WINIFRED, it will be divined, was not without affairs of her own, which were indeed kept in the background by the more urgent complications of her family life, but yet were always there; and in every moment of repose came in to fill up with sweetness mingled with pain all the intervals of her thoughts. A few years before, when Mr. Chester had retired from business and had come to live permanently at Bedloe, he had begun his life of ease by a long illness, an illness at once dangerous and tedious, which he had been “pulled through” by a young doctor, still quite unknown to fame, who had devoted himself to the case of hispatient with an absorbing attention such as elderly gentlemen of mercantile connections rarely call forth. Mr. Chester was a man who was always sensible of services rendered personally to himself, and as young Dr. Langton gave up both time and ease to him, watched by his bedside at the crisis of the disease, and never grudged to be called out of bed or disturbed at any moment of the day or night, it was natural that a grateful patient should form the highest idea of the man who had saved his life.
It did not detract from the merits of the young doctor that he belonged, though remotely, to a county family, the ancient owners of Bedloe, and that he held a higher place in the general estimation than the new millionaire himself, whose advent had not been received with enthusiasm. Dr. Langton, indeed, was of considerable use to the new-established household.He decided several important people to call who had no immediate intention of calling, and described with so much fervour the sweetness and good manners of the young lady of the house, that the way had thus been smoothed for that universal acceptance of Winifred which had opened her father’s eyes to the fact that she alone of all the family did him credit. Unfortunately, Dr. Langton went a little farther than this. He was young, and Winifred was but just taking upon her the independent position of mistress of her father’s house. They saw each other every day, watched together at the sick-bed, and met in the most unrestrained intimacy—and the natural result followed. Had Winifred been poor, all his friends would have protested that she was a very bad match for Edward Langton, who was believed to have what is called a fine career before him; but as she was, instead, the daughter of a very richman, it was permissible that on her side of the question Edward Langton should be supposed a very poor match for Winifred. It had been accordingly with very doubtful feelings and a great screwing up of his courage that the young doctor had presented himself before the rich man and asked him for his daughter. The reception he received was less terrible than he feared, but more embarrassing. Mr. Chester had received the proposal as a joke, a strange but extremely amusing pleasantry. “Marry Winnie?” he had said; “you must wait till she is out of long clothes—or of short frocks, is it?” And this had been the utmost that could be extracted from him. But, at the same time, he had taken no steps to discourage or separate the lovers. They had gone on seeing each other constantly, and had been sufficiently confident that no serious obstacle was to be placed in their way—but never had been able to extracta more definite decision or anything that could be called consent. For some time, in the freshness of their mutual enchantment, the two young people had gone on very gaily with this imperfect sanction; but there had then come a time when Edward, impatient, yet not venturing to risk a definite negative by using pressure upon the father, had filled Winifred’s life with agitation, urging upon her the claims of his faithful love, and even now and then proposing to carry her off, and trust to the chance of pardon afterwards, rather than bear that tantalising, unnecessary delay. Winifred, with mingled happiness and distress, had spent many an hour in curbing this impetuosity, and it was strange to her, a relief, but yet a surprise and wonder, when he suddenly ceased all instances of the kind, and assumed the aspect of a man quite satisfied with the present state of affairs, though very watchful of all that happened, and curious to knowthe details of everything. The change in him filled her with surprise, and at first with a vague uneasiness. But there was no appearance of any failure in his devotion to herself, and it was in many respects less embarrassing than the constant entreaties which she had found it so difficult to resist. Still she would wonder sometimes, accepting, as women so often accept, the unexplained decision of the men who are most near to them, with that silent despair of ever understanding the motives of the other half of humanity which men too so often feel in respect to women.
As for Miss Farrell, who had seen so much both of men and women, she divined, or thought she divined, what Dr. Langton meant. But she said not a word to her pupil of her divinations. She said, “What a good thing that Edward has made up his mindto it. You never would have given in to him, Winnie?”
“Oh, never!” said the girl, with a silent, unexpressed sense that perhaps it might have been better if she could.
“No, you never would have done it; it is against your nature, and it would have been the worst policy. Your dear father is a man of very strong principles, and he never would have forgiven you. It would have been quite past all hoping for. It is such a good thing Edward perceives that at last.”
Winifred did not receive this explanation with all the satisfaction that her friend hoped. She felt uneasily the existence of some other with which she was not acquainted; but so long as there was no doubt of Edward’s love, what did it matter? And she was not herself impatient. She saw him every day; she knew(or supposed she knew) all his thoughts; she had his confidence, his full trust, his unbroken devotion; what more can a woman want? It is sometimes aggravating in the highest degree to a man that she should want no more, that she should be content with relations which stop so far short of his wishes, and Edward had often expressed this fond exasperation. But now he took it quietly enough, seeing possibilities which Winifred had not begun to see.
Now, however, the calm of this unexpected content was interrupted from the other side. Tom was scarcely gone, shaking off the dust from his shoes as he crossed for the last time the threshold of his father’s house, when Winifred learned all that was involved in the disastrous promotion which had already made her so miserable—not only to supplant her brothers (which yet it might be possible toturn to their advantage), but to expose herself to risks which were worse than theirs, to fall perhaps in her turn and make herself incapable of helping them, or for their sake to resign all that was to herself best in life. Winifred had retired from her father’s presence with this sword in her heart. And Miss Farrell’s consolations, though they soothed her for the moment, did not draw it out. She felt the pang and quivering anguish through all her being. It was now her turn: she was about to be called upon to act the heroic part which is so admirable to hear about, so terrible to perform: to give up love and life for the sake of family affection lightly returned, or not returned at all, rewarded with suspicions and unkindness by those for whom she sacrificed everything. To give up her love, her husband, for her brothers! She did what those who are disturbed in mind instinctively learn to do. Shewent out by herself into the park, and took a long solitary walk, communing with herself. She had looked forward to Miss Farrell’s return as to something which would help and strengthen her. And for the moment that new event, and all the gentle philosophies that had come from her old friend’s lips, had helped her a little. But at the end every one must bear his own burden. She went out into the park, which, though the sun had come out, was still wet and sodden with last night’s rain. The half-opened leaves were all sparkling with wet, the sky had that clear and keen sweetness of light which is like the serenity which comes into a human face after many tears. The sod was soft and spongy under her feet; but Winifred was not in a mood to observe anything. She walked fast and far, carrying her thoughts with her, passing everything in review with the simplicity and frankness which is impossiblewhen we have to clothe our thoughts in words. She would not have said, even to herself, that George and Tom would never understand her motives, never believe in her affection; but she knew it very well, just as she knew that the grass was damp and that she was wetting her feet, a consciousness that neither in one case nor the other meant any blame. She knew, too, that her feelings and her happiness would matter little more to her father than did to herself the feelings, if they had any, of the thorns which she put out of her way. To put these consciousnesses into words is to condemn; but in one’s thoughts one takes such known facts for granted without any opinion.
