CHAPTER X.
"AM I HIS KEEPER?"
Before the sun had gone down upon the second day after Geoffrey's return, his engagement to Miss Vincent had become known to almost every member of Matcham society who had any right to be posted in the proceedings of theélite.
Mrs. Mornington, dropping in at her brother's house after breakfast, and before her daily excursion to the village, was transformed into a statue of surprise on the very threshold of the hall at hearing fiddling in her brother's drawing-room, unmistakably fiddling of a superior order; a fiddle whose grandiose chords rose loud and strong above the rippling notes of a piano—a quaint old melody of Porpora's, in strongly marked common time—a fairy-like accompaniment of delicate treble runs, light as a gauzy veil flung over the severe outlines of a bronze statue.
"She must be having accompanying lessons," thought Mrs. Mornington. "Some fiddler from Salisbury, I suppose."
She marched into the drawing-room with the privileged unceremoniousness of an aunt, and found Geoffrey Wornock standing beside the piano, at which Suzette was sitting fresh as a rose, in a pale green frock, that looked like the calix of a living flower.
"Home!" cried Mrs. Mornington, with a step backward, and again becoming statuesque; "and I have been picturing you as eaten by tigers, or tomahawked by savages!"
"The African tiger is only a panther, and there are no tomahawks," answered Geoffrey, laying down his bow, and going across the room to shake hands with Mrs. Mornington, the Amati still under his chin.
"And Allan? Where is Allan?"
"I left him on his way to the Congo."
"You left him!—came back without him?"
"Yes. He wanted to extend his travels—to cross Africa. I was not so ambitious. I only wanted to come home."
His smile, as he turned to look at Suzette, told the astute matron all she desired to know.
"So," she exclaimed, "is the weathercock nailed to the vane at last?"
"The ship which has been tossing so long upon a sunless sea, is safe in her haven," answered Geoffrey.
Mrs. Mornington's keen perceptions took a swift review of the position. A much better match than poor Allan! Discombe, with revenues that had accumulated at compound interest during a long minority, must be better than Beechhurst, a mere villa, and an estate in Suffolk of which Mrs. Mornington knew very little except that it was hedged in and its glory overshadowed by the lands of a Most Noble and a Right Honourable or two. Discombe! The Squire of Discombe was a personage in that little world of Matcham; and the world of Matcham was all on the earthward side of the universe for which Miss Mornington cared.
Suzette's shilly-shallying little ways had answered admirably, it seemed, after all. How wisely Providence orders things, if we will only fold our hand and wait.
"Don't let me interrupt your musical studies, young people," exclaimed the good lady. "I only came to know if Suzette was going to the golf-ground."
"Of course I am going, auntie, if you are walking that way and want company."
It was the kind of day on which only hat and gloves are needed for outdoor toilette; and Suzette's neat little hat was ready for her in the hall. They all three went off to the links together, along the dusty road and through the busy little village—busy just for one morning hour—and to the common beyond, the long stretch of common that skirted the high-road, and which everybody declared to have been created on purpose for golf.
Mrs. Mornington talked about Allan nearly all the way—her regret that he had extended his travels, regret felt mostly on his mother's account.
"I think he always meant to cross from sea to sea," Geoffrey answered carelessly. "His mother ought to have been prepared for that. He read Trivier's book, and that inspired him. And really crossing Africa means very little nowadays. One's people at home needn't worry about it."
"Mr. Patrington did not find it so easy."
"Poor Patrington! No; he was unlucky. There is no reckoning with fever. That is the worst enemy."
"Did you bring home a letter for Lady Emily?"
"No. Allan wrote from Ujiji. That letter would reach England much quicker than I could."
"But you will go to see her, I dare say. No doubt it would be a comfort to her to talk to you about her son—to hear all those details which letters so seldom give."
"I will go if she ask me. Suzette has written to tell her of my return."
"She will ask you, I am sure. Or she may come to Beechhurst, as she came only a month ago, in the hope of hearing of Allan's movements from your letters to your mother."
"I was never so good a correspondent, or so good a son, as Allan."
They were at the golf-ground by this time, and here Mrs. Mornington left them; and meeting five of her particular friends on the way, told them how a strange thing had happened, and that Geoffrey Wornock, who had left England broken-hearted because Suzette had rejected him, had come back suddenly from Africa, and had been accepted.
"He took her by storm, poor child! But, after all, I believe she always preferred him to poor Allan."
