“La beauté,” reprit Riquet à la Houppe, “est unsi grand avantage qu’il doit tenir lieu de tout le reste; et, quand on le possède, je ne vois pas qu’il y ait rien qui puisse vous affliger beaucoup.”
Charles Perrault.
GENEVIÈVEmeanwhile had made her way home again—through the pretty lanes, across the daisy-besprinkled fields she passed, heeding but little the summer loveliness surrounding her on all sides, though not insensible to the direct pleasantness of the sunshine, of the soft sweet air and universal warmth and brightness.
Daisies were only daisies to her, the birds’ songs no more than a pretty twitter in a language of which it had never occurred to her that there could be any interpretation; to her “the witchery of the soft blue sky” was almost as little known as to the immortal potter; yet careless and ignorant as she was of Nature’s subtler influences, of the beauty buried everywhere, of the tender secrets of “water, earth, and air,” revealed not to the senses “without a soul behind,” Geneviève was keenly alive to everything affecting, agreeably or the reverse, her material existence. She was miserable on a rainy day, she crept together like a sensitive plant at the approach of cold; she would have drooped and pined far more speedily than her cousin Cicely, had fate suddenly cast her life in some ugly, grimy manufacturing town, she loved brightness and warmth and colour almost as much as admiration.
So this morning her spirits, which had already experienced several chamelion-like variations since she had wakened, rose again when she found herself alone in the sunny, green meadows, out of sight of Cicely’s pale, grave face, which for the last day or two she had been unable to see without an uncomfortable, indefinite sensation of self reproach.
“How strange Cicely is!” she reflected; “they say English girls marry for love—love indeed, they know not what it means. She looks miserable at the thought of leaving her home and her parents—her fathersurtout,who assuredly cannot live long; her mother, who has all she can wish for, a fine house, carriages, horses, plenty of money, and yet she imagines herself that she cares for Mr. Fawcett! It is not in her cold nature to care.Sensibilité,she can have none; how, if she had any, could she go among thosemisérablesat Notcotts? To see a child who is dying—what a taste! What good can she do? She is not a doctor. However,chacun a son goút,as Mathurine says.”
The recollection of Mathurine brought the cloud back to her face. “I had meant to send her a so beautiful dress of black silk the day I was married,” she thought regretfully.
When she reached the Abbey, she found her aunt in the middle of a housewifely consultation with Mrs. Moore in the store-room.
“Is that you—back again already,—my dear Geneviève?” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn. “I am so sorry that you have hurried home. I find that your uncle has not got his notes arranged yet for the catalogue of French engravings, so it will have to wait till to-morrow. I am so sorry.”
“It matters not the least in the world, dear aunt,” said Geneviève sweetly. I walked quite far enough, and Cicely, I think, preferred to pay her little visit of charity alone. Is there then nothing else that I can do for you? If not, I will study the piano-practice, I mean, in the library.”
“Yes, dear, do so. Mrs. Moore and I have quite a morning’s work before us, and Cicely will be back by the time her father wants her; so go and practice, by all means.”
Geneviève went slowly to the library. She opened the piano and looked out a piece of music she had half learnt. It was a brilliant waltz, calling for considerable execution, and Geneviève had been working at it very zealously, for Mr. Fawcett had said that he admired it, and had mentioned having heard it beautifully played by some lady of his acquaintance. But to-day it sounded flat and commonplace, her fingers seemed to have lost their cunning; all theverveand spirit had deserted her! Geneviève left off playing, and leant her head wearily on the piano. What was the use of it now? Why should she care any more to please Mr. Fawcett? He had Cicely to play to him—her soft, unobtrusive “songs without words,” andnocturnes, and so on; it was Cicely’s business to play to him, not hers. Mr. Fawcett did not care abouther; he had only been amusing himself while all the time he had belonged to Cicely. He had called her butterfly once, had he not? “Yes,” thought Geneviève, “that is just it. He thinks me a pretty silly little butterfly. He liked to play with me, that was all!”
But still she was not angry—not indignant; she was only bitterly disappointed.
She sat thus for a minute or two. She did not hear the glass door, already unlatched, open softly; her eyes were hidden; she did not see a shadow that fell across the white pages of her waltz—Les Papillons, it happened to be called; she was unconscious that any one had entered the room, till a voice close behind her made her start.
“Geneviève,” it said, “are you asleep?”
Then she looked up, knowing full well before she did so whose it was, knowing, too, by the quick beating of her heart, the sudden thrill through all her being, how welcome, how dangerously welcome was its owner—Cicely’s lover! Little thought she of Cicely at that moment.
She lifted her lovely face; she looked up at Mr. Fawcett with smiles dimpling about her mouth, though her eyes were still wet with tears.
“Mr. Fawcett!” she exclaimed softly. “No, I was not asleep, but I did not hear you come in.”
“What are you doing, or pretending to be doing, you idle little person?” he said, coming nearer and looking over her at the sheets of music on the desk; “practising ‘Les Papillons!’ That is very good of you. I have been longing to hear it again.”
“I do not know it well yet,” said Geneviève, with the right hand idly playing the notes of the waltz. Now that she had got over the first surprise of his presence, she began to feel constrained and unhappy, to realise the vast distance between to-day and yesterday.
“Never mind,” he said. “I won’t ask to hear it till you wish to play it. You will know it soon, your fingers will dance away at it beautifully. But I won’t interrupt you any more,” he added, glancing round the room. “Where is Cicely, by the bye, do you know? Up with her father, I suppose; there is never any getting hold of her.”
“No,” said Geneviève, feeling the colour deepen in her cheeks as she spoke, “no, Cicely is not with my uncle. She is out.”
