Left alone with Mrs. Blunt, Agatha sank into the nearest chair.
“A very handsome young man, isn’t he?” asked the good lady, pushing a chair back into its place. “He’ll be an acquisition, I think.”
Agatha made no answer, and Mrs. Blunt, glancing at her, found her devouring the carpet with a stony stare.
“What on earth’s the matter, child?”
“I’m the wretchedest wickedest girl alive,” declared Agatha.
“Good gracious!”
“Mrs. Blunt, who do you think was in the summer-house when Mr. Merceron went there?”
“My dear, are you ill? You jump about so from subject to subject.”
“It’s all one subject, Mrs. Blunt. There was a girl there.”
“Well, my dear, and if there was? Boys will be boys; and I’m sure there was no harm.”
“No harm! Oh!”
“Agatha, are you crazy?” demanded Mrs. Blunt, with an access of sternness.
“Could I fancy,” pursued Agatha, in despairing playfulness mimicking Uncle Van’s manner, “how Miss Bushell looked, and how Victor looked, and how everybody looked? Could I fancy it? Why, I was there!”
“There! Where?”
“Why, in that wretched little temple. I was the girl, Mrs. Blunt. I—I—I was the milkmaid, as Mr. Sutton says. I was the country wench! Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!”
Mrs. Blunt, knowing her sex, held out a bottle of salts.
“I’m not mad,” said Agatha.
“You’re nearly hysterical.”
Agatha took a long sniff.
“I think I can tell you now,” she said more calmly. “But was ever a girl in such an awful position before?”
It is needless to repeat what Mrs. Blunt said. Her censures will have been long ago anticipated by every right-thinking person, and if she softened them down a little more than strict justice allowed, it must have been because Agatha was an old favorite of hers, and Lord Thrapston an old antipathy. Upon her word, she always wondered that the poor child, brought up by that horrid old man, was not twice as bad as she was.
“But what am I to do about them?” cried Agatha.
Them’ evidently meant Calder and Charlie.
“Do! Why, there’s nothing to do. You must just apologize to Mr. Merceron, and tell him that an end had better be put—”
“Oh, I know—Mr. Taylor said that; but, Mrs. Blunt, I don’t want an end to be put to our acquaintance. I like him very very much. Oh, and he thinks me horrid! Oh!”
“Take another sniff,” advised Mrs. Blunt, “Of course, if Mr. Merceron is willing to let bygones be bygones, and just be an acquaintance——”
“Oh, but I know he won’t. If you knew Charlie
“Knew who, Agatha?”
“Mr. Merceron,” said Agatha, in a very humble voice. “If you knew him at all, you’d know he wouldn’t do that.”
“Then you must send him about his business. Oh, yes, I know. You’ve treated him atrociously, but Calder Wentworth must be considered first; that is, if you care two straws for the poor fellow, which I begin to doubt.”
“Oh, I do, Mrs. Blunt!”
“Agatha, you shameless girl, which of these men—-?”
“Don’t talk as if there were a dozen of them, dear Mrs. Blunt. There are only two.”
“One too many.”
“Yes, I know. You—you see I’m—I’m accustomed to Calder.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Yes. Don’t be unkind, Mrs. Blunt. And then Charlie was something so new—such a charming change—that——”
“Upon my word, you might be your grandfather. Talk about heredity, and Ibsen, and all that!”
“Can’t you help me, dear Mrs. Blunt?”
“I can’t give you two husbands, if that’s what you want. There, child, don’t cry. Never mind me. Have another sniff.”
“I shall go home,” said Agatha. “Perhaps grandpapa may be able to advise me.”
“Your grandfather! Gracious goodness, girl, you’re never going to tell him?”
“Yes, I shall. Grandpapa’s had a lot of experience: he says so.”
“I should think he had!” whispered Mrs. Blunt with uplifted hands.
“Good-by, Mrs. Blunt. You don’t know how unhappy I am. Thanks, yes, a hansom, please. Mrs. Blunt, are you going to ask Mr. Merceron here again?”
Mrs. Blunt’s toleration was exhausted.
“Be off with you!” she said sternly, pointing a forefinger at the door.
By great good fortune Agatha found Lord Thrapston at home. Drawing a footstool beside his chair, she sat down. Her agitation was past, and she wore a gravely business like air.
“Grandpapa,” she began, “I have got something to tell you.”
“Go ahead, my dear,” said the old gentleman, stroking her golden hair. Her father had curls like that when he was a boy.
“Something dreadful I’ve done, you know. But you won’t be very angry, will you?”
“We’ll see.”
“You oughtn’t to be, because you’re not very good yourself, are you?” and she first glanced up into his burnt-out old eyes and then pressed her lips on his knotted lean old hand.
“Aggy,” said he, “I expect you play the deuce with the young fellows, don’t you?”
Agatha laughed softly, but a frown succeeded.
“That’s just it,” she said. “Now, you’re to listen and not interrupt, or I shall never be able to manage it. And you’re not to look at me, grandpapa.”
The narrative—that thrice-told tale—began. As the comments of Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Blunt were omitted, those of Lord Thrapston may well receive like treatment, more especially as they tended not to edification; but before his granddaughter had finished her story the old man had sworn softly four times and chuckled audibly twice.
“I knew there was a girl in that temple, soon as Calder told me,” said he.
“But you didn’t know who it was. Oh, and Calder doesn’t?”
“Not he. Well, you’ve made a pretty little fool of yourself, missie. What are you going to do now?”
“That’s what you’ve got to tell me.”
“I? Oh, I dare say. No, no; you got into the scrape and you can get out of it. And—-” He suddenly recollected his duties. “Look here, Agatha, I must—hang it, Agatha, I shouldn’t be doing my duty as—as a grandfather if I didn’t say that it’s a monstrous disgraceful thing of you to have done. Yes, d——d disgraceful;” and he took a pinch of snuff with an air of severe virtue.
“Yes, dear; but you shouldn’t swear, should you?”
