Thefirst who arrived of the family party was the eldest son.
It was on the 15th of September that Ben came home. The day appointed for reading the will was a week later, and none of the others had arrived when Ben’s letter came announcing his return for the next morning. Fortunately, the ‘boys’’rooms were quite ready, and the house was so wound up to the height of excitement, that the first actual arrival was a godsend. The flutter and commotion of that day was indescribable. As for poor Mary she did not know what she was about. It was cruel on her that he should come alone,—that there should be nobody to break their inevitabletête-à-têteat breakfast and during the hours when Mrs. Renton would certainly be invisible. Busy as she was, looking after everything, she found time for a hurried note to Laurie, telling him of his brother’s coming. ‘He has been so long away that I feel as if it were a stranger whowas coming,’ Mary wrote, in a panic quite unlike her usual character;—‘do come at once and help me to entertain him.’ ‘Help you to entertain Ben!’ was Laurie’s reply, with ever so many notes of interrogation. Perhaps the helplessness and fright which were visible in this demand threw some light to Laurie upon the state of affairs, but he either could not or would not help her in her trouble; and with a heart which beat very loudly in her breast, but with an outward aspect of the most elaborate quietness and composure, Mary stood on the lawn in the September sunset watching for the dog-cart to come from the station. The ladies from The Willows had been calling that very morning, and of course had heard what was going to happen, and a glance had passed between the mother and daughter when Mrs. Renton had hoped she would see a great deal of them while the ‘boys’ were at home. ‘I should think Mr. Renton must have forgotten us,’ Millicent had said, with a little pathos. Mary took very little part in all this, but noted everything, the most vigilant and clear-sighted of critics. It made her heart ache to look at that beautiful face. Was it possible that those blue eyes which looked so lustrous, and the smiling lips that were so sweet, could obliterate in Ben’s mind all sense of falsehood and treachery? And, indeed, Mary only took the treachery for granted. Perhaps there had been nothing of thekind; perhaps he was coming without any grievance against her to fall into this syren’s snares. How cunning it was of her to post herself there, on the edge of the river, where ‘the boys’’boats would be passing continually, and where they could not escape her! And how deep-rooted the plan must have been which preserved the date for seven years, and made Millicent aware exactly when her victim was coming home! Mary’s thoughts were severe and uncompromising. She could not think of any possible tie between Millicent and her cousin but that of enchantress and victim. She did not know how good the adventuress had resolved to be if at last this last scheme of all should be successful; nor what a weary life of failure, and disappointment, and self-disgust, poor Millicent had gone through. Mary could not have believed in any extenuating circumstances. There could be no trace of womanly or natural feeling in the creature who thus came, visibly without the shadow of a pretext, to lie in wait for Ben.
She thought her heart would have stopped beating when the dog-cart dashed in at the gates. But her outward aspect was one of such fixed composure that Ben, as he made a spring out of it, almost without leaving the horse time to stop, and caught his cousin precipitately in his arms, felt as if he had committed a social sin in his sudden kiss. ‘I am sure I beg your pardon, Mary,’ hecried, half laughing, half horrified. ‘I forgot I had been away so long, and you had grown out of acquaintance with me; but still you need not look so shocked.’
‘I am not shocked,’ said Mary, who had scarcely voice enough to speak; ‘it was only the surprise; and, good heavens, what a beard!’
‘Well, yes, it is an alarming article, I suppose,’ said Ben, looking down with complacency upon one of those natural ornaments which men prize so much. It was an altogether new decoration. And it seemed to Mary that he had grown even taller while he had been away, so changed was the development of the mature man,—brown, bearded, and powerful,—from that of Ben, the young man of fashion, who had been as dainty in all his ways as herself. His frame had broadened, expanded, and acquired that air of activity and force which only occupation gives. His eye had no languor in it, but was full of active observation and thought. The change was so great that it took away her breath, and after the second glance Mary was not quite sure that it was so very satisfactory. He was more like the Rentons than he had been,—his lip curled a little at the corner, as if it might sneer on occasion. His manner had grown a little peremptory. ‘Where is my mother?’ he said immediately, without giving even a sparemoment to look again at the companion of his childhood;—‘in her own room?’
‘Yes, she is waiting for you,’ said Mary. And he went off from her without another word. Of course it was very right he should do so, after an absence of six years and a half, and very nice of him to be so anxious to see his mother. But yet—— Mary went in after him, in two or three minutes, feeling somehow as if she had fallen from an unspeakable height of expectation; though she had not expected anything in reality,—and Ben had been very kind, very frank, and cordial, and cousinly. What a fool she was! And while she could hear the unusual roll of the man’s voice in Mrs. Renton’s room, running on in perpetual volleys of sound, Mary, in the silence of her own, sat down and cried,—folly for which she could have killed herself. Of course his first hour belonged to his mother. And what did she, Mary, want of him but his kindly regard, and,—esteem,—and,—respect! Respect was what a man would naturally give,—if she did not betray herself, and show how little she was deserving of it,—to a woman of her years. Seven-and-twenty! To be sure Ben was nearly five years older; but that does not count in a man. Moved by these thoughts, Mary went to the extreme of voluntary humility, and dressed herself in one of her soberest dressesfor dinner. ‘I laid out the pink, ma’am, as Mr. Ben has come home,’ said her maid. ‘No, the grey,’ said Mary, obstinately. He should see at least that there was no affectation of juvenility about her,—that she fully acknowledged and understood her position as,—almost,—middle-aged. Poor Mary was considered a very sensible girl by all her friends, and she thought to herself, while committing this piece of folly, that she would justify their opinion. Sense as her grand quality,—and esteem and respect as the mild emotions which she might hope to inspire,—such were the reflections that passed through Mary Westbury’s mind as she put on her grey gown.
‘It don’t look so bad, Miss Mary, after all,’ said her maid encouragingly, as she gave the last twitch to the skirt. And certainly it did not look bad. The sensible young woman who wished her cousin Ben to respect her, had a little rose-flush going and coming on her cheeks, and a lucid gleam of emotion in her eyes, which might have justified a more marked sentiment. Her hand was a little tremulous, her voice apt,—if the expression is permissible,—to go into chords, the keys of half-a-dozen different feelings being struck at the same moment, and producing, if a little incoherence, at the same time a curious multiplicity of tone. The dining-room had more lights than usual, but still was not bright; and when Ben came in with hismother on his arm, he protested instantly against the great desert of a table, which, in deference to old custom, was always spread in the long-deserted place.
‘I can’t have you half-a-mile off,’ he said. ‘You must sit by me here, mamma, and you here, Mary. That is better. We are not supposed to be on our best behaviour, I hope, the very day I come home.’
‘Why, this is very nice,’ said Mrs. Renton, as she sipped her soup at her son’s right hand, and stopped from time to time to look at him. ‘And one does not feel as if one had any responsibility. I think I shall keep this seat, my dear; it will be like dining out without any of the trouble. And then, Ben, I shall not feel the change when you bring home a wife.’
