Jean by herself had struggled in vain to move the prostrate figure, but Walters could do what she had failed to accomplish. When Evelyn came up, her husband lay asleep, as it might be, on a winding-sheet of pure snow, "like a warrior taking his rest," calm and silent; while Jean knelt beside him, wiping away with her handkerchief the mud which still clung to the sealed eyes, the rigid and purple lips.
"My poor master!" groaned Walters.
Evelyn did not at once grasp how things were, or, if in her heart she knew, she would not at once accept the truth. A mist over the moon had thickened into cloud, blotting out most of its light, but now the cloud rolled on, leaving a clear landscape. The quiet face could be seen plainly—hardly paler than Jean's. Evelyn's glance went from the one to the other.
"He is found!" she said; and putting Mr. Trevelyan aside, she went forward alone.
"Then he lost his way, as Jean thought. And Jean has found him!—Jean!" with an accent of wonder. "Has he fainted? We must got him home quickly. He is so cold—only feel him! Cannot we give him—something—do—something?" uncertainly, as if she did not know what she said. "William, dearest! Dear—I have come to you."
Jean, shaken by the shock of her discovery, could not endure this. One hard sob broke from the girl's lips, racking her whole frame in its struggle to escape, and startling herself at least as much as others.
"Jean!" her father breathed, and she had herself in hand instantly; but that slight sound had done the business.
Evelyn looked across, with a dim smile, full of anguish.
"Jean!" she said. "Why—Jean—"
Then she swayed slowly forward and fell, prone and senseless, upon her husband's body.
BROUGHT HOME.
"Life and Thought have gone awaySide by side,Leaving door and windows wide;Careless tenants they!""All within is dark as night:In the windows is no light;And no murmur at the door,So frequent on its hinge before."TENNYSON.
WHETHER he had simply lost his way in the storm, and had wandered to and fro among the marshes, finding himself again and again turned back by intercepting dykes, till so exhausted that when he slipped and fell, he had no strength to rise; or whether some undetected heart-weakness, rendering him unfit to cope with the icy gale, had resulted in sudden failure of the heart's action, who of those present could say? All was over, long before they found him.
He had died, it would seem, a painless death, even though in some measure, a death of suffocation. He had met the great change suddenly, quietly, in pursuit of duty, in an act of unselfish kindness. The look in the dead face was not as of one conquered, but as of one victorious. To such a man as General Villiers, living habitually in the presence of his God, death, however unexpected, could not in effect be sudden, since he was always ready for it.
Jean would never in future years forget those few minutes, when she stood alone beside the lifeless body. She had not, it is true, any very strong liking for the General personally. He had been kind to her in a ceremonious fashion, and she had looked upon him as the inevitable appendage to his wife, whom she passionately loved—not in all respects a satisfactory appendage, viewed with Jean's fastidious eyes, because she privately counted that he did not fully appreciate Evelyn.
Perhaps the parting between husband and wife, witnessed by her that afternoon, had somewhat shaken this aspect of matters. In any case, the General had been a familiar figure in Jean's life; a fine figure always, manly and gentlemanly; and to see him thus was terrible—lying dead on the cold white snow, bathed in the cold white moonlight, with the cold white marshes around—while not another human being was near. There lay the pull. We are so constituted that the mere fact of somebody near, at such a moment, is a help—even though the somebody may be powerless to assist.
Had a mere child stood by, the chill of that icy solitude would not have entered, as it did, into the very depths of Jean's organisation. Her actual grief was, indeed, for Evelyn, not for herself; but nine-tenths of what Jean suffered in life always had been and always would be for others: and the suffering was no whit less keen on that account. Rather, it was more keen, because more pure and noble in kind.
Evelyn's fainting fit did not last long, and when she rallied, the native force of her character at once asserted itself. Instead of giving way to a display of grief, adding to others' difficulties, she stood resolutely up, insisted on walking, and decisively set Mr. Trevelyan free, as well as Walters and Adams—the latter having returned—for the heavy task before them. Ricketts had been sent to the cottage to procure a shutter, and if possible, additional help. To convey such a weight over such ground would be no light matter; and a man lodging there, but seldom back till late, would probably be in by this time. The lad's own lameness rendered him of small avail.
"Jean will give me her arm. I want nothing more," Evelyn said steadily. "Only Jean, please. I shall not faint again. You must not think of me at all. We will go on, and—you will bring him home—quickly, please!" with unutterable entreaty.
Even Mr. Trevelyan's stoicism was not proof against her look.
"If—if anything can be done—" But she did not finish her sentence, for she knew as well as he that it was too late, that nothing whatever could be done.
The Rector's eyes were full, nay, wet all round.
"I cannot thank you!" she said. "I owe you—so much! Come, Jean, dear."
That walk always stood out before Jean in after life, as one of the worst experiences she had ever had to go through. Her most pressing desire was to keep Evelyn well ahead, that she might not see aught of what went on behind. There was to be no delay. Mr. Trevelyan and the two men would start at once with—it—alas! No longer him—hoping soon to meet coming aid, which indeed would be needed.
A whisper from Mr. Trevelyan urged Jean to haste; and Evelyn herself probably felt that she had not strength to endure the sight. She made no effort to hang back, and never cast a glance to rear. Weary she must have been, and the fixed face was white as snow in the moonlight, yet she walked swiftly, unfalteringly, making no hardship of the stiles, scarcely pressing on Jean's arm.
No words passed between the two for the greater part of the way. Even when they encountered young Ricketts and the lodger, bearing the shutter between them, it was Jean, not Evelyn, who begged them to make haste.
Evelyn only shivered silently. Jean bent her whole attention to guiding Evelyn's steps, to giving all possible support: while Evelyn seemed to be hardly conscious where she was or what she did.
Not till the marshes were left behind, not till the large final meadow between marsh and high road were reached, did Jean venture to say—
"If you would only lean upon me more! You must be so tired!"
Evelyn's answer, not an answer in reality, came as if wrung from her: "O Jean, if I had been different! If I had only been different! If I had never given him pain!"
Jean dared not go into that question. She could trust neither herself nor Evelyn, after all they had gone through. She knew by Evelyn's shortened breath and failing steps that tears were streaming; and it was only by a fierce bracing of her own powers that she could force herself to say in everyday accents—
"I think you might make more use of my arm. We shall soon be at home now. Are you very wet?"
"I don't know."
To keep Evelyn to her earlier pace was no longer possible. She fell into a slower and slower walk, till Jean began to fear that the sad procession behind must surely overtake them. The high road was left, but the ascending avenue-path through the Park grounds taxed Evelyn to her utmost. It was all she could do to drag one foot after the other, and more than once she came to a complete pause, swaying feebly, as if on the verge of another swoon.
Jean urged her on with touch and voice, and Evelyn responded in renewed efforts; but when the front door was reached, and Evelyn stumbled up the two steps, Jean knew that she could have done no more. Anything more deathlike than her face, as she came into the lighted hall, could hardly have been imagined.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Stowe, stood there, and with her Miss Devereux; the latter, as a matter of course, talking, the former listening. News of the General's disappearance having reached Sybella, she had driven at once to the Park, determined there to remain till the mystery should be cleared up. Jean had seen fresh carriage-marks on the snow outside, leading up to the door and round to the stables.
