Mabel laughed. "I have a piece of news," she said. "Who do you think is expected at Dulveriford Rectory in a day or two? Can't guess? Jem Trevelyan."
"Mr. James Trevelyan! Your cousin. He hasn't been for ages. Centuries!" said Mrs. Kennedy, with the calm air of one stating a fact.
"Not since I was a child. Yes, it is years ago. But he really is coming at last, for a few days' rest. He has overdone himself at the East-End."
"He's a nice man—very nice! Not one of those odd sort of people that you can't tell whatever they are after next! But my husband doesn't quite care for him, I'm afraid."
Mabel was intimate enough, not to be classed among the horde of mere outsiders.
"We met him in Town last year, and he said something or other—I'm sure I don't know what, only it was something my husband didn't like. I suppose he's just a scrap too Churchy, you know, for poor dear Thomas. But I'm sure he's such a good man; and if anybody ever lived a real missionary life, it's away in those horrible London slums of despond."
"There's a ring. Another call. I must go."
"Oh, to-day of course! Sometimes everybody comes all together, and then I just don't know what to do. I feel all sat upon and 'scrushed,'" said Mrs. Kennedy, in her unconventional language, while she looked affectionately at Mabel with kind soft eyes. "The only thing to do, don't you know, is to let them have it out. Everybody has always got plenty to say. But such a crowd won't come to-day, I don't think. It's too fine. Must you go, really? Well, good-bye, and mind you tell your father that he really ought to look after that poor little baronet, and keep him from being turned into a molly. Oh, I'm forgetting—there's a note for him from my husband. Couldn't you take it? Thomas!" cried Mrs. Kennedy, opening the door, to find herself face to face with Miss Devereux.
Mrs. Kennedy fell back a step. "Oh, how do you do? I'm so glad it is you—not a man. Just think if it had been a man!" she said frankly. "Do pray come in. I'm only calling my husband to—"
Mr. Kennedy appeared through an opposite door. He was undersized, plain-featured, and shy-mannered, with anxious pale-tinted eyes which saw little before them, by reason of the mental eyes being bent habitually inward. When his glance fell upon Miss Devereux, he put out one hand, with a gradual smile, deprecating in kind.
"Mabel is just going home, dear. Would you like to send any message to Dr. Ingram?"
"I—yes, I have a note," said Mr. Kennedy.
He did not at once go in search of it, but followed Miss Devereux into the drawing-room, and stood looking at her with his mild blank goodness of expression. Nobody of any penetration could see Mr. Kennedy, and not recognise the goodness written in his face.
"Dear man! He is half in heaven already!" Some of his more attached friends declared; though if there were truth in the words, it remains an uncontrovertible fact that to be "half in heaven already," does not obviate a considerable amount of earthliness about the half still upon earth. The earthliness takes different forms in different cases.
"I hope your nephew is well this summer—growing stronger?" said Mr. Kennedy.
"Thank you, dear Cyril is fairly well, but I have to be very careful of him," sighed Sybella. She did not look so markedly older for her seven additional years as might have been expected, but she had gained in a certain conscious importance, in an air of responsibility. She had learned by this time to appreciate her own position, and even to act for herself. Still—Sybella was Sybella.
"He is always so delicate, dear boy! A great anxiety to me! And at School you know—though I cannot speak highly enough of the school—your recommendation!" effusively. "Such a delightful man, the head-master—so truly Evangelical!—And all the arrangements so perfect. Still of course there cannot be quite the same individual care at school as at home, and I am sadly afraid the dear boy is sometimes a little imprudent. I can't think how it is—boys do so dislike great-coats; and I cannot make him say whether he always remembers to change his shoes the moment they get damp. It is so very essential, you know. I do my best to impress upon him the need for care. The way he gets on is really astonishing; such a love for books! I tell him he is never happy without a book in his hand; and he works so hard—too hard, dear boy. It makes me so afraid for his dear brain! I really cannot let him study through the holidays—it is quite too much!"
"Oh, I shouldn't think an hour or two a day could hurt anybody," suggested Mrs. Kennedy. "Keep him out of mischief, don't you know?"
"Indeed, I beg your pardon! I think I am the best judge as to that."
Mrs. Kennedy somehow always managed to excite Sybella's bristles.
"The dear boy had a headache only yesterday: and I don't like the way he coughs. I shall have to consult Dr. Ingram."
"Oh, come, he really did look uncommonly well yesterday," protested Mrs. Kennedy. "Not robust, of course—one doesn't expect that—but plenty of vigour. Thomas, Mabel is waiting."
Mr. Kennedy beat a deprecatory retreat, not sorry perhaps to leave the ladies to fight their little battle out together. After an interval of ten minutes, he slowly returned.
"I am very sorry—I have mislaid the note," he said. "But perhaps you would kindly take a message, asking your father to call. This is the woman's address."
"Must my father go there to-day?" asked Mabel, dismayed. "He has been all that round by this time."
"I am afraid it is pressing. One does not know what is the matter. I told her your father would be sure to look in before night. The note ought to have been sent sooner, but I—in fact, I forgot."
Mabel knew better than to protest, and she went off swiftly. Outside the gate, a girl was waiting—about sixteen in age, with a pale oval face, and clear greenish eyes.
"Jean, are you out of all patience?" cried Mabel. "I couldn't get away sooner: and now I must just race home. You ought to have come in."
"I'd rather not," Jean said decisively, as they began "the race."
The two girls were second cousins.
"You don't care for the Kennedys, I know."
"I don't mind them."
"That doesn't mean liking."
"No; I suppose not. I don't think I care for a great many people!" reflectively.
"A great many! My dear, whom do you really and honestly like, out of your own proper circle? Except Cyril, and Jem, and I suppose ourselves?"
"Mrs. Villiers. And lots of poor people."
"You have not seen Mrs. Villiers for close upon four years. You were an infant then."
"I don't forget."
"No—I believe that! Jean, I declare, I won't have you so frightfully unsociable. You ought to like people more. My father says there is something nice in everybody, if only one is willing to see it."
"Then I suppose I'm not willing," quoth straightforward Jean.
"I wish Mr. Kennedy had sent this morning. My father will have to go all the way down to the lower end of the town again. He might just as well have done the business when he was there two hours ago. He is so busy to-day."
"I don't call that nice of Mr. Kennedy."
"He doesn't think."
"Then he ought."
"Jean, you are always half pleased to find some little fault in Mr. Kennedy," murmured Mabel.
The words had no denial. Jean looked as if she had gained a new idea.
MUD AND BRAMBLES.
"I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover,While dear hands are laid on my head,The child is a woman, the book may close ever,For all the lessons are said.""I wait for my story—the birds cannot sing it,Not one as he sits on the tree;The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it,Such as I wish it to be."JEAN INGELOW.
Dr. INGRAM'S house was almost outside the town, and thus far the two girls went together. At the garden-gate they stopped; Mabel ran indoors, after a hasty good-bye, and Jean pursued her solitary way.
