“How should I be glad,Henceforth in all the world at anything?”
Enid.
THEsad days that intervened between Colonel Methvyn’s death and his funeral went by slowly. But they wore through at last, and Cicely woke one morning to realise that “all was over,” as runs the common phrase; the worn-out garment of the father she had loved so devotedly laid reverently aside, nothing more to be done for him, no letters to be written, no books to be read, none of the countless little tender daily services which his long ill-health had called for, to be remembered and cheerfully performed!
It was a page torn out of the book of her life, and just now it seemed to her that the wrench had loosened and disfigured all the others.
“I have mother,” she reflected; “but mother will never be more than half in this world now. People say she is bearing it wonderfully. Sir Thomas says he is amazed at her energy and composure; but I know her better. She is only keeping up for me. I cannot count upon her, my only one object in life, for long.”
But though Cicely believed her heart to be almost broken, though the iron had entered deeply into her soul, she yet felt ready for what was before her. Not for one instant had she wavered in the resolution which she had come to on the night of the Lingthurst ball.
“When my father’s funeral is over, I will see Trevor and tell him all I know,” she had determined. And so strong upon her was the impression of the inevitable result of her discovery, that the possible effect upon her relations with Mr. Fawcett of her loss of fortune had never even occurred to her. She was proud, as Sir Thomas had said, but her pride was of a different nature from that of which her kind old friend had suspected the existence.
Not that she was now indifferent to the change in her position. It was beginning to come home to her. Already some faint realisation of what itwouldbe was making itself felt. For her mother’s sake she trembled at the thought of possible poverty and privation. The ignorance and inexperience which at first had rendered her indifferent to this part of the calamity, now that the reaction had set in, exaggerated to her imagination the practical results of it. But to her mother she showed no shadow of misgiving.
“My settlements are secure, you know, my darling,” said poor Mrs. Methvyn. “There will be certainly enough for me to live upon with perfect comfort. And Sir Thomas is so kind; he says nobody need know much about our affairs if, as he wishes, he can arrange to take Greystone off our hands. It will probably still be your home.”
“My home will be where you are, mother dear—for a long time at least,” answered Cicely, forcing herself to the little equivocation, while inwardly shivering at the thought of the bitter blow yet in store for her unselfish mother. “But it is exceedingly kind and good of Sir Thomas to try to arrange so that things need not become public.” She stopped and hesitated. “I wish it could be so,” she went on. “It would be hard to hear remarks made about our loss of money, as if—as if dear papa had been rash or incautious in any way—by people who did not know him, I mean.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Methvyn, “it would beveryhard. But since I have heard Sir Thomas’s plans, I do not feel afraid of anything of the kind. It will be a great comfort to me to think of your being settled here again before long, whatever arrangements I make for myself.”
“But, mother, you could not do without me, you know you couldn’t,” said Cicely. “Why do you talk as if it were possible we could ever be separated; wenevercan be now, mother?”
Mrs. Methvyn smiled, a faint sad little smile, that went to Cicely’s heart.
“We need not talk about it just yet, any way,” she said soothingly. And at that moment Geneviève came into the room, so no more was said.
During these days of darkened rooms and hushed voices and mysterious anxiety, Geneviève had drooped sadly. Her fit of humility and grateful affection for Cicely had passed by; perhaps Cicely had not encouraged its expression, and there had been times when she had been very cross and unamiable, indeed. The truth was that she was exceedingly unhappy; and it takes a higher nature than poor Geneviève’s to bear the strain of a protracted and uncertain trouble with a calm, if not, smiling face, with no querulous complaints of the never-failing trivial annoyances which at such times seem to have a double sting. Even Parker was forced back into her old position of dislike and suspicion. “If she were that sorry as she made out for my mistress and Miss Cicely, she would be thinking too much of their trouble to care about her dress not fitting; or to be always wishing herself back again where she came from, and where I wish she had stayed,” grumbled the maid to Mrs. Moore, who in her heart agreed with Parker, though more cautious in putting her opinions into words.
But Cicely understood her cousin better, and pitied her exceedingly. The more trying and unreasonable Geneviève’s moods and tempers, the more Cicely compassionated the state of mind which gave rise to them.
“It must be so terrible to feel that one has been false and deceitful,” thought Cicely with a shudder, crediting, as was natural for her to do, remorse with a far larger share in Geneviève’s wretchedness than it really deserved. And she was marvellously patient with the wayward girl; but yet in her very patience, in her quiet kindness, there was a something against which Geneviève instinctively rebelled.