Mary, who had been looking on, suddenly turned her eyes away; but all the same, she perceived that Ben’s obstinate Renton upper lip settled down a little, and that he grew stern to behold.
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ he said.
‘But it must be,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘it must be some time. I don’t say directly, because this is very pleasant. And after being left seven years all alone, I think I might have my boy to myself to cheer me up a little. But it must be some time,—in a year or two,—when you have had time to look about you and make up your mind.’
‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ said Ben, with a short laugh; ‘if I am to judge of my effect upon English ladies by the impression I made on Mary,—it is not encouraging, I can tell you. I was afraid she would faint.’
‘Oh, Ben!’ Mary exclaimed, looking up at him with her lucid, emotional eyes; and the rose-flush went over all her face. It was a very pleasant face to look at. And, perhaps, even beauty herself is not more attractive than a countenance which changes when you look at it, and a voice full of chords. Yes; no doubt he had some respect for her, and even esteem, if you went so far as that.
‘Mary and I have been living so much out of the world,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘We have been quite alone, you know, my dear. My poor health was never equal to the exertion. It is always best for such an invalid as I am to give up everything, I believe. And except just our drives,—your poor dear papa always made such a point of my drives.’
‘But Mary was not an invalid,’ said Ben, and he looked full at her for a moment, lighting up once more the glow in her face. ‘I don’t know what you have been doing to yourself,’ he said. ‘Is it the way she has her hair, mother? It cannot be her dress, because I remember that gown. I suppose she has been asleep all these seven years, like the beauty in the wood.’
‘I think I have,’ said Mary; but her voice wasscarcely audible. After all, the pink gown had not been necessary, and virtue had its reward.
‘Asleep for seven years? Indeed, you are unkind to Mary,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘You can’t think what a comfort she has been to me, Ben. She has always read to me, and driven with me, and talked when I could bear it, and got my worsted work straight, and given the housekeeper her orders. If she had been my own child she could not have been nicer. And never cared for going out or anything. I am sure it is not necessary for me to say it; but if anything should happen to me, I hope you will all be very kind to Mary. You can’t think what a good child she has been.’
‘Kind to Mary!’ said Ben, holding out his hand to her. Well, perhaps there might be something more than even respect and esteem,—affection,—that was the word:—family affection and brotherly-kindness. And what could a woman of seven-and-twenty desire or dream of more?
And when they retired to the drawing-room Mrs. Renton was very eloquent about the change of affairs. ‘Not to say that it is Ben, my dear,—whom of course it is a great happiness to see again,—there is always a pleasure in knowing that there is a man in the house,’ she said. ‘It rouses one up. I am sure there were many days that it was a great bore to go down to dinner. I should have liked a cup of tea in my own room so much better; but aman must always have his dinner. And then they have been about all day, and they have something to tell you, if it is only what is in the evening paper;—and there is always most news in the evening paper, Mary. I have remarked that all my life. And even now, you know, one feels that he will come in by-and-bye,—and that is something to look forward to. It is a great advantage, my dear, to have a man in the house.’
‘It is very pleasant, at least, to have Ben in the house,’ said Mary; but she quaked a little while she spoke; for what was she to do with him for the rest of the evening after Mrs. Renton went to bed? And if the world was coming to an end, it would not prevent Davison’s appearance at half-past nine to take her mistress up-stairs. And there was not much chance that Ben would be inclined for bed at that early hour. Mary tried hard to brace herself up for the evening’s work, as she made the tea, pondering whether she might retire in her turn about half-past ten or so, that being a proper young ladies’ hour,—though with Laurie she would not have minded how long she sat talking, or letting him talk; and yet Ben had been seeing more, doing more, and had more to tell than Laurie. Thus it sometimes happens that the greater the love the less is the kindness,—though such a word as love had not been breathed in the inmost recesses of Mary Westbury’s mind.
But when Ben joined them he was very talkative, and full of his own concerns, and was so interesting that his mother put Davison off, and it was ten o’clock before she actually left the drawing-room. After a little conflict with herself Mary prepared to follow. She would have liked to stay, but felt herself awkward, and uncomfortable, and full of a thousand hesitations.
‘Are you going too?’ Ben said, as he saw her gathering up her work; and there was a tone of disappointment in his voice that went to her heart.
‘I thought you might be tired,’ she said, faltering.
‘Tired! the first night at home! I suppose the poor dear mother has stayed as long as is good for her; but you are not an invalid, Mary,’ said Ben; ‘you don’t mean to say ten o’clock is the end of the evening for you? And I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask you. Put on your shawl, and come out for a breath of fresh air. The moon always shines at Renton. I’ll ring for somebody to bring you a shawl.’
‘I’ll run and get one,’ said Mary; and she stayed up-stairs for a few moments to take breath and compose herself. It was very silly of her, of course, to be excited; but she reflected that it was not simply the innocent stroll with her cousin in the moonlight for which she was afraid, but thepossibility of a return to the subject of Millicent, of which he had spoken to her last time he was at Renton. He was standing outside the window waiting for her when she came down, and they wandered away together, instinctively taking that path towards the river. So many moonlight walks on that same path glanced over Mary’s memory as they walked,—childish ones, when the cousins played hide-and-seek behind the great, smooth, shining boles of the beeches,—merry comings-home from water-parties when they were all boys and girls together. And then that walk, which was the last she had taken with Ben.
He did not say much for some minutes. Perhaps he, too, was thinking of all those old recollections. ‘When I went away the moon was shining,’ he said at last abruptly, ‘and I suppose it has been shining and the river running and the branches rustling all this time. How strange it seems! I wonder if I have been dreaming all these seven years?’
‘I daresay you have for a great part of the time,’ Mary said, with an effort to be playful. ‘I am sure I have at least——’
‘I hope so, considering my mother’s account of what you have been doing,’ said Ben. And then he made a pause, and said, as if he did it on purpose to stir up every possibility of discomfort in her, ‘Do you remember our last talk here?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, and then they went on, stumbling in the dark places, and now and then coming out like ghosts,—two weird figures,—into the silver light. Though he had brought her out on the pretence of having so much to say, in reality he scarcely talked at all. And she kept by his side, with her heart giving irregular thumps against her breast. She had not breath enough to bid him not to go any farther, and the sound of her own foot-steps and his in the utter stillness seemed to wake all kinds of curious echoes in the dark wood. Mary was half frightened, and yet rapt into a curious mysterious exaltation of feeling. What was he thinking of? Were they two the same creatures who had come down that same path together,—was it six years or six hours ago? The darkness among the trees around was not more profound than was the darkness in which Ben’s life had been enveloped during his absence. He had written home, it is true, and they had known where he went, and what, as people say, he was doing all the time; but of his real existence Mary knew as little,—just as little and as much, as he of hers. Thus they went on, until they came to the opening, and the green bank upon the river-side, which lay in a flood of moonlight all shut and bounded round by the blackness of the woods.