Dutton was a good two miles from Dulveriford. Jean had permission to go to and fro, by the path through meadows and fields; not by the high road. She turned into the meadows directly after quitting the town, and went onward in a quick steadfast fashion, not dallying. This does not mean the absence of enjoyment. Jean had in her nature intense capabilities of enjoyment; and the sights and sounds of country life always thrilled her with a keen delight, which custom could not deaden.
Now and again she would pause for a few seconds to listen to the song of some little bird, to study the markings of a butterfly as it zigzagged past, to watch the contented munching of a pretty young cow. There were a good many cows in one field, and a good many horses in the next. Fear in connection with animals was a feeling unknown to Jean. She did not, however, linger long for anything.
Jean at sixteen was simply the child of nine expanded. The straight supple form was unchanged, only taller; the slim sunburnt hands were only longer and more capable. The greenish-brown eyes were serious as ever, with their old power of shining under excitement.
She was not "plain" now; the delicate straight features would admit of no such description; but neither was she beautiful; and "pretty" was a term which nobody could think of in connection with the severe simplicity of Jean's outlines, dress, and manner. People generally called her "uncommon;" a safe word which might admit of anything.
No change had taken place in Jean's manner of life. It had been a continuous going on in the old lines; the harder part of her studiously cultivated, the softer part stamped down and driven inward. She had been trained in a splendid mastery of principle over inclination; she had been taught any amount of self-repression and self-control; body and mind had been well and wisely handled. But training and cultivation of the heart's affections had not been equally prominent. Mr. Trevelyan was always just and even, always entirely high-principled; and Madame Collier was always practical. Neither of the two was in manner gentle or loving.
Had it not been for three definite outlets, Jean's softer and more affectionate side would have been walled up and subjected to a slow starvation. These three were—her passionate and absorbing love for Oswald; her quiet friendship with Cyril; her interest in the sick and needy of the parish. Jean's tenderness thus found a three-fold vent, and did not die; but at present it crept through those vents in a shamefaced and surreptitious fashion.
Jem Trevelyan might have supplied a fourth softening element. During years, however, he and Jean had seen little one of another. With her Ingram cousins, Mabel especially, Jean was on agreeable terms, and that was all; for the three girls, pleasant as they were, and popular in many quarters, touched no inner chord of Jean's being. As Mabel had said, Jean "really liked" very few people. "Really to like" in her case meant more than mere liking, and not "really to like" meant profound indifference.
Springing over her fourth stile, on the way homeward, she was arrested by an exclamation:
"Jean! That's jolly!"
"Cyril! You here!"
"I'm come to meet you—by accident."
"How did you know where I was?"
"Intuition."
"Nonsense."
"Madame Collier told me you'd gone to Dutton, so of course I knew you'd come this way. I say!—Give me that basket."
"No. Cyril, let it alone. I like to carry something."
"So do I!"—dexterously twisting the handle off her arm.
"How you bother!"
"Yes, I know. It's only for your good. What's inside the basket?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"Hanks of darning cotton, I do believe. I say, Jean, you must use an uncommon lot of old socks at the Rectory. Madame Collier's one earthly occupation is turning them over. I never find her at anything else; unless it is grubbing up stones in the garden."
"Stockings, you mean; not socks."
"Two varieties of the same genus. What are you hurrying for, now?"
"Aunt Marie will want me."
"Let her! I want you more."
"I can't wait, really. She will be vexed."
"Have you got to darn? I'll come and read to you, then."
Cyril had scarcely yet overtaken Jean in height. While actually almost a year her senior, he was commonly supposed to be the younger of the two. His make was so slight as to give an appearance of fragility, not inconsistent with a certain wiry vigour, but heightened by the girlish hands and pale complexion, not to speak of a face hatchet-like in thinness. Breadth of brow gave force to the latter, but the dark hair clustered still in thick waves; and the long-lashed violet eyes, though redeemed from insipidity by any amount of fun, lent him so soft and "pretty" an expression, that it was no wonder he had earned at school the nickname of "Missy."
This did not imply contempt or unpopularity. More than five years back, on first leaving Ripley Brow, with its enervating influences and unlimited petting, for the rougher world of school, Cyril had suffered much, and had had a hard battle to fight. Miss Devereux little guessed how much of real distress had been entailed upon the timid child by her previous policy, or how he might justly have blamed her for long months of misery. Happily, the check of a more invigorating atmosphere came in time to prevent life-long enfeeblement.
He had struggled through the worst long ago. He had now been for years a boy among boys; to all appearance as spirited and careless as any of them, when at school. If to some extent he suffered still from want of nerve, the fact was usually veiled. But it was odd how, immediately he came home for the holidays, he would relapse more or less into his old ways, responding to Sybella's petting. As of yore, his affectionate and clinging disposition, together with an easy sweetness of temper, made him malleable; and also as of yore, the chief bracing element in his Dulveriford life was—Jean.
Jean had not yet lost the impulse to take care of him, to lead, and to expect that he should follow. Growth thus far had been faster with her than with him. There was marked promise of intellectual power in Cyril, but in almost all respects he was still behind his age. Jean remained the stronger, the swifter, the more fearless, the keener in perception, the quicker in understanding, actually the elder, so far.
It was a singular friendship between the two. Each cared greatly for the other, but not after the same mode. While Cyril's happiness was bound up in Jean, Jean's happiness was bound up in Oswald. Cyril cared for no human being as he cared for Jean. Love for her had grown with his growth, winding itself in and out with the very strands of his being. Jean was fond of Cyril, and she missed his companionship when he was away, but she gave him no passionate affection. That was reserved for Oswald.
"Why are you not at Dutton Park this afternoon?" asked Jean.
"Because I'm here."
"Mrs. Villiers must want you."
"Mrs. Villiers isn't Jean, and I'm not Oswald. Why don't you call her 'Evelyn'?"
"I don't know. When did you go last?"
"When? Oh, to-day's Friday. Monday evening I was there—and Wednesday. Tuesday she came to us. Often enough, surely. She's got a lot to do, settling in. I'll go again soon, of course; perhaps to-morrow morning."
"It ought to be to-day."
"I'll see. What a lot you do think of Evelyn, to be sure!"
"Anyone would! If I had such a sister—"
"Well! If you had?"
"I would—Cyril, what's that?"
"Where? What are you looking at?"
"There! Don't you see?"
They had reached the next stile, and Jean stood not far from it, gazing across a wide muddy ditch upon the bank below the hedge.
"A bird—look! It's a robin. I can see its red breast. It has been hurt."
"It's not a nestling. Too big."
"Then some horrid boy has thrown a stone. Hark! You can hear it 'peep.' Poor little thing! It is almost too weak to move. I must get it."
"You can't; just look at that slush."
"Slush! I'm not afraid of wet feet."
The touch of scorn was enough. Before Jean could move, Cyril was down, ankle-deep, in the very middle of the wet slush, which indeed proved to be of the nature of thick watery mud.