“Why does she look at me so? I have done no wrong; it is not my fault that Mr. Fawcett likes me best,” she would say to herself with a species of childish defiance that was one of her characteristics when roused to anger. “It was all that she was rich; but now that she is no longer rich, how will it be now?” and a gleam of hope would shoot across her for an instant, to be as quickly succeeded by misgiving and despair. “He said, hepromised,he would tell her he could no longer marry her,” she repeated to herself a dozen times a day. “Why has he not done so? Two, three days are past since her father’s funeral, and he has not yet come; he has never come since the day she would not see him. And Cicely does not seem surprised. What can it be? Perhaps he has gone away!”
At last one morning, Geneviève in a fit of restless dreariness, set off for a walk by herself. It was the same morning on which Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were talking together in the library, and it was on her return from her walk that Geneviève, entering the room, interrupted their conversation.
“So you have been out, my dear?” said Mrs. Methvyn kindly. “Have you had a nice walk?”
“It is very cold,” replied the girl, shivering a little, and going nearer to the fire.
She still had her hat and cloak on, and the light in the room was not very bright. But now, something in her voice struck both Cicely and her mother as unusual. It sounded faint and toneless.
“You have not caught cold, I hope?” said Mrs. Methvyn anxiously. She was conscious that she had not given much attention to her cousin’s daughter of late, and a touch of self-reproach made itself felt.
“No, thank you; I have not caught cold,” said Geneviève. Then she came a step or two nearer to where her aunt and cousin were sitting, and they, looking at her, saw that she was very pale, and that her eyes were red and swollen with crying.
“Aunt,” she said suddenly, and with a something of dignity in her manner, new to her. “Aunt, you have been very good for me. I thank you much, very much, for your kindness. I shall always thank you. But I want you to let me go home now, home to Hivèritz, to my mother. Please let me go; I can make the voyage by myself alone, perfectly well. Please let me go. To-morrow, or in two or three days at the latest.”
Mrs. Methvyn looked at her in astonishment.
“Geneviève, what is the matter?” she exclaimed. “What has happened to put such an extraordinary idea into your head? Go home alone! Nonsense, you know such a thing is impossible. You must be reasonable, my dear, and tell me what has made you unhappy. I can see you have been crying.”
“Nothing has happened,” replied Geneviève. “It is only quite simply that I want to go home.”
“But you cannot go home all of a sudden in that way,” persisted Mrs. Methvyn. “If there were no other reason against it, the appearance of it at such a time would be an objection. You should consider that, my dear. I have a great many troubles just now, Geneviève. I think you should try not to add to them. And it is plain that something has put you out this morning.”
Geneviève felt that Cicely’s eyes were fixed upon her with what she imagined to be reproach, and she hardened her heart.
“Nothing has put me out,” she repeated. “I am not happy, that is all. I do not love England; I want to go home.”
“But I cannot allow you to go home unless I am shown a good reason for it,” said Mrs. Methvyn firmly. “When I brought you away from your mother, Geneviève, it was with the wish and intention of making you happy with us. If I have not succeeded, I regret it very much; but still that does not free me from the responsibility I undertook. I cannot possibly let you go home as you propose. You do not really mean what you are saying—you are put out about something, and afterwards you will be sorry.”
Mrs. Methvyn leant back wearily in her chair. Geneviève stood before her, her eyes fixed on the ground.
“No,” she said, after a little pause, “no; I shall not be sorry afterwards. I am sorry now,” she glanced up for a moment, “I am sorry to trouble you. But I shall not be sorry for asking to go home. I must go home. If I write and ask my mother, and if she consents, you will let me go then?”
“I cannot prevent your writing home what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn, as if tired of the discussion, “but, of course, it is very painful to me that my plans for your welfare should end so, and I know it will disappoint your mother.” She was silent for a moment, then she suddenly looked at her niece with a new suspicion. “Geneviève,” she said, speaking with an effort, “can it be that the reason you want to leave us is, that you have heard any talk about our not being as rich as we were?”
The blood rushed to Geneviève’s white face.
“No; oh, no!” she cried. “Indeed, it is not that. I am not so—so—what do you call it?—so mean. No, it is not that.”
“But you might have some mistaken idea about it without being mean,” replied Mrs. Methvyn, speaking more kindly. “You might have some notion that it would be difficult now for me to do what before was quite easy—that you would be an additional burden upon me. But things are not as bad as all that, my dear. I shall be very glad to have you with me, and I shall be quite able to manage comfortably. If I saw you happy, I should be more pleased even than before to have you with me, when—when I am quite alone—when Cicely has to leave us.”
Her voice faltered a little as she glanced at her daughter, who all this time had sat perfectly silent, neither by word nor look taking part in the discussion. Once or twice during the conversation Cicely had been tempted to interfere, but on reflection she refrained from doing so. “It is better that mother should be prepared for something,” she thought, “even this ill-timed request of Genevieve’s may pave the way for what I must tell her.”