“Out,” exclaimed Mr. Fawcett impatiently. “Where has she gone to? I thought she never went out in the morning. Or do you only mean,” he went on, his voice softening again, that she is in the garden?”
“No,” said Geneviève again, with a curious sort of timid reluctance in her manner, “no; I think not that she will be long of returning, above all, if she expected you; oh! no, surely, she will not be long, but she has gone to Notcotts to see some poor person that is ill, I think.”
“Gone to Notcotts!” repeated Mr. Fawcett. Then he gave vent to some angry exclamation, which Geneviève did not understand, and walked away to the window, muttering to himself. Some of the words reached the girl’s ear as she sat silently, growing rather frightened, at the piano.
“Gone to Notcotts!” he repeated again. “Yes, there or anywhere else rather than wait at home to see me. Father, mother, anything, anybody, beforeme. . . By George, what a fool I am!”
He was evidently very much put out, indeed. He had walked over to the Abbey early this morning on purpose to see Cicely, to “make friends” again by begging her to forgive him for his unkind words of the day before. He had been very unhappy in remembering them; never before had he parted from her in anger; never once before in all the years during which they had been childish friends, then boy and girl together, now promised husband and wife. And he could not bear the thought of having done so now. He was very ready to own himself to blame, though in his innermost heart he knew that the very subject of their disagreement, the point on which they differed, was only insisted on by him through his loyalty to Cicely, through his half-acknowledged consciousness that for the first time this loyalty was likely to be tested. Temptation, for the first time in his easy prosperous life, had drawn near him—might, he felt, draw nearer yet. He wished, he longed to resist it, to be true to himself, to Cicely, to what he knew was his best chance in life, what had been, what would be yet more and more, in very truth, “the making of him.” And full of these feelings he had hurried over to Greystone to find—what? Cicely, whom he had been picturing to himself as to the full as unhappy as he, absent—away calmly and comfortably to play the Lady Bountiful in a dirty village with which she had nothing whatever to do—and—Temptation, seated at Cicely’s piano, learning the musicheloved, glancing up in his face with sweetest smiles and eyes yet glistening with tears, called forth, he strongly suspected, byhisfolly.
A pleasant and promising state of things. Being a man, he did what in such circumstances most men would do. He blamed everybody but himself; he swore at everything under his breath, he worked himself up into a passion; but he did not leave the library again by the glass door, still standing ajar—the unlucky glass door, but for which he would have gone round to the front entrance, and there made decorous inquiry for Cicely, or failing her, for her mother; he didnotsay good-bye to pretty Temptation, sitting there, gazing at him with childish alarm and concern in her great lovely eyes.
She was really frightened. Passions and naughty tempers were tabooed in the peaceful dwelling of Monsieur le Pasteur Casalis, as were worldly tastes and frivolities of all kinds. Only the latter class of unholy visitors, being more easy of concealment, had found their way into one youthful heart in that orthodox household, and made themselves very much at home there. But Geneviève had very rarely seen any one in a passion—her father, good man, never. And the sight of Trevor’s anger altogether overcame her. She sat still for another minute or two, then jumped up, ran across the room to where the young man was standing, his fair face dark with irritation and annoyance, laid her hand on his arm and whispered tremblingly, “Oh! do not be so angry. Oh! please not. She will come soon. I am so sorry; oh! so very sorry for you.”
He turned round quickly. For an instant she feared that his anger was turned upon her, and she trembled more visibly. Trevor’s face softened as he looked at her.
“Don’t look so frightened, child,” he said, not unkindly, but with some impatience. “I am only annoyed. There is nothing to be very, very sorry about.”
“Yes there is,” sobbed Geneviève. “I am sorry for you because I know all now. I know why you are chagrined—vexed, I mean—that Cicely is out. I understand all now.”
“Do you?” said Mr. Fawcett. “Who told you, Geneviève?”
“My aunt. She told me yesterday.”
“And were you surprised?” inquired Trevor, with a curious mingling of expressions in his face.
Geneviève did not reply at once. When she did so, there was a change in her tone. Mr. Fawcett’s coldness had galled her.
“What matters it?” she said with some indignation, “what matters it if I was surprised? I, what am I? A butterfly—yes, a butterfly you call me. Butterflies have no soul, no heart; what matters what a butterfly feels?”
Mr. Fawcett thought she was going out of her mind. But her eccentric speech had, at least, the effect of calming down his own irritation. He began to laugh.
“When did I call you a butterfly?” he said. “I don’t remember it.”
Geneviève grew more angry.
“You did say so,” she exclaimed. “One day, I know not when; I forget. It matters not. You think not that I have any heart, any feeling. I suffer when I see you suffer. I tell you I am sorry, very sorry, and you laugh! Cicely is not foolish, as I am.Sheis calm and quiet. She does not weep when her friends are in trouble. She goes quietly to see some sick villager when she knows you are coming. I am a silly butter fly.Soit donc!I leave you to your Cicely.”
She was really so angry, so mortified and miserable that she hardly knew what she was saying. She was rushing out of the room when Trevor called her back.
“Geneviève,” he exclaimed, “dear Geneviève, I entreat you not to go. Listen to me. You have quite misunderstood me.”
She stopped short at this appeal. She stood still, she looked up in his face with tearful reproach in her beautiful eyes, but she said nothing. Trevor drew near her very near.
“Forgive me, Geneviève,” he said, “I did not mean to hurt you.Areyou sorry for me, dear, are you really? Tell me why you are sorry for me?”
He had laid one hand upon her shoulder as he spoke; his voice was very gentle and persuasive.
“I was only sorry to see you unhappy. I meant not to blame Cicely,” replied Geneviève confusedly. “Cicely is very good.”