Lord Thrapston felt that he had spoilt the moral effect of his reproof, and, without dwelling further on that aspect of the subject, he addressed his mind to the more practical question. The outcome, different as the source was, was the same old verdict.
“We must tell Calder, my dear. It isn’t right to keep him in the dark.”
“I can’t tell him. Why must he be told?”
“Well,” said Lord Thrapston, “it’s just possible, Aggy, that he may have something to say to it, isn’t it?”
“I don’t mind what he says,” declared Agatha.
“Eh? Why, I thought you were so fond of him.”
“So I am.”
“And as you’re going to marry him
“I never said I was going to marry him. I only said he might be engaged to me, if he liked.”
“Oho! So this young Merceron——”
“Not at all, grandpapa. Oh, I do wish somebody would help me!”
Lord Thrapston rose from his seat.
“You must do what you like,” he said. “I’m going to tell Calder.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because,” he answered, “I’m a man of honor.”
Before the impressive invocation of her grandfather’s one religion, Agatha’s opposition collapsed.
“I suppose he must be told,” she admitted mournfully. “I expect he’ll never speak to me again, and I’m sure Mr. Merceron won’t;” and she sat on the footstool, the picture of dejection.
Lord Thrapston was moved to enunciate a solemn truth.
“Aggy,” said he, shaking his finger at her, “in this world you can’t have your fun for nothing.” But then he spoilt it by adding regretfully, “More’s the pity!” and off he hobbled to the club, intent on finding Calder Wentworth.
For some time after he went, Agatha sat on her stool in deep thought. Then she rose, sat down at the writing-table, took a pen, and began to bite the end of it. At last she started to write:
“I don’t know whether I ought to write or not, but I must tell you how it happened. Oh, don’t think too badly of me! I came down just because I had heard so much about the Court and I wanted to see it, and I came as I did with Nettie Wallace just for fun. I never meant to say I was a dress-maker, you know; but people would ask questions and I had to say something. I never, never thought of you. I thought you were about fifteen. And you know—oh, you must know—that I met you quite by accident, and was just as surprised as you were. And the rest was all your fault. I didn’t want to come again; you know I refused ever so many times; and you promised you wouldn’t come if I came, and then you did come. It was really all your fault. And I’m very, very sorry, and you must please try to forgive me, dear Mr. Merceron, and not think me a very wicked girl. I had no idea of coming every evening, but you persuaded me. You know you persuaded me. And how could I tell you I was engaged? You know you never asked me. I would have told you if you had. I am telling Mr. Wentworth all about it, and I don’t think you ought to have persuaded me to meet you as you did. It wasn’t really kind or nice of you, was it? Because, of course, I’m not very old, and I don’t know much about the world, and I never thought of all the horrid things people would say. Do, please, keep this quite a secret. I felt I must write you just a line. I wonder what you’re thinking about me, or whether you’re thinking about me at all. You must never think of me again. I am very, very unhappy, and I do most earnestly hope, dear Mr. Merceron, that I have not made you unhappy. We were both very much to blame, weren’t we? But we slipped into it without knowing. Good-by. I don’t think I shall ever forget the dear old Pool, and the temple, and—the rest. But you must please forget me and forgive me. I am very miserable about it and about everything. I think we had better not know each other any more, so please don’t answer this. Just put it in the fire and think no more about it or me. I wanted to tell you all this when I saw you to-day, but I couldn’t. Good-by. Why did we ever meet?”
“Agatha Glyn.”
She read this rather confused composition over twice, growing more sorry for herself each time. Then she put it in an envelope, addressed it to Charlie, looked out Uncle Van in the Directory, and sent it under cover to his residence. Then she went and lay down on the hearth-rug, and began to cry, and through her tears she said aloud to herself,
“I wonder whether he’ll write or come.”
Because it seemed to her entirely impossible that, in spite of her prayer, he should put the letter in the fire and let her go. Surely he too remembered the dear old Pool, and the temple, and—the rest!
“The fact is,” observed Lord Thrapston complacently, “the girl very much resembles me in disposition.”
Calder’s eyes grew larger and rounder.
“Do you really think so?” he asked anxiously.
“Well, this little lark of hers—hang me, it’s just what I should have enjoyed doing fifty years ago.”
“Ah—er—Lord—Thrapston, have you noticed the resemblance you speak of in any other way?”
“That girl, except that she is a girl, is myself over again—myself over again.”
“The deuce!”
“I beg your pardon, Calder; I grow hard of hearing.”
“Nothing. Lord Thrapston. Look here, Lord Thrapston——”
“Well, well, my dear boy?”
“Oh, nothing; that is—”
“But she’ll be all right in your hands, my boy. You must keep an eye; on her, don’t you know: she’ll need a bit o’ driving; but I really don’t see why you should come to grief. I don’t, ‘pon my soul. No. With tact on your part, you might very well pull through.”
“How d’ye mean tact, Lord Thrapston?”
“Oh, amuse her. Let her travel; give her lots of society; don’t bother her with domestic affairs. Don’t let her feel she’s under any obligation. That’s what she kicks against. So do I; always did.”
Calder pulled his mustache. Lord Thrapston had briefly sketched the exact opposite of his ideal of married life.
“The fact is,” continued the old man, “the boy’s an uncommon handsome boy. She can’t resist that. No more can I; never could.”
There chanced to be a mirror opposite Calder, and he impartially considered himself. There was, he concluded, every prospect of Miss Glyn resisting any engrossing passion for him.
“It’s very good of you to have told, me all about it,” he remarked, rising. “I’ll think it over.”
“Yes, do. Of course, I admit she’s given you a perfectly good reason for breaking off your engagement if you like. Mind that. We don’t feel aggrieved, Calder. Act as you think best. We admit we’re in the wrong, but we must stand by what we’ve done.”
“I shouldn’t like to give her any pain—”
“Pain! Oh, dear me, no, my dear boy. She won’t fret. Make your mind easy about that.”
