CHAPTER V.KNOWLEDGE.
Time went by—it was autumn—it was winter—it was spring—and still Captain Stondon found some good reason why Basil should remain at Marshlands.
Nothing loth, Basil stayed on; stayed to be always with Phemie and her husband, to go with them everywhere; stayed till people forgot the time when he had never been seen in Norfolk, and came to consider him not merely the heir, but the child of the house.
A child in comparison to Captain Stondon, perhaps; but how about Phemie? Phemie, who was younger ever so much than he; Phemie of the blue eyes, and the auburn hair, and thedivine voice; Phemie, who was growing to be all the world to him, who was becoming fonder, and fonder, and fonder of him—fonder and fonder as the days went by.
“That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarcely worth the sentinel,” says the Vicar of Wakefield; and yet I doubt whether, in this case, it had not been better for Captain Stondon to have trusted Basil a little less, to have thought of consequences a little more.
We watch the woman whose purity we suspect; we leave perfect purity to be sullied if it choose. Is not this locking the stable door after the steed is gone? Is not this being “wise afterwards” with a vengeance?
Time, as I have said, went by; but to Basil and to Phemie the months seemed days, for they had entered into that dreamland where, as in eternity, there is no account taken of the passing hours. They were happy, for Phemie did not dream of danger, and Basil would not think of it. He liked the river, and he wilfully shut his eyesto the fact that it was flowing to the sea; besides, if there were any harm done, it would be only to himself. Mrs. Stondon, “of course,” was safe. Of course; ah! well-a-day!
A young man who from his earliest boyhood had been in love with some one, was scarcely likely not to know that he cared for Phemie more than it was quite in the proper order of things for him to care for another person’s wife; in fact, by the time the primroses were blooming on the banks and under the hedgerows, he knew perfectly well that his fancy for Miss Derno was gone, and that an attachment for Mrs. Stondon had taken its place. He knew it, but he would not acknowledge it. He was like a man who, feeling every hour in the day twinges and pangs that are the premonitory symptoms of a mortal malady, will yet not even whisper to himself that he is sick. He has not courage to turn from the sunlight and look down into the grave. Basil Stondon was for once in his life afraid to think of his new love. All hiswounds before had been trifling in comparison to this cancer, that he dared not show to mortal.
Not even to the woman who was to “fix the wandering heart at last,” durst he show by word or look or sign what she had become to him. He had to know and suffer in silence; he had to bear his pain with a smile on his lips; for he understood well enough that if once he spoke he would be cast out of his earthly Eden; and though there might be a serpent in it—a serpent stinging him every day—still it was Eden for all that.
“The battle between evil and good,” says a living preacher, “is perpetually being fought in silence.”
Have you ever thought about this, my reader? ever laid it to heart that, under all the decorum of our nineteenth-century life, the old, old warfare that began so many thousands of years since is still being waged? that the devil is defied, that the devil is triumphant, that temptations are resisted,that tragedies are acted out with no spectator, save God, looking on the while?
Smooth and bright may be the surface of the waters, but what about their depths?
Happy and peaceful seemed that Norfolk household: there were pleasant walks about the grounds, there were drives through the narrow lanes, there were rides across the breezy commons; within sight of the quarries where the “crags” were hewn out; beside marshy pools, from the margin of which geese stretched out their long necks and hissed at the strangers as they paused to look; there were parties at Marshlands, and at the houses of friends and neighbours. There was the usual routine of an English country life; its calm, its contentment, its want of excitement, its affluence, its propriety, its monotony; but there was something else besides, something that was changing Phemie and altering Basil, that was eating the heart out of that happy life; eating, eating at the core of that rich ripe fruit, and changingall its former sweetness to bitterness and decay.
He should have gone when he first learnt how dear she was growing; he should have left her, “loved her and left her—left her for ever.” He had friends; he might have visited them. He had a mother; he might have resided with her. Had he pressed the point, Captain Stondon would have got him some appointment; but even supposing none of these roads open, he ought to have left Phemie; ought to have been man enough to say, “I will not bring sorrow on her; let the future hold what it may for me.”
