After a while, which seemed a long time to Bee, Moulsey came out with the tray. She was startled, and exclaimed under her breath at the appearance of the girl walking up and down in the corridor: “I did think you would have had the sense to go and join the others, Miss Bee.” Bee was too much uplifted, too distant on her high pinnacle of martyrdom, to make any reply, but when Moulsey ventured to add a word of advice, to the effect that she must be careful of her mamma and not weary her with questions and she so tired and so weak, the girl flashed forth all her heart of indignation. “She has eaten her cutlet, it appears,” cried Bee. “I should think she may answer my questions.”
“Oh!” cried the maid, who had the privileges of an old servant, “you have got a heart without pity. You are just like your papa!”
Bee swept past her into the room, where poor Mrs. Kingsward, who after all had eaten but a morsel, sat lying back in an easy chair awaiting the dreadful conflict which she knew was coming. Poor lady, she had lost all her brightness, that pretty grace of the young mother among her grown up children, which prompted so many compliments. She lay back in her easy chair, feeling as she said “any age”—as old as any woman on the edge of the grave, not knowing how she was to bear the onslaught that was coming, and how she was to say what had to be said. He had borne it far better than Bee—poor Aubrey, poor Aubrey! whom she must not call Aubrey any more. He had not denied anything, he had fallen as it were at her feet, like a house that had been undermined and had no sound foundations, but Bee was different. Bee was a tower that had foundations—a girl that was able to stand up even to papa, and why—why had he not come to give forth his sentence in his own way?
Bee came forward flashing into the light, in that white frock which shone, and with those eyes that blazed through all the neutral tints in the room. She did not sit down, which would have been a little relief, but seized a chair and stood with her hand upon the back, leaning upon it.
“I hope, mamma,” she said, pitiless, “that you liked your tea, and ate something—and that you are better now.”
“Oh, Bee!” cried the poor lady; “if there is one reproach more dreadful than another it is this of being able to eat when you ought to be overwhelmed with trouble.” Mrs. Kingsward could scarcely keep from crying at the imputation. And Bee, I fear, knew that it was the unkindest thing that could be said.
“Now, mamma,” she resumed, almost stonily, “it is time that you should tell me what has happened. We arrived here all quite happy—it is just an hour ago——” here Bee’s voice shook a little, but she commanded it with an effort—“I ran up to dress for dinner, and when I came back in about ten minutes I found you and Aubrey—with your letters—looking as if you had both been dead and buried while I was away. You wouldn’t answer me, and he never said a word. You had done something to him in that little time to make him turn away from me, and yet you will not tell me what it is. Here I am alone,” said Bee, once more with a quiver in her voice. “Aubrey ought to be standing by me. I suppose he is having his dinner downstairs, too, and thinking no more of me. I just stand alone, nobody caring in all the world. What is the meaning of it, mamma?”
“Bee, you are very hard upon me. And poor Aubrey, he is having no dinner—of that I am sure.”
“You called him Mr. Leigh downstairs.”
“So I did, and so I must, and all of us; but I cannot have you speaking of him like that, poor, poor fellow; and just for this once—— Oh, Bee, my darling, don’t stand and look at me so! I would rather have died than say it either to him or to you. Your papa has been hearing I don’t know what, and he has changed his mind about Mr. Leigh altogether, and says it must not be.”
“What must not be?”
“Oh, Bee! Oh, don’t take it so hard! Don’t look like that! Your—your—engagement, my darling. Have patience; oh, have patience! He has heard something. Men hear things that we would never hear. And he doesn’t deny it. Oh! he doesn’t deny it. I had a hope that he would contradict it at once, and flare up in a rage like you, and say it wasn’t true. But he doesn’t deny it—poor boy, poor boy! And after that, how can I say one word to papa?”
“My engagement?” said Bee, in a hoarse voice. She had been staring at her mother as in a dream—only partially hearing, not understanding at all the rest that was said. “My engagement? He gave his consent. It was all settled. You would not allow us till the letter came, but then it was consent.”
“Yes, yes, dear. That was at first. He consented at first because—and now it appears he has heard something—someone has called upon him—he has discovered—and he writes to me that it must be broken off. Oh, Bee, don’t think my heart doesn’t bleed for you. I think it will kill me. He says it must be broken off at once.”
“Who says so?” said Bee, in her passion. “He! One would think you were speaking of God—that can say ‘Yes’ to-day and ‘No’ to-morrow, and build things up and then snatch them down. But I will not have it! I am not a doll, to be put in one position and then in another, as anybody pleases. My engagement! It is mine; it is not his.”
“Bee, think; it is papa you are speaking of. Dear, I feel for you—I feel for you! but so does he. Oh, my darling, you don’t know what you are saying. Do you think he would do anything to make you unhappy if he could help it—your papa, Bee, who has been so good to you all your life?”
“I do not care how good he has been. He is not good now. How will it harm him? He sits at home, and he thinks he can do as he pleases. But not with me. It is my affair more than it is his. He thinks he can break his word and it doesn’t matter—but I have given my word, and it does matter. Break my engagement!” cried Bee, her young bosom swelling, the sob rising in her throat that would soon choke her voice. “It is mine and not his; and nobody in the world shall break it. You can tell him so, mamma, or I will write myself and tell him so. I am not a wax image to take any shape he pleases. Who is he? He is not God——”
“Bee—he is your father——”
“Oh, my father! Yes, I do whatever he tells me. If he says I am to fetch anything I run like a little dog. I have never been disobedient. But this—this is different. I am not a child any longer. And, mamma, not for him nor for anyone—not even for you will I take back my word.”
“Bee! You make me say a great deal more than I meant to say. I thought you would have been a good child and seen that papa must know best. My poor, poor little girl, there is worse behind. Mr. Leigh, whom we all thought so much of——”
“Aubrey,” Bee managed to say, though for no other word could she command her voice.
“Darling, he has deceived us. He is not what he seems. He has done, oh, so wrong—there have been things—that you ought never to hear——”
“Stop!” said Bee. She had to speak in monosyllables with her labouring breath. “Wait!—not behind his back.” She rushed to the bell and rung it so wildly that both waiter and chambermaid appeared in alarm, with Moulsey rushing in calling for a doctor, and saying that her lady was going to faint. Bee pushed the woman aside and turned to the waiter, who stood anxious at the door. “Mr. Leigh!” she cried, impatiently; “the gentleman—who was with us: tell him—to come here.”
“The tall young gentleman?” said the waiter.
“No—the other: tell him he is to come here—instantly—this moment.”
“I beg your pardon, miss,” said the man. “The other gentleman? He have been gone away this half-hour.”
“Gone away!” she cried. And it seemed to Bee that the blackness of darkness closed over her and the room and everything in it. She did not faint, oh no, no such happiness—but everything grew dark, and through the dark she heard her own voice speaking—speaking, and did not know what she said.
ButAubrey had not gone away. He had gone out in the dizziness of a great downfall, scarcely knowing how to keep his feet steady as he wandered along the dark street, not knowing where he went. The landscape that had charmed them all so much—was it scarcely an hour ago?—the lamps reflected in the water; the verandah, with its wreaths of green; the brilliant yet mysterious glimmer of the moon, made his heart sink to look at them now. He strayed off into the darkest of the narrow streets, into the great gloom of the cathedral shadow, where he could see nothing but a poor light twinkling here and there, making the darkness visible. Oh! how certain it is that, however sweet they may seem, your sins will find you out! Oh! how more than certain if you have let yourself be dragged down once, only once, in a spotless life, that the one fault will be made into the central fact of your whole existence. If he had been a bad, dissipated man, it would have been only fair. But this poor young fellow was like the young man whom our Lord loved though he went away. All good things he had kept from his youth up—but once, only once, half distracted by grief, and by the desire which is so natural to escape from grief, and by infernal temptation, he had fallen—oh, there was no need to tell him how he had fallen! Had it not been the canker in his soul ever since? And now this one thing, this miserable, much-repented fault, which revolted, disgusted, horrified himself, was brought up against him as if it were the pattern upon which he had shaped his life.
