CHAPTER XXVI.PHIL GOES AWAY.
Mr. Beresford was alone in his office when Phil came in after his return from Hetherton Place, and asked, abruptly:
“Have you seen Will Granger about going to India?”
“Not yet; no, I thought I would wait till to-night,” Mr. Beresford replied, and Phil continued:
“Don’t see him, then; I will take the place. Write so to your uncle at once, or perhaps I had better write myself.”
Something in the tone of his voice made Mr. Beresford turn quickly and look at him.
“Why, Phil,” he said, “what ails you? What has happened to make you look so white and strange?”
“Nothing,” Phil answered—“that is, nothing of any consequence to any one but myself.” Then, moved by a sudden impulse to tell somebody, Phil burst out: “Beresford, I can trust you, I know, for you have always been my friend.”
“Yes,” faltered Mr. Beresford, thinking remorsefully of what he said to Reinette, and wondering if Phil would think that friendly, if he knew.
“I must tell somebody—talk to somebody, or go crazy,” Phil continued. “The fact is, I have made a fool of myself and beenrejected, as I deserved.”
“You rejected! By whom?” Mr. Beresford asked, although he felt that he knew perfectly well what the answer would be.
“By Reinette, of course. What other woman is there on the face of the earth whose no is worth caringfor? I asked her to be my wife, and she refused, and made me know she meant it; and now I am going to India, for I cannot stay here.”
“What reason did she give for her refusal?” Mr. Beresford asked, feeling like a guilty hypocrite, and Phil replied:
“She had three reasons, each of them good and sufficient in her own mind. First, she did not love me inthat way, as she expressed it; second, I am her cousin, and, with her Roman Catholic notions, it is an unpardonable sin to marry one’s cousin; and third, she could not marry a man with no aim, no occupation, no business except to loop up dresses and run a sewing-machine. That’s what she said, or something like it, and that hurt me worst of all, for it made me feel so small, so contemptible: and, after she said it, I knew how impossible it was for her even to respect such a dawdling, effeminate Sardanapalus as I must appear to her.”
At the mention of Sardanapalus Mr. Beresford started, for that was the name he had used when speaking of Phil to Reinette. Had she told him? It was not likely, else he had never come there with his confidence, which seemed so like a stab to the conscience-stricken man, who at last could bear it no longer, and as Phil went on with his story, showing in all he said how implicitly he trusted him, he burst out:
“Stop, Phil, stop a minute, while I make a confession to you, and then you will not think me so much your friend, though Heaven knows I am, and that there is no man living I like as well. But, Phil, I went back on you once, and in a moment of weakness said things for which I blush. I, too, have offered myself to Reinette Hetherton.”
“You! When?” Phil exclaimed, and Mr. Beresford replied:
“Only last night, and when she refused me, and said she did not love me, I accused you of being my rival,and in my mad jealousy said things of you which only a coward could have said of his friend. I sneered at your idle, aimless life, and said that women generally preferred a Sardanapalus to energetic, strong men, or something like that.”
“Yousaid this ofmeto Reinette, and I thought you my friend! I would never have served you so,” Phil said, and in his eyes there was an expression which hurt Mr. Beresford cruelly, and made him think of the wounded Cæsar when he cried out, “Et tu, Brute!”
“Yes, I said it, Phil, but I took it all back, and made what amends I could. Queenie will tell you so if you ask her. She flew in my face like a yellow-jacket, and defended you bravely. Forgive me, Phil; I am greatly ashamed of myself.”
He offered his hand to the young man, in whose eyes tears were shining, but who did not refuse to take it, though he was still smarting under this new pain.
“I can forgive you,” he said, with a faint smile, “because Queenie defended me, but it is very hard to bear. You say she refusedyouand gave you no hope?” Mr. Beresford thought of the year’s probation he had insisted upon, and spoke of it to Phil, but added:
“She told me, however, that it was useless, for at the end of the time her answer would be the same, so you see there is no hope for me either;” and this he said because he saw how utterly crushed and heart-broken Phil was, and he would not add to his pain by confessing that away down in his heart therewasa shadowy hope that Queenie might change her mind, especially with Phil away, for he was going. He had made up his mind to that, and before returning home he wrote himself to the firm in New York, accepting the situation, and saying he would be in the city the next evening, as he wished for a few days before sailing in which to post himself with reference to the business.
“But why go to-morrow? There is no such hastenecessary,” Mr. Beresford said, when he heard the contents of the letter, and Phil replied:
“I must go before I see her again; the sight of her might unman me and make me give it up.”
So the letter was sent, and when Phil went home to dinner at night he startled his family by telling them that he was going to India for a year, and possibly longer.
“To India!” both mother and sisters exclaimed, and then Phil explained it to them.
The former opposed the plan with all her strength, for life without Phil would be nothing to the mother who loved him so much. Mr. Rossiter, on the contrary, approved it. It was no way for a young man to hang on to his mother’s apron strings all his days, he said; Phil ought to do something for himself. This was only a repetition of the old story of idleness and ease, and confirmed Phil in his purpose. He would make something of himself—would show that he was capable of higher occupation than devising trimming for dresses and running a sewing-machine. He was very sore on the subject of the sewing-machine, and very reticent all through the dinner, and when it was over excused himself to his sisters, saying he had letters to write and some few matters which must be attended to. It was very sudden to them all—his going away—but, as he said, he was his own master and must act for himself, and when his mother tried to persuade him to give it up, he answered:
“No, I have staid with you too long. You are the best and dearest mother in the world, but you have done wrong not to send me away before this, and make me stay away, too. I should have been more of a man among men. I see it now, and must take the first chance offered me. A year is not very long, and I shall write to you every week.”
So Mrs. Rossiter gave it up, and busied herself with various preparations for his comfort, and said she shouldgo to New York to see him off, and tried to seem cheerful and happy, and tried, with his sisters, to fathom the cloud which overshadowed his face, and made him so unlike himself. What had happened to him, and was Reinette in any way connected with it? They thought so, and when in the morning he said he was going to bid his grandmother and Anna good-by, and they asked if he were not going to see Reinette, too, and he answered: “I saw her yesterday, but give her this letter when I am gone,” they were sure of it, and for the first time since they had known her, they felt a little vexed with the girl, who even then was watching from her window for the rider coming over the river, across the causeway, and up the long hill as he would not come again, for when, later in the day, the express train for New York stopped at West Merrivale, it carried him along toward the new life which was to have an aim and occupation.