To leap into the midst of such complications all at once is very hard for a young soul. Ordinarily, the girl to whom it suddenly becomes apparent that she may be called upon to give up her love, has at least something torest upon in the way of compensation; when it is in fiction, she has to save her father from ruin, and often it happens in real life that the delight of all her friends, the approbation of her parents, the satisfaction of all who love her, is the reward for her sacrifice. But poor Winifred was without any such consolation. If she gave up her happiness for the sake of retaining and restoring their inheritance to her brothers, they would revile her in the meantime, and take it as the mere restitution of something stolen from them, in the future. Or she might find that the inheritance came to her under restrictions which made her sacrifice useless, and her desire to do justice impossible. What was she then to do? There came into her mind a sudden wish that Edward was still as he was six months ago, vehement, impatient, almost desperate. Oh, if he would but take the matter into his own hands, risk everything,carry her away, make it impossible once for all that she should be the one who had to set all right! She said to herself that she ought to have consented when he had urged this upon her. Why should she have hesitated? They had been held in suspense for two years, a long time in which to exercise patience, to linger on the threshold of life. And it was not as if her father wanted her love, or would feel his house vacant and miserable without her. He who could cut off his sons without a compunction had never shown any particular love for his daughter. His thoughts were concentrated upon himself. She was not so necessary to him as old Hopkins was, who understood all his tastes.
When Winifred suffered herself for a moment to think of herself, to leap in imagination from Bedloe, with all its luxuries, from the sombre life at home, undisturbed now by any joyousexpectation of the boys, with no hope even of family letters that would afford anything but pain—to the doctor’s little house full of sunshine and pleasantness, the life of two which is the perfection of individual existence—her heart, too, seemed to leap out of her bosom towards that other world. Oh, if she could but be liberated without any action of her own, carried away, transported from her own dim life to that of him to whom above all others she belonged! This flight of fancy lifted her up in a momentary exaltation above all her troubles. Then she tumbled down, down to the dust. She knew very well it would not be. He could not, even if he wished it, which now it seemed he did not, carry her away without consulting her, without her consent. And she could never give that consent. She could not abandon her home, her duties, the possibility of serving her brothers, the necessity of servingher father. One must act according to one’s nature, however clearly one may see a happier way, however certain one may be of the inefficiency of self-denial. Sometimes even duty becomes a kind of immorality, a servile consent to the tyranny of others; but still to the dutiful it is a bond which cannot be broken. Winifred felt herself look on like a spectator, and sadly assent to the possible destruction of her own life and all her hopes. It might be delayed, it might not come at all, but still it was impending over her, and she did not know how she was to escape, even in that one impossible way.
She had reached the edge of the park without knowing it in the fulness of her preoccupation, when the sound of a dog-cart coming along the road awoke her attention. It was no wonderful thing that Edward should be passing at that moment, though she had notthought of it. Neither was it extraordinary that he should throw the reins to his servant and join her. “I have just time to walk back with you,” he said.
IT was scarcely in nature that the appearance of her betrothed, coming so suddenly in the midst of her thoughts, should be disagreeable to Winifred, but it was an embarrassment to her, and rather added to than lessened the trouble on her mind. He led her back into the park, which she had been coming out of, scarcely knowing where she wandered. As was his way when they were beyond the reach of curious eyes, he took her arm instead of offering her his. There was something more caressing, more close in this manner of contact. When they were safe beyond all interruption, he bent over her tenderly.
“Something is the matter,” he said.
“Nothing new, Edward.”
“Only the trouble of yesterday, Tom’s going away?”
“It is not the trouble of yesterday. It is a trouble which lasts, which is going on, which may never come to an end. I don’t think you can say of any trouble that it is only of yesterday.”
“That is very true; still, you and I are not given to philosophising, Winnie, and I thought there might be some new incident. I suppose he sails to-day?”
“Yes, he sails to-day: and when will he come back again? Will he ever come back? The two of them? Oh, Edward, life is very hard, very different from what one thought.”
“At your age people are seldom so much mixed up in it. But there is the good as well as the bad.”
“Perhaps,” said the girl, faltering, “I am looking through spectacles, not rose-coloured, all the other way. I don’t see very much of the good.”
He pressed her arm close to his side.
“Am not I a little bit of good; is not our life all good if it were only once begun?”
“But what if it never begins?”
“Winnie!” he cried, startled, standing still and drawing her suddenly in front of him so that he could look into her face.
“Oh, Edward, don’t add to my troubles; I don’t see how it is ever to begin. My father means to put me in Tom’s place, as he put Tom in George’s place, and already he has said”—
“What has he said?”
“Perhaps it means nothing,” she went on after a pause; “I should have kept it to myself.”
“Winnie, that is worse than anything he can have said. What he says I can bear, but not that you should keep anything to yourself.”
“It was not much. It was a sort of a threat. He said the match that was good enough for Winnie might not be good enough for”—
“His heiress. He is right enough,” young Langton said.
At this, Winifred, who had been anticipating in her own mind all that was involved, trembled as if it had never occurred to her before, and turned upon him with an air, and indeed with the most real sentiment of grieved surprise.
“Right?” she said, with wonder and reproach in her voice.
“A country doctor,” said the young man, “a fellow with nothing, is not a match for theheiress of Bedloe. He is right enough. We cannot contradict him. You ought to make an alliance like a princess with some one like yourself.”
“I did not think,” said Winnie, raising her head with a flush of anger, “that you would have been the one to make it all worse.”
He smiled upon her, still holding her closely by the arm. “Did you think I had not thought of that before now? Of course, from his point of view, and, of course, from all points of view except our own, Winnie”—
“I am glad you make that exception.”
“It is very magnanimous of me to do so, and you will have to be all the more good to me. I am not blind, and I have seen it all coming, from the moment of Tom’s failure. Why was he so silly as to fail,when a hundred boobies get through every year?”