And now, what was left for him but to fall down, down into the unfathomable abyss? The distracted feelings with which he had broken away from home, the horror and dismay that at once belonged to his natural grief and made the burden of it a thousand times harder to bear, all rushed back upon him, whirling him down and down to dimmer and more awful depths. He had partially healed himself in the intolerableness of his trouble by travel and change, and the arbitrary forgetfulness which comes from absence and the want of any association which could call back to him what was past; and then the touch of Bee’s soft, girlish hand, the sound of her voice, had suddenly called him back into an enchanted land where everything had again become possible. He had hesitated for some time, wondering if he might dare—he who had a secret smirch upon him which nobody suspected—to avail himself of this way of salvation. The reader will think that he had not hesitated very long—poor Aubrey—seeing that the introduction, the acquaintance, the love, the engagement had all occurred within the small space of one month; but to the brooding spirit the hours of one interminable day are long enough for a chronicle. Something like the phenomena of love at first sight had occurred in the bleeding yet young heart, which had felt itself cut loose from all the best associations of life. Deliverance, recreation, the new beginning of life and all its possibilities had gleamed upon him in Bee’s blue eyes. Her appearance swept away everything that was dark and ominous in his life. Did he dare to ask for her hand, to set out again to make himself a new career? He had worked at that question almost from the first day, discussing it with himself for the three weeks preceding their engagement, waking and sleeping, almost without intermission; and then in a moment he had forgotten all controversy, and let forth without intention the words that had been lying, so to speak, on the threshold of his lips—and in that moment all the clouds had been swept away. He was only eight and twenty after all—so young to have such a past behind him, and what so natural as that his life should begin again—begin now as for the first time? He had hesitated in the first fervour of his betrothal whether he should not tell all his story. But there was no one to tell it to but Mrs. Kingsward—a lady, even a young lady, not looking much older than Bee herself. That is one of the drawbacks of a young mother. She was still in the sphere of the girls, not in that of the old ladies whom Heaven has ordained to represent the mothers of the race. How could he tell to her the story of that entanglement? If Colonel Kingsward had been there, Aubrey was of opinion that he would have made a clean breast of everything to him. But I think it very likely that he might not have done so. He would have intended it, and he would have put it off from day to day; and then he knew how lightly men of the world look upon such matters. What would have horrified Mrs. Kingsward would probably call forth nothing but a pooh-pooh from her husband. Aubrey, as it proved, was mistaken there, for Colonel Kingsward had ideas of his own, not always corresponding to those of the ordinary man of the world; but no doubt had he heard the story from that side and not from the other, he would have regarded it in a very different light.
But it was too late—too late for these reflections now. The fiat had gone forth, the sentence had been pronounced beyond appeal. Oh, Bee, Bee, she was too good for him; too fresh, too bright, unsullied by the world, for a man who had gone through so much already although he was still young enough. He who had loved and married—though, oh, how differently!—poor little Amy, who was nobody, whom he had liked for her yielding sweetness, sweetness which had cost him so dear—he who had been a father, who had lost his way in life amid the fogs of death and grief—how had he now dared to think that such a girl as Bee should dedicate her fresh young life to restore him again to the lost possibilities of his? It seemed to him the greatest presumption, the most dreadful, cynical, almost blasphemous attempt. It was the way of the world—to think that any woman, however good, might be sacrificed to the necessities of a man’s restoration whatever he had done; everybody thought so, his own mother even. But he, Aubrey, should have known better—he should have known that even at his best he could never have been good enough for Bee, and to think that he had dared now when he was no longer at his best! What a fool, what a fool he had been! He had come to be able to endure the daylight and “get on” well enough when he had arrived at the Bath and seen her first. Why had he not contented himself with that, knowing that he had no right to expect more? And now there was nothing—nothing before him but a plunge into the unutterable darkness—darker than ever, without any hope—worse almost, if worse were possible, than when he had fled from his home.
He did not know how long he had been roaming about the dark town pondering all these dreadful thoughts. When he went back to the hotel, which he finally did, worn out, not knowing where else to go, one reproachful waiter, with eyes that said he ought to have been in bed long ago, was waiting for him with a curt demand what he would have to eat, and all the house, except that deserted eating-room, where one light twinkled—reproachful, like the waiter—was shut up. He went to his room when he had swallowed some brandy, which was the only thing he could find to put a little warmth into his chilled limbs and despairing heart, and threw himself miserable upon his bed, where I have no doubt he slept, though he was not aware of it—as Bee did, though she had no intention of doing so.
The only one who was really a sufferer in this respect was poor Mrs. Kingsward, who was ill, and who had been far more agitated than her feeble strength could bear. She it was who lay and wondered all through the night what she must do. Was he really gone without a word, thus proving how much he was in the wrong, and how right the Colonel was? It would have saved her from a great deal of embarrassment, but I do not think Mrs. Kingsward wished that Aubrey might have really gone. It was too summary, it was not natural, it would show Colonel Kingsward to have been too right. Oh! she believed he was right! She did not doubt that his decision was for the best any more than she doubted that it was inexorable: but still the heart revolted a little, and she hoped that he might not be proved so unutterably right as that. And poor Bee—poor little Bee! She did not know, poor child, that there were bitters in the sweetest cup—that if she had twenty years of Aubrey she would not probably have thought quite so much of him as now—that nobody was perfect, which was a conviction that had been forced upon Mrs. Kingsward’s own mind, though it was not a strong one, by the passage of the years. And then the poor lady went off into perplexed considerations of what she personally must do. Must he leave them all at once, travel home in a different carriage, avoid them at the stations, not venture to come near their table when they dined on the way? It would seem so ridiculous, and it would be so embarrassing after their very close intercourse. But men never thought of these little things. She felt sure that the Colonel would expect her never to let the two meet again. And how could she do that when they were both travelling the same way? Besides, was it fair, was it just, would Bee endure it—never to see him again?
Bee woke up in all the energy of despair. It burst upon her in the first moment of her waking that he had gone away, that it was all over; but her mind, when it had time to think, rejected that idea; he would not, could not have gone without a word, without even saying farewell, without asking her—anything, anything—to forgive him or to forget him, or to be faithful to him, or not to believe what was said against him. One or other of these things Aubrey must say to her before he went away. Therefore, he could not have gone away, and everything was still possible. In her passion and pride she had refused last night to let her mother tell her what it was. She had resolved that Aubrey should be present, that he should hear the accusation against him, that he should give his own explanation—that was only just, she said to herself—the poorest criminal had a right to that! And Aubrey should have it. He should not, whatever papa said and whatever mamma said, be condemned unheard. She dressed in great haste and rang the bell energetically to ascertain if he had come back. But the chambermaid who answered Bee’s bell was stupid and could not understand what Herr it was about whom the young lady questioned her so closely. Had he come back? Oh, yes, she believed all the Herren had come back; there was not a bed to be had in the house. But what Herr was it whom the gracious young lady sought. The old gentleman in the next room, who was so ill? She heard that he was a little better this morning—or the young Herr in number ten, or the Herr whose eyes were so bad, who was going to the great doctor at Dusseldorf? Perhaps poor Bee’s German was at fault. She was still attempting to make the matter clear when Moulsey came in with the news that Mrs. Kingsward was very poorly, and had not slept at all, a statement which Betty, rushing in half-dressed, confirmed anxiously. “Mamma has had a very bad night; and what is the matter, Bee, that we are all at sixes and sevens, and why did you lock your door? I came up as soon as I could—as soon as Charlie would let me. He said it was dreadful, nobody coming down; and that we must eat through the dinner for the sake of appearances. And Aubrey never showing neither, and me obliged to sleep in mamma’s room because you had locked the door.”