"Cyril! How absurd! I didn't mean you to go. I meant to do it myself. I should have gone to the stile, and climbed along the bank."
"You couldn't. It's all brambles."
Jean nearly said, "I don't mind scratches," but forbore. Had she uttered the words, he would certainly have charged the brambles, to gain scars honourable in her eyes.
"I'll come too." Jean loved a scramble.
"No, don't. Stop! It's no use. Such a mess! Wait a moment. Here he is—poor little chap! There, don't peck! What do you mean to do with him? I believe his leg's broken."
"Oh, bring him to me."
"All right, I'm coming."
Jean bent over to receive the fluttering bundle of feathers, and examined it tenderly, while Cyril sprang up on terra firma. Furtively, he endeavoured to wipe his boots on the grass; not openly, for fear Jean should count him effeminate. He had not yet learned that a love of cleanliness is not in essence unmasculine.
"Where's the basket? I'll make a soft bed of grass. Yes, please gather some. You poor little thing! Fancy if we had not found you! It's certainly a broken leg. We must get home as fast as possible, and aunt Marie will know what to do."
"You'll have to tie up the leg in a splint."
"Yes. I'll see. A bit of match, perhaps. Aunt Marie is so clever at that sort of thing. Cyril, your boots are soaking! You ought to go straight home and change them."
"Fudge!"
"What would Miss Devereux say?"
"Anything she likes."
"And you may catch cold."
"I'm not going!"
Such an opportunity to assert his manliness was not to be lost. Jean might think it her duty to uphold Miss Devereux, but he knew that if he went, she would—well, perhaps not despise, but undoubtedly she would pity him. To be pitied by Jean was more than Cyril could stand.
"If you catch cold—"
"I shan't catch cold."
"Well, I have warned you."
"All right."
In two minutes Jean forgot all about his boots, in attention to her feathered invalid. Cyril by no means forgot, for their soaked condition and outward muddiness both meant discomfort, but he never thought of giving way.
As they reached the Rectory door, Mr. Trevelyan came out.
"Jean, just back? What are you after?" This question did not mean displeasure. It only meant that he always expected everybody to be "after" some definite object, and that he wished to hear specified the precise end and aim of Jean's existence at that moment.
"I'm going in to see if aunt Marie wants me. And this bird—"
"A robin—broken leg," said Mr. Trevelyan, touching the little creature with kind fingers. "No, your aunt doesn't want you. Give over the bird to her, and come with me to Dutton Park."
"Now?"
"I met the General, and he mentioned that Mrs. Villiers particularly asks an early call."
"Wouldn't aunt Marie like to go?"
"No, she prefers that I should take you."
Jean's eyes shone: her usual sign of pleasure. She never thought of telling her father that she had already walked to Dutton and back. The fact would have made no difference, if he counted it her duty to go now.
"I've not seen Evelyn for a day or two," remarked Cyril, the wistful look which always strengthened his likeness to Evelyn creeping into his eyes.
Its effect upon Mr. Trevelyan was to bring the question, "Would you like to go with us?"
Cyril's answer, if short, was unequivocal. He had not entirely lost a certain boyish fear of Mr. Trevelyan, but Jean was a more than counterbalancing attraction.
They went by the road this time—a somewhat shorter route than by the fields. Mr. Trevelyan walked fast and steadily, with long swinging strides, and the other two kept pace with him as best they might: Jean easily, from long practice; Cyril less easily, though he would on no account have admitted the fact. He was better at fast running than at fast walking; and the weight of his soaked boots pulled him back.
Outside Dutton they saw the "Brow" carriage approaching, Sybella seated therein with state and dignity.
"I say!" muttered Cyril in foreboding accents.
The carriage drew up, and Sybella bent forward to shake hands with Mr. Trevelyan, whom she did not exactly recognise as her Pastor, although she lived in his Parish, since their views differed on certain points. A puckered forehead showed discontent. She was never pleased to see Cyril with the Trevelyans; and, considering how Cyril haunted Jean, it was remarkable that her eyes should be so seldom vexed with the vision. Perhaps an explanation lay in the fact that Miss Devereux loved high roads and shops, while Jean detested both; wherefore their orbits were seldom entangled.
"How do you do? A very fine day. I hope Madame Collier is well. Really I must call upon her one day soon—but so many engagements, you know—always something turning up. Cyril, my dear boy, I could not imagine where you were. I was so anxious to take you to the Park. I have had really quite to apologise. Two whole days since you went; and you know it must seem strange. Where can you have been?"
"I am going to Evelyn now."
"But I could have saved you the long walk. Such a hot day! I am not sure whether I had not better turn back—" Sybella hesitated, debating with herself whether, in that case, it would not be needful to give the Trevelyans a lift also.
She could hardly pick up her nephew, and leave them trudging in the dust. But Mr. Trevelyan was not approved of by some of her friends, and to be seen by certain of them driving through Dutton side by side with him—by old Lady Lucas, for example, or by Colonel Atherstone—such a juxtaposition of representative individuals was not to be thought of!
"I am afraid, though, that I cannot well spare the time. My dear boy, you had really better put off till another day, and come back with me. I am sure you are fatigued. This hot sun is enough to give anybody a headache. Quite too much for him," she added reproachfully to the Rector.
"Is it hot?" asked Mr. Trevelyan. He looked down and up, and around, as if studying Nature for a reply.
"Exceedingly hot! Most oppressive! Surely you—But people are so differently constituted," sighed Sybella, with an audible little puff of exhaustion. "Now I feel to-day quite incapable—really quite feeble and spiritless. I assure you, I could not walk a mile to save my life."
"That might prove a potent incentive," suggested Mr. Trevelyan, with another look at the tree-tops.
His irony was lost upon Sybella.
"Robust people do not suffer in the same way, I believe. So fortunate for them! But dear Cyril is always so very easily knocked up—and his poor head, you know—"
Cyril grew furiously red at having to endure this, with Jean standing by.
"My dear boy, you are quite flushed, you are indeed—quite overheated. It makes me so anxious. I really cannot possibly allow this sort of thing to go on. I am sure you have a headache."
"No, aunt!" Cyril's voice was seldom so gruff.
"No? But you are tired—fatigued. I am certain you will be overdone. If I—Cyril!!"
Mr. Trevelyan lifted his eyebrows, and Jean's lips twitched. Miss Devereux pointed with an agonised forefinger at Cyril's feet.
"Oh, I just got a little muddy. I'm all right."
"It's my fault," Jean said promptly.
"Boys don't mind a trifle of mud," quoth Mr. Trevelyan, with a solemn smile, perhaps not realising the extent to which the "trifle of mud" went.
"Mud! His boots are wet through and through! I can see it for myself. Boys in general are different. Cyril is not like other boys. He must take care. It is absolutely necessary. To go about with wet feet—I shall have him laid up all the holidays. Another attack on his chest like the last would—I assure you, the Brighton doctor told me, he could not answer for the consequences," gasped the agitated lady. "My dear boy, get at once into the carriage. I must drive you home as fast as possible. As fast as possible, Grimshaw!" raising her voice.
