“Pourquoi me regardez vous comme cela?Est-ce que je vous ai fait quelque chose?— Non, répondit-il.Certes, il n’avait rien contre elle. Loin de là.”
Les Misérables.
THEband was playing on the “Place” at Hivèritz; it was a beautiful spring-like afternoon, though only the middle of January. A goodly number of the visitors, and many of the residents too, were to be seen promenading up and down, or sitting at the open windows of the hotels and other large houses which overlooked the square,—the West End of the little town.
A girl of twelve years old, or thereabouts, was crossing the quieter and less frequented side of the place with a young lady in deep mourning; the young lady was tall and slight, fair hair peeped out from under her crape-trimmed black hat, she had blue eyes, and a pale clear complexion.
“English, of course; I don’t think I have seen her here before,” said an American lady to the gentleman she was walking with, as they passed the fair-haired girl.
“New-comers, I dare say,” replied the gentleman carelessly. “Rather pretty, isn’t she?”
“I didn’t notice her much. They cannot be anything particular,—not people ofrank,that is to say,” said the daughter of the nation where rank is supposed to be unknown, with some contempt in her tone, “or we should have heard of their arrival.”
But the blue-eyed English girl, innocent of being classed among the nobodies of conceited little Hivèritz, walked on quietly, enjoying the sweet air and the sunshine, the mountains in the distance, the music near at hand.
“C’est bien ici, ma cousine, n’est-ce pas?”said her little companion. “Will you not stay for a few minutes? We can get chairs for a sou each; it is so seldom I can hear the music.”
She looked up entreatingly. She was not a pretty child, but her face was frank and merry, her dark eyes bright and honest.
“I don’t mind staying a little, if your mother will not be wondering what has become of us,” said the young lady. “Don’t you often come here when the band plays, Eudoxie?”
Eudoxie shook her head. “Mamma is quite pleased for me to come,” she said, “but it is not often there is any one to bring me. When Geneviève was at home, she often came to the Place, but she would not let me come; she said children were tiresome.Shecame with Stéphanie Rou sille, or the Demoiselles Frogé. I am not sorry that Geneviève is married and away,ma cousine;she sends me pretty presents now, and I like you better for my sister.”
“Ma cousine”smiled. “Don’t you know, little Eudoxie, that comparisons are odious?” she said playfully. “However, I am glad you think I shall do for a sister. Who is that lady?” she inquired, as at that moment Eudoxie nodded and smiled to a pleasant-looking, middle-aged little English woman in orthodox winter costume of velvet and sealskin, who was passing by.
“I know not,” replied Eudoxie, “I know not her name;Icall her Madame Gentille, she always smiles so nicely. She is English, she lives in the Rue St. Louis, and I pass her house in the morning, on my way to school, and she nods to me. She has a husband who is very old, I think, for he never goes out, except in a carriage, and the blinds are never drawn up.”
“Poor thing!” said Cicely compassionately. Her few weeks at Hivèritz had already accustomed her to the sight of some melancholy little family groups. “Perhaps he is not very old, but very ill, Eudoxie.”
“If he were very ill she would look more sad,” said Eudoxie, who had evidently a theory of her own on the subject of her unknown friend’s domestic history. “She does not look sad, she has rosy cheeks, and she is plump and gay.Des foisI hear her laugh when I pass her house and the window of hersalonis open. And one morning she was at the door, talking to the confectioner’s boy, who had brought some cakes; she offered me one, it was a macaroon. She spoke withun accent affreux,but she smiled, and the macaroon was verygood.”
“And so you call her Madame Gentille?” said Cicely, amused by the child’s chatter. “She has a pleasant face certainly; but I think, Eudoxie,” she went on, “it must be getting late; see, the musicians are preparing to go. Aunt Caroline will be expecting us.”
Aunt Caroline was expecting them. Her kind face was at the door to welcome them, when the cousins reached the little courtyard of No. 31, Rue de la Croix blanche. It was pleasant to be welcomed thus, thought motherless Cicely.
“Dear aunt,” she said impulsively as she met Madame Casalis, and she held up her face for a kiss.
“Dear Cicely!” replied Eudoxie’s mother. Then they went into the little drawing-room together, while the child ran off to her own quarters.
“It is such a happiness to me to have you with us,” said Madame Casalis; “I can not tell you how great a pleasure it is.”
Cicely looked at her gratefully. Already, though barely a month had passed since the girl’s introduction to her mother’s cousin, these two understood each other well.
“It is so pleasant to me to feel I have still some one belonging to my mother who cares for me,” said Cicely softly.
“I have a letter from Geneviève to-day,” said Madame Casalis. “It came while you were out.”
“What does she say?” inquired Cicely. “They are well I hope?”
Her tone was quite without constraint. She was fully in possession of Madame Casalis’s feelings on the subject of her daughter’s marriage, and so much of the truth as it was right that the mother should now know, Cicely had gently and considerately told her, in answer to her earnest request to have the whole explained. For Geneviève had not, after all, been as frank to her mother as she had promised; her view of her own conduct had altered to some extent when she found herself free of Greystone associations, and her account of her engagement to Mr. Fawcett and the events which had led to it, had left Madame Casalis uneasy and dissatisfied.
“It was no use my pressing her to tell me more,” the mother said to Cicely; “we were together so short a time, and I could not bear to cloud the few last days. Besides, what was done, was done. But I have longed to speak of it to you, to ask your forgiveness for the suffering I could not but fear my child had been partly the cause of.”