Calder felt a sudden impulse to disclose to Lord Thrapston his secret opinion of him, and he recollected, with a pang, that in the course of so doing he would have to touch on more than one characteristic shared by the old man and Agatha. Where were his visions of a quiet home in the country, of freedom from the irksome duties of society, of an obedient and devoted wife, surrounded by children and flanked by jampots? He had once painted this picture for Agatha, shortly after she had agreed to that arrangement which she declined to call a promise of marriage; and it occurred to him now that she had allowed the subject to drop without any expression of concurrence. He took leave of Lord Thrapston and went for a solitary walk. He wanted to think. But the position of affairs was such that other persons also felt the need of reflection, and Calder had not been walking by the Row very long before, lifting his eyes, he saw a young man approaching. The young man was not attired as he ought to have been: he wore a light suit, a dissolute necktie, and a soft wideawake crammed down low on his head. He had obviously forsworn the vanities of the world and was wearing the willow. He came up to Calder and held out his hand.
“Wentworth,” he said, “I left you rudely the other day. I was doing you an injustice. I have heard the truth from Mrs. Blunt. You are free from all blame. We—we are fellow-sufferers.”
His tones were so mournful that Calder shook his hand with warm sympathy, and remarked, “Pretty rough, on us both, ain’t it?”
“For me,” declared Charlie, “everything is over. My trust in woman is destroyed; my pleasure in life is—”
“Well, I don’t feel A1 myself, old chap,” said Calder.
“I have written to—to her, to say good-by.”
“No, have yon, though?”
“What else could I do? Wentworth, do you suppose that, even if she was free, I would think of her for another moment? Can there be love where there is no esteem, no trust, no confidence?”
“I was just thinking that when you came up,” said Calder.
“No, at whatever cost, I—every self-respecting man—must consider first of all what he owes to his name, to his family, to his—Wentworth, to his unborn children.”
Calder nodded.
“You, of course,” pursued Charlie, “will be guided by your own judgment. As to that, the circumstances seal my lips.”
“I don’t like it, you know,” said Calder.
“As regards you, she may or may not have excuses. I don’t know; but she wilfully and grossly deceived me. I have done with her.”
“Gad, I believe you’re right, Merceron, old chap! A chap ought to stand up for himself, by Jove! You’d never feel safe with her, would you, by Jove?”
“Good-by,” said Charlie suddenly. “I leave Paddington by the 4.15.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Hell—I mean home,” answered Charlie.
Calder beat his stick against his leg.
“I can’t stay here either,” he said moodily.
Charlie stretched out his hand again.
“Come with me,” said he.
“Eh? what?”
“Come with me; we’ll forget her together.”
Calder looked at him.
“Well, you are a good chap. Dashed if I don’t. Yes, I will. We’ll enjoy ourselves like thunder. But I say, Merceron, I—I ought to write to her, oughtn’t I?”
“I am just going to write myself.”
“To—to say good-by, eh?”
“Yes.”
“I shall write and break it off.”
“Come along. We’ll go to your rooms and got the thing done, and then catch the train. My luggage is at the station now.”
“It won’t take me a minute to get mine.”
“Wentworth, I’m glad to be rid of her.”
“All—oh, well—so am I,” said Calder.
Late that evening the butler presented Miss Agatha Glyn with two letters on a salver. As her eye fell on the addresses, she started. Her heart began to beat. She sat and looked at the two momentous missives.
“Now which,” she thought, “shall I read first? And what shall I do, if they are both obstinate?”
There was another contingency which Miss Glyn did not contemplate.
After a long hesitation, she took up Charlie’s letter, and opened it. It was very short, and began abruptly without any words of address:
“I have received your letter. Your excuses make it worse. I could forgive everything except deceit. I leave London to-day. Good-by.—C. M.”
“Deceit!” cried Agatha. “How dare he? What a horrid boy!”
She was walking up and down the room in a state of great indignation. She had never been talked to like that in her life before. It was ungentlemanly, cruel, brutal. She flung Charlie’s letter angrily down on the table.
“I am sure poor dear old Calder won’t treat me like that!” she exclaimed, taking up his letter.
It ran thus: “My dear Agatha:—I hope you will believe that I write this without any feeling of anger towards you. My regard for you remains very great, and I hope we shall always be very good friends; but, after long and careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the story Lord Thrapston told, me shows conclusively what I have been fearing for some time past—namely, that I have not been so lucky as to win a real affection from you, and that we are not likely to make one another happy. Therefore, thanking you very much for your kindness in the past, I think I had better restore your liberty to you. I shall hear with, very great pleasure of your happiness. I leave town to day for a little while, in order that you may not be exposed to the awkwardness of meeting me.
“Always your most sincerely,
“Calder Wentworth.”
Agatha passed her hand across her brow; then she reread Calder’s letter, and then Charlie’s. Yes, there, was not the least doubt about it! Both of the gentlemen had well, what they had done did not admit of being put into tolerable words. With a little shriek, Agatha flung herself on the sofa.
The door opened and Lord Thrapston entered.
“Well, Aggy, what’s the news? Still bothered by your two young men? Hullo! what’s wrong?”
“Read them!” cried Agatha, with a gesture towards the table.
“Eh? Head what? Oh, I see.”
He sat down at the table and put on his glasses. Agatha turned her face towards the wall; for her also everything was over. For a time no sound was audible save an occasional crackle of the note-paper in Lord Thrapston’s shaking fingers. Then, to Agatha’s indescribable indignation, there came another sort of crackle—a dry, grating, derisive chuckle—from that flinty-hearted old man, her grandfather.
“Good, monstrous good, ‘pon my life!” said he.
“You’re laughing at me!” she cried, leaping up.
“Well, my dear, I’m afraid I am.”
“Oh, how cruel men are!”
“H’m! They’re both men of spirit evidently.”
“Calder I can just understand. I—perhaps I did treat Calder rather badly—-”
“Oh, you go so far as to admit that, do you, Aggy?”
“But Charlie! Oh, to think that Charlie should treat me like that!” and she threw herself on the sofa again.
Lord Thrapston sat quite still. Presently Agatha rose, came to the table, and took up her two letters. She looked at them both; and the old man, seeming to notice nothing, yet kept his eye on her.