And Grimshaw touched his hat.
"You must change your boots and stockings the very moment we arrive, and I must give you something hot to drink."
Had the Trevelyans not been there, Cyril would no doubt have yielded without resistance. He might have felt a certain boyish dislike to the fuss—a dislike which had for some time been growing upon him; yet mere force of habit would have won the day. To be petted and coddled by his aunt was so much a matter of course, that hitherto he had submitted.
Jean's presence made all the difference. Cyril was fond of his aunt, and he liked to please her; indeed, he liked to please everybody, whether or no fondness came into the question. But his love for Jean, his desire to stand well in Jean's eyes, his dread of being pitied by Jean, were overwhelming motives. To step into the carriage, and be driven home for the purpose of changing his boots, while Jean stood looking on, was too much. For almost the first time, Sybella's petted darling refused to answer to the pull of her rein.
"Nonsense, aunt. I'm all right. I'm going on to see Evelyn."
"If I may advise, I should not recommend a drive with damp boots," said Mr. Trevelyan. "Exercise is safer than sitting still; and he can dry them, if needful, at the Park."
This was reasonable. But to expect Sybella to hear reason from Mr. Trevelyan would mean a dire ignorance of human nature.
"I beg your pardon. I think I am the best judge as to that," she said, reddening. "Cyril, my dear boy—No, I could not possibly run the risk!" to Mr. Trevelyan. "Cyril, my dear boy, you really must—Cyril, I insist! You must come home with me at once. Evelyn will understand. I will explain to her. I could not allow you to go on with your feet in such a condition. My dear boy, it is only for your own good—Pray make haste, and get in! Every moment's delay increases the risk. My dear boy, I assure you—Really, Cyril, I am very much surprised—this is not like you! I am afraid it is the consequence of—Cyril, if you do not come at once, I shall have—Not of course that I expect you to prefer to be with me, rather than with—It is only for your own sake! Cyril, this is really too much! I insist upon obedience!"
Cyril held resolutely back, thus far.
Mr. Trevelyan moved a step nearer.
"My boy, the more manly part will be to yield," he said very low; not too low for Jean as well as Cyril to hear.
The lad grow white, and looked at Jean.
"Yes, do go!" she said gently, pityingly.
Cyril could better have done without the pity: but Mr. Trevelyan's words took effect.
"I must beg of you, Cyril, not to delay. For your own sake as well as mine. I cannot wait any longer, and I insist upon your coming," Miss Devereux went on with querulous repetition.
"Good-bye," said Mr. Trevelyan.
He took Cyril's hand, with a warm grasp which spoke volumes: and from that hour, he had a hold upon the young baronet. "Come and see us again soon."
Cyril crimsoned to the roots of his hair, and stepped in.
"Poor boy: it is hard upon him," muttered the clergyman, as they drove off, Sybella talking still.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
"Thus each retains his notions, every one."JANE TAYLOR.
DUTTON PARK stood on sufficiently high ground to command a view of the town, and of the surrounding country. In one direction Ripley Brow might be seen, the Brow standing up boldly, more than two miles away. Between, the river wound in curves among low green banks and meadows, after its rush through the gorge.
On a fine day, such as this, anyone walking in the Park grounds could see the "S-like" windings shine here and there with the brightness of burnished metal in the sunshine; grey spaces of water intervening.
There were two ways of reaching the house from the main road. One was by a shady drive, well bowered, the trees meeting overhead in a continuous arch. The other lay through open park-like fields, ending in two large ponds, one on either side of the garden entrance. Following the latter road, Mr. Trevelyan and Jean lingered three or four minutes to watch the swans; then they crossed the wide lawn of the garden, which was sprinkled with pines and yews. Beds of massed colouring, closely packed, showed rich and artistic arrangements of tints. The house was extensive, white and low, guiltless of creepers, and on one side, sheltered by a group of mighty elms.
The great drawing-room, over forty-five feet long, was used only on state occasions. Evelyn's favourite resort for ordinary purposes was the library, a long four-windowed room, well lined with books. General Villiers had his private study besides, and Evelyn had her boudoir; but when at home, she was usually to be found in the library.
On this particular afternoon, she stood in the end window, a large bow, gazing somewhat pensively upon the outer view: not as if she very much cared for it.
At twenty-five, Evelyn well fulfilled the promise of her girlhood, so far as actual beauty was concerned. The delicacy of form and feature, the perfection of colouring, the grace of movement, were unchanged. They had only ripened into a fuller loveliness, with the addition of a finished repose and graciousness of manner, an exquisite high-bred ease, which no mere girl can show.
She wore a cream-coloured dress of India muslin, handsome in make and rich in embroidery. There was about her every appearance of a life of ease, of luxury, of affectionate care, every token of a sheltered existence. Looking upon her from without, it might seem that she had not a want ungratified.
Yet those who studied Evelyn Villiers with observant eyes were conscious of something lacking. They knew that life to this fair creature had not thus far been all that it might have been. The delicate cheek had already a slight inward curve, marring its perfect oval; a curve which in such a face could only have come from illness or from wear and tear. The graceful bearing had about it a touch of weariness, of listless indifference, like one tired of her surroundings. The closed lips had gained a faintly satirical set; and the violet eyes contained a look of forlornness, as if she thirsted perpetually after something unattainable. It had been said that the expression of those eyes was as of a captive creature, chained down, and hopeless of escape.
But these were the views of those only who could see a little below the surface. People in general said how pretty and sweet and charming she was—only rather too exclusive, rather difficult to know! And what an enviable life she led! To be sure, one might wish that the husband were a few years younger: but then he was rich and gentlemanly, delightful in his manners, and such a good man too! What mattered a little discrepancy in age? Mrs. Villiers was a happy woman: she had everything she could possibly desire!
"Mr. Trevelyan! How good of him! And Jean!"
Evelyn did not stir till the callers were announced. Then she went forward, in her soft restrained fashion, holding out two hands, a rare gesture with Mrs. Villiers.
"I am so glad to see you both. This is kind. It is just what I wanted, treating me like an old friend! Somehow I have always had the feeling that my most real friends were at Dulveriford Rectory; though I have seen so little of you since my marriage. I hope to see more now. We have come back to settle down for a time. My husband is tired of travelling."
"General Villiers was so good as to say that we might call at once, not waiting till after Sunday."
"Did he? That was kind. He knew I wished it. And this is Jean! The old look, I see—hardly changed."
She kissed Jean's cheek in her winning way—for Evelyn could be irresistibly winning when she chose, though she did not always choose.
"Do I know you well enough?" she asked.
"Jean is a child still," promptly asserted Mr. Trevelyan, while Jean breathed a "Yes" of unlimited meaning.