“Poor Tom!” she said, with a little gush of tears.
“Yes; poor Tom! I suppose he never for a moment thought—But, for my part, I have seen it coming. I have seen for a long time what way the tide was turning. At first there was not much thought of you; you were only the little girl in the house. If it had not been so, I should have run away, I should not have run my head into the net, and exposed myself to certain contempt and rejection. But I saw that nobody knew there was in the house an angel unawares.”
“Edward, you make me ashamed! You know how far I am”—
“From being an angel? I hope so, Winnie. If I saw the wings budding, I should get out my instruments and clip them: it would bea novel sort of an operation. I thought their ignorance was my opportunity.”
She was partly mollified, partly alarmed. “You did not think all this before you let yourself—care for me, Edward?”
“I did before I allowed myself to tell you that I—cared for you, as you say. One does not do such a thing without thinking. There was a time when I thought that I must give up the splendid practice of Bedloe, with Shippington into the bargain; the rich appointment of parish doctor, the fat fees of the Union”—
“You can laugh at it,” she said, “but it is very, very serious to me.”
“And so it is very, very serious to me. So much so that six months ago I wanted to throw everything up, if you would only have consented to come with me, and seek our fortune, I did not mind where”—
“Ah!” she said. There was in the exclamation a world of wistful meaning. What an escape it would have been from all after peril! Winifred said this with the slight shiver of one who sees the means of safety which she could never have taken advantage of.
“But now,” he said, “it is too late for that.”
His tone of conviction went to Winifred’s heart like a stone. She would never have consented to it; but yet why did he say it was too late? She gave him a wistful glance, but asked no question. To do so would have been contrary to her pride and every feeling. They went on for a few minutes in silence, she more cast down than she could explain—he adding nothing to what he had said. Why did he add nothing? Things could not be left now as they were, without mutual explanation and decision what they were to do. Too late? She felt in herheart, on the contrary, that now was the only moment in which it could have been done, in which she could have wound herself up to the possibility—if it were not for other possibilities, which, alas! would thrust themselves into the way.
“I have something to tell you,” he said, “something which you will think makes everything worse. I might have kept you in ignorance of it, as I have been doing; but the knowledge must come some time, and it will explain what I have said”—
She withdrew a little from him, and drew herself up to all the height she possessed, which was not very much. There went to her heart a quick dart like the stab of a knife. She thought he was about to tell her that his own mind had changed, or that her coming wealth and importance had made it incompatible with his pride to continue their engagement. Something of thiskind it seemed certain that it must be. In the sudden conviction of the moment it did not occur to Winifred that such a new thing could scarcely be told while he held her so closely to him, and clasped her hand and arm so firmly. But it was not a moment for the exercise of reason. She did not look up, but she raised her head instinctively and made an effort to loosen her hand from his clasp. But of these half-involuntary movements he took no note, being fully occupied with what was in his mind.
“Winnie,” he said in a serious voice, “your father talks at his ease of making wills and changing the disposition of his property. I don’t suppose he thinks for a moment how near he may be—how soon these changes may come into effect.”
A little start, a little tremor ran through her frame. Her attitude of preparation for a blowrelaxed. She did not understand what he meant in the relief of perceiving that it was not what she thought.
“My father? I don’t understand you, Edward.”
“No, I scarcely expected you would. He looks what people call the picture of health.”
She started now violently and drew her arm out of his in the shock of the first suggestion. “My father!” she stammered—“the picture of health—you do not mean, you cannot mean”—
“I have been cruel,” he said, drawing tenderly her arm into his. “I have given you a great shock. My darling, it had to be done sooner or later. Your father, though he looks so well, is not well, Winnie. I never was satisfied that he got over that illness as he thought he did. But even I was not alarmed for a long time.Now for several months I have been watching him closely. If he does not make this new will at once, he may never do it. If he does, it will not be long before you are called on to assume your place.”
“Edward! you do not mean that my father—You don’t mean that there is absolute danger—to his life—soon—now? Edward! you do not think”—
“Dear, you must show no alarm. You must learn to be quite calm. You must not betray your knowledge. It may be at any moment—to-day, to-morrow, no one can tell. It is not certain—nothing is certain—he may go on for a year.”
The light seemed to fail in Winifred’s eyes. She leant against her lover with a rush and whirl of hurrying thoughts that seemed to carry away her very life. It was not the awful sensation of a calamity from which there is noescape, such as often overwhelms the tender soul when first brought face to face with death; but rather a horrible sense of what that doom would be to him, the cutting off of everything in which, so far as she knew, he took any pleasure or ever thought of. The idea of a spiritual life beyond would not come into any accordance with her consciousness of him. Mr. Chester was one of those men whom it is impossible to think of as entering into rest, or attaining immediate felicity by the sudden step of death. There are some people whom the imagination refuses to connect with any surroundings but those of prosaic humanity. They must die, too, like the most spiritually-minded; but there comes upon the soul a sensation of moral vertigo when we think of them as entering the life of an unseen world. This, though it may seem unnatural to say so, was the first sensation of Winifred, a sense of horror and alarm, animmediate realisation of the terrible inappropriateness of such a removal. What would become of him when removed from earth, the only state of existence with which he had any affinities? It sent a shiver over her, a chill sense of the unknown and unimaginable which seemed to freeze the blood in her veins. It was only when she recovered from this that natural feeling gained utterance. She had leant against her lover in that first giddiness, with her head swimming, her strength giving way. She came slowly back to herself, feeling his arm which supported her with a curious beatific sense that everything was explained between him and her, mingled with the sensation of natural grief and dismay.
“I do not feel as if it could be possible,” she said faintly. Then, with trembling lips, “My father?” and melted into tears.
“My dearest, it is right you should know. It is for this reason I have tried to persuade you not to go against him in anything. The more tranquillity he has, the better are his chances for life. Let him do as he threatens. Perhaps if you withdraw all opposition he will delay the making of another will, as almost all men do—for there seems time enough for such an operation, and nothing to hurry for. Get him into this state of mind if you can, Winnie. Don’t oppose him; let it be believed that you see the justice of his intention, that you are willing to do what he pleases.”
“Even”—she said, and looked up at him, pausing, unable to say more.
He took both her hands in his, and looked at her, smiling. “Even,” he said, “to the length of allowing him to believe that you have given up a man that was never half good enough foryou; but who believes in you all the same like heaven.”
