid of the feeling that she is not perfectly sincere.”
“Cicely!” exclaimed her mother, “my dear child, I am surprised at you. It is not like you to take up an unfounded prejudice. I am quitecertainGeneviève is as straightforward and genuine as possible. Indeed, she is transparent to a fault. And her mother is the same. When I knew her as a girl, she was the most guileless creature living.”
“Yes,” said Cicely thoughtfully. “Yes, there is something in that. I mean it is not likely that a girl brought up in an atmosphere of truthfulness and simplicity would be scheming or underhand.”
“Scheming and underhand!” repeated Mrs. Methvyn. “What dreadful words! Really, Cicely, you must not let your fancy run away with you so. It is so unlike you.”
“Forgive me, mamma. I should not have said so much,” said Cicely. “I have been anxious about Geneviève, and I suppose I have grown exaggerated and fanciful. I will try to get rid of my fancies, mother, I will indeed. And I will try to be more demonstrative to poor Geneviève.”
“Very well,” replied her mother. “I should not recognize you, Cicely, if you were to become prejudiced or suspicious. You will go out a little now, won’t you? You have not been out to-day, and Trevor will not be here just yet.”
“Yes, I will go out now,” said Cicely. “Kiss me, mother, and don’t say I am mean and suspicious. I am cross, I think. Kiss me, dear mother.”
She left her mother with a bright face and stood on the lawn by the sun-dial, kissing her hand merrily in farewell as the carriage drove away. But when it was quite out of sight, in spite of her resolutions, her face clouded over again and her heart grew heavy.
“I ought to be glad that mother is so fond of Geneviève,” she thought. “She will miss me the less.”
Then she felt ashamed of her own bitterness.
“I don’t know what is coming over me,” she reflected. “I am mean and unamiable. Can anything be meaner than for me to be jealous of Geneviève, I who have so much, and she so little! Yet I am—I am angry because both Trevor and mother have scolded me for being cold to her. I am spoilt; I can’t bear being scolded—and I am vexed with her because she has the power of showing her affection and enlisting sympathy, whereas I seem to grow colder the more I feel. And as for sympathy, I seem to repel it now—nobodythoroughly sympathises with me.”
She sat down on the stone at the foot of the sun-dial in a very unusual mood of self pity—Cicely, whom at this very moment Geneviève was thinking of as the very happiest girl in all the world! So little do we know of the fit of each other’s garments.
From where she was sitting, Cicely could see the drive almost all the way to the lodge. And in the light dress she wore, she herself was easily to be distinguished, by quick eyes at least, belonging to any one approaching, the Abbey by this front road. There came a sound of wheels. It was too early for Mr. Fawcett, besides which it was more than probable that he would be riding.
“Some people coming to call,” thought Cicely, groaning in the spirit. She felt peculiarly disinclined to-day for small talk and lady-like gossip, and wished she had not placed herself where ignorance of the arrival was impossible. But when the carriage came fairly within view, her fears proved to have been ill-founded. It was only the Greybridge fly. Almost before Cicely had time to wonder who could be its occupant, the carriage stopped and a gentleman got out. He had evidently seen her; he came quickly across the lawn in her direction. Cicely got up from her seat and went forward to meet him.
“Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea it was you.”
But there was welcome in her tone. Some thing in his pleasant face, in his keen glance, in his way of shaking hands even, seemed to dispel the cloudy atmosphere of dejection and gloom in which she had been breathing.
“I should have written yesterday to tell you I was coming,” he replied,“but till to-day I was not quite sure that I could make it out. My coming again so soon will not annoy Colonel Methvyn, will it?”
“Oh! dear no; it will please him very much,” she answered heartily. “I was going to write to you this afternoon to ask if you could come again some day soon in time to take papa a drive. He is nervous about going without you; but I am sure going out the other day did him good. Could you go with him to-day?”
“I could easily,” replied Mr. Guildford. “I am not in any hurry; but I hardly think the day is suitable. I mean the weather. It is a good deal colder; the wind is in the east. I noticed it this morning, and some how it made me feel fidgety about Colonel Methvyn. I grew so anxious to know that his drive the day before yesterday had done him no harm that I came to see.”
“It was very kind of you,” said Cicely gratefully. “I think you will find him very well. So the wind is in the east, is it? In June too, what a shame! Perhaps that is why I have felt so cross all day.”
“Do you often feel cross?” asked Mr. Guildford smiling.
“I don’t know. I used not; but lately I think I have been getting into a bad habit of feeling so from no particular cause. At least,” she hesitated a little, “from no new cause.”
“You mean that there would have been as much excuse for you formerly as there is now, but that it is only lately you have yielded to the irritating influences.”