Evelyn smiled. She knew in a moment her power over the girl, and she was glad to know it. Jean interested her: not only for the sake of Mr. Trevelyan, whom Evelyn had always liked. Jean herself was so uncommon: not exactly good-looking, but so very uncommon. There was a trenchant attractiveness about the aristocratic pose of Jean's head, and the straightforward earnestness of her singular eyes, combined with an abnormal simplicity of dress and manner.
Evelyn's glance travelled over her, taking in all particulars: then she sat down on a sofa, making Jean do the same.
"I want to know this child well," she said, with her sweet graciousness. "Yes, I suppose she is a child still—compared with me. But I have a fancy that we shall be friends some day. Will you come and see me, Jean, when I am alone, now and then?"
Jean's eyes brightened into a golden glow like sunshine. "If I may," she said.
"The oftener the better," quoth Mr. Trevelyan, who was under the power of Evelyn's magic wand, though not to such an extent as to lose his own individuality.
"Thanks! Then come often, Jean—as often as you can be spared. I must introduce you to my little boudoir. Only think, that naughty brother of mine has not been near me since Wednesday morning."
Explanations had to be given. Jean left them to her father, and Mr. Trevelyan said no more than was needful, but Evelyn drew certain particulars from him by skilful questioning.
"The old story," she said. "My aunt will do her best to spoil him. After all, the only hope lies in school."
"Cyril doesn't want to be a coddle," spoke up Jean in his defence.
"You and he are great friends, are you not?"
"I don't know. Yes; I suppose so," Jean answered slowly, as if anxious to be exact.
Presently, with an abrupt change of subject—only, nothing that Evelyn did ever had an abrupt effect—Mrs. Villiers asked—
"What of Dutton parties and politics?"
"I am not a man of Dutton," was the answer.
"The better able, perhaps, to take a dispassionate outside view."
"That may be," cautiously, "but I am very busy in my own work. Not much time to watch other people."
"I wish 'other people' could say the same. It seems to me that the normal occupation of Dutton generally is to sit and look at its neighbours—not with approving eyes."
"A common result of too little to do."
"And looking at them means talking about them. Things have always been so, I suppose; but after years away, one notices more. I have been in the thick of it all this week. Everybody does not wait, like you and Jean, for leave to call before Sunday. Perhaps I should not have given leave in some cases—" with a slight curl of her lip. "I have had any number of callers: and they all seem convinced that the one object of my coming home is to hear how badly the world has gone on in my absence. The Dutton world I mean."
"So long as they keep to generalities—" and a pause.
"They do not. It is all about individuals."
"Such remarks may be checked, if one is resolved."
Evelyn's face wore a curious look, as if she were conscious of certain elements in the question which he had failed to grasp.
"Perhaps—" she said gently. And then—
"St. John's is unchanged, I hear. The shabby little boys still in full force!"
Mr. Trevelyan smiled, and drew cabalistic signs on the carpet with his walking-stick, while Jean listened and learnt. "I imagine that a good many elderly people would be distressed at changes in St. John's," he said.
"People who believe in the infallibility of sixty years ago: I never do understand that view of matters. Why must all that is done at a certain date in one's life be right, and every after deviation be wrong? Shall I come to the same way of thinking when I am old?"
"It is a not unusual result of age with ordinary minds."
"But may not people go on and learn more, instead of standing still? And don't the needs of different generations differ? Doesn't human nature take fresh developments from time to time, wanting varieties of help? I don't often talk like this—" and a restless caged look came into her beautiful eyes. "People would not understand. But surely truth as a whole is wider than it is made out by some such good people."
"Truth as a whole is wide as Him who is the Truth: and He is wider than the Universe which He has made. Our views of Truth may be narrow, but Truth itself is never narrow." Mr. Trevelyan spoke in a brief incisive style, and she smiled.
"Yes: that is what I meant. You understand. One gets a glimpse of how things really are sometimes—and then to come down to the little circles of good people, saying hard things of each other—But I shall be as bad as they, if I go on! We had better talk of something else. Tell me about your sister. Is she well? Busy as ever, I suppose. I want to see her the first day I can. Ah—here is my husband."
A nameless change crept over Evelyn, noted at once by the observant Jean. She looked up with a kind expression, a species of polite wifely welcome; but the smile vanished, and with it, her engaging sweetness. In a moment, the violet eyes grew weary, the lips satirical, the whole manner dignified and listless.
General Villiers came in quickly, with his military step and carriage; handsome still, though his grey hair had become white, and he was older in appearance by many years than the number of his summers warranted. Chronic ill-health is apt to age a man: and he had suffered much at times from rheumatism. He might have been easily taken for past seventy: and it was quite true, as Mrs. Kennedy had said, that he looked like Evelyn's grandfather. He had even begun to stoop a little. At the moment of his entrance, a distinct frown was stamped upon his brow, as if something had vexed him: but it cleared away at the sight of callers, and he came forward to greet them, with his air of polished courtesy.
The Trevelyans did not belong to that "St. John set" which formed his own chosen environment when at home. As he would perhaps have said, they did not "suit him." He knew, however, that Evelyn liked them: and he was too affectionate a husband not to be pleased with what gave her pleasure, even though he might be just a little uneasy at the prospect of an intimacy in that quarter.
He was somewhat in bondage to the opinions of others; not of "others" generally, but of certain leading individuals in his own clique; Miss Devereux, for instance, and Lady Lucas, and Colonel Atherstone, none of whom liked or approved of Mr. Trevelyan. Where his own kindliness of heart would have carried him on, he was often pulled back by a recollection of what others—these particular "others—" might say. Still, he was a thorough gentleman, and small-talk went as smoothly as a glissade for several minutes, till Mr. Trevelyan rose to go.
"Jean must be sure to come again very soon," Evelyn said, kissing the girl; and Jean went off in a state of smothered radiance, which her father could not even guess at.
"My dear!" the General said seriously, when he and Evelyn were alone, speaking in a tone of reproof. He was a most devoted husband, as husbands go, but seven years of married life do undoubtedly, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, make away with the romance of attachment. Dearly as the General loved his fair young wife, he was not at all incapable of finding fault with her; and this premonitory "My dear!" did not come with the shock of anything unusual. It only came as something unwelcome: and her lips grew slightly hard.
"Yes—" she said.
"I think, my love, that now we are at home, you must make up your mind to be a little more guarded, more careful in your manner, when friends call friends of long standing."
"More guarded!"
"Perhaps that is hardly the word. What I mean is, that you have to be a little more kind and pleasant, my love, even where you do not so very particularly care for the callers themselves. It is necessary to guard one's manner sometimes from over-coldness, as well as from over-frankness. I am speaking early for your sake as well as for my own. I should be sorry if a wrong impression went forth of my wife; and you cannot, I am convinced, really wish to give offence. It is only inadvertence."
"Offence to whom, William?"
"It is hardly needful to mention names. I think you will understand without further explanation. You did not of course intend to act slightingly to anybody; but a certain amount of attention is due to people in a certain position; and when it is withheld—can you wonder that they are hurt?"
