‘I think you look more beautiful than usual,’ said Mary, with a certain spitefulness. She intended no compliment. It was rather a reproach she meant, as if she had said, ‘You have no right to be beautiful. Why shouldn’t you look a perfect ghost like other people?’ It was sharply said, not without a touch of bitterness, though it sounded pleasantly enough; and Millicent shook back her veil a little further, and laid her fingers caressingly upon Mary’s hand.
‘Ah, it is you who are partial!’ she said, while Mary boiled with secret wrath. ‘But tell me about Thornycroft, and if it is still kept up; and our old Gorgon, you know, and all the people. There was that poor Mr. Thorny, too,’ said Millicent, with a little laugh; ‘tell me about them all.’
‘Mr. Thorny died,—as you must have heard,’ said Mary; ‘and it was your doing, everybody said; and then poor Miss Thorny gave up. I wonder you like to think of it. It might have been going on like old times but for you——’
‘Could I help it?’ said Millicent, with a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘If a man is a fool, is it my fault? You must know by this time, Mary, as well as I do, what fools they will make of themselves; but it is too bad to call it our fault.’
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Mary, fiercely, and then there was a pause.
‘This is such a lovely place,’ said Mrs. Tracy;‘we have heard so much about it. We used to know your cousin, Mr. Benedict Renton, Miss Westbury,—at one time. I suppose he is still abroad?’
‘Yes, he is still abroad.’
‘What a sad thing for him, with his prospects! It must have upset all your calculations. But the time is up now, is it not?’ Mrs. Tracy said, with her most ingratiating smile.
Mary perceived in a moment what was their object, and hoping it might be but a voyage of inquiry, shut up all avenues of intelligence in her, and faced the inquisitor with a countenance blank of all meaning—or so at least she thought. ‘What time is up?’ she said.
‘Oh, the time,’ cried Millicent, breaking in impatiently,—‘the time, you know, for the will. As if you did not know all about it! Oh, you need not be afraid to trust us. Ben Renton was not so careful; he told me everything about it. I must tell you that we saw a great deal of Ben at one time,’ Millicent added, with one of her vain looks. Mary says it might have been called an arch look by a more favourable critic. ‘He was, in short, you know, a little mad—but you will say that was my fault.’
‘I have no more to do with my cousin’s private affairs than I have with Mr. Rich’s,’ said Mary; ‘indeed, I wish you would not tell me. My cousinis not a man to like to have his affairs talked about. I would rather not hear any more.’
‘Miss Westbury is quite right, Millicent,’ said Mrs. Tracy, ‘and shows a great deal of delicacy. She is always such a thoughtless child, my dear. She never stops to think what she is going to say. The harm it has done her, too, if she could only see it! Millicent, my darling, if you would but learn some of Miss Westbury’s discretion! But it will be pleasant for you to have your cousins home again, I am sure.’
To this artful question Mary gave no answer at all. Indignation began to strengthen her. She sat still, with an air which any well-bred woman knows how to assume when necessary,—an air of polite submission to whatever an unwelcome visitor may choose to say. It neither implies assent nor approbation, but,—it is not worth while to contradict you. Such was the expression on Mary’s face.
‘Ah, mamma, Mary has not such a warm heart for old friends as I have,’ said Millicent at last. ‘I have been raving about coming to see her for weeks back, but she does not care to see me. She is indifferent to her old friends.’
‘Were we ever old friends?’ said Mary. ‘I don’t remember. You were older than I was. I thought you were very pretty, as everybody did, but——’
‘But you did not like me. Oh, I am used tothat from women,’ said Millicent, with a mocking laugh; and she actually rose to her feet to go away.
And the colour rushed into Mary’s face. Used to that from women! because of her beauty, which transcended theirs! The ordinary reader will think it was a self-evident proposition, but Mary was of a different opinion, being thus directly and personally accused.
‘I don’t know about women,’ she said, indignantly; ‘but I have never had any occasion,—to be jealous of you.’ This was said with a fierceness which Mary never could have attained to had it been simply true. ‘I admire you very much,’ she added, with a little vehemence. ‘I did so at school; but that does not alter the truth. We were never great friends.’
‘Well, it is kind of you to put me in mind of that,’ said Millicent. ‘Mamma, come. You see it is as I told you. We shall find no nice neighbours at Renton. It is best to go away.’