And Cicely had soothed poor Caroline’s distress even while not concealing that her suspicions had been well founded—and the friendship between the two grew and strengthened daily.
Madame Casalis drew Geneviève’s letter out of its envelope again as she replied to Cicely’s inquiry.
“She does not say very much. Her letters are never very long,” she sighed a little. “They have had a great many visitors to spend Christmas. Now they are gone and Geneviève finds Barnstay dulltriste.Her husband she says is always at the hunt—she wishes it were already the season to visit ‘town.’ ‘Londres,’ she means, I suppose? Did Mr. Fawcett always go so much to the hunt?” she inquired, looking up from the letter to which she had been referring as she in formed Cicely of its contents.
“He used to hunt a good deal. Not constantly,” replied Cicely. “I am sorry if Geneviève is dull,” she added regretfully.
“I wish that she had children,” said Madame Casalis.
“Yes,” said Cicely, “when people have children I cannot understand their ever being dull. I remember mamma telling me what a comfort my sister Amiel was to her long ago, when she was lonely and unhappy. She must have beenveryunhappy during her first husband’s life. Did you ever see her then, Aunt Caroline?”
Madame Casalis shook her head. “No,” she said, “I knew her as a girl, but not again till she was married to your father. Her first husband was not good; she was wrong to marry him, but it was not all her fault.”
“Her father would not let her marry papa, because he was then poor, before his brother died,” said Cicely.
“Yes—and your father was proud—he went away and Helen knew not why, and in her sorrow they persuaded her to marry Mr. Bruce. And she was very unhappy. But afterwards, when in the end she met again Colonel Methvyn and they were married, she was very happy.”
“Yes,” said Cicely, “they wereveryhappy. She never forgot how papa had thought of her always and never dreamt of marrying any one else even when he became rich. It is not often one hears of such love as that. Yes, they were very happy.”
“Yet she had great trouble first,” said Madame Casalis gently. “I should like you too to be happy like her some day, Cicely.”
Cicely shook her head. “I don’t think it is likely,” she replied. “I almost feel as if I were too old for anything of that kind again, do you know, aunt? Troubles make one feel old.”
“My Madame Gentille does not look old, and I am sure she has troubles,” observed Miss Eudoxie, who entered the room as Cicely was uttering her last sentence; “she has nice fat rosy cheeks, and her hair is not grey.”
“Whom is the child chattering about?” said Madame Casalis inquiringly.
“An English lady whom she has taken a fancy to,” said Cicely. “We saw her to-day in the Place, and Eudoxie and she smiled and nodded to each other like old acquaintances.”
“It is the lady in the Rue St. Louis, mamma,” said Eudoxie.
“The lady who gave you macaroons? Oh! yes, I remember. I wonder who she is,” said Madame Casalis. “It is not often we make acquaintance with any of the visitors,” she went on, turning to Cicely. “Their world is a different one from ours, though sometimes my husband has been asked to call upon Protestant families, coming here for the winter. But just now I think we have no acquaintance among the visitors at all.”
“So Madame Gentille will probably remain Madame Gentille to the end of the story, Eudoxie,” said Cicely.
“Well,” replied the child philosophically, “I don’t mind. It is a nice name for her.”
But fate had not so willed it. A few days later when Cicely came downstairs one morning, she found Monsieur Casalis frowning over a letter which, notwithstanding his utmost efforts, he was unable to understand.
“Caroline,” he exclaimed, without looking up, “I have an English letter here which I cannot read. Translate it then for me, I pray thee.”
“It is not Aunt Caroline,” said Cicely. “Shall I do instead, Monsieur Casalis?”
“Thank you, my child,” said thepasteurin a tone of relief, pushing back his spectacles and beginning to stir his coffee, “thank you well. Yes, if you please,” and he held out the letter. “It is forwarded to me by a friend in Paris, Monsieur Carraud, who has received it from some one of his acquaintance in England; a lady, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Cicely, translating it as she spoke. “Yes, it is from a Mrs. Hulme, asking Monsieur Carraud if he has any friends at Hivèritz who would be so kind as to show some attention to a cousin of hers, a Mrs. Crichton, who, with her brother, is spending the winter here. They are quite strangers to Hivèritz, Mrs. Hulme says, and one or other evidently an invalid. It is a very short note, written hurriedly; I think that is all she says.”
“Does she not give the address—let me see, my dear,” asked Monsieur Casalis, looking over Cicely’s shoulder. “Ah! yes, here it is, Madame Creech—Creesh—how say you?Quel nom barbare!Madame Creeshton, Rue St. Louis, No. 14. Ah! yes, I know theapartement.Caroline, my friend,” he continued, as his wife came into the room, “here is something that thou must do to oblige our friend Monsieur Carraud.”
“I shall be very glad to call on the lady,” said Madame Casilis, when the matter was explained to her, “but I fear there is not much that we can do besides.”
Thepasteurand his wife were kind hearted people, who never lost time in doing any little service to others that might be in their power. They called that very afternoon on the lady with the barbarous name in the Rue St. Louis. When they came home Madame Casalis was quite excited.
“Imagine, Cicely,” she exclaimed, “is it not amusing—this Madame Creetonne is no other than Eudoxie’s Madame Gentille? Eudoxie will be quite delighted. We discovered it at once by her telling me she had made no friends at Hivèritz except one little girl. ‘To whom,’ said I, ‘you gave a macaroon, was it not?’ She looked astonished; then we laughed at the coincidence, but it made us feel quite friendly. In general I feel somewhatgénéewith the English one meets here. They are so rich, so unlike us, but this Madame Creetonne is not so; she is most simple and amiable. She wants Eudoxie to go to see her to-morrow. I told her also about you, Cicely, that I had a cousin, an English lady, visiting me—she was so pleased to hear you were English.”