“Too good, by a long way,” muttered Trevor.
“I only thought that Cicely—that I—” she stopped short.
“That you—? Tell me, do. It can do no harm,” urged Trevor.
“That—that Cicely cared not so much as—Icannotsay,” exclaimed Geneviève.
“ShallIsay? You mean that Cicely does not care for poor me as much as I do for her—is that it?
“I know not. No, not that,” replied the girl with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes.
“What is it then? Did you mean that she does not care for me as much as a silly little girl I know, will care, some day, for some lucky man whowillbelieve she has a heart? Was that what you meant?”
Geneviève whispered a scarcely audible “Yes.”
“You kind, good little girl,” said Trevor impulsively. But Geneviève shrunk back.
“You know not,” she said, “that day you speak of, that ‘some day’ will never come to me.”
Then she threw away the hand that still rested on her shoulder; she darted one reproachful glance at Mr. Fawcett—“Do you understand menow?” it seemed to say; “do you see what you have done?” and rushed out of the room.
Not a moment too soon. As her figure disappeared through the library door, a slight sound at the window made Trevor look up. There at the glass door stood Cicely, her empty basket on her arm, a smile of welcome on her face as she caught sight of Mr. Fawcett. “Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I am so glad you have come. I wish I had not stayed out so long.” And her betrothed somehow hardly felt equal to reproaching her for her absence, angry though it had made him but ten short minutes before.
At luncheon that day, the cousins again seemed to have changed characters. Cicely had regained her cheerfulness, Geneviève looked anxious and depressed. She had dark lines under her eyes, and a bright crimson spot on each cheek, and in answer to Mrs. Methvyn’s inquiries she owned to a bad headache.
“You did not walk too far, I hope?” said her aunt. “Was the sun very powerful, Cicely? I am afraid Geneviève is the worse for her walk in some way. You looked so well at breakfast,” she observed, turning to her niece.
“I am not ill, dear aunt. I often have a little headache,” said Geneviève.
Cicely looked at her anxiously.
“I don’t think it could be the walk,” she said. “Geneviève did not come very far and the sun was not unusually hot. Nothing to what it is at Hivèritz, was it, Geneviève?” she remarked cheerfully to her cousin. “I went to the little door with Trevor and even then—just at noon—it was not very hot. There was a pleasant breeze.”
“Why did not Trevor stay to luncheon, by the bye?” said Mrs. Methvyn.
“I really don’t know. I forget if I asked him,” replied Cicely. “Oh! yes, I remember,” she went on, `“he had to go home because his father wanted him. They are going away again—did you know, mother?”
“How should I know?” said her mother. “I have not seen Trevor or any of them for two days, and then there was certainly no thought of it. When are they going, and where to, and which of them?”
“All of them,” answered Cicely. “Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica are going to the seaside somewhere. They are thinking of the Isle of Wight. And Trevor is going to town again for two or three weeks, and then he is going to join them.”
“I can’t think why they are never contented to stay at home,” said Mrs. Methvyn.
“I am rather glad they are going,” observed Cicely quietly.
Then the attention reverted to Geneviève again. She now looked as pale as she had a few minutes before appeared flushed.
“I hope you are not going to be really ill, my dear child,” said Mrs. Methvyn anxiously. “You don’t feel as if you were, do you?”
“Oh! no, dear aunt. I am sure it is nothing that signifies,” replied Geneviève. “I often have a little headache for a few hours; but a little rest, and I am all right again.”
“If it wereyouCicely,” observed her mother, “I should be more alarmed, for I never feel sure where you have been. There is no fever at Notcotts, I hope? You were there to-day?”
“Yes,” replied Cicely, “but I ran no risk. The child I told you about died of consumption. I am sure there is no infectious illness about just now. Mother dear,” she added appealingly, “you know you can trust me. I would not do anything foolish.”
“I am not sure, my dear. Since that Mr. Hayle has been here you seem to me to be always running about among sick people. And one never knows what risk one may run.”
“Mr. Hayle is very careful I assure you, mother,” replied Cicely. “Indeed,” she went on laughingly, “I think he would be very sorry to put me in the way of risk, for he has designs upon me. He thinks that under proper influence and direction I might be trained into a very useful “sister.”
“Cicely!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn aghast, “how can you joke about such things? If I thought Mr. Haylethatsort of a high-church clergyman, I would be very sorry to admit him to our acquaintance. One might just as well invite a Jesuit to one’s house.”
Cicely laughed again, but Mrs. Methvyn was really uneasy. There were points on which she did not thoroughly understand her daughter. She was in many ways unlike other girls, and Mrs. Methvyn deprecated eccentricity. She never felt sure of Cicely’s not taking up some crotchet, and, sweet and gentle though the girl was, a crotchet once “taken up” by her, would be, her mother felt instinctively, by no means easy to dislodge. Cicely’s laugh to some extent reassured her.
“You are joking, I know, my dear,” she said philosophically, “but there are some subjects I do not like joking upon. I have known too many sad realities. Do you not remember Evelyn Parry? Why she actually ran away from home to become a nun. It was dreadful!”
“But nuns and sisters are quite different institutions, mother dear, and Evelyn Parry was not quite ‘right’ in her head; she was always doing silly things. You don’t think I am like her, do you? You certainly need not fear my ever running away from you for anything or anybody; our only trouble is that you want me to run away and I won’t.”
Geneviève had left the room by this time, and Cicely was in her favourite posture, kneeling on the ground beside her mother, her fair head resting on Mrs. Methvyn’s knees.
“Cicely, my darling,” said the mother reproachfully.