Geneviève’s eyes followed her aunt’s, but again something in Cicely’s expression roused her latent obstinacy and defiance.
“I am sorry,” she said slowly. “I am sorry, but it must be. I cannot stay here. Give me leave then, my aunt, to write to my mother about my return home.”
“I told you before, you must write what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn coldly.
And Geneviève left the room without saying more.
“Do you understand her, Cicely?” said Mrs. Methvyn when she was again alone with her daughter. “Do you in the least understand what has put this into her head? She is evidently very unhappy. Surely,” she went on as a new idea struck her, “surely it cannot have anything to do with Mr. Guildford?”
“No,” replied Cicely, almost, in spite of herself, amused at her mother’s recurrence to her favourite scheme; “no. I am perfectly certain it has nothing whatever to do with him.”
“Then, what can it have to do with?”
“She is certainly not happy,” answered Cicely, evasively. “I am sorry for her.”
“Do you think you could find out more, if you saw her alone?” said Mrs. Methvyn uneasily.
“I will go up and speak to her if you like,” said Cicely.
She rose from her chair as she spoke. As she passed her mother, she stooped and kissed Mrs. Methvyn’s soft pale face—the lines had grown much deeper and more numerous on it of late—the roundness and comeliness were fast disappearing.
“Don’t worry yourself about Geneviève, dear mother,” she said. “Even if she leaves you, you have me, haven’t you?”
“Yes, dear,” answered her mother. “I should not want her if I could always have you! But, of course, it is not a question of wanting her. It is so vexing to think of poor Caroline’s disappointment; it is so utterly unexpected. I do not understand the child at all; she is not the least like her mother.”
Cicely made her way up to her cousin’s room. Geneviève was already seated at her little writing-table—pens, paper, and ink, spread out before her.
“Geneviève,” said Cicely. “You have made my mother very uneasy. She is most sorry on your mother’s account. The letter you are going to write will distress Madame Casalis very much. I want you not to send it—at least not to-day.”
“But I will send it,” said Geneviève angrily. “Why shouldyouprevent it? It is best for me to go, I tell you,” her voice softened a little. “You don’t know—” she went on, “and if you did, you, so cold, soréglée, how couldyouunderstand?”
Cicely looked at her with a strange mixture of pity and contempt. “No,” she said, “perhaps I could not. But still Geneviève, for my mother’s sake—I am determined to spare her all the annoyance I can—I ask you not to write that hasty letter about going home, to your mother to-day.”
“Why should I not?” said Geneviève.
“Because I tell you it is better not,” replied Cicely. “And you know I always have spoken the truth to you, Geneviève.”
Geneviève looked cowed and frightened.
“Very well,” she said, “I will not write it. Not to-day.”
Cicely saw that she had gained her point. She left the room without saying any more. And no letter was written by Geneviève that afternoon. She sat in her room crying till it grew dark, and by dinner-time had succeeded in making herself as miserable looking a little object as could well be imagined, so that poor Mrs. Methvyn said in her heart, that if it were not for the disappointment to Caroline, her daughter’s absence would hardly be a matter of regret.
Cicely had no time to spare for crying; and tears, she was beginning to find, are, for the less “med’cinable griefs,” a balm by no means so easy of attainment as for slighter wounds.
“I think my tears are all frozen,” she said to herself with a sigh, as she folded and sealed the last of her letters. She sat for a moment or two gazing at the address before she closed the envelope, as if the familiar words had a sort of fascination for her.
“I wonder if it is the last time I shall ever write to him,” she said to herself. “When—when he is Geneviève’s husband, there can surely never be any necessity for our coming in contact with each other. Yet people grow accustomed to such things I have heard, and my suffering cannot be unprecedented. Ah, what a sad thing life becomes when one’s trust is broken! Far, far sadder than death!” And after all, two or three large tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and dropped upon the white paper.
This was the letter.
“Greystone,
“October 25th.
“My dear Trevor,—I should like to see you alone to-morrow. Will you call here between two and three in the afternoon? I have deferred asking you to come till now, because I thought it best that you should thoroughly understand that I, in what I have determined to do, am not acting hastily or impulsively.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“CICELYMAUDMETHVYN.”
“It will prepare him to some extent,” she said to herself. The note, simple as it was, had a certain formality about it, very different from the girlishly off-hand letters she had been accustomed to send him. “Will he feel itallrelief?” she said to herself, as she thought how best and most clearly she must put into words the resolution she had come to. “Or will it be pain too? However he loves her, hedidlove me, and he cannot have changed so entirely as to give no thought to me.”
And again some tears blistered the smooth surface of the black-bordered envelope in her hand.