Evelyn saw nothing. Guided by Jean, she reached the great oaken arm-chair, and dropped into it; her lips white: her eyes closed.
"My dear Evelyn! Then you have come, and it is all right," cried Sybella, starting forward. "And he is found! I said so! I was sure it was nothing! I knew he must have taken shelter somewhere. Such an imprudent thing to go out in the snow! A man of his age! If people will be so foolish—! I shouldn't wonder if he had a bad cold afterwards—and rheumatism, of course. How wet you are, both of you! Really, it is quite madness! I can't think what Mr. Trevelyan was after to let you go! Such folly! If you had just stayed at home quietly! It is too imprudent! Look at the state of your skirts. Is she faint?"—to Jean. "Where is General Villiers? Is he coming? I drove over, in spite of the weather, when I heard—when Pearce brought me word—and the horses are put up here."
The first rush of Sybella's effervescence had always to be endured; it could no more be checked than the rush from a freshly uncorked champagne-bottle; but neither Stowe or Jean was idle. Wine and hot water stood ready on the hall-table, for Stowe had rightly conjectured that they would be needed: and while Jean pulled off Evelyn's wet gloves, and rubbed her icy fingers, Stowe brought a tumbler of steaming liquid.
"Drink it, ma'am—it will do you good," she entreated.
Evelyn was not fainting. She opened her eyes, whispered a low "Thanks," and made the effort; but after a few sips she sank back with the same look of powerlessness.
Sybella talked on, wondering, conjecturing, pitying, blaming.
Evelyn showed no consciousness of her presence.
Jean drew the housekeeper aside.
"We must get her upstairs," she whispered. "They are—coming—with him! They will be here directly. Send for Dr. Ingram, please—and oh! Do get her upstairs! Don't you understand? Oh, don't ask questions, only be quick—only get her upstairs!" implored Jean. "They are coming—with him! He was—found—there—on the marsh!"
Stowe understood now, and was stunned with the shock, unable to act. Before them all, she sat down, shaking visibly; the first time in her well-regulated life that she had ever taken such a liberty. She could only stare at Jean; and Jean knew there was no time to lose.
"Evelyn dear, you must come to your bedroom," she said, quitting Mrs. Stowe, and bending over the carved oak-chair. "Come at once! Yes—now—come with me!"
The violet eyes opened slowly.
"Come, dear! Come, Evelyn! Please come!"
"Nonsense, Jean! What do you mean?" demanded Miss Devereux, nettled by what she counted to be interference. If Jean had proposed to keep Evelyn downstairs, she would have been the first to urge an opposite course. Nothing done by a Trevelyan could possibly be right in Sybella's eyes. "Much best for her to stay here a few minutes, till she gets warmer. Oh, you mean—to change her dress. But she is not fit to walk yet. When General Villiers arrives—"
"O hush!" entreated Jean.
"Really, Jean—"
"Miss Trevelyan says we are to send for Dr. Ingram," whispered the housekeeper's tremulous voice, close to Miss Devereux. The wording of the sentence was unfortunate.
"Send for Dr. Ingram! What for? Mrs. Villiers will be all right in a few minutes. She is just overdone—as anybody of any sense might expect her to be. Really, Jean, I think you a little over-rate your position here," declared Miss Devereux, in aggrieved accents. "Evelyn has been very kind to you, no doubt, giving you the run of the Park and all that, but you are hardly more than a child. I really don't quite see what you have to do with giving orders. Evelyn ought to take some more food before she moves. I never heard of anything so mad, as taking her to the marshes on such a night. If I had been here!—But some people have no common-sense. When General Villiers comes in, he will say—"
Evelyn stood up, her face rigid with anguish. "My own room—" she said distinctly. "Send for Dr. Ingram at once, Stowe—and wait here till—No, only Jean with me!" As Sybella drew near. "Only Jean!"
Sybella fell back.
Evelyn passed away with Jean, and Stowe vanished to obey the order.
"Well! I really do think—" gasped the astonished lady. "I really do! And I her aunt! And as for Jean Trevelyan! But she always was demented about those Trevelyans! Such a stupid uninteresting girl! And Mr. Trevelyan as stiff as a poker—the most disagreeable man I ever saw! I am sure they are the last people I would ever go to in trouble. But then I am always so sensitive to manner—my feelings are so easily hurt—I really could not stand that sort of thing. It would make me quite ill! And the idea of sending for Dr. Ingram! Evelyn merely wants a good night's rest—and as for the General, I suppose he is just overdone, and can't get along fast. What else is to be expected, if people will be so crazy? And to send for Dr. Ingram, because Jean orders it! Ridiculous! I can't endure Dr. Ingram for my part."
Sybella had developed this dislike gradually: and no doubt, at the foundation of it, lay his relationship to the Trevelyans.
Then, as Mrs. Stowe returned.
"What is all the fuss about, Stowe? And why is the General so long? I suppose he found shelter somewhere, but he ought to be here by this time. And Mr. Trevelyan—how he could allow Mrs. Villiers to take that walk, with only Miss Trevelyan—no proper protection?"
Sybella's flow of remarks was cut short. Mr. Trevelyan's voice was heard outside, speaking in subdued accents; and into the lighted hall was brought a silent presence, before which even Sybella's volubility failed.
For Evelyn was indeed a widow!
Not till midnight, when Dr. Ingram had departed, and when Evelyn was asleep under the influence of a semi-opiate, did Jean venture to leave her, and to steal downstairs. She believed that her father was there; but what might be the next step for either of them, Jean could not so much as conjecture. All she knew was that she herself could do and bear no more.
Mr. Trevelyan stood below, in the hall, as if at that moment expecting her. He had had a little warning from Dr. Ingram to "look after Jean!"
And he had also gone through a small passage-of-arms with Miss Devereux, wherein of course, since he was a gentleman, the lady had had the last word. Sybella felt it to be her duty—her positive duty—to circumvent the machinations of these pushing Trevelyans, and to protect her dear niece from falling hopelessly into their clutches.
She did not exactly say as much to Mr. Trevelyan, but she looked it every inch; and there was no mistaking what she meant, as she professed an eager desire not to be a burden on Mr. Trevelyan's time—he was always so busy—so much to do—and she, of course, a single lady, with so few ties—what more natural than that she should remain at the Park, and devote herself to her poor niece?
Yes, she would stay over the night, of course—oh, certainly—and as many nights as her dear niece might require her. Impossible to leave the young widow alone! Could Mr. Trevelyan think it of her? Oh, quite impossible! Would Mr. Trevelyan and Jean like to make use of her carriage to convey them home? It was so late, and of course they were fatigued. Grimshaw would think nothing—oh, nothing at all—of that little extra round on his way to the Brow. So easily managed! And really, the sooner the house was quiet for her beloved niece—though none of them could ever forget the trouble to which Mr. Trevelyan had put himself—still, at such a time, complete quiet was so very essential—
Mr. Trevelyan bowed assent. He did not wear an attractive expression at the moment. His bow was most gentlemanly, but a sardonic sneer lurked in the corners of his mouth, and his eyes scanned Miss Devereux, as they might have scanned some uncommon specimen of worm or beetle kind, from an ineffably superior intellectual height.
