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.
Lauriearrived on the Friday, coming in, in his usual unexpected way, through the window, when they were all in the drawing-room after dinner. The brothers had met in town, where Ben had paused for a day on his way to Renton, so that their greeting was not mingled with any of those remarks on changed appearance and unexpected signs of age which are general after a long absence. But when they stood thus together for the first time for seven years, the difference between old things and new became more perceptible to the bystanders. The surroundings were so completely the same as of old that any variation from the past became more clear to them. The same lamps, shaded for their mother’s sake; the same brilliant spot of light upon the tea-table, where the china and silver glittered; Mrs. Renton lying on the same sofa, in the same attitude, covered with the same Indian shawl; the same soft odour of mignonette and heliotrope, and earth and dew, stealing in at the great open window; even thesame moths, or reproductions of the same, making wild circles about the lamp. ‘And Mary, I think, is the very same,’ Laurie said, looking at her with true brotherly kindness. But ‘the boys’ were not the same. Of the two it was Laurie who looked the elder. He was just thirty, but the hair was getting thin on the top of his head, and his face was more worn than it had any right to be. Ben had broadened, almost imperceptibly, but still enough to indicate to the bystander that the first slim outline of youth was over. But Laurie, though he had not expanded, had aged even in the lines of his face; and then he had grown a little careless, like the society into which he had cast himself. He was dusty with his walk, and his velvet morning-coat looked strange and wild beside Ben’s correct evening costume. Lazy Laurence still; but with all the difference between sanguine youth and meditative manhood. Mary, however, was the only one of the party who was troubled by the mystery of Laurie’s subdued tone. Mrs. Renton was not given to speculation, and Ben was occupied by his own affairs to the exclusion of all inquiry into those of others. Both mother and brother took it for granted that Laurie was just as it was natural he should be. Only Mary,—sisterly, womanly, anxious always to know how it was,—watched him with a sympathetic eye.
‘Well! here we are at home once more, old fellow,’ said Laurie, throwing himself into an easy chair near the window, when the mother had been safely conveyed up-stairs.
‘Yes, a home that always looks the same,’ said Ben. ‘I am not so sure as I used to be of the good of that. It makes one feel doubly the change in one’s self.’
‘These are his Yankee notions,’ said Laurie. ‘I suppose he has given up primogeniture, and Church and State, and everything. But Mary is an orthodox person who will set us all right.’
‘As if women might not think about primogeniture and all the rest as well as you others!’ said Mary. ‘We are the only people who take any time to think now-a-days. Ben has done nothing but make railways,—and money,—and he likes it;—he is a real Renton,’ she cried, pleased to let him know her mind on that subject.
‘And very right, too,’ said Laurie. ‘If there were not Rentons to be had somewhere how should the world get on?’
‘But I don’t care for the world,’ said Mary; ‘and I would much rather you were not fond of money, like everybody else, you boys.’
‘I am very fond of money, but I never can get any,’ said Laurie. ‘I say to myself, if I should happen to come into reputation next century, what a collection of Rentons there will be for somebody to make a fortune of,—Ben’s heirs, most probably;or that little Mary of Frank’s, who is a darling. Now that I think of it, as she is a painter’s descendant, it is she who shall be my heir.’
‘I think much the best thing would be for you to have Renton, Laurie, and heirs of your own.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘my brothers are very kind. Frank took the trouble to write me a long letter ever so many years ago, adjuring me by all I held dear to marry a certain Nelly Rich.’
‘It was very impertinent of him,’ cried Mary, ‘and very conceited. Nelly Rich would no more have looked at you——’
‘Showed her sense,’ said Laurie, quietly. ‘I am only telling you what actions have been set on foot for my benefit. But I never saw Nelly Rich except once, so I am not conceited; and as for Renton, no such iniquity could ever be, as that it should go past you, Ben.’
‘You speak strongly,’ said the elder brother.