The word ‘neighbours’ made Mary start, and she had not time to realise that she was about to get rid of them, when the door was suddenly pushed open, and Mrs. Renton’s maid appeared with her shawls, and her cushions, and her knitting. ‘Mrs. Renton is coming down immediately,’ said the woman; and on this, to Mary’s bewilderment, her visitors sat down again. She was driven to herwits’ end. To leave them to encounter poor Mrs. Renton was like bringing the lamb to an interview with the wolf.
‘May I ask you to come to the library?’ she said, hurriedly. ‘My aunt is a great invalid, and sees no visitors. Pray forgive me for asking you;—this way,’ and rushed to the door before them. But the fates were against poor Mary on that unfortunate day.
‘We have made quite a visitation already,’ said Mrs. Tracy, and got up again to shake hands. As for Millicent, though she had been so angry, she took Mary’s two hands again; and, stooping over her, gave her another kiss. And all these operations took time, and, before they had made any progress towards their departure, Mrs. Renton came in, and received with some astonishment the curtsies and salutations of the unknown guests.
‘Pray don’t hurry away because I have come. I am always so glad when Mary has her friends to see her,’ Mrs. Renton said, with the sweetest amiability; ‘do sit down, pray.’ The mother and daughter waited for no second invitation. They put themselves on either side of Mrs. Renton, as they had done off Mary; and thus a kind of introduction had to be performed most unwillingly by the victim, who felt that her cause was lost.
‘Mrs. Rich!’ said the lady of the house, gathering up her wools,—‘that must be a relationof the Riches of Richmont. Oh, yes; we know them very well,—that is, they are very good sort of people, I am sure. When my son Frank was at Royalborough, he used to go to see them. All the officers do, I believe; and he made me call. Oh, yes, of course, I understand,—the son who died. Poor thing! your daughter is a very young widow.’ This was aside to Mrs. Tracy, who had already volunteered to arrange the cushions in Mrs. Renton’s chair.
‘Not much more than a child,’ said that astute mother; ‘and left so poorly off, after all! You may suppose, Mrs. Renton, if I had not thought it would be a very good marriage in point of money, I should never have sacrificed my child to the son of a man in the City. I would rather have starved. And then it turned out he had not half what he was supposed to have. People that do those sort of things should be punished,’ Mrs. Tracy said, with fire in her eye.
‘Indeed, that is my opinion,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but I always thought the Riches were rolling in money.’ And then she made a little internal reflection that, perhaps, on the whole, Frank had not done so very much amiss.
‘So we thought,’ said Mrs. Tracy, confidentially; ‘or rather, so I thought, for my poor child is as innocent as a baby. But poor Harry had speculated, I believe, or done something with his money;and his father is as hard,—oh, as hard—— If I could but see justice done to my Millicent, I care for nothing more.’
‘And, dear me, we had thought they were such liberal kind of people!’ said Mrs. Renton, thinking more and more that Frank, on the whole—— ‘And your daughter is so very prepossessing,’ she added, in a lower tone. ‘Of course they knew all about it,—before——’
‘That is just it,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘the marriage took place abroad, and we were both so ignorant of business, and I fear the settlements were not quiteen règle; I am so foolish about business; all I trust to is the heart.’
‘Dear, dear, what a sad thing! But I should always have looked over the settlements,’ said Mrs. Renton, who knew as much about it as her lap-dog, shaking her head and looking very wise. Millicent had pretended to talk to Mary while this was going on, but principally had employed herself in gazing round the room, noting all its special features. Furnished all anew, in amber satin, it would look very well, she thought; and, oh, what a comfort to have such a home, after all the wanderings of her life! And then she wondered what the house was like in Berkeley Square. Poor, dear Ben! what a surprise it would be to him to find that she was established at the Willows! She wondered whether he would be very angry about her marriage, or whether hewould think, as a great many men did, that a young widow was very interesting; and how long a time it would be before they had made up their quarrels and he was at her feet again! These questions were so full of interest that Mary’s taciturn manner did not trouble her. ‘I daresay she would like to have him herself,’ Millicent said; and the desire seemed so natural that her respect for Mary rather increased than otherwise. If she had let such a prize slip through her hands without so much as an attempt to secure it, then Millicent would have thought her contemptible indeed.
At length there came a moment when it seemed expedient that she too should strike in to the conversation with Mrs. Renton. There was an audible pause. Millicent was not so clever as her mother; but in such a crisis as the present she was put upon her mettle. So long as there were only men to deal with there was no need for much exertion. Nature had provided her with the necessary weapons to use against such simpletons,—her eyes, the turn of her head, her smile, a soft modulation of her voice; but with a feminine audience it was a different matter. There, wit was more needful to her than beauty,—mother wit,—adroitness,—the faculty of adapting herself to her part and her listeners. Mrs. Tracy looked at her with an anxiety which she could not disguise. A statesman looking on while his son made his first speech in Parliament, could scarcelyhave experienced a graver solicitude. As it was, Millicent addressed herself to her mother with the softest of voices. ‘Mamma,’ she said, ‘does it not seem strange to find yourself here, after all Mr. Ben Renton used to tell us? How fond he was of his beautiful home!’