Sybella felt the contempt without understanding it, and she was irritated.
The passage-at-arms ended as she wished. The Trevelyans would go home that night, and would not even use her offered carriage—which in itself was a relief, since she stood greatly in awe of what the stable autocrat, Grimshaw, might say. But although she had her will, although she was to be left in undisturbed possession of the field, Sybella was not satisfied. She could never delude herself into thinking that she had the mastery of Mr. Trevelyan's iron will. He yielded: yet if he had chosen not to yield, she could not have made him.
When he stood waiting in the hall for Jean, he looked precisely as usual: upright, composed, grim. Not a hair was disorganised: not a muscle was disturbed. A close observer might perhaps have noted a slight softening of expression, as he studied his daughter.
"Where's your hat, child?"
"Are we to walk home?" For the first time within Jean's recollection, the two miles to be traversed loomed before her imagination as a gigantic impossibility.
"No," in a suppressed voice. "Ingram undertook to send a fly, and it is here now. If Miss Devereux were not going to stay—" and a pause.
"She doesn't want us. But poor Evelyn!"
"Mrs. Villiers will send when she wants you. We can't force ourselves, even for her sake. Where's your ulster? To be sure—it went to be dried."
A touch of the bell brought Walters, carrying the ulster. "I did hope you'd both have stayed over the night, sir," he murmured, as he helped Jean to put it on.
"No—I think not. Miss Trevelyan has done enough. She will look round in the morning."
"Mrs. Villiers is asleep now," Jean said kindly to the man.
Mr. Trevelyan stopped to fasten some of Jean's buttons; then drew her hand within his arm. "Come, we must be off," he said. "Mind, Walters—anything we can do for Mrs. Villiers—"
"Yes, sir—I understand—thank you, sir."
The drive home was altogether silent. Jean could not trust herself to speak. She had eaten almost nothing since one o'clock, and the long strain was making itself felt.
"I sent word to your aunt that, if we came at all, we should be late—that she must not stay up, but might leave a good fire in the study," remarked Mr. Trevelyan, as they stopped at the Rectory. "And—tea. I thought you would rather have something here than at the Park. Walters would have got anything that I wished—but—jump out!"
Jean was past jumping. She descended somehow, and made her way to the study, where indeed a cheery fire blazed, and tea-things were outspread. Madame Collier's voice over the stairs kept Mr. Trevelyan back; and Jean could hear an exchange of low-voiced communications.
There was an exclamation or two in Madame Collier's voice, and then—
"On the marshes!—In the snow!—Too late!—All over!"—at intervals from her father.
Jean stood over the fire, feeling strangely. It had been such a terrible day. Only ten hours since she had quitted the Rectory, light-hearted and joyous—and all this to have come since! She felt as if ten weeks might have passed over her head. A vision rose before Jean of the General's tall figure and kind face, as he had come into his wife's boudoir; and then of the same, lying stark and cold in the white snow; and then of Evelyn's desolate misery; and a suffocating lump rose in her throat.
"Aunt Marie will see you presently, but I can't have talk to-night. You must go to bed as soon as you have had something to eat," said Mr. Trevelyan, entering.
He poked the fire carefully, arranged a bed of hot coals with deft fingers, and placed the kettle thereon.
"It will boil directly. Sandwiches—that's right. Sit down, Jean."
He pushed a chair towards her, and she obeyed, with a despairing sense of having come to the end of everything. Thus far she had kept up with marvellous courage for a girl of sixteen; but some measure of reaction was almost inevitable.
"Jean, my dear," said Mr. Trevelyan, looking at her. Then—
"Poor little girl!" came in a tone which she had never heard from him before.
He had been strongly stirred, and the underlying tenderness of the man for once pushed its way to the surface.
To Jean's utter amazement, she found herself sobbing, with her face on his shoulder, and one of his arms round her. Not only so, but as the paroxysm continued, he held her more tightly, and she heard him say—
"Never mind; don't be ashamed. You have done splendidly!—Like my own Jean!"
"O father!—If I could help it—"
"You can't just yet. Never mind. You won't be the worse for this."
Presently after a judicious pause—
"Now! Have you cried enough? I must make the tea."
Jean struggled manfully, and chained down the rising sobs; but she clung to him still, drawing long breaths of mingled pain and comfort. To her renewed amazement, his lips touched her brow with a light kiss.
"That's right. I am proud of my girl. Now sit up, and be brave. No, don't stand. I'll be tea-maker for once. You want something to eat."
"Oh, I can't!"
"You must. It will do nobody any particular good for you to starve yourself."
The essential common-sense of the remark was so like what she herself might have said to another, that Jean almost smiled. She was placed by Mr. Trevelyan in his deep arm-chair, made to lean back, and supplied with necessaries—nay, finding how she trembled, he even held the full cup to her lips. Though the first few mouthfuls threatened to choke her, a different state of things speedily followed. The inward shuddering grew less; and she was at length able to say with some degree of composure—
"Father, you don't think Evelyn will miss me when she wakes?"
"I don't know, my dear," he answered, too truthful to deny the possibility. "I only know that no choice was left to us. Miss Devereux has the rights of kinship; and we have only the rights of friendship. After all, the matter is in Mrs. Villiers' own hands. If she chooses, she can dismiss Miss Devereux and send for you."
"And if she does—"
"Then she shall have you."
Jean went to bed, more satisfied. Sleep seemed impossible, but she was young and healthy, and she had gone through severe exertion. Strange to say, the last impression on her mind, as she passed into dreamland, was not of the ghastly scene upon the marshes, but of her father's arm around her.
"O, I do love him!" she half unconsciously murmured.
THE AFTER SMART.
"How doth Death speak of our beloved,When it hath laid them low?• • • • •"It sweeps their faults with heavy hand,As sweeps the sea the trampled sand,Till scarce the faintest print is scanned.• • • • •"It takes each failing on our part,And brands it in upon the heart,With caustic power and cruel art."Author of "The Schönberg-Cotta Family."
"IT's a scrumptious cake—very!" said Mrs. Kennedy, putting a piece into her own mouth.
She was in ante-lunch déshabillé, and looked, to say the least, not tidy. The inevitable end of loose hair obtruded itself from under a cap which had long passed its prime; and she only escaped having an unpinned collar by the simple process of wearing no collar at all.
Conflicting emotions showed themselves in her kind and genial face, for this was the day after General Villiers' funeral; and people have a natural feeling at such a time that the world ought not to run its usual course too blithely, that sunshine ought not to be too radiant, that cake ought not to taste too nice. Still, Mrs. Kennedy was not constitutionally given to depression, being a born optimist; a happy circumstance for one whose husband was a born pessimist, always disposed to hug his miseries, even when he had none.
