Cynthia Marlowe had come to Lafer Hall when little more than a baby. She was the only child of the Admiral's only son. His soldier's death in an Afghan gorge killed his young wife, and then Cynthia was sent to her grandparents.
Her life was lonely but very happy. She knew no other children, but the Admiral was always ready for a romp. There was plenty of room for them to have it without giving Mrs. Marlowe a headache. When grandmamma shook her head, and feared Cynthy would grow up a dreadful tomboy, grandpapadeclared she was precluded by all facts of nature and grace from being otherwise than a lady. How could Lennox, Cholmondeley, and Marlowe in one produce an anomaly? No, no; if she did not romp, stretch her muscles, and inflate her lungs she would be puny, and he would rather she could not mark her own name than be puny. He pished at samplers, and delighted to interrupt the working-lesson. Cynthia, caught by Mrs. Marlowe, and made to sit on a little stool at her feet, with flushed cheeks and impatient fingers that tugged and tugged at the silks until they were tangled among broken threads, listened with strained senses for the Admiral's step in the corridor. So did Mrs. Marlowe, and was much the more nervous of the two. It meant release for the one and defeat for the other.
'What! ho, Cynthy,' the Admiral would say, 'snared again, my pretty bird? Getting a round back and a narrow chest for a fal-lal?Come, granny, this'll never do; you don't reason, my dear. The child'll always have a woman for her fineries; why let her risk her eyesight and her figure?' Then he would pretend it would grieve Cynthia dreadfully to lay the tangle aside, and that she far preferred the morning-room to the park. 'I'm very sorry, Cynthy, but out you must go this fine day. Granny hasn't seen the sunshine, or your tippet would have been on an hour ago. Where's your work-box? Now gently; put it in tidily; always be tidy. Don't burst the hinges. That's a good girl!'
And off she would fly with the always fresh wonder whether grandpapa really had no idea how delightful it was to go.
Poor Mrs. Marlowe made an equally useless struggle over books. This was a subject that had greatly exercised the Admiral too, and indecision engendered irritation. He was still more peremptory.
'Now, Juliana, it's no good, no good atall, bringing out all these old volumes of yours.Mangnall's Questionsmight comprise all that was necessary for a girl to learn in your day, but it's obsolete. So isMurray. Why, good Heavens! a chit of a creature told me the other night at the Deanery that there isn't an article now in our English grammar, and all the other parts of speech are playing puss-in-the-corner—for want of it, I should think. Cynthy must learn to read and write and cipher, of course; she'll have to sign cheques and witness deeds one of these days. She can read any book in my library; there isn't one vicious thing there; and as for allusions in Shakespere, for instance, well, she'll lay the good to heart and won't understand the bad. She'll pick up information as she goes along, and then, of course, she must finish off with masters. But as forMangnall, it's no good at all. Just leave the child alone. I'll teach her to ride, and jump, and fence, and play bowls, and we shall have her afine woman, and that's all a woman need be.'
But he pulled his moustache ferociously, and his hand trembled so much in fixing his eye-glass, when he presently took up theGentleman's Magazine, that Mrs. Marlowe was sure he had misgivings. However, it was a mercy that she was not expected to lay down the law and take responsibility.
But this did not exempt her from unhappiness on Cynthia's account. She had a clear vision of avia mediathat should not entail mathematics and classics, but should comprise more than the three R's. It made her miserable to see Cynthy's fearlessness on her pony; she would ride to hounds and break her neck; she would sprain her ankle when jumping and be crippled for life; and when she had learnt dancing who in the world was to chaperon her to balls? The Admiral was too headstrong; she would be a tomboy after all, and set every social rule at defianceand chaperon herself! The skipping-rope was all very well; she liked to see her spring up and down the length of the corridors on a wet day, and it was really pretty to watch the Admiral teach her bowls, but was a girl ever taught to fence? He would be teaching her the tactics of naval warfare next. Why was he crazy for her to be a fine-looking woman?shehad never been so. Just so; and she was delicate. Well, perhaps he was right. But she sighed and was sure he was wrong.
It was when Cynthia was nine years old that Mrs. Marlowe found a strong-willed ally. Mrs. Tremenheere, the wife of the Dean of Wonston, had girls of her own and very clear ideas of thevia mediain which health and education go hand in hand. She had the audacity to tilt with the Admiral on the subject. They were equally self-opinionated, but he was not only obliged to defer to her as the lady, but she could produce her own daughters as proofs of her common sense.She also derided the possibility of health of body being compatible with mental ignorance in nineteenth-century England, and commiserated the masters who were to 'finish' unprepared ground. The Admiral, who had long secretly felt himself in a dilemma, listened and yielded. For her own sake Cynthy must not be a dunce. Mrs. Tremenheere undertook to find a governess, and she found Mrs. Hennifer.
After this every one had an uneasy time at Lafer Hall until Mrs. Hennifer arrived. The Admiral had yielded, but he was not at all sure that Mrs. Tremenheere knew what sort of a governess he wanted.
'She may have got us something Jesuitical, Juliana,' he said. 'I know Mrs. Tremenheere pretty well, she's a worldly woman and a schemer. She's done well for her girls so far, and she'll marry 'em well; and there's Anthony, you know, her only boy, and depend upon it she'll want a masterpiece for him; andshe knows, every one does, that Cynthy's an heiress. Very nice to land Anthony at Lafer Hall, eh? Now what I say is, she may be sending us a creature of her own.'
'Oh Simon, and Cynthy only nine years old!'