“What thing is Love which nought can countervail?Nought save itself, ev’n such a thing is Love.All worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,As lowest earth doth yield to Heaven above,Divine is love and scorneth worldly pelf,And can be bought with nothing but itself.”
WHENMr. Fawcett called the next day he found, as he expected, Cicely alone in the library waiting for him. She was pale, and her mourning gown made her appear very thin; but still it did not strike Trevor that she was looking ill. The black dress showed to advantage her pretty fair hair, and her blue eyes were clear and calm, as she came quietly forward to meet her cousin. He hastened eagerly up to her.
“Oh! Cicely,” he exclaimed reproachfully before she had time to speak, “you have made me so very unhappy.”
Cicely had not expected this; for an instant she felt taken by surprise.
“Made you unhappy,” she repeated, gently withdrawing from his clasp the hand he still held. “How?”
In his turn Mr. Fawcett was set at a disadvantage. “You know how,” he said, “by refusing to see me, of course. Who should be as near you as I, in trouble?”
“I told you in the note I sent you yesterday why I did not ask you to come sooner,” said Cicely.
“No, you didn’t. At least you gave no proper reason,” answered Trevor. “I didn’t understand what you meant in the least, and I don’t want to understand it. You have got some fancy in your head that has no foundation whatever, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
“But you must,” said Cicely very gravely. “Trevor, did you not understand what I meant? Do you not knownowthat I meant that—that everything must be over between us?”
“Cicely!” exclaimed Trevor, “Cicely! You cannot mean what you say.”
There was a ring of pain in his voice, and his face grew pale. Cicely began to find her task harder than she had anticipated.
“Yes,” she said sadly, “I do mean it. I must mean it.”
Her way of expressing herself seemed to Mr. Fawcett to savour of relenting.
“No, you don’t; you mustn’t,” he persisted. “I did not think you attached so much importance to mere outward circumstances—accidents, in fact. You cannot mean that on account of what has happened lately you are going to throw me over? Such a reason is unworthy of you, Cicely?”
Cicely looked perplexed. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What do you think is my reason?”
Trevor hesitated. “You force me to speak plainly,” he said. “I mean that you are too proud to marry me now because—because you are no longer rich.”
“Because I am no longer rich. Ah, it is that you are thinking of! Ah! yes—I understand you now. But oh, how little you understand me!” She looked up in his face with a strange light in her eyes. “Do you think thatthatwould ever have parted us? Do you think I should not havelovedto owe everything I had to you? Do you think my pride so paltry a thing as to be weighed against money?”
“No,” said Trevor gloomily. “I found it difficult to believe it. But what else was I to think? How could I explain your change to me? How am I to explain what you tell me now?”
“Trevor,” said Cicely solemnly, “youknowmy reason.”
“I do not,” he answered doggedly.
“Do you not know,” she went on, “that I am only doing what you meant to do? Why you have changed in your intention I cannot tell, unless, yes unless, it was out of pity for me. Was it out of pity for me, Trevor?”
Her voice quivered, there were tears in her eyes now.
“Cicely, you will drive me mad unless you will tell me what you mean,” exclaimed Trevor. “Speak plainly, I entreat you.”
He was braving it out, but Cicely could perceive his increasing nervousness and uneasiness.
“I will speak plainly,” she said calmly. “What you intended to do was to break off our engagement because you had found out that you cared for—for some one else more than for me. I don’t know if you deserve blame for its being so; I cannot judge. But for one thing you deserve blame, and that is for having deceived me, Trevor—for having allowed me to go on thinking of myself as belonging to you, when—when you loved her and not me. Oh, that part of it is horrible!”
She turned away her head. In that moment she went afresh through suffering as acute as on the evening of the ball,—the agony of humiliation, the misery of outraged trust, which, to a nature like hers, were by far the sorest parts of her trial.
“Who told you all this?” said Trevor hoarsely.
“Yourself,” replied Cicely, but still without looking at him. “I was in the fernery at Lingthurst the night of the ball, when you and Geneviève passed through. She was crying, and I heard what you said—what you promised her. I was hidden behind some large plants. I could not, of course, have let you know in time that I was there, but it was better that I heard what I did. I suppose you would have acted as you said but for what happened so soon—and then you shrank from adding to my sorrow; was it not so, Trevor?”
“No, not altogether. I did not mean what I said. I mean I did notwishit. I said it impulsively because—oh, because she cried and threw herself upon my pity! But even if Ihadwished to break with you, Cicely, I could not. Icouldnot have done so when I learnt the change that had taken place in your position. Do you think I have no feeling of honour?”
“‘Honour’ has come to mean many things,” said Cicely sadly. “Has it nothing to tell you of what you owe toher?”