‘That is one result of time, you know. One can see now, without irreverence, how wrong my poor father was. Of course we would have been wretches had we been capable of anything but obedience at the time,’ said Laurie; ‘but, looking back, one can see more clearly. He was wrong,—I don’t bear him any malice, poor dear old father! but he did us as much harm almost as was possible. And if Renton is left out of the natural succession, I shall say it is iniquity, and oppose it with all my power.’
‘It would be iniquity,’ Ben said, gravely. And then there was a pause. The three sat, going back into their individual memories, unaware what devious paths the others were treading. But for that Laurie might never have fallen into the temptation which had stolen what energy he had out of him, and strengthened all his dreamy, unpractical ways. But for that Ben might have given the Renton force and strength of work to his country, and served her,—as is the citizen’s first duty,—instead of making American railroads, which another man might have been found to do. As for Mary, the paths in which she went wandering were not her own. It did not occur to her to think of the seven years, which for her had been simple loss. Had she been living at home, no doubt, long before this she would have married some one, and been like Alice, the mother of children. But such were not Mary’s reflections. She was thinking if this had not happened Ben would have married Millicent seven years ago, and that, on the whole, everything was for the best.
They had but one other day to themselves; but during that day the house felt, with a bewildered sense of confusion and uncertainty, that old times had come back. Mr. Ben and Mr. Laurie had gone back to their old rooms; and their steps and voices, the peremptory orders of the eldest, the ‘chaff’ of Mr. Laurie, ‘who was a gentleman asyou never could understand whether he was in earnest or in joke,’—turned the heads of the old servants. They, like their mistress, were upset by the newrégime; the dulness of the house had been a trouble to them when her reign of utter seclusion commenced; but if it was dull, there was little to do, and the house had habituated itself to the monotonous round. And now they felt it a hardship when the noise and the work recommenced, and dinner ran the risk of having to wait ten minutes, and breakfast was on the table from half-past eight to half-past ten. ‘All along o’ that lazy Laurie, as they calls him, and a very good name, too,’ said the affronted cook. Mary had much ado to keep them in working order. ‘There may be further changes after a while,’ she said to the old butler, who had carried them all in his arms, and knew about everything, and who would as soon have cut his throat as leave Renton;—‘you must have patience for a little, and see how things turn out.’ Thus it will be seen that if the return of her cousins brought any happiness to Mary it brought a great increase of anxiety as well. And there was always the sense of Millicent’s vicinity to weigh upon her mind. She had been looking forward for years to the family reunion as the end of tribulation and beginning of a better life; but up to this time her anticipations had not been fulfilled. Anxieties hadincreased upon her,—one growing out of another. Instead of comfort, and certainty, and the support which she had always been taught to believe were involved in the possession of ‘men in the house,’ Mary found that these tenants had rather an agitating than a calming effect upon herself and the community in general. That she should have more trouble about the dinners was natural; but that even their mother should require to be let softly down into the enjoyment of their society, and that circumstances in general required double consideration on account of their presence, was a new idea to Mary. And then it turned out that Mrs. Renton had spoken very truly when she said a man must have something to do. Both ‘the boys’ were in a state of restlessness and excitement, not disposed to settle to anything. There was capital shooting to be had, and the partridges were everything a sportsman could desire; but somehow even Ben felt that partridges were not congenial to the occasion. And as for Laurie, he was too indolent to make any such exertion. ‘Wait till Frank comes,’ he said. ‘Frank has energy for two. If we were on a Scotch moor, indeed, where you want to move about to keep yourself warm; but it’s too hot, my dear fellow, for stumping about through the stubble. I’ll take Mary out after a bit for a row.’ And Ben’s activities, too, culminated in the same idea. Laurie lay in thebottom of the boat, sometimes puffing gently at his cigar, doing simply nothing, while Ben pulled against stream, and Mary steered him dexterously through the weeds; and then the three floated slowly down again, saying little to each other, lingering along the mid current with scarcely any movement of the languid oars. They were not very sociable in this strange amusement; but still its starts of momentary violent exercise, its dreamy charm of movement, the warm autumnal sun overhead, the delicious gliding water that gurgled on the sides of the boat, and all the familiarity and all the novelty of the scene, chimed in with their feelings. Ben was pondering the future, which was still so dark,—his unfinished work at the other end of the world,—what he would do with Renton if it came to him,—what he would do if it did not come to him,—all the range of possibilities which overhung his way as the trees overhung the river. Laurie, for his part, wandered in a field of much wider fancy, and did not take Renton at all into account, nor the chances which a few days might bring to him. What did it matter? he could live, and he had no more to think of,—no future which interested him particularly,—no hope that would be affected by the tenor of his father’s will. Sometimes his eye would be caught by a combination of foliage, or a sudden light on the water, or the turn of Mary’s arm asshe plied her cords. ‘How did Mary keep her steering up while we were all away?’ he would say between the puffs of his cigar, and made up his mind that she should sit to him next day in that particular pose. Mary, for her own part, during these expeditions, was too much occupied in watching her cousins to have any thoughts of her own. What was Ben thinking of? Was it The Willows his mind was fixed on as he opened his full chest and sent the boat up against the stream with the force of an arrow out of a bow? Was it the image of Millicent that made his eyes glow as he folded his arms, and let the skiff idle on the current? And what were Laurie’s thoughts occupied about as he lay, lazy, in the bottom? Mary gazed at them, and wondered, not knowing what to think, and said to herself how much more difficult it was now to prognosticate what would become of them than it would have been seven years ago, at their first entering upon life. And thus the long day glided to its end.
On the Saturday Frank and his belongings arrived, and all was altered. Frank, so far as personal appearance went, was the least changed of all. His moustache had grown from the silky shadow it used to be into a very decided martial ornament, and he was brown with the Indian sun. Laurie had the presumption to insinuate that he had grown, which touched the soldier to thequick; but though he was the father of a family, the seven years had affected him less than either of his brothers. To be sure, he was but seven-and-twenty, and had lived a comparatively happy life. But it must be allowed that the Sunday was hard to get through. The three brothers, who were all very different men to begin with, had each got into his groove, and each undervalued,—let us not say had a contempt for,—the occupation of the other. What with India, and what with youth, and what with the training of his profession, Frank had all the unreasoning conservatism which was natural to a well-born, unintellectual soldier. And then he had a wife to back him, which strengthens a man’s self-opinion. ‘Depend upon it,’ he would say, ‘these Radicals will land us all in perdition if they get their way.’ ‘Why should I depend upon it, when my own opinion goes directly contrary?’ Ben, who had been in America, and all over the world, drawing in revolutionary ideas, would answer him. As for Laurie he would ask them both, ‘What does it matter? one man is as good as another, if not better,’ and smile in his pococurante way. The children were a godsend to them all, and so was Alice with her youthful wisdom. For Mary by this time, with three men to keep in order, as it were, and Mrs. Renton to hold safely in hand all the time, and all unsuitable visitors to keep at a distance, and the dinner toorder, was about as much overwhelmed with cares, and as little capable of the graces of society, as a woman could be. She had to spend with her aunt the hour of that inevitable Sunday afternoon walk, and saw her flock pair off and disappear among the trees with the sensations of an anxious mother, who feels her nursery for the moment in comparative safety. Ben with Alice and little Mary went one way, and Laurie and Frank took another. When she had seen them off Mary turned with a satisfied mind to read to her godmother the Sunday periodical which took the place of the newspaper on this day. It was very mild reading, though it satisfied Mrs. Renton. It was her principle not to drive on Sunday, and the morning was occupied by the Morning Service, which Davison and she read together before she got up, and that duty being over the Sunday periodical came in naturally to take the place of the drive. It was very rarely that she felt able to go to church; and of all days this day, which followed so closely the arrival of her sons, was the one on which she could least be supposed capable of such an exertion. So Mary read a story, and a sermon, and a missionary narrative, and was very tired of it, while the slow afternoon lingered on and the others had their walk.