“I want to know,” said Bee, “whether Aubrey came back last night.”
“Oh, how should I know?” said Betty, “and why shouldn’t he come back? Of course he must have come back. Is he going anywhere else but home? I wish people would not get letters,” said the girl. “You are all so ridiculous since those letters came last night. Letters are nice when they are nice. But, oh! how much nicer it was yesterday morning when you had none, and we were all quite happy, and mamma well, and Aubrey and you as funny as you could be!”
There flashed upon Bee as she spoke the whole bright panorama of yesterday. Not a cloud in the sky nor a trouble in the world. Mamma as fresh as the morning, the river shining, the steamboat thrilling through the water with a shiver of pleasure in its wooden sides, every group adding amusement, and they themselves affording it, no doubt, to the rest. How conscious they had been when they laughed under their breath at the young German pairs, that they themselves were lovers too, quite as happy, if not so demonstrative. Oh! yesterday—yesterday! You might as well say last century for anything that resembled it now. Bee turned almost fiercely to Moulsey, who stood looking on with that air of knowing all about it which so often exasperated the girls, and requested her to go downstairs immediately and ask if Mr. Leigh had come back. Moulsey hesitated and protested that the chambermaid would know. “And you that know the language, Miss Bee.”
“Go down directly and inquire if Mr. Leigh has come back. You know the waiter that speaks such good English as well as I do,” said Bee, peremptorily. And Moulsey could do nothing but obey.
Yes, Mr. Leigh had come back; he had occupied his room, but was not yet up so far as the attendants knew. There came such a change on Bee’s face at this news as startled both the curious observers. The light grew less fierce, more like the usual sunny brightness in her eyes. A softening came over her face. Her colour flashed back. “I want to know when mamma is coming downstairs,” she said. “Moulsey—or no, stop. I’ll go myself and see.”
Moulsey was so roused that she caught the young lady by the arm. “If it was your papa himself, my lady shan’t be disturbed,” she said. “And not by you, Miss Bee, as are the cause of it all; not if you should put a knife into me afore her door.”
“How dare you say I am the cause of it all?”
“Because it’s the truth,” said the enraged maid. “She was worrited enough before by those letters, and you coming in like the wind, like your papa himself, as I always said you were his living image; and stopping her in the middle of her little bit of cutlet that would have given her strength, and questioning of her like a drum-major, and pacing up and down outside the door like a wild beast. Mind my words: you don’t know, none of you, how little strength my poor lady’s got. And you’re all so masterful, every one, with mamma here and mamma there, and you’ll not find out till it’s too late——”
“But mamma’s better,” cried Betty. “She has taken her cure, and she’s all right till next year.”
“I only wish as you may all find it so, miss,” said Moulsey, folding her arms across her broad chest and shaking her head.
Bee was awe-struck for a moment by this speech, but she knew that Moulsey was always a croaker, and it was quite true about the cure. She paused a little uncertain, and then she resumed in a subdued voice—
“I never want to disturb mamma. But Moulsey, we’ve got to leave here to-day.”
“That can’t be,” said Moulsey, decisively. “My lady is not fit to travel after such a bad night, and I won’t have it,” she said. “The doctor has put my lady into my hands, and he says ‘She’s not to be overtired. Mind, I don’t respond for nothing if she’s overtired.’ And she just shan’t go—that’s flat. And you may all say what you like, and your papa, too.”
“Not to-day?” said Bee, with another change of countenance. It flashed upon her that another day’s delay would give time for all the explanations in which she could not help hoping. Her excited pulses calmed down a little. She was not alarmed about her mother. Had she been so, it would no doubt have given her thoughts another direction. But Bee knew nothing of illness, much less anything of death. She was not afraid of them. In her experience people might be ill occasionally, but they always got better. Mamma, too, would be better presently, when she got up; and then they could all meet, and the letters and the whole matter could be discussed. And it seemed to be impossible—impossible that from this some better conclusion could be arrived at. There had been so much confusion last night, when it burst upon them like a thunderstroke. When looked at calmly, without flurry or haste, the better moment would bring better views, and who could say that all might not yet be well?
Emboldenedby this thought Bee went downstairs to breakfast, which was spread again in the verandah in the warm sunshine of the autumnal morning. The new hope, though it were a forlorn one, restored her youthful appetite as well as her courage, and her coffee and roll were a real restorative after the long fast and agitated night. But there was no appearance of Aubrey, neither at the table nor in the passages, nor anywhere about. He seemed to have disappeared as if he had never been. When Charlie came down from his mother’s room, where he had been shut up with her for some time, Bee, who had no particular respect for Charlie’s opinion or inclination to allow him any authority over herself, such as an elder brother is sometimes supposed to have, began at once to question him. “Where is Aubrey?” she said. “Why doesn’t he come to breakfast? Will you go and look for Aubrey, Charlie?”
“Indeed, I will do no such thing,” said Charlie, almost roughly. “I hope he has had the sense to go away. I should just like to see him come calmly down to breakfast as if nothing had happened. If he came, then I can answer for it, you should not be allowed to say a word to him, Bee.”
“Who should prevent me?” cried Bee, looking up with her eyes on fire and her nostrils dilating. She had not noticed before what a cloud was upon Charlie’s face and how heavy and scowling were his brows. She added, springing up, “We shall soon see about that. If you think I shall do what you tell me, or condemn any man unheard——”
“The cad! He never denied it. You can ask mamma.”
“I will not ask anyone but Mr. Leigh,” said Bee, throwing back her head; “and I advise you to mind your own business, and not to call names that may come back upon yourself.”
“Stop where you are, Bee. I never went out into the world under false pretences. A man is a cad when he does that.”
“I shall not stop for you, nor anyone but my parents,” said Bee, in a splendid flush of anger, her countenance glowing, her eyes blazing. “Stand out of my way. Oh, if that is all, and you want to make a scene for the edification of the tourists, I can go in by the other door.”
And she did so, leaving Charlie standing flushed and angry, but quite unable, it need scarcely be said, to coerce his sister. To make an attempt of this kind, which comes to nothing, is confusing and humiliating. He looked round angrily for a moment to see if it were possible to intercept her, then, yielding to necessity, sat down where Betty, eager and full of a thousand questions, sat calling for explanations. That is the good of a family party, there is always someone ready to hear what you have to say.
Bee went at once to the English-speaking waiter, and asked for Mr. Leigh, whom the man, curious as all lookers-on are at a social drama going on under their eyes, declared to be still in his room. She sent him off instantly with a message, and stood in the hall awaiting his return, angry and brave, like the rose in George Herbert’s poem, yet soon getting shamefaced and troubled, as the people coming and going, travellers, visitors, attendants, stared at her and brushed against her as they passed. Bee never forgot all her life the gleam of the river at the foot of the steps, of which she had a glimpse through the doorway—the Rhine barges slowly crossing that little space of vision, the little boats flitting across the gleam of the rosy morning, and the strong flowing tide, the figures going up and down breaking the prospect.