And then came the expected question from his mother,—‘Ben? my son Ben? Did you meet him abroad? Is it long since you saw him? Dear, dear, why I am looking for my boy home every day. They are all coming home about,—about——’ Here Mrs. Renton caught Mary’s warning eye, and paused, but immediately resumed again. ‘Why, of course, everybody knows! Why should not I say what it is about? It was an arrangement of my poor dear husband’s. They are coming to read the will. We don’t know how we are left, none of us, for it was a very odd arrangement; but I am sure he meant it for the best. We shall be together next month, and I am sure Ben will be charmed to resume his acquaintance with you. What a nice thing you should be in the neighbourhood! The only thing is, that I am afraid you will find The Willows damp.’
‘But what a pleasure for you to have all your family with you!’ said Millicent; ‘and oh! what a delight to your sons to return to you!’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Of course I shall be very glad to see them. And then, to be sure,shooting will have begun, and they will be able to amuse themselves. I am such an invalid, I tremble at the thought of any exertion.’
And when Mrs. Renton said this, Millicent rose, and declared she knew that she could put one of those cushions more comfortably in the chair.
It was quite late in the afternoon when they left the Manor at last, for Mrs. Renton insisted that they should stay to luncheon. She was distressed beyond measure when she heard of the fly which had been waiting for so long. ‘It will cost you a fortune,’ she cried; ‘and we could have set you down when we went for our drive.’
‘We are not very rich,’ Mrs. Tracy said in reply; ‘but to have made acquaintance with you is such a pleasure. And it is not often we indulge ourselves.’
Mrs. Renton declared, when they were gone, that it was years since she had seen any one who pleased her so much. ‘As for the daughter, she is perfectly beautiful!’ she cried, in rapture; ‘and to think that such a lovely creature should have married Harry Rich!’
‘But we don’t know anything about Harry Rich,’ said Mary, who was disposed to be misanthropical; ‘perhaps he was a lovely creature too.’
‘I don’t understand what has come to you, Mary,’ said her aunt. ‘Why should you be so disagreeable? Such a nice, pretty creature; one would have thought she was just the very companion youwant. And your own old schoolfellow, too! I never like to give in to what people say of girls being jealous of each other, but it really looks more like that than anything else.’
‘Yes; I suppose I must be jealous of her,’ said Mary; and Mrs. Renton took the admission for irony, and read her a long lecture when they went for their drive. It is hard upon a young woman to be lectured when she is out driving, and can neither run away nor occupy herself with anything that may make a diversion. Poor Mary had to listen to a great many remarks about the evils of envy and self-estimation, and the curious want of sympathy she showed.
‘Poor thing!—a widow at such an early age, and badly left, and with such very sweet manners. And the mother such a very judicious person,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I am so glad they are at The Willows. It will be quite a resource to the boys.’
Then indeed something very like bitterness rankled in Mary Westbury’s heart. Envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. Yes, very likely it would be a resource for the boys. In all her own long and tedious fulfilment of their duties, Mary had never once proposed to herself any reward ‘when the boys came home,’ and yet, perhaps, there had been in her heart some hope of appreciation,—some idea that they would understand what abnegation of herself it had been. Theywould know that this long, monotonous stretch of duty,—which was not, after all, her first natural duty,—was not less, but perhaps more hard, than their own wanderings and labour. And now all at once a cloud had fallen over this prospect. One soweth and another reapeth. Mary had laboured and denied herself for their sakes; but it was this stranger who would be the great resource for the boys. And Ben! Mary’s heart contracted with a secret, silent pang as she thought of Ben coming defenceless, unprepared, to find the syren who had,—she did not doubt,—bewitched and betrayed him, seated at his very gates. Her last conversation with him rose up before her as clear as if it had but just occurred. Ben, too, had ventured to suggest that she,—that all women,—would be envious of Millicent. Her heart rose with an indignant swell and throb. Was there nothing then in the world better than blue eyes and lips like rose-leaves, and the syren’s voice and smile? If that was all a man cared for, was he worth thinking of? She had gone and married Henry Rich when Ben was poor. And now that the man whose name she bore had opportunely vanished from her path, she had returned now Ben was about to regain his fortune, to lie in wait for him, with a miserable pretence of old friendship and tender regard for his cousin, who was to be the victim, and scapegoat, and sacrifice for all! Perhaps it was not much wonder thatMary was bitter. And she had all a woman’s natural distrust in the man’s powers of resistance. It never occurred to her that the syren of his youth might now have no attraction for him. ‘They are like that,’ she said to herself, with a true woman’s feeling of half-impatient tolerance, and pity, and something like contempt,—not blame, as if he were a free agent. It was not he, but she, upon whom it was natural to lay the blame.