Madame Casalis stopped at last, quite out of breath.
“Do you think she would like me to go to see her?” said Cicely good-naturedly. “I will take Eudoxie there to-morrow if you like, aunt. She must be dull, poor thing. Is it she that is ill? She does not look so.”
“No, oh! no—it is not she. It is her brother. We did not see him.”
“Then he is Eudoxie’s old husband.”
“Yes,” said Madame Casalis, smiling. “Eudoxie is wrong for once. Madame Creetonne is a widow. I know not if her brother be old. He is a very clever man; a writer, I think, she said. He overworked himself and was very ill. Now he is better, but the overwork has weakened his eye sight. They came here because he had been in a warm country, and they feared England for him this winter. He is writing some book now, his sister told me. Monsieur Casalis is going to lend him somedictionnaireshe is in want of, which they could not get at thelibrairiehere.”
“Yes,” said Monsieur Casalis. “He must be a very learned man, ceMonsieur Creetonne.”
“Is his name Crichton too?” said Cicely. “I thought you said she was his married sister.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Madame Casalis. “I forgot. No, his name cannot be the same, but we did not hear what it was.”
Armed with two or three learned-looking volumes—for in his humble way Monsieur Casalis was something of a bookworm—Cicely and her little cousin set off the next morning to call on Mrs. Crichton. She was at home, and evidently very glad to see them.
“So kind of you to come to see me so soon, Miss——, and to bring your little cousin,” she hurried on, trying to slur over her ignorance of Cicely’s name. “I am particularly glad you have come, because, do you know, it isverystupid of me; but I generally am very stupid about such things.” She sighed plaintively. “I don’t know what becomes of my head I am sure. What was I saying? Oh! yes to be sure, it was about quite forgetting to ask madame—your mamma’s, I mean” (to Eudoxie)—“to ask madame’s name and address when she was so kind as to come to see me yesterday. Not that Ishouldhave required to ask it, but I am so stupid at catching French names. And so you see if you had not come to see me, I could not have come to see you till I had written to ask Mrs. Hulme to get your address. How absurd that would have been to be sure!”
She laughed merrily. Her laugh and voice were both pretty and musical, and there was an infectious sort of youthfulness about her—a genuinenaïveté—which was not without its charm. She was small and plump, and still pretty, though no longer young; and though Eudoxie had considerable difficulty in interpreting her rather roundabout way of talking, she remained decidedly of opinion that her soubriquet had been well bestowed.
“I have got some fresh macaroons on purpose for Eudoxie,” said Mrs. Crichton when she had mastered her visitors’ names in full. “What a nice confectioner’s there is here! Indeed, the shops are very good, though my brother feels the want of a library greatly. So kind of Monsieur Casalis to have sent him those dreadful books.“She eyed the volumes as she spoke with mingled complacency and aversion. “That will be some hard work for me,” she said, turning to Cicely with a smile.
“Foryou!” exclaimed Cicely in surprise.
“Yes. I have to spell out all manner of things I don’t understand in the least for Ed—for my brother. He is not allowed to use his eyes in reading or writing at all yet. To tell you the truth, I was rather pleased when he was stopped short for want of these books. I am sure he is beginning to work too hard again; but of course I could not refuse Monsieur Casalis’s offer of them—so kind. I had the names down on a bit of paper to try for them at the bookseller’s when he called, you know. And of course it’s very worrying for a clever person like my brother to have to be dependent on any one soout-of-the-waystupid as I am.”
Cicely smiled. “I am sure you are very patient, at any rate,” she said.
“Heis,” said Mrs. Crichton eagerly. “Would you believe it,” she went on, turning to some papers that lay on a side-table, “I havethreetimes tried to make a clear copy of these notes and lists—it’s something botanical—and each time when he has just taken a peep at it from under his shade, poor fellow, just to make sure it was all right, he has found some perfectlyhorriblemistake that could not possibly be corrected—not to speak of my handwriting, which is fearful, as you see.” She held out the manuscript to Cicely. “They have to be in London the end of this week,” she went on in a tone of despair. “I was just setting to work at them again when you came in; but it’s no good. I shall never get them done.”
Cicely was examining the papers critically. “Your writing is perhaps rather too large for this sort of thing—” she began. “I should think it was—too large and too sprawly and too everything,” interrupted Mrs. Crichton. It’s dreadful, and so is my spelling. I never can spell correctly—WednesdayandbusinessandspinachI always carry about with me in my pocket-book—not that the spelling matters for these things, as they are all in Latin.”
“I think—you won’t think me presumptuous for saying so, I hope,” said Cicely “I thinkIcould help you with these, if you like. I have had a great deal of copying out to do long ago for my father, and I can write a very clerkly hand when I try. Do you think Mr.—, your brother, would be afraid to trust me with these papers? I can easily have them ready for to-morrow’s post, if that will do.”
Mrs. Crichton’s face beamed with delight. “How kind of you—how very kind of you!” she exclaimed. “I am sure you could do them beautifully. You look so clever—no, I don’t mean clever. Clever people are ugly; but you look so wise—dear me!—what can I say?—that sounds like an owl.”
“Never mind,” said Cicely, laughing. “Will you ask your brother if he will try me?”