‘What a pity there is no boat!’ said Ben. ‘I might have taken you up the reach as far as themoonlight goes. We must have a boat. I did not think it was so sweet. And there is Cookesley Church across the fields. I remember so well looking at it the last time through the branches of the big beech. How high the river is! Whose boat is that, I wonder, on the other side?’
‘Oh, it is from The Willows, I suppose,’ said Mary, with a kind of desperation.
‘The Willows? that is something new. Is it old Peters and his sister? But you told me he was dead. What sort of people are at The Willows now?’
‘Two ladies,’ said Mary, succinctly. Was not this like the very hand of fate? Why The Willows should thus thrust itself quite arbitrarily into the conversation without any word or warning she could not tell. It was like the work of a malicious spirit.
‘Two ladies!’ said Ben. ‘You are very terse,—terser than I ever knew you. And who may the two ladies be who venture on the river in the moonlight?’
‘Oh, I do not think they are in the boat.’
‘But whether they are in the boat or not, who are they?’ said Ben, and there was a sound as of laughter in his voice.
Then there followed a dead pause. The boat lay in the fullest moonlight, and already they could hear the soft plash of the oars and distant sound ofvoices. It was not coming down the stream, but floating softly on the silvered water, just kept in its place against the current by the oars. Some one was out enjoying the beauty of the night in that magical fashion; and opposite was visible the little margin of lawn which belonged to The Willows, the trees dripping into the water, and the lights in the open windows. A subtle suggestion of happiness, and love, and rest, was in the scene. Was it a pair of lovers, or a young husband with his wife, or——
‘Tell me,—this becomes mysterious,—who are they?’ said Ben.
‘Oh, only some people,’ Mary said, with some breathlessness, ‘whom I think you once knew. Do you remember speaking to me, the last time we came down here together, about,—some one,—a school-fellow of mine?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is a very strange coincidence,’ Mary said, with a miserable attempt at a laugh. ‘It is Millicent, who has gone there with her mother for the summer. We are neighbours now.’
And then silence came again,—silence deeper than before. He started a little, that it was easy to see; but his face was quite in the shade. And after a while he said, with a steady and decided voice, ‘You mean Mrs. Henry Rich?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary; and then they both stood onthe rustling grass and watched the boat, which lay caught, as it were, and suspended in the blaze of white radiance. No doubt she was there, enjoying that beautiful moment, not thinking what silent spectators were looking on so near. As for Mary, she stood spell-bound, and gazed full of a thousand thoughts. Since her cousins had been gone, Mary had had no one to row her about the shining river, every turn of which she knew so well; but Millicent had her boatman at once. And who was he? And what could Ben be thinking of that he stood thus on the brink of the full stream, filled more than full by the overflowing of the moonlight? All at once he turned on his heel, as if rousing himself, and drew Mary’s hand within his arm.
‘Let me help you up the bank,’ said Ben. ‘After all, the night grows cold. Have you ever walked as far before, so late as this?’
‘Never, I think,’ said Mary, going with him up the hill at a pace very unusual to her. Though he carried on some pretence at conversation, she was too breathless with the rapid ascent to answer otherwise than by an occasional monosyllable. But when they reached the great beech he permitted her to breathe. Perhaps he paused there only from habit, or perhaps he was curious to look back upon that picture on the river, and gain another glimpse in this strange, unlooked-for, unsuspected way into the life of the woman he had once loved. The boat haddisappeared while they were mounting the bank, and on the lawn, before The Willows, stood a white figure, dwarfed by distance into the size of a fairy, but blazing white in the intense moonlight. No doubt Ben saw her, for his face was turned that way; but he went on again without a word. It was only when they had reached the lawn, and were approaching the lights and the open window by which they had come forth, that he alluded to what he had seen. Then he asked sharply, all at once, in the very middle of some other subject which had nothing to do with it, ‘How long have these people been here?’
‘Three weeks,’ said Mary. Not another word was said; but a certain constraint and embarrassment,—at least so she thought,—had come over him. When she lit her candle this time he made no attempt to detain her. She thought even that he gave a sigh of relief as he opened the door for her, and said good-night; and it was hard for Mary to think with any charity of the woman who had thus waylaid him,—waylaid his very imagination,—on the night even of his return. Possibly she was quite wrong in her estimate of Ben’s feelings. When she was gone he threw himself heavily into a chair, and sat for an hour or more, doing nothing, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. But no doubt he had enough to think about without that. It would have been strange had the cominghome,—the approach of certainty after his long suspense,—the familiar life that seemed to have taken him up again after casting him out of its bosom,—produced no excitement in his mind. And then there was that curious sense of unreality which comes upon a man when, after an active life of his own, he returns to his father’s house, and finds everything, down to the minutest particular, just as it used to be. Is not this life such stuff as dreams are made of? To Ben, who was not a man of thought, this sentiment was bewildering; and the quiet of the house weighed upon him with an irritating heaviness. Talk of noise! There is no such babel as that of silence when it surges round you, when no living thing stirs, and the mysterious air rustles its wings in your ears, and the earth vibrates under your feet. The flutter of moths and invisible insects attracted by the light, the rustle of the leaves outside, the curtains waving in the night air, the mysterious thrills which ran through the furniture, the wavering of the flame of the lamp,—all affected Ben when he was left alone. His life had been so busy and full of action,—and now he had left that existence which was his own, and come back into the midst of those shadows to await the last sentence of a dead man’s voice, and have his whole destiny, perhaps, thrown once more into mistiness and darkness. Had there been any need for that boat softly rocking on the curve of thesilvered water,—for that white solitary figure in the moonlight,—to complicate matters further? But whether that last incident did count for anything in the multiplicity of his thoughts, or whether it affected him as Mary supposed,—and as Millicent meant it to affect him,—who can tell? He sat a long time thinking, but he uttered none of his thoughts in the shape of soliloquy, which is unfortunate for this narrative; and I am obliged to wait, as most people are compelled to do, for the slow elucidation of events, to show the turn taken by Ben Renton’s thoughts.
Mary’s mind went more rapidly to a conclusion, as may be supposed. She could no more tell than I can what Ben was really turning over in his thoughts; but one thing was clear to her, that he had not heard of the neighbourhood of Millicent with indifference. It might be indignation, it might be disgust, it might be concealed and suppressed delight; but, at all events, the information had moved him. And at the same time, he had been very nice to herself,—very friendly, almost more than friendly—affectionate; not forgetting to help her even when she had just thrown that bombshell into the quiet. To be sure, he had hurried her up the hill, unconscious of the rapidity of his pace; but that was little in comparison with his kindness in remembering her at all when he had just heard such news. So Mary said to herself, thinking, like aromantic young woman, that Ben must have straightway forgotten everything but Millicent. Well! She was like a sister to him: he was ready to trust her, ready to rely upon her, ready even to admire and praise her in that frank, affectionate way as a brother might. Why should there be any heaviness or sense of disappointment in her heart? Mary said to herself that it was only because of its being Millicent, who was not worthy of him. If it had been almost anybody else,—if it had been half-a-dozen girls she could name to herself, who were good girls, and would have made him happy—but Millicent was no mate for Ben! That was the only reason of the blank, sense of pain and vacancy in her heart. For herself, she was more than content.