A man can get away from temptation, but a woman cannot. Without telling any one, without asking advice or seeking assistance or making a disturbance, a man may always turn his face north, east, south, or west, at a moment’s notice. He can cease visiting at a house; he can walk where he is certain not to meet the woman he loves best; he can do, in fact, what Basil Stondon ought to have done—leave her.
But this was just what Basil Stondon did not do. He would pay a flying visit to London, or go to see his mother, or accept an invitation to stay for a day or two with a friend here, or another friend there, but he always came back to Marshlands, hungering and thirsting for a sight of the woman whom he ought never to have seen more.
His mother would not come to Marshlands. It was well for Basil to remain there if he liked, she said, but she could not forget her husband, which was the less praiseworthy of Mrs. Montague Stondon, as Marshlands would have killed her in a month.
“How you bear the monotony,” she remarked, “I cannot imagine.” To which Basil made answer that men were different from women; “we can ride and hunt and shoot,” he explained.
“And she” (the “she” meant Mrs. Stondon), “she, you say, is really presentable. I have heard the same thing from other sources, but I can scarcely credit it. She was so dreadfully unformed when I first saw her.”
“You would not think so now,” answered her son.
“Those kind of people,” said Mrs. Montague, “soon learn our ways—that is, if they are clever; and she is clever, Miss Derno tells me.”
“I suppose she is,” replied Basil, who found his mother expected him to make some answer.
“And that cousin. Now, my dear Basil, I do not wish to put ideas into your head, but pray be on your guard, pray—pray. You who may marry so well—you who will have such a property—do not let any one entrap you into marrying that girl. Whenever you told me ‘she’ was getting more civil, I suspected her reason. As she has no children, she would like one of her own family to marry the next heir. Be on your guard, therefore, I entreat, be on your guard.”
Basil very solemnly promised her that he would, and remarked that if she would only come to Marshlands when Helen Aggland next visited it, she might see for herself how little dangerthere was of his falling in love with such a chit of a child; but his mother would not believe in his safety.
“I cannot forget, if you can,” she answered. “If Captain Stondon had only done half as much for your father as he is doing for you, I should not now be a widow.” Upon which Mrs. Montague began to cry, and Basil changed the subject, for he knew he had altered his opinion about that matter entirely, and that he did not now consider either Phemie or her husband had any share in his father’s suicide.
“Blameable share, of course, I mean,” said the young man to Miss Derno, and Miss Derno remarked she was glad to find he was growing so sensible.
This was in the spring, when Miss Derno came down into Norfolk again, to stay with the Hurlfords, who meant to have quite a gay time of it, in honour of a General Sir Samuel Hurlford, who having done great things in India, had returned thence, been knighted, and was nowmaking a tour of his relations prior to returning to India in the beginning of the new year. He was a very wonderful man, so everybody said, and the Hurlfords were naturally proud to have, and anxious to exhibit him, as well as his daughter, Miss Georgina Hurlford. This young lady had been educated in England, and after having been brought out (unsuccessfully) in London, under the most excellent auspices, was about to accompany General Sir Samuel back to India.
Money and fame had not quite kept pace together in the General’s case, and prudent friends thought it was quite possible Miss Hurlford might marry better on the other side of the equator. At any rate Miss Georgina meant to try.
She had not found the husband crop plentiful in her season, but she hoped matters would be different in India. She was just the girl to “go off” there, her acquaintance said—lively, good-natured, ladylike. She liked the idea of travelling;she did not mind the sea; she did not care for the heat; she thought it would be something new; and besides, she could then be always with “dear papa.”
Dear papa was very fond of Georgina; very proud of her hair, which curled naturally; of her eyes, that were a light cold brown; of her cheeks, which were round and rosy; of her mouth, which was small and pretty.
He admired his child excessively, but when he said she “is like her poor dear mamma,” he sighed.
There were those who knew that “poor dear mamma” had led the worthy General a pretty dance before she reluctantly left a world that seemed to her a very desirable one to inhabit; but no one in Norfolk, unless, indeed, it might be Miss Derno, was aware of this, and the sigh was put down to regret for the dead, not to solicitude for the living.