“Of course I will, this very moment,” said the little lady, and off she went. Within five minutes she returned in triumph. “He is delighted,” she said. “I knew he would be. He is coming to thank you himself, and to point out one or two things. He does not like seeing any one now; his eyes make him feel nervous, poor fellow. He would not come in to see Monsieur and Madame Casalis yesterday, but he is so pleased about his papers, he proposed himself to come and thank you.”
“I hope it will not annoy him,” said Cicely, a little uneasy at the idea of the learned man’s personal injunctions. But “Oh! no, he didn’t mind a bit,” answered Mrs. Crichton in so well assured a tone that Cicely dismissed her misgivings.
There had certainly been nothing in his sister’s explanation to make him “mind a bit.”
“There’s a young lady here who would like to do your copying, Edmond,” had been her very lucid account of Cicely’s offer. “She’s English, though she’s a niece of that nice old French clergyman who called yesterday. She looks clever. I am sure she would do it nicely. She says she is quite accustomed to it.”
“Do you mean that she would do it for nothing?” inquired Mr. Guildford. “I could not put myself under such an obligation to a stranger. But perhaps she would let me pay for it. Many poor ladies make money by copying; and I dare say if she be longs to the family of a Frenchpasteur,she is not rich. Do you think that she meant that she would take payment for it?”
“No,” said Bessie doubtfully. “She doesn’t look like that.”
“What does she look like? Is she a governess, or anything of that kind? What did she say?”
“She only offered out of kindness. She had heard about your eyes, and I—I told her how stupid I was,” admitted Mrs. Crichton. “You had much better come and see for yourself, Edmond.”
“Very well—perhaps it would be better. Of course, I should be very glad to get it well done, if this lady would not be above letting me pay her,” he said. “But I won’t say anything about that if she looks like a person that would be offended by such a proposal. I’ll come in directly; and if I can arrange about it with her, I will show her how I want it done. But I wish,” he added to himself when his sister had left him, “I wish Bessie were less communicative to strangers.”
Five minutes later he followed her into the drawing-room. He came in, expecting to find Mrs. Crichton’s new acquaintance some insignificant-looking person of the poor lady order, for, notwithstanding Bessie’s assertion that thepasteur’sniece “did not look like that,” his mind was prepossessed by its own idea; nor did he attach sufficient importance to his sister’s judgment to think much of her description. The light in the room struck upon his eyes somewhat dazzlingly, for, out of deference to the stranger, he had taken off the shade he usually wore. The first object he noticed was Eudoxie seated on a low chair, consuming her cakes with great equanimity. For a moment he glanced at her in bewilderment. Could this be his would-be amanuensis? He looked on beyond her to his sister for explanation, when suddenly from another corner of the room a third person approached. Had the figure before him been that of one risen from the dead he could hardly have been more astonished. Instinctively he lifted his hand to his eyes, as if suspecting them of playing him false. Was not the light deceiving him, exaggerating some slight and superficial resemblance into the likeness of a face whose features he believed would never to him grow misty or confused—a face he had seen once, long, long ago it seemed to him now, pale and wistful, with sweet sad eyes, and lips parted to entreat his help,—the face of Cicely Methvyn as she stood in the doorway on the night that little Charlie died. He looked again—the illusion, if such it were, grew more perfect. He felt as if in a dream—he was turning to seek Mrs. Crichton’s assistance, when suddenly the spell was broken. The lady came forward quietly and held out her hand.
“Mr. Guildford,” she said gently, and the slight colour which rose to her cheeks helped him to realise the fact of her presence, “you did not expect to see me here, and certainly I did not expect to see you. How strange it is!”
But he made no movement towards her, he showed no readiness to take her offered hand.
“Mr. Guildford,” she repeated, in her turn bewildered by a momentary doubt as to the identity of the man before her with the owner of the name by which she addressed him, “don’t you know me?”
Then he started. “I could not believe it,” he exclaimed abruptly. “You must forgive me, Miss Meth—no, you are not Miss Methvyn now.”
Cicely’s colour deepened, but she smiled. A pleasant sincere smile it was, though not without a certain sadness about it too. “Yes,” she said, “I am. My name is the same any way, though it seems as if otherwise I must be very much changed.”
He had not yet shaken hands, and as she spoke, Cicely’s arm dropped quietly by her side. There was a slight inference of reproach in her tone, and Mr. Guildford was not slow to perceive it.
“I don’t think you are changed,” he said; “I knew you instantly. That was what startled me so, I was so utterly taken by surprise.”
“Not more than I,” she replied. “I thought you were in India.”
“And I thought you were—” He hesitated.
“Yes,” she said, “I know where you thought I was; but I am not, you see. That was all changed long ago. Have you heard nothing about us since you left Sothernshire?” she went on. “Do you not know that Greystone was sold—that we left it soon after my father’s death? Do you not know about,” she glanced at her deep mourning dress, “do you not know that I amquitean orphan now?”
“Yes,” he said in turn; “yes, I know that—I saw it in the ‘Times.’”
His tone was grave and sad. A feeling of self-reproach crept through him as he recalled the half-bitter sympathy with which he had seen the announcement of Mrs. Methvyn’s death.