In an instant the sweet face turned to her with a smile. “I am naughty, mother; I am in a teasing humour. I am so much happier since I have seen Trevor again.”
“Then it is all right?”
“Yes, quite. Trevor was very nice; but I have got my way, we are not going to be married for six months. He is quite pleased, however; he understands me about it now. He was quite different this morning, so gentle, and ready to agree to what I wished. I am glad they are going away for awhile, however, the change will keep Trevor from grumbling. Now I think I will go to poor Geneviève, and make her lie down for an hour or two. But I am sure there is not much the matter with her, mother, as she says herself.”
“I trust not,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “Cicely,” she said with sudden anxiety, “I hope I have not done her any harm by what I said to her about Mr. Guildford; I mean I hope I have not put it into her head so as to unsettle her and cause these variable spirits.”
“‘By what you said to her about Mr. Guildford!’ What did you say? I don’t understand,” said Cicely, her brow contracting a little.
“Oh! yes, you do. It was very little; only what I said to you, you remember, about Mr. Guildford’s admiring her. Of course, I did not say it so broadly; I only hinted it as it were, more for the sake of amusing and gratifying her when she was in such low spirits yesterday. For, do you know, Cicely, it did strike me afterwards that all that crying and so on when I told her about you might bepartlya girlish sort of envy of you—a feeling she was, I dare say, only half conscious of herself.”
“Could she be so silly?” said Cicely. “If so, she certainly may be silly enough to have attached too serious a meaning to what you said. I wish you hadn’t said it, mother dear; but I don’t think Genevièvecouldbe so silly.”
“It is natural she should look forward to being married,” said Mrs. Methvyn, rather inclined again to defend Geneviève.
“Is it? I suppose it is,” replied Cicely thoughtfully. “It is a pity when a girl has no future except marriage to look forward to. There is something lowering and undignified in the position. But still, mother, you have no actual reason for trying to make Geneviève fancy that Mr. Guildford is to be the hero of her third volume.”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Methvyn dubiously.
Cicely said no more. She found Geneviève in her own room, but by no means in a very biddable humour. She obstinately refused to “lie down,” declaring that there was nothing the matter with her. Cicely grew tired of the discussion.
“You don’t look well, Geneviève,” she said, “but I dare say it is only the hot weather. Mother is uneasy about you, otherwise I would not tease you.”
“You are not teasing, you are very kind,” Geneviève condescended to say. “It is only that I become first red, then white, that my aunt remarks me. But that is my nature. Remember, I come from the south. I am not quiet and never vexed like you, Cicely.”
Cicely smiled. “Am I never vexed?” she said.
“Not as I am,” said Geneviève. “You are wise and calm. I, when I am unhappy, I could cry a whole week without ceasing.”
“And are you unhappy now?” asked Cicely.
Geneviève did not reply. She turned from her cousin and began putting away her hat and gloves, which were lying as she had thrown them down.
“Tell me, Geneviève,” pursued Cicely boldly—“I am not asking out of curiosity has your unhappiness anything to do with Mr. Guildford?”
Geneviève flashed round upon her.
“With Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed. “Certainlynot. What know I of him? Not as much as you do. I know him but as my uncle’s doctor—voilà tout.”
Her hastiness rather confirmed Cicely’s suspicion.
“I don’t think we do know him only as a doctor,” she said. “He comes here much more like a friend. I don’t think you need be indignant at my question, Geneviève. I see you are unhappy; you have not been like your self for some time, and it is not—it would not be unnatural if Mr. Guildford or any gentleman you meet were to—you know how I mean; you know you areverypretty.”
Geneviève flushed with pleasure.
“Do you really think so, Cicely?” she said shyly. “It gives me pleasure that you do. You are very kind. But it is not that. I think not that Mr. Guildford has any thought of whether I am pretty or ugly. And if he had—oh! no,” with a grave shake of the head, “I should not wish to marry him.”
But that she had taken the possibility into consideration was evident. And somehow Cicely did not feel sorry that her mother’s very mild attempt at match-making promised to fall to the ground.
“No,” said Geneviève to herself, when her cousin had left her, “no. I don’t want to marry Mr. Guildford. “Si on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a,Mathurine used to say when I was a little girl. But I am not a little girl now.”
She sighed, and then glanced at herself in the looking-glass. What a strange girl Cicely was! Stéphanie Rousille would never have so frankly acknowledged another’s beauty! And again Geneviève felt the slight uncomfortable twinge of self-reproach. “But he is going away to-morrow,” she remembered. “When he returns, it will be the time for the marriage without doubt. He will think no more of me. I wish I had never come here.”
. . . this July noonShining on all, on bee and butterflyAnd golden beetle creeping in the sun* * * * * *
This July day, with the sun high in heaven,And the whole earth rejoicing. . ..
A flower of a day.
LADY FREDERICA FAWCETTwas in great tribulation. Her faithful shadow, Miss Winter, had received a letter summoning her at once to the bedside of a dying sister. It was a summons that could not in common humanity be disregarded, and, indeed, Lady Frederica was too kind-hearted to dream of doing so. But she could not refrain from some expression of her distress.
“I am exceedingly sorry for you—and of course, for your poor sister,” she said, when Miss Winter had summoned up courage to break the news, “but I cannot help saying itcouldnot have happened at a more inconvenient time. This is Wednesday, and we leave home on Friday! If I had had any idea of it, nothing should have induced me to consent to going away just now. There is nothing I dislike so much as being at strange places alone—nothing.”
Miss Winter murmured some words of which the only audible ones were “Sir Thomas.” Their effect was by no means that of oil upon the waters.