'Well, well, I don't say she is, but she's a schemer, depend upon it she is, Juliana. She'd twist you round her little finger, and maybe she's twisted me too, God knows.'
But Mrs. Hennifer was not a 'creature,' and when the Admiral found that she had never seen Mrs. Tremenheere until she was introduced to her in Mrs. Marlowe's drawing-room, his qualms were set at rest. It was soon evident too that Cynthia's happiness was doubled. Forces in her that had been running to waste were now directed into wholesome grooves of work. Her spirit and enterprise devoted themselves to becoming as clever as Theo and Julia Tremenheere.She still romped with the Admiral, and then she rushed into the schoolroom, sat down, threw back her golden hair, planted her elbows on the table, and mastered her difficulties in grammar and arithmetic. As she could not help laughing when the Admiral would walk past the window, looking forlorn and signalling to her to be quick, she remonstrated and said if he still would do it she must change her seat. To change her seat, she added, would be a great trouble, for it did help her to look at the sky. Her fervent seriousness quite abashed him, and he resisted the inclination to laugh at her quaintness. He did not understand, but Mrs. Hennifer did and gave her a book calledLook up, or Girls and Flowers. Mrs. Hennifer had a wonderful knack at choosing pretty books, and sometimes when they read them aloud together Cynthia found that they brought tears to those keen eyes.
'My darling Mrs. Henny,' she said once,'don't cry. It's only a story, and a very very little bit of the story too.'
She did not know, and Mrs. Hennifer prayed she never would, that the 'very very little bit' is often that round which the whole of life centres, tinging its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, thenceforth. Nor would this be sad if it were realisable at the time. But it is afterwards, by added experience and unexpected sequence, that the incident becomes the event.
One day when Cynthia was no longer a child the Admiral happened to join his wife and Mrs. Hennifer on the terrace. Beyond the broad reach of gravel and the stone balustrades in whose vases geraniums glowed, the ground fell abruptly into the finely-wooded undulations of the park. A group of red deer lay in the shadow of a line of chestnuts which swept a slope, at whose base the lake gleamed. In the distance, over the dark shoulders of the woods, Wonston was visible.Its red tiles and yellow gables lay in a haze of smoke, above which rose the Minster towers. Admiral Marlowe was Lord of the Manor as far as they could see in every direction.
As they strolled up and down, their talk wandered from small details of social pleasures and duties to more important ones connected with the estate. No allusion was made to the dead son. Mrs. Marlowe had not named him since the day she heard of his death. But the Admiral felt her hand tremble on his arm as he speculated on the amount of Cynthia's knowledge of her heiress-ship. He looked down at her tenderly. She had been a beauty in her youth, and sorrow had chiselled her features into increased delicacy by giving her an air of plaintive melancholy.
'Let us tell Cynthy the truth and hear what she will say,' he said.
'Yes, by all means,' said Mrs. Marlowe.
'My good Mrs. Hennifer, will you bring her here? She's on the bowling-green, or was. Heaven knows where she may have been spirited off to by this time, Heaven or the fairies. I think they're her nearest of kin.'
Mrs. Hennifer went in search, disappearing behind a group of cedars whose shadow, thrown at noon on the drawing-room windows, kept it cool on the hottest day. They heard her calling 'Cynthia!' as she passed in and out among the trees or crossed the lawns. Presently a man's tones answered 'Here we are!' Then came a girl's light laugh. A few moments more and Cynthia appeared alone upon the terrace.
She was very lovely. It was prophesied that she would be the beauty of Riding and county. She had been in town this spring for the sake of masters, and her portrait had been painted by one of the greatest artists of the day. He generally spiritualised his subjects, butwhen he saw Cynthia Marlowe he knew that if he added to nature's spiritualisation he must add wings. It went from his studio to Lafer. The Admiral would allow no 'vulgar herd' to criticise it at Burlington House. His pride in her was the chivalrous pride which guards against publicity for women, and recognises even beauty's 'noblest station' as 'retreat.' The portrait was hung at one end of the long drawing-room. In walking towards it, it seemed that Cynthia herself was standing to greet the comer. She was already tall, and as slight and straight as the natural gymnasium of judicious liberty, fresh air, and pure influences could make her. She was dressed in white, and her golden hair hung in curls to her waist. Her fair skin readily showed a flush. Her brows were level, her lips firm yet sensitive. There was an exquisite transparency in her eyes, which were large and of a warm hazel colour. She looked at every one with a frank andfearless confidence that was unwittingly fascinating.
'Cynthy,' said the Admiral, smiling upon her as every one did, 'there's a question we want to ask you. Have you ever wondered to whom Lafer will go when we die?'
'Yes,' she said; 'but I have not liked to know you will die.'
'We must in the course of nature. Nature sometimes fails to keep her courses, though, as in our case, where a generation is gone between us and you for some wise purpose of the Almighty's. The fact gives you great responsibilities. My dear, Lafer will belong to you.'
'I have sometimes thought it would,' she said.
As she spoke she rested one hand on the balustrade and with the other shaded her eyes and looked at Wonston. He followed her gaze.
'You will be Lady of the Manor as far asthe most southernly house in Wonston Earth and to Great Whernside on the north. Do you realise it, you a slim girl in your teens?'
'I was not trying to realise it. Just at the moment I was sure I saw the Deanery, Anthony has often assured me he could from beside this vase. I shall not be a "slim girl in my teens" when I am Lady of the Manor, grandpapa. Don't let us think of it. It won't be for a very long time, and we will forget it unless you want to tell me something I must do.'