“She has her husband to comfort her,” he had said to himself. For once, in some fashionable record of “arrivals in town” he had seen the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett from Barnstay Castle;” and till this moment when he met Cicely Methvyn again, a doubt of her marriage having taken place had never crossed his mind. There fell a slightly awkward pause. In the presence of a third person, and that person a stranger, Cicely could not speak to Mr. Guildford of her mother’s illness and death as she would have liked to do, nor could he say anything to lead her to do so. At last Bessie came to the rescue. Amazed by the unexpected discovery of her brother’s acquaintance with thepasteur’sniece, Mrs. Crichton had been startled into keeping silence for much longer than was usual with her. “It is just like a story,” she said to herself in an awe struck whisper. Suddenly glancing at Mr. Guildford, a new idea struck her, “Oh! Edmond,” she exclaimed, “you have taken off your shade. Oh! how very wrong of you, and the light in this room is so strong!”
She darted to the window and began drawing down the blinds.
Mr. Guildford looked annoyed. “It does not matter for a few minutes, Bessie,” he said.
Cicely glanced at him. There was nothing in the appearance of his eyes, dark and keen as ever, to suggest injured or enfeebled powers of sight.
“My eyes are much stronger now,” he said to Cicely. “I strained them when I was in India, but they are recovering now.”
“I heard that you were over-working yourself,” said Cicely.
“Yes, indeed,” exclaimed Mrs. Crichton. “It was not India, it was nothing but overwork, and it will be the same thing again if you don’t take care. He will never be able to use his eyes very much,” she added, turning to Cicely.
A look of pain crossed Mr. Guildford’s face.
Cicely began to think it true that Mrs. Crichton was “verystupid.”
“Not for a long time, I dare say,” she said quickly. “But I have always heard that rest does wonders in such cases. And that reminds me,” she went on, “will you show me exactly how you want these papers done?”
Mr. Guildford had forgotten all about the papers. Now he looked up with some embarrassment. “I could not,” he began, but Cicely interrupted him.
“You thought of letting a stranger do it,” she said. “Why then not me? I have very little occupation here; it would be a real pleasure to me.”
She spoke simply but earnestly, and Mr. Guildford made no further objection. He took up the papers and pointed out Bessie’s mistakes. Then came a moment in which Mrs. Crichton left the room in search of another manuscript. Cicely seized the opportunity.
“Mr. Guildford,” she said hastily, in a voice too low to catch the long ears of the little pitcher in the corner, “I think I had better tell you that my cousin Trevor Fawcett’s wife is Geneviève Casalis—Geneviève Fawcett now, of course. It is with her parents I am now staying here; they are very kind and good. Eudoxie,” with a glance towards the child, “is Geneviève’s sister. I thought it best you should know, as I dare say you will see Monsieur and Madame Casalis sometimes.”
Mr. Guildford did not speak. One rapid glance of inquiry he could not repress. Cicely stood it with perfect calmness.
“It happened a long time ago, very soon after my father’s death,” she said quietly. “I—I believed it was for the best then; since, I have come to feel sure of it.” Here her colour rose a very little. “It was a comfort to me to be able to devote myself entirely to my mother when her health failed,” she went on, as if in explanation of her words; “there was no other tie to interfere.”
Mr. Guildford bowed his head slightly, as if to signify that he understood. “Thank you for telling me,” he said, as Bessie came in again.
Cicely was very silent during the walk home, and answered at random to Eudoxie’s chatter, agreeing with the child’s announcement that she did not intend to call “himMonsieur Gentil.” “He is notgentilat all,” she decided, the truth being that Mr. Guildford had not taken any notice of her, for there was a spice of Geneviève in Eudoxie now and then after all.
“How strange to have met again here!” Cicely was thinking to herself. “It is as well, if it was to be, that it happened unexpectedly. It will prevent his feeling constrained and ill at ease with me on account of that fancy of his, if indeed he remembers it.”
“Listen how the linnets sing, Cicely dear;Watch you where the lilies spring, Cicely sweet.”* * * * * *“The lilies shall be for thy brow to wear,The linnets shall sing of the love I bear.”
Ballad.
NOsooner had the door closed on Cicely and her little cousin than Mrs. Crichton’s pent-up curiosity broke forth. She overwhelmed her brother with questions and cross-questions as to the how, where, and when of his former acquaintance with Miss Methvyn, till Mr. Guildford was fairly driven into a corner. He defended himself valiantly for some time; he tried short answers, but even monosyllables failed in their usually chilling effect on the irrepressible Bessie. She was not to be snubbed; she only grew increasingly pertinacious and finally cross.
“It is too bad of you to be so absurdly reserved with me, Edmond,” she said at last. “You are not a doctor now; I am not asking you to gossip about your patients. You will make me suspect something mysterious if you don’t take care.”
Then Edmond saw that his best policy would be to volunteer as much information as it suited him that his sister should be in possession of, knowing by experience that to baffle temporarily her curiosity was surely to increase it in the end. Hydra-like, it but sprouted afresh in a hundred new directions, if extinguished in one; and that she should even suspect the existence of anything he wished to conceal, with regard to Cicely, was disagreeable and undesirable in the extreme. So he smiled at her petulant speech, and answered good-humouredly. “I know what you always mean by something mysterious, Bessie. You are constantly fancying you have got on the scent of a love-story. I have no love-story to confide to you about Miss Methvyn—at least—” he stopped and hesitated.
“At least what?” exclaimed Mrs. Crichton.
“I was thinking,” he said, “of what you said about my not being a doctor any longer. That does not make me free to gossip about what I became acquainted with when I was one, does it?”
“No, I suppose not,” said Bessie. “But I shall never tell over anything about Miss Methvyn. I want to know about her, I have taken a fancy to her. Do go on after ‘at least.’ ”
“I was merely going to say that the only love-story I can tell you about her, is painful and must not be alluded to. But under the circumstances, perhaps, it is best you should know it. When I last saw Miss Methvyn, she was on the point of marriage with her cousin, a Mr. Fawcett—the marriage was broken off, and within a very short time he married another girl—hercousin, but not his, a French girl, the daughter of these people here, thepasteurand his wife.”