“Sir Thomas,” repeated Lady Frederica contemptuously. “What good is Sir Thomas to me? I am surprised at you, Miss Winter, knowing him as you do. Will Sir Thomas read aloud to me? Will Sir Thomas match my wools, or go out shopping with me, or write my notes? I wonder you don’t propose that he should make my caps, or get up my laces instead of Todd. Besides I am almost always ill the first few days at a strange place. I quite expect to be laid up when we get to the Isle of Wight—particularly if I am left so much alone with no one to take my thoughts off myself. I really don’t knowwhatto do.”
Miss Winter grew very miserable. Two bright scarlet spots established themselves on her faded pink cheeks, and she looked as if she were going to cry.
“If Mr. Fawcett had not gone!” she ejaculated feebly.
“Trevor! What good wouldhehave done?” said Lady Frederica peevishly.
“He would, I daresay, have deferred his visit to town and accompanied yourself and Sir Thomas to the Isle of Wight. He is always so kind and unselfish,” remarked Miss Winter, not without a feeble hope that his mother would propose recalling the young man, who had only the day before left for town.
“And do you think I would have allowed such a thing?” exclaimed Lady Frederica virtuously. “Do you think I would have dreamt of letting Trevor make such a sacrifice? You forget, Miss Winter, it is not the beginning of the season—there is no question ofdeferringhis stay in town. He has had a very dull year, poor boy; of course, if his marriage had been fixed for next month as we once expected, it would all have been different. I wish it had been. We should not have been leaving home so soon, and most likely in that case—things always happen so—your poor sister would not have been ill.”
Truly, Cicely Methvyn had little notion of how much she was responsible for!
The mention of Mr. Fawcett’s marriage sent Miss Winter’s thoughts off to Greystone. Thence they brought back a brilliant suggestion.
“My dear Lady Frederica,” she exclaimed rapturously. “An idea occurs to me. Suppose you were to invite that pretty, sweet Mademoiselle Casalis to accompany you? I feel sure you would find her a charming companion, and it would be such a pleasure to her to be able to talk about her home to you, who have been so much on the Continent.”
Lady Frederica sat straight up on her sofa in excitement.
“Do you think she would like to come?” she said doubtfully. “I wonder if Helen would like it.”
“I am sure Miss Casalis would like to come. It was only the other day she confided to me that she does find life at the Abbey rather dull—triste, she called it, poor girl. She begged me not to repeat it, for fear, she said, of seeming ungrateful to her kind friends. And I feel sure Mrs. Methvyn would feel pleased by the invitation—Miss Casalis beingherrelation.”
Lady Frederica’s excitement increased.
“Will you write a note to her at once, Miss Winter, and send one of the men with it?” she said. “Or, stay, perhaps the note should be to Helen—or, must I write my self? I do so hate writing notes, and there would be such a great deal to explain—all about your poor sister’s illness, and apologies for the short invitation and all. I really don’t feel equal to it.”
She sank down again helplessly on the sofa.
“If you could see Mrs. Methvyn—such matters are so much more easily explained by word of mouth,” suggested Miss Winter artfully.
“It would be less trouble,” agreed Lady Frederica.
Miss Winter took care to strike while the iron was hot, by ordering the carriage, and despatching Todd to dress Lady Frederica before she had time to change her mind, and her energy was crowned with success. The Lingthurst carriage drove up to the Abbey door at an hour that rarely saw Lady Frederica out of her room.
Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were upstairs; Geneviève was alone in the library, writing, when, to her amazement, the door opened, and the visitor was announced.
“Lady Frederica,” she repeated in her surprise, as she went forward to greet her.
“Yes, my dear. I am so pleased to find you at home. My visit is to you, my dear Miss Casalis,” and in her excitement, Trevor’s mother kissed the girl on both cheeks.
Geneviève grew scarlet, then pale again. What could be the meaning of it? Had it not been for what she knew to be the case, what would she not have thought? As it was, all sorts of wild conjectures flashed across her mind. More than a week had passed since the day that Trevor and she had last met in that very room; the day he had so betrayed his dissatisfaction with Cicely. And since that morning, Geneviève had not seen him. She knew he had gone away; she had heard of his calling to say good-bye, one afternoon that she had been out driving with her aunt, but that was all. And Cicely’s manner had perplexed her; Trevor’sfiancéedid not seem to regret his absence, she had grown far more cheerful, and looked much brighter since it had been decided upon. Could it be that they had in sober earnest quarrelled? or, rather, agreed to separate, and that she, Geneviève, not Cicely, was the real object of Mr. Fawcett’s devotion? If this were the case, it would satisfy her of the truth of what she had taken upon herself to suspect, that Cicely was not really attached to her cousin, and that she would be glad to break off her engagement. And if such were the actual state of things, what more natural than that Trevor’s mother should be deputed to explain it all to the one it most nearly concerned—what more natural, or more delightful! for would it not be proof positive that the Fawcettspère et mèrewere satisfied with their son’s new choice?
All these speculations darted with the speed of lightning across Geneviève’s brain—she had time even to persuade herself that they were based upon a strong foundation of probability, before Lady Frederica had disencumbered herself of the wraps which, even in July, she thought a necessary accompaniment of a drive in an open carriage, and established herself comfortably in an easy chair. Her first words threw Geneviève into utter bewilderment.
“We have heard this morning, my dear Miss Casalis,” she began, “that poor Mrs. Morrison is dreadfully ill—dying, in fact—that is why I came over to see you at once, an explanation by word of mouth is so much more satisfactory, than writing.”