“I shall destroy these things,” said she; and she tore Calder’s letter into tiny fragments, and flung them on the fire. Charlie’s she crumpled up and held in her hand.
“Good-night, grandpapa,” she said wearily, and kissed him.
“Good-night, my dear,” he answered.
And, whatever she did when she went upstairs, Lord Thrapston was in a position to swear that Charlie’s letter was not destroyed in the drawing-room.
“She’s such a dear good girl, Mr. Wentworth,” said Lady Merceron. “She’s the greatest comfort I have.”
It was after luncheon at Langbury Court. Lady Merceron and Calder sat on the lawn: Mrs. Marland and Millie Bushell were walking up and down; Charlie was lying in a hammock. A week had passed since the two young men had startled Lady Merceron by their unexpected arrival, and since then the good lady had been doing her best to entertain them; for, as she could not help noticing-, they seemed a little dull. It was a great change from the whirl of London to the deep placidity of the Court, and Lady Merceron could not quite understand why Charlie had tired so soon of his excursion, or why his friend persisted with so much fervor that anything was better than London, and the Court was the most charming place he had ever seen. Of the two Charlie seemed to feel the ennui much the more severely. Yet, while Mr. Wentworth spoke of returning to town in a few weeks, Charlie asseverated that he had paid his last visit to that revolting and disappointing place. Lady Merceron wished she had Uncle Van by her side to explain these puzzling inconsistencies. However, there was a bright side to the affair: the presence of the young men was a godsend to poor Millie, who, by reason of the depressed state of agriculture, had been obliged this year to go without her usual six weeks of London in the season.
“And she never grumbles about it,” said Lady Merceron admiringly. “She looks after her district, and takes a ride, and plays tennis, when she can get a game, poor girl, and is always cheerful and happy. She’d be a treasure of a wife to any man.”
“You’d better persuade Charlie of that, Lady Merceron.”
“Oh, Charlie never thinks of such a thing as marrying. He thinks of nothing but his antiquities.”
“Doesn’t he?” asked Calder, with apparent sympathy and a covert sad amusement.
“Mr. Wentworth,” said Mrs. Marland, approaching, “I believe it’s actually a fact that you’ve been here a week and have never yet been to the Pool.”
At this fateful word, Calder looked embarrassed, Charlie raised his head from the hammock, and Millie glanced involuntarily towards him.
“We must take you,” pursued Mrs. Marland, “this very evening. You’ll come, Miss Bushell?”
“I don’t think I care very much about the Pool,” said Millie.
“We won’t let Mr. Merceron take you in his canoe this time.”
Charlie rolled out of the hammock and came up to them.
“You must take us to the Pool. I don’t believe you’ve been there since you came back. Poor Agatha will quite—-”
“Agatha?” exclaimed Calder.
“Agatha Merceron, you know. Why, haven’t you heard—-?”
“Oh, ah! Yes, of course. I beg your pardon.”
“I hate that beastly Pool,” said Charlie.
“How can you?” smiled Mrs. Marland. “You used to spend hours there every evening.”
Charlie glanced uneasily at Calder, who turned very red.
“Times have changed, have they?” Mrs. Marland asked archly. “You’ve got tired of looking in vain for Agatha?”
“Oh, all right,” said Charlie crossly, “we’ll go after tea.”
Anything seemed better than this rallying mood of Mrs. Marland’s.
Presently the two young men went off together to play a game at billiards; but after half a dozen strokes Charlie plumped down in a chair.
“I say, Calder, old chap, how do you feel?” he asked.
Calder licked his cigar meditatively.
“Better,” said he at last.
“Oh!”
“And you?”
“Worse—worse every day. I can’t stand it, old chap. I shall go back.”
“What, to her?”
“Yes.”
“That’s hardly sticking to our bargain, you know.”
“But, hang it, what’s the good of our both cutting her?”
“Oh, I thought you did it because you were disgusted with her. That was my reason.”
“So it was mine, but—-”
“Probably she’s got some other fellow by now,” observed Calder calmly.
“The devil!” cried Charlie. “What makes you think so?”
“Oh, nothing. I know her way, you see.”
“You think she’s that sort of girl? Good heavens!”
“Well, if she wasn’t, I’d like to know where you’d be, my friend. I shouldn’t have the honor of your acquaintance.”
Charlie ignored this point.
“And yet you wanted, to marry her?”
“I dare say I was an ass—like better men before me and—er—since me.”
“Hang it!” cried Charlie. “I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m sick of life. I’m sick of all the nonsense of it. For two straws I’d have done with it, and marry Millie Bushell.”
“What! Look here, Charlie—”
Calder left his sentence unfinished.
“Well?” said Charlie.
“If,” said Calder slowly, “there are any girls, either down here or in London, whom you’re quite sure you’ll never want to marry, I should like to be introduced to one of ‘em, Charlie, if you’ve no objections.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, in fact, during this last week, Charlie, I have come to have a great esteem for Miss Bushell. There’s about her a something—a solidity—-”
“She can’t help that, poor girl.”
“A solidity of mind,” said Calder, a little stiffly.
“Oh, I beg pardon. But I say, Calder, what are you driving at?”
“Charlie! Charlie!” sounded from outside. “Tea’s ready.”
Calder rose and took Charlie by the arm.
“Should I be safe,” he asked solemnly, “in allowing myself to fall in love with Miss Bushell, or are you likely to step in again?”
“You mean it? Honor bright, Calder?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s Bradshaw? By Jove, where’s Bradshaw?”
“Bradshaw? What the devil has Bradshaw——?”
“Why, a train, man—a train to town.”
“I don’t want to go to town, bless the man—-”
“You! No, but I do. To town, Calder—to Agatha, you old fool.”
“Oh, that’s your lay?”
“Yes, of course. I couldn’t go back on you, but if you’re off—-”
“Charlie, old fellow, think again.”
“Go to the deuce! Where’s that—-?”
“Charlie, Charlie! Tea!”
