A forlorn hope that it might rain next morning, and so prevent the threatened invasion, was in Mary’s mind up to the last moment. She felt as if, having thus failed in her own person, Providence must aid her to save her cousin, the head of the house, who was of so much importance to the family, from such a snare. But Providence refused, as Providence so often does in what seems the most heart-breaking emergency, to aid the plans of the schemer. As lovely a September morning as ever shone brightened all the park and the trees under her windows as she gazed out, unable to believe that she was thus abandoned of Heaven. But there could be no mistake about it. It was a lovely day, enough to tempt any one to the woods had there been no purpose of the kind beforehand; and as if to aggravate her sense of the danger of the situation,Ben himself was visible from her window, coming up the river-path in boating costume, though it was only half-past seven in the morning. Had he been on the river already at this ridiculous hour? Passing The Willows no doubt, gazing at the closed windows, pleased with the mere fact of being near her, though at such an hour no one, Mary assured herself with a little scorn, had ever seen Millicent out of bed; and on such a day as this, when all his prospects for life hung in the balance! But, strangely enough, it never occurred to Mary in her womanish pre-occupation to think that it might be the feverish excitement of the crisis, and not any thought of Millicent, which had roused Ben and driven him to try the tranquillising effects of bodily exertion. Notwithstanding the atmosphere of family anxiety by which she was surrounded, the fact was that Millicent’s visit was ten times more important in Mary’s eyes than that of Mr. Ponsonby. The one did not cost her a tenth part of the anxious cogitation called forth by the other. No doubt the will would be read and everything settled, ill or well. Ben would have Renton, as he ought; or Frank would have it, or it would be settled somehow; but the effect of Millicent’s appearance would be to unsettle everything. It would rouse up those embers of old love which she felt were smouldering in Ben’s mind. Smouldering! How could she tell that they were notblazing with all the warmth of present passion? Else, why had he sallied out in the dawn of the morning only to pass by the sleeping, shut-up house which contained the lady of his dreams? For that he had gone out for this purpose, and no other, Mary felt as certain as if she had watched him every step of the way. But there was nothing now to be done but to submit, and to put the best face that was possible upon it. Perhaps, indeed, if anything should occur so as that Ben should not have Renton, it would no longer be an unmixed misfortune, for it would take him out of Millicent’s way.
It was hard to tell whether it was a relief or an annoyance to find a stranger at the breakfast-table when they all met down-stairs. ‘What a nuisance!’ Frank said to his wife, feeling that Ben’s right-hand man was not the sort of person to be admitted to familiar intercourse with the family at such a moment. But Mary felt, on the whole, that Hillyard’s unexpected appearance was a good thing for Ben. The stranger, who ought to have arrived some days before, had been detained, and got down to Cookesley on Sunday night, from whence it appeared Ben had gone down early to fetch him, thus explaining, to the great consolation of his guardian and watcher, his early expedition. Hillyard was very carefully dressed, too carefully for the morning, and a little impressed by the houseand the circumstances. His beard had been trimmed and his wardrobe renewed before he would follow his onceprotégé, and now patron, to the Manor, and he was very anxious to make himself agreeable, and justify his presence.
‘I know I should not have come at such a time,’ he explained to Mary; ‘I told Renton so. Of course we have been so much together that I could not but know why he was coming home.’
‘I do not think it makes any difference,’ said Mary. ‘I am sure my aunt will always be glad to have any of Ben’s friends.’
‘It is very good of you to say so,’ Hillyard answered gratefully. And then he began to tell her what a fine fellow her cousin was, and what a head he had, and how he had mastered his profession while other men would have been gaping at it. ‘He is master and I am man now,’ he said, unconsciously using Ben’s words, ‘though I was brought up to it; and I should just like you to see the beautiful work he puts out of his hands.’
‘I daresay I should not understand it if I saw it,’ said Mary, smiling behind the urn; but she lent a very willing ear, and thought Hillyard a very nice person. Unquestionably he was a relief to the high strain of suppressed feeling which appeared in every face at the table, except, perhaps, Laurie’s, who, late as usual, came in, carrying the baby in his arms, and did not mind.