She stopped for a moment, and Geneviève seeing she was expected to say something, expressed her agreement with Lady Frederica in preferring verbal communications, and murmured some vague words of condolence on the “bad news” she had received, and appreciation of her (mysterious) kindness in hastening to impart it; though who or what Mrs. Morrison was, she had not the remotest idea. But she managed to steer clear of committing herself to any possibly damaging confession of ignorance.
“Yes,” said Lady Frederica, “it is very sad, though she is over sixty, and has lost the use of her right leg for some time. She is the eldest of the family, and has been quite like a mother to my Miss Winter, she tells me, so, of course, she feels it very much. And we are going on Friday, so if youcanbe ready at such short notice, my dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I shall be, and so will Sir Thomas when I tell him.”
Even Geneviève’s studied deference of manner was not proof against the bewilderment this speech aroused. She opened her brown eyes and stared at Lady Frederica in dismay.
“Ready, ifIcan be ready! I am so sorry, but I do not understand,” she said, at last.
“Dear me, how stupid I am! Of course, I haven’t explained,” exclaimed the visitor. “We are going to the Isle of Wight on Friday—there, at least, in the first place we intend to be some weeks away; Trevor is to join us the latter part of the time, and of course Miss Winter was coming with us, but for this unfortunatecontretempsabout poor Mrs. Morrison, her sister, you know. And so, talking it over, it just came into our heads how very nice it would be if you would come with us instead—not instead exactly, you understand how I mean, my dear.”
And, with a little more repetition and parenthesis, Lady Frederica at last succeeded in making Geneviève understand what it was she did mean and had come about.
It was very far from being the realisation of the wild dreams she had indulged in a few moments before—an invitation to accompany these two old people to the seaside, only! Still it came at a welcome time, for Geneviève’s spirits had been down, a long way below zero, for several days past, and the prospect of any change was acceptable. Besides, was there not a possibility, an enchanting possibility, lurking in the words, “Trevor is going to join us the latter part of the time?”—“It will be the last I shall see of him before he is married. It can do no harm now that I know of his engagement. I know he can be nothing to me; therefore I need not fear to enjoy the little I can ever see of him again,” thought Geneviève. There was no deliberate intention of disloyalty to her cousin; she would not have put into words even to herself the faint suggestion of what—with the experience she had had already—she knew perfectly wellmightbe the result of Mr. Fawcett and herself being thrown together for even a few days; but to the whisper of her good angel, “Decline to go; take the risk of giving offence and avoid at all costs the temptation,” she resolutely turned a deaf ear.
“It is not my doing,” she said to herself. “I did not seek for the invitation. I am not obliged to sacrifice myself to fancies that I may interfere with Cicely. It would be very conceited to suppose that I could do so—and besides, if herfiancécan be shaken in his attachment to her by the first pretty girl he comes across, why—his attachment to her cannot be very profound!”
So with sparkling eyes and a bright flush of pleasure in her cheeks, Geneviève ran upstairs to tell her aunt of Lady Frederica’s visit and its object, and to ask for her consent to the acceptance of the invitation.
Mrs. Methvyn was in her own room.
“Lady Frederica here!” she exclaimed. “You must tell Cicely, dear. I shall be down in a moment, but Cicely has just gone out to get some fresh roses for your uncle’s room. I wonder what can have brought Frederica here so early.”
“It was to ask me something, dear aunt,” began Geneviève. Then going on to explain, she made no secret of her gratification, and her hope that Mrs. Methvyn would like the idea of her visit to the Fawcetts.
It would have been hard to refuse consent to a request made so sweetly. Mrs. Methvyn seemed nearly as pleased as Geneviève herself.
“I shall be delighted for you to go, and I think it will do you a great deal of good,” she said cordially. “Run out and find Cicely, and I will go to Lady Frederica.”
Geneviève found Cicely standing on the terrace near the library window, and talking to Lady Frederica through the open glass door. Cicely’s hands were full of roses, and the face with which she turned to her cousin looked as bright and sweet as the flowers.
“I am so pleased, so very pleased, to hear of Lady Frederica’s plan for you, Geneviève,” she exclaimed. “Nothing could have happened more opportunely, for you have not looked quite well lately. Of course mother says you must go, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Geneviève, “aunt is very kind and so are you, Cicely.”
But her tone was hardly as hearty as her cousin had expected. A wild sort of yearning that Cicely could knowallthat was in her heart, a foolish wish that she could refuse to go, a painful consciousness of not deserving this kindness rushed over her all together, and for an instant she felt as if she should burst into tears. The voice she had so determinedly stifled made itself heard again once more; her cousin’s unselfish sympathy in her pleasure woke once again the stings of self-reproach—a shadow seemed suddenly to have fallen over her bright anticipations.
“Are you not pleased to go, Geneviève?” asked Cicely with a little disappointment in her tone.
“Oh! yes, very pleased,” said Geneviève. “But I am sorry to go away too.”
“But it is only for a few weeks,” said Cicely kindly. “Is there nothing else troubling you?”
“Oh! no,” replied Geneviève. But Cicely was not satisfied.
“Are you at a loss about your clothes, dear,” she inquired as the idea struck her suddenly. “I thought about them at once. Lady Frederica is rather particular about dressing.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Geneviève; “I have remarked that she is alwaystrès bien mise. I have thought about my dresses a little. Do you think they will not be pretty enough, Cicely?”
She looked up in her cousin’s face with genuine anxiety, though half afraid that Cicely would not treat the matter with the importance it deserved. But her fears were ill-founded. Her cousin seemed little less interested than herself in the important question.
“Those you have got are very pretty and suit you very well,” she replied. “But I was thinking that you have perhaps hardly enough. Travelling about with the Fawcetts will be very different from living here so quietly as we do. And there is not time to get any. But, Geneviève, you need not wear half mourning any more. I have two or three pretty dresses, almost new, that could very easily be altered for you. The principal alteration would be shortening the skirts. Parker could easily get them ready for you by Friday.