Trevor muttered something under his breath, which Cicely did not catch the sense of. “Besides,” she went on, “it is true, it must be true, that you care for her?”
“Not as I do for you, Cicely,” he ex claimed vehemently. “Will you not believe me—what can I say—good heavens! what can I say to make you believe me? I see it all now so plainly—what I fancied my love for her was a mere soulless infatuation, a thing that could not have lasted. I was no sooner out of her presence than I repented what I had said. I was mad I think—but at that time I had been worked upon to believe that it would costyounothing to break with me. I did believe it, and I was reckless.”
“Trevor,” said Cicely, “it is frightful to me to hear you talk like this. I cannot believe it. Let me think as well of you as I can; do not try to deprive yourself of your only excuse—that you do love her.”
“I suppose I fancied I did—after a fashion,” he allowed. “But it was not the sort of love that should be taken up so seriously as you are doing. Would you take it up so if you cared for me, Cicely? It seems to me you are eager to catch at an excuse for throwing me off.”
“How can you, how dare you say so?” exclaimed Cicely, her eyes flashing. “Have you forgotten your own words? Nothing else would have made me doubt you, but can you deny your own words?”
“I was mad, I tell you,” said Trevor.
Cecily looked at him with a species of sad contempt. “Oh! Trevor,” she said; then she burst into tears.
Mr. Fawcett was beside her in an instant. He thought he had prevailed. “You do care for me still. I know you do,” he cried triumphantly.
But the girl quickly disengaged herself from his embrace.
“Listen to me,” she said firmly. “I do not care for you now; I have ceased to love you as I must have loved the man I married. But it is not true that Ididnot love you. I cannot remember the time when it did not seem to me natural to think of myself as belonging to you. You were a great part of my life. But I see now that you did not understand my love for you. You doubted it, because it was calm and deep and had grown up gradually. So perhaps, perhaps, it is best as it is; best, if it was not the kind of love that would have satisfied you, that it should have died.”
“You don’t know what you are saying,” he persisted. “It cannot have died. You are not the kind of woman to change so suddenly, nor could that sort of love die so quickly.”
“It did not die—you killed it,” she replied. “You killed it when you killed my faith in you. Trevor, it is useless to blind yourself to the truth. I can only tell you the fact. I do not know if it is unwomanly. I do not know if there are nobler natures than mine who would feel differently; I can only tell you whatIfeel. If Geneviève were not in existence, if she were away for ever, married to some one else perhaps, it would make no difference. Knowing you as I do now I couldnevermarry you; I couldneverlove you again.”
He was convinced at last; he felt that, as she said, she was only stating a fact over which she had no longer any control. He leant his arms upon the table and hid his face in them and said no more.
“I did not think you would care so much,” said Cicely simply, while the tears ran down her cheeks.
“Care,” he repeated bitterly. “I wonder after all if you do know what caring means, Cicely.” Then he was silent.
Cicely grew indignant again. “How little you understand!” she exclaimed. “Supposing I were different from what I am—supposing I could still have cared for you in the old way—what would that have mattered? I would not havemarriedyou; do you think I would or could have married a man who came to me with another woman’s broken heart in his hand?”
Mr. Fawcett laughed. “It is hardly a case of a broken heart,” he said sneeringly.
“How can you tell? Oh! Trevor, don’t make me lose respect for you altogether!” exclaimed Cicely passionately. “I know Geneviève better than you do; I know her faults and weaknesses. But I will not let you speak against her. She loves you, she is all but broken hearted already. I tremble to think what she might have been driven to. You don’t know what she has suffered these last days; you have not seen her lately.”
“Yes I have,” he replied. “I saw her yesterday morning.”
And unconsciously his tone softened as he recalled the blank misery of the pretty face, the anguish in the brown eyes, when, as gently as he knew how, he had broken to her the inevitable change in his intentions, the necessity under which he was placed by her cousin’s altered circumstances of fulfilling his engagement.
“Yesterday morning,” repeated Cicely. “You met her I suppose. Yes, I understand now what made her look as she did when she came in.”
“She has never understood you. She sincerely believed you did not care for me. There is that to be said for her, at least,” said Trevor.
“And she is so young, so ignorant,” added Cicely generously. “And she loves you, Trevor. There is this one thing for you to do, to retain, to increase mysisterlyregard for you. You must be very good to her always.”
But Trevor only groaned.
“Will you promise me this, Trevor?” said Cicely.
“I suppose so,” he said. “I must do whatever you tell me.” He lifted his head and gazed absently out of the window. Before his eyes lay Cicely’s little rose-garden. The roses were nearly over now; the gardeners were at work removing the bright coloured bedding-out plants—the geraniums and calceolarias and lobelias which had made it so gay a few weeks ago. A new thought struck Trevor.