‘Here is a little waif and stray I found wandering about the passages,’ he said. ‘Little Laurie, your mamma does not care about you to-day; you had better stay with me.’
‘Doesn’t mamma care for him, the darling!’ cried Alice. And then the child was picked up, having made a rush to her arms, and set up beside her at table.
‘The heir-presumptive, I suppose?’ Hillyard said behind the urn; and Mary began to think he was not quite so nice as she had thought him before.
Then the members of the family dispersed, to kill this lingering, weary forenoon as they best could. Ben and Hillyard went out together in earnest conversation, and Laurie established himself in a shady corner of the lawn, and made a group of Alice and her children, and began to draw them; while Frank started off, as he said, for a long walk. Mr. Ponsonby had announced that he was to come by the one o’clock train; but there was another three-quarters of an hour later, and nobody who knew him expected him to arrive by the first. And at half-past one Millicent and her friend would come to luncheon. Such a conjunction of events was very terrible to think of; though, perhaps, not so alarming to any one as to Mary, who alone knew of the motives of the latter visit. She had to go about her usual occupations allthe same. She could not cheat the sick expectations of her heart by joining the group on the lawn and chatting with the children, nor could she rush forth to still her anxieties by bodily exertion, like the boys. A woman, she thought to herself, is always tied to the stake. She had to fulfil all her little peaceful household occupations as if her heart was quite at ease, and had not even any sympathy to support her, for what was it to her any one could have said? They were all three her cousins, and it could not matter very deeply to her which of them got Renton; and as for Millicent, that was mere feminine jealousy, and nothing else,—so Mary had to lock up her troubles carefully in her own breast.
It was only about a quarter past one when Millicent arrived at Renton, and with her came her mother and her ‘friend,’ who was the young soldier they had seen rowing her on the river. Mrs. Renton had just come down-stairs, with Davison carrying her shawls and her worsted work, and it was to her the visitors made their way. ‘Mr. Horsman is a connexion of my poor husband’s,’ Millicent said with a decent sigh. ‘He is a brother of Sir George Horsman, whom Nelly married. Nelly is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Renton; but I suppose you know?’
‘Indeed I know very well,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It was she who we once thought would have married Frank. Not that I am not perfectly satisfied with Frank’s wife. She is certainly nice, and suits him admirably, which of course is the great thing. But she had no money. And there was once a time when he saw a great deal of Miss Rich.’
‘She was quite a catch,’ said Mrs. Tracy,—a word which wounded Mrs. Renton’s ear.
‘I cannot say I looked upon it in that point of view; but the young people were thrown in each other’s way a great deal,’ Mrs. Renton said with some stateliness; and Millicent immediately rushed into the field.
‘I thought the Mr. Rentons had all arrived,’ she said, ‘and yet you are alone;’ and cast an angry glance at Mary, as if demanding of her where they were.
‘What has become of the boys?’ said Mrs. Renton, looking round her. ‘I have only just come down. The fact is, it is a very exciting day for them; we expect Mr. Ponsonby down immediately to read the will.’
Millicent and her mother exchanged glances. ‘Then the time is up?’ Mrs. Tracy said meditatively, and bent with increasing solicitude over the invalid on her sofa. ‘What a trial for you!’ she said, clasping her hand in sympathy. And Mrs. Renton raised to her eyes that said unspeakable things.
‘Ah! yes,’ she murmured; ‘but nobody thinksof me;’ and this balm of consolation was sweet to her heart.
They all came dropping in a few minutes later to luncheon, and Ben and Hillyard were among the first. ‘Ponsonby has not come by this train,’ said Ben, ‘but Frank is waiting at the station for the next.’ It was hard not to feel as if Frank was doing the rest an injury by waiting to have the first word with the lawyer; such, at least, was Mary’s instinctive feeling. But her heart was weighted now with a more painful anxiety still. She saw Ben give a brief, contemptuous glance at young Horsman, whose position was not a comfortable one, and her heart sunk. But then he turned away from Millicent,—avoided seeing her, indeed, in a curious, visible way, and that was a consolation. Mrs. Tracy, however, got up with effusion to shake hands with dear Mr. Renton, begging that she might have a good look at him, to see if he was changed. ‘Not at all changed,’ was her verdict. ‘Just the same generous face that once came to our help in our troubles. Mr. Renton, do you know I may say you saved my life?’