'My dear, when the time comes you'll do all that's good, even to rebuilding the old bridge, eh? But there's one thing you must get, a good husband. You mustn't be left alone in the world.'
'He must get her, my dear,' said Mrs. Marlowe.
'Of course, of course. There, there, Cynthy, no need to colour up. Plenty of time and no rocks ahead, choice in your ownhands, et cetera. Now kiss us and you can go back to Anthony. He'll stay and dine, and then you'll sing to us.'
She did as she was bidden like a child. They watched her out of sight. Then the Admiral went to the vase near which she had stood and, fixing his eye-glass with a nervousness so unusual that it resisted many efforts before it was steady, stared at Wonston.
'We certainly ought to see the Deanery,' he said in a tone so dissatisfied that it was certain he did not.
'Certainly we should.'
'Well, if we don't the best thing is for him to persuade her that we do.'
'I think he has.'
'I have no doubt he is convinced he sees her room from his room.'
'Don't say so to Cynthy.'
'Juliana! as though I should be such a fool as to say anything about it—the very thing to upset our schemes!'
'Do you remember, Simon, how frightened you once were lest Mrs. Tremenheere should scheme for us?'
The Admiral puffed out his cheeks to hide a little embarrassment. But Mrs. Marlowe looked so inoffensive that this could not be maliciousness.
'I am yet,' he said. 'It's out of a woman's province to scheme, quite beyond it, she'll only make a mess. Now, she's a worldly woman, she'd want Cynthy's money, but we want Anthony because he's a good fellow, and 'll make her happy. No good could come of her scheme, but ours is moral to the marrow. A world of difference, my dear Juliana, a world of difference.'
When Cynthia came out, it was under Mrs. Tremenheere's chaperonage. Since she must come out, it was safest for her to do so with Anthony's mother. She went through two seasons of the conventional routine, refused many offers of marriage, and each timereturned happily to Lafer and her friendship with the Tremenheeres. Never for a moment did the Admiral fear for the success of his plan.
It was on the day of his ordination to deacon's orders that Anthony asked her to be his wife. She promised that she would. It seemed the one natural sequence.
Yet she shrank from accepting his ring. He was going to the Holy Land, need they be openly engaged until his return? He smiled and insisted, and she gave way. But the first seed of self-distrust was springing up in her heart. During his absence she became gradually restless and dissatisfied. Every one about her noticed the change. The Admiral, purblind, attributed it to want of Anthony; but Cynthia realised each day more clearly that it rose from the dread of his return, for upon it their marriage must quickly follow. She longed for the old time of friendship, and at last confessed to herselfthat she had made a mistake, she did not love him. When he returned it was to a great sorrow, for she broke off her engagement.
The succeeding months were unutterably bitter. For the first time in her life she was brought face to face with unhappiness. For herself she did not care, but to know that she had wounded and disappointed those she loved cost her many a tear. And Anthony worshipped her; he would never marry if not her; he was a noble-hearted man, and she missed him. He had made her understand it must be all or nothing; if not her husband he could only be her steadfast friend at a distance. The old familiar intercourse was all done away. A miserable year passed; he asked her again but she refused; yet as she loved no one else he still hoped. She found another chaperon, and went up to town as usual, returning to entertain the Admiral's shooting-parties andglide into a dull winter. But it was not quite so bad as the previous one. Mrs. Hennifer, who was the friend of both, persuaded Anthony to go away. He threw up his curacy and went out to Delhi on a commission for the translation of the Bible into some of the Hindoo dialects; he was more scholar than priest, and the work was congenial. In his absence the Admiral ceased to harass Cynthia, and by degrees Mrs. Hennifer, more even than the winsome and disarming patience into which his harshness disciplined Cynthia herself, managed to narrow the breach and restore to the Hall its old atmosphere of affection.
During Anthony's absence of some years the Dean died and he returned to the inheritance of entailed property. But he did not live on it. If in England he must be near Cynthia. He took a house near the Minster, accepted an honorary canonry to please his mother by keeping up a link with the ecclesiastical prestige of the place, and devoted his time tostudy. His library was upstairs, and Cynthia knew he had made interest with one of the woodmen for the felling of a tree and the lopping of some branches that hid his view of the Hall.
One day he showed her it, explaining how cleverly it had been managed. His manner proved to her as well as words could have done that time had quenched none of his affection. It had taught him to endure, and still to be happy and useful. He had not prayed for more. She stood in the window silently for a long time. He had never touched her so much. There was such a noble and simple courage about him that the pathos of it all nearly overcame her. At last she turned and smiled tremblingly.
'Anthony,' she said, 'I would have given all that will one day be mine to have been able to be your wife.'
There was no uncertainty in his smile. It was quick and bright.
'I know you would, Cynthia. Nothing is your fault, it is our joint misfortune. You may still find a perfect happiness. As for me I shall be faithful, as you would have been had you cared. That is my happiness, and to be able to be so near to you, I can enjoy that now—"so near and yet so far,"' he added after a moment's pause.
His tone was more wistful than he knew. Cynthia felt herself on the very verge of yielding to a sudden strong impulse which she was impelled to trust. She put out her hand. But he was not looking. He had looked and been unnerved. He had thought himself stronger. With a hasty movement he turned to the table and took up a pamphlet, furling its edges with fingers that might at that moment have closed over Cynthia Marlowe's in lifelong possession. Her courage failed. She went to the other sideof the table and surveyed the accumulation of books and papers; most of them were, she knew, in Hindostānee and Sanskrit. The sight did not abash her. On the contrary it renewed her courage.