“Cicely,” he said wistfully, “my father meant to have bought Greystone privately. No one need have known the particulars of your affairs.”
“I know,” said Cicely. Her lip quivered, and she turned her head away.
“Cicely,” he said again, this time even more timidly, “have you thought of your mother?”
“Yes,” replied Cicely, “I have thought of everything.”
She faced him as she spoke. Her tone was firm and resolute, though her face was white and set. Then Trevor gave in at last, and knew that his fate was decided. And he knew, too, that it was his own doing.
Geneviève’s letter requesting her parents’ permission to return home at once, was not only never sent—it was never written.
That same afternoon the girl was sitting in lonely misery in her room when Cicely knocked at the door, and asked leave to come in.
“Have you written home yet, Geneviève?” she inquired, for her cousin was again seated by the writing-table with paper and pens before her.
“No,” she replied; “I thought you would be angry if I did.”
“What were you going to write then?” said Cicely, glancing at the table.
“I don’t know. I thought, perhaps, I would write a letter to mamma, and then show it to you to see if you liked it.”
“About going home?”
“Yes.”
Cicely was silent for a moment or two. And then she said quietly and very gravely,
“Geneviève, though perhaps you don’t like me very much, you trust me, don’t you? Don’t you believe that I have wished to be kind to you, and that I would like you to be happy?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Geneviève half reluctantly. With Cicely’s eyes fixed upon her, it would have been difficult to speak other than truthfully, and her nature was neither brave nor enduring. She was already prostrated by trouble. All defiance was fast dying out. She was willing to do whatever Cicely advised. “I think I trust you,” she repeated; “but, oh! Cicely, you do not quite understand. I do not think, perhaps, youcouldunderstand—you are wiser and better—how I am miserable.”
She looked up in her cousin’s face with great tears in her lovely brown eyes. When Geneviève allowed herself to be perfectly simple and straightforward, she could be marvellously winning. Even at this moment her cousin recognised this. “I hardly wonder at him,” she said to herself. “There is little fear that he will not love her enough.”
“Poor Geneviève,” she said aloud, “I am very sorry for you. I wish you had let yourself trust me before. I might have saved you some of this unhappiness. I am not much older than you, but I might have warned you, for you were so inexperienced. I would have prevented things going so far. You know the first wrong thing was your getting into the habit of seeing my cousin so much alone—of meeting him and going walks with him.”
“I know now,” said Geneviève meekly, “but I did not at first—truly, I did not. I thought—oh! I cannot sayto youwhat I thought.” She hid her face in her hands. “I had heard,” she went on, “that in England young girls were left free to arrange,tout celafor themselves. I knew not it was notconvenablewhat I did. But Cicely,” she exclaimed in affright, “how do you know all that you say—what am I telling you?”
“You can tell me nothing I do not know,” said Cicely. “My cousin has told me everything.”
“He—Mr. Fawcett—Trevor! He has told you!” cried Geneviève in bewildered amazement. “How can that be? He has told you, and you—you have forgiven him? It remains but for me to go home and be forgotten. But, oh! that I had never come here.”
“I have forgiven him,” said Cicely, ignoring the last sentences; “but, Geneviève, I did not find it easy. I blame him far—far more than you.”
Geneviève looked up again with a sparkle of hope in her eyes. “Cicely,” she whispered, and her face grew crimson, “Cicely, you must remember that when I—when I first began to care so much for him, I knew not that he was more to you than a cousin.”
“I know that. I have not forgotten it,” said Cicely, while a quick look of pain contracted her fair forehead. “I know that, it was my own fault,” she added in a low voice as if thinking aloud. “But as if I could ever have thought of Trevor—! I have not forgotten that, Geneviève,” she repeated. “At first, too,hethought you knew, he thought you looked upon him as a sort of a brother.”
“And so you have forgiven him?” said Geneviève again.
“What do you mean by ‘forgiving’? I have forgiven him, but—of course, knowing what I do now, it is impossible that things can be as they were.”
“You will not marry him! Do you mean that, Cicely? Ah! then it is as I said—you do not, you cannot care for him!” exclaimed Geneviève excitedly.
Hitherto Cicely had completely preserved her self-control. Now, for the first time, it threatened to desert her. A rush of sudden indignation made her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow.
“How dare you say so?” she exclaimed. “Is it not enough—what I have to bear—without my being taunted with indifference, Geneviève?” She went on more calmly. “You must not speak to me in that way. I do not ask to be thought about at all. What I have to do, I will go through with, but at least you need not speak about me at all, whatever you think.”
Geneviève was sobbing. “If you do love him,” she said, “why do you not marry him? I ask only to go away home. I will never trouble you again!”