“No,” said Cicely, laughing. “I don’t think there is now or ever has been any excuse for me. But somehow I don’t think life is as interesting as it used to seem.”
“That is not an uncommon phase of youthful experience,” he said drily. “Don’t you fancy sometimes that nobody understands or sympathises with you?”
“Yes,” said Cicely, looking up in his face with a questioning in her eyes. Was he laughing at her?
“Ah! I thought so,” he said, shaking his head gravely. “Once upon a time I could have sympathised with you, but now—”
“Well, what now?” she asked, eagerly.
“Now, I have grown wiser.”
“How?”
“I have come to think one can do very well without much understanding or sympathy; that too little is better than too much. Too much is enervating.”
“Is that true?” she said seriously.
“Ithink so,” he answered.
“But you are a man,” she objected.
“And you are a woman,” he replied.
“Women are more clinging than men,” she remarked somewhat hazily.
“You are shifting your ground,” he said. “It is not the clinging—the weak side of your nature—that is discontented just now. It is the energetic, working side that is so.”
“Yes,” she said eagerly, with a sparkle in her eyes, “yes, I think you are right.”
“Then satisfy it.”
“How can I?”
“Give it work to do.”
Her countenance fell. “I must say again as I did before, “I am a woman and you are a man,” she answered dejectedly.
He looked at her with more commiseration than he had yet shown. “I suppose it is true,” he said, at last. “It is harder for a woman who has anything in her to find a channel for her energies. Still, you need not despair. You don’t know what is before you.”
“Yes, I do,” she said gloomily. He glanced at her in surprise, and she grew scarlet.
“I mean to say,” she went on hastily, “I mean to say that I know quite well that my life will be very smooth and easy, and that I shall never have anything to do that—thatanybodycould not do. Don’t think me conceited,” she added pleadingly. “What makes me dull just now is that the only duties that I feel I can dospeciallywell, that seem my own particular business, are going to be taken from me.”
Mr. Guildford made no answer. “You don’t think women should have such feelings, I know,” she went on, in a tone of disappointment. “You think they should take things as they come, and be contented to stay in their own domain.”
“No, not quite that. There are exceptional women as well as exceptional men,” he replied. “I don’t consider myself one of the latter, but still I understand myself. Whatever it was that I said that you are alluding to now, referred only tomyown domain. I don’t dictate to other people. I know what is best for myself, and least likely to interfere with the aims of my own life—that is all. And so far as I understand you,” he went on in a different tone, “your present trouble seems to be that you want to stay in your own domain, and you can’t get leave to do so.”
There was a half-veiled inquiry in his tone, but Cicely did not perceive it. He tried to believe that she was only referring to some passing trouble, some wish of her parents, perhaps, that she should enter more into society, or give up the more arduous of her home duties. For Geneviève’s assurance that her cousin and Mr. Fawcett were “like brother and sister only,” was strongly impressed upon him. Cicely’s reply puzzled him still more.
“Perhaps it is rather that I am not sure where is my own domain,” she said. “And you being a man, can never be troubled with doubts of that kind,” she added more lightly.
“I don’t know that,” he answered, feeling instinctively that she wished to turn the conversation from her own affairs. “I often doubt, as I think I have told you, if I did well to come to Sothernbay at all.”
“But you are thinking of leaving it eventually!” she asked with interest.
“Yes,” he answered. “When ‘eventually’ may be I can’t say, though things lately seem inclined to hasten it. I had a piece of good luck—at least of great encouragement—a short time ago. But,” he stopped for a moment, “it is very egotistical of me to talk about all this. It can’t possibly interest a young lady.”
“Why not?” she said. “If I had a brother who was clever and learned like you—above all, who worked as hard as you do—do you think I should not be interested in his success? So fancy I am your sister. You have no sister?”
“Yes, I have,” he answered. “I have a very good little sister. She is certainly not the least like you, Miss Methvyn.”
Cicely laughed. Mr. Guildford had a rather original way of expressing himself sometimes.
“Never mind,” she said. “Tell me about your success. I believe I can guess what it is. You have written some learned book, which has set all the medical authorities of Europe in an excitement. And you are the new light of the day.”
“Not quite. Don’t laugh at me, please. I dare say my success won’t sound much to you. It is only that some papers of mine have attracted attention, and I have been invited to contribute a series to one of the first scientific journals of the day. The subject is not directly connected with my own profession, but indirectly it bears upon the very branch of it that I have studied more than any other. So it will be no loss of time to me in any way.”
“I do consider it a success—a great success!” exclaimed Cicely. “And what a reward for your past labours to find that they have been all in the right direction! How I envy you! If it were not so commonplace, I think I should sometimes say that I wished I were a man.”
“Don’t say it,” said Mr. Guildford; “but not because it is commonplace. You needn’t mind that.”