“Believes in me—when I pretend to give up what I don’t give up, and pretend to accept what I don’t accept? Is that the kind of woman you believe in?” she cried, drawing away her hands. “How can I do so? How can I consent to cheat my father, and he perhaps—perhaps”—
She stood faltering, trembling, crying, but detaching herself with nervous force from his support, in a passion of indignation and trouble and dismay.
He answered her with a line in which is the climax of heart-rending tragedy, holding out to her the hands from which she had escaped—
“Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
“Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
“Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”
“That may do for poetry,” she said; “but for me, I am not great enough or grand enoughto—to—to be able to brave it. Edward, do not ask me. I must tell the truth. If I tried to do anything else, my face, my looks would betray me. Oh, don’t be so hard on me. Ask me something less than this, ask me now to”—
She stopped terror-stricken, not knowing what she had said; but he only looked at her tenderly, shaking his head. “If I had ever persuaded you to that,” he said, “I should have been a cad and a rascal, for it would have broken your heart. But now I should be worse—I might be a murderer. Winnie, you must yield for his sake. You must let him live as long as God permits.”
“And deceive him?” she said, almost inaudibly. “Oh, you don’t know what you are asking of me! You are asking too much cleverness, too much power. I can only say one thing or another. I cannot be falsely true.”
“You can do everything that is necessary, whatever it may be, for those you love,” he said.
She stood faltering before him for a moment, turning her eyes from one side to the other, as if in search of help. But there was nothing that could give her any aid. The heavens seemed to close in above her, and the earth to disappear from under her feet. If she had ever consented to an untruth in her life, it had been to shield and excuse her brothers, for whom there were always apologies to be made. And how to deceive she knew not.
They went on together across the park, not noticing the wetness of the grass or the threatening of the sky, upon which clouds were once more blowing up for rain, so much absorbed in their consultation that they were close to the house before they were aware, and started likeguilty things surprised when Mr. Chester came sharply upon them round a corner, buttoned up to the chin, and with an umbrella in his hand.
“WHY don’t you come to the house and have your talk out? She has got her feet wet, and if she does not look sharp, we shall all be caught in the rain—a doctor should know better than to expose a young lady to bronchitis. Besides, her life is more important than it ever was before.”
“We forgot how the skies were looking. You should not be out of doors either; it is worse for you than for her. I told you this morning you had a cold.”
“You are always telling me I have a cold.I shan’t live a day the less for that,” said Mr. Chester, with a jauntiness which made Winifred’s heart sick.
“I hope not, but we must take care,” said young Langton. “Come back now—don’t go any farther. I hope you were coming only to bring Miss Chester back.”
“I was coming to bring Miss Chester back—and for other things,” said her father significantly. He put a little emphasis on the name, and Winifred had already been painfully affected by hearing her name pronounced so formally by her lover. He had never addressed her familiarly in her father’s presence, but now there seemed a meaning in everything, and as her father repeated it, there seemed in it a whole new world and new disposition of affairs. “But as it is going to be a wet night,” he added, “and we shall have a dull time of it, nothing but myself andtwo females at dinner, you had better come and dine with us, doctor, if you have nothing better to do.”
“I will come with pleasure,” Langton said. He had perfect command of himself, and yet he could not refrain from a momentary glance at Winifred, which said much.
She, too, divined, with a sinking of her heart, that it was not merely for dinner, or to relieve himself from the society of “two females,” that her father gave the invitation. He was unusually gracious and smiling.
“You know you’re always welcome,” he said. “The ladies spoil you. A young doctor is something like a curate, he is always spoiled by the ladies; but they shan’t have so much of your company as they expect, for I have got several things to talk to you about.”
“As many as you like,” said Langton, “but let me entreat you to go in now.”
“You see how anxious our friend is about my health, Winnie; he does not care half so much for yours, and you are a deal more liable to take cold than ever I was. You take that from your mother, who was always a feeble creature. The stamina is on the Chester side. Very well, doctor, very well. I don’t like the wet any more than you do. I’m going in, don’t be afraid. Dinner at seven, sharp, and don’t keep us waiting.”
Mr. Chester’s laugh seemed to the young pair to mean much; the very wave of his hand as he turned away, his insistance upon the hour of dinner, all breathed of fate. The two young people exchanged one look as they shook hands; on his side it was a look at once of encouragement and entreaty—on hers of terror and wistfulness. She was afraid andyet anxious to be left alone with her father. It seemed to Winifred that she could bear what he said to herself, however painful it might be, but that an insulting dismissal of Edward was more than she could bear. She could not linger, however, nor say a word to him beyond what ordinary civility required. Even the momentary pause did not pass without remark.
“Some last words?” Mr. Chester said; “one would think you had seen enough of each other. You should make your appointments a little earlier in the day.”
“It was no appointment, papa. I was walking, and Dr. Langton came up in his dog-cart.”
“Oh, very likely; these things fall in so pat, don’t they? I suppose I am past the age for encountering people in dog-carts just when I want them. But you must not calculatetoo much on that,” he said with a laugh. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t marry and provide myself with another family, that might be more to my mind than you.”
To this Winnie made no reply. The threat had offended her on other occasions; now it affected her with that dreadful sense of the intolerable to which words can give no expression; it brought the blood in a rush to her face, and she looked at him in spite of herself with eyes in which pity and horror were mingled. He met her look with a laugh.
“You are horrified, are you? That’s all very well for you; but let me tell you, many an older man than I, and less pleasing, perhaps, has got a pretty young wife before now. It has to be paid for, like every other luxury; but women are plenty, my dear, though you mayn’t think so.”
“Papa, do you think this is a subject to discuss with me?”
“Why not? You are the only one except myself that would be much affected by it. It might interfere with your comforts, and it would interfere very much with your importance, I can tell you, Miss Winnie.”
“Then, father,” the girl said, “for Heaven’s sake do it, and don’t talk of it any more. Rather that a thousand times than to be forced to agree to what I abhor, than to be put in another’s place, than to have to give up”—
He turned round and looked at her somewhat sternly. “What do you expect to be obliged to give up?” he said.
Between her fear of doing harm to him, whose tranquillity she had been charged to preserve, and her fear of precipitating mattersand bringing upon herself at once the prohibition she feared—and that natural nervous desire to forestall a catastrophe which was entirely contradictory of the other sentiments, Winifred paused and replied to him with troubled looks rather than with speech. When she found her voice, she answered, faltering—
“What you said to me yesterday, meant giving up the truth and all I have ever cared for in my life. I have always wanted, desired, more than my life, to be of use to—the boys—and to be made to appear as if I were against them”—
Her voice was interrupted with sobs. Ah, but was not this the beginning of treachery? It was the truth, but not the whole truth; the boys were much, but there was something which was still more. Already in the first outset and beginning she was but falsely true.