And thus the old house closed its protecting doors upon the first instalment of the restored family; and with that received agitation, disquiet, unrest, into the bosom of the stillness. Renton had been lying high and dry, like a stranded vessel, for all those years, and peace had dwelt in it; but now that the tide was creeping up, and life stealing back, the natural accompaniment returned. Sighs of impatience, disappointment, pain,—eager desires for the future, which came so slowly, counting the minutes,—a sense, overmastering everything, of the hardness and strangeness of life. Nobody had thought of life as hard, as troublous, or full of fatal mistakes, during all those years when Mrs. Rentonhad driven about the lanes, and taken care of her health. The blessed bonds of routine had kept things going, and nobody was either glad or miserable. But as soon as the bigger life came back with chances of happiness in it, then the balancing chances of pain also returned. As soon as it becomes possible that you may be blessed, it also becomes possible that you may fall into the lowest depths of anguish. This was the strange paradox which Mary Westbury contemplated as she heard Ben Renton’s unaccustomed step going to his room after midnight, through the profound stillness of the sleeping house.
Risingfull of anxious thoughts of the excitement which must have taken possession of Ben from the revelations of the night, Mary was much taken aback to meet her cousin, in, to all appearance, an extremely cheerful state of mind, next morning. He had been up early, and had taken a long walk, and renewed,—he told her,—his acquaintance with the country. ‘If one had it in one’s own hands one could do a great deal more with it than has been done yet,’ he said, looking more like the portraits of the old Rentons than Mary liked to see.
‘I am sure I hope nobody will ever try to improve it as long as I am here,’ she said, with a little heat,—for Renton as a parish, and Berks as a county, were to Mary the perfection of the earth.
‘You don’t like stagnant ponds, I hope,’ said Ben, laughing at her vehemence,—‘nor cottages falling to pieces,—nor fields that are flooded with every heavy rain.’
‘But I like the broad turf on the roadsides, andthe old hedges, and the old trees,’ said Mary, ‘and everything one has been used to all one’s life. Ah, Ben, whatever you do, don’t spoil Renton! I should break my heart——’
‘Probably I shall never have it in my power to spoil Renton,’ he said, with a short sigh of impatience. ‘I wish I had not come home until the very day fixed for this reading of the will. It is hard work hanging about here and kicking one’s heels and waiting. My father was very hard upon us, Mary. It was too much to ask from any set of men.’
‘I don’t think it has done you much harm,’ said Mary, whose natural impulse was to defend the ancient authorities, however much she might sympathise with the sufferers in her heart.
‘Don’t you?’ said Ben, walking away from the breakfast-table to the window, where he stood drawing up and down the blind with preoccupied looks. After a few minutes she, too, moved and went up to him. Her mind was full of anxiety to say something,—to give him to understand that she could enter into his feelings; but it was so difficult to enter upon such a subject with a man, and especially with such a man as Ben.
‘Ben, I think I know,—a little,—what you mean,’ she said, faltering; ‘and I can see how, in some things, it must have been very hard,—preventing you from,—often,—doing what you wished; butnow that is over. You need not wait now——’
He turned round and looked at her with some surprise in his eyes. ‘You don’t know what you are saying, Mary,’ he said. ‘I am like most men, very glad now to have been prevented doing things which at one time I would fain have done. And you are right, too,—I am my own master now,—not because the will is to be read this day week, but because I have found a trade and can work at it;—but that was not what I meant.’
Mary sat down patiently and raised her eyes to him that he might tell her what he did mean. She was in the way of listening to a great many explanations, and thought them natural. Ben, for his part, stood and looked at her for a minute, and then turned away with a laugh.
‘Poor Mary!’ he said. ‘What wearisome talk you must have listened to all these years,—going into everything! You must have a special faculty for that sort of thing, you women; how have you managed to live through it all and keep your youth and your bloom?’
‘There has been nothing dreadful to live through,’ said Mary; ‘but as for the youth, I don’t pretend to that any longer. It is gone, like so many other pretty things; and I am not thinking of myself.’
‘Not now, nor ever,’ said her cousin; ‘but I don’t feel disposed to give up the matter as you do. I don’t feel very aged——’
‘But you are a man,’ said Mary, interruptinghim, ‘which makes all the difference; and, besides, this sort of talk is quite nonsense. I must go and read the paper with godmamma. Have you done with it?’ And she took the “Times” from the table, and was about to leave the room.
‘I have not done with it,’ said Ben, ‘I have not begun it even. I am going to read it to my mother, and you shall come and listen, if you like. You have done our duty long enough. It is but fair I should take my spell now.’
Mary made a little protestation, but Ben was not disposed to give in. He wasennuyéfor one thing, and did not want to be alone and give himself up to troublesome thoughts. There are times when it is better to do even the most humble of domestic duties than to be left to yourself. Mary thought, as she took her work and sat down near the window of her godmother’s room, at some distance from the reader and listener, that affairs were wonderfully changed indeed, and that Ben’s dutifulness was beyond all the traditions of good behaviour she had ever known. Mrs. Renton herself was a little overpowered by so sublime an act. Ben did not read steadily through as Mary did. He read not the bits of news which were her favourite study, but leading articles and speeches, which were not in her way. And then he would pause and talk in the middle of them, often turning his chair round towards Mary, and defrauding his mother both of the paper and his attention.It was pleasant, no doubt, to have a man in the house, and still more pleasant to have Ben at home; but the great and unexpected condescension of his morning visit to read the papers was not by any means so great a pleasure as it looked. But for the name of the thing she would really have preferred Davison; and Mary’s reading was infinitely more satisfactory. When Ben wound up by saying, as it is the proper formula to say, that there was nothing in it, Mrs. Renton could not but echo the words with a little querulousness in her tone. He threw the paper carelessly on to the bed, and the poor lady drew it towards her, and made a feeble search after her spectacles.
‘Indeed there seems very little,’ she said, ‘much less than on most days; but it was very kind of you to think of coming and reading to me, Ben.’
‘I mean to come ever morning, mother,’ he replied,—at which Mrs. Renton shivered,—‘and relieve Mary a little. By-the-bye, I want to know whether you will mind if I have Hillyard here. I told him he was to come on Saturday, if he did not hear from me to the contrary. He is not quite in your way, but he is a very good fellow. I thought you would not mind if I had him here.’
‘My dear boy, the house is yours,—or at least it will soon be yours,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It is very nice of you to consult me, and you know I am not very able to receive strangers; but still Mary isthere to do all that is necessary, and of course you must have your friends.’