“Oh! Cicely, how very, very kind you are!” exclaimed Geneviève; and Cicely looking at her was surprised to see that there were actually tears in her eyes.
“Geneviève, you silly child,” she said, “you think far too much of a mere trifle! It is a great pleasure to me to see you pleased. Would you like to come up to my room now, and I will show you the dresses I think you would like? There are a pretty grey silk, and a blue and white gauze, and a white dress—a sort of poplin—that I am sure would suit you. The white dress is trimmed with rose colour.”
Geneviève’s eyes sparkled. In five minutes she was feeling and looking perfectly happy, standing amidst her cousin’s pretty wardrobe, which Parker was quite as ready to exhibit as mademoiselle was to admire.
“What beautiful dresses you have, Cicely!” she observed with a little sigh. “I suppose you wear all these a great deal when you are not in mourning.”
“No indeed, Miss Casalis,” interposed Parker, “Miss Cicely doesn’t wear her pretty things half enough. I am always telling her so. And besides, Miss Cicely is so neat and careful, her dresses last twice as long as most young ladies’! The whole of these,” with a regretful glance at the display of finery, “are really as good as new. The only dresses you ever do wear out, Miss Cicely,” she added, turning to her young mistress, “are your brown hollands.”
Cicely laughed. “It shows I was never meant to be a fine lady, Parker,” she said. “Mother and you get me far too many things.”
“And now there will be all new again before we know where we are,” grumbled Parker, whose mind seemed to resemble that of the gallant train-band captain’s wife; “and none of these half wore out, not to speak of several as good as new.”
A slight increase of colour in Cicely’s cheeks explained the allusion to Geneviève.
“Ah! yes, you will have all new for your trousseau without doubt,” she said to her cousin, and a curious expression flitted across her face. But Cicely did not observe it, nor did she take any notice of Geneviève’s remark. She turned to Parker and began giving her directions for the altering of the dresses that had been selected as most suitable for her cousin, Geneviève’s quick eyes and fingers meantime making voyages of discovery among the finery.
“What is this?” she exclaimed, drawing out a dress of a rich crimson colour, which was hanging in a remote corner of the wardrobe, “Velvet!Du velours de soie—et quel teint superbe! Why, it is a dress for a queen! Cicely, what a beautiful dress; it is far the most beautiful of all.”
Cicely had not been paying special attention to her chatter, but now she turned and, somewhat to Geneviève’s surprise, gently drew the folds of the dress out of her hands and replaced it in its corner.
“Parker,” she said to the maid, “you have forgotten what I told you. I wanted that dress folded away by itself—locked away.”
“I am sorry I forgot,” said Parker meekly. Geneviève felt rather offended. “Cicely has secrets I see,” she reflected maliciously. “I wonder if Mr. Fawcett knows about that dress, and why she is so fond of it.”
But she speedily forgot all about the little mystery in the interest of trying on the pretty grey silk, and submitting to Parker’s skilful nippings and pinnings.
And on Friday morning, thanks to Cicely and her handmaid, Geneviève’s little outfit was complete, and she stood with her trunks all ready for the journey, in the hall, waiting for the Lingthurst carriage, which was to call for her on its way to Greybridge. Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were beside her; comings and goings had grown to be events of some importance in the nowadays quiet, monotonous life at the Abbey.
“You will write and tell us how you get on, my dear,” said Mrs. Methvyn.
“Don’t promise to write too much,” said Cicely, smiling; “I don’t think you will have any great amount of leisure. But here is the carriage.”
The carriage contained Sir Thomas and Lady Frederica, and just behind appeared another, loaded with luggage.
“Your belongings, Miss Casalis? Let me see—two boxes, a bag, etc. etc., four in all, my man will see to them. Good morning, Mrs. Methvyn; good morning, Cicely, my dear. We have no time to spare I fear,” exclaimed Sir Thomas fussily, as he got out of the carriage to superintend Geneviève’s getting in. “Oh! by the bye,” he added, coming back again for a moment, “we heard from Trevor this morning. Had you a letter, Cicely? No? That’s odd. He is an extraordinary fellow. What do you think he is going to do now, after all his grumbling at being so little in town this year? He’s off to Norway for six weeks, in Frederic Halliday’s yacht.”
“Is he really?” exclaimed Cicely. “I am very glad—that is to say, if he enjoys it, which I suppose he is sure to do. But I wonder I haven’t got a letter. It may come this afternoon.
“Sure to, I should say. Good-bye again,” shouted Sir Thomas.
“And good-bye, my dear.” “Adieuchère tante;adieu, Cicely,” came in Lady Frederica’s and Geneviève’s softer tones.
Geneviève smiled and kissed her hand as they drove away, but a cloud had come over her sun again, for all that; she had heard Sir Thomas’s news.
Cicely’s letter, accidentally delayed, came the next morning.
“Yes,” she said to her mother, when she had read it, “yes, Trevor has actually gone to Norway. There is no time even for me to write to him before he leaves England; but he gives the address of some places where they will call for letters. He says he will be away six or seven weeks.”
She gave a little sigh, a very little sigh.
“It seems very sudden,” said Mrs. Methvyn.
“He had to decide at once,” answered Cicely. “This friend of his—Captain Halliday, I mean—was just starting. Of course, on the whole, I am very glad he has gone; it will make the summer pass pleasantly to him, and perhaps—”
“Perhaps what, dear?”