Then Millicent, too, rose, and, with a whole drama in her eyes, held out her hand to him. There was regret, remorse, and a tender appeal for pardon, and a sweet self-pity in those blue, shining eyes. They seemed to say, ‘Be kind to me! Be sorry for me! I am so sorry for myself!’ But it was hardto make out whether there was any answer in Ben’s looks. She stood so turned towards him, holding out her hand, that he had no choice but to draw near, and then she turned meaningly towards a vacant chair at her side. He could not have gone away without rudeness, and Ben was not disposed to be rude to anybody at such a moment of fate. He took the seat accordingly, though with grave looks, and then there came a gleam of triumph into Millicent’s eyes.
‘How curious we should have chanced to come here on this day of all others,’ she said, her voice sinking to its softest tones. ‘You told me of it the very last time we met; but, perhaps, Mr. Renton, you forget?’
‘Did I tell you of this?’ said Ben. ‘What a good memory you must have! but there are some things I do not forget.’
‘Ah! something unkind about poor me, Mr. Renton! but if you knew what I have had to go through since, you would not think anything unkind.’
‘I suppose we have all had a great deal to go through since,’ said Ben. ‘Seven years! it is a large slice out of one’s life; one’s ideas about most things change immensely in seven years.’
‘Do they?’ said Millicent, looking at him with soft, appealing eyes.
‘Very much,’ said Ben, with a smile; ‘so much that one looks back with amazement upon thefollies one has been guilty of. A man says to himself, “Is it possible I could have been such an ass?” Are ladies not subject to the same effect of time?’
‘No;—ladies are more constant,’ said Millicent. ‘When our thoughts have turned one way, it does not matter what happens, they always keep the same. We may be obliged to change in outward appearance. We are not so free as you gentlemen are. One’s friends or one’s circumstances sway one sometimes, but in the heart we never change,—not half, oh! not a quarter so much as you.’
‘That may be. I have no experience,’ said Ben.
‘But I have,’ said Millicent, ‘and I do so want to tell you. You know I never was very happy in my circumstances, Mr. Renton. Mamma is very kind, but she does not understand one’s feelings; and when she got me abroad, she had me all in her own hands. Yes, you are quite right about the change time makes. When I look back I cannot think how I could have done it. But I was so young, and so used to obey mamma.’
‘And a very laudable principle, I am sure,’ said Ben, with a polite little bow. ‘I beg your pardon—I thought I saw my brother and Mr. Ponsonby coming up the avenue. You were saying,—something about obedience,—I think?’
‘You do not think it worth while to listen to me,’ said Millicent.
‘Oh, yes, surely,—pray go on. I am full of interest,’ said Ben.
And then the poor creature looked at him with eyes which were pitiful in the eagerness of their appeal. She was a mercenary, wretched woman, ready to barter her beauty for comfort and wealth, and a fine house and a good position; and yet there was still in Mrs. Henry Rich the same redeeming possibility that there had been in Millicent Tracy. If he would have taken her out of that slough of despond, she would have been good, have made him a true wife, have grown a gentle lady, so far as it was in her. To the bottom of her soul Millicent felt this,—just as many a poor criminal feels that in other circumstances he would have been a model of all virtue. And for her the matter was not one without hope;—marriage to a woman may always be a new life,—and the seven years had not dimmed her eyes, nor taken the roses from her cheeks. And by those roses and bright eyes and lovely looks are not a woman’s fate determined continually? Again, it was her last hope. For though admiration was always sweet, yet to be troubled with a boy like this young Guardsman, was irksome to Millicent in her maturity. And to go through a round of such boys,—flattering, wooing them, being wooed,—good heavens! was this all that fortune had in store for a woman? Therefore she made one more effort before she yielded to fate.