Moreover the General and his wife had been her friends rather by circumstance than by choice; and Dicky, her spoilt youngest—not spoilt, of course, in maternal eyes—was irresistible.
"If father was to see you now! O Dicky, Dicky, Dicky! I'm sure the very next thing he'll have to do, will be to preach a sermon on greediness, all for yourself. Greediness!" repeated Mrs. Kennedy, with emphasis, counting herself a judicially severe mother.
It was to be feared that the said sermon would float as an outside fog over Dicky's brain, since Mr. Kennedy had not the art of reaching a child's mind. The road thereto is very straight, and Mr. Kennedy was wont to preach and expound in circles.
"Now you've had quite enough, Dicky—quite enough, and too much for any respectable little boy. No, not one single crumb more. I couldn't possibly, you know."
"I'm so awfully hungry, mother. Almost starved."
"Starved! After all that lot! And only two hours and a half since breakfast. Why, you're talking nonsense, don't you know? You'll got so fat, Dicky, you won't be able to walk, and we shall have to get a pulley to carry you. I don't know what boys are made of—I really don't! I know what they like to be made of, and that's plum-cake!"—in a sotto voce aside.
"I declare, here comes Mabel—Miss Ingram, I mean—" for the caller was not "Mabel" to small Dicky. "Well, well, just one more slice, and mind you don't say a single word to the others, or I shall have them all down upon me, plump; and there won't be a scrap left. Get along with you, Dicky, and be a good boy. Well, Mabel, my dear, how are you? Quite well? Sit down and tell me all about everything. Poor dear—"
"I can't really, Mrs. Kennedy—"
"Poor dear Thomas always forgets half that he hears, don't you know? Can't!—But you must! Now do tell me, how is that poor young thing? It's perfectly dreadful, isn't it? I couldn't get off to sleep last night for I don't know how long, thinking about her all alone in that huge house, and what in the world she's to do, you know. Have a piece of cake, Mabel? No? It's very nice cake—made from a receipt of my mother's; something quite uncommon. Well, if you won't—! But that poor young widow, left all alone, and such a big property on her hands. Of course one always expected her to be a widow pretty early, in the nature of things. It couldn't help being so. If people will go and marry an old man, fit to be their grandfather—But then one doesn't expect it to be so awfully sudden: and not an atom of warning. Such a way to lose him too! Sit down, Mabel!"
"I can't really. I've come with a message to Mr. Kennedy: and I'm to wait for a verbal answer."
"Oh, well, Thomas is out now, but he'll be in this minute. You may as well sit down. Now do tell me how that poor thing is this morning. I suppose your father is attending her still. Oh, of course I know he never tells you anything particular, and if he did you wouldn't tell it again. I know how particular your father is, and quite right of him too. I hate gossip, my dear. But still he might just have happened to say if she was better."
"My father has not been to the Park yet."
"Oh, then, of course—! However, I heard she went to the funeral, and looked so lovely in her weeds, and was as composed as anything. Thomas was there, of course; but he hasn't had a word with Mrs. Villiers yet. You see, it's a little awkward—the Park being just within Dulveriford Parish—and then we all know she only came to St. John's to please her husband. I suppose Mr. Trevelyan has been to the Park a lot this week. Quite natural too. Oh, it will be all the Trevelyans now, and nothing to do with St. John's. It was only the General kept her to that, don't you know—poor dear man! And of course, he wasn't musical. He knew the 'Old Hundredth' when he heard it, and he liked it played at a sort of 'Dead March in Saul' time, with all the little turns and twists of seventy years ago. Thomas sometimes begged the organist to put on a few of those twiddles, just by way of pleasing the poor dear General, and he did try, but he couldn't get them stately enough. The General always shook his head afterward, and said, 'Ah, it wasn't what it used to be.' Well, and I suppose Jean has been with Mrs. Villiers all the week too."
Mabel hesitated. "I don't think so—quite—from what I hear," she said. "My father says nothing, or Jean either. Jean is always so shut-up, you know—so unlike most girls. But I believe Mrs. Villiers only wants to be alone, and seems to turn from all sympathy—even Jean's. It seems odd; when Jean and Mr. Trevelyan have done so much for her."
"She is stupefied, poor thing, and doesn't know what to do or say next. I'm told she was quite decided about not asking either Mr. Trevelyan or my husband to take the funeral, but she would have that old gentleman down from London. He was rather slow, don't you think? I hope Mrs. Villiers is grateful, after the way the Trevelyans have behaved; but of course she must be stunned for a little while. Jean's an odd girl, very odd, so shut-up, as you say," pursued Mrs. Kennedy, in reflective accents. "I never can half make her out, she's so odd. But plucky, don't you know?"
"It must have been dreadful for poor Jean, to find the General like that, when she was alone."
"Like that—yes, dreadful," echoed Mrs. Kennedy. "I'm sure one feels any amount for the poor widow. That's what it is, Mabel, you see. It isn't so much for us—" as if striving to disentangle the strands of her own sensations. "They are a sort of friends—were, I mean—at least, I mean, he was and she is—at least, if she doesn't change—and my husband always thought there never was such a man as the dear General. But Mrs. Villiers doesn't care a rap for me, don't you know?—And to be sure, why should she? Everybody isn't made to suit everybody else; and it would be uncommonly stupid if they were. Like rows of buttons and buttonholes, you know. Well, and then there's the will. Of course you know all about the will. I call it a shame, only one can't say a word of blame about the good old man, now he's gone; and of course he meant it for the best, in some way or other—only one can't imagine what way, and I do call it a shame. I can't think what in the world possessed him to go and do it. As if a lovely young thing like her was never to marry again? But she'll have to wait for a rich husband, that's all. She isn't fit to rough it, you know."
"Is not this very soon to be talking about another husband?" asked Mabel, rather jarred.
"Well, yes; and I wouldn't to anybody except you. But how is one to help thinking? So Mr. James Trevelyan couldn't run down for the funeral. What a pity! He's a busy man, of course, and lots of engagements always, but I should think he might have managed it, if he had chosen. Now, he's a nice man—" meditatively—"and so handsome; and just a nice age—and I should have thought—But of course he has no money, so it's no good fancying anything about him. There's Thomas at last! Catch him, Mabel, before he gets into the study."
Mabel was met by Mr. Kennedy entering the room in which they had held their tête-à-tête.
"Thomas, Mabel has a message from her father," quoth his wife.
"Or rather from Mrs. Villiers through my father. Mrs. Villiers would be glad to see you, if you would call on her, either this afternoon or to-morrow."
"Now, Mabel! And you never to tell me that, all the time you have been here!"
Mabel laughed. She might have pleaded lack of opportunity. Mr. Kennedy stood gazing at her with blank eyes, while her words worked their way through the cotton-wool which enveloped his brain.
"Mrs. Villiers—" he echoed. "Yes—Mrs. Villiers, you say. Yes, certainly. I will go to-morrow."
"Very well. I will tell my father," Mabel said, and took herself off with all speed.