Ben and Alice, though they were in the positionof brother and sister, and called each other by their Christian names, had met for the first time on the day before, and naturally were not very much acquainted with each other’s way of thinking. The woods were their great subject of discourse. ‘Frank has talked of them wherever we were,’ said Alice. ‘I am so glad to bring the children here. If we should have to go to India again it will be nice for them to remember. But I need not speak like that,’ she added, after a moment’s pause, with a sudden rush of tears to her blue eyes; ‘for if we have to go to India we must leave little Mary behind,—she is too old to go back. And I suppose if I were prudent, baby too—but I could not bear that.’
‘Why should you go back to India?’
‘Ah, we must, unless there is some money coming to us,’ said Alice: ‘you know I had no fortune. I did not think that mattered then; but when one has children one learns. Do you think there will be some money for Frank in the will?’
‘I am certain of it,’ said Ben.
‘Enough to make us able to stay at home,’ said Alice, clasping her hands. ‘It is not that I care for money, nor Frank either.’
‘But it is quite natural you should care. And I promise you,’ said Ben, ‘if there is anything I can set right, that you shall not go back to India.Whichever of us is preferred, you may be sure of that. I can answer for Laurie as for myself.’
‘Oh, I know Laurie,’ cried Alice; ‘but I did not know you,—and then perhaps Frank would not be willing;—but anyhow, since you say you are sure, I will keep up my heart.’
And in the meantime Frank and Laurie by the river-side were having their confidences too. ‘If it should come to me,’ Frank was saying, ‘I hope I shall do what is right by Ben in any case—but it will be a struggle for that little beggar’s sake.’
‘I would let the little beggar take his chance,’ said Laurie; ‘there is time enough. I don’t think you need begin to consider him yet.’
‘I should do my duty, of course,’ said Frank, ‘by Ben, who has been badly used; but I don’t deny it will cost me something, Laurie. A man does not get ties about him for nothing. If I had the chance of a home for Alice and the little ones,—even if it were not a home like this, by Jove! it would be an awful temptation,—a temptation one would scarcely know how to resist.’
‘Then it is to be hoped it will never come,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t see how we could stand in doubt for an instant. I don’t speak of natural justice. But Ben was brought up to be the heir. There was never a doubt of his being the heir till my poorfather’s will had to be read. Therefore he must be the heir now. I don’t care whether it falls to you or me. It’s as clear as daylight, and I can’t believe you would find the least difficulty in doing what was right.’
‘I should do it,’ said Frank, but he made no further protestation. In his heart he could not but say to himself that it was easy for Laurie, a man with nobody dependent on him, with no question before him such as that of returning or not returning to India, and with,—so far as any one knew,—no prospects of future happiness which depended on this decision. And Ben, too, was unmarried, and likely to be unmarried. ‘Unless he marries Mary,’ Frank said to himself. Of course if Renton fell to him he would marry, and they had all pledged themselves that Renton must fall to him, and Ben accordingly would sit down in his father’s seat, and bring in some stranger to rule over the place, and Alice and the children would have to go away. Back to India! If that were the only alternative Frank felt as if it would be impossible to do his duty by Ben. The excitement of the moment, and the fundamental simplicity of his mind, thus brought him to the strange notion that all secondary justice must have been set aside, and that it would be a question of everything or nothing to the victor. Thus theRentons awaited, with thoughts often too deep for words, with a restrained excitement wonderful to behold, with hopes and sinkings of heart, the revelation of their father’s will; and that was to take place next day.