'Anthony, you know that line—
"I do not understand, I love,"'
she said; 'now, in how many languages can you conjugate those verbs?'
But he did not look up, and nervousness made her tones too buoyant. He never saw the light in her eyes which would at last have answered the question in his.
'In nine languages and a dozen dialects,' he said lightly.
She had failed to convey her meaning. Her lips closed. She shut her eyes, feeling for a moment faint and tired. When she wished him good-bye, he thought she looked at him strangely. But he did not guess the truth or know that he had failed to take the tide 'at the flood.' In afew days she ceased to wonder what was truth.
Shortly afterwards, Tremenheere's sister, Theodosia Kerr, with whom she corresponded regularly, perceiving listlessness in her letters and an exasperating resignation in his, threw herself into the breach by proposing that she should travel with her and her husband. Kerr was delicate, and after a yachting cruise in the Mediterranean, was going to winter in Jersey. The plan took Cynthia's fancy. She had never travelled, discovered she had a great wish to do so, and was speedily on her way to join their yacht in Southampton Water. Mrs. Kerr, in her superior wisdom of married woman, meant to give her what she spoke of to her husband as 'a good shaking-up,' and then have Tremenheere quietly out to Jersey in autumn; the result was to be all that everybody could wish!
Three months later news reached LaferHall which struck consternation into Mrs. Hennifer's soul, and sent her over to Old Lafer to see Mrs. Severn at once. The consequence was that a few hours after Mrs. Severn was again at the Mires.
A more God-forsaken-looking place than the Mires it would be impossible to imagine. Even on this glorious day in late August it looked dreary and forbidding. The cluster of stone cottages, half of them roofless, with the inner white-washed walls showing through the jagged gaps where windows and doors had been, straggled round a marsh whose pools of water glistened like scales among tufts of rush and treacherous slimy moss. The hollow was cup-like. There was no ling on its sides, they were covered with a harsh dry bent, through which the breeze swished.In one place this was disfigured by a mound of shaly refuse marking the site of an old coal-pit. Its seams had been exhausted years ago, and the miners now trudged a mile to a shaft on the edge of the firwoods that divided the Hall and Old Lafer. At one end a stream oozed from the rushes and wandered away with a forlorn look over a stratum of clay. The chirping of a grasshopper made the silence more intense. The heat was overpowering.
When Anna left Borlase he drove back a little way, out of sight of the cottages. Anna half ran, half slipped through the bent. Hartas Kendrew's was the cottage from whose chimney the smoke curled. It stood a little apart from the others, and was in good repair. Scilla had even tried to make it cheerful by hanging checked curtains in the windows, and nursing a few pots of geranium and hydrangea on the sills. It seemed to Anna that they gasped for air, flattened asthey were against the closed panes. She thought of Old Lafer, cool and sweet, the doors and windows wide open, and the velvety breeze wandering into every corner. Scilla's life seemed now as much cramped as her flowers. From having been a bonny blithe girl, singing about her work at Old Lafer, free from care and responsibility, she was saddened by her husband's absence in prison, and shackled with his father's drunken humours.
Anna reached the edge of the marsh on the side opposite to Kendrew's. So far no one was visible. Now, a figure appeared in the doorway. It was Mrs. Severn. She came towards her, waving her hand as though bidding her remain where she was. Anna did so, gazing at her. She saw in a moment that she walked steadily, and thought she had never looked more handsome. Her incongruity with her surroundings seemed to vanish in the harmony of the silvery greenbackground. She walked slowly, the long black dress she always wore trailing after her, yet half-looped up over one arm, akimbo on her hip. The cameo-like head was held with regal dignity; her dark hair was braided in a knot that would have enchanted a sculptor. The sun seemed to catch and outline every curve of her figure. She was not so pale as usual, and the tinge of colour gave a deep but passionless glow to her eyes, which seemed to light up her face to an extraordinary degree. She fixed them on Anna with the silent mesmerism that always drew speech from any one whom she expected to speak to her. They expressed no emotion beyond an expectation that Anna felt to be sharpened with defiance. Anna, with her fire of indignation kindling every look and gesture, though held in control, was an absolute contrast.
When she was only a few paces away, Anna hurried forward and took her hands.No sooner had she done so than she felt the old love, the old longing to kiss and forgive. She held her at arm's length in a scrutiny from which she banished suspicion and reproach.
'You'll come home with me, Clothilde,' she said.
Mrs. Severn smiled and disengaged her hands.
'Have you not brought me some clothes on the chance that I choose to remain here?' she said.
'That is the last thing I should have thought of doing, dearest.'
'Why have you come, then? Dinah one way, you the other, just to make a useless fuss.'
'She did not know I could get here.'
'How did you? Who brought you?'
'Mr. Borlase. We drove.'
'Prissy said so. Her sight is ridiculously good. I could only see the twinkling ofwheels in the sun. Is he gone? Will you go back with Dinah?'
'Oh Clothilde, don't talk so coldly. With you and Dinah?'
Her voice was low, little more than a whisper, but she managed to make it clear and confident. She always trusted to her instincts in dealing with Mrs. Severn. Simple straightforward decision in the course resolved on was of little use if allowed to be felt as decisive. Mrs. Severn's opinion was generally reversed by the acquiescence of others, and her egotism was so baffling that it was impossible to feel certain of anything making the desired impression, unless advanced for the sake of being contradicted.
She did not answer now, but turned and looked across the marsh to the cottage. The sun beat fiercely on her head. She raised one hand and pressed it flat above her brow. But the shelter was insufficient.
