CHAPTER V.
"CHANCE CANNOT CHANGE MY LOVE, NOR TIME IMPAIR."
Suzette endured her lover's absence with a philosophical cheerfulness which somewhat surprised her aunt.
"Upon my word, Suzie, I am half inclined to think that you don't care a straw for Allan," Mrs. Mornington exclaimed one day, when her niece came singing across the wintry lawn, crisp under her footsteps after the morning frost.
Suzette looked angrier than her aunt had ever seen her look till this moment.
"Auntie, how can you say anything so horrid? Not care for Allan! When he is in sad trouble, too! This morning's letter gives a most melancholy account of his father. I fear the end must be near. It was horrid of me to come running and singing over the grass; but these frosty mornings are so delicious. Look at that glorious blue sky!"
"And when all is over, Allan will come back to you, I suppose? I must say you have endured the separation in the calmest way."
"Why should I make myself unhappy? I know that it is Allan's duty to be at Fendyke. The only thing I regret is that I can't be there too, to help him to bear his sorrow."
"And you do not mind being parted from him. You can live without him?"
Suzette smiled at the sentimental question from the lips of her practical aunt, whose ideas seemed rarely to soar above the daily cares of housekeeping and the considerations of twopence as against twopence halfpenny.
"I have had to live without him over twenty years, auntie."
"Yes, but I thought that the moment a girl was engaged she found life impossible in the absence of her sweetheart."
"I think that kind of girl must be very empty-headed."
"And your little brains are well furnished—and then you have Mrs. Wornock and her son to fill up your days," said Mrs. Mornington, with a searching look.
"I have Mrs. Wornock, and I like her society. I see very little of Mrs. Wornock's son."
"Where is he, then? I thought he was at the Manor."
"He is seldom at home in the daytime, and I am never there in the evening."
"And so you never meet. You are like Box and Cox. So much the more satisfactory for Allan, I should say."
"Really, aunt, you are in a most provoking mood this morning. I'm afraid the butcher's book must be heavier than you like."
It was Tuesday—Mrs. Mornington's terrible day—the day on which the tradesmen's books came up for judgment; a day on which the cook trembled, and even the housemaids felt the electricity in the atmosphere.
"I never like the butcher's book," said the lady; "but that isn't what set me thinking about you and Allan. I have been thinking about you for ever so long. I'm afraid you are not so fond of him as you ought to be."
"Auntie, you have no right to say that."
"Why not, pray, miss?"
"Because, perhaps, if you had not urged me to accept him, I might not have said 'Yes' when he asked me the second time. Oh, pray don't look so frightened. I am very fond of him—very fond of him. I know that he is good and true and kind, and that he loves me better than I deserve to be loved, and thinks me better than I am—cleverer, prettier, altogether superior to my work-a-day self. And it is very sweet to have a lover who thinks of one in that exalted way. But I am not romantically in love, auntie. I don't believe that it is in my nature to be romantic. I see the bright and happy side of life. I see things to laugh at. I am not sentimental."
"Well, I dare say Allan can get on without sentiment, so long as he knows you like him better than anybody else in the world; and now, as there is no reason whatever for delay, the sooner you marry him the better."
"I am afraid he will lose his father before long, auntie; and then he can't marry for at least a year."
"Nonsense, child. He won't be a widow. I dare say Lady Emily will be marrying when the year is out. Three months will be quite long enough for Allan to wait. You can make the wedding as quiet as you like."
Suzette did not prolong the argument. The subject was too remote to need discussion. Mrs. Mornington went back to her tradesmen's books, and Suzette left her absorbed in the calculation of legs and sirloins, and the deeper mysteries of soup meat and gravy beef.
Christmas had come and gone, a very tranquil season at Matcham, marked only by the decoration of the church and the new bonnets in the tradespeople's pews. It was a dull, grey day at the end of the year, the last day but one, and Suzette was walking home in the early dusk after what she called a long morning with Mrs. Wornock, a long morning which generally lasted till late in the afternoon. But these mid-winter days were too short to allow of Suzette walking home alone after tea; so unless her own or her aunt's pony-carriage were coming for her, she left the Manor before dusk.
To-day Mrs. Wornock had been sadder even than her wont, as if saddened by the last news from Fendyke, and sorrowing for Allan's loss; so Suzette had stayed longer than usual, and as she walked homeward the shadows of evening began to fall darkly, and the leafless woods looked black against the faint saffron of the western sky. The sun had shown himself, as if reluctantly, an hour before his setting.