“Hang tea!” he cried; but Calder dragged him off, telling him that to-morrow would do for Bradshaw.
At tea Charlie’s spirits were very much better, and it was observed that Calder Wentworth paid marked attention to Millie Bushell, so that, when they started for the Pool, Millie was prevailed upon to be one of the party, on the understanding that Mr. Went worth would take care of her. This time the expedition went off more quietly than it had previously, but at the last moment the ladies declared that they would, be late for dinner if they waited till it was time for Agatha Merceron to come.
“Oh, nonsense!” said Calder. “Come over to the temple, Miss Bushell. I won’t upset the canoe.”
“Well, if you insist,” said Millie.
Then Mrs. Marland remarked in the quietest voice in the world—-
“There’s some one in the temple.”
“What?” cried Millie.
“Eh?” exclaimed Calder.
“Nonsense!” said Charlie.
“I saw a face at the window,” insisted Mrs. Marland.
“Oh, Mrs. Marland! Was it very awful?”
“Not at all, Millie—very pretty,” and she gave Charlie a look full of meaning.
“Look, look!” cried Millie in strong agitation.
And, as they looked, a slim figure in white came quietly out of the temple, a smile—and, alas! no vestige of a blush—on her face, walked composedly down the steps, and, standing on the lowest one, thence—did not throw herself into the water—but called, in the most natural voice in the world, “Which of you is coming to fetch me?”
Charlie looked at Calder. Calder said,
“I think you’d better put her across, old man. And—er—we might as well walk on.”
They turned away, Millie’s eyes wide in surprise, Mrs. Marland smiling the smile of triumphant sagacity.
“I was coming to you to-morrow,” cried Charlie the moment his canoe bumped against the stops.
“What do you mean, sir, by staying away a whole week? How could you?”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “You see, I couldn’t come till Calder——
“Oh, what about Calder?”
“He’s all right.”
“What? Miss—the girl you upset out of the canoe?”
“I think so,” said Charlie.
“Ah, well!” said Agatha. “But how very curious!” Then she smiled at Charlie, and asked, “But what love can there be, Mr. Merceron, where there is deceit?”
Charlie took no notice at all of this question.
“Do you mind Calder going?” he whispered.
“Well, not much,” said Miss Glyn.
Thus it was that the barony of Warmley returned to the house of Merceron, and the portrait of the wicked lord came to hang once more in the dining-room. So the curtain falls on the comedy; and what happened afterwards behind the scenes, whether another comedy, or a tragedy, or a mixed half-and-half sort of entertainment, now grave, now gay, sometimes perhaps delightful, and again of tempered charm—why, as to all this, what reck the spectators who are crowding out of the theatre and home to bed?
But it seems as if, in spite of certain drawbacks in Agatha Merceron’s character, nothing very dreadful can have happened, because Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth, who are very particular folk, went to stay at the Court the other day, and their only complaint was that Charlie and his bride were always at the Pool!
And, for his own part, if he may be allowed a word (which some people say he ought not to be) here, just at the end, the writer begs to say that he once knew Agatha, and—he would have taken the risks. However, a lady to whom he has shown this history differs entirely from him, and thinks that no sensible man would have married her. But, then, that is not the question.
I must confess at once that at first, at least, I very much admired the curate. I am not referring to my admiration of his fine figure—six feet high and straight as an arrow—nor of his handsome, open, ingenuous countenance, or his candid blue eye, or his thick curly hair. No; what won my heart from an early period of my visit to my cousins, the Poltons of Poltons Park, was the fervent, undisguised, unashamed, confident, and altogether matter-of-course manner in which he made love to Miss Beatrice Queenborough, only daughter and heiress of the wealthy shipowner Sir Wagstaff Queenborough, Bart., and Eleanor his wife. It was purely the manner of the curate’s advances that took my fancy: in the mere fact of them there was nothing remarkable. For all the men in the house (and a good many outside) made covert. stealthy, and indirect steps in the same direction; for Trix (as her friends called her) was, if not wise, at least pretty and witty, displaying to the material eye a charming figure, and to the mental a delicate heartlessness—both attributes which challenge a self-respecting mans best efforts. But then came the fatal obstacle. From heiresses in reason a gentleman need neither shrink nor let himself be driven; but when it comes to something like twenty thousand a year—the reported amount of Trix’s dot—he distrusts his own motives almost as much as the lady’s relatives distrust them for him. We all felt this—Stanton, Rippleby, and I; and, although I will not swear that we spoke no tender words and gave no meaning glances, yet we reduced such concessions to natural weakness to a minimum, not only when Lady Queenborough was by, but at all times. To say truth, we had no desire to see our scalps affixed to Miss Trix’s pretty belt, nor to have our hearts broken (like that of the young man in the poem) before she went to Homburg in the autumn. With the curate it was otherwise. He—Jack Ives, by the way, was his name—appeared to rush, not only upon his fate, but in the face of all possibility and of Lady Queenborough. My cousin and hostess, Dora Polton, was very much distressed about him. She said that he was such a nice young fellow, and that it was a great pity to see him preparing such unhappiness for himself. Nay, I happen to know that she spoke very seriously to Trix, pointing out the wickedness of trifling with him; whereupon Trix, who maintained a bowing acquaintance with her conscience, avoided him for a whole afternoon and endangered all Algy Stanton’s prudent resolutions by taking him out in the Canadian canoe. This demonstration in no way perturbed the curate. He observed that, as there was nothing better to do, we might as well play billiards, and proceeded to defeat me in three games of a hundred up (no, it is quite immaterial whether we played for anything or not), after which he told Dora that the vicar was taking the evening service—it happened to be the day when there was one at the parish church—a piece of information only relevant in so far as it suggested that Mr. Ives could accept an invitation to dinner if one were proffered to him. Dora, very weakly, rose to the bait; Jack Ives, airily remarking that there was no use in ceremony among friends, seized the place next to Trix at dinner (her mother was just opposite) and walked on the terrace after dinner with her in the moonlight. When the ladies retired he came into the smoking-room, drank a whiskey-and-soda, said that Miss Queenborough was really a very charming companion, and apologized for leaving us early on the ground that his sermon was still unwritten. My good cousin, the squire, suggested rather grimly that a discourse on the vanity of human wishes might be appropriate.