There seemed nothing wanting now to Mrs. Wornock's happiness. Her son had returned, not to restlessness and impatience, not to weary again of his beautiful home, but to settle down soberly with a wife he adored.
His mother was to live with him always. The Manor House was still to be her home, the music-room her room, the organ hers. In all things she was to be as she had been—plus the son she loved, and the daughter-in-law she would have chosen for herself from all the daughters of earth.
"If it were not that I am sorry for Allan, there would not be a cloud in my sky," she told her son, on the second night after his return, when he had quieted down a little from that fever of triumphant gladness which had possessed him after his conquest of Suzette.
"Dear mother, there is no use in being sorry for Allan. We could not both be winners. To be sorry for him is to grudge me my delight; and I could easily come to believe that you are fonder of Allan than of me."
"Geoffrey!"
"Well, I'll never say so again if you'll only leave off lamenting about Allan. He will have all the world before him when he comes back to England. Somewhere, no doubt there are love and sympathy, and beauty and youth waiting for him. When he knows that Suzette has made her choice, he will accept the inevitable, and fall in love with somebody else—not at Matcham."
There was the faintest touch of irritation in his reply. That incessant reference to Allan began to jar upon his nerves. Wherever he went, he had to answer the same questions—to explain how he wanted to come home and Allan wanted to go further away; and how for that reason only they had parted. He began to feel like Cain, and to sympathize with the first murderer.
But the worst was still to come. In the midst of a sonata of De Beriot's—long, brilliant, difficult—atour de forcefor Suzette, whose fingers had not grappled with such music within the last two years, the door of the music-room was opened, and Lady Emily Carew was announced, just as upon that grey afternoon a month ago.
"Forgive me for descending upon you again in this way," she said hurriedly to Mrs. Wornock, who came from her seat by the window to receive the uninvited guest. "I couldn't rest after I received Miss Vincent's letter."
Nothing could have been colder than the "Miss Vincent," except the stately recognition of Suzette with which it was accompanied. "Mr. Wornock"—turning to Geoffrey, without even noticing his mother's outstretched hand—"why did you leave my son?"
"I thought Suzette had told you why we parted. He wished to go on. I wanted to come home. Is there anything extraordinary in that?"
"Yes. When two men go to an uncivilized country, full of dangers and difficulties, and when the third, their guide and leader, has been snatched away—surely it is very strange that they should part; very cruel of the one whose stronger will insisted upon parting."
"If you mean to imply that I had no right to come back to England without your son, I can only answer that you are very unjust. If you were a man, Lady Emily, I might be tempted to express my meaning in stronger language."
"Oh, it is easy enough for you to answer me, if you can satisfy your own conscience; if you can answer to yourself for leaving your friend and comrade helpless and alone."
"Was he more helpless than I? We parted in the centre of Africa. If I chose the easier and shorter route homeward, that route was just as open to him as to me. It was his own choice to go down the Congo River. No doubt his next letter, whenever it may reach you, will tell you all you can want to know as to his reasons for taking that route. When I offered myself as your son's companion, I accepted no apprenticeship. I was tired of Africa; he wasn't. There was no compact between us. I was under no bond to stay with him. He may choose to spend his life there, as Cecil Patrington chose, practically. I wanted to come home."
"Yes, to be first; to steal my son's sweetheart!" said Lady Emily, pale with anger, looking from Geoffrey to Suzette.
"Lady Emily, you are unreasonable."
"I am a mother, and I love my son. Till I see him, till I hear from his own lips that you were not a traitor—that you did not abandon him in danger or distress, for your own selfish ends; till then I shall not cease to think of you as I think now. Your mother will, of course, believe whatever you tell her; and Miss Vincent, no doubt, was easily satisfied; but I am not to be put off so lightly—nor your conscience, as your face tells me."
She was gone before any one could answer her. She waited for no courtesy of leave-taking, for no servant to lead the way. Her own resolute hand opened and shut the door, before Mrs. Wornock could recover from the shock of her onslaught. Indeed, in those few moments, Mrs. Wornock had only eyes or apprehension for one thing, and that was Geoffrey's white face. Was it anger or remorse that made him so deadly pale?
While his mother watched him wonderingly, filled with a growing fear, his sweetheart was too deeply wounded by Lady Emily's scornful speech to be conscious of anything but her own pain. She went back to her place at the piano, and bent her head over a page of music, pretending to study an intricate passage, but unable to read a single bar through her thickly gathering tears.