“What a shame!” ejaculated Bessie. “I thought they seemed such nice people.”
“So they are, I have no doubt. If not, she—Miss Methvyn—would not be staying with them.”
“But the girl—their daughter—must have been very designing.” Mr. Guildford did not answer. “Howdreadfulfor Miss Methvyn!” continued Bessie. “I wonder it did not break her heart.”
“How do you know it didn’t?” asked her brother quickly.
“She doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs. Crichton. “She looks grave and rather sad, but she smiles brightly; there is nothing bitter or sour about her.”
“She has had troubles enough of other kinds to make her grave and sad. Though, indeed, her face always had that look when in repose,” he said thoughtfully. “Bessie,” he went on, with a sudden impulse of communicativeness, born of a yearning for sympathy, “do you remember one night, nearly two years ago, when I had to go out into the country beyond Haverstock—a very cold night?”
“Yes,” said Bessie, “I remember it—a little child was very ill. It died, I think.”
“That night was the first time I saw Miss Methvyn.”—“Standing with that crimson dress on,” he murmured to himself softly. “Yes,” he went on aloud, “the child died. He was her nephew. And since then she has lost father and mother and her home too.”
“Poor girl!” said Mrs. Crichton, with the ready tears in her eyes. “By the bye,” she added in a brisker tone, “was she Miss Methvyn of Something Abbey? I nevercanremember names.”
“Greystone?” suggested her brother.
“Yes, to be sure. I knew it was a colour, black or white or something. Oh! then, I know about them a little. Some friends of the Lubecks bought Blackstone, and are living there now. It was sold because when the father died, they found he had lost a lot of money—in horse-racing, wasn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” said Mr. Guildford, smiling. “The poor man had been paralysed for some years. But he did lose money by speculation—that was true enough. What else did you hear?”
Bessie’s brain was not the best arranged repository of facts in the world, but by dint of diving into odd corners, and bringing to light a vast mass of totally irrelevant matter, she managed to give her brother a pretty clear idea of what she had learnt about the Methvyns’ affairs. And joining this to what he already knew, Mr. Guildford arrived at a fair enough understanding of the actual state of the case. “I don’t believe it was her loss of fortune that separated them,” he said to himself; “sheis not the sort of girl to have allowed that to influence her. And he—if it had been that—would not have married a completely penniless girl immediately after. No, it could not have been that. He must have deceived her—how she must have suffered! Yet, as Bessie says, I don’t think shedoeslook broken-hearted.”
He fell to thinking of how she did look. He was silent and abstracted, but Bessie asked no more questions. Her curiosity was so far set at rest, but it is to be doubted if her brother’s carefully considered communicativeness had satisfied her of the non existence of her “something mysterious.” But she was loyal and womanly, despite her inquisitiveness; her brother’s secret, if he had one, was safe.
During the rest of the day, Mr. Guildford was restless and ill at ease. . He was constantly acting over again the morning’s interview with Cicely, and wishing that he had said or done differently. Sometimes it seemed to him that his manner must have appeared almost rudely repellent and ungracious; at others, he reproached himself with having behaved with unwarrantable freedom.
“I did not even shake hands with her,” he remembered. “Rude boor that I am. As if I had any business to annoy her by my absurd self-consciousness, when she was so sweet and gracious and unaffected—so evidently anxious to be just as friendly to me as if I had never made a fool of myself. Of course, it is easy for her to be unconstrained and at ease with me—there is no reason why she should not be so—the question is whether I shall ever attain to it with her.”
Then he grew hot at the thought of having allowed her to copy his papers—actually to work for him—and ended by saying to himself that he devoutly wished he had not come into the room, or that, better still, Bessie had held her silly little tongue about his occupation. Yet all the time he was looking forward with unacknowledged eagerness to the next day, cherishing a foolish hope that Cicely might herself bring back her completed work, or that possibly she might find it necessary to apply to him for information or instruction upon some difficult part of the manuscript. And when the next day came, and the papers, beautifully written, and perfectly correct, were brought to the Rue St. Louis by old Mathurine, with a little note from Cicely, hoping that Mr. Guildford would not hesitate to return them if in any way faulty, he felt a pang of disappointment which startled him into acute realisation of the fact that he was as ready as ever, nay, ten times more so, to “make a fool of himself” for this woman, whom he thought he had grown indifferent to. “It is as if some one that one had thought dead had come to life again. It is very hard upon me. For more than a year I have thought of her as Fawcett’s wife, as more than dead to me, and now the old struggle must begin again.”
But after a time he grew calmer. The events of the last two years had altered—some superficial observers might have said, weakened—this man, once so strong a believer in his own opinion, so confident in his own power of acting up to it. But if he were weakened, the weakness was that arising from a greater knowledge of himself, a juster estimate of human nature, a nobler, because truer ideal—it was a weakness promising strength. He was less given to make theories, less loftily determined to live the life he sketched out for himself. “I am well punished for my presumption in thinking I was stronger than other men, or that in such strength there was nobility. Here am I at thirty with powers already curtailed, thankful now not to be threatened with a future of utter dependence. Here am I who despised and depreciated woman’s influence—feeling that without the love of a woman who will never love me, life, in no one direction, can be other than stunted and imperfect. Yes, I am well punished!”