“Do you understand me so little?” asked Cicely. “Do you think I could marry a man who I believed cared more for another woman than for me?”
“Doyou think so?” said Geneviève, with thoughtlessly selfish eagerness.
“Yes,” said Cicely deliberately, after a moment’s silence. “I do think so. He may not think so himself, just now,” she added in thought, “but I believe it is so.”
Then Geneviève said no more. Her head was in a whirl of feelings which she dared not express. She could scarcely credit her own happiness, she did not know if it were wicked of her to feel happy. She was afraid of seeming to pity Cicely, or even of expressing anything of the admiration and gratitude she could not but be conscious that her cousin deserved. So she sat beside her in silence, crying quietly, till after a time a new idea struck her.
“Cicely,” she said, “what will they all say? Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica, and my aunt. Will they not be very angry?”
“There is no need for Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica to be told much at present,” replied Cicely. “I have talked it over with my cousin. Of course, they must be told it is all at an end with—withme.But they will not be altogether surprised, and things are different now. I am no longer rich.”
She spoke quite simply, but her words stung Geneviève to the quick.
“I had forgotten that,” she exclaimed. “Ah! believe me, I had forgotten it. These last days I have been so unhappy I have forgotten all—since I saw Mr. Fawcett yesterday morning I have had but one thought. Oh! believe me, Cicely, if I had remembered that, I should have gone away without asking—I would indeed!”
Cicely looked at her with a little smile.
“Don’t make yourself unhappy about me onthataccount,” she said. “I only meant that it would naturally make Trevor’s relations look upon it all somewhat differently. And they are fond of you already.”
“But my aunt?” said Geneviève.
Cicely’s face grew graver.“I will do the best I can,” she said. “For every sake I will do that. But I cannot promise you that my mother will ever feel again towards you as she has done. I think it will be best for you soon to go away—to Hivèritz, I suppose—till—till you are married.”
“And when I am married, will you not come to see me? Will you not forgive quite? Will you not love me, Cicely?”
She looked up beseechingly with the tears still shining in her dark eyes, her whole face quivering with agitation.
“You have not cared much for my love hitherto, Geneviève,” said Cicely sadly. “In the future I hope you will need it even less.”
But still she kissed the girl’s sweet face, and for one instant she allowed Geneviève to throw her arms round her. Then she disengaged herself gently and went away.
She did her best as she had promised.
But try as she might to soften matters, the blow fell very heavily on her mother. Even had she thought it right to do so, it would have been impossible to deceive Mrs. Methvyn as to the true state of the case, and Cicely’s generous endeavours to palliate Geneviève’s conduct, by reminding her mother of the girl’s childishness and inexperience, by blaming herself for having kept her in ignorance of Mr. Fawcett’s true position in the household—all seemed at first only to add fuel to the flame of Mrs. Methvyn’s indignation against her cousin’s child.
“No inexperience is an excuse for double dealing and deceit,” she exclaimed. “Even had it not been Trevor, I should have looked upon such behaviour as disgraceful in the extreme. No, Cicely, you can say nothing to soften it. French or English, however she had been brought up, shemusthave known she was doing wrong. I cannot believe in her childishness and ignorance. She cannot be so very childish if she has succeeded in achieving her purpose in this way. And as for Trevor, she must have utterly bewitched him. I can pityhimif he marries her, for of course it is utterly impossible he can care for her as he does for you.”
“I hope not. I hope it is not impossible, I mean, that he should care for her far more than he has ever done for me,” said Cicely. “Sometimes, mother, I have thought that my coldness and undemonstrativeness have been trying to Trevor. And he is naturally indolent. A wife who will cling to him and look to him for direction in everything may draw out his character and energy—a more gentle, docile wife than I would have been perhaps.”
She tried to smile, but the effort was a failure. Her mother looked at her with an expression of anguish. In her first outburst of angry indignation, she had almost forgotten what her child must be suffering.
“My darling,” she exclaimed, “my own darling, who could be more gentle and docile than you have always been? How can I tell you what I feel for you? And you have known it all these miserable days and never told me! No, Cicely, Icannotforgive them.”
“You will in time, mother dear,” said Cicely soothingly. “At least, you, and I too, will learn to believe it must have been for the best. I feel that I shall be able to bear it if I have stillyou.Only,” she added timidly,“please don’t speak against them. It seems to stab me somehow, to revive the first horrible pain,” she gave an involuntary shudder. “For my sake, mother dear, you will try to forgive.”
“For your sake I would try to do anything,” replied her mother.
“And,” whispered Cicely, “we can feel that it is only we two who suffer. My father has been spared all this.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “we may be thankful for that.”