"Now that was an odd way to ask you! Why couldn't she send a post-card?" demanded Mrs. Kennedy. "People are so queer, and I do think people in trouble are the queerest of all. One never knows how they'll take it, or what they will be after next. What do you suppose Mrs. Villiers wants you for, Thomas?"
Mr. Kennedy had no suggestions to offer. He was not, like his wife, original.
Evelyn Villiers, far from being stupefied by her loss, as Mrs. Kennedy conjectured, was rather awakened by it to an abnormal acuteness of sensation. She was of stronger fibre, of more tough and elastic make, than would commonly have been supposed by those who only saw, with unpenetrating eyes, her fair and fragile exterior.
On the night of her husband's death, she had been worn out with bodily exertion and mental agony; but life was strong within her still, and she knew it before another day had passed. She might and did look ineffably mournful and sweet; she might and did think that the best of her days were over; she might and did feel that things could never again be to her as they had been; nevertheless, life stirred actively as an under-current, bearing her on with resistless power to "new tasks and sorrow's new," not to speak of possible new joys also.
In health, she suffered loss than might have been expected. The strain and the shock had actually told less upon her than upon Jean; doubtless because she had given in more at the time, and had leant upon others, at least in a measure, while Jean had borne up, and had endured a full pressure of responsibility. But nobody thought of pitying Jean, except in a perfunctory fashion; and nobody noticed anything unusual in her, unless it were Mr. Trevelyan; while all the world was convinced that Evelyn must be utterly broken-down. She was obliged to consent to one or two more visits from Dr. Ingram, if only as an escape from Miss Devereux' importunity: but frail as she looked, she was not ill.
"I wish I were! Anything to stop thinking," she said mournfully to him. "But I am well—I don't need medicines."
And Dr. Ingram frankly endorsed her words.
To get rid of Sybella before the funeral proved impossible, without stronger measures than Evelyn in her grieved and softened state cared to take. She submitted, therefore; and as the only means of avoiding Miss Devereux's interminable chit-chat, she spent her days in solitude, refusing admittance to all—even to Jean. For if she saw more of Jean, she would have inevitably to see more of Sybella.
Jean understood, at least in a measure, and trusted Evelyn entirely: yet there was a sense of pain.
The workings of Evelyn's mind, during those hushed hours of solitude, between the day of her husband's death and that of the funeral, were multiform. She was ever reviewing her past life, living again through the years in imagination. Her girlish haste to escape from the bondage of a home with Miss Devereux, had flung her into another bondage, hardly less irksome to her restless nature: and for over seven years she had endured the consequences. But this was not the light in which Evelyn, newly widowed, looked upon her past.
She knew indeed how things had been; yet in the rebound, so often seen with respect to those who have passed away, especially where the love has been defective, she could now allow no fault in her husband. All blame for past difficulties was to be attached to herself; none to him. A remorseful passionate back-wave of love held her in its grasp. She had not so loved him while he was with her: but the loneliness of her young widowhood, the sense of having no one to appeal to, caused a magnified sense of his protection and sympathy, of his unvarying kindness, of his unfailing interest in all that had concerned her.
Evelyn forgot now, or thought of as utterly unimportant, the daily frictions, the differences of opinion, which had so worried her. The absolutism of his judgment, the narrowness of his views, became as nothing, seen beside her thousand recollections of his true nobility and goodness, of his pure and upright life. And his love for her! She knew at last what that had been. What though they had differed theologically on many points? What though he had seemed at times theoretically, though not practically, hard towards those who differed from him? He had been true, constant, honourable, blameless: and how he had loved her! The world grew into a desert, without that unfailing love. Evelyn had not measured its worth until she had lost it.
She grieved for him sorely; not with the peaceful sorrow of a wife who has been perfectly at one with her husband; but with the bitter distress of one who has failed to appreciate till too late. All her little coldnesses, all her little takings of offence, all her little stiffnesses of demeanour, rose up in overwhelming array, enlarged by the microscope of imagination into gigantic proportions. In him she could see nothing now but goodness and beauty. All failings were struck away by the hand of death. She went over and over the different manifestations of his rectitude, his kindness, his chivalrous gentleness, his loving guardianship of her, his manly readiness to forgive, till he grew into an idol set up on a shrine in her heart, as a being to be reverenced and almost worshipped.
Womanly—all this!
The very will, which others were quick to blame, leaving the whole estate to her, but only so long as she should remain unmarried, supplied fresh fuel to the flame of her ardent devotion. Friends might wonder; Evelyn would allow no word of blame.
"He was right—perfectly right," she said. "The property must of course remain in the Villiers family. He only had to provide for my widowhood—and that means for my lifetime. I shall never marry again. He understood me, and he knew that I should understand him."
One thought of happiness dawned upon her as the hours of those long days dragged by—a thought of happiness, because it meant action completely in the face of her own desires, action which she could therefore feel to be a kind of sacrifice of herself to her husband's memory. She would in all things now be guided solely by his wishes and opinions. She would think what he had thought, she would do what he had done, she would cultivate the friends that he had preferred, she would follow out the lines that he would have chosen for her; and so, at least in a measure, she would make up to him for her non-submission in the past. St. John's should be exclusively her Church; the good people of St. John's congregation should be her especial clique. No matter if they did not suit her taste. Enough of that. They had suited her husband's taste. Since she had not been one with him while he was present, she would be one with him now he was gone.
So wrapped up was Evelyn in these thoughts, that she failed to see the opposite side of the question, failed to remember what was due in other quarters to tried friends of her own. Her whole heart flowed out in imaginative adulation of the man she had lost; and for a time all else went down before this phase of affairs.
There was at once, almost unconsciously on Evelyn's part, a slight drawing back from the Trevelyans; too slight to be noted by outsiders, too decided not to be noted by themselves. She was the same in manner when they met, but she did not press for frequent visits from Mr. Trevelyan or Jean. They did not speak of it, one to another, but both alike ceased to go often to the Park, waiting for renewed invitations to do so; which invitations did not come. Evelyn had sent for Mr. Kennedy after the funeral; and thenceforward, she was perceived no more within the walls of Dulveriford Church. Had not her husband always wished her to attend only St. John's?
The St. John's people were greatly touched to see the fair young widow, with her sad face and voluminous crape, seated in the chancel, having the General's empty chair beside her. Mr. Kennedy took care to supply no end of mournful hymns and sorrowful sermons, as particularly suited to a widow's frame of mind, forgetting, good man, in his sympathy with her, that the entire congregation did not consist of widows. When she came gliding out of Church at the end of the Service, half the elderly ladies present, widows or no, would have liked to press forward and sympathetically squeeze the hand of Mrs. Villiers of Dutton Park. But Evelyn had the art of keeping people at a distance; and few actually ventured. Those who tried it once were so distinctly bowed aside that they did not try it a second time; yet poor Evelyn took herself to task afterwards; for were they not his friends?