And it was through this last reflection that he attained to a more philosophic state of mind. If the disappointment which this love of his had brought upon him, were a recompense merited by his self-confidence and self-deception, what could he do but accept it? what more futile than to waste his strength of mind in going back upon a past of mistakes and might-have-beens? Why not exert the self-control he possessed in making the best of what remained, in enjoying the friendship which Cicely was evidently ready to bestow upon him, with which, in her altered circumstances, there was little prospect of any closer tie coming into collision?
“I dare say she will never marry,” he said to himself with unconsciously selfish satisfaction. “She is not the sort of woman to ‘get over’ such an experience as she has had, in a hurry. I doubt if she will ever do so. Her very serenity looks as if she had gauged her own powers of suffering pretty thoroughly, and had now reached a tableland of calm—I feel sure she will never marry. I should like to show her that I am able to value her friendship, and that she need have no fear of my ever dreaming of anything more. I should like her to respect me.”
So, considerably to Bessie’s surprise, a day or two after the papers had been despatched, her brother proposed that they should return Monsieur and Madame Casalis’s call.
“I should like to thank Miss Methryn personally,” he said calmly. “And I am sure her relations are kind, good sort of people from what you tell me. It was very civil of them to call. I should not like them to think me a surly hypochondriac.”
“But are you fit for it?” said Mrs. Crichton, hardly able to believe her ears.
“Fit to make a call?” he exclaimed, laughing. “Of course I am; there’s nothing wrong with me now except my eyes, and they are much better. They never pain me now unless I read or write. I don’t want to drive there, Bessie,” he went on, “we can walk. It is only two or three streets off.”
“Very well,” said Bessie, in her heart nothing loth to see something more of their only acquaintances at Hivèritz. She looked up at her brother curiously. “I wonder if Edmond has anything in his head that he hasn’t told me,” she thought. But Edmond met her glance with perfect self-possession. He felt that he had no motive of the kind that she evidently suspected; he only wished to return to his old friendly relations with Cicely Methvyn; there was no fear of further self-deception. He was satisfied that, having now recovered from the first surprise of meeting her again, he was in a fair way of attaining to a composed and comfortable state of mind with regard to this girl, whose path and his had once more so unexpectedly crossed each other.
So Bessie was fain to suppose that her discrimination had actually been at fault, and that her brother was uninfluenced by any other motives than those he averred. And for some time to come, there was nothing to disturb her in this opinion. They called on Madame Casalis, and found both her and Miss Methvyn at home, and the half-hour spent in the modest little drawing-room in the Rue de la Croix blanche, was a very pleasant one, and Mr. Guildford returned home well contented with himself, and satisfied that Cicely tacitly appreciated his resolution.
“She has great tact,” he thought; “her manner is so simple and unconstrained that it makes it infinitely easier for me.”
And for her part, Cicely was saying to herself that things were turning out just as she had hoped—Mr. Guildford had evidently quite forgotten all about that passing fancy of his; he wished—by his manner she could see that he wished—to be thoroughly friendly and kind; he was a man whose friendship any woman might be proud of possessing. And as she thought thus, there flitted across her mind a vague recollection of something she had once said to him on this subject of friendship—it was one summer’s day in the garden at Greystone—and Mr. Guildford had been expounding for her benefit some of the wonderful theories which he then believed in so firmly. She remembered all he had said quite well (how little she suspected what bombastic nonsense it now appeared to him!), and she remembered, too, that what she had replied had made him declare he had converted her. It was something about feeling more honoured by the friendship than by the love of a man capable of friendship of the highest kind.
“I did not say it so plainly,” thought Cicely, “but that was the sense of it. I know I was rather proud of the sentiment. I wonder if Mr. Guildford remembers it. Idothink him a man whose friendship is an honour; and it is much better that I should henceforth keep clear of anything else. I have had storms and troubles enough. Only—only—sometimes life looks very lonely now.”
But during the remainder of this so-called winter, life passed on the whole pleasantly enough. The acquaintance between the two families progressed to friendliness; then to intimacy, till there were few days when some of their members did not meet. Cicely owned to herself that the society of the brother and sister added much to the interest of her otherwise somewhat monotonous life; and Mr. Guildford, having thoroughly shaken himself free from any possibility of further self-deception, allowed himself to enjoy Miss Methvyn’s friendship without misgiving, and day by day congratulated himself more heartily on the strength of mind with which he had recognised his position and bravely made the best of it. Only Bessie, commonplace, womanly, silly little Bessie,sometimeslooked on with vague uneasiness, now and then trembled a little at the thought that perchance this pleasant present might contain the elements of future suffering.
“Edmond doesn’tthinkhe is in love with her,” she said to herself, “and he certainly gives her no reason to think he is. But he has it all his own way just now; how would it be if some rival turned up all of a sudden, would not that open his eyes? And though she has been unlucky once, it is unlikely she will never marry. I could notbearEdmond to be made miserable. If she were less high-principled and thought more of herself, I would fear less for him.”
Once or twice there occurred little incidents which increased the sister’s anxiety, and of one of these she was herself in part the cause. Little Mrs. Crichton, “stupid” as she called herself, had one gift. She possessed an unusually beautiful voice. It was powerful and of wide compass, but above all clear and sweet and true, and with a ring of youth about it which little suggested her eight-and-thirty years. She sang as if she liked to hear herself; there was no shadow of effort or study of effect discernible in the bright, blithe notes, which yet at times could be as exquisitely plaintive. Cicely, who loved music more, probably, than she understood it, soon discovered this gift of her new friend’s, and profited thereby, thanks to Bessie’s unfailing good-nature, greatly. She was never tired of Mrs. Crichton’s singing.