‘Mother, I should like you to understand that it is not at all of course,’ said Ben. ‘The house is not mine,—I am not calculating that it will ever be mine. I want Hillyard, not so much because he is my friend, as because he is with me in business. He is my right-hand man——’
‘It was Mr. Hillyard you went to America with at first?’ said Mary, from her distant seat.
And Ben, relieved, walked across the room, finding she was easier to talk to than his mother. ‘Eh? Yes, it is the same Hillyard,’ he said, with a laugh which had some pleasure in it. ‘I was his right-hand man then, and now he is mine. That is all the difference; but we have always hung together all the same.’
‘Then you have done better than he has,’ said Mary, looking up at him with a smile.
And Ben came and stood by the side of the table she was working at, and looked down upon her as he spoke. ‘He’s a very good fellow,’ he said, ‘but he does not stick to his work. There are some people who do best to be masters, and some who do best to be subordinate. And when he is not master, poor fellow, he is worth a dozen ordinary men.’
‘When some one else is master?’ said Mary, with natural female gratification.
‘No compliments,’ said Ben. ‘A man needs tobe as hard as iron, and as bold as brass;—though why brass should be the emblem of unpleasant boldness, by the way, I don’t know.’
When there had been as much of it as this, Mrs. Renton began to stir uneasily. ‘I cannot hear what you two are saying,’ she said. ‘You have light enough for your work generally at this window, Mary. Why should you go away so far to-day? And, Ben, I can see there are two or three things here you did not read to me. There is a dreadful burglary somewhere, in a country-house like this. It is dreadful to think we might be killed in our beds any nights,—and gives it such an interest;—and there is a great deal out of “Galignani” in the French article. “Galignani” is always amusing. But Mary will read it to me when you go out.’
‘I was not thinking of going out,—at present, mother. When is Laurie coming? He ought to be here,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t understand how a man can choose to shut himself up in London at this time of the year.’
‘But he is working at something,’ said Mary.
‘He is always working at something, and I don’t know what it is ever to come to. Laurie ought to be the eldest son,—if there is to be an eldest son among us,’ said Ben. ‘I think that would be the best solution. He could muse about his fields, and paint the trees, and make a very good country gentleman,—don’t you think so, Mary?—and marryand make everybody comfortable;—that is how it ought to be.’
‘Ben,’ said his mother, solemnly, ‘I hope you have not been led astray into Radical principles since you have been away. How could Laurie be the eldest son? Your poor dear papa did everything for the best. He thought it was good for you to wait, and no doubt it must have been good for you. But to speak as if he did not care for your rights! Why, you were called Benedict because you were the eldest son. I said to Mr. Renton, “I hate the name,—it is the ugliest name I know.” But he always said, “My dear, we can’t help ourselves; the Rentons have been Laurence and Benedict for hundreds of years,—and Laurence and Benedict they must continue to be; but you can call him Ben, you know,—or Dick, for that matter.” I had a good cry over it,’ Mrs. Renton said, dropping back fatigued upon her pillows; ‘for, if there is anything I hate, it is those short names like Ben and Dick; but he had his way. And now to think you should talk as if it had been all in vain!’
‘Miss Mary,’ said Davison with decision, ‘my missis has talked a deal more than she ought, and I don’t hold with excitement. If you and Mr. Ben was to go out for a walk now,—or something as would take him off his poor dear mamma,’ said the careful nurse, lowering her voice. Ben was too much for his mother. After seven years of soft,feminine glidings about her room, softened voices, perpetual consideration of her ailments, this ‘man in the house,’ thought pleasant at first, was too much for her powers. ‘And I don’t know how we’ll ever do when they’re all here,’ the faithful Davison murmured to herself, as she sprinkled eau-de-Cologne about the pillows, and mixed some port with the arrowroot. And Ben was banished forthwith from the room. ‘He is very nice at dinner, my dear,’ Mrs. Renton herself said, ‘but men never understand. And they should always have something to do, Mary. They are never happy without something to do.’
‘But poor Ben, this is his first day at home!’ said Mary, when she had read all about the burglary, and calmed the patient down.
‘But, my dear, they are always wretched themselves,’ said Mrs. Renton, ‘when they are quite unoccupied. You must find him something to do.’
Thus it will be seen that Mary’s labours were not much lightened by the arrival of the eldest son. When she went down-stairs after her newspaper-reading, she found him in the library yawning somewhat over a book. ‘Come and talk,’ he said, setting a chair for her; and then laughed a little over his unsuitableness in the hushed and soft-toned house.
‘It is because you have been so long away,’ said Mary. ‘You have gone off on one current, and we on another. I suppose it is always so when people are long parted. Is it not sad?’
‘I don’t think that it ought to be so,’ said Ben.
‘And Laurie has his current, too,—quite different. I should like to find out about Laurie. It is he I know least about,’ said Mary, with a little sigh.
And then Ben smiled. ‘I should like to hear,’ he said, ‘what you know about me?’
What did she know about him? Nothing,—and yet everything, Mary thought.
‘Sometimes one divines,’ she said.
‘And sometimes one divines all wrong,’ said Ben.
Then there followed a pause. It was a very exciting game of fence so far as she was concerned. But she felt instinctively it was not safe to keep it up.
‘Godmamma will not come down to luncheon,’ she said, ‘but in the evening I hope she will be all right again. And when Alice is here and the children they will be a great help. Alice is not clever, you know, but she harmonises things somehow. I wonder if it is because she is musical.’
‘You harmonise things, too, and you are not particularly musical,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, me!’ Mary turned away, not caring todiscuss that subject. He was always so nice to her,—so frank and affectionate. ‘If he were to marry Ruth Escott now, or Helen Cookesley, how nice it would be to be a sister to her!’ Mary thought! but Millicent! Could he be thinking of Millicent now? He had got up from his chair, and was looking out with a certain wistfulness—or at least what would have been wistfulness in a woman, who has always to wait for any one she particularly wishes to see. A man can go forth and seek, and has no call to be wistful; but then it was only according to feminine rules that Mary, so long unaccustomed to anything else, could form her thoughts.
‘I have ordered up a boat from Cookesley,’ he said; ‘and remember, I mean to row you to the Swan’s Nest this afternoon. It is clearing up—— ’ for it had become cloudy, and rain had fallen during that period of newspaper-reading in Mrs. Renton’s room. And then Ben went out abruptly and left her. He stood upon no sort of ceremony, as if she were anything but his natural sister, but went away without any explanation. Going to the Swan’s Nest it would be necessary to pass The Willows; and at this moment he was taking the path to the river. Could he be going the very first morning to lay himself again at the syren’s feet? Could it be the mere pleasure of passing her house, being in the neighbourhood, that moved him? Mary, without pausing to think, flew up-stairs,—up beyond theservants’ floor to a little turret-room which commanded a view of the river. And when she had waited long enough to recover her breath, there, sure enough, was a boat shooting out from the green bank at Renton with one figure in it, which must be Ben. And the course he took was up the river. She covered her face for a moment when she saw it, and a hot, sudden tear brimmed just over, wetting her eyelashes. Mo more. Was it her business that she should weep over Ben’s folly? No man can redeem his brother, much less any woman, alas! However dreadful it might be, the man must go his own way.