'You might lend me your parasol, Anna,' she said.
'Of course, how stupid of me when I have my large hat. But I was not thinking of parasols.'
'Because you have one. It certainly is very hot here,' she said, resting the parasol on her shoulder and twirling it to and fro.
'Stifling.'
'And on the ridge, where there's a breeze, the colour of the ling makes my eyes ache. I've been sitting there reading. There was a book of yours on the parlour table, one of Bret Harte's. I took it up and carried it all the way. I did not know I was carrying it. Strange!'
'I think you knew as little what else you were doing.'
There was another pause. Anna suspected indecision, but neither Mrs. Severn's face nor the poise of her figure betrayed any.She stood restfully. Still she was certainly pondering deeply.
'Not one of the windows opens,' she said suddenly.
Anna could not help smiling.
'Has Hartas sealed them up since you were here last?'
'It was never weather like this. And Prissy will not let the fire go out; she likes the kettle to be always boiling.'
'I don't wonder when this is the only water to be got.'
'That is not her reason, of course.'
Another figure now emerged from the cottage. They both recognised Dinah. She stood a moment, shading her eyes with her hand, looking at them. Then she went on quickly, and struck off up the slope in the direction in which Old Lafer lay.
Mrs. Severn glanced keenly at Anna.
'She is going home,' she said. 'Now you would drive again with Mr. Borlase. I suppose he would take you round by the park, and the oldbridge, and East Lafer.'
Anna flushed, but it was with anger.
'That is not the question,' she said. 'But I shall not walk home unless you go with me, Clothilde. If you go we will walk over the moor to the wood. It will take less time, and if we can't get home before Dad does, then we must feign to have had a walk for pleasure. The drive would rest me, though. I am tired. You have alarmed me. And besides, I dare not leave you here.'
Mrs. Severn laughed, an angry flush rising into her face.
'You are a goose—darenot!' she said. 'And why not? You must let me do as I like. You know I may please myself now about coming here, but because it is so long since I came that you thought I never should again, you are aggrieved because I have. I should not have come but that Mrs. Hennifer called; I cannot endure her. She shalllearn to keep away from Old Lafer—no, she must come as usual, oftener if she likes—and she talked about Miss Marlowe. Really Miss Marlowe's affairs don't concern me—and there's a mistake, I'm certain. But if not, what——'
Her voice had been growing hurried and faltering. She now broke off abruptly, and at the same moment, swiftly transferring the parasol from one shoulder to the other, interposed it between Anna and herself. It struck Anna for the first time that she was not her usual self. Could it be possible that she had been mistaken, that she had been drinking? The dreadful fear died at birth, however. She felt convinced that she had not. Something was wrong, though. Whatever else she was, she was never incoherent in speech. What had Mrs. Hennifer and Miss Marlowe to do with her except in the ordinary course of a call and small-talk?—but she was speaking again.
'Really, I don't think I can endure Prissy's flock mattress in this heat, and I am certain this bog smells,' she said, again turning and looking at Anna.
'I am certain it does. Bogs always do under quick evaporation.'
'You are very scientific, as dry as it will be if the heat lasts. Any one coming into this malarious sort of air might soon have a fever.'
Anna's face was momentarily settling into sternness.
'You must sit in the house, Clothilde. Hartas will keep fever out by smoking bad tobacco, drinking gin, and eating onions.'
'I sit upstairs, Anna, and it has always been very cosy. But since I was here they have taken off the thatch and actually slated the roof, and slates attract the sun to a frightful degree.'
'In fact Old Lafer is so much more comfortable that you will return to it,' said Anna in a stifled voice.
Mrs. Severn was not looking at her or she would have been warned of what was impending. As it was she smiled indulgently.
'Don't let us quarrel, Anna. You know I have only very limited means at my disposal for doing as I like. I always think you should all be thankful I come here instead of going to Wonston, which would cause so much more scandal.'
She put her hand on her arm as she spoke, half confidingly, half as a help in walking, for she now turned to the cottage.
But Anna shook it off as though she were stung, and started back, fixing on her a look of repugnant mistrust.
'Clothilde,' she exclaimed, 'I will never leave you here again. You are mad to speak so lightly. I will tell you the truth. I know everything. Scilla told Dinah that you drank when last you were here. If I left you here to-day she would warn me. But I will not. You might do it again. Ifevery one here knew the truth it would reach Dad. If I can prevent his knowing, I will. You may have felt that I should not leave you, and have invented all these stupid excuses to make it appear that you are pleasing yourself by going home with me. Clothilde, you shall come home with me or every one shall know the truth. Even a shameful truth is better known sometimes; it is salvation instead of damnation. Clothilde, I did not know how I should find you to-day. If I had found you as it would have been shameful to find you, I should have told Mr. Borlase the whole truth, and he would have helped me—anything to save you from yourself! But I will not leave you here. Now you know that I know all, that——'
'All?' said Mrs. Severn. She had listened, stunned, half-terrified. Anna had never spoken to her with absolute just anger before. But she had expected more—a further condemnation. Now her face clearedwith a relief that was unaccountable to Anna, and made her pause abruptly.
'All?' she said again.
'Yes,' said Anna passionately. 'How can you act in such a way, Clothilde? Go and get your bonnet, and we'll start instantly. Go, Clothilde.'
Mrs. Severn shrugged her shoulders, but did as she was bidden.
Anna rushed up the hill. Her passionate words were but a poor vent for her surging resentment. She was choked. She longed to throw herself down in the bent and cry out her grief and disdain. She had not imagined anything so weak, so baffling. She could not wonder at Elias's scorn. It struck her as possible that if Mr. Severn knew all he might some day spurn her; revulsion of feeling might impel him to it.