“I shall preach.” said Mr. Ives thoughtfully, “on the opportunities of wealth.”
This resolution he carried out on the next day but one, that being a Sunday. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Miss Trix, and I watched her with some interest as Mr. Ives developed his theme. I will not try to reproduce the sermon, which would have seemed by no means a bad one, had any of our party been able to ignore the personal application which we read into it: for its main burden was no other than this—that wealth should be used by those who were fortunate enough to possess it (here Trix looked down and fidgeted with her prayer-book) as a means of promoting greater union between themselves and the less richly endowed, and not—as, alas, had too often been the case—as though it were a new barrier set up between them and their fellow—creatures. (Here Miss Trix blushed slightly, and had recourse to her smelling-bottle.) “You,” said the curate, waxing rhetorical as he addressed an imaginary, but bloated, capitalist, “have no more right to your money than I have. It is intrusted to you to be shared with me.” At this point I heard Lady Queenborough sniff, and Algy Stanton snigger. I stole a glance at Trix and detected a slight waver in the admirable lines of her mouth.
“A very good sermon, didn’t you think?” I said to her, as we walked home.
“Oh, very, she replied demurely.
“Ah, if we followed all we heard in church!” I sighed.
Miss Trix walked in silence for a few yards. By dint of never becoming anything else, we had become very good friends; and presently she remarked, quite confidentially, “He’s very silly, isn’t he?”
“Then you ought to snub him,” said I, severely.
“So I do—sometimes. He’s rather amusing, though.
“Of course, if you’re prepared to make the sacrifice involved—-”
“Oh, what nonsense!”
“Then you’ve no business to amuse yourself with him.”
“Dear, dear! how moral you are!” said Trix.
The next development in the situation was this. My cousin Dora received a letter from the Marquis of Newhaven, with whom she was acquainted, praying her to allow him to run down to Poltons for a few days: he reminded her that she had once given him a general invitation: if it would not be inconvenient—and so forth. The meaning of this communication did not, of course, escape my cousin, who had witnessed the writers attentions to Trix in the preceding season, nor did it escape the rest of us (who had talked over the said attentions at the club) when she told us about it, and announced that Lord Newhaven would arrive in the middle of next day. Trix affected dense unconsciousness; her mother allowed herself a mysterious smile—which, however, speedily vanished when the curate (he was taking lunch with us) observed in a cheerful tone, “Newhaven! oh, I remember the chap at the House—ploughed twice in Smalls—stumpy fellow, isn’t he? Not a bad chap, though, you know, barring his looks. I’m glad he’s coming.”
“You won’t be soon, young man,” Lady Queenborough’s angry eye seemed to say.
“I remember him,” pursued Jack, “awfully smitten with a tobacconist’s daughter in the Corn—oh, it’s all right, Lady Queenborough—she wouldn’t look at him.”
This quasi-apology was called forth by the fact of Lady Queenborough pushing back her chair and making for the door. It did not at all appease her to hear of the scorn of the tobacconist’s daughter. She glared sternly at Jack, and disappeared. He turned to Trix and reminded her—without diffidence and coram populo, as his habit was, that she had promised him a stroll in the west wood.
What happened on that stroll I do not know; but meeting Miss Trix on the stairs later in the afternoon, I ventured to remark, “I hope you broke it to him gently, Miss Queenborough?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” replied Trix, haughtily.
“You were out nearly two hours,” said I.
“Were we?” asked Trix with a start. “Good gracious! Where was mamma, Mr. Wynne?”
“On the lawn—watch in hand.”
Miss Trix went slowly upstairs, and there is not the least doubt that something serious passed between her and her mother, for both of them were in the most atrocious of humors that evening; fortunately the curate was not there. He had a Bible class.
The next day Lord Newhaven arrived. I found him on the lawn when I strolled up, after a spell of letter-writing, about four o’clock. Lawn-tennis was the order of the day, and we were all in flannels.
“Oh, here’s Mark,” cried Dora, seeing me.
“Now, Mark, you and Mr. Ives had better play against Trix and Lord Newhaven. That’ll make a very good set.”
“No, no, Mrs. Polton,” said Jack Ives. “They wouldn’t have a chance. Look here, I’ll play with Miss Queenborough against Lord Newhaven and Wynne.”
Newhaven—whose appearance, by the way, though hardly distinguished, was not quite so unornamental as the curate had led us to expect—looked slightly displeased, but Jack gave him no time for remonstrance. He whisked Trix off, and began to serve all in a moment. I had a vision of Lady Queenborough approaching from the house with face aghast. The set went on; and, owing entirely to Newhaven’s absurd chivalry in sending all the balls to Jack Ives instead of following the well-known maxim to “pound away at the lady,” they beat us. Jack wiped his brow, strolled up to the tea-table with Trix, and remarked in exultant tones:
“We make a perfect couple, Miss Queenborough; we ought never to be separated.”
Dora did not ask the curate to dinner that night, but he dropped in about nine o’clock to ask her opinion as to the hymns on Sunday; and finding Miss Trix and Newhaven in the small drawing-room he sat down and talked to them. This was too much for Trix; she had treated him very kindly and had allowed him to amuse her; but it was impossible to put up with presumption of that kind. Difficult as it was to discourage Mr. Ives, she did it, and he went away with a disconsolate, puzzled expression. At the last moment, however, Trix so far relented as to express a hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, at which he brightened up a little. I do not wish to be uncharitable—least of all to a charming young lady—but my opinion is that Miss Trix did not wish to set the curate altogether adrift. I think, however, that Lady Queenborough must have spoken again, for when Jack did come to tennis, Trix treated him with the most freezing civility and a hardly disguised disdain, and devoted herself to Lord Newhaven with as much assiduity as her mother could wish. We men, over our pipes, expressed the opinion that Jack Ives’s little hour of sunshine was passed, and that nothing was left to us but to look on at the prosperous uneventful course of Lord Newhaven’s wooing. Trix had had her fun (so Algy Stanton bluntly phrased it) and would now settle down to business.