Mrs. Renton rallied sufficiently that afternoon to go for her drive, and Mary’s services were wanted accordingly. But when she had got through that duty, there was still time for the Swan’s Nest, to which she had been looking forward with an excitement which was almost feverish. Ben was waiting for them at the door. He took his mother up to her room, subduing his big pace as best he could to quietness, and put her into Davison’s hands for her rest before dinner. It was an arrangement very grateful to all parties. While Mrs. Renton was taking her favourite refreshment and being comfortably tucked up on her sofa, the young people were making their way down to the bank with something of the gaiety of former days. ‘I once beat you, Ben, running down,’ Mary said, for amoment forgetting The Willows and all that was involved in it. ‘I defy you to beat me now,’ her cousin said, and Mary’s heart for one moment felt so light that she made a woman’s wild dash down one wind of the path, and stopped short breathless, catching at the great beech to support her. But between the branches of the beech Mary saw a sight which quickly sobered her. Could it be by previous arrangement, or was it by chance? A boat lay at the little steps before The Willows, and some one,—there could be no difficulty in guessing whom,—was getting into it. Mary’s heart sank away down to the lowest depths,—a sudden sickness of the light, and the brightness, and the river, and the day, came over her. She turned even from Ben, feeling sick of him too. A certain contempt of him rose up in her tender soul. Yes; there are many pangs in the sensation with which a woman recognises that another less worthy is preferred to herself; but not the least penetrating is that instinctive, involuntary contempt. He had gone and arranged with Millicent no doubt, and then he thought to please all parties by taking her, Mary, to meet the woman he loved. Ben, for his part, with the stupidity of a male creature, saw that some shadow had come over her, and thought she had struck her foot in her rapid descent against the roots of the beech. ‘Ah, you should not have gone in for it,’ he said in not triumph, but sympathy;—‘take my arm. I hope you have not twisted your foot.’ I twisted her foot!—when it was he whowrung her heart! But to be sure, Mary did not wish him to divine what was her real ailment; and it was so like a man! But the laughter and the fun were over. The two descended soberly to the river-side and got into the boat. And Mary gathered the cords of the little rudder into her hands, and Ben took up the sculls. They were face to face, and it was difficult for one to hide from the other what emotions might rise or what change come over them. ‘I am afraid you have hurt your foot badly,—you look quite pale,’ Ben said, bending forward to her with absolute anxiety. ‘Oh, no, I am all right,’ Mary replied, saying in her heart, What fools men are! How stupid they must be!—a threadbare sentiment which does not bear expression. And then she cried, ‘Remember I am strong,’ with a certain gleam of wicked glee. She could run him into the weeds if he showed too much interest in that other boat. She could keep him out of speaking distance to baulk Millicent’s wiles, or she could run into them to give her a fright. Mary began to feel herself when she pulled that cord which put some power into her hands, and saw the little skiff turn and dart about at her will from one side to another. ‘Take care what you are doing,’ cried Ben in dismay, thinking his coxswain had lost her wits; but she was only getting possession of them, and beginning to remember that there was no need to be passive, and that she, too, had arms in her hands.
And for a little they shot silently, vigorously, each attending to his work, up the shining river. Mary could not speak, and Ben did not, being moved by a thousand associations. The first break in the silence was made by voices not their own, coming from the boat which Mary kept her eye on with the fixedness of enmity. Distant sounds of conversation and laughter came first, at which Ben pricked up his ears. ‘Don’t run into any one,’ he said. ‘I hear voices;—there is somebody coming, and I hope you are keeping a look-out ahead——’
‘You need not fear for me,—I see them,’ said Mary, with emphasis, and he made no sign as if he knew what she meant, but kept on rowing so quietly that he either did not know who was coming, or thought she was a most accomplished hypocrite. On the contrary, he too began to talk softly like a man absorbed in thoughts and preoccupations of his own.
‘The last time you and I were here together was one of my last days in England,’ he said;—do you remember? I was full of my own affairs, and indifferent to everything; and, good life, what a fool I was!’ he added to himself,—and then paused and sighed. Mary, for her part, saw all, noted all, and in her rashness felt anxious to test his meaning.
‘You made me very curious,’ she said; ‘I wasso anxious to know what you meant——’ And there was no telling how much further she might have gone had not the other boat suddenly glanced alongside, and some one called her by her name. Some one! Millicent, looking more lovely than she had ever seen her, she thought, with a scarlet cloak lightly thrown over her black dress, lying back upon the cushions, holding gingerly in her hands the steering cords.
‘Mary!’ Millicent called, softly,—‘is it you? Oh, I am sure one of your cousins must have come home! Stop and tell me! What a happy thing for Mrs. Renton! And are not you all in the seventh heaven?’
The picture was one which neither of the cousins ever forgot. She was in the full bloom of her beauty, increased rather than diminished, by the severity of her mourning dress. The river sparkled like a mirror all round the gay little painted boat in which she reclined. An unusual flush of colour was on her cheek, and the young Guardsman who was rowing her gazed with eyes of worship on the lovely creature. No doubt she was excited. It seemed to Mary that even the boy who was with her was part of a plan, themise en scènewhich she had perfected for Ben’s sake; and that her cheek was flushed with the excitement of the meeting and with her unusual anxiety that success might follow. For the first time for seven yearsBen and she looked each other in the face. The Guardsman had run the other boat so close that she was almost as near to him as Mary was, confronting him, in a position in which she could watch his face and all its changes. When he looked up her eye was upon him. It was the most curious meeting for those two, who had parted so differently. Was it possible she had forgotten how they parted? She looked at him with an unabashed, smiling, gracious countenance, while Ben, with some agitation, took off his hat.
‘Is it Mr. Ben Renton?’ Millicent said, softly. And Mary, looking on, saw the colour flash all over Ben’s face at the sound of her voice. Then, in her heart, his cousin acquitted him of having arranged this interruption. On the contrary, he was so moved by it that he did not seem capable of finding his voice.
‘Mr. Renton, Mrs. Henry Rich,’ Mary said, mechanically, attempting an introduction, though she knew how unnecessary that was.
‘Ah, we have met before!’ said Millicent. ‘Did I not tell you, Mary? We used to know each other, though your cousin seems to have forgotten me; but, to be sure, I had then a different name.’
‘No, I have not forgotten,’ said Ben; ‘that would be difficult under any name.’
And then there was a dead pause. Millicentput her arm over the edge of the boat and dipped her pretty hand into the water. She had a certain air of embarrassment, either real or assumed; and Ben looked at her with a curious openness and fixedness of gaze. ‘You have just come?’ she said at last, not raising her eyes.