"I cannot be otherwise than natural."
"Nay, Evelyn—surely politeness ought to be natural."
"I have not failed in bare politeness, and I will not," she said quietly. "But more is expected, and I cannot give it. I don't like Dutton people."
"You do not really know them. There is at least no need to pass judgment until you do."
"I have no wish to know them any better."
"Then I am to understand that your manner yesterday to some of my friends—a manner which gave pain—was not inadvertent, but intentional?"
Evelyn almost spoke, almost told him of the real cause. It was a pity that she did not. Though he might have been difficult to convince, he would not in the abstract have approved of gossip, and he would at least have seen that she had a reason for showing coldness.
"But what is the use?" she asked herself plaintively. "He will not understand."
She turned away with a sigh, making no answer, and the frown on the General's brow was stamped there during many hours. He thought Evelyn was wilfully bent on opposing him.
It was difficult, perhaps, for him to think otherwise, when she would not attempt to make her motives clear; yet no doubt it was difficult also for Evelyn to enter on such an attempt, when she had so often tried and failed. The state of tension between them had grown gradually out of an utter discrepancy of mind and character, at least not less in degree than the discrepancy of age. In such cases, it is often most difficult to say where the blame lies.
For he was so good, so earnest, a man: and withal so fixed in his views. When he had made up his mind, he had made up his mind, and nothing could move him. This was a marked idiosyncrasy, a part of his very nature; and it was equally shown on questions of great moment and of passing interest.
On almost every conceivable subject of importance, he had come to definite conclusions some thirty or forty years earlier; and he had not since deviated by a hair's breadth, at least not consciously, from the neat solution of each difficulty, then laid down by himself for his own instruction. He was never troubled by a shadow of doubt that his opinions might not be absolutely and altogether right. He never thought it possible that here or there he might be mistaken. He had his Bible; he studied it; he reached certain conclusions. When other people, studying their Bibles no less earnestly, reached different conclusions, they of course were wrong.
He was too gentlemanly and kind-hearted to judge them harshly in words; but he always felt their deviations from truth, as held by himself, to be sad and perplexing; and he had no pleasure in their society. His friends were always those who agreed with himself, who submitted to his dictum. All who did so agree, he accepted and believed in thoroughly; so thoroughly that, as we have seen, Evelyn was hopeless of her power to disturb that belief. All who did not so agree were relegated to the outer circle of mere acquaintances.
But he could not so relegate his wife: and Evelyn by no means agreed with him on all points. She made no effort to conceal the fact; and this was a lasting grief to the single-eyed simple-hearted man. For if he were inevitably always in the right, she must of necessity, where she differed from him, be always in the wrong.
Evelyn's mind and character were in many respects a complete enigma to the General. He could not fathom her; could not grasp the complexities of a nature so unlike his own. It was not his fault. A short-sighted man cannot fairly be blamed for not seeing so far as a long-sighted man.
The General, with all his real goodness and nobleness, had a narrow make of mind, a contracted mental vision. And at sixty-two or sixty-three years of age, he was incapable of gauging his young wife of twenty-five. She had not yet come to her full growth. She was expanding, gaining fresh knowledge, assimilating new thoughts, year by year. He had been petrified early into a permanent shape; and for thirty or forty years past, he had almost ceased to expand. How could the two minds suit?
Evelyn's restless thought, her searching into the foundations of statements which he accepted en bloc, her eager listening to fresh theories, her weariness of religious strifes and factious oppositions—all of these he resolved with sorrowful haste into "dangerous tendencies," and to all of these, he set himself in resolute opposition. He was indeed most willing to discuss vexed questions with her; and he would never, like many men, forget his gentlemanliness in the heat of argument; but he always began and ended with the assumption that he himself was inevitably right, and he had no power to see her side of the matter.
So it came to pass that Evelyn fell into a habit of systematically evading all discussion; not merely all religious discussion, which under the circumstances was no doubt her wisest course, but all discussion of most everyday matters. If he found fault, she offered no defence. If he misjudged her, she attempted no explanation. It was "no use," she told herself. Such a state of things, which in any other relationship of life would be hardly more than endurable, when existing between a husband and wife could not but result in distress and isolation.
A STRIFE FOR THE MASTERY.
"Fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow;And dart not scornful glances from those eyes."SHAKESPEARE.
SYBELLA's exercise of authority over Cyril had reached the limit of her tether. The pull had been too strong, inducing a new resistance which, once started, was not likely to die down.
From childhood, the home training of the young baronet had been, in effect, "Do as you like; follow your own inclinations—" with the sole exceptions implied by the care of his health, and the choice of his friends. He was to nurse and coddle his body; he was to like those people whom Sybella liked; which two exceptions might involve the occasional crossing of his inclinations; but in all other respects he was to gratify himself.
Such a mode of training would naturally, would almost of necessity, recoil in time upon the trainer. Arbitrary exceptions to a general rule of self-pleasing are not likely to stand.
Boyish as Cyril looked, he was seventeen, a lad of innate character, of rapidly-developing force and intellect. Some degree of nervous weakness existed still, hampering the capabilities of mind and body, but the weakness was being fast mastered, as the bracing influences of a good school gradually counteracted the enervating influences of home.
Hitherto his natural gentleness of disposition, with a good-natured readiness to yield on small points—a readiness more often masculine than feminine—had prevented struggles; but the state of things could not last thus indefinitely. Sooner or later, as Mrs. Kennedy would have said, the tadpole is sure to part with its tail.
The change was not likely to begin on Miss Devereux's side. A mother is usually far quicker than a father to realise that her children, especially her boys, are growing up; and she more seldom makes the blunder of keeping on childish restrictions too long. But Miss Devereux was not a mother, was not even a woman of natural motherliness. She was only a fidgety and nervous single lady, very ignorant of life, still more ignorant of human nature; and she was quite unable to realise that her spoilt darling was big enough to stand alone. She was just as eager to cosset, to pet, and to control, with the lad of seventeen as she had been with the child of ten. Since the change would not begin on her side, it had to begin on Cyril's side; and this mode too often means an accompanying struggle.
No doubt the change had been long brewing. Things do not come about in this world without previous preparation. When a lightning spark flashes from cloud to cloud, it does so with startling suddenness yet the electrical condition of the clouds has implied a gradual working-up to the point of discharge. When nations burst into open war, a period of grumbling and growling has been gone through previously. What the newspapers describe as "strained relations" between two kingdoms had been for some time the condition of affairs between aunt and nephew; only nobody knew it except themselves, and perhaps not even themselves.
Like many easy-tempered people, who from inborn sweetness and dislike of a "fuss," will yield on a hundred lesser points, Cyril could be aroused to tough resistance on the hundred-and-first point. An occasional fight in his childhood might have warned Sybella; but such fights had been rare, and she had almost found him amenable to petting. On the whole, this factor in his character had not pressed itself on Sybella's notice. He was indeed only now beginning to awake to the dawning possibilities of manhood. Far greater awakenings might come to him in the future; but this at the moment seemed great. It took him by surprise as well as her.