At the top of the hill she paused. The dog-cart was a dozen paces farther on. Borlase had not heard her, and was lookingthe other way. He sat with drooping rein, and one arm thrown over the back of the seat. His face was in profile, but she could see its expression of deep, calm thought. It impressed her with the possibility of controlling this white heat of angry disgust. Only pride had enabled her to steady her voice before Clothilde. Tears had forced themselves into her eyes, but Mrs. Severn, being a cursory observer, had attributed the scintillation to passion. This reaction was more full of shame than the disclosure in Wonston streets had been. The new impression of Clothilde became the mastering one; to a less earnest and honest nature it might have been fleeting as a phantom. Could she hope ever to lose its bitterness?
But as she looked at Borlase her temper cooled.
His unconsciousness of her presence, though he was waiting for her, added forceto his curb on her own impetuosity of which she had been conscious before now.
But there was an interest beyond that of character in the abstraction of his air. Of what was he thinking, of whom? The wonder of whom another is thinking is the germ of the wish and the hope that the thought may be of one's self. A twinge of jealous fear follows it. At this moment she grasped the realisation of a kindness that had been at pains to show solicitude, to be individual. His words and looks and hand pressure poured in warm remembrance into her heart. He had helped her, he would have helped her more. She knew of what joy they were on the verge.
Yet she hesitated. She felt unnerved. Must she go on in spite of her tear-washed eyes, which he would instantly perceive, or return unseen and send Scilla with a message? True, she had promised to go herself. She wanted to speak to him too, to thankhim, to explain. But it seemed all at once as though it would be much easier to send Scilla. Her very shyness was surrender, but this she did not know.
And while she hesitated, he suddenly turned and their eyes met.
It was a flash of the most intensely delighted surprise that illumined Borlase's face. Its reflection stole over hers and she smiled at him. Full knowledge of the hidden truth of both hearts pierced each at once.
Her smile decided him. He knew her well. He knew she had been taken unawares, and might resent her involuntary self-betrayal to herself when she realised it, as in another moment she might do.
She had not moved. It seemed to him that she expected him to go to her. His heart leapt as he perceived that here at lastwas what he wanted, she was no longer unconscious. He saw a change even in the poise of her figure, she was shy and uncertain. Yet there was a gleam in her eyes, clear and steady, that defied her strange confusion. Seizing reins and whip he was instantly alongside of her. He jumped down and took her hands.
'Anna,' he said, 'you know now what I have been waiting for, what I am longing to ask for, what I want to make me a happy man. You know, because at last you can give it me, cannot you, my darling?'
He drew her nearer.
'Give me the right to comfort you in every trouble,' he said. 'Let us share all joys and sorrows. I have loved you so long. Will you be my wife, Anna?'
For a moment she turned away, feeling that she could scarcely bear him to see her face. She was half ashamed of her happiness. She could not speak. She felt as thoughthere were a world of happiness in her eyes. Then the thought came that it would make him happy to see it there. And so she raised her eyes to his and he did see it.
'And are you going back with me?' he said after a while.
She shook her head in a way expressive to him of a delightful amount of regret.
'No. Clothilde is going, and we are going to walk by the moor and the wood. We shall get home sooner.'
'Then you have persuaded her. Who would you not persuade to be good and do right? But may I not drive you both?'
'Oh no, Clothilde never would, and what could we say to Dad in explanation if he were home first? And I have not persuaded her, there was no need for persuasion. You must not think too much of me, idealise me or anything of that kind——'
'And what is my name, Commandant?' Borlase broke in, laughing.
'Your name? Geoffry, isn't it? Yes.'
'Well, then, call me Geoff or your commands shall be null.'
'That can wait till next time,' said Anna piquantly.
'Very well, it shall. The anticipation will bring me all the sooner to Old Lafer to see Mr. Severn. And I shall write to Mr. Piton. I shall be delighted to assert my ownership at Rocozanne. I've always been jealous of Ambrose.'
She laughed, and murmured that she must be going.
'Yes, I suppose you must,' he said. 'But tell me, are you going away happier than you came? Yes? And not only because Mrs. Severn has been amenable to reason? Have I at last a niche in your life, will it be more than a niche soon? It is so, is it not? Anna, remember you are to learn to be all mine. I shall be jealous of every one at Old Lafer, Mr. Severn, your sister, the whole batch of children.'
Her face showed him what music his eager tones were to her.
She could not herself have been more impetuous. His frankness charmed her. Well it might! It was the surest guerdon of lifelong happiness. He knew she was of the same nature. To such there is no fear of one of those tragedies of life which turns upon a misunderstanding.
Anna quickly re-descended into the hollow. She hoped Mrs. Severn would come out and not oblige her to go up to the cottage. She was anxious to get away while the Mires was still depopulated by the cottagers being out at their peat-stacks and bracken cutting. Besides which Hartas might be at home. She dreaded his familiar garrulousness, and the violence of his menacing hatred for the Admiral which he never lost an opportunity of impressing upon every one.
Mrs. Severn, however, did not come out, but Scilla did. She hurried towards herlooking more troubled and anxious than usual, Anna thought. She was very bonny, and had a fresh colour and a quantity of fair hair which her constant flittings into the open air without hat or hood kept in a rough condition that suited her and showed off its colour. Sunbeams seemed to be caught among it. Years ago sunbeams had been in her limpid blue eyes too. But now they were sad, a haunting sorrow and a furtive fear brooded there. Not only was Kit in prison and her baby beneath a little mound in the churchyard, but there were times when she scarcely dared stay in the house with Hartas. Anna had often urged her to leave him and come back to Old Lafer. But she would not. She had promised Kit that she would not. If she broke a promise to him she would lose her hope of keeping him to better ways when his term was up and he was home again.