Abouta week after the arrival of the visitors from The Willows, an arrival of a very different kind happened at Renton;—and yet it could not be called an arrival. There had been no further news, and the Manor was still in the same state of pleasant confusion and preparation,—the maids sitting and chatting over their work in the west wing, and a roomful of seamstresses working at the new carpets and curtains for ‘the boys’ rooms,’—when one morning Mary was mysteriously called out from Mrs. Renton’s room, where she was reading the newspaper, her usual morning occupation. ‘It was a lady who wanted to see her,’ the maid said; and was stolid, and refused all further particulars. ‘A lady,—any one who has been here lately?’ Mary asked, stiffening into sudden offence. It could be nobody but Millicent, she thought, though Millicent had been at the house repeatedly since her first visit, and was already known. ‘I never saw her before, miss,—not at Renton,’ was the reply; and Mary, annoyed,went to see for herself who the unknown visitor was. She had been set on edge by the events of the last few days. ‘Wheresoever the carrion is, there will the eagles be gathered together,’ she said to herself, with a kind of spiteful misery. So long as nothing was going to happen in the family, no mysterious visitors, neither men nor women, came near Renton; and now here was the second in a week! Perhaps some other syren to put herself in Ben’s way; perhaps somebody who possessed Laurie’s secret, whatever that might be. As for Frank, he was a married man, and had his wife to take care of him, and, heaven be praised! could have no secrets,—at least, none in which Mary could be compelled to interfere.
She went to the drawing-room door discontented, with no comfortable expectation. But when she had opened it, the most unexpected scene burst upon her eyes. The first thing she saw was a Hindoo ayah holding in her arms one of those milk-white, blue-veined children whose delicacy of tint contrasts so strangely with the dusky arms that carry them,—the kind of child of which one says involuntarily that it is an Indian child. Her first glance was at that pearly, blue-eyed creature, and then she turned round with a start and cry of joy upon a lady who stood by smiling.
‘Is it Alice?’ she cried. The comfort it was to her, the relief and satisfaction and sense of strength it gave her, would be difficult to describe. Marywas not given to enthusiasm, but she clasped her arms about the new-comer with a warmth which brought tears to her eyes. ‘I thought it was some one disagreeable, and it is you!’ she cried in her delight. She had been looking for an enemy, and here was a natural assistant and ally.
And then ensued a flutter of explanation and welcome, as was natural. It was Alice who had thus come unaccompanied and unexpected,—or, rather, it was Mrs. Frank Renton, a young matron of six years’ standing, with one wistful, bright-eyed, wondering little girl by her side, and the child on the nurse’s knee.
‘We came to give mamma a surprise,’ said Alice; ‘not to keep her anxious till the last moment, thinking everything impossible must have happened to us. I know how she watches every day and thinks. And this was such a good opportunity for coming! We came when she had not the least expectation of us, and saved her all that. It was Frank’s idea,’ said the young wife, with a happy smile.
‘And where is Frank?’
‘Coming next mail. Yes, that is the worst of it; but, as he said, we could not have everything; and I came with Lady Sinclair, the Governor-General’s wife, you know. Think what an honour it is! And she was so kind to us. She has quite taken a fancy to us, which is odd. I don’t mean it is odd that they should all be fond of Frank, foreverybody is. Don’t you think baby is like him? Come and look at baby. I am sure you have not had a good look at him yet. Mamma has done nothing but carry him about in her arms. It is so funny to see my baby in mamma’s arms,’ cried Alice, with a sudden gush of bright tears; ‘and, oh! so nice! I love him the more for it. She thinks he is rather pale. Well, perhaps he is a little pale. I suppose Indian babies generally are,—and then the journey, you know. Renton is not a bit changed. I stood just now, when you came in, on the very same pattern of the carpet that I stood on when Frank brought me here first; and I was so dreadfully frightened; and then you came and put your arms round my neck——’
‘You were such a child,’ said Mary; and the two kissed each other once more.