“Why must I not say it, then?”
“Because—because it isn’t womanly,” he answered, smiling at his own words.
Cicely smiled too.
“I suspect,” she said, “that your interpretation of that word is as arbitrary as most men’s. And your notions about women are just as inconsistent and unreasonable as—as—”
“As theories on subjects one knows very little about usually are?” he suggested. “Perhaps so. Please remember, however, I only make theories for myself, not for the rest of the world.”
The stable clock in the distance struck three.
“I think papa will be pleased to see you now,” said Cicely. “I always go to him about this time when my mother is out.”
They turned towards the house. “Did you not meet my mother and my cousin as you came from Greybridge?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I met them about half a mile from here—Miss Casalis is exceedingly pretty,” he remarked inconsequently.
“She is beautiful,” said Cicely.
“No, she is too small to be beautiful. She is just the perfection of prettiness.”
“Rose-jacynth to the finger tips,”
he observed reflectively.
Cicely looked up quickly. Her mother’s words recurred to her memory, but Mr. Guildford’s manner perplexed her. Was “the perfection of prettiness” his ideal? She walked on in a reverie, and her companion glanced at her once or twice without attracting her attention. Then he spoke.
“Do you think it is impertinent of me to make such remarks?” he asked with a little anxiety.
Cicely started, but the start turned into a smile.
“Oh! dear, no,” she replied. “I was only thinking about something that puzzled me a little about—”
“About Miss Casalis?” inquired Mr. Guildford. His tone was so gentle that Cicely never thought of resenting the question.
“Yes,” she said; “it was partly about her.”
“But you don’t thinkherpuzzling, do you?” said Mr. Guildford in surprise. “She seems to me transparency itself.”
Cicely looked up in his face with some perplexity in her own.
“I am afraid I sometimes repel where I should like to win,” she remarked with apparent irrelevance. But there was no time to say more, for just then they were met by a servant sent by Colonel Methvyn in quest of his daughter, and Cicely hastened in to tell her father of Mr. Guildford’s arrival.
When Mrs. Methvyn and Geneviève drove up to the hall door on their return from Greybridge, they were met by Mr. Guildford. He came forward to help them out of the carriage.
“I am still here, you see,” he said to Mrs. Methvyn. “I hope you will not think I have tired Colonel Methvyn; we have had such a pleasant afternoon. Colonel Methvyn has been so kind as to let me look over his portfolios.”
“I am so glad,” answered the wife. “There is nothing he enjoys more than showing his engravings to any one who understands them. Your coming to-day was particularly fortunate, Mr. Guildford. I wish we could send for you by magic now and then.”
Mr. Guildford laughed brightly, and Geneviève, who was just stepping out, smiled up in his face as if in agreement with her aunt.
“Yes,” she said, “how nice that would be when dear uncle is tired!”
And as the young man turned towards her as she spoke, he felt half inclined to modify his verdict of that very afternoon.
“Pretty! She is more than pretty,” he thought. For Geneviève was at her very loveliest just then. The tears and agitation of the morning had left their traces in an increased depth and tenderness of expression; there was a subdued softness about her face which Mr. Guildford had never remarked before. The unconcealed admiration of his glance caught Mrs. Methvyn’s observation. She smiled, and the smile was not misunderstood by Geneviève.
“Thatis what my aunt means,” thought the girl, referring in her own mind to something that Mrs. Methvyn had said during their drive, in the fulness of her motherly heart, about the pleasure it would give her to see Geneviève happy like her cousin,—happy as she who showed such appreciation of Cicely, surely deserved to be! And sorely as the girl was suffering, the idea was not altogether devoid of consolation.
“Where is Cicely?” said Mrs. Methvyn, as she entered the hall. “Have you seen her, Mr. Guildford?”
“Not very lately,” he replied. “It must be an hour and a half at least since I went up to Colonel Methvyn’s room, and I have not seen Miss Methvyn since then.”
“Miss Cicely is out; Mr. Fawcett called about an hour ago, and Miss Cicely went out into the garden with him,” said the old butler, in answer to his mistress’s inquiry.
“She will be in soon, I dare say,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Run upstairs and let your uncle know we have come in, Geneviève dear, and then come and make tea for us in the library. You will not refuse a cup of tea, Mr. Guildford?”
Somewhat to her mother’s surprise, Cicely made her appearance in the library almost immediately. She came in by the glass door, alone, her hat in her hand, an unusual colour in her cheeks, and a forced brightness in her manner which did not deceive the loving eyes.
“What have you done with Trevor?” asked Mrs. Methvyn, with a would-be carelessness of tone. “Simmons said he had been here.”