Whenthe Rentons were all seated together in the drawing-room after dinner, doing their best to get through the Sunday evening, a note was brought to Mrs. Renton, to the amazement of all the family assembly. Mrs. Westbury and her son Laurence, who was curate of Cookesley, had joined them at dinner; and they were all seated in a circle round the room drinking their tea and trying to talk, and suppressing an occasional yawn with the true decorum of a family party. Sometimes there would get up a little lively talk between Mary and her mother and brother touching the gossip of the district, or Alice and Laurie would brighten into a familiar discussion of something belonging to Fitzroy Square; but then they would suddenly remark that the others were uninterested and taking no part, and the talk would come to a stop, and Mrs. Westbury would make a commonplace remark to one of her nephews, and Alice would ask the curate if he went often to the Opera, and a uniformityof dulness would fall upon the party. The Rentons were all well-bred people, and it was certainly not well-bred to enjoy one’s self in an animated way in a corner with two or three, while the rest of the company sat blank and did not know what one was making merry about. To be sure, there was Alice’s music to fall back upon; but, except to two or three of the company, that would not much mend matters; so that when the note was brought to Mrs. Renton there was immediately a little movement of interest. Ben brought one of the shaded lamps to his mother that she might read it, and Mary drew near in case her services should be wanted to write the answer, for which the butler stood solemnly waiting erect in the midst of the fatigued group.
‘It must be something very urgent indeed to write about to-day,’ Mrs. Westbury said. ‘I am old-fashioned, and I don’t think the family quiet should be disturbed on Sunday unless it is something of importance.’
‘My dear, I can’t read these dreadful hands that people write now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t get the light on it, and I am too tired to sit up. If you would read it aloud, Ben——’
Ben took the little note in his hand, and put the lamp down on the nearest table. His face was in shade, and it was impossible to tell what his feelings were. He glanced over the note for asecond, and then read it aloud as his mother bade. It was a prayer to be allowed to visit the woods next morning with a friend who was going away, and it was signed ‘Millicent Rich.’ ‘I would not have dreamt of asking, knowing that you have all your people about you, and do not want to be troubled with strangers,’ she wrote; ‘but our friend is going off by the three o’clock train. We shall keep strictly to the woods, and not come near the house to worry you, when your attention must be so occupied with other things; but please let me come.’ This was what Ben read out with a perfectly expressionless voice, not even faltering over the name.
‘Of course she must come,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Mary, you must write a note for me. Say that the boys being here makes no difference, and that if she will come to luncheon and bring her friend——’
‘But, godmamma, Mr. Ponsonby is coming,’ said Mary, while Ben took up the lamp, and stood like a monument, holding it in his hand.
‘Mr. Ponsonby will not eat her, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Renton; and then there was a pause.
‘But, godmamma,’ Mary resumed after that interval, ‘don’t you think so important a day as to-morrow is,—and so much as there will be going on——’
‘Any stranger would be a bore,’ said Frank.‘How are we to go and talk and be civil, when an hour more may see us set up or ruined——’
Here Alice plucked at his sleeve, indicating with a look of warning the stolid countenance of old Willis, who stood listening to everything. ‘If it would be any pleasure to grandmamma, I would attend to them,’ she said.
‘And I think it would be a very good thing for you all,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘and take your minds off yourselves a little. It is a blessing to have a stranger for that,—you are obliged to exert yourselves, and kept from brooding over one subject. I think your mother is quite right.’
‘Let us have them,’ said Laurie. ‘What does it matter? Old Ponsonby is always late.’
‘He will surely never be late on an occasion of such importance,’ said Laurence Westbury.
Mrs. Renton looked from one to another with an anxious countenance, and they came round the sofa, glad of the little interruption to that family quiet which was almost too much blessedness. Ben, who said nothing, lighted up the circle in a curious Rembrandtish way, holding his lamp so as to screen his mother; and outside stood old Willis, erect as a soldier, with unmoved countenance, waiting for the answer.