‘It was so good of you to put your arms round my neck. Not just a regulation kiss, as Frank says. I put myself on the very same square this time to see what you would do.’
‘Why you are a child still!’ said Mary, looking at her with that curious mixture of amusement and wonder and respect with which an unmarried woman looks upon the matron who is younger than herself. How many experiences Alice had gone through of which the home-dwelling girl knew nothing! And yet she was a child still!
‘So mamma says,’ said Alice. ‘But, oh! how nice and fresh and bright you look! Is that how dresses are made now? Am I a dreadful fright in my old things? For money does not go so far in India as one thinks; and what with the children and everything, I have had to be very economical. Mamma says I am about fifty years behind other people; and they all laugh so at poor baby’s things. But he has got on his new pelisse to-day, and I think he looks very nice. Is grandmamma up yet? Do you think she would like the children to go and see her in her room?’
‘I must let her know first,’ said Mary.
But she lingered, and this babble ran on, which was so pleasant; and the children’s hats were taken off, and Alice exhibited little Mary’s hair, which was pale gold, of the softest, silkiest kind; but would notcrêper, nor stand out, as ‘the fashion’ was, to her despair.
‘You would not think she had half so much as she has,’ the mother said; ‘it is so soft. Look here, how thick it is! but it will not hang as it ought. Should I take her to Truefitt, or somebody? Frank thinks it is pretty as it is, but then he did not know what was the fashion; and he is silly,—he likes curls.’
‘And, by-the-bye, where are your curls?’ said Mary.
Alice laughed and shook her head with the pretty movement that these same curls had made habitual to her.
‘I put them up to come out,’ she said. ‘Fancy coming out with the children, and without Frank, with those things bobbing about my shoulders like a baby! I wish you would speak to him about it, Mary. Mamma agrees with me that I ought to put them up when I go out; but he is such an old goose. Don’t you think we ought to go to grandmamma? She may think that it is unnatural of us not to go to her at once.’
‘It will do by-and-by,’ said Mary. ‘You know what an invalid she is. How good the children are, Alice! I am sure she will be delighted with them, after all.’
‘After all?’ cried Alice, amazed. ‘But you must not think they are always good; you should see mamma with them. Mamma looks as if it was natural to her to have a baby in her arms. Wasn’t it good of Frank to make up the plan for me to come over and save her all the anxiety? I did not want to come till he was ready myself. It was all his consideration. And then Lady Sinclair wanted me so much to travel with her. Of course it was more comfortable. And as I am not a great lady myself, nor anybody particular, it was nice to have Lady Sinclair to take me up, you know, for Frank’s sake.’
‘Why, you are quite a little woman of the world!’
‘That is what mamma says; but so would you, if you were asked about your people, and all sorts of questions put to you. I always used to feel so ashamed, when the colonel’s wife began to talk to me, that I had not an uncle an earl, or even a baronet. That would have been better than nothing, for Frank’s sake. I do think he felt it sometimes, and was angry that his wife was a nobody; but then when Lady Sinclair took me up,’ Alice said, with a sparkle in her eyes,—‘and the Governor-General is baby’s godfather,—that made all the difference. It was quite absurd the difference it made.’
‘And I hope you have kept up your music,’ said Mary, thinking of Mrs. Renton. But to Alice the question had another meaning, and covered her soft face with a sudden blush.
‘I am so glad! Lady Sinclair does not care for music,’ she cried; ‘not one bit! She does not know Beethoven from Verdi. It was me she liked, and not my playing. Oh, if you knew how impertinent they used to be! saying I must have been professional, and such cruel things;—not that there would have been any harm in being professional,—but only you know men have such prejudices, and it made Frank furious. But it was me Lady Sinclair liked, though I dare say you are surprised,’ Alice added,with a laugh of pleasant girlish vanity. Her heart was thrown wide open by the excitement of the home-coming; all its envelopes of shyness and strangeness having been forgotten for the moment. Except with ‘mamma,’ she had never chattered so freely to any one in her life.
‘Very much surprised,’ Mary said, kissing the bright face which had come upon her like a revelation. They had jumped all at once into the tenderest intimacy. Frank’s bride had been a timid little stranger the last time she was at Renton, afraid to speak, carrying herself very gingerly among her unknown relations; but she was flushed by the delight of being among her own people this time, and confident of everybody’s regard.