The man came back to her after a time, looking half sympathetic, half malicious, with the message that the gentleman was just going out.
“Just going out!” She repeated the words half-consciously. “Was it Aubrey that sent her that message? Aubrey—who yesterday would not let her out of his sight, who followed her everywhere, saw every sign she made, heard every word almost before it was spoken!” The surprise and the pang together made her heart sick. She could not rush upstairs and knock at his door and call him out imperatively, to tell her immediately what it all meant—at least, though it occurred to her that this would be the most natural thing to do, she did not. Intimidated by the circumstances, by the half impertinence of the waiter, by the stare of the people about, she reflected for a moment breathlessly that he must come out this way, and that if she remained there she must see him. But Bee’s instinct of a young woman, now for the first time awakened, made her shrink from this. When she was only a little girl, so very short a time ago, she did not mind who looked at her, who pushed past her. But now everything was different!
She went away, still holding her head high that nobody (above all not Charlie, who was watching her through the glass of the verandah) should guess that her courage was drooping, and going into the deserted sitting-room, where last night that blow had fallen upon her, sat down and wrote to her lover a hurried little note:
“Oh, Aubrey, what is the matter? Have you deserted me without a word? Do you think I am like them, to take up any report? I don’t know what report there is—I don’t know what it is, this terrible thing that has come between us. What is it? I will take your word and nobody else’s. I don’t believe you have done anything that is wrong. Aubrey! come and tell me out of your own mouth. I told mamma last night I would hear nothing unless you were there; but you were gone away, they said. And now you send me word that you are going out and can’t see me. Going out and can’t seeme! What does it all mean?“If it is some fad of honour, of not seeing me againsttheirwill—though I do think your first duty is to me, Aubrey, before anyone else in the world—but if it should be so, mamma will be down here at twelve o’clock—and I invite you to meet her, to hear what is said, to answer for yourself and for me. If you have done anything wrong, what does that matter? Don’t we all do wrong? And why should it come between you and me? Am I without sin that I should throw stones at you? Aubrey, you can’t throw everything away without a word. You can’t desert me without a word. I can bear anything—anything, rather than this.“YourBee——.”
“Oh, Aubrey, what is the matter? Have you deserted me without a word? Do you think I am like them, to take up any report? I don’t know what report there is—I don’t know what it is, this terrible thing that has come between us. What is it? I will take your word and nobody else’s. I don’t believe you have done anything that is wrong. Aubrey! come and tell me out of your own mouth. I told mamma last night I would hear nothing unless you were there; but you were gone away, they said. And now you send me word that you are going out and can’t see me. Going out and can’t seeme! What does it all mean?
“If it is some fad of honour, of not seeing me againsttheirwill—though I do think your first duty is to me, Aubrey, before anyone else in the world—but if it should be so, mamma will be down here at twelve o’clock—and I invite you to meet her, to hear what is said, to answer for yourself and for me. If you have done anything wrong, what does that matter? Don’t we all do wrong? And why should it come between you and me? Am I without sin that I should throw stones at you? Aubrey, you can’t throw everything away without a word. You can’t desert me without a word. I can bear anything—anything, rather than this.
“YourBee——.”
Bee, poor child, shrank from intrusting this to the impertinent waiter, who had a leer in his eye as if he were defending his own side from the importunities of the other. She went out furtively into the hall and studied the numbers of the rooms and the names of the tenants upon the board, necessity quickening her perceptions, and then she stole upstairs and gave her poor little appeal into the hands of the stout chambermaid who watched over that part of the hotel. It was for the Herr in No. 10, and the answer was to be brought immediately to the little salon No. 20 downstairs. “Eine Antwort,” she said over and over again in her imperfect speech. “Schnell, schnell!” This, with the aid of a thaler—for it was before the days of the mark—produced perfect understanding in the mind of the maid, who with becks and wreathed smiles accepted the commission, and in a short time brought her back the answer for which she waited with feverish anxiety. It was very much shorter than her own.
“I am not worthy to stand before you. I cannot and I must not take advantage of your innocence; better I should disappear altogether than wound your ears with what they say. But I will not since you will it so. At twelve o’clock then, Bee, my darling, I will stand up before your mother, and say what I can for myself. Bee, my own dearest, my only hope!”
“I am not worthy to stand before you. I cannot and I must not take advantage of your innocence; better I should disappear altogether than wound your ears with what they say. But I will not since you will it so. At twelve o’clock then, Bee, my darling, I will stand up before your mother, and say what I can for myself. Bee, my own dearest, my only hope!”
This last was scrawled across the paper as if he had put it in after the despair of the former part. It was this that the poor little girl fixed upon—the sweet words to which she had been accustomed, which her heart was fainting for. It was not, one would have said, a very cheerful note for a love-letter. But Bee was ridiculously cheered by it. So long as she was his own dearest, his hope, his darling—so long as there was no change in his love for her—why then, in the long run, whatever was said, everything must come right.
I need not follow Bee to her mother’s bedside, when Mrs. Kingsward woke and for the first moment did not remember what had happened.
“Is that you, Bee?” she said, smiling, not thinking.
“Are you better, mamma?”
“Oh, yes, just in my usual——,” said Mrs. Kingsward. And then she caught a fuller sight of her daughter’s face. Bee had none of her usual pretty colour, the light in her eyes was like fire. The mother gave a little feeble cry, and in a moment was no longer in her usual, but lost in the feverish mists of a trouble far too great for her to bear. “Oh, Bee! Oh, Bee!”
“We had better not say anything about it, mamma, to agitate you. I have told him you will be ready at twelve o’clock, that I may know what the story is, and what he has to say.”
Mrs. Kingsward struggled up to a sitting position. “At twelve o’clock? No! I cannot, I cannot!” Then she dropped back upon her pillows sobbing, “Oh, Bee, spare me; I am not equal to it. There is Charlie can read your papa’s letter. Bee! Bee!”
“Charlie!” cried Bee, with a flash of fury. “Who is Charlie, that he should sit in judgment on Aubrey and me? If he has anything to do with it, I tell you, mamma, I will go away. I will go with Aubrey. I will not hear a word.”
“Oh, Bee,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, holding out her hot, feverish hands, “I am not fit for it! I am not fit for it! If I am to travel to-morrow—ask Moulsey—I ought to stop in bed and be quiet all day.”
“I don’t see that it matters,” said Bee, sternly, “whether we travel to-morrow or in a week. To go home will be no pleasure to me.”
“If we were there, then papa could manage it all himself; he is the proper person. On a journey is not the time to settle things so important. I will write and tell him I have put it all off, and have not said anything, till he could do it himself.”
“But that will not be true,” cried the young Rhadamanthus, inexorable, with her blazing eyes.
“O Bee! you are dreadfully, dreadfully hard upon me!” the poor young mother said. This is the drawback of being so young a mother, just as young as your grown-up children. It is very delightful, when all is sunny and bright, but in a great emergency like this it is trying for all parties when a girl’s mother is only, so to speak, a girl like herself. Bee lifted up her absolute young head, and gave forth her ultimatum unmoved.
“Well, mamma, it must be as you choose. If you think my happiness is of less consequence than the chance of a headache to yourself, I have naturally nothing more to say.”
A headache! That was all she knew.
Mrs. Kingsward was ready by twelve o’clock, much against Moulsey’s will, who dressed her mistress under protest. “I ain’t one to interfere with what’s going on in a family,” said Moulsey, as she combed out the long locks, tangled with the restlessness of a troubled night, which were as silky and as smooth as Bee’s. “I’m only a servant, and I knows my place; but you’re not fit to struggle among them young ones. The nursery children, it’s all very well; if they’re naughty you whip them, or you put them in a corner, and there’s a good cry and all right again. But when it comes to a business with a young lady and a gentlemen, the Colonel ought to have come himself, or he ought to have put it off till we all got home.”