‘Ben, what do you say?’ said Mrs. Renton, with all the earnestness of a last appeal.
‘That you must do just what you like, mother,’ said Ben.
Upon which she wrung her hands in despair. ‘How can I tell what I shall like if none of you will advise me?’ she said.
‘I will attend to them, if grandmamma would like it,’ said Alice, coming to the head of the sofa. ‘And I am sure you would like it, dear grandmamma; it would give you something else to think of.’
‘So it would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘and how I am to get through to-morrow without some assistance is more than I can tell.’
‘It will take all your minds off the one subject,’ added Mrs. Westbury; ‘and of course there must always be luncheon. Mary, go and do what your aunt tells you. It will be good, my dears, for you all.’
And Ben gave a little gesture with his hand, Mary caught his eye over the glowing darkness of the shaded lamp, and went and wrote her note without a word. Ben’s face had said, or seemed to say, ‘Let them come,—what does it matter?’ And if it did not matter to him, certainly it mattered nothing to any one else. When the note was despatched, Alice sat down at the piano and played to the entire satisfaction of her husband, his mother, and Laurence Westbury. Ben settleddown in a corner and took a book, till his aunt Lydia went and sat beside him, when an earnest conversation ensued; and Laurie stood idling by the window, beating back the moths that came in tribes to seek their destruction in the light, and sometimes saying a word to Mary, who, half occupied by the music and more than half by her own thoughts, sat near him within the shadow of the curtains.
‘What sort of people are those that are coming to-morrow, and why don’t you like them?’ said Laurie, under cover of a fortissimo.
‘I never said I did not like them,’ said Mary.
‘No; but I know you don’t. Who are they?’
And then the music fell low into tremulous, dying murmurs, and all was silent in the room except for a shrill ‘s’ now and then of Mrs. Westbury’s half-whispered energetic conversation with Ben. When the strain rose and swelled into passion, the talk at the window was resumed.
‘It is not they,—it is she I don’t like;—one of my old school-fellows, and the most beautiful woman you ever saw.’
‘Hallo!’ said Laurie, ‘is that the reason why?’
‘Yes, of course. We should all like to strangle her because she is so pretty,’ said Mary, with a certain rancour in her voice.
Laurie sent a great night-moth out with a rush, and then he stooped towards his cousin’s hiding-place. ‘Granted in the general,’ he said, ‘but there is something particular about this.’
What could Mary say? Her heart was quivering with that poignant sense of weakness and inability to resist fate which sometimes overcomes a woman in those secret machinations for somebody else’s good, which are so seldom successful. ‘I have done,’ she said; ‘I will try no more.’ And that was all the answer that was given to Laurie’s curiosity.
Alice had not fallen off in her playing. The piano, under her fingers, gave forth such sounds as wiled the very hearts out of the bosoms of the three who were listening. Mrs. Renton lay back on her sofa, with the tears coming to her eyes and a world of inarticulate, inexpressible feeling in her heart. Had it been poetry, the poor lady would have yawned and wished herself in bed; but now she had floated into a serene Eden,—a Paradise full of all vague loveliness, and sweetness, and unspeakable, indistinct emotions. As for Laurence Westbury, he dared scarcely draw breath, so entirely did the witchery seize him. The music to him stormed and struggled like a soul in pain, and paused and sank to give forth the cry of despair, and swelled into a gathering hope, into a final conflict, into delicious murmurs of sweetness and gratefulness and repose; there was a whole drama in it, moving the real listener with such a rapidsuccession of feeling as the highest tragic efforts of poetry call forth in others. While in the meanwhile Ben and Aunt Lydia talked quite undisturbed in their corner of railways and investments, and of how much Renton might be improved, and how fast Dick Westbury was making his fortune out in India; and Laurie was driving out the moths, and moralising over their eagerness to enter, and thinking of anything in the world rather than the music. Such were the strange differences of sensibility and feeling among half-a-dozen people, all of one race.