Though he had submitted to the combined pressure of Miss Devereux and Mr. Trevelyan, he could not easily forgive his aunt for the position in which she had placed him before Jean. There was the rub! Had Jean been absent, he would have cared little; he might have felt a touch of good-humoured disgust, still he would have stepped into the carriage, with at most only a laughing protest.
But before Jean!! To have to act the semi-invalid, and be carried off to dry his boots, with Jean standing there, slim and straight and scornful! He knew she was scornful, without looking at her; and his whole frame tingled at the thought. It quashed all recollections of Mr. Trevelyan's advice, which for the moment had carried the day against himself. He could only think of Jean, could only burn at the recollection of her pity.
He would not speak to his aunt all the way home; would not look at her; would not answer when she spoke. His violet eyes grew dark under bent brows, and the handsome lips gathered themselves into a resolute pout. In plain terms, Sir Cyril Devereux sulked. He had never been a sulky boy; and Miss Devereux did not know what to make of this new phase in his nature.
She had not sense to leave him alone to recover himself. A little quiet neglect might have restored the balance, allowing her time to regain his temper: but whatever else Sybella might do, she never failed to talk. She reasoned, argued, coaxed, remonstrated, without a break. When he would not reply, she nearly cried. When he would not look at her, she rambled on about ingratitude. When at length she had him inside the hall-door, she told him it was all the fault of his friends that he should behave so badly.
"If it wasn't for those Trevelyans—!" she lamented. "I'm sure nothing could show more plainly that Jean is no good companion for you. And now, Cyril, about your boots—"
But she had put the finishing stroke. Cyril's unwonted fit of sulks exploded into a no less unwonted outburst of anger.
"If it hadn't been for Mr. Trevelyan, I wouldn't have come back at all," he declared wrathfully, and he dashed headlong upstairs, three steps at a time.
Sybella hesitated, debated with herself as to what dignity might demand, and followed the fugitive. She found Cyril's door open, Cyril's room empty; and from the window she caught one glimpse of a boyish figure cutting at full speed across a distant lawn.
"He must have gone down the back staircase! And without changing his boots! How wrong! How deceitful!" bewailed the distressed lady; though deceitful was scarcely the correct term.
Cyril's rush upstairs had been instinctive, his rush downstairs unpremeditated. He had merely escaped by the easiest method.
"I shall have to take stronger measures. He has never shown such a rebellious spirit before. So strange and unlike him—it really is most sad. Standing alone, as I do—with no one to appeal to—except of course General Villiers, and he is entirely managed by his wife."
Sybella did not show profound knowledge here, but she would have maintained the statement through thick and thin.
"I really am quite at a loss what to do. Of course one can see whose influence has been at work. Yes—come in."
"Lady Lucas is downstairs, ma'am."
Sybella had to smooth her ruffled plumage, and to hasten to the drawing-room, where Lady Lucas sat on the chief sofa—a large woman, plump and round, and clothed in black brocaded silk, almost stiff enough to stand on end. In youth she had been pretty, but her features had expanded with her frame into a rotund shapelessness, and the distinguishing characteristic of her countenance was its extent of cheek. There was also a superfluity of chin, though not of forehead, and her eyes were surrounded by cushions, which left only two slim crevices when she smiled.
She was the very picture of dignified geniality greeting Sybella with effusive affection; and the effect of her effusiveness was to call forth the gush always latent in Sybella, albeit trampled under feet by an irresponsive world. Sybella aught sigh, and clasp her hands, and gaze with appreciative eyes, to any extent, in Lady Lucas' presence.
Tea came in, and Sybella poured it out in a vague and poetical manner. She forgot the sugar, and then the cake; and she blushed and sighed over her own mistakes, pleading absorption of mind.
Lady Lucas had no objection to absorbed minds in the abstract. Indeed she thought it rather interesting to see Sybella go off into a mild dream, with clasped hands, and eyes riveted on the top-point of the banner-screen; but she was too old fashioned not to like sugar.
"No innovations for me, my dear!" she said magisterially, when Sybella offered the sugar-basin, and she helped herself to three big lumps. "Tea was meant to be taken with sugar. Leaving it off is all a fad of the present day."
The saccharine question disposed of, they reverted to topics of local interest, and divers affairs pertaining to other people were settled by the two ladies. Sybella had not meant to say anything about the perversity of her nephew, being well aware that what was told to Lady Lucas was told to Dutton. But her mind was full of the subject, and the outlets from Sybella's mind were always badly corked. A very moderate amount of steam-pressure within would at any time get rid of the corks.
So presently the whole story came out, not to say more than the whole. A story told by any one is pretty sure to take its colouring from the condition of the teller's feelings, and Sybella's feelings were not calm.
Lady Lucas listened, questioned, sympathised.
"There is nothing for it but firmness," she maintained, removing a crumb from her brocaded silk. "You must hold your own, my dear. It is a question of now or never. I know what young men are in the present day. If you yield now, you will never have the upper hand again."
"So difficult!" sighed Sybella pensively.
"Not at all. Not in the least difficult if you set to work in the right way. To begin with, I should certainly check that intimacy, if I were you. No end of mischief comes from boy and girl intimacies, where there is no relationship. I would check it at any cost."
"But how is one to check it? I should be glad enough if I could," persisted Sybella. "Of course it is most undesirable! Still, I don't know what to do. If I were to forbid him the Rectory, I am rather afraid—and it would give offence too—"
"If you were to forbid him the Rectory, you would settle the matter at once, my dear. Nothing in life but the Trevelyans would be of the slightest importance," said Lady Lucas, with considerable wisdom. "No, things have gone much too far for that. You can't stamp it out—now! You can only try to draw him in some other direction."
"How?" Sybella begged to know, for once with brevity.
"Don't leave him time for the Trevelyans. Keep your eye upon him, and have all possible engagements apart from them. Mrs. Villiers would surely help you. No? I should have thought, the General's wife—Well, if no other means are successful, I would take the boy elsewhere for his holidays. I would not have him at Dulveriford more than I could possibly help, till his fancy for Jean has died out. For Mr. Trevelyan! Oh, my dear, I know better! I know what boys are. It is Jean he is crazy after, not Mr. Trevelyan. You really are very innocent still of the ways of the world!"—playfully.
Sybella bridled and blushed anew at the compliment.
"Now you think over my advice. At Christmas you may have to be at home—it may be unavoidable—but Christmas holidays are shorter, and people can't rove about in the fields all day. Summer is the time to have him away. Take him abroad or anywhere—only not here. He will be at College, I suppose, in a year; and think of the length of his summer vacation then. You must keep him out of Jean Trevelyan's way for two or three years; and see what the effect will be. Don't fan the fancy by fighting, but fill his mind with other interests."
Sybella did not dislike the notion. It would take a little time to work its way into her brain, but she by no means rejected the scheme. A few difficulties occurred to mind, all of which her companion overruled or smoothed away.