“Yes; but he could not stay long; he had letters to write or something, and hurried home. Had you a pleasant drive, mother?Youlook all the better for it, Geneviève,” said Cicely, speaking more quickly than usual, and making greater clatter among the tea-cups than her wont.
“We had a very nice drive,” replied Mrs. Methvyn, and then, quick to take her daughter’s hint, she went on to speak about the commissions they had executed at Greybridge, the neighbours they had met, and the news they had heard, without further allusion to Mr. Fawcett or his call.
Geneviève had fixed her eyes on her cousin when Trevor’s name was first mentioned. She, too, had noticed something unusual in Cicely’s manner. “Can it be that they have quarrelled,” she said to herself, a throb of joy passing through her at the very thought. The mere possibility of such a thing made her feel amiable, and almost capable of pitying her cousin. She got up from her seat and came forward to the tea-table to help Cicely.
“Thank you, dear,” said Cicely. She glanced at Geneviève as she spoke. Some thing in her expression smote Geneviève—a look of distress and endurance, a pained, perplexed expression, new to the calm, fair face. Geneviève carried a cup of tea to Mrs. Methvyn, and then went back to her seat, feeling unhappy and bewildered and hopeful all at once. And as she reflected further on the position of things, the last feeling gradually came to predominate, the shadow of self-reproach faded away. What if Cicely and her lover had quarrelled, and abouther!She was not to blame. She had been kept in the dark as to the true state of affairs; and even if she had known it, could she have prevented what had happened?
“I did not make my own face,” thought Geneviève complacently. “I cannot make myself ugly, and if people fall in love with me, it is not my fault.”
She was quite ready to believe that Mr. Guildford, too, was fast falling a victim to her charms. The idea was not unpleasing to her. It brightened her eyes and added sweetness to her smile, as she turned to speak to the young man who stood beside her, absorbed, so it seemed to Mrs. Methvyn, in the contemplation of her lovely face. Cicely noticed them too, and a little sigh escaped her. Was a lovely face the one thing after all? It almost seemed so.
Soon after Mr. Guildford left them, Geneviève went out into the garden, and the mother and daughter were alone.
“Don’t you think that what I said is very evident now, Cicely?” asked Mrs. Methvyn.
“What?” said Cicely absently, listlessly raising her eyes, “what was it that you said, mother?”
“About Geneviève—about Mr. Guildford’s admiring her. Don’t you remember?” said Mrs. Methvyn impatiently.
Oh, yes! I dare say it is so. I have no doubt he admires her. Everybody does. It is not only her face; she is lovable and womanly and gentle; everything I am not,” exclaimed Cicely with most unaccustomed bitterness.
“Cicely!” ejaculated Mrs. Methvyn. In the extremity of her amazement she could say no more.
“Oh! mother, don’t be shocked at me, said Cicely. “I am so unhappy, so very unhappy, I don’t know what I am saying. Oh! mother, I wish there were no such thing as marrying in the world!”
“What is it, dear? Is there anything wrong between you and Trevor? Is he disappointed at your wishing to put off your marriage?” asked Mrs. Methvyn, anxiously.
“Yes,” replied Cicely. “He is more than disappointed. He has spoken very cruelly to me. He is cruel. And I don’t deserve it. I havenotput off our marriage, mother. It is Trevor that wished to hurry it on in a way that had never been thought of. It is inconsiderate in the extreme of him. I don’t understand him; he is quite, quite changed.”
Two or three large tears gathered in the troubled eyes and rolled slowly down the pale face. And Cicely so seldom cried!
Her mother kissed her silently.
“I can’t bear to see you so unhappy, my darling,” she said at last. “Tell me more about it. How is he changed? You cannot doubt his affection; his very eagerness to hurry on things is a proof of it.”
Cicely shook her head.
“Idon’tdoubt his affection,” she said, “if I did I could not marry him. But there is something I don’t understand. A few months ago he was so gentle and considerate—sounderstanding.To-day he was quite different. When I told him that six months hence was quite as soon as I could agree to our marriage taking place, he got quite angry and indignant. He accused me of not caring forhim,mother; of making false excuses with the hope of delaying it indefinitely—perhaps for ever—of all sorts of feelings and schemes that he knows I am incapable of. In fact, he quite forgot himself. And, mother, my reasons were right and good ones; a few months ago, yes, even a few weeks ago, he would have completely entered into them. If I did not know—” she hesitated and stopped.
“What, dear?” inquired her mother.
“I was going to say if I did not know Trevor to be perfectly honourable, I could almost have fancied he was trying to provoke me into breaking off our engagement.” She looked up into her mother’s face with a painful doubt in her eyes.
“No,” said Mrs. Methvyn decidedly; “Trevor is incapable of such a thing. Cicely dear, you have mistaken him. It was only a passing fit of irritation, and he said more than he meant.”