Miss Georgina had been most carefully educated, so the General’s sisters assured him. Shehad spent eight years of her life at a school where there were masters for everything, extras in abundance, a pew in church, and a clergyman once a week to catechize the young ladies.
Her vacations she had spent with one or other of her aunts; either with her aunt in town, or her aunt in the country; either at Kensington, or at an old Grange in Berkshire. In London she learned the value of a good settlement; at the Grange, how to sit close to her saddle, and not to ride on the reins. Miss Georgina was an apt pupil, and gave great satisfaction to all who were kind enough to instruct her. A most discreet young person, who could dance well, sing German songs, talk French with any one, take her fences, interpret Schulhoff and Chopin, play waltzes and quadrilles, and who withal was pleasant-mannered and agreeable. What more could a man and a father desire? particularly as Georgina was prudent, which her poor dear mamma had never been.
She had met Basil Stondon before, in London;as who, indeed, among the upper middle class had not? She liked him greatly (they danced together many evenings); and if I may say such a thing of a young lady brought up as Miss Georgina Hurlford had been brought up, she loved him.
There are some men whom all women seem to like or to love, and Basil Stondon was one of them.
The dear creatures have a fancy for extremes—extreme of strength or extreme of weakness.
It is your medium man whose love goes a begging, in whose face the door is shut unceremoniously.
Without fortune, Basil might have looked long enough for a wife, but he need not have walked abroad to look for love and affection.
Women were very fond of this young fellow; women who, it is to be hoped, met with husbands calculated to make them happier in course of time; and one of the girls who liked him excessively was Miss Georgina Hurlford.
To General Sir Samuel, Captain Stondon took amazingly, as in duty bound; they talked about India together all the day long. In a small and friendly community any strange face is welcome, providing it be a pleasant one; and Mrs. Stondon made quite as cordial advances to Miss Hurlford as her husband did to Miss Georgina’s father.
Here was an opportunity not to be despised, and Miss Hurlford was not above availing herself of it. She met Mrs. Stondon half way, more than half way; and after the curious manner of the gentle sex, fell in love with her straightway.
If a man had paid her half the compliments that fell from Miss Hurlford’s lips, Mrs. Stondon would have thought him deranged. Hero worship! What was any hero worship in comparison to such heroine worship as Miss Georgina offered to her new friend? It was incense all the day long; and Phemie never, because of the smoke, could see the meaning of it.
Everybody joined together in making much ofher; and Phemie was pleased to be made much of, and basked in the sunshine.
She was happy; ah, heaven! she was so happy: she was so innocent; she was still so young. This girl, fresh from a boarding-school, was wiser in her generation than the seven years’ wife, and wound Mrs. Stondon round her finger like packthread; but there was a balance! the sun and the wind and the rain could never talk to the one as they did to the other; the voices of the night never spoke to Miss Hurlford as they did to Phemie. Never since she was a child had Georgina looked at anything with the same guileless eyes as those with which Mrs. Stondon stood gazing through the calm twilight of a summer’s evening at the woods and the fields, on the last night when she and perfect truth and unsullied purity walked through life together.
For ever—for ever, the Phemie we have travelled with so far in poverty and riches departed, and another Phemie came and stood in her place.
It was as though the calm, self-possessed, unimpressionable nature set with the sun; as though the night, the cool, calm night, took her in its soothing embrace, took her away and hid her, and gave back with the dawning day—not the same, ah! no, but another—a passionate, sorrowful, despairing woman, who knew why the hours had sped by, why time had seemed to fly instead of to travel at ordinary speed; why a glory had all at once come over her life; why she had appeared to be always living in the sunshine; she knew all this, I say, and knew at the same moment that the sun had set, that the glory was departed—the illusion dispelled—the happiness passed to return no more—no more.
Knowledge came to her thus—came in the twilight as she stood under the verandah, watching the night steal on.
She had never felt so happy before, I think; and as she leaned against one of the pillars of the verandah, and drank in the thousand perfumes that arose from the garden beneath, shegave herself up to the full enjoyment of the moment, to that sensuous enjoyment which is produced on the minds of some by the scent of flowers, by the fading light, by the trees standing dark and silent in the distance, by the balminess of the air, by the lights and shadows on a landscape.