“I believe, though,” he added, “that she likes the curate a bit, you know.”
During the whole of the next day—Wednesday—Jack Ives kept away; he had, apparently, accepted the inevitable, and was healing his wounded heart by a strict attention to his parochial duties. Newhaven remarked on his absence with an air of relief; and Miss Trix treated it as a matter of no importance; Lady Queenborough was all smiles; and Dora Polton restricted herself to exclaiming, as I sat by her at tea, in a low tone and ` propos of nothing in particular, “Oh, well—poor Mr. Ives!”
But on Thursday there occurred an event, the significance of which passed at the moment unperceived, but which had, in fact, most important results. This was no other than the arrival of little Mrs. Wentworth, an intimate friend of Dora’s. Mrs. Wentworth had been left a widow early in life; she possessed a comfortable competence; she was not handsome, but she was vivacious, amusing, and, above all, sympathetic. She sympathized at once with Lady Queenborough in her maternal anxieties, with Trix on her charming romance, with Newhaven on his sweet devotedness, with the rest of us in our obvious desolation—and, after a confidential chat with Dora; she sympathized most strongly with poor Mr. Ives on his unfortunate attachment. Nothing would satisfy her, so Dora told me, except the opportunity of plying Mr. Ives with her soothing balm; and Dora was about to sit down and write him a note, when he strolled in through the drawing-room window, and announced that his cooks mother was ill, and that he should be very much obliged if Mrs. Polton would give him some dinner that evening. Trix and Newhaven happened to enter by the door at the same moment, and Jack darted up to them, and shook hands with the greatest effusion. He had evidently buried all unkindness—and with it, we hoped, his mistaken folly. However that might be, he made no effort to engross Trix, but took his seat most docilely by his hostess—and she, of course, introduced him to Mrs. Wentworth. His behavior, was, in fact, so exemplary, that even Lady Queenborough relaxed her severity, and condescended to cross-examine him on the morals and manners of the old women of the parish. “Oh, the Vicar looks after them,” said Jack; and he turned to Mrs. Wentworth again.
There can be no doubt that Mrs. Wentworth had a remarkable power of sympathy. I took her into dinner, and she was deep in the subject of my “noble and inspiring art,” before the soup was off the table. Indeed, I’m sure that my life’s ambitions would have been an open book to her by the time that the joint arrived, had not Jack Ives, who was sitting on the lady’s other side, cut into the conversation just as Mrs. Wentworth was comparing my early struggles with those of Mr. Carlyle. After this intervention of Jack’s I had not a chance. I ate my dinner without the sauce of sympathy, substituting for it a certain amusement which I derived from studying the face of Miss Trix Queenborough, who was placed on the opposite side of the table. And if Trix did look now and again at Mrs. Wentworth and Jack Ives, I cannot say that her conduct was unnatural. To tell the truth, Jack was so obviously delighted with his new friend that it was quite pleasant—and, as I say, under the circumstances, rather amusing—to watch them. We felt that the Squire was justified in having a hit at Jack when Jack said, in the smoking-room, that he found himself rather at a loss for a subject for his next sermon.
“What do you say,” suggested my cousin, puffing at his pipe, “to taking constancy as your text?”
Jack considered the idea for a moment, but then he shook his head.
“No. I think,” he said, reflectively, “that I shall preach on the power of sympathy.”
That sermon afforded me—I must confess it, at the risk of seeming frivolous—very great entertainment. Again I secured a place by Miss Trix—on her left, Newhaven being on her right, and her face was worth study when Jack Ives gave us a most eloquent description of the wonderful gift in question. It was, he said, the essence and the crown of true womanliness, and it showed itself—well, to put it quite plainly, it showed itself, according to Jack Ives, in exactly that sort of manner and bearing which so honorably and gracefully distinguished Mrs. Wentworth. The lady was not, of course, named, but she was clearly indicated. “Your gift, your precious gift,” cried the curate, apostrophizing the impersonation of sympathy, “is given to you, not for your profit, but for mine. It is yours, but it is a trust to be used for me. It is yours, in fact, to share with me.” At this climax, which must have struck upon her ear with a certain familiarity, Miss Trix Queenborough, notwithstanding the place and occasion, tossed her pretty head and whispered to me, “What horrid stuff!”
In the ensuing week Jack Ives was our constant companion; the continued illness of his servant’s mother left him stranded, and Dora’s kind heart at once offered him the hospitality of her roof. For my part I was glad, for the little drama which now began was not without its interest. It was a pleasant change to see Jack genially polite to Trix Queenborough, but quite indifferent to her presence or absence, and content to allow her to take Newhaven for her partner at tennis as often as she pleased. He himself was often an absentee from our games.
Mrs. Wentworth did not play, and Jack would sit under the trees with her, or take her out in the canoe. What Trix thought I did not know, but it is a fact that she treated poor Newhaven like dirt beneath her feet, and that Lady Queenborough’s face began to lose its transiently pleasant expression. I had a vague idea that a retribution was working itself out, and disposed myself to see the process with all the complacency induced by the spectacle of others receiving punishment for their sins.
A little scene which occurred after lunch one day was significant. I was sitting on the terrace, ready booted and breeched, waiting for my horse to be brought round. Trix came out and sat down by me.
“Where’s Newhaven?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t always want Lord Newhaven,” she exclaimed petulantly; “I sent him off for a walk—I’m going out in the Canadian canoe with Mr. Ives.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” said I smiling. As I spoke, Jack Ives ran up to us.
“I say, Miss Queenborough,” he cried, “I’ve just got your message saying you’d let me take you on the lake.”
“Is it a great bore?” asked Trix, with a glance—a glance that meant mischief.
“I should like it awfully, of course,” said Jack; “but the fact is I’ve promised to take Mrs. Wentworth—before I got your message, you know.”