“I hope so,” answered Cicely. “Yes, I hope so. He isnotcapable of anything scheming or dishonourable. Still, mother, he is changed. He has grown suspicious and irritable; he who used to be so sweet tempered and gentle.”
“He will be so again, dear. I am sure he will,” said her mother confidently. “He is only disappointed. And remember it is partly your father’s fault; he led him to believe the marriage might be sooner.”
“But papa says he will be very glad to have me at home for six months. Six months! It is not long, mother.”
“Your father is in better spirits again just now,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “But a week or two ago, he seemed to wish he could see you married at once. He was very dull about himself at that time.”
“Yes, I remember,” replied Cicely. Then she sat silent for a few moments thinking deeply.
“But—but it was all right again between you before Trevor went?” asked Mrs. Methvyn somewhat timidly.
“‘All right?’ You mean we did not actually quarrel?” said Cicely, smiling a little at her mother’s anxiety. “No, we did ‘make it up’ after a fashion. I don’t think Trevor and Icouldreally quarrel. Only—only—somehow it has left a sore feeling, a feeling of not understanding him as thoroughly as I used to do; of not feeling sure that he understands me. But it will go off again. Forgive me for troubling you, dear mother. I shall be all right again now. Don’t tell Geneviève that anything was wrong.”
“‘It is good when it happens,’ say the children,‘That we die before our time.’”
E. B. Browning.
WHENGeneviève woke the next morning, the sun—the beautiful morning sun of an English June—was shining into her room. Her first thought was of gladness.
“What a fine day!” she said to herself. “I shall go out as soon as breakfast is over; I am sure Mr. Fawcett will be out early this morning.”
But suddenly the occurrences of the previous day returned to her recollection. Mr. Fawcett, what was he?—her own all but acknowledged lover, the rich, handsome young Englishman, whom long ago she had pictured as her future husband? Ah! no, all that was at an end. What could he ever be to her now? He, the betrothed of her cousin Cicely,—he, who she now knew had never cared for her as she had imagined, had only been amusing himself at her expense.
Yet she found it difficult to believe he did not care for her, she recalled his looks and words and tones, and dwelt on them till she almost persuaded herself that his engagement to Cicely was repugnant to him; that she, and not her cousin, was in possession of his heart. She knew that he admired her beauty, and she hardly understood the difference between a feeling of this kind and a higher, deeper devotion. She recalled the depression of Cicely’s manner the evening before, and her own suspicion as to its cause, and again a slight uncomfortable sensation of self-reproach passed through her, but again she checked it quickly.
“It is not my fault,” she said to herself; “if Mr. Fawcett thinks me prettier than Cicely I cannot help it. I have not interfered with my cousin’sfiancé,I knew not he was engaged to her, they never told me; it is their fault, not mine.”
And though yesterday, when she had learnt the real state of things from her aunt, she had felt, in the first blush of her disappointment and mortification, as if she could never speak to Mr. Fawcett again, as if she would be thankful to go away home to Hivèritz at once, and forget all her English experiences,—she now began to think she would like to meet Trevor, to see how he bore himself to her now that she knew all, perhaps even to hear his own account of things, possibly even—who could say?—his assurance of the depth of his hopeless regard for her, his soft whispers of regret that they had not met till “too late.”
Itwastoo late. Of that she now felt satisfied, not from any scrupulous feeling of honour due to his own vows, or regard to Cicely’s happiness,—such considerations weighed curiously little in the scales of Geneviève’s judgment,—but she felt that in Trevor’s place she herself would have hesitated before the sacrifice involved by the breaking off of his engagement. Cicely was rich, well-connected, and in every sense apartieto be desired; his parents approved of her,—there was no saying what might not be the results of his displeasing them in so grave a matter. “They might disinherit him,” reflected Geneviève, “and in that case—” She did not finish the sentence, but she was none the less clear in her own mind that Mr. Fawcett penniless and obscure would be by no means the same person as the hero of her castles in the air.
So, with a sigh, she made up her mind that she must think no more of Cicely’sfiancé.To do her justice, no feeling of ill will towards her cousin increased the bitterness of her disappointment; she was doubtful of Cicely’s appreciation of her good fortune, but that was all; and then she consoled herself a little by reflecting that, had Trevor been unfettered, old Mathurine’s predictions would certainly have been fulfilled.
“I wish I could see him,” she thought; “I wonder what he will think when he finds that I know of his engagement. I am glad he did not see me yesterday, when my eyes were so red and swollen. I wonder if Mr. Guildford observed them.”