It might have been expected that Cyril would come home earlier than usual, on account of his sister's trouble; and indeed he was actually sent for to the funeral. Only two days before, however, mild scarlatina broke out in the school, and Cyril was among the first victims to the attack. Sybella, in dire alarm, announced that she could neither have him at the Brow, nor meet him anywhere else these holidays—self being as usual her first thought. It was quite impossible that she should be exposed to infection! Somebody else might undertake Cyril—or Cyril could remain at school!
"Then as soon as it is counted right for him to travel, I shall have him to stay with me at the seaside," Evelyn said, hardly caring to veil her contempt for the other's puny self-regard.
"Jean, what do you think of this?" asked her father, three or four days after Christmas.
He was alone with her in the morning-room.
"This" meant a letter from Oswald, which he handed to Jean, and she read it slowly, concealing what she felt. The one delight in prospect had been Oswald's New Year visit, and now he wished not to come. He had an invitation from a friend in Town, and the house was one where there would be "lots of fun." It would be "awfully nice;" and he knew they would not mind his going "just this time." The very next leave he could get, he would be sure to come home.
"Well, Jean?"
"He wants it very much. May he, father?"
"You will not be too direfully disappointed?"
"O no!" And Jean smiled, for she could be a very Spartan for Oswald's sake. The reality of her love for him made it impossible that she should put the thought of her own pleasure before the thought of his. "He will get leave again soon."
"I don't see any especial reason for saying 'no.' Young fellows naturally like variety." After a break, and in a different voice, he said, "You saw Mrs. Villiers yesterday afternoon?"
"Yes." Jean lifted pained eyes to her father. "I don't quite understand Evelyn," she said slowly. "Please don't say anything to anybody."
"No. You find her changed."
"Not exactly. She is, and yet she isn't. Not changed really in herself. She was as dear and kind to me as ever."
Jean paused, and appeared to swallow something down with difficulty.
"But she seems to have set herself to be like her husband—like him in everything. She told me so, and she asked me to tell you. It is because she thinks she ought. She will always go to St. John's now—evening as well as morning—and she will try hard to like Mr. Kennedy's sermons, and to care for General Villiers' friends—even that dreadful Colonel Atherstone. She had a pile of little tracts on her table, that General Villiers used to be fond of, and I suppose she had been reading them. I don't know why she shouldn't. Only, it is all because she is sure it would please him, you know. I don't like to say it, but I couldn't help fancying it was just a little as if she were acting a part in a drama. Only she doesn't feel that."
"No; she is genuine always, to the best of her self-knowledge."
"Yes—I am sure she is. And, father, if she should see less of us now than she used, we are to know—to understand—that it is because of him—because she thinks—" Jean hesitated again, "because she thinks she has been wrong. She cried so, and I told her I could not see it—but—of course if she feels it right—"
"Of course! I have foreseen this."
"I don't quite understand—" Jean came to another break, and Mr. Trevelyan knew that she was sorely tried. "I can't see—Being dead doesn't make a man right in every single thing he ever did and said!"
"Not precisely!" with a grim smile at the mode of expression. "It only lends more charity to our judgments."
"But if I were Evelyn, I don't think I could make myself feel and believe what I didn't really feel and believe, only because I wanted to agree with him."
"You could not!"
"If she didn't agree with him before, I don't see how she can now."
"She can make a Pope of his memory, and submit her own judgment to his. I doubt if she goes so far in reality. It is more emotional than logical."
Jean stood, pale and troubled, gazing into the fire, unaware how closely she was herself being studied.
"If Mrs. Villiers were over fifty, she might keep on in the same line for the rest of her life; get into her husband's groove, and remain there persistently, out of respect to him. A good many women are capable of such devotion. But only twenty-five!—No, she is too young. Have patience, Jean. She will rally to her true self by-and-by, and you will not lose your friend."
Jean's eyes were suffused suddenly.
"There is something a little morbid in all this. She will come out of it—modified, perhaps, but not a mere copy of her husband. No need to worry yourself. She will fight through it, and you too."
He opened another letter, read, re-read, and looked at Jean.
"The very thing! I have been wishing I could get you away. Here's an invitation in the nick of time."
"For me!" Jean did not know what it was to leave home alone.
"To Wufflestone. Jem's mother."
"Cousin Chrissie Trevelyan! But that is such a long way off, father. And I don't see how I can be spared."
"We'll manage the sparing. I think a change is desirable. You have not been quite the thing lately."
Jean looked up gratefully. That anybody should have detected the languor which she had resolutely concealed was astonishing.
"Oh, I'm all right," she said—an involuntary utterance.
"You will not be the worse for a break. She speaks of the middle of February—sorry her spare room is engaged till then. I shall like you to know Chrissie Trevelyan. She's a kind creature. You will be in good hands."
"I only just remember her."
"So much the better. New acquaintances are refreshing sometimes. I'm afraid you will not think Wufflestone beautiful; too flat, after this. Mind, if they wish it, you can stay a month or more."
"If she wishes it?" with a slight stress on the pronoun.
"Yes. She expects her nephew, Giles Cuthbert, for part of the winter; and Jem may be there too. You will like to see Jem again. Cuthbert?—I believe he is a nice fellow on the whole—idle and well-meaning, and good to his aunt."
"I can't bear idle people."
Mr. Trevelyan laughed. "Every hive has its drones. You will never be one of them. By-the-by, you had better have a new dress, Jean—and a hat."
"O thank you!"
New dresses and hats were rare things in Jean's existence.
NEW GROUND.
"And is it trueFire rankles at the heart of every globe?Perhaps. But these are matters one may proveToo deeply for poetic purposes:Rather select a theory that . . . yes,Laugh! What does that prove?—Stations you midwayAnd saves some little o'er refining.""Sordello": R. BROWNING.
"IT is five o'clock, I do believe," said Mrs. Trevelyan.
She slowly lifted her eyes from the book which had held her enchained during an hour past; eyes exactly like those of her son Jem in shape and colouring, but at this moment ineffably dreamy. It was not Mrs. Trevelyan's wont to indulge in absent attitudes for the purpose of impressing other people, after the fashion of Sybella Devereux: but she was of a genuinely dreamy nature, given to losing herself in vague trains of ideas, to the complete exclusion of her surroundings. This tendency does not always imply profound thought; in fact, it very often does not mean "thought" at all, in the strict sense of the word. It only means a certain readiness—possibly a weak readiness—to be swept away by any little streamlet of notions or emotions, no matter how trivial. The veriest child-story in pink or blue cover had power to withdraw all Mrs. Trevelyan's faculties from the outer world; and if she began to consider the make of her next bonnet she was plunged into an abyss of cogitation.
But on the other hand, she was not a vapid women; she read a good deal besides stories; and she was capable to some extent of following out a chain of mental observations.
"Five o'clock, I do believe," she repeated, as the hall clock boomed out the hour.
Her eyes travelled to the hearth-rug, and were there arrested by a fine black Cocker spaniel of solid make, lying, nose on paws, in a position of comfort.
"Prince! Only think! The little girl will be here directly."
Prince was a gentleman, born and bred. He replied at once to the remark, left his cosy corner, and came to his mistress' side.