“This is all about the boys, is it?” he said coldly—“as you call them. I should say the men—who have taken their own way, and had their own will, and like it, I hope. If it comes to a bargain between you and me, Winnie, there must be something more than that.”
“There can be no bargain between you and me,” said Winifred. In the meantime, looking at him, she had thought his colour varied, and that a slight stumble he made over a stone was a sign of weakness; and her heart sank with sudden compunction. “Oh, no bargain, papa! It is yours to tell me what to do, and mine to—to obey you.” Her voice weakened and grew low as she said these words. She felt as if it were a solemn promise she was making, instead of the most ordinary of dutiful speeches. He nodded his head repeatedly as she spoke.
“That’s as it should be, Winnie,—that’s as it should be; continue like that, my dear, and you shall hear no more of the new wife. So long as you are reasonable, I am quite content with my daughter, who does me credit. It is your duty to do me credit. I am going to do a great deal for you, and I have more claim than just the ordinary claim. Go in now, the rain’s coming. As for me, for all that young fellow says, I don’t believe it matters. I feel as fit as ever I did in my life. Still, bronchitis is a nuisance,” he added, coughing a little, as he followed her indoors.
Winifred did not appear again till the hour of dinner. She was, like every one who hears a sentence of death for the first time, apprehensive that the event which seemed at one moment incredible might happen the next, and she stole along the corridor at least half adozen times, to make sure that her father was in the room called the library, in which he read his newspapers. If any sound was heard in the silence of the house, she conjured up terrible visions of a sudden fall and catastrophe.
How was it possible to oppose him in anything? If he told her to abandon Edward, she would have to reply—as if he had asked her to go out for a walk, or drive with him in his carriage—“Yes, papa.” It would not matter what he asked, she must make the same answer, conventional, meaning as little as if it had been a request for a cup of tea. And about his will the same assent would have to be necessary. She must appear to him and to the world to be very willing to supplant her brothers; she must appear to give up her lover because now she was too great and toorich to marry a poor man. This was the charge her lover himself had laid upon her. She must consent to everything. The true feelings of her mind, and all her intentions and hopes, must be laid aside, and she must appear as if she were another woman, a creature influenced by the will of others without any of her own.
Even that was a possible position. A girl might give up all natural will and impulse. She might be a passive instrument in other people’s hands. She might take passively what was given to her, and passively allow something else to be taken away: that might be weak, miserable, and unworthy—but it need not be false. What was required of her was more than this. It was required of her that she should pretend to be all this till her father should die, and then turn round and deceive him in his grave. The thoughtmade Winifred shiver with a chill which penetrated her very heart. After, could she undo all she had done, baulk him after he was dead, proclaim to all the world that she had deceived him? Was that what Edward meant by being falsely true? She said to herself that she could not do it, that it would be impossible. In the case of her brothers, perhaps, where only renunciation was necessary, she might do it; but to gain happiness for herself she could not do it. “I cannot, I cannot!” she cried to herself under her breath; and then lower still, with an anguish of resolution and determination, “I will not!” If she gave him up, it should be for ever. She would not play a part, and pretend submission, and deceive.
But, to the astonishment of both these young people, Mr. Chester that evening did not saya word on the subject. During dinner he was more agreeable than usual; but when the ladies went out of the room, young Langton, as he met the eyes of his betrothed, gave her a look which told that he knew what was coming. He was so nervous when he was left behind that for the first few minutes he hardly knew what was being said to him; but when he calmed down and came to himself, an astonished sense that nothing was being said took the place of his dread, and bewildered him altogether. All that Mr. Chester had to say was to ask for some information about a small estate which was to be sold in another part of the country which was better known to the doctor than to himself. He asked his advice, indeed, as to whether he should or should not become its purchaser, in a way which made young Langton’s head go round, for it was themanner of a man who was consulting one of those who were concerned, an intimate friend, perhaps a son-in-law. He said to himself, after a moment, when this subject was exhausted, that now it must be coming. But, on the contrary, there was not a word.
When the two gentlemen went into the drawing-room, Winifred asked him with her eyes a question which was full of the anguish of suspense. He managed behind the cover of a book to say to her, “Nothing has been said;” but this was so wonderful that the relief was too much, and neither could she believe in that. They both felt that the pause, though almost miraculous, could not be real, and that the coming storm was all the more certain because of this delay.
Late that night Mr. Chester felt unwell, andsent into the village for the doctor just as he was going to bed. Langton put on his coat, and jumped into the dog-cart which had been sent for him, with a sudden quickening of all his pulses, and the sense of a miraculous escape more distinctly in his mind than solicitude for his patient. Winifred met him at the door with wild anxiety and terror, and followed him to her father’s room, with all her nerves strung for the great and terrible event of which she had been warned. She thought nothing less than that the hour of calamity had come, and the whole house was moved with a vague horror of anticipation, although no one knew that there was anything to fear. The doctor’s practised eye, however, saw in a moment that it was a false alarm, and it was with a pang almost of disappointment that he reassured her. He could only appear glad, but there was no doubt in his own mind that it was a distinct mistakeof Providence. Had Mr. Chester died then, he would have left the world with one or two sins the less on his conscience, and a great deal of human misery would have been spared.
“You think I should not have roused you out of your comfortable bed without the excuse of dying, or at least something more in it?” the patient said; “but you will find I am a tough customer, and likely to give you more trouble before you are done with me.”
“It is no trouble,” the doctor said, with a grave face; “but you must learn to be careful.”
“Pshaw!” said the rich man. “I tell you I am a tough customer. It is not a bit of an evening walk that will free you of me.”
“We will do our best to fortify you forevening walks; but you must be careful,” Langton said.
Upon which his patient gave a chuckle, and turned round in his bed and went to sleep like a two-years child.