The recollection of Mr. Guildford sent her thoughts off in another direction. She recalled her aunt’s hints when they were driving the day before, and speculated as to what had called them forth. She did not care for Mr. Guildford in the least; she thought him abrupt and “brusque” in manner; painfully “English” in the objectionable sense of the word, and very far removed in position from that which she aspired to. Still he was clever, and likely to rise in his profession; he was notpoor,—Mrs. Methvyn had spoken of him as fairly well off; though not exactly good-looking, he was not without an air of distinction; it might be possible, thought Geneviève, to do worse. Stéphanie Rousille’s eldest sister had married a doctor, and seemed to enjoy most of the good things of life very satisfactorily; and some English doctors, Geneviève had heard, rose to high places, to appointments,à la coureven. It was not unpleasant to feel that if she chose she might, in all probability, be married as soon as Cicely; she was glad to remember that, notwithstanding her depression and preoccupation the day before, she had smiled and talked as usual to Mr. Guildford, and had done nothing to chill or repel his evident admiration.
“My eyes cannot have looked very bad, after all,” she thought, “or my aunt would not have stopped when we met him, for I am sure she wishes me to be admired.”
So Geneviève’s spirits rose again considerably; her distress of mind had not prevented her sleeping, and though, perhaps a very little paler and more subdued than her wont, she looked as fresh and sweet as a newly-opened rosebud when she joined her aunt and cousin at the breakfast-table.
Cicely, on the contrary, looked ill and almost careworn; it seemed to cost her an effort to speak or smile. Geneviève observed her with surprise.
“What then would she have, I wonder?” she said to herself; “I understand not the English.”
She strolled to the window when breakfast was over, wishing it were yesterday. How happy she had felt when she came back from her ramble in the woods! how little she had dreamt of what it was that her aunt was going to say to her! The tears rushed into her eyes again at the thought. It was a lovely day, but Geneviève felt no wish to go out; the morning walk had lost its charm for her; she began again to think England, despite its midsummer sunshine, a very different place from what she had pictured it, and almost to wish she had never come. Almost, not quite, she had made up her mind that she must have nothing more to do with Mr. Fawcett, except what little intercourse was unavoidable with him in his position of Cicely’sfiancé,but still she could not help wishing that she could see him again, if but once. If she could meet him by accident; in that there could be no harm—it was too hard to think she would never see him again, except in her cousin’s presence, in the openly recognised character of her lover.
A voice beside her made her start; it was only Cicely.
“Geneviève,” she said, “I have just got a note from Mr. Hayle asking me to send some things to those poor people at Notcotts, whose child is so ill. I think I shall go myself; my father does not want me particularly this morning, and I have got a headache, I should like the walk. Will you come part of the way with me? I don’t want you to come all the way, because mother wants one of us to help her in copying out that French catalogue for papa, and you could do it better than I, but you might come a little way with me if you would like.”
“Yes,” said Geneviéve. “I will come. I have nothing to do.”
There was a dull listlessness in her tone which attracted Cicely’s attention.
“Geneviève,” she said, looking at her with some anxiety as she spoke, “you don’t look happy. And at breakfast-time you seemed so bright, I hoped you had quite got over your low spirits. And now you look so dull again! What is it, dear?”
The ever-ready tears filled Geneviève’s eyes. She half turned away, as if to hide them.
“It is nothing,” she said, but with no abruptness in her tone. “I was thinking of many things, standing here alone—voilà tout,I assure you.”
“And is there nothing the matter, truly?” asked Cicely, seemingly but half satisfied.
“Nothing, truly nothing, except that I was feeling a little sad,” repeated Geneviève. But after a moment’s pause, she added, considerably to her cousin’s surprise, “Cicely, do you know I think it would be better for me to go home?”
“To go home!” exclaimed Cicely. “Why, Geneviève, you have not been here many weeks, and you have told me several times lately that you were getting to like being here and to feel happy with us! What has changed you so suddenly?”
“It is not that I am changed,” said Geneviève, the colour deepening in her face, “but—but things are changed. I fear now that I shall be in the way—you will have much to do—all the preparation of—of marriage to make, by what my aunt told me. It is all changed. I had thought to be a friend, a companion to you Cicely, but now you will have your own interests and occupations. I see not that I am wanted. I would rather go home.”
Cicely hardly knew whether to be vexed or sorry. She looked distressed and disappointed.
“I wish you would not talk so, Geneviève,” she said at last “you are quite—quite mistaken. The changes that are coming will only make youmorewanted. Indeed,” she went on, hesitating a little, “it was partly the looking forward to my leaving home that made us all anxious for you to come to us—to take my place as it were. It was my doing that you were not told of my engagement at the first—before you came even. Now, I almost wish you had known it at the first.”
“Ah! yes, I wish much—I cannot say how much that I had known! Why did you not tell me? It was not kind,” Geneviève exclaimed.