Though past fifty, she was still slight in figure, and active when not dreaming. She wore perpetual black, and it suited well the pale brown hair, arranged in smooth bands on either side of her forehead. A modified widow's cap had been her headgear for many years, and nobody would have liked anything else. Her movements were very gentle, ladylike, and quiet.
The room was small, too full of furniture, and overcrowded with knick-knacks. A continuous sheet of portraits in every variety of frame clothed the walls, and all gaps were filled up with brackets or hanging plates of old china. One window overlooked the village street, with a neat front garden and a goodly bank of evergreens between; the other window, a bow, opened upon a sloping lawn. Both house and garden were upon a small scale, but both also were prettily designed.
"Only a few minutes more, Prince. We shall like to have her, shall we not? And you will be a dear good dog, and not bark or frighten the little girl. Children don't like to be frightened, you know. So you must be very gentle to Jean."
If brown eyes could speak, the intelligent orbs of Prince uttered volumes, as they gazed into the lady's face.
"Good Prince! You understand it all, don't you?—Every word! I used to like little Jean very much. She was a dear little girl—rather funny, but nice. She must be grown now. Why, it is actually a quarter past five. And no tea up! Giles!—You there!"
"My dear aunt, don't excite yourself, pray! The clock is fast, and the train will be slow. Usual combination of circumstances."
"But the tea! Maria seems to have forgotten. What can she be about? O no, don't ring—please don't ring! You see—" in a hushed voice—"Maria has rather a temper, and I don't think she or the cook quite like it. And if the cook is cross to-morrow morning, it is uncomfortable. O the tea is sure to come directly—only I can't think what Maria is about. Don't ring, please, Giles. Yes, I always keep that clock rather fast—just to hurry on Maria."
"Doesn't Maria know that it is fast?"
"Well, yes; and somehow she always remembers it, and I never do. How long have you been in the room? I didn't hear you come."
"No, indeed. You were utterly lost to all sublunary considerations—mentally and spiritually gone. It was a mere casket sitting on that chair—the outside shell—interior vanished elsewhere! What have you of such engrossing interest? History—philosophy—science? Whew—it's a story—a good little innocent story of sweet little boys and girls."
"Ah, that is the worst of me. I do get so interested in a story. Would you believe it? I had forgotten that you were in the house. And when I looked up and saw you, I was as startled—!"
"No, I don't think I can believe that!"—solemnly shaking his head. "Too good an opinion of myself!"
"Ah, now you are quizzing me. But really that little girl ought to arrive. I hope the train hasn't broken-down."
"It's such a common thing for trains to break down! Just as likely as not!"
"Now, Giles! I do wish though, that I had gone to the station to meet her. If it had not been for the rain—"
"Why didn't you ask me to go?"
"You!!"
Giles Cuthbert laughed. He was a rather largely-built man, with long loose limbs, and a sunburnt face, not good-looking as to feature, yet attractive from its humorous geniality. His movements were deliberate and gentlemanly; and he had a curious voice, soft, low, somewhat drawling, but without affectation. The man altogether was entirely natural. In age he might have been almost anywhere between thirty and forty-five.
"How old is this little girl?"
"Jean! I don't exactly know. I have been trying to remember; but the years do go so fast—and one doesn't exactly like to inquire, because it seems as if one had not cared. I could ask Jem, to be sure, but I always forget. She must be—thirteen—fourteen—nearly fourteen! It is years since I have seen any of those Trevelyans. Jean's mother was a sweet woman but her father—No, I never did care for Stewart."
"Hasn't she been here before?"
"I'm afraid I have never asked her. Things have come about so, you know. One can't always be seeing all one's relations, and Dulveriford is out of the way—so far north. I shouldn't have thought of asking the child now, only Jem put the idea into my head; he said she wanted a change, he thought. She had had a fright or something, and somebody wrote word to Jem that she was not looking well. O I remember—there was a poor old gentleman found frozen to death at night on the marshes; and Jean happened to be there."
"Odd place for a child to happen to be in."
"Yes: I don't know how it was. Jem didn't say much, and I have forgotten what he did say. He will tell us more when he comes. It will not do to tease her with questions."
"And Jem is coming home himself when she is here?"
"Yes; so nice, isn't it? I don't know when he can manage it; but as soon as possible. Jean has always been rather a favourite of his. Dear Jem is so fond of children."
"Here comes the infant, aunt!"
"Now, my dear Giles, she isn't an infant I assure you. Why, girls of thirteen and fourteen are nearly grown-up in these days. They know so much more than I do, that I am half afraid of them. All about atoms and cheese-mites, and laws of nature, and gases, and how things grow—it quite frightens one. Yes, there's the cab. I ordered the cab to be at the station, and I sent word to the station-master to see after Jean. I did want to send Maria, but cook doesn't like Maria to go out when it rains. You see cook is rather rheumatic. No tea yet! What can Maria be after? I almost think I shall have to ring? O no, wait, please—she will come to answer the front bell, and then I can speak."
"I don't see the precise connection between cook's rheumatism and Maria's staying indoors. You seem to have a pair of dragonesses in the kitchen."
"No, indeed—pray don't say such things, Giles! Somebody might hear! It is only that I do like to keep people good-tempered. Cook is such a nice worthy creature—I am sure, if I were dying, she would do anything for me! But she does get rather old, and if anything puts her out, the dinner is spoilt."
"I should be disposed to prefer a cook who would do anything for me while I was alive and well. What's that for?"
Mrs. Trevelyan had produced a neat square of white knitting.
"Why—nothing, dear; only a very nice clergyman said last year in a sermon that women ought to make a point of doing needlework—at least, I think he meant that! So I have always kept this at hand since, for emergencies. I am afraid I don't do much—" regretfully—"but it is nicer to be found busy. Jean might think she had such an idle cousin."
"Ah! A hint for me!" Giles lugged out a big volume of natural history, seated himself, and opened at random. "Wouldn't it be more effective to be found reading aloud?—Surprised in the act of improving our minds?"
In a monotonous sing-song, Giles started off—"'The Chlamyphores, which have ten teeth on each side of both jaws, five toes on each foot, the anterior claws very large, crooked, compressed, and furnishing, as in the Cabassous, a very powerful cutting instrument adapted for digging. The back is covered—' Hallo!"
Mrs. Trevelyan never could resist Giles' manner, and she was in a paroxysm of laughter when the door opened to admit, not the expected "little girl," but a tall damsel, with pale oval face, and combination of shyness and reserve crystallised into a resolute stillness.
Giles did not start up quickly, yet he was standing, before Jean could actually enter; and his twinkling eyes took her in at a glance, twinkling more than usual at his aunt's mistake. The subdued "Hallo!" meant some measure of surprise on his own part. "So—ho!" thought he. "That is what Jem is after! Little girl, indeed!"
Mrs. Trevelyan's greeting was no less warm than if the supposititious "infant" had really appeared. She took Jean into her arms with repeated kisses, while Jean, unused to be hugged by one virtual stranger before another and absolute stranger, was conscious of an inward glow of response, but outwardly shrank rather more into herself.