ATHREATENED life is said to last long. Winifred Chester lived in great alarm and misery for a week or two, watching every movement and every look of her father, expecting almost to see him fall and die before her very eyes. The horror of a catastrophe which she could not avert, which nothing could be done to stave off, intensified the natural feeling which makes the prospect of another’s death, even of an indifferent person, overawing and terrible. And though it was impossible to believe that a man like Mr. Chester could inspire his daughter with that impassioned filial love which many daughters bear to theirparents, yet he was her father, and all the habits of her life were associated with him: so that the idea of his sudden removal conveyed almost as great a shock to her mind as if the warmest bonds of love, instead of a natural affection much fretted by involuntary judgments given in her heart against him, had been the bond between them.
And there can be nothing in the world more dreadful to the mind than to watch the life and actions of a human creature whom we know to be on the brink of the grave, but who neither suspects nor anticipates any danger, and lives every day as though he were to live for ever. To hear him say what he was going to do in the time to come, the changes he meant to make, the improvements, the new furnishings, the plantings, all that was to be done during the next ten years, filled Winifred with a thrill of misery which was not unmingledwith compunction. Could she say nothing to him, give him no hint, whisper in his ear no intimation that his days were numbered? She shrank within herself at the thought of presuming to do so; and yet to be with him and walk by him, and listen to all his anticipations, and never do it, seemed horrible. All his thoughts were of the world in which he had, as he did not know, so precarious a footing. He was a man who wanted no other, whose horizon was bounded by the actual, whose aspirations did not exceed what human life could give him. He had met with disappointments and probably had felt them as bitterly as other men, but his active spirit had never been arrested, he had turned to something else in which he expected compensation. The something else at present was Winifred; she had done him credit, and might do so still in a higher degree than had been possible to her brothers. She might marryanybody. As for the doctor, when the moment came, Mr. Chester knew very well how to make short work of the doctor. And Winnie, of whom there could be no doubt that she was a lady, should marry a lord and satisfy her father’s pride, and make up for everything.
His mind had taken refuge in this with an elasticity which minds of higher tone and better inspirations do not always possess; and those plans which to her were so frightful, those arrangements of years which he should never see, were all with a view to this satisfaction which he had promised himself. He was going to preserve the game strictly, a duty which he had not much thought of hitherto: he was going to enlarge the house—to build a new wing for my lord, as he began within himself to name his unknown son-in-law. In thesearrangements he forgot his own sons, putting them aside altogether, as if they had never existed, and forgot also, or at least never took into consideration, any uncertainty in life, any thought of consolations less positive.
To see a man so terribly off his guard is always a spectacle very terrible and surprising when the mind of the spectator is roused to it, just as the sight of any indifferent passer-by going lightly along a road on which death awaits him round the next corner, is almost more appalling than the sight of death itself, especially if we cannot warn him or do anything to save. And how could he die? A man who cared for nothing that was not in the life he knew, how was he to adapt himself to another, to anything so different? Winifred’s brain swam, the light faded before her as she sat watching him, unable to takeher eyes from him, full of terror, compassion, pity.
“What are you staring at so?” he asked on more than one occasion.
“Nothing, papa,” Winifred replied incoherently, consciousness suddenly coming back to her as his voice broke the giddiness and throng of intolerable thoughts.
“One would think you saw a ghost behind me,” he said, with a laugh. “That’s the new æsthetic fashion of absent-mindedness, I suppose;” and this explanation satisfied and even pleased him, for he wished Winnie to be of the latest fashion and “up to everything” with the best.
Miss Farrell, on the other hand, scolded her pupil, as much as she could scold any one, for this sudden alarm which had seized her. “It is just a fad,” the old lady said. “Edward has his fads like other people: doctors have; theyare fond of a discovery that leads to nothing. I never saw your dear father look better in his life.”
“He does not look ill,” Winifred allowed, with a faint movement of relief.
“Ill? he looks strong, younger than he did five years ago, and such a colour, and an excellent appetite. But I am glad to hear that is what Edward thinks, for it explains everything.”
“Glad?” it was Winifred’s turn to exclaim.
“My dear, when you are my age you will know that one is sometimes glad of an explanation of things that have puzzled one, even though the explanation itself is not cheerful. I think this fright of Edward’s is a piece of folly, but yet it explains many things. As for your dear father, if he were a little unwell from time to time, that would be nothing to wonderat. Gout, for instance—one is always prepared for gout in a man of his age. But he is up early and late, he has the complexion of a ploughboy, and can eat everything without even a thought of his digestion. I envy him,” she said, with fervour. Then, giving Winifred a kiss as she leant over her, “You are seeing everythingen noir, my dear, and Edward is giving in to you. Don’t think any more about it for three days; in the meantime I will watch him; give me three days, and promise me to be happy in the meantime.”
This time Winifred did not repeat the inappropriate expression, but only looked at her old friend with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I have very much to be happy about,” she said.
“You have life before you, and youth and hope; and you have Edward; and your dear father, so far as I can see, in perfect health;and the others—in the hands of Providence Winnie.”
“Are we not all in the hands of Providence,” said the girl; “those who live and those who die, those who do well and those who do ill? and it does not seem to make any difference.”
“That is because we see such a little way, such a little way—never what to-morrow is going to bring forth,” Miss Farrell said.
But this conversation did not do very much to reassure Winifred, and at the end of the three days the old lady said nothing. Her experienced eyes saw, after a close investigation, certain trifles which brought her to the young doctor’s opinion, or at least made her acknowledge to herself that he might possibly be right. It is to be feared that Miss Farrell did not look upon this possibility with horror. She wascalmer, not so much interested, and less full of that instinctive horror and awe of death which is most strong in the young. She had seen a great many people die; perhaps she was not for that more reconciled to the idea of it in her own person than others; but she had come to look upon it with composure where others were concerned. She thought it likely enough that Edward might be right; and she thought that, perhaps, this was not the conclusion which would be most regrettable. It would leave Winifred free. If he did not alter his will, it would restore the boys to their rights; and if he did alter his will, Winifred would restore them to their rights. On making a balance of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, no doubt it would be for the best that Mr. Chester should end his career.
After these three days, at the end of which Winifred asked no explanation from her friend,many other days followed, with nothing happening. The force of the impression was softened in her mind, and though the appearance of Mr. Chester’s man of business on two or three several occasions gave her a renewed thrill of terror, yet her father said nothing on the subject of his will, and she was glad on her side to ignore it, feeling that nothing she could say or do would have any effect upon his resolution. On the last evening, when Mr. Babington, after a long afternoon with Mr. Chester in the library, stayed to dinner, the cheerfulness and satisfaction of the master of the house were visible to everybody. He had the best wine in his cellar out for his old friend, and talked to him all the evening of “old days,” as he said, days when he himself had little expectation of ever being the Squire of Bedloe.