“Oh, I wish, I wish he had!” Mrs. Kingsward said, sighing. “I am not in the least what I used to be, Moulsey; don’t you think I am very different from what I used to be? I have not half the strength.”
“There often is,” said Moulsey, “a time when a lady isn’t so strong, after all these children and everything. It takes a deal out of you, it do. And I don’t hold much with them foreign cures. I’m one that stands for home. And there’s where you ought to be, ma’am, whatever anyone may say.”
“I am sure it is where I wish to be,” said the poor lady, “but we must not be unjust, Moulsey. My cure did me a great deal of good, and I liked being out and seeing everything just as much as the girls.”
“That is just it, ma’am,” said Moulsey; “you’re a deal too much the same as the young ladies, and can’t make up your mind as you haven’t the strength for it. I’m not one to ask any questions, but I can’t help seeing there’s something wrong. Don’t you give in to Miss Bee in everything. I wouldn’t go down to make up the quarrel if I was you. Leave ’em to themselves, and it’ll all come right. Bless us, lovers’ quarrels is nothing—it wouldn’t be half the fun if it wasn’t for that.”
Moulsey knew very well this was no lovers’ quarrel; but it seemed to her a good way of satisfying herself what it was.
“Oh, if that were all!” sighed the poor lady. “Moulsey, you are an old friend, and take an interest in the family. You have known Miss Bee since ever she was born. I don’t know why I shouldn’t tell you. It is no quarrel; it’s something the Colonel has heard about Mr. Leigh.”
“All lies, ma’am, I don’t make no manner of doubt.”
“Do you think so, Moulsey; oh, do you think so? Have you heard anything? You often know more, hearing the servants speak, than we do. If you have any light to throw on the subject, oh, do so, do! I shall be grateful to you all my life.”
“I don’t know as I have any light to throw. I knew as there was some trouble at the time the poor young lady died—some friend of hers, as Mr. Leigh, being a kind-hearted gentleman, couldn’t turn out of the house—and it made a talk. But if there was anything wrong, you take my word, ma’am, it was none of his fault.”
“Ah, it’s so easy to say that, Moulsey; but the man must bear the blame.”
“I’ve always heard, ma’am, as it was the woman that got the blame; and right enough, for they often deserve it the most,” Moulsey said.
“Oh, I wish—I wish, whoever was to blame, that it was not I that had to clear it up,” poor Mrs. Kingsward said.
“Oh, cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right.”
“Oh, cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right.”
She would not have said this, poor lady. She would have thought it swearing and unbecoming for a woman’s lips; still, Hamlet’s sentiment was hers, with much stronger reason. She looked like anything but a strong representative of justice as she went downstairs. Charlie had come to give her his arm, and though he was very tender to her, Charlie had no idea of sparing her any more than Bee. He, too, thought that it was only the risk of a headache, and that a headache was no such great matter. Charlie’s idea was, however, that what the governor said was, of all things on earth, the most important to be carried out—especially when it did not concern himself.
Bee was sitting at the window looking out upon the river, seeing the reflections flash and the boats pass. The steamer had just started with its lively freight—the steamboat which had brought them down the stream yesterday, with all its changing groups, and the pairs of German lovers with their arms about each other in the beatitude of the betrothal. All just the same, but how different, how different! She did not rise, but only turned her head when her mother came in. She was on the other side. She did not see, with so many other things in her head, how fragile Mrs. Kingsward looked. Betty was the only one who perceived at all that mamma was less strong than usual, and even Betty took no notice, for she, too, was on the other side. As for Charlie, he stood behind her, a sort of representative of executive force at the back of Justice, backing her authority up. It was he who arranged her chair, her footstool, the shawl Moulsey had insisted she should wear, and which Charlie, who knew nothing about shawls, huddled up about her neck, not unlike the judge’s ermine. He did it all, not with sympathetic touches as the girls would have done had they not been on the other side, but rather with an eye to her dignity as a representative of the law.
And then, just as the hour of noon sounded from all the church clocks, Aubrey came in. He was very pale, but dressed with care, no symptoms of neglect about him, with an air of preparation which became a man who was going to stand his trial. Bee jumped up from her seat and went up to him, putting her hand through his arm, and Betty, half-frightened, with a glance at her mother, offered him a timid hand. She sat down behind them, on a chair that was ranged against the wall. The defendant’s side was her side. She wanted to show that, and yet not to go against mamma. Charlie took no notice at all of the new comer, but stood scowling, looking at nobody, behind his mother’s chair.
Mrs. Kingsward, frightened at her own dignity and breathless with agitation, cried, “Oh, Mr. Leigh!” which was a kind of salutation. She had some papers in her lap, over which her hands fluttered restlessly, her husband’s letter, and something else beside, and she looked at the group before her with a little dubious smile, asking pardon of the culprit whom she had come here—oh, so much against her will—to try for his life.
“Now, mamma,” said Bee, in a cheerful voice, “we are quite ready, Aubrey and I—”
Mrs. Kingsward’sopening speech was a wonder to hear. She sat and looked at them all for a moment, trying to steady herself, but there was nothing to steady her in what she saw before her—Aubrey and Bee, the pair who had been so sweet to see, such a diversion in all circumstances, so amusing in their mutual absorption, so delightful in their romance. It all flashed back to her mind; the excitement of Bee’s first proposal, the pleasure of seeing “her bairn respected like the lave,” though Mrs. Kingsward might not have understood what these words meant, the little triumph it was to see her child engaged at nineteen, when everybody said there was nobody for the girls to marry—and now to have that triumph turned into humiliation and dismay! And to think of Bee’s bright face overcast, and her happiness over, and poor Aubrey thrown out into the uttermost darkness. Had she seen Charlie it might have given her some support, for Charlie was the impersonation of immovable severity; but Betty’s wistful little face behind the other pair, coming out from Aubrey’s shadow by moments to fix an appealing look upon her mother, was not calculated to make her any stronger. She cleared her throat—she tried hard to steady her voice. She said, “Oh, my dear children,” faltering, and then the poor lady ended in a burst of sobbing and tears. It gave her a little sting and stimulant to see through her weeping that though little Betty ran towards her with kisses and soothing, Bee took no notice, but stood hard and unaffected in her opposition, holding close to Aubrey’s arm. Mrs. Kingsward indeed got no sympathy except from little Betty. Charlie put his hand imperatively upon her shoulder, recalling her to herself, and Bee never moved, standing by the side of Aubrey Leigh. The mother, thus deserted, plucked up a little spirit in the midst of her weakness.
“Bee,” she said, “I do not think it is quite nice of you to stand there as if your own people were against you. We are not against you. There has been, I fear, a great mistake made, which Colonel Kingsward”—here she turned her eyes to Aubrey—“has found out in—in time; though it is a pity, a sad pity, that it was not found out before. If Mr. Aubrey had only been frank and said at once—but I don’t see what difference that would have made. Papa says that from what he has heard and discovered things must not go any further. He is sorry, and so am I, that they have gone so far, and the engagement must be broken off at once. You hear what I say, Bee?”
“I heard you say so last night, mamma, but I say it is my engagement, and I have a right to know why. I do not mean to break it off——”
“Oh, how can I make explanations—how can I enter into such a question? I appeal to you, Mr. Aubrey—tell her.”