‘Just come,’ said Ben; ‘and only for a few days.’
Then Millicent’s eyes rose, and turned to him curiously; and Mary, too, bewildered, gave him a frightened, anxious look. There was a whole drama in their glances, and yet the words were very constrained and very few which passed between them. ‘So soon?’ Millicent said, with a surprised, half-sorrowful tone.
‘So soon!’ he repeated, with a kind of decision, always looking at her, till Mary, hard-hearted as she thought herself, felt that he was uncivil, and was moved to interfere; but Millicent bore it bravely enough. Her colour grew higher, her composure was a little shaken, but yet she did not betray any symptoms of mortification or fear.
‘My mother would be glad to see you before you go,’ she said, faltering slightly. ‘We cannot forget our obligations to you,—though perhaps you have forgotten;’ and then she tried another half-supplicating, anxious look.
‘I have forgotten nothing,’ said Ben. ‘We Rentons have extraordinary memories. I will call on Mrs. Tracy if I can before we go.’
‘Then I will not detain you longer,’ Millicent said, with a look of relief. ‘What a pleasure it must be to you, Mary, to have your cousin to row you about! I am quite grateful to Mr. Horsman, who is so good as to bring me out. How delicious the river is, to be sure! Mr. Renton, it was you who used to tell me of it—first.’
‘Then I am glad to have added something to your pleasures,’ said Ben. He had adjusted his sculls, and did not manifest the least inclination to stay longer. On the contrary, Mary felt that he was anxious to go on, to get clear of this interruption. And not less anxious was the young Guardsman,—almost a boy,—who had taken his hat off sulkily, and waited his orders with eagerness. Millicent was the only one of the four who had any desire to linger. She gave Ben another long, searching look, to which he made no response, being busy, or appearing to be busy, with his sculls; and then she gave a little nod to her waterman.
‘I dare say we shall meet again,’ she said, gaily, ‘unless you are going a very long way;—au revoir.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Mary. And in another moment, with one pull of the steerage and one sweep of the oars, the Renton boat had shot wide of the other, darting off to one side with a nervous motion, for which Mary alone was responsible. Ben made no remark, which was symptom enough of his agitation too. Had he been as calm as he affected to be, Mary knew well that her illegitimate energy would not have passed without remark. And they went up the river for some time at a tremendous pace, devoting themselves to their work with the energy of professional people. Mary steered beautifully all the way to the Swan’s Nest. She steered as if her life depended on it, keeping the due course in every turn, avoiding, as she ought, the side where the current was strongest, which a steerswoman seldom remembers to do, and in every way justifying the old training which had been disused so long. And scarcely a word was spoken between them until they reached the end of their expedition. It was a sheltered little elbow of the river, a very bed of water-lilies in the season. And the green leaves still spread all round like a thick carpet upon the water. Then Ben took breath for the first time. He lay upon his oars and wiped his forehead, and drew a long breath. ‘That was hard work,’ he said, with a sigh. But which it was that was hard work,—whether the encounter with Millicent, or their long, breathless sweep against the current, Mary could not tell.
‘Letus run to the Cottage for five minutes, and see mamma,’ said Mary, as they made their way back. ‘Fancy, Ben, she does not know you have come home!’
‘Shall we have time?’ Ben asked, making for the bank as he spoke. The path that led to the Cottage struck off from the river-side above The Willows. And it was always gaining time to make this little diversion. He had been so silent, saying nothing,—and a sense of disappointment had crept over Mary after the intense sympathy with which she felt she had been entering into all his thoughts.
But when he thrust the boat into the flowery bank, and helped her to jump out, Ben replied to her, though she had said nothing. ‘You are quite right,’ he said. ‘It is best in every way not to meet them again.’
‘Ben! I did not say a word——’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘you did not, and it was very, very kind of you, Mary. I am more obligedto you than I can say. There are some things which it is impossible to talk about. I thank you with all my heart.’
What did this mean? Mary was accustomed to a great deal of talk about everything,—more talk than meaning, indeed. And she was a little bewildered by this absence of all explanation. She would have been comforted had he opened up a little and told her how it all was. But she submitted, of course, concluding it was his mannish, unsatisfactory way. And as they went hurriedly up the lane, in the kindness of her heart she slid her hand through Ben’s arm. It was the softest, kindly touch, such as his sister’s hand might have given. Was not she his sister, nearer to him than any one else, and, little as she did understand, yet knowing more of what was in his heart,—she thought,—than any other creature in the world?
And Ben was not indifferent to that mute token of sympathy. He drew the timid hand closely through his arm. ‘My good little Mary!’ he said; but even then he said no more. No explanation came, whatever she might do or say, which was hard, but had to be borne.
And this is how it was that Mrs. Westbury, to her very great amazement, saw her daughter and Ben Renton approaching the Cottage arm-in-arm,—‘like an engaged couple,’ she said afterwards,—which gave her a curious thrill of admiration andsatisfaction at the first glance. When her nephew came up to her, however, nature prevailed, and the recollection of her own agency, which nobody but herself believed in, in sending all the boys away.
‘Ben!’ she cried, and then kissed him, and held both his hands, and shed some tears of surprise and joy, ‘I am so glad to see you! I cannot tell how glad I am to see you! Have you all come home?’
‘Only I,’ said Ben; ‘but the others are coming, and Mary and I have come to fetch you, Aunt Lydia, to dine with my mother. She does not understand my noise and uncouthness, after the long spell of quiet she has had. After dinner Mary and I will bring you back.’
‘Mary and you seem to be—full of business,’ said Mrs. Westbury, more and more astonished. She had intended to end her sentence differently, but had met Mary’s eye, and paused, not quite knowing what to make of it. But she went up-stairs for her best cap, calling her daughter with her. ‘What is the meaning of all this, Mary?’ she said. ‘What does Ben mean by it? For my part, I cannot tell what to think.’
‘About what, mamma?’ said Mary; but there was a little flutter in her heart which belied her composure. ‘Ben has come home, as you see, and he came to see you, as he ought to do, and he wantsyou to go to dinner. I think it is all very visible what he means.’
‘It does not seem to me at all plain,’ said Mrs. Westbury; but then she put her hand into her wardrobe to get out her cap, and decided that it was best not to spoil sport by any premature remarks. It was startling to see Mary leaning so confidentially on her cousin’s arm. And Ben’s talk of ‘Mary and I’ was very peculiar; and if the will was all right, such an arrangement would be a most sensible, most admirable one. But if things were going on so well of their own accord, it might be best to let them alone, and suffer the affair to take its own course. When she found herself walking down to the river a quarter of an hour afterwards, with a maid behind carrying her cap, and Ben and Mary on each side of her, Mrs. Westbury freely expressed her surprise at the whole business. ‘I was just going to have tea,’ she cried. ‘One can’t dine late when one is alone, and Laurence has gone over to Cookesley to see some of his friends. I never thought of seeing any of you, nor of Ben at all, though I knew he was expected. And now to find myself on my way to Renton! Laurence will be struck dumb when he comes home.’