'Well, Scilla,' said Anna, 'when are you coming to see the children again?'
'Bless them,' said Scilla, her eyes filling; 'and another baby too. But oh, Miss Anna, I want a word with you. Come along, though. Don't let us stand or she'll maybe guess what I'm telling you. Father told me I never had to tell you, no, not if she did it again and again. He hates every one since poor Kit's punishment, and he'd help ruin any one that had aught to do with the Admiral. But I made up my own mind I'd tell if Mrs. Severn ever came here again and asked for——She's going away with you but that doesn't matter, she's been and she may come again. Miss Anna, the last time she was here she got to a bottle of father's——'
Her voice sank. Her eyes fixed themselves on Anna's, mutely imploring her to understand and yet not to be overwhelmed. Yes, she did understand. There was an anguished shame in her whole face.
They were walking slowly on. Just beforereaching the cottage Anna said in a low voice—
'I did not know Hartas knew, Scilla. Dinah told me, she thought it right to do so, and it was right. Have you ever told any one?'
'Never, Miss Anna; not even Kit. Dearest Miss Anna, she's asked for some to-day. I made pretence we'd none by us. She'd soon have sent for some. And that's what's been my fear, that she should get hold of Jimmy Chapman or one of the little ones and send them. Then all t' Mires would have known and a deal o' folk beside.'
'Do you think Hartas has told any one?'
'I don't think so,' she said; adding reluctantly, 'I sometimes fancy if he hasn't, he's biding his time, he's none one to let bad things drop.'
To Anna's relief and yet almost to her terror she found that Hartas was out. Hartas Kendrew, primed with this knowledge, had already become a power, a factor in herlife; she would constantly be wondering and fearing what, involuntarily in his drunken fits or of malice prepense, he might disclose.
Scilla's little kitchen was empty of life, but for a kitten curled up on the langsettle, fast asleep. The flagged floor was bordered with a design in pipeclay, which Scilla renewed once a week. Some samplers hung in frames upon the walls between groups of memorial cards of various sizes. On the high mantel was a row of five copper kettles, all polished into a glint of gold, and above them two guns on crockets. A line of freshly-ironed clothes hung across the ceiling; some worsted stockings were drying off over the oven-door; the ironing blanket lay still unfolded on the table but had one corner turned over to make room for some cups and saucers and a rhubarb pasty. Scilla had made tea but no one would have any.
When Mrs. Severn heard their voices she came downstairs in her bonnet, a flimsyelegant affair of black lace which Anna had wondered at her having taken off. She said good-bye to Scilla with her ordinary indifference. But Anna lingered behind and kissed her with a passionate hand-grasp that assured her of her gratitude and confidence. Scilla looked at her searchingly. She had long cherished a hope for Anna. She was longing that it should be fulfilled. And had not Mr. Borlase brought her here to-day, and could he possibly have seen her in this old trouble and not wished to be her comforter? Surely she would never repulse him. He was good, of that Scilla was certain. She had thought as she walked along the edge of the marsh and met her that she had an air of quiet and happy preoccupation. She wanted to satisfy herself that it was so. Surely her love and respect warranted her.
'Why do you look at me, Scilla?' said Anna, as they were parting.
Scilla's pent-up solicitude rushed forth.
'Oh Miss Anna, I love you so,' she said in a hurried whisper, 'I want you to be happy. Are you? It's a queer question after what I've just told you, but there are others in the world besides her,' with a nod towards the door, 'while one brings trouble, another brings lightsomeness. And you are so good, always the same; you don't put a body in your pocket one day and turn a cold shoulder the next. You were always so helpful to me at Old Lafer. If you'd been there that dree winter I was ill, I know Kit would never have taken to bad ways, for you'd have tided us over, and he'd none have been tempted. Trust me a bit further, Miss Anna dear.'
She had never taken her eyes off her face, and seeing the colour that spread from neck to brow as she looked, she ventured to the verge and now stood breathless.
'How have you guessed?' said Anna.
'Then it's true?' cried Scilla rapturously,tightening her hold of her hands. 'I've prayed for it. I thought he'd never be so daft as to pass you by, a jewel that you are! And you're light at heart, eh? So was I when Kit came about Old Lafer, but you'll none have the finish I've had. God bless you.'
'This isn't the finish for you, Scilla,' said Anna. 'You'll have a happy time yet.'
Scilla smiled an April smile. Then suddenly she laughed. 'Miss Anna,' she said, 'what'll Mrs. Severn say to it? She'll none want to lose you from Old Lafer. She was in a fine taking on an hour ago, when I told her 'twere you and Mr. Borlase. But never mind what she says. Insulting words may come nigh you, but don't you make a trouble of them; they'll only speak badly for her as uses them. Every one knows whatyouare in your inwardest nature.'
Mrs. Severn had walked on and was now standing on the ridge, silhouetted against the sky. Anna soon overtook her, and theywent on quickly, shortening the way by striking into the ling. Her anger had melted. The old tenderness was in her heart; for some bitter moments it had seemed indeed that the new shame must quench it. Nor was it her new-found happiness that inspired it. Her anger must have humiliated Clothilde, and she could not bear to think she was humiliated.