‘I think really I ought to go to grandmamma now,’ she added, after that pleasant laugh. And Mary hastened to her godmother to prepare the way. Mrs. Renton had just finished dressing, and was lying on her sofa, to recover from the exertion, sipping her cup of arrowroot. She was in a pale grey dress, which, she flattered herself, was slightly mourning, but had some pretty pink ribbons in her cap, to which that description could scarcely be applied. They were not perhaps very suitable to her widowhood, but then they were very becoming; and when the sun is shining brightly, even an invalid lady upon a sofa is apt to feel an inclination towards such innocent vanities.
‘My mistress has taken a biscuit with her arrowroot this morning,’ said the maid, in a tone of exultation. ‘I always said as a little bit of company was the thing that would do her most good.’
Mrs. Renton gave a soft smile in acknowledgment of this commendation. She was aware that it was good of her to eat that biscuit, and a gentle self-approval filled her heart. ‘I quite enjoyed it,’ she said; and Mary had to pause and hear an account of what kind of biscuit it was, and to express her delight at the feat. ‘And I have something else to tell you, dear godmamma,’ she said; ‘if you are quite sure you will not be upset by the surprise. Some one has just arrived,—Alice and the children! She had an opportunity to come by this last mail, with Lady Sinclair, the Governor-General’s wife, who has taken a great fancy to her. Frank would not let her miss the opportunity. She arrived the day before yesterday, and she is with the children, looking so nice! I am sure you will be delighted to see them. Shall I bring them up here?’
Mary’s nervousness betrayed itself in the haste with which she delivered this long explanation, never pausing to take breath. And Mrs. Renton put down her arrowroot and sat upright on the sofa. ‘Bring them here!—Alice and the children! Good heavens, Mary! are you out of your senses?’ said the invalid, ‘when I have just this moment got out of bed!’
‘But she will wait as long as you please,’ said Mary, anxiously.
‘And you know I hate surprises,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It may be all very well for you robust people who are never ill; but such a thing upsets my nerves altogether; and nothing is ready, you know; and why did Frank not come with her? But it just shows how dreadful it is to have to do with people who are out of society!’ cried Mrs. Renton, putting one foot to the ground. ‘I suppose I must go and see to things myself.’
‘Missis will make herself quite ill!’ cried the maid, in alarm. ‘Oh, please, ma’am,—if you would be so good, ma’am,—Dr. Mixton would never forgive me if you went and walked about after you’ve took your arrowroot.’
‘Don’t worry me, Davison!’ cried Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘as if I had not enough to worry me! Couldn’t she write? or keep to her proper time? I don’t understand how you can countenance such a thing, Mary! As for walking about, I can’t do it. If all the house goes to sixes and sevens,—and there is no place for anybody to sleep in,—I can’t help it; I cannot do it. I have my duty to my children to think of, and I am not going to kill myself.’
At this moment Alice, who had become impatient, knocked at the door. Nobody conceived that such an invasion was possible, and therefore Davisonopened the door, cautious, but unsuspecting, while Mrs. Renton put up her foot again, and lay back, the image of exhaustion, on the sofa. Davison gave a little cry of mingled horror and delight, if such a mixture may be. Alice stood in the doorway with a child in each hand. They were all lightly clad in white summer dresses, the young mother and the two children. Little Laurence tottered forward a step or two, holding by his mother’s hand, and Mary held back, gazing, with wistful blue eyes, at the strange scene. Mrs. Renton, as long as she was by herself, was an invalid given up to all sorts of indulgences; but when she was brought face to face with the outside world she was a lady, and knew how to adopt that graciousrôle. Before Mary Westbury could recover from her astonishment and consternation, the mistress of the house held out her hands to her daughter-in-law. ‘Ah, Alice, come in,’ she said; ‘bring them to me. I am not able, my dear, to go to you.’