“But many things have changed since that time,” he added, “and the last is first andthe first last, eh, Babington, in more senses than one.”
“Yes, in more senses than one,” the lawyer said gravely, sipping the old port which had been disinterred for him with an aspect not half so jovial as that of his patron, though it was wine such as seldom appears at any table in these degenerate days.
“In more senses than one,” Mr. Chester repeated. “Fill your glass again, old Bab; and, Miss Farrell, stay a moment, and let me give you a little wine, for I am going to propose a toast.”
“I am not in the habit of drinking toasts,” said Miss Farrell, who had risen from her chair; “but as I am sure it is one which a lady need not hesitate about, since you propose it”—
“No lady need hesitate,” said Mr. Chester, “for it is to one that is a true lady, as good alady as if she had royal blood in her veins. You would not better her, I can tell you, if you were to search far and wide; and as you have had some share in making her what she is, Miss Farrell, it stands to reason you should have a share in her advancement. I have a great mind to call in all the servants and make them drink it too.”
“Don’t,” said the lawyer hurriedly; “a thing is well enough among friends that is not fit for strangers, or servants either. For my part, I wish everything that is good to Miss Winifred; but yet”—
“Hold your tongue, Babington; it is none of your business. Here’s the very good health of the heiress of Bedloe, and good luck to her, and a fine title and a handsome husband, and everything that heart can desire.”
The two ladies had risen, and still stood, MissFarrell with the glass of wine which Mr. Chester had given her in her hand, Winifred standing very straight by the table, and white as the dress she wore. Miss Farrell grew pale too, gazing from one to the other of the two gentlemen, who drank their wine, one with a flushed and triumphant countenance, the other in little thoughtful gulps. “I can’t refuse to drink the health of Winifred, however it is put,” she said tremulously. “But if this is what you mean, Mr. Chester”—
“Yes, my old girl,” cried Mr. Chester, “this is what I mean; and I don’t know what anybody can have to say against it—you, in particular, that have brought her up, and done your duty by her, I must say. She has always been a good friend to you, and always will be, I can answer for her, and you shall never want a home as long as she has one. But if you haveanything to say against my arrangements, or what I mean to do for her”—
Miss Farrell put down the wine with a hand that trembled slightly. She towered into tremulous height, or so it seemed to the lookers-on. “I say nothing about the term which you have permitted yourself to apply to me, Mr. Chester,” she said. “I can make allowance for bad breeding; but if you think you can prevent me from forming an opinion, and expressing it”—
“Be quiet, Chester,” cried the lawyer, kicking him under the table; but in the height of his triumph he was not to be kept down.
“You may form your opinions as you please, and express them too; but, by George! if you express anything about my affairs, or take it upon you to criticise, it will have to be in some one else’s house.”
“That is quite enough,” said the old lady. “I am not in the habit of receiving affronts. This day is the last I shall spend in your house. I bid you good evening, Mr. Babington.” She waved her hand majestically as she went away. As for Winnie, who had endeavoured to stop him with an indignant cry of “Father!” she turned upon Mr. Chester a pair of eyes, large and full of woe, which blazed out of her pale face in passionate protestation as she hurried after her friend. The exit of the ladies was so sudden after this swift and hot interchange of hostilities that it left the two men confounded. Mr. Chester gave vent to an exclamation or two, and turned to his supporter on the other side.
“What did I say?” he cried. “I haven’t said anything, have I, to make a tragedy about?”
“It would have been a great deal betterto say nothing at all,” was all the comfort Babington gave him. The lawyer went on with the port, which was very good. He thought quarrels were always a nuisance, but that Chester did indeed—there could be no doubt of it—want some one to take him down a peg or two.
“If your daughter does not much like it herself, as seems to be the case, it’s a pity to set the old lady on to make her worse. And Miss Winifred wants a lady with her,” he said between the gulps.
He gave no support to the angry man, hot with excitement and triumph, to whom this sudden check had come in the midst of his outburst of angry satisfaction.
Mr. Chester’s countenance fell.
“You don’t mean,” he cried, “that she will be such a fool as to go away? Pshaw! she’s not such a fool as that. She knows on whatside her bread’s buttered. She’s lived at Bedloe these dozen years.”
“Everybody knows Miss Farrell,” said the lawyer. “She’s as proud as Lucifer, and as fiery, if she is set ablaze.”
“Pooh!” said the other; “it is nothing but a breeze; we’ll be all right again to-morrow. She knows me, and I know her. She is not such a fool as to throw away a comfortable home, because I called her old girl. Are you determined, after all, that you won’t stay the night?”
“I must get home—I must indeed. To-morrow early I have half a dozen appointments.”
“Then, if you will go,” said Mr. Chester,—“which I take unkind of you, for, of course, the appointments could stand, if you chose;—but if you must go, it’s time for your train.”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Mr. Babington. He jumped up with a slight resentment, though he had been quite determined about going away that night; but then he had not known that there would be this quarrel, which he should have liked to see the end of, or that the port would be so good.
THE sound of the brougham rolling along down the avenue, and of the closing of the great door upon the departing guest, came to Winifred, as she sat alone, with a dreary sound. Mr. Babington was no particular ally of hers, and yet it felt like the going away of a friend. Presently her father came into the room, talking over his shoulder to old Hopkins about the hot water and lemons which were to be placed in the library ready for him. “Ten o’clock will do,” he said. It was only about nine, and Winifred felt, not with transport, that she was to have her father’s society for the next hour. It was by this time too warm to have afire in the evening, but yet they sat habitually, when the lamp was lighted, near the fireplace. Mr. Chester came up to this central spot, and drew a chair near to his daughter and sat down. He brought a smell of wine with him, and a sensation of heat and excitement. “Why are you sitting by yourself,” he said, “like a sparrow on the housetop? It seems to me you are always alone.”
“I shall have to be alone in future, papa. Miss Farrell”—Winifred could not say any more for the sob in her throat.
“Oh, this is too much!” said Mr. Chester. “Couldn’t she or any one see that I was a little excited? She must know I don’t mean any harm. That is all nonsense, Winnie. You shall say something pretty to her from me, and make an end of it. Why, what’s all this fuss about a hasty word? Sheisan old girl if you come to that—But I don’t want anybotheration now. I want everything to be straight and pleasant. We are going to have company, people staying in the house, and you can’t do without her, that is clear.”