“She ought not to ask any explanations. She is a minor, under age. My father has a right to do whatever he pleases—and she has none to ask why.”
This was how Charlie reasoned on the height of his one-and-twenty years. Charlie was the intolerable element in all this question. Aubrey cast a look at him, and forcibly closed his own lips to keep in something that was bursting forth. Bee defied him, as was natural, on the spot. “I will not have Charlie put in his opinion,” she cried. “He has nothing to do with me. Even if I obeyed papa, I certainly should not obey him.”
“Let Aubrey say, himself,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “whether you ought to be told everything, Bee.”
“It is cruel to ask me,” said Aubrey, speaking for the first time. “If Bee could know all—if you could know all, Mrs. Kingsward! But how could I tell you all? Part of this is true, and part is not true. I could speak to Colonel Kingsward more freely. I am going off to-night to London to see him. It will free you from embarrassment, and it will give me perhaps a chance. I did not want to put you to this trial. I am ready to put myself unreservedly in Colonel Kingsward’s hands.”
“Then,” said Bee, hastily, “it seems I am of no sort of importance at all to anyone. I am told my engagement is broken off, and then I am told I am not to know why, and then——. Go, then, Aubrey, as that is your choice, and fight it out with papa, if you please.” She loosed her arm from his, with a slight impulse, pushing him away. “But just mind this—everybody,” she cried; “you may think little of Bee—but my engagement shall not be broken by anybody but me, and it shall not be kept on by anybody but me; and I will neither give it up nor will I hold to it, neither one nor the other, until I know why.”
Then the judge and the defendant looked each other in the face. They were, as may be supposed, on opposite sides, but they were the only two to consult each other in this emergency. Aubrey responded by a movement of his head, by a slight throwing up of his hand, to the question in Mrs. Kingsward’s eyes.
“Then you shall know as much as I can tell you, Bee. Your father had a letter last week, from a lady, telling him that she had a revelation to make. The letter alarmed your father. He felt that he must know what it meant. He could not go himself, but he sent Mr. Passavant, the lawyer. The lady said that she had lived in Mr. Leigh’s house for years, in the time of his late wife. She said Mr. Leigh had—had behaved very badly to her.”
“That I do not believe,” said Bee.
The words flashed out like a knife. They made a stir in the air, as if a sudden gleam had come into it. And then all was still again, a strange dead quiet coming after, in which Bee perceived Aubrey silent, covering his face with his hand. It came across her with a sudden pang that she had heard somebody say this morning or last night—“He did not deny it.”
“And that he had promised her—marriage—that he was engaged to her, as good as—as good as married to her—when he had the cruelty—oh, my dear child, my dear child!—to come to you.”
Aubrey took his hand away from his white face. “That,” he said, in a strange, dead, tuneless voice, “is not true.”
“Oh, more shame to you, Aubrey, more shame to you,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, forgetting her judicial character in her indignation as a woman, “if it is not true!—” She paused a moment to draw her breath, then added, “But indeed you were not so wicked as you say, for it is true. And here is the evidence. Oh!” she cried, with tears in her eyes, “it makes your conduct to my child worse; but it shows that you were not then, not then, as bad as you say.”
Bee had dropped into the chair that was next to her, and there sat, for her limbs had so trembled that she could not stand, watching him, never taking her eyes from him, as if he were a book in which the interpretation of this mystery was——
“Never mind about me,” he said, hoarsely. “I say nothing for myself. Allow me to be as bad as a man can be, but that is not true. And what is the evidence? You never told me there was any evidence.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Kingsward, fully roused, “I told you all that was in my husband’s letter last night.”
“Yes—that she,” a sort of shudder seemed to run over him, to the keen sight of the watchers—“that she—said so. You don’t know, as I do, thatthatis no evidence. But you speak now as if there was something more.”
She took a piece of folded paper from her lap. “There is this,” she said, “a letter you wrote to her the morning you went away.”
“I did write her a letter,” he said.
Mrs. Kingsward held it out to him, but was stopped by Charlie, who put his hand on her arm. “Keep this document, mother. Don’t put the evidence against him into a man’s power. I’ll read it if Mr. Leigh thinks proper.”
Once more Aubrey and Bee together, with a simultaneous impulse, looked at this intruder into their story.
“Mamma! send him away. I should like to kill him!” said Bee within her clenched teeth.
“Be quiet, Charlie. Mr. Leigh, I am ready to put this or any other evidence against you into your hands.”
He bowed very gravely, and then stood once more as if he were made of stone. Mrs. Kingsward faltered very much, her agitated face flushed. “It begins,” she said, in a low fluttering voice, “My dear little wife——”
Then there came a very strange sound into the agitated silence, for Aubrey Leigh, on trial for more than his life, here laughed. “What more, what more?” he said.
“No, it is not that. It is—‘I don’t want my dear little wife to be troubled about anything. It can all be done quite easily and quietly, without giving an occasion for people to talk; a settlement made and everything you could desire. I shall make arrangements about everything to-day.’ It is signed A. L., and it is in your handwriting. Bee, you can see it is in his handwriting; look for yourself.”
Bee would not turn her head. She thought she saw the writing written in fire upon the air—all his familiar turns in it. How well she knew the A. L.; but she did not look at it—would not look. She had enough to do looking at his face, which was the letter—the book she was studying now.
“No doubt it is my handwriting,” he said, “only it was addressed not to any other woman, but to my wife.”
“Your wife died two years ago, Mr. Leigh; and that is dated Christmas—this year.”
“That is a lie!” he cried; then restrained himself painfully. “You know I don’t mean you—but the date and the assumption is entirely a lie. Give me time, and I will tell you exactly when it was written. I remember the letter. It was when I had promised Amy to provide for her friend on condition that she should be sent away—for she made my house miserable.”
“And yet—and yet, Mr. Leigh——. Oh, don’t you see how things contradict each other? She made your house miserable, and yet—— when your wife was dead, and you were free——”
He looked at her, growing paler and paler. “And yet!” he said. “I know what you mean. That is the infernal art of it. My own folly has cut the ground from beneath my feet, and put weapons into every hand against me. I know—I know.”
Again there came into Bee’s mind the words she had heard last night—“He does not deny it.” And yet he was denying it with all his might! Denying, and not denying—what? The girl’s brain was all in a maze, and she could not tell.
“You see?” said Mrs. Kingsward, gently. “Oh, I am sorry for you in my heart. Perhaps you were led into—a connection that you feel not to be—desirable. That I can understand. But that you should think you could save yourself by means of an innocent girl, almost a child, and impose yourself on a family that had no suspicions!—oh, Mr. Leigh, Mr. Leigh! you ought to have died sooner than have done that!”
He looked at her piteously for a moment, and then a dreadful sort of smile came upon his face. “I allow,” he said, “that that would have been the best.”