Presently in the stillness she heard horses' hoofs walking slowly on the moist road, and the next turn in the path showed her Geoffrey Wornock, in his red coat, leading his horse.
It was the first time they had met since her refusal to play any more duets with him, and, without knowing why, she felt considerable embarrassment at the meeting, and was sorry when he stopped to shake hands with her, stopped as if he meant to enter into conversation.
"Going home alone in the dark, Miss Vincent?"
"Yes; the darkness comes upon one unawares in these short winter days. I stayed with Mrs. Wornock because she seemed out of spirits. I am glad you are home early to cheer her."
"That is tantamount to saying you are glad I have lamed my horse. I should be on the other side of Andover, in one of the best runs of the season, if it were not for that fact. When one is thrown out, the run is always quite the best—or so one's friends tell one afterwards."
"I am sorry for your horse. I hope he isn't much hurt?"
"I don't know. Lameness in a horse is generally an impenetrable mystery. One only knows that he is lame. The stable will find half a dozen theories to account for it, and the vet will find a seventh, and very likely they may all be wrong. I'll walk with you to the high-road at least."
"And give the poor horse extra work. Not for the world!"
"Then I'll take him on till I am within halloo of the stables, and then come back to you, if you'll walk on very slowly."
"Pray don't! I am not at all afraid of the dusk."
"Please walk slowly," he answered, looking back at her and hurrying on with his horse.
Suzette was vexed at his persistence; but she did not want to be rude to him, were it only for his mother's sake. How much better it would have been had he gone straight home to cheer that fond mother by his company, instead of wasting his time by walking to Matcham, as he would perhaps insist upon doing.
He looked white and haggard, Suzette thought; but that might only be the effect of the evening light, or it might be that he was tired after a laborious day. She had not much time to think about him. His footsteps sounded on the road behind her. He was running to overtake her. It occurred to her that she might turn this persistence of his to good account. She might talk to him about his mother, and urge him to spend a little more of his time at home, and do a little more to brighten that lonely life.
"I met one of the lads," he said, "and got rid of that poor brute."
"I am so sorry you should think it necessary to come with me."
"You mean you are sorry that I should snatch a brief and perilous joy—half an hour in your company—after having abstained from pleasure and peril so long."
"If you are going to talk nonsense, I shall go back to the house and ask your mother to send me home in her brougham."
"Then I won't talk nonsense. I don't want to offend you; and you are so easily offended. Something offended you in our duets. What was it, I wonder? Some ignorant sin of mine? some passage playedtroppo appassionato? somecantabilephrase that sounded like a sigh from an over-laden heart! Did the music speak too plainly, Suzette?"
"This is too bad of you!" exclaimed Suzette, pale with anger. "You take a mean advantage of finding me alone here. I won't walk another step with you!"
She turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction as she spoke; but she was some distance from the house, at least ten minutes' walk, and her heart sank at the thought of how much Geoffrey Wornock could say to her in ten minutes. Her heart was beating violently, louder and faster than she had ever felt it beat. Did it matter so much what nonsense he might talk to her—idle breath from idle lips? Yes, it seemed to her to matter very much. She would be guilty of unpardonable treason to Allan if she let this man talk. It seemed to her as if these wild words of his—mere rodomontade—made an epoch in her life.
He seized her by the arm with passionate vehemence, but not roughly.
"Suzette! Suzette! you must—you shall hear me!" he said. "Go which way you will, I go with you. I did not mean to speak. I have tried—honestly—to avoid you. Short of leaving this place altogether, I have done my uttermost. But Fate meant us to meet, you see. Fate lamed my horse—the soundest hunter of them all. Fate sent you by this lonely path at the nick of time. You shall hear me! Say what you like to me when you have heard. Be as hard, as cruel, as constant to your affianced lover as you please; but you shall know that you have another lover—a lover who has been silent till to-night, but who loves you with a love which is his doom. Who says that about love and doom? Shakespeare or Tennyson, I suppose. Those two fellows have said everything."
"Mr. Wornock, you are very cruel," she faltered. "You know how sincerely I am attached to your mother, and that I wouldn't for the world do anything to wound her feelings, but you are making it impossible for me ever to enter her house again."
"Why impossible? You are trembling, Suzette. Oh, my love! my dear, dear girl, you tremble at my touch. My words go home to your heart. Suzette, that other man has not all your heart. If he had, you would not have been afraid to go on with our music. If your heart was his, Orpheus himself could not have moved you."
"I was not afraid. You are talking nonsense. I left off playing because Allan did not like to see me absorbed in an occupation which he could not share. It was my duty to defer to his opinion."