During the heavy walking through the ling she did all she could to be kind. The beautiful face, growing weary and haggard with a rare anxiety which she attributed to the wish to be home before her husband, touched her deeply. She helped her on, holding up her dress, throwing the shade of the parasol wholly over her, and hoping each moment that she might strike some chord that would unseal her heart and give some clue to its enigmatical life.
But Mrs. Severn remained silent, walking with her eyes down, but carefully picking herway among the tufts of ling. Anna in her white dress and sun hat got along easily, but Mrs. Severn's progress was laboured. She looked extraordinary, a figure more fit for a stage than the moor, her black draperies at once handsome and negligent, her arms bare from the elbows, the lace strings of her bonnet arranged about her throat with a mantilla-like effect, which set off the fine contour of her face. Always conscious of herself, she was now.
'I wonder, if any one met us, what we should be taken for?' she said, as they stood resting a moment by leaning against the wall of the coal-pit shanty. 'I think I might be taken for an actress gone astray.'
Anna thought this so much nearer the truth than was intended that she said nothing.
'And you for my maid.'
'Probably,' said Anna, and walked on again. She felt too worn by the varying strong emotions she had gone through todissent from any suggestion. It seemed hopeless to think of reaching Clothilde's inner self, but she could not help speculating over it. Life's opening out for herself during the last few hours had quickened her perceptions. A new experience of the influence each can exert on the lives round it, bringing a rush of undreamt-of possibilities that invested the vista of the future with a halo of definite and sacred responsibilities, had stirred her to a wider grasp of the issues involved in action, as well as to a keener questioning of their mainspring. She had known for years that Clothilde did not love her husband; but considered that she had no capacity either for love or hate, treating her emotions as diffused and colourless, and herself none the more unhappy for her indifference.
But now she wondered why she did not love him. She had been surprised by the vehemence of the tone in which she had said,'I cannot bear Mrs. Hennifer.' It was not merely the irrational petulance of a childish mind resenting disapproval. Why did she not like her? Had she never cared for her husband? If so, if she had force of character to strongly dislike the one and shrink so sensitively from the other, that his home sometimes became unbearable, and all her married and social obligations were sacrificed to the one dominating desire to get away from them, there must be a reverse to the picture, comparison must play its natural part in her mind, dislike of one be accented by appreciation of another, and shrinking from one by attraction to another. Had she ever loved any one as a woman can and does love? A few short minutes of vivid personal experience had proved to her how one life bears upon another, weaving a web of influence and circumstance which is completed or left incomplete by the frailty of a single thread. Was there a broken thread inClothilde's life? Might this discord have been a harmony?
The silence was not again broken before they reached home. The sun was setting as they emerged from the larch woods on to the wooden bridge that crossed the beck below the meadows. Old Lafer was above them on the hillside, its drifts of smoke wreathing against the sky. As they climbed the fields, the moors gradually came into sight, the last rays from the sun striking in a golden haze athwart the dense blue shadows that moulded them. The old house looked dark and gray. Anna scanned every window as she balanced herself on the stile. That of the parlour was wide open. She saw that Mr. Severn was neither in his arm-chair nor in the one before the secretaire at which he wrote the correspondence that he did not get through at the office. The tea-table, too, was too orderly for any one to have already had tea there. She went on into the house.His hat was not on its peg on the stand. Dinah heard her step as she worked with the kitchen door open in readiness, and, sallying forth, shook her head.
'He's none come. Hev you brought her?' she said in a loud but cautious whisper; and peering beyond her as she spoke, she caught sight of Mrs. Severn just crossing the flags.
'T' Almighty be thanked!' she ejaculated. 'And eh, Miss Anna, I've put out some honey for tea. That'll keep t' baärns so busy, what wi' smashing it, and smearing their bread, and messing theirsels, that they'll hev no time for much talk. Now go your ways upstairs and get a souse to freshen yoursel for tea. My word,shelooks like death! And there are some girdle-cakes, my dearie. Them's what you favour, and Master too for t' matter of that, only he mayn't be in time.'
Half an hour later they were sitting roundthe tea-table. Mr. Severn had not come yet, and the children's chatter was varied, as usual, by pauses in which they all steadied themselves to listen for his horse's hoofs, or the clash of the gate, or his voice calling Elias.
But they missed the sounds of his arrival to-day. He surprised them by quietly opening the door and standing just within while taking off his gloves. His eyes travelled from one to another, and rested longest on his wife. She was leaning back playing with the spoon in her saucer and scarcely glanced at him. Nevertheless he came round and kissed her.
'I've news,' he said, passing on to his seat. 'Here's a bit of excitement for you at last, Clothilde. We're to have a wedding. Now, who's the bride-elect?'
'Miss Marlowe, Cynthia,' said Anna.
'Miss Marlowe it is, but Tremenheere's none the man. Mrs. Kerr's been a badmanager, not known how to marshal her forces, taken too much time about it.'
'Not Canon Tremenheere after all! And you've lunched there; did he know? Who is it? Who told you?'
'The Admiral told me. I wish it had been the Canon, I do. I always thought she'd come round. And she went off so simply, was the only one who didn't suspect Mrs. Kerr's plan. I was sure she'd fall in with it quite naturally. But it's a failure. She's engaged herself without any leave-asking to a man she's met on their travels; Danby they call him, Lucius Danby. He's an Anglo-Indian.'
He was stirring his tea, Anna was replenishing the teapot. No one noticed that Mrs. Severn's head had fallen back, and that she was slipping off her chair.
For the first time in her life she had fainted.