“Oh, papa,” said Winifred, “I wish you would not have any one staying in the house. I don’t know what you meant to-night, but if it is anything about me, I—I don’t feel able for company. It is so short a time since poor Tom”—
“You had better let poor Tom alone. I want to hear nothing more of him,” said the father. “Mind what I say. I mean to make a lady of you, Winnie; but if you turn upon me like the rest, I am just as fit to do the same to you.”
“I would rather you did than have what should be theirs,” said Winifred. Her heart was beating wildly in her breast with apprehension and dismay, and she could not beprudent as she had been bidden to be, nor consent to be what was so odious to her; but even in the warmth of her protest Edward’s words occurred to her, and she faltered and stopped, with an alarmed look at her father. He was flushed, and his eyes were fiery and red.
“You are going a little too fast,” he said. “It is neither theirs nor yours, but mine; and I should like to know who has any right to take it from me. Now that we’ve begun on this subject, we’ll have it out, Winnie. You’ve been having your own way more than was good for you. Perhaps, after all, Miss Farrell, who has let you do as you pleased, can go, and somebody else be got who knows better what is suitable to a young lady like you. I can have no more flirtations with doctors, or curates, or that sort. You are old enough to be married, and I want no more nonsense. That sort of thing, thoughit means nothing, is bad for a girl settling in life.”
Winifred had turned from white to red, sitting gazing at him, yet shrinking from his eyes. “Papa,” she said, “I don’t know what you mean,” in a voice so low and troubled that he curved his hand over his ear, half in pretence, half in sincerity, to hear what she had to say.
“What I mean?—oh, that is very easy—you are not a child any longer, and you must throw aside childish things. I have asked a few people for the week after next. It’s too early for the country, but I know some that are soon tired of town; and there is a young fellow among them who—well, who is very well disposed towards you, and well worth your catching were you twenty times an heiress. So I hope you’ll mind what you’re about, and play your cards well, and make me father-in-law to an earl.That’s all that I require of you, my dear; and it’s more for your own advantage than mine, when all is said.”
He was very much flushed, she thought, and his eyes almost starting from his head. Terror seized her, as though some dreadful catastrophe might happen before her eyes. “Papa,” she said, with an effort, “this is all very new, and there is so much to think of. Please let it be for to-morrow. There has been so much to-night—my head is quite confused, and I don’t seem to understand what you say.”
“You shall understand what I say, and it is better to be clear about it once for all. Here is the young Earl coming, as I tell you. He would suit me very well, and I mean him to suit you, so let us have no nonsense. If Miss Farrell thinks fit to leave you just when you want her, she is an ungrateful old— But we’ll find another woman. I mean everythingto be on a right footing when these people turn up.”
“Papa, of course I shall do all I can to—please your friends.”
“Well, that’s the first step,” he said. “And it’s very much for your own advantage. You would not be my daughter if you did not think of that.”
She made no reply. If this was all, she was pledging herself to nothing, she thought, with natural inconsistency. But Mr. Chester was not satisfied. He drew his chair close, so that the odour of his wine and the excitement in his mind seemed to make a haze in the air around.
“And look here, Winnie. It doesn’t suit me to send Edward Langton away. He’s been a fool in respect to you, and you’ve been a fool, and so have I, for not putting a stop to it at once. But the fellow knows what’s what betterthan most. And he knows my constitution. I am not going to part with him as a doctor because he’s been a presuming prig, and thought himself good enough for my daughter. It’s for you to let him see that that’s all over. Come, a word is as good as a wink.”
“Father,” Winnie said: she looked at him piteously, clasping her hands with the unconscious gesture of anguish—“oh, don’t take everything from me in a moment!” she cried.
“What am I taking from you? I am giving you a fortune, a title probably, a husband far above anything you could have looked for.”
“I want no one, papa, but you. Let me take care of you. I will ask for nothing but only to stay at home quietly and make you comfortable.”
Mr. Chester pushed back his chair noisily with a loud exclamation. “Do you take mefor a fool?” he said. “Have I ever asked you to stay at home and make me comfortable? I can make myself comfortable, thank you. What I want is that you should do me credit. Your confounded humility and domesticity, and all that, may be very fine in a woman’s novel. Taking care of her old father, the sweet girl! a ministering angel, and so forth. Do you think I go in for that sort of rubbish? I can make myself a deuced deal more comfortable than you could ever make me. Come, Winnie, no more of this folly. You can make me father-in-law to a British peer, and that is the sort of comfort I want.”
His eyes were red with heat and excitement, the blood boiling in his veins. The girl’s spirit was cowed as she looked at him, not by his violence, but by the signs of physical disturbance, which took all power from her.
“Oh, papa,” she said, “don’t say anything more to-night! I am very unhappy. I will do anything rather than make you angry, rather than—disturb you. Have a little pity upon me, papa, and let me off for to-night.”
“To-night?” he said; “to-night ought to be the proudest day of your life. Who could ever have expected that you would be the heiress of Bedloe, a little chit of a girl? Most fathers would have married you off to the first comer that would take you and your little bit of fortune. But I have behaved very different. I have made you as good as an eldest son—not that I can’t take it all away again, as easily as I gave it, if you don’t do your best for me.”
He swayed forward a little as he spoke, in his excitement, and Winifred, whose terrified eyes were quite prepared to see him fall down at her feet, rose up hastily, with a little cry. She put out her hands unconsciously to support him.
“Oh, papa, I will do whatever you please!” she cried.
Mr. Chester pushed the outstretched hands away. “You think, perhaps, I want something to steady me,” he said. “That’s a delusion. I am as steady as you are, and more so, and know quite as well what I am saying. However, as long as you have come to your senses and obey me, that’s all I care for. Look here, Winnie!” he said, again sitting down suddenly and pushing her back into her chair; “I don’t want to be hard upon you. If old Farrell wants an apology I’ll make it—to a certain extent. I meant no offence. She’s very useful in her way. She’s a lady, I always said so; and she’s made you a lady, and I am grateful to her—more or less. You can say whatever’s pretty on my part; or I’ll even say a word myself, if you insist upon it. To have her go now would be deuced awkward. Tell her I meant nooffence. I was a little elevated, if you like. You may take away my character, if that will please her,” he added, with a laugh. “Say what you like, I can bear it. Getting everything done as I wished had gone to my head.”