"Yes, he heard, he understood. He knew that my heart was going out to you—my longing, passionate heart. He could read my mystery, though you could not. Suzette, is it hopeless for me? Is he verily and indeed the chosen? Or do you care for him only because he came to you first—when you knew not what love means? You gave yourself lightly, because he is what people call a good fellow. He cannot love you as I love you, Suzette. Love is something less than all the world for him. No duty beside a father's sick-bed would keep me from my dearest, if she were mine. I would be your slave. I could live upon one kind word a month, if only I might be near you, to behold and adore."
He had released her arm, but he was walking close by her side, still in the direction of the Manor House, she hurrying impetuously, trying to conquer her agitation, trying to make light of his foolishness, and yet deeply moved.
"You are very unkind," she said at last, with a piteousness that was like the complaint of a child.
"Unkind! I am a miserable wretch pleading for life, and you call me unkind. Suzette, have pity on me! I have not succumbed without a struggle. I loved you from the hour we met—from that first hour when my heart leapt into a new life at the sound of your voice. On looking back, it seems to me now that I must have so loved you from the beginning. I can recall no hour in which I did not love you. But I have fought the good fight, Suzette. Self-banished from the presence I adore, I have lived between earth and sky, until, though I have something of the sportsman's instinct, I have come almost to hate the music of the hounds and the call of the huntsman's horn, because in every mile my horse galloped he was carrying me further from you, and every hour I spent far afield was an hour I might have spent with you."
"It is cruel of you to persecute me like this."
"No, no, Suzette; you must not talk of persecution. If I am rough and vehement to-night, it is because I am resolute to ask the question that has been burning on my lips ever since I knew you. I will not be put off from that. But once the question asked and answered I have done, and, if it must be so, you have done with me. There shall be no such thing as persecution. I am here at your side, your devoted lover—no better man than Allan Carew, but I think as good a man, with as fair a record, of as old and honourable a race, richer in this world's gear; but that's not much to such a woman as Suzette. It is for you to choose between us; and it is not because you said yes to him before you had ever seen my face that you are to say no to me, if there is the faintest whisper in your heart that pleads for me against him."
She stood silent, her eyelids drooping over eyes that were not tearless. His words thrilled her, as his violin had thrilled her sometimes in some lingering, plaintive passage of old-world music. His face was near hers, and his hand was on her shoulder, detaining her.
The intellectuality, the refinement of the delicately chiselled features, the pallor of the clear complexion were intensified by the dim light. She could not but feel the charm of his manner.
He was like Allan—yet how unlike! There was a fascination in this face, a music in this voice, which were wanting in Allan, frank, and bright, and honest, and true though he was. There was in this man just the element of poetry and unreasoning impulse which influences a woman in her first youth more than all the manly virtues that ever went to the making of the Christian Hero.
Suzette had time to feel the power of that personal charm before she collected herself sufficiently to answer him with becoming firmness. For some moments she was silent, under the influence of a spell which she knew must be fatal to her peace and Allan's happiness, should she weakly yield. No, she would not be so poor, so fickle a creature. She would be staunch and true, worthy of Allan's love and of her father's confidence.
"Why, if I were to palter with the situation," she thought—"if I were to play fast and loose with Allan, my father might think he had been mistaken in trusting me without a chaperon. He would never respect me or believe in me again. And Allan? What could Allan think of me were I capable of jilting him?"
Her heart turned cold at the idea of his indignation, his grief, his disgust at a woman's perfidy.
She conquered her agitation with an effort, and answered her daring lover as lightly as she could. She did not want Geoffrey to know how he had shaken her nerves by his vehement appeal.
She knew now, standing by his side, with that eloquent face so near her own, that musical voice pleading to her—she knew how often his image had been present to her thoughts at Discombe Manor, while he himself was away.
"It is very foolish of you to waste such big words upon another man's sweetheart," she said. "Pray believe that when I accepted Allan Carew as my future husband, I accepted him once and for ever. There was no question of seeing some one else a little later, and liking some one else a little better. There may be girls who do that sort of thing; but I should be sorry that anybody could think me capable of such inconstancy. Allan Carew and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives."
"Is that a final answer, Miss Vincent?"
"Absolutely final."
"Then I can say no more, except to ask your forgiveness for having said too much already. If you will go on to the house, and talk to my mother for a few minutes, I'll go to the stables and order the brougham to take you home. It is too dark for you to walk home alone."
There was no occasion for the brougham. A pair of lamps in the drive announced the arrival of Miss Vincent's pony-cart, which had been sent to fetch her.