Giles Cuthbert came forward, as a member of the household, to offer his meed of welcome, and thereby recalled Mrs. Trevelyan to her duty.
"How stupid of me! I'm forgetting to introduce—my nephew, Mr. Cuthbert, Jean—Miss Trevelyan, Giles. Of course you have heard of Giles, dear, hundreds of times. He belongs to us, you know, in a way. Now do sit down by the fire, and warm yourself. You must be cold after travelling all day. Dulveriford always seems so far north—almost out of the world."
Jean was amused, for Dulveriford seemed to her the world's centre.
"Come and sit down! The tea—O, that girl is gone."
"Too late, aunt!" Giles' hand was on the bell, unbidden, and a sharp tinkle sounded.
"Now, Giles!" reproachfully. "And there really was not the least need. I can hear her coming now along the passage. After all, she was only waiting till Jean arrived—keeping the tea nice and hot. My dear!—" to Jean. "I am astonished to see such a grown-up young lady. Jem never gave me that impression. Is it possible that you are only thirteen?"
"Sixteen last birthday!"
"Ah, that makes all the difference. I shall tell Jem, he really must leave off speaking of you as a 'little girl,' because it gives such a wrong impression. Why, I have actually been telling Prince not to bark, or frighten you. Yes: this is Prince—such a dear clever dog. I assure you, he understands every single thing that is said to him."
"One has to avoid talking secrets before Prince. He is apt to repeat them, on the sly."
"Now, Giles! What will Jean think of you? But really, the dear dog is wonderfully clever. He reasons like any human being. It is all nonsense to say that dogs can't reason, because I know Prince does. Now I am wondering whom Jean is supposed to be like. You are such a curious mixture, my dear. A little of your father, certainly, and a little of your mother! She was such a sweet woman! Ah, you have your grandmother Trevelyan's chin! And your grandmother Ingram's mouth! Only the way you shut your lips is like a Trevelyan. Your eyes are nobody's—"
"Unless Miss Trevelyan's own," murmured Giles.
"I mean, nobody that I have seen. Of course, one could trace them back, if one had lived long enough. Everything comes from somewhere," said Mrs. Trevelyan, with gentle positiveness and profundity. "But the way you use your eyes, dear, is quite like an Ingram—like one branch of the Ingram family, I mean. And you have the long Trevelyan hand—"
"Don't be astonished," Giles put in softly. "My aunt always appraises her guests in this fashion. Eyes, nose, mouth, worth so much apiece; total, so much: samples of doctrine of heredity."
"Now, Giles! But Jean understands, don't you, dear? Of course I like to know how much of you belongs to your own family. As for heredity—" the speaker folded dreamy hands, preparing for a gentle canter on her pet hobby-horse—"I do not see how anybody who knows anything of life can doubt it. Why, look at handwriting alone! Jean makes the tails of her g's and z's exactly like her old great-uncle Thomas—I mean, like his writing—and yet she never even saw him, and learnt from quite a different person. So you know that must have come down by inheritance."
"To be sure, there is Mrs. Wiggins—she is our great lady here, Jean, the wife of our squire—Mrs. Wiggins thinks a mother can do anything in the world with her children, can turn them out whatever shape she chooses. But that is a great deal more easily said than done: and Mrs. Wiggins only has one little girl. I always notice that it is the mothers with only one child who think that they can do exactly whatever they like with their children. If she had a dozen, she would have found by this time, that all the training in the world wouldn't make them all grow up alike. I have only had one as it happens, but I never could model Jem. He took his own shape, all I could do, dear fellow! And I am sure I don't want him to be different, for he is all one could wish. But still, you see what I mean. And I was one of thirteen, so I do know something about it. Not two of us turned out the same; and yet I'm sure there was not a grain of difference made in the way we were treated."
Giles rose, and laid hands on the teapot.
"My dear Giles! What am I thinking about? Now that is the worst of me. If I begin to talk, I forget everything. And poor Jean half starved! No? But I am sure you must be. Have you had a proper lunch? Only sandwiches! Could you not eat an egg? Well, at all events you must take plenty of bread-and-butter."
Giles relinquished the teapot, handed eatables, and found his way to a seat nearer Jean, where he could study her at leisure—for Jem's sake. He was at pains to draw her out, endeavouring to bring about a relaxation of her too serious face. Weather and journey were discussed for a while with no particular result, and Prince was called up to be caressed by Jean.
"Fond of reading," Giles asked presently, noting a glance towards the bookcase. "You won't find dissertations here on cheese-mites or atoms. That is the correct thing for a young lady, I am told."
Jean's grave lips unbent.
"Wufflestone lags behind the age. But if you want to begin studies in Phrenology, and all that sort of thing, you have come to the right place. My aunt has a perfect library of such literature."
"I should like to know more about Phrenology."
"The science of bumps! I am not sure that I shall not recommend Lavater. Rather big volumes, but you can soon skim them. Plenty about features—noses, chins, and so on. You've no conception what an amount of character exists in your neighbours' noses."
"Not really?" said Jean.
"Not a doubt of it. There's the sensible nose, and the stupid nose; the cogitative nose and the unintellectual nose; the ill-tempered nose and the sweet-tempered nose; the strong nose and the weak nose."
"Is the weak nose always short?"
"By no means. You may have a strong short nose, or a weak long one."
"Suppose I had a weak nose and a firm chin?" questioned Jean.
"Inherited from opposite sides? No doubt you would be weak in one direction, strong in another. It would mean a perpetual contest between nose and chin—sometimes the one victorious, sometimes the other."
Jean could not make out from his face whether he did or did not mean what he said. He was politely serious, only his eyes never ceased to twinkle.
"But that is too funny," she said, laughing.
"Immense amount of truth in it. Of come you must take old Lavater cum grano salis. I shall have to conduct you through something more modern while you are here. He and the older phrenologists could only assign a particular characteristic to a particular bump, and leave it there to tyrannise over the individual. Modern wisdom begins to suspect that the mind secretes the body, so to speak, like a mollusc secreting its shell. According to which notion, a man's character is not weak because his chin retreats, but his chin retreats because his character is weak."
"Do you really believe that?"
Giles made a comical movement of his shoulder. "Why not? How can one tell? Seems odd, when you come to think of it—but everything is odd when you come to think of it. One can't tell why a weak nature should secrete a retreating chin, for instance; but one cannot get out of the puzzle, because there is not the least doubt that retreating chins and feeble characters do very often go together."
Jean drew a long breath of interest, and her eyes lighted up with the fascination of a new idea. "How nice!" thought Mrs. Trevelyan. "Dear Giles is quite lively—taking real trouble with Jean. He must like her. She is not at all a bad-looking girl—such regular features, and such a nice figure; and she holds herself well, and is so very ladylike. I can't bear fidgety people, and Jean doesn't fidget in the least. It will save a great deal of trouble if Giles should take a fancy to her. I can send them out to walk together, and get him to show her the country round. Yes, she certainly is good-looking, almost handsome, when her eyes grow so bright; and she has a soft pleasant laugh. I am glad she has come. I think I shall grow fond of Jean."