“I am glad you like my sister’s voice,” said Mr. Guildford one day, when Bessie had been singing away for a long time. “I like it better than any I ever heard, but then I am no judge of music.”
“Nor am I. But in singing one knows quickly what one likes,” said Cicely. “I have heard a great many voices—some wonderfully beautiful no doubt, but I never heard one I liked quite as much, or in the same way, as Mrs. Crichton’s.”
Mr. Guildford looked pleased. “Don’t leave off, Bessie,” he said, “not, at least, unless you are tired.”
“What shall I sing?” said Bessie, turning over the loose music lying before her. “Ah! here is one of your favourites, Edmond, though I don’t think it very pretty. You must judge of it, Miss Methvyn. I have not sung it lately. Edmond has got tired of it, I suppose. At one time he was so fond of it, he used to make me sing it half-a-dozen times a day.”
She placed the song on the desk, and began to sing it before her brother noticed what she was doing. When he heard the first few bars, he got up from his seat and strolled to the window, where he stood impatiently waiting for a pause. Bessie had hardly reached the end of the first verse before he interrupted her. “I am sure Miss Methvyn will not care for that song, Bessie,” he exclaimed. “Do sing something else.”
He crossed the room to the piano, beside which Cicely was standing, and opened a book of songs which lay on the top. Mrs. Crichton left off singing, but turned towards her brother with some impatience. “You are very rude, Edmond,” she exclaimed with half playful petulance. “You should not interrupt me in the middle of a song. And you are very changeable—a very few months ago you thought this song perfectly lovely. Do you like it, Miss Methvyn?” she inquired, turning to Cicely. “The words are pretty.”
“Are they?” said Cicely, “I don’t think I caught them all. Yes, I think the song is rather pretty—not exceedingly so.”
“The other verses all end in the same way,” said Bessie, humming a note or two of the air; “that is the prettiest part, ‘Cicely, Cicely sweet.’”
Cicely gave an involuntary little start, but she did not speak. Mr. Guildford turned over the leaves of the book with increasing energy. “Here, Bessie, do sing this,” he exclaimed, placing another song in front of the tabooed one on the desk.
“No, I won’t,” said Bessie obstinately, “not till I have finished Cicely. I can’t understand your being so changeable—it wassucha favourite of yours.”
“One outgrows fancies of the kind,” observed Cicely quietly. “Our tastes change. I dare say it is a good thing they do.”
“Do you think so?” said Mr. Guildford quickly. “I don’t quite agree with you. My tastes do not change, and I do not wish them to do so.”
He looked at her as he spoke. Cicely felt her cheeks flush, and she turned away. Bessie went on singing. By the time the song was over, Cicely, glancing up again, saw that Mr. Guildford had quietly left the room.
“How cross Edmond is!” said Bessie, getting up from the piano pettishly. Suddenly a thought struck her. “Miss Methvyn,” she exclaimed abruptly, “your name isn’t ‘Cicely,’ is it?”
“Cicely did not immediately answer. “I never thought of it before,” Mrs. Crichton continued; “it just struck me all at once that I had heard Madame Casalis call you by some name like it, but she pronounced it funnily.”
“She very often calls me Cécile,” replied Miss Methvyn quietly. “But my name is Cicely.”
Bessie was silent. Then suddenly she turned to Cicely and laid both hands on her arm entreatingly. “Miss Methvyn,” she said, “Edmond is like a son to me. I could notbearhim to be miserable. He is not a man to go through anything of that kind lightly. Forgive me for saying this.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” replied Cicely. “But I think you are mistaken. Mr. Guildford is not a boy, he is wiser than either you or I.”
Bessie hardly understood these rather enigmatical words, but she dared say no more. After that day, however, she could never find her brother’s favourite ballad again; it disappeared mysteriously.
And things went on as quietly as before. Mr. Guildford’s health seemed perfectly reestablished, and even his eyesight failed to trouble him. He gave himself a holiday for the remainder of his stay at Hivèritz, and the days passed only too pleasantly. There were all manner of simple festivities arranged to amuse their visitor, by the Casalis family in those days, and in these, Madame Gentille and her brother were invariably invited to join. There were gipsy parties to the woods, drives or rides to some of the queer picturesque out-of the-world villages, which few of the ordinary visitors to Hivèritz cared to explore; one delightful day spent up in the mountains at Monsieur Casalis’s little farm. And despite the sorrows, whose traces could never be effaced, Cicely found life a happy thing at these times and felt glad that youth had not yet deserted her. She spoke often of her mother to Mr. Guildford, and in so doing lost gradually the sense of loneliness which had so sadly preyed upon her. And she listened with all her old interest to his account of his own hopes and ambitions, of the studies and research in which he had been engaged. But whenever he was speaking of himself or his own work, a slight hesitation, a somewhat doubtful tone struck her which she could not explain. One day she learnt the reason of it.
They had gone for a long ramble in the woods—Cicely, Eudoxie, and two of the Casalis boys, and on their way through the town they fell in with Mrs. Crichton and her brother, who forthwith volunteered to accompany them. It was March by now, and quite as hot as was pleasant for walking.
“It is like English midsummer,” said Cicely, looking up half longingly into the depth of brilliant blue sky overhead, “only I don’t think the skies at home are everquiteso blue or the trees and grassquiteso green. The most beautiful English summer day is like to-day with a veil over it. But I like home best.”