“Perhaps he will leave off being vexed with me. Don’t think I am dull on account of his having gone, mother; I am not so, truly. But lately, I cannot say how it is, whenever I think of our marriage, I grow dull.
“It is the thought of leaving home,” said Mrs. Methvyn tenderly.
“Partly,” replied Cicely, “and, mother, it is more than that. It is a sort of vague fear of the future—an apprehensiveness that I cannot put in words. I know I care for Trevor and trust him thoroughly, but sometimes I doubt if heknowsme enough. I doubt whether I thoroughly satisfy him, even though I feel there is more in me than he has read. Sometimes I think he wishes I were prettier, andlighter.Do you know what I mean, mother? Do all girls have these feelings, mother?”
“You are not one of the ‘all,’ Cicely.”
“Did you?” said Cicely, dropping her voice a little. “I don’t, of course, mean when you married my father, but before?”
Her mother’s first marriage was a subject but rarely alluded to. Cicely looked at her with some anxiety as she put the question.
“My child, my child, never draw any comparison between your future and what my life was with Amiel’s father. No, Cicely; I had no misgivings—I would not allow myself to have any. I was wilfully, madly blind—” she paused, and a little shiver ran through her. “These feelings of yours do not trouble me, Cicely. Your life promises to me all the more brightly from the thoughtfulness with which you enter upon it, my darling.”
She kissed the girl tenderly. Cicely was soothed, though not satisfied; but she said no more.
An hour or two later, when she was alone in her little sitting-room feeding her birds, and trying to grow cheerful among her usual little interests and occupations, there came a knock at the door.
“Come in!” said Cicely, surprised at the unusual ceremony. The intruder was Mr. Guildford.
“Mr. Guildford!” she exclaimed, “I did not hear you come. How have you got here?”
“I walked,” he said quietly. “I have plenty of time to-day, so I thought I would come to take Colonel Methvyn a drive. The day is unexceptionable; I have just seen your father, and he is quite pleased to go, but he wants you to come. It was he that directed me to come here,” he added, glancing round him, “he said I should find you in your own sanctum.”
“Yes,” said Cicely, “I have a great many friends to take care of here, you see. Have you never seen my birds? Why, have you never been in this room before?”
“Only once,” replied he softly. And as he spoke there came before him the picture which had never left his memory—of Cicely as he had first seen her, standing in the doorway in the quaint, rich dress.
“Ah! yes, I remember,” she said. Then there fell a little silence.
“My cousin has gone away to-day. Did you know?” said Cicely, rather irrelevantly.
“Your cousin?” repeated Mr. Guildford. Oh! yes, of course. You mean Miss Casalis. Somehow when you spoke I thought you meant Mr. Fawcett.”
“Well he, as it happens, has gone away too,” said Cicely with a smile. “He is going further away than Geneviève; she has only gone to Ventnor, and Mr. Fawcett is bound for Norway.”
“So you are all alone?” remarked Mr. Guildford. “Does that add to the low spirits you were owning to the other day?”
“Not low spirits—crossness, corrected Cicely, laughing. “No, I don’t think it does. I think sometimes I grow nicer when I am alone.”
“At least, there is no one to dispute the soundness of the pleasing belief?” said Mr. Guildford. “But I think I know what you mean. A little solitude soothes and calms one wonderfully sometimes.”
He walked to the window and looked out. “One can hardly imagine the lines falling to one in a pleasanter place than this,” he observed, as his gaze rested on the beautiful old garden basking in the warmth and brightness of the midsummer afternoon.
“It is a home that one can love,” agreed Cicely. She had followed him to the open window. “Did you ever think to yourself when you would best like to die? I mean,” she added, seeing that her companion glanced up in surprise, “did you ever try to think at what hour and season death would seem least dreadful, least physically repulsive and unnatural, that is to say?”
“Did you?” he inquired. “I don’t think I have ever given it a thought. What does it matter?”
“It does not matter in the least,” she answered, “but still one often considers things that do not matter, as if they did. It was the beautiful, quiet afternoon that made me think of it. I have always thought that I should like to die on a summer afternoon—not evening, evening suggests night—just when the world seems a little tired, but not worn out, just gently exhausted. I should like the sun to be shining in the soft, warm way it is shining now, and the air to be clear. At night, in the darkness, one feels so far away from everywhere else.”
She looked up at the sky and watched the few small feathery clouds whose whiteness deepened the intensity of the blue. There surelycouldnot be a lovelier blue than that,” she said. “I have been so little abroad, I cannot tell if it is true that English skies are never like those of the south. Is it so?”
“I am a poor authority,” he replied, “but I fancy if you saidseldom,instead ofnever,you would be near the truth.”
There came another knock at the door. This time it was Parker.
“Miss Cicely,” she said, “Will you please be ready in ten minutes; the carriage is ordered for then.”
“I will come now,” said Cicely.
She stopped for a moment to put fresh water in one of her canary’s glasses, which had been overlooked.
“Why are you always called ‘Miss Cicely’ instead of ‘Miss Methvyn?’” asked Mr. Guildford abruptly.
Cicely laughed. “Have you noticed that?” she said. “I suppose it does seem strange. The reason is that when my sister and I were at home together—she is seven years older than I, but still we were companions—we could not bear being called by different surnames; her name before she was married was Bruce, Amiel Bruce; we thought it seemed as if we were not sisters really. So we always asked to be called Miss Amiel and Miss Cicely. That was how it began. Perhaps I should alter it now, but it is hardly—”
She stopped. Her companion was not looking at her; he did not see the quick rising of the pink flush over her face and neck.
“No, I think it would be a pity to change it. I like ‘Miss Cicely,’” he said. And he smiled as he recalled the mental picture he had first formed of the bearer of the name.