By the time Lady Lucas said good-bye, Sybella was much more than half convinced.
Tea grew cold, and Cyril did not come in. Sybella began to wax nervous. What if she really had gone too far, had driven the boy to desperation? Worse ideas than wet boots began to assail her—such as maimed limbs, and drowned bodies. Why Cyril should be maimed or drowned, in consequence of what had passed, she could hardly have explained; but whoever expected sequence of thought from Sybella?
She put on her garden hat at length, took a shawl, and meandered about the grounds for half-an-hour; in vain. Cyril was not to be found. Then she confided her anxiety to Pearce, and sent him forth to search. Pearce did not agree with her as to the necessity, but he did what he was told; and after an hour's walk, he returned, having seen nothing of Sir Cyril.
Dinner-time drew near. Did Cyril mean to fail for dinner? That would indeed be a startlingly new departure. Sybella melted into tears at the prospect, then she grew pettishly angry, and then she cried again. It was impossible to settle to anything. She wandered from room to room, looking out of windows, wondering what could be done next.
A click at the front door sounded, and Cyril came in suddenly. Sybella was passing through the hall, and she stopped short, with an exclamation, half relieved, half reproachful.
Cyril stood facing her, white and resolute, yet shamefaced. He had never treated her in this fashion before, and he did not know what to make of himself any more than Sybella knew what to make of him; but all promptings to softer feeling were checked again and again by the remembrance of how she had abashed him before Jean. He was stiff as steel on that point, worked up to rigidity by hours of brooding. Still, a touch of shame was visible.
"Cyril!! At last!!" she said, any number of notes of admiration in her voice. "Where have you been?"
"Walking!" curtly.
"Not all this time! And your boots! You did not change your boots!"
"No, aunt."
"Cyril, this is very wrong. This really is most, reprehensible. I could not have thought it of you."
Unyielding silence answered the reproach, and Sybella's voice began to shake.
"I could not have believed in such behaviour. It is too bad—too ungrateful! But of course, I understand what makes you so unlike yourself. I quite understand. It is all the fault of those Trevelyans! The effect of being thrown too much with Jean! I am sure if I had thought—But I have been too kind—too indulgent! One finds one's mistakes—I shall have to take measures—strict measures! Lady Lucas is right! The thing cannot go on."
Be it remarked, Sybella had studiously resolved to say nothing of all this, to make no allusion to the Trevelyans; above all, to utter no hint respecting Lady Lucas' advice. She did not wish to warn her nephew, or to annoy him afresh. Sybella's resolutions were, however, apt to fail when the moment came for carrying them out.
"It is all the fault of those Trevelyans," she went on in her usual style of aimless repetition. "I suppose they have been setting you against me. And Jean—Have you been there again?"
"No!"
Little though Sybella knew it, a kind and grieved word on his first entrance—such a word as a mother might have spoken—would have softened him at once into his ordinary self. He was dead-beat with hours of vehement walking and indignation, just in the state to be melted by any touch of tenderness. His pale lips might have told their tale to Sybella, but she was far too full of her own annoyance to be observant. The above utterances, the contemptuous expression "those Trevelyans," the unjust accusations levelled against his friends, hardened him afresh. Sybella was losing an opportunity, not likely to return.
"Then where did you go?"
"Through the marshes."
Sybella lifted horror-struck hands.
"You are soaking wet—up to your knees. Almost up to your knees."
"Yes."
Sybella burst into tears, overcome by this new masterfulness of spirit in her coddled darling. "I'm sure I can't think what has come over you, Cyril. You are not a bit like yourself. Jean Trevelyan—"
"I shall get ready for dinner," Cyril broke in coldly, and he walked out of the room, cutting short the renewed accusation.
Dinner was an uncomfortable meal for both. Cyril was far too chilled and too much fatigued to have any appetite; and Sybella was too greatly offended to speak on any subject except that of his misdemeanours, which could hardly be discussed in Pearce's presence.
She had meant to carry on her lecture during dessert, but Cyril declined all dainties, and Sybella resolved to make haste to the drawing-room, where interruptions were not likely.
On the way, however, she was delayed by a note from Mrs. Kennedy, requiring a verbal answer, and when she reached the drawing-room, Cyril was dead-asleep on a low couch—not lying down, but dropped in a careless heap. He looked so young, and withal so sweet, with the long even lashes lying on his cheeks, and the half childish lips parted, that Sybella's mood softened. She sat and watched him till coffee came in, and then, after rousing him to take a cup, her lecture resolved itself into—
"Cyril, you ought to go to bed."
"I don't mind if I do," Cyril said, with unlooked-for submission; and after a good-night kiss, he vanished.
But the kiss was a cold one. Sybella's accusation of Jean could not be easily forgotten.
Sybella was in her element next day; and all her foreboding cares were rewarded; for Cyril had a cold. She could indulge herself to any extent in that most ardent delight of a small mind—the reiteration of the formula, "I told you so!"
Had she not warned Cyril? Had she not prophesied results? Had she not begged, implored, insisted? And had he not refused to hear? Now the consequences had arrived—just as she had known, just as she had expected, just as she had declared would be the case!
"I told you how it would be!" she said again and again, with her grating self-satisfaction.
There could be no mistake about the matter. Cyril came down to breakfast, hoarse as a raven, sneezing, heavy-eyed, feverish and listless. He did his best to talk in a natural voice, but the effort was a failure.
And every time he coughed, Sybella said "Ah!" 'expressively.
She was so gratified with her own sagacity, as quite to have recovered her good-humour.
All breakfast-time, she plied Cyril with questions. Had he a pain here, a feeling of tightness there, a kind of oppression within, a sort of chilliness everywhere? Had he—
"Ah! There!" as Cyril sneezed.
Poor dear boy! Well, he would have to stay indoors, of course, and take care of himself. Nothing like nipping a cold in the bud, especially in summer when of course there are draughts everywhere. A little prudence earlier would have prevented all this; but now—yes, the best plan would be to stay quietly in the study, with the window shut, and a nice little story to read. And he must have broth and toast for lunch; and a horrible camomile compound such as "my dear aunt always gave me when I had a cold;" and then if he did not get better by the evening, "I must just send for Dr. Ingram."
Cyril stoutly rebelled. He had begun to feel his power. He had had the bit between his teeth yesterday evening, and he began to champ it again now. It was impossible to forget so soon his aunt's contemptuous utterance of the Trevelyan name. He knew also that Jean might expect him to look in and inquire after the robin.
He did not mention Jean, but his lips took an obstinate curve, as he answered, "I'm not going to be boxed up indoors all day."
Sybella declined to hear the protest. She talked on through breakfast; she reiterated warnings past, causes present, results future. She discussed Cyril into the Study; she shut and bolted the window; she gave him a pretty story-book; she pitied his hoarseness; she fidgeted to and fro; she went verbally through a list of remedies; she threatened Dr. Ingram anew.