“And after a while,” continued Cicely, “you and I will go away together to some new place where there be nothing to recall all this, and we shall be very happy and peaceful in our own way, mother dear, after all, shall we not?”
Mrs. Methvyn tried to answer cheerfully, but she could not manage it. She only shook her head sorrowfully, while the tears ran down her thin cheeks. Cicely kissed them away.
“I don’t know, dear,” the mother whispered. “I would not feel it so if I could look forward to being able to do anything to make you happy again. But I am getting old, my darling, trouble ages one, and I feel as if half my life had gone with your father.”
“But after a while you will not feel it so bitterly,” persisted Cicely, and Mrs. Methvyn tried to believe it would be so.
As far as was possible Cicely spared her mother all the painful details of the utter change in their prospects. It was arranged that Geneviève should return home to Hivèritz at the same time that the Methvyns left the Abbey; and though before then it became necessary to tell Mr. Fawcett’s parents of his engagement to Miss Casalis, the fact was not made public. And fortunately for herself, Geneviève’s spirits continued in a subdued state during the short remainder of her stay.
“She looks so frightened and miserable, mother,” said Cicely one day when Geneviève had rushed out of the room suddenly, to avoid meeting her aunt, who came in unexpectedly. “Can you not forgive her?”
“I have forgiven her,” said Mrs. Methvyn coldly. “I promised you I would. I confess I have not yet come to pitying her, as you seem to do, Cicely. I know her now better than you do. More than half of that misery is affectation. She will not have a thought of self-reproach when it comes to buying hertrousseauand being congratulated. Oh! I do wish that you had let my first letter go, the one in which I told Caroline the truth.”
“But you did tell her the truth in the one that went,” said Cicely. “You told her that my engagement had been broken off entirely by my own wish, and that Mr. Fawcett had fallen in love with Geneviève, and that his parents approved of it.”
“Thatwas not the whole truth,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Do not take up my words in that way, Cicely.”
“Well, mother, there would have been no good in telling more,” replied Cicely gravely. “What Geneviève may choose to tell her mother herself is a different matter, and does not concern us. In the same way I very much prefer that Trevor’s parents should be told nothing byus, though I fear poor Sir Thomas suspects something. How kind he has been!”
She sighed as she recalled her old friend’s endeavours to shake her determination. Lady Frederica had cried over it till the thought of the admiration that would certainly attend thedébútin fashionable society of so lovely a daughter-in-law as Geneviève, had suggested itself as consolation. But long before there was any talk of his son’s “new love,” Sir Thomas had come over to see Cicely in hopes of getting to the bottom of the mysterious misunderstanding between her and Trevor. He had gone away sorrowful, convinced at last that the girl’s decision was unalterable, but none the more reconciled to it on that account.
“I trust, my dear, that, as you assure me, false pride has nothing to say to it,” were the parting words of the honest-hearted old man. “Trevor told me it was no use my coming, but I—well, I fancied old heads were cooler than young ones sometimes, even in a case of this kind. I can’t blame you, Cicely—I think too highly of you for that, even if my boy had not assured me most solemnly that what you have done has only doubled his respect and admiration for you. If I thoughthewas to blame” a hard look came over Sir Thomas’s comfortable face.
“Don’t thinkany oneis to blame,” Cicely entreated, “in the end we may all come to see that it has been for the best.”
“And you knew about my thinking of buying Greystone?” he said regretfully.
“Yes,” she replied. “It was a most kind thought. But I have understood since that it would not be considered a profitable purchase for you—you don’t want more land about here?”
“No, I don’t care about it. And I don’t care about another house either. I have Barnstay up in the north, you know—the lease is nearly run out; in case Trevor ever marries, he may live there if he likes. No, I don’t want Greystone; but if you would still like the idea of my having it, if there were the ghost of a chance of things ever coming straight again between you and Trevor—”
“There isnotthe ghost of a chance, dear Sir Thomas,” replied Cicely. “Do not let any thought of us influence you in the matter. Greystone will be dead to me from the day we leave it.”
“That means you will never come back eh?” said Sir Thomas. Cicely did not contradict him. “Ah! well, then, I think I’ll give up the idea. It was different when I thought of keeping it together for poor Philip’s grandchildren.”
He kissed Cicely when he left her, and there were tears in his eyes, but the subjects they had discussed were never alluded to again. Some weeks later when his consent to Trevor’s marriage was asked; he gave it without difficulty. But he thought his own thoughts, nevertheless; and it came to be generally noticed that the old gentleman never “favoured” his pretty daughter-in-law as much as might have been expected. “Not like it would have been with our Miss Cicely,” the people about used to say.
But time went on. Greystone Abbey was sold to strangers, and the desolate widow and daughter of its last owner left it for ever.