And in five minutes more, the chatter and the laughter, the tumult of pleasant explanations and questions, and all the talk that belongs to an arrival, was in full course by the side of Mrs. Renton’s sofa. As for Alice, it had never occurred to her to be afraid of her mother-in-law. She was afraid of nobody in the present felicitous state of her affairs. She had forgotten altogether how little she had been at Renton, how small her personal knowledge was of thehousehold there. Somehow, through those six years of correspondence, the Manor and the Square had got jumbled together in the mind of Mrs. Frank Renton. Had she come with any doubt of her reception, the chances were that things would not have gone so pleasantly. But she had not the least doubt of her reception. She could not be kept away even so long as was necessary to get grandmamma’s reply. She took it for granted that her husband’s mother belonged to her almost as much as her own. Who should go and ask admission for Frank’s children into the room their father was born in, but she? And this fearlessness vanquished the invalid, who felt all her tremors of anticipation quieted in a moment. The children did not scream, but only gazed at her in silence, with big, wide-open eyes,—and baby was like his father. And Mrs. Renton, though she had been so long accustomed to think of herself first, and watch over her own peace and comfort, was still Frank’s mother. After awhile old recollections came over her, and she cried a little over Frank’s boy. ‘I remember when his father was just like him,’ she began to tell Alice, and ran into a hundred little nursery stories, which roused her heart within her. ‘I might have talked to her for a hundred years before she would have thought of telling them to me,’ said Mary, with again an unmarried young woman’s admiration, and soft half-envy of the young mother’s privileges.Alice drew a low chair to the side of the sofa, and put the baby—most daring proceeding of all—on the very couch itself, that grandmamma might give her opinion of his little dimpled arms and legs, and say if she did not think he was stout enough, though perhaps not so fat as an English baby ought to be. ‘But mamma says she does not care for those very fat babies,’ Alice said, with eyes intent upon the face of the critic. ‘And neither do I,’ Mrs. Renton said with solemnity, holding her grandson’s little pink foot in her hand. ‘If I had done it, poor godmamma would have been quite ill all day,’ Mary said afterwards, describing the meeting to her mother. And for an hour or two there was nothing to be heard but that soft feminine talk, all full of bits of private history, and interspersed with every kind of digression, which women love. Alice gave them no narrative of her six years’ absence; butaproposof everything and nothing, there would come a little chapter out of the heart of it. ‘It was that time when I was rather ill—that Frank wrote to you about. He took me up to the hills, and we had to leave little Mary at the station. We went along with the General and his wife, and they were so friendly; and it was he, you remember, who recommended Frank for that appointment he has held ever since. To tell the truth, we had got into debt,’ said Alice, with a blush; ‘it was that that made me ill, asmuch as anything. We were determined not to tell you, but struggle out of it as best we could, and you can’t think how glad we were of that appointment. I thought you would all think me such a wretched little creature to have brought Frank nothing, and yet have let him get into debt. It was there I first saw a lady with a chignon. I could not tell what to make of it at first, and Frank thought it hideous; but then it was too big—it was as big as her head.’
‘Depend upon it, my dear, it was false hair; they say everybody wears false hair now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton, who was still holding in her hand the baby’s little dimpled foot.
‘But I don’t believe that,’ said Alice. ‘I like you in the chignon, Mary; it suits you much better than the other fashion; and what a comfort it must be not to have any curls to do when you are sleepy! Grandmamma dear, I wish you would tell me what to do with little Mary’s hair. It is so soft it will notcrêper, nor anything. Lady Sinclair’s niece’s little girl looks to have a perfect bush of hair, and Mary has just as much, but it will not stand out.’
‘It must be plaited every night before she goes to bed,’ said Mrs. Renton, ‘and just damped a little before it is plaited. Have you an English nurse? Of course your ayah must be sent back. And, Alice, I hope you are quite sure about that debt.’
‘It was all paid, every penny! Don’t be afraid. I could never have come home and looked you in the face if it had not been paid. And I have taken such care ever since! Frank is,—too generous, you know. He asks people, and does not think. And then everybody that pleases comes and stays with you. India is such a funny place for that. When we were at Goine Ghurla, the Fentons lived with us for six weeks; they could not get a house to suit them, and we had a larger one than we wanted, and of course they came to us as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It is very nice, but it is rather expensive. Of course we could have gone to them in return had we wanted to go, but we never did. How nice it is to see you in your pink ribbons, grandmamma, after that dreadful widow’s cap!’
‘My dear, I am only in my own room; it is only something Davison made up for me,’ said Mrs. Renton, confused. ‘I never wear colours down-stairs. Indeed, my spirits will never be equal to it again.’
‘But they are so becoming to you,’ said Alice. And thus the talk ran on. And the children, awed by the novelty of everything, behaved themselves like little angels, not uttering a cry, nor shedding a tear. When the time of the afternoon drive came, little Mary, inspired by her good genius, made a petition to go in the carriage with grandmamma. Andthat day the marvellous sight might have been seen of Mrs. Renton with the ayah and the baby seated opposite her, and little Mary, in great state, by her side, perambulating the lanes. Mrs. Renton made the coachman stop when they passed the rector’s pony carriage, and explained, ‘My son Frank’s children, just come from India,’ with such pride as she had scarcely felt since Frank had been the baby. Already these sweetavant-couriersof return and restoration had loosened the prison bonds for the invalid in her unconscious selfishness. She forgot all about her medicine, and even her cup of tea, when she went in, and demanded to know instead if her favourite biscuits had been provided for the children. On the whole, it was pleasanter thus taking thought for others than thinking only of herself.