Trix drew herself up.
“Of course, if Mrs. Wentworth—-” she began.
“I’m very sorry,” said Jack.
Then Miss Queenborough, forgetting—as I hope—or choosing—to disregard my presence, leant forward and asked in her most coaxing tones, “Don’t you ever forget a promise, Mr. Ives?”
Jack looked at her. I suppose her dainty prettiness struck him afresh, for he wavered and hesitated.
“She’s gone upstairs,” pursued the tempter, “and we shall be safe away before she comes down again.”
Jack shuffled with one foot on the gravel.
“I tell you what,” he said. “I’ll ask her if she minds me taking you for a little while before I——”
I believe he really thought that he had hit upon a compromise satisfactory to all parties. If so, lie was speedily undeceived. Trix flushed rod and answered angrily, “Pray don’t trouble. I don’t want to go.”
“Perhaps afterwards you might—” suggested the curate, but now rather timidly.
“I’m going out with Lord Newhaven,” said she. And she added in an access of uncontrollable annoyance, “Go, please go. I—I don’t want you.”
Jack sheered off, with a look of puzzled shamefacedness. He disappeared into the house. Nothing passed between Miss Trix and myself. A moment later Newhaven came out.
“Why, Miss Queenborough,” said he, in apparent surprise, “Ives is going with Mrs. Wentworth in the canoe!”
In an instant I saw what she had done. In rash presumption she had told Newhaven that she was going with the curate—and now the curate had refused to take her—and Ives had met him in search of Mrs. Wentworth. What could she do? Well, she rose—or fell—to the occasion. In the coldest of voices she said, “I thought you’d gone for your walk.”
“I was just starting,” he answered apologetically, “when I met Ives. But, as you weren’t going with him—-” He paused, an inquiring look in his eyes. He was evidently asking himself why she had not gone with the curate.
“I’d rather be left alone, if you don’t mind,” said she. And then, flushing red again, she added. “I changed my mind and refused to go with Mr. Ives. So he went off to get Mrs. Wentworth instead.”
I started. Newhaven looked at her for an instant, and then turned on his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning and with her face all aflame, “If you tell, I’ll never speak to you again,” she whispered.
After this there was silence for some minutes.
“Well?” she said, without looking at me.
“I have no remark to offer, Miss Queenborough,” I returned.
“I suppose that was a lie, wasn’t it?” she asked, defiantly.
“It’s not my business to say what it was,” was my discreet answer.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“I was thinking-,” said I, “which I would rather be—the man you will marry, or the man you would like—-”
“How dare you? It’s not true. Oh, Mr. Wynne, indeed it’s not true!”
Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had been, Miss Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very much in the way in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to be extravagantly attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was present, and markedly neglectful of him in the curate’s absence. It also fitted in very well with the theory which I had ventured to hint, that her bearing towards Mrs. Went worth was distinguished by a stately civility, and her remarks about that lady by a superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two distinguishing marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my favorite books and learn from them—more folly. And if Trix’s manners were all that they should be, praise no less high must be accorded to Mrs. Wentworth’s; she attained an altitude of admirable unconsciousness, and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely interested in all his aims and hopes.
“What does she want?” I asked Dora, despairingly. “She can’t want to marry him.” I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs. Wentworth.
“Good gracious, no!” answered Dora, irritably. “It’s simple jealousy. She won’t let the poor boy alone till he’s in love with her again. It’s a horrible shame!”
“Oh, well, he has great recuperative power,” said I.
“She’d better be careful, though. It’s a very dangerous game. How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?”
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running. Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven’s voice raised above his ordinary tones.
“I won’t stand it,” he was declaring. “I never know how she’ll treat me from one minute to the next.”
My entrance, of course, stopped the conversation very abruptly. Newhaven had come to a stand in the middle of the room, and Lady Queenborough sat on the sofa, a formidable frown on her brow. Withdrawing myself as rapidly as possible, I argued the probability of a severe lecture for Miss Trix, ending in a command to try her noble suitor’s patience no longer. I hope all this happened, for I, not seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix’s fascinations, which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had, in fact, reached this very absurd situation that these two ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position seemed to me then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable qualities in that young man.
At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday morning, he announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave Poltons Park, he was due at his aunt’s place, in Kent, on Saturday evening, and must therefore make his arrangements to leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had he come down to breakfast with “Now or Never!” stamped in fiery letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive, indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at our plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of the corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then he remarked kindly—
“We shall be uncommonly sorry to lose you, Newhaven.”
Events began to happen now, and I will tell them as well as I am able, supplementing my own knowledge by what I learnt afterwards from Dora—she having learnt it from the actors in the scene. In spite of the solemn warning conveyed in Newhaven’s intimation, Trix, greatly daring, went off immediately after lunch for what she described as ‘a long ramble’ with Mr. Ives. There was, indeed, the excuse of an old woman at the end of the ramble, and Trix provided Jack with a small basket of comforts for the useful old body; but the ramble was, we felt, the thing, and I was much annoyed at not being able to accompany the walkers in the cloak of darkness or other invisible contrivance. The ramble consumed three hours—full measure. Indeed, it was half-past six before Trix alone, walked up the drive. Newhaven, a solitary figure, paced up and down the terrace fronting the drive. Trix came on, her head thrown back and a steady smile on her lips. She saw Newhaven: he stood looking at her for a moment with what she afterwards described as an indescribable smile on his face, but not, as Dora understood from her, by any means a pleasant one. Yet, if not pleasant, there is not the least doubt in the world that it was highly significant; for she cried out nervously, “Why are you looking at me like that? What’s the matter?”
Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her and made as if he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored, discarded, done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come, forgetting everything except the imminent danger of losing him once for all, without time for long explanation or any round—about seductions, ran forward, laying her hand on his arm and blurting out, “But I’ve refused him.”
I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt whether he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining hand and pursue his lonely way, first into the house, and ultimately to his aunt’s. But (to say nothing of the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and lie you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix’s face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He stopped dead.