The roses were blooming beside her; the honeysuckle was lying against her cheek; the night air fanned her forehead. They had no company that evening save General and Mr. Hurlford, and Miss Derno. Dear Georgina had not been able to accompany her papa: so at that present moment Captain Stondon was doing the agreeable to General Sir Samuel and Mr. Hurlford; being assisted in his laudable efforts by Mr. Basil Stondon.
Miss Derno, who had been staying for a few days at Marshlands, was, to the best of Mrs. Stondon’s belief, writing a letter in her dressing-room, and Phemie had consequently the twilight and her reverie to herself.
It was getting dark—darker, but still Phemie stood leaning against the pillar, with her dress concealed by the trailing creepers that covered the low light trellis-work dividing the balcony from the terrace, thinking dreamily and happily, until it suddenly occurred to her that under the distant elm-trees she could see something moving.
If we fancy anything of this kind we watch, and Phemie therefore only did what her neighbours would have done under the circumstances—she strained her eyes to see if she were right in her conjecture.
She was not frightened, she was hardly curious; she thought it might be some of the servants; and though the servants had no business to be making love under the elm-trees, still Phemie was not likely to speak harshly about their having done so.
“It must be two of the servants.” Phemie said this to herself over and over, as the shadows changed to figures, and came slowly on.
“It must be the servants,” and her heart began to beat quicker.
“It must be the servants,” she repeated, and she could have struck herself for refusing to believe her own words. She knew well enough who it was. She knew even in that dim light the sweep of Miss Derno’s dress, the gracefulness of her walk, the lithe beauty of her figure. She knew—she would have known it among a thousand—the pleading softness of Basil’s voice, the whispered music of the tones that came to her through the stillness.
She plucked a rose from its stem, and pulled the flower to pieces in her nervous irritability. She dropped the leaves from the naked stem, and the thorns pricked her soft dainty fingers.
They came nearer—nearer still, and then they paused for a moment, and spoke earnestly and eagerly together. After that they turned on to the grass, and walked across the turf closer and closer to where she stood, till Phemie couldalmost hear their words rising to her in the stillness.
Then they paused again, and one sentence reached Phemie.
“I could never doubt you, never misinterpret you: if all the rest of the world proved false, I should still believe you true till the end.”
It was Basil who spoke—who, stooping over Miss Derno’s outstretched hand, kissed it ere they parted.
He walked down towards the fir plantation where he smoked a solitary cigar: she went round to the conservatory, and re-entered the house that way.
It was all past, and that was all, and yet Phemie, kneeling in her own room—kneeling with her face buried in her hands, wept such tears that night as had never fallen from her eyes before. Passionate tears, jealous tears, tears of shame, of anguish, of despair.
She knew all about it now—knew that the foe she had mocked at was her conqueror—knewthere was such a thing as love in the world, and that she loved—knew she had been walking along the road leading to destruction—knew that she was fonder of this man than she had ever grown to be of the husband who had raised her to what she was.
To what she was! Alas! was it for this he had taken her from the sinless quiet of her former life? for this he had given wealth and rank and position? Had she passed from the peace of that tranquil valley, so far away in point of distance, so much further away in memory and feeling, to be sobbing her heart out all alone in the dark?
She had wept once looking down the valley of Tordale, but not like this; she had shed tears before, but not like these; she had looked out on life then—on an ideal, an untried life; she was facing its realities now; the wells of her heart were open at last, the secret chambers were unlocked after all, and with an exceeding bitter cry Phemie woke to a full knowledge of whatnature had dimly foreshadowed to her before marriage.
She had never loved her husband—never. She loved this other man who could never be anything to her—never. Among the hills she had owned one life—among the hills she had pledged that life away. She could not go back to the hills now, and begin existence in the new. She had sinned; she had sinned in marrying; she had sinned in loving; she could never be happy, but she could be true; she could, though her sorrow killed her; she could, though her tears fell ceaselessly; she could and she would. Poor child! poor wife! poor Phemie!