There was a sort of vehement though subdued regret in her tone, which seemed to Cicely exaggerated and uncalled for.
“I don’t think you have any reason to think it unkind,” she said rather coldly. “I thought you would more readily feel at ease with me if you did not know that I was going to be married. I seem older than I am, and I fancied anything of that kind would have made you feel as if I were very much older than you. That was my only reason for not telling you. And besides, there seemed no particular reasonforspeaking of it immediately—at that time I had no idea that I should be married for a year or two years to come.”
“Had you not?” said Geneviève, quickly. “Oh, I thought not so! I thought you always knew it—your marriage—was to be soon.”
“No,” said Cicely, hardly remembering to whom she was speaking, “No, I had no idea of it—nobody had.”
She sighed as she spoke. She was not looking at her cousin, and did not see the curiously eager expression on her face.
“Then why—if you do not wish it, I mean—” said Geneviève, “should it be sooner than a year, or two years, as you said?”
Cicely was too preoccupied to notice Geneviève’s inquisitiveness. “Trevor wishes it, and so does my father. Everybody wishes it,” she replied.
“Butyoudo not,” said Geneviève.
Something in the tone roused Cicely.
“I never said I did not wish it,” she answered with a touch of haughtiness. “Geneviève, you should be careful what you say.”
“Forgive me, Cicely. I meant not to vex you. It was only that—I do not understand, I suppose—but it seemed to me strange that Mr. Fawcett should wish to hasten it, if it is your wish to wait a year.”
“No,” answered Cicely gently again,“no, it is different for him. Our marriage involves for him no breaking of old ties as it does for me. It is quite different.”
But in her heart of hearts, Geneviève’s remark had left a little sting. Itwasstrange that her wishes had no longer their old weight with Trevor. She had already owned to herself that it was so, but the putting into words of the thought by another—an outside disinterested spectator—brought it home to her with increased pain and acuteness.
And Geneviève, for her part, had got some new lights on the subject of her cousin’s affairs.
They went out together—through the pleasant shady lanes which led to Notcotts, Cicely carrying a small basket packed with delicacies for the little invalid. She had always loved children, but of late she had seemed to look upon them with an increased tenderness. She loved to see them happy, but it was the sight of childish suffering that called forth her deepest sympathy.
“How sad it must be for a little child to be ill in the summer-time,” she remarked. They had stopped to rest for a moment or too by a stile, for the basket was rather heavy. Cicely set it down on the ground beside her, and gazed up into the mid summer sky with a wistfulness in her eyes.
“Is the little child that you are going to see very ill?” asked Geneviève, more for the sake of saying something than because she felt much interest in the matter.
“Yes,” said Cicely laconically; “he is dying.”
Geneviève gave a little start. “How dreadful!” she exclaimed, feeling very glad that her cousin had not proposed her accompanying her all the way.
“It is very sad, but not dreadful,” replied Cicely gently. “And the worst of it is that in one sense it is hardly to be called sad. Life, so far as we can see, seems sadder than death to most of the poor little children at Notcotts, the people are so very poor and so very ignorant. Nobody ever took any interest in the place till Mr. Hayle came. He does his best, but a dozen Mr. Hayles could not do enough.”
“Does it belong to Sir Thomas?” asked Geneviève.
“No, I wish it did,” answered her cousin. “It belongs to two or three different owners, none of whom live near here, or take any interest in it. But, Geneviève, I think you must turn now; we have walked slowly, and mother may be wanting you. Good-bye, dear; thank you for coming so far.”
Geneviève left her. Cicely sat on the stile watching her for a minute or two. At a turn in the lane Geneviève looked round for an instant, kissing her hand in farewell.
“She seems quite happy again,” thought Cicely, “poor little Geneviève!”
She was lifting her basket and preparing to set off again, when happening to look round, she saw a figure coming quickly across a field at the side of the lane. It was Mr. Hayle. He hurried up to her.
“How good of you to come yourself, Miss Methvyn,” he exclaimed, quite out of breath with his haste. “I take for granted you are going to see that poor child at Notcotts. I hardly hoped you would be able to come yourself, but he will be delighted to see you again. And there is very little that can be done to please him now.”
“Is he worse?” asked Cicely.
“Yes; I hardly think he will live over today. That was why I ventured to send to you for the fruit.”
“I am very glad you did,” said Cicely. “I have brought some other little things for him,” she added, glancing at her basket, “but if he is too ill to care for them, I can give them to his brothers and sisters. Poor little creatures, they are more to be pitied than he, if he is dying!”
Mr. Hayle looked at her rather suspiciously. His two or three conversations with Miss Methvyn had rendered him somewhat chary of subscribing to her sentiments till he had examined them on all sides.