When they were left alone, Mary and Alice went out together to stray about the lawn and down the favourite haunt of the Rentons,—the path to the river. And they had a great deal of talk and consultation, confidential and serious, which was comforting to both. ‘Don’t you know in the very least how things are to be?’ Alice asked, with a certain wistfulness. ‘I don’t care about money, indeed; but, oh, it would be so nice to stay at home!’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Mary; ‘not even Mr. Ponsonby, I believe. It makes one very anxious when one thinks of it. If poor, dear uncle’s mindwas touched, as some people think, he may have made some other stipulation. I don’t know,—but Renton ought to come to Ben.’
‘I have heard Frank say often that if the will did not do that, Laurie and he had both agreed to settle it so,’ said Alice. ‘Of course they could not take it. But if it is not wrong to say so,—and as poor Mr. Renton is dead I don’t think it can be wrong,—I should like if there was some money for us.’
‘There must be some money for you,’ said Mary; and thus speaking they moved down the bank, and, coming to the beech-tree at the corner, which was associated in Mary’s mind with so many tangles of the tale, stopped short to contemplate the view. A little to one side from that famous point of vision a peep could be obtained, through some branches, of a house close by the water’s edge,—a little house, with its trees dipping into the stream, lying under the shadow of a high, wooded bank. Mary’s mind was full of her special griefs and apprehensions, and she could not keep her eyes from that peaceful little place, which lay full in the afternoon sunshine. ‘That is The Willows,’ she said, pointing it out.
‘It looks very nice, but what is The Willows?’ said Alice. ‘I never heard Frank speak of it,’ which was her standard of interest for everything within her vision.
‘I dare say Frank never remembered it,’ said Mary; ‘it is not a place of any consequence; at least, it never was before. But two ladies have come to it now. They are a mother and a daughter, and they are both widows.’
‘Poor things! but that does not sound very important still. Are they nice?’ said Alice, in her ignorance. And Mary began to regret the suddenness of her confidence.
‘The daughter is very beautiful. She was a schoolfellow of mine once,’ said Mary; ‘and I’m afraid they are not very nice. If I tell you something, will you never, never say a word to any one,—not even Frank? Oh, it is nothing wrong. I think Ben met her once, and was fond of her. Beauty goes so far, you know, with men. I think he was very fond of her, and she must have deceived him. And think what it will be to him, poor fellow, if he finds her there when he comes home!’
‘But how did she deceive him?’ cried Alice. ‘Oh, tell me! It must be quite a romance.’
‘I don’t care for such romances,’ said Mary. ‘He loved her, I am sure, and she went away abroad, and must have married somebody else, for she is a widow I told you; and fancy what he will feel when he finds her here!’
‘Well, perhaps he might like it,’ said Alice. ‘Men are so queer. They are not the least like us.I know by Frank; when something happens that I think he will be in a dreadful way about, he takes it quite calmly; and then for the least little thing, that nobody in their senses would pay the least attention to, he will blaze up! Is Ben nice? Perhaps he will be quite pleased to find her here, to show her he does not care.’
‘I don’t know if you would think him very nice; but to us, you know,’ said Mary, turning away her head, ‘he is Ben: and, of course, there is no more to be said.’
‘Yes, of course, you are all fond of him,’ said simple Alice; and they went on, relapsing into other channels of talk. But though she understood so little the full meaning of what she had heard, Alice was such a relief and comfort to Mary as she had not had for years. Even to have said so much as this relieved her; and to nobody else could she have ventured to say even so much. Not to her own mother, who was too energetic, and might have thought it her duty to come into the field, and break a lance with Mrs. Tracy in defence of her nephew; not to Laurie, who might have seen deeper still, and detected certain secrets of Mary’s heart which she would not whisper even to herself. But Alice, who was ready to listen, and give her ignorant, shrewd opinion, was a comfort to speak to. Mary was exhilarated and consoled by her walk, as much as her aunt was by the drive, in which thesoft pride and sense of property in Frank’s babies had warmed her dried-up soul. When the mother and her babies went back to town by the evening train, Mrs. Renton felt herself able to walk almost to the end of the avenue to see them off, a thing she had not been known to do for years; and Mary drove with them to the station, anticipating joyfully the time when ‘Frank’s family’ should come back to take possession of the apartments prepared for them. The family ark was settling upon the top of the mount. But a few days more, and the doors would open, and the wanderings be over, and the family fate be known.
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.