‘So Laurence is a parson now,’ said Ben. ‘How droll it will be to see him so! but pleasant for you.You can keep hold of a parson and keep him at home.’
‘Yes. I expect you to give him Renton, you know, Ben, when old Mr. Palliser dies.’
‘Well, I suppose one of us is sure to have Renton to give,’ said Ben; ‘so that Laurence will be safe anyhow. But I have no confidence that it will be me.’
‘It must be you,’ said Mrs. Westbury, indignantly. And then there came a pause, and she was helped into the boat. ‘Who are those new people at The Willows?’ she said, as she settled herself. ‘That is their boat; they are always on the water. They say she is a young widow; but I don’t think that is much like a widow. Somebody told me you knew them, Mary. Was it yourself?’
‘She was at Thorny croft at school for a little,’ said Mary, giving her mother a look. The look put a stop to the conversation; but it had to be explained afterwards, which was done somewhat at the expense of truth. The Willows’ boat had been drawn close to the bank before they passed, and Mary was less particular in steering wide of it. Millicent stood on the lawn, having just landed, with her scarlet cloak dropping off her shoulders, and waved her hand to them. ‘Good-night! How pleasant it has been!’ she cried, her voice falling softly through the summer air, still full of the slanting sunshine. ‘Good-night!’ Mary criedacross the water. Ben never said a word; he did not even pause in the slow, vigorous, regular stroke which made the boat fly down the shining current. They were yards below The Willows before Millicent had finished speaking her two or three words. “Was he afraid?—was he indifferent? And while Mary’s mind was busy about this question, Aunt Lydia was forming her little theories of a very different kind. When a young man passes by a very pretty woman without so much as raising his head, it means,—what does it mean?—that some one else has secured his attention, and taken up all his thoughts. Mrs. Westbury felt as if Providence itself was heaping coals of fire on her head. She it was who had brought about the banishment of the boys, and yet no sooner had the first of them come home than he set about fulfilling her dearest wish. But no doubt it was for Mary’s sake. Mary, who had never harmed any one, who had helped and served everybody from her cradle. How bright she had become all at once!—how she had learned to chatter like the rest! It seemed curious to Mrs. Westbury that an important event should be coming about in her child’s life in which she herself had not been the chief actor,—especially that Mary should have had the sense to acquire for herself an eligible lover without any assistance. Ben did not look very much like a lover it is true, but Aunt Lydia was aware that a man in such a position is not always possessed with an insane delight, but often has a great deal to think of. She, too, was silent with the stress of her own thoughts. It was Mary who entertained them,—talking as she had never been heard to talk before,—full of wild spirits and fun. Her mother, who knew nothing of the story, did not perceive that Mary’s gaiety came on suddenly after they passed The Willows, nor that her eyes had the humid and dilated look which signifies emotion. One finds things out so much more readily when one has an inkling of thefin motof the enigma. Mrs. Westbury did not even know there was an enigma to solve, and set down her daughter’s high spirits to what seemed to her the most natural and the most likely cause.
‘I congratulate you, my dear, upon having Ben back again,’ she said to Mrs. Renton as she kissed her. They were not very fond of each other, the two ladies; but yet, by dint of connexion and contiguity, had come to a certain habit of mutual dependence, though the support was chiefly on one side.
‘Yes,’ Mrs. Renton said, with an under-tone which was slightly querulous. ‘He is a very good boy; but a stranger in the house makes such a difference in one’s life.’
‘You don’t call Ben a stranger, poor fellow! And he is so nice. It is quite a pleasure to seehim back,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I thought you would have been out of your wits with joy.’
‘And so I am,’ said Ben’s mother, with a little indignation; ‘but there is nobody that has any real consideration for my weakness except Mary. She knows just how much I am able to bear. I suppose it is difficult for people in health to realise how weak I am.’
‘Well, my dear, you know I always said that if you would but make an effort to exert yourself it would do all the good in the world,’ said Mrs. Westbury; and then she went up-stairs to put on her cap. ‘I have no patience with your aunt,’ she said to Mary,—‘thinking of her own little bits of ailments, half of which are mere indulgence, when her poor boy has just come home.’
‘Poor godmamma! I don’t think she can help it,’ said Mary.
‘Nonsense, child! I have said to her from the first that she ought to make an effort. How do you think I should ever have managed had I given in? And now tell me, please, what you meant by looking at me so, twice over, when I was speaking to Ben.’
‘I did not want you to talk about Mrs. Rich,’ said Mary, turning away as the exigencies of her own toilette required. ‘He used to know her, andI was afraid you might say something——’
‘You might have left that to my own discretion,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with some offence.
‘But, dear mamma, how could your discretion serve when you did not know?’ said Mary. ‘And, poor fellow! he is so,—so——’
‘So very devoted to some one else that he could not even take the trouble to look at Mrs. Rich,—such a pretty woman, too!’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘It seems to me, my dear, that you have made the very most of your time.’
‘Oh, mamma, how dreadful that you should say so!’ cried Mary, turning round again with flaming, crimson cheeks. ‘Surely, surely, you know me better! And Ben, poor fellow! has so much to think of. Nothing could be further from his mind. I have been their sister all their lives; it would be hard if I could not try to be a little comfort to him now.’
‘My dear, if he needs comfort, I am sure I have no objection,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with a smile; and just then Mary’s maid came into the room, and the conversation came to an end. It was this dreadful practical turn, which was in the old Renton blood, which bewildered the less energetic members of the family. But it was wonderful to see how Ben and Aunt Lydia got on at dinner. He told her more about his work, and what he had been doing, in half-an-hour than the others had extracted from him in twenty-four. And the Renton spirit sparkled in Mrs. Westbury’s eyes as she listened. ‘Even if you had not made a penny, Ben,’ she said, in her energetic way, ‘I should be so much more pleased that you had been making some use of your talents than just hanging on in the old way at home.’
‘But I have made a penny,’ Ben said, with a kindred glance;—he was pleased with the thought, which gave Mary a momentary disgust;—‘though it has cost more than it is worth in the making,’ he added, in a lower tone. And then his cousin forgave, and was sorry for poor Ben. It was dangerous work for Mary, especially as there was still the excitement of the return expedition across the river, to convey Mrs. Westbury home to look forward to. But, fortunately, there was no one visible about The Willows when that moment came;—nothing but serene moonlight, white and peaceable, unbroken by any shadow or voice but their own, was on the gleaming river. And the Rev. Laurence Westbury standing on the bank in his clerical coat,—who had been at school when Ben left Renton,—to take his mother home, and bid the new-comer welcome; and then the silent progress back down the stream in the moonlight. It surprised Mary afterwards to think how little Ben and she had said to each other, and yet what perfectly good company he had been. And thus they went on, those curious, rapid days.