“How do you mean?” he asked warily.
“I mean that life—living rather—in such circumstances as those of these poor people, is much more pitiable than death.”
“But theremustbe poor people. We know for a fact that there always must be,” replied Mr. Hayle. “And knowing this, we have no right to say that the world would be better without them, or to wish them out of it.”
“I did not say that,” said Cicely. “I only say that when they die, they must surely have a better chance than many of them have here. It was only from their side of the question that I was speaking. It would be very dreadful to think that, as you say, there must always be poor—by poor, of course, I mean very poor and wretched people. I know nothing of Political Economy, but I don’t quite see why therealwaysmust be such terrible blots on the race. Indeed, I don’t think I do see it at all. Don’t you think that on the whole, things are improving, Mr. Hayle, and if so, will not the world be a better place a few thousands of years hence than it is now?”
She spoke half laughingly, but Mr. Hayle’s face and tone were very grave as he replied to her.
“I was not speaking as a political economist, Miss Methvyn. You misunderstood me. I was speaking as a Christian.”
Cicely looked at him in some perplexity, but gradually her brow cleared.
“I see,” she said, “but I don’t agree with you.”
“I dare say not,” he answered regretfully. “I fear there are many points on which you would not agree with me.”
The words sounded presumptuous and conceited, but Cicely understood that they were neither.
“It is the rock so many split upon in the present day,” pursued Mr. Hayle, his voice sounding as if he was thinking aloud.
“What?” said Cicely, somewhat mischievously.
“The setting up of reason against revelation, of private judgment against authority,” replied the young clergyman mournfully.
Cicely was not the least vexed. It was impossible for her to take offence at whatever Mr. Hayle could say—boyish as he appeared, he was so honestly in earnest, so single-minded in his conviction—but she felt inclined to smile. And this she knew would wound the young man far more keenly than the most indignant contradiction. In the present instance, however, she found no difficulty in evading the argument she dreaded, for before there was time for her to answer, they came within sight of their destination, and their attention was diverted by what they saw.
The cottage where lay the poor sick child was one of a row of hovels, undrained, unventilated, low-roofed, and dilapidated, so altogether wretched as to make one inclined to doubt whether, after all, the poor of great cities, where some amount of attention to sanitary rules is compulsory, have not the advantage over their country neighbours. Even on this bright June morning Notcotts looked abjectly miserable; no amount of sunshine could gild over its squalid wretchedness. At the gate of little Joe’s home stood a group of half-a-dozen men and women; they fell back without speaking as Mr. Hayle and Cicely came up. Cicely was going in, but her companion stopped her. “Let me ask how he is, first,” he said somewhat abruptly, gently putting her aside as he hastened in. There was no one in the kitchen; the clergyman passed through it to an inner room, and Cicely stood at the door, waiting.
It was some minutes before Mr. Hayle appeared. When he did so, his face was very grave. “It is as I feared,” he said gently, “the poor little boy is dead, Miss Methvyn.”
Cicely made a step or two forward into the kitchen, out of the sight of the curious group at the gate; then two or three large tears trickled down her face.
“Poor little Joe,” she said; “I am so sorry I was not in time.”
Mr. Hayle did not speak.
“I will go in and see the mother,” Cicely added in a minute. Mr. Hayle looked at her doubtfully.
“He—it—the poor little dead body is in there,” he said. “Do you not mind?”
“Oh! no,” she replied. “I should like to see him.”
She went into the inner room, and the young clergyman stood watching her.
“What a woman she might be if she were but better influenced!” he said to himself.
Cicely did not stay very long, and when she came out again, Mr. Hayle saw that she had been crying. He walked a little way along the road with her, then their ways separated.
“I must take a short cut home across the fields,” he said. “Good-bye, Miss Methvyn, and thank you very much.”
“Thank me,” she repeated “I have done nothing; I wish I could. I wish I had more in my power.”
“You don’t know how much youmighthave in your power,” he said impressively. “I wonder,” he added, after a little pause, “I wonder if you would read some books I would like to lend you, Miss Methvyn.”
Cicely smiled. “I would read them,” she said, “but I think it would be better not.”
“Why so?”
“Because it would vex and disappoint you if I could not honestly say I liked them,” she replied. “I have no doubt I should like parts, and probably admire a great deal. But I fear it would not be the sort of liking and admiration you want. And I dislike seeming presumptuous.”
Then Mr. Hayle went his way. “I wonder if it is true that she is going to marry Fawcett,” he said to himself. “If it is so, in my opinion she will be thrown away upon him. A wife like thatmightstrengthen one’s hands.”
But as he had long ago decided that with marrying and giving in marriage he and such as he had nothing to do, his spirit was not perturbed by the reflection.