And there fell a silence upon the room. The sun was shining outside, and the sound of the water gurgling against the sides of boats, and of all the commotion of the landing place, and of the hundreds of voices in the air, and of the chiming of the clocks, came in and filled the place. And just then there burst out a carillon from one of the steeples setting the whole to music, harmonising all the discords, and sweeping into this silence with a sudden rush of sound as if some bodily presence had come in. It was the touch too much for all these excited and troubled people. Mrs. Kingsward lay back in her chair and began to weep silently. Aubrey Leigh turned away from where he was standing and leant his head against the wall. As for Bee, she sat quite still, dazed, not able to understand, but crushed out of all her youthful self-assertion and determination to clear it all up. She to clear it up!—who did not even understand it, who could not fathom what was meant. That there was something more than met the eye, something that was not put into words, seemed to show vaguely through the words that were said. But what it was Bee could not tell. She could not understand it all. And yet that there was a fatal obstacle rising up between her and her lover, something which no one could disperse or clear away, not a mistake, not a falsehood, not a thing that could be passed over triumphantly and forgotten—not as youth is so quick to believe a mere severity, tyranny, arbitrary conclusion of papa—she felt in every fibre of her frame. She could not deny it or struggle against it; her very being seemed paralysed. The meaning went out of her face, the absolute, certain, imperious youthfulness died out of her. She who loved to have her own way, who had just protested that she would neither give up nor hold fast except by her own will and understanding, now sat dumb, vaguely staring, seeing shadows pass before her and hearing of things which were undeniable, mighty things, far more powerful than her little hot resolutions and determinations. Bee had never yet come face to face with any trouble which could not be smoothed away. There was her own naughtiness, there were Charlie’s escapades at school and college—some of which she had known were serious. But in a little while they had been passed over and forgotten, and everything had been as before. One time she remembered papa had threatened not to let Charlie go back to Harrow, which was a dreadful thing, exposing him and his naughtiness to all the world. But after a while papa had changed his mind, and everything had gone smoothly as before. Could papa change his mind now? Would time make it, even if he did, as it was before? Bee had not mental power enough to think these things, or ask these questions of her own will. But they went through her mind as people come in and go out by an open door.
It was Aubrey who was the first to speak. The carillon stopped, or else they got used to the sound and took no further notice of it, and he collected himself and came forward again to the middle of the room. He said, “I know it will be a relief that I should go away. There is an afternoon train which I shall take. It is slow, but it does not matter. I shall be as well there as anywhere—or as ill. I shall go direct to Colonel Kingsward and lay my whole case before him. He will perhaps confront me with my accuser—I hope so—if not, he will at least hear what I have to say for myself.”
“Oh, Mr. Leigh! Oh, Aubrey! I can’t wish you anything but well, whatever—whatever may be done!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Kingsward, I looked for nothing less from your kind heart. Will you give me that letter?”
She put it into his hands without the least hesitation, and he examined it—with a sort of strained smile upon his face. “I should like to take this back to Colonel Kingsward,” he said. Then added quickly with a short laugh, “No, I forgot; there might be suspicions. Send it back to him, please, by the first post, that he may have it when I get there.” He gave the letter back, and then he looked round wistfully. “May I say good-bye to Bee?”
She got up at the words, feeling herself vaguely called upon—yet quite dull, dumb, with all sorts of thoughts going and coming through those wide-open doors of her mind—thoughts like strays which she seemed to see as they passed. Even Aubrey himself appeared a ghost. She got up and stood awaiting him when he approached her, not putting out a finger. Nobody interfered, not even Charlie, who was fuming internally yet somehow did not move. Aubrey went up to her and put his hands upon her shoulders. Her unresponsiveness sent a chill to his heart.
“Have you given me up, Bee?” he cried, “Already, already!” with anguish in his voice.
She could not say a word. She shook her head like a mute, looking at him with her dazed eyes.
“She does not understand it—not a word!” he said.
Bee shook her head again. It was all she could do. No, she did not understand, except that it was a kind of dying, something against which nobody could struggle. And then he kissed her on her forehead as gravely as though he had been her father; and the next moment was gone—was it only out of the room, or out of the world, out of life?
Itwas a slow train. The slowest train that there is, is, of course, far, far quicker than any other mode of conveyance practicable in a land journey, but it does not seem so. It seems as if it were delay personified to the eager traveller, especially on the Continent. In England, when it stops at a multiplicity of stations at which there is nothing to do, it at least goes on again in most cases after it has dropped its half-passenger or taken in its empty bag of letters. But this can never be said of a German or even of a brisker Belgian train. The one in which Aubrey was meandered about Liege, for instance, till he had mastered every aspect of that smoky but interesting place. It stopped for what looked like an hour at every little roadside station, in order, apparently, that the guard might hold a long and excited conversation about nothing at all with the head man of the place. And all the while the little electric bell would go tingling, tingling upon his very brain. Thus he made his slow and weary progress through the afternoon and evening, stopping long at last at a midnight station (where everything was wrapped in sleep and darkness) for the arrival of the express, in which the latter portion of the journey was to be accomplished more quickly. If there had been anything wanted to complete the entire overthrow of a spirit in pain it was such an experience. All was dismal beyond words at the place where he had to wait—one poor light showing through the great universe of darkness, the dark big world that encompassed it around—one or two belated porters wandering through the blackness doing mysterious pieces of business, or pretending to do them. A poor little wailing family—a mother and two children, put out there upon a bench from some other train, one of the babies wailing vaguely into the dark, the other calling upon “mamma, mamma,” driving the poor mother frantic—were waiting like himself. It gave Aubrey a momentary consolation to see something that appeared at least to the external eye more forlorn than he. He remembered, too, that there had once been a baby cry that went to his heart, and though all the associations connected with that had now turned into gall and bitterness, so that the sound seemed like a spear penetrating his very being, and he walked away as far as the bounds of the station would allow, to get, if possible, out of hearing of it—yet pity, a better inspiration, at last gained the day. He went up and spoke to the woman, and found that she was an English workman’s wife making her way home with her children to a mother who was dying. They had turned her out here, with her babies, to wait—ah, not for the express train which was to carry on the gentleman, but for the slow, slow-creeping third-class which only started in the morning, and which would, after other long waits at other places, reach England sometime, but she could scarcely tell when.
“And must you pass the night here out in the cold?” said Aubrey.
“It isn’t not to call a cold night, sir,” said the woman, meekly, “and they’ve got plenty on to keep them warm.”
“I’ll try and get them to open the waiting-room for you,” said Aubrey.
“Oh, no, sir; thank you kindly, but don’t take the trouble—the rooms are that stuffy. It’s better for them in the open air, and they’ll go to sleep in a little while. Baby will be quite warm on my lap, and Johnny’s lying against me.”
“And what is to become of you in this arrangement?” said Aubrey, looking pitifully, with eyes that had known the experiences both of husband and father, upon this little plump human bed, which was to stand in the place of down pillows for the children.
“Oh, I’ll do very well, sir, when they go to sleep,” she said, looking up at him with a smile.
“And when does your train go?”
“Not till six in the morning,” she replied; “but perhaps that’s all the better, for I’ll be able to get them some bread and milk, and a good wash before we start.”
Well, it was not much of an indulgence for a man who was well off. He might have thrown it away on any trifle, and nobody would have wasted a thought on the subject. He got hold of one of the wandering ghosts of porters, and got him, with a douceur, to change the poor woman’s cheap ticket for her into one for the express, and commissioned him, if possible, to get her a place in a sleeping carriage, where, I fear, she was not likely to be at all a warmly welcomed addition to the luxurious young men or delicate ladies in these conveyances. He saw that there was one found for her which was almost empty when the train came up. He scarcely knew if she were young or old—though indeed, as a matter of fact, the poor little mother, bewildered by her sudden elevation among the gentlefolks, and not quite sure that she would not have preferred to remain where she was and pick up in the morning her natural third-class train, was both young and pretty, a fact that was remarked by the one young lady in the carriage, who saw the young man through the window at her side, and recognised him in a flash of the guard’s lantern, with deep astonishment to see him handing in such a woman and such children to the privileged places. He disappeared himself into the dark, and indeed took his place in the corner of a smoking carriage, where his cigar was a faint soother of pain. In his human short-sightedness, poor Aubrey also was consoled a little, I think, by the thought that this poor fellow-passenger was comfortable—she and her children—and that instead of slumbering uneasily on a bench, she was able to lay the little things in a bed. It seemed to him a good omen, a little relaxation of the bonds of fate, and he went away cheered a little and encouraged by this simple incident and by the warmth of the kindness that was in his heart.
He spoke to them again on one or two occasions on the way, sent the poor woman some tea in the morning, bought some fruit for the children, and again on the steamboat crossing, when he listened to the account of how they were going on, from Dover, with a certain interest. When they parted at the train he shook hands with the mother, hoping she would find her relation better, and put a sovereign into Johnny’s little fat hand. The lady who had been in the sleeping carriage kept her eye upon him all the time. She was not by any means a malicious or bad woman, but she did not believe the poor woman’s story of the gentleman’s kindness. She was, I am sorry to say, a lady who was apt to take the worst view of every transaction, especially between men and women. People who do so are bound in many cases to be right, and so are confirmed in their odious opinion; but in many cases they are wrong, yet always hold to it with a faith which would do credit to a better inspiration. “I thought young Mr. Leigh was going to marry again,” she said to a friend whom she met going up to town.
“Oh, so he is! To the nicest girl—Bee Kingsward, the daughter of one of my dearest friends—such a satisfactory thing in every way.”
“Wasn’t there something,” said the lady of the sleeping carriage, “about a woman, down at his place in the country?”
“Oh, I don’t think there was ever anything against him. There was a woman who was a great friend of his poor wife, and lived with them. The wife was a goose, don’t you know, and could not be made to see what a foolish thing it was. My opinion is that he never could abide the woman, and I am sure she made mischief between them. But I believe that silly little Mrs. Leigh—poor thing, we should not speak ill of those that are gone—made him promise on her deathbed that this Miss Something-or-other should not be sent away from the house. It was a ridiculous arrangement, and no woman that respected herself would have done it. But she was poor, and it’s a comfortable place, and, perhaps, as there was no friendship between them she may have thought it was no harm.”
“Perhaps she thought she would get over him in time and make him marry her.”
“Oh, I can’t tell what she thought! He rushed off in a hurry at a moment’s notice, nobody knowing what he intended, after the poor baby died, the very day of its funeral. Not much to be wondered at, poor young man, after all he had gone through. I don’t know how things were settled with Miss Lance, but I believe that she has gone at last. And I am delighted to hear of his engagement. So will all his neighbours in the county be.”
“I should not like a daughter of mine to marry a man like that.”
“Why? I wish a daughter of mine could have the chance. Everybody likes him at home. Do you know anything of Aubrey Leigh?”
He did not know in the least that this talk was going on as the train went rushing on to town; his ears did not tingle. He was in the next carriage, divided only by a plank from these two ladies in their compartment. The woman who took the bad view of everything did not wish him any harm. She did not even think badly of him. She thought it was only human nature, and that young men will do that sort of thing, however nice they may be, and whatever you may say of morals and so forth. I do not think, though she had made that little conventional speech, that she would at all have hesitated to give her own daughter to Aubrey, provided that she had a daughter. His advantages were so evident, and the disadvantages, after all, had so little to do with actual life.
Aubrey did not present himself before Colonel Kingsward that night. He did not propose to follow him to Kingswarden, the old house in Kent, which was the sole remnant of territorial property belonging to the family. He wanted to have all his wits about him, to be cool and self-possessed, and able to remember everything, when he saw the man who had given him Bee and then had withdrawn her from his arms. He already knew Colonel Kingsward a little, and knew him as a man full ofbonhommie, popular everywhere—a man of experience, who had been about the world, who knew men. By this time Aubrey had recovered his spirits a little. He thought it impossible that such a man, when a younger than himself laid bare his heart to him, could fail to understand. It was true that the Colonel was probably a martinet in morals as he was in his profession, and Aubrey had that behind him which he could not deny. He would not attempt to gloss it over, to make excuses for it. He would lay his life in this man’s hand as if he had been his confessor. And surely, surely the acknowledged sin would find absolution, the extenuating circumstances would be considered, the lie with which that accusation was accompanied would recoil upon the accuser. The young man buoyed himself up with these thoughts through the long evening. He did not go out or to his club, or anywhere where he was known. In September there are not so many inducements to stray about London. He sat in his room and thought of Bee, and wrote little letters to her, which were a relief to his mind though he knew he could not send them. By this time he reflected they must have started. They were beginning their journey as he ended his. He hoped that Charlie, that lout, would have the sense to take care of his mother, to see that she suffered as little as possible, to prevent her from having any trouble—which I fear was not the view at all that Charlie took of his duty to his mother. Aubrey, like all outsiders, had a clearer view of Mrs. Kingsward’s condition than her family had arrived at. He was very sorry for her, poor, delicate, tender woman—and grieved to the bottom of his heart that this trouble should have come upon her through him. Bee was different. There would be so many ways, please God, if all went well—and he could not bring himself to think that all would not go well—in which he could make it up to his Bee. Finally, he permitted himself to write a little letter to meet his darling on her return, and enclosed in it another to Mrs. Kingsward, directed to Kingswarden. They would receive it when they entered their house—and by that time, surely by that time, his letters would not be any longer a forbidden thing.
That morning it rained, and the London skies hung very low. The world had the effect of a room with a low roof, stifling and without air. He set out to walk to Colonel Kingsward’s office. I forget whether the Intelligence Department of the War Office was in existence at that time, or if it has always been in existence only not so much heard of as in our vociferous days. If it did exist then, it was, of course, in Pall Mall, as we all know. Aubrey set out to walk, but soon recollected that muddy boots detracted from a man’s appearance, especially in the eyes of a spick and span person like Colonel Kingsward, who never had a speck upon any garment, and accordingly he got into a hansom. It did not go any faster than the beating of his heart, and yet he could have wished that it should only creep along like the heavier cabs. He would have put off this interview now had he been able. To think that you are within an hour at most of the moment when your life shall be settled for you absolutely by another person’s will, and that your happiness or unhappiness rest upon the manner in which he will look at the question, the perception he will have of your difficulties, the insight into your heart, is a terrible thing—especially if you know little of the person who has thus become endowed, as it were, with the power of life and death over you—do not know if his understanding is a large or limited one, if he has any human nature in him, or only mere conventionality and the shell of human nature. It is seldom, perhaps, that one man is thus consciously in the power of another—and yet it must come to that more or less, every day.
Colonel Kingsward was in his room, seated at his writing table with piles of books and maps, and masses of newspapers all round him. He was an excellent linguist, and there were French papers and German papers, Russian, Scandinavian—all kinds of strange languages and strange little broadsheets, badly printed, black with excessive ink, or pale with imperfect impression, on the floor and the table. He had a large paper knife at his hand in ivory, with the natural brown upon it, looking like a weapon which could cut a man, not to say a book, in pieces. He looked up with an aspect which Aubrey, whose heart was in his mouth, could not read—whether it was mere politeness or something more—and bade Mr. Leigh be seated, putting aside deliberately as he did so the papers with which he was engaged. And then he turned round with the air of a man who says: Now you have my entire attention—and looked Aubrey in the face. The young man was facing the light which came in from a large high window reaching nearly to the roof. The elder man had his back half turned from it, so that his regard was less easy to read. It was not quite fair. Aubrey had everything against him; his agitation, his anxiety, an expressive tell-tale face, and the light searching every change that took place in it; whilst his opponent was calm as his own paper knife, impassive, with a countenance formed to conceal his emotions, and the light behind him. It was not an equal match in any way.
“I have come direct from Cologne,” Aubrey said.