‘You were more interested, Mr. Renton,’ she said, with soft reproach, ‘when we talked together last,—oh, so much more interested! If I did not know you so well, I could scarcely think it was the same.’
‘That is true,’ said Ben; ‘but you taught me some things, Mrs. Rich, and I profited by the lesson. I doubt whether but for your assistance I could ever have been the man I am.’
‘Ah! then I have at least something to do with you?’ said Millicent. ‘Come and tell me, will you? It is not like London, where one was always being interrupted. In the country there is so much time for talk.’
‘But I have no time,’ said Ben. ‘After to-morrow I shall probably go away again; and when I tell you I have profited by your instructions, I think that is all I have to say.’
‘You are angry with me because of,—because of,—poor Henry,’ said Millicent, with tears coming to her eyes. ‘But ah, Mr. Renton!—ah, Ben, if you only knew!’
Ben sprang impatiently to his feet. To him, as to any other generous man, it felt like a personal pang and shame to see a woman thus humiliate herself. He made a long step towards the window, with a flush on his face. ‘Here they come!’ he said, though at the moment he was not thinking much of their coming. And then there ensued asudden inevitable flutter in the family which affected the guests. Alice, who had been charitably talking to the Guardsman, jumped up with a little cry of excitement, and sat down again, ashamed of herself, but with all possibilities of conversation quenched out of her; and Mrs. Renton, whom Mrs. Tracy had been occupying to the best of her ability to leave Millicent free for her important interview with Ben, was suddenly overcome, and cried a little, lying back on her pillows. ‘Oh Ben, my dear! I don’t know how I am to bear it,’ she said, holding fast by her son’s hand. Laurie was the only one who was perfectly steady. He came forward immediately from the background, and raised his mother up, supporting her on his arm. ‘You will bear it beautifully, mamma, as you always do,’ said Laurie. ‘Come and give us our luncheon. You forget we are not alone.’
And he supported her into the dining-room, holding her hand caressingly in his. As for Ben, he turned and gave his arm to Millicent, ‘As if I had been a cabbage,’ she said afterwards, indignantly. None of her pathetic glances, not the soft little pressure of her hand upon his arm, gained the slightest response. His face was set and stern, full of thoughts with which she had nothing to do. Mrs. Tracy ventured to whisper as she followed, ‘Ah, how sweet it is to me to see you two together again!’ But Ben did not even hear what she said.He waved his hand to Mr. Ponsonby in the distance as he went across the hall. The beautiful face at his side had no more effect upon him than if it had been a hideous mask. He was absorbed in his own business, and careless of her very existence. Millicent, in her fury, could have struck him as he took her into the dining-room. Was this to be the end?
Itwas Hillyard’s behaviour at this meal which gained him the regard of the various members of the Renton family. He took such pains to attend to the strangers, and give to the agitated group the air of an ordinary party, that all of them who were sufficiently disengaged to observe his exertions felt grateful to him. Millicent sat next to Ben on one side, but Hillyard had placed himself between her and Mary Westbury on the other, and in all the intervals of his general services to the company Mrs. Rich had his attention, for which Mary blessed him. She herself, overcome by many emotions, was but a pale spectator, able to take little part in what was going on, saying now and then a languid word to the unfortunate Guardsman, but capable of nothing more except watching, which she did with a sick excitement beyond all description. Mary was so pale, indeed, and watchful and excited, that her mother was alarmed, and made signs to her across the table which she did not feel capable of understanding. ‘She will cry if she does not mind, and make a scene,’ Mrs. Westbury said to herself; and set it all down to the score of Ben, which was true enough, but not as she thought. As for Ben, he inclined his ear specially to Mrs. Tracy, who was at his other hand, and hoped she liked The Willows, and that her rheumatism was better, and a hundred other nothings. There was, it is true, nothing very remarkable about this party, looking at it from the outside. They were well-dressed people, gathered round a well-appointed table, getting through an average amount of talk, smiling upon each other like ordinary mortals; but yet underneath how different it was; Mrs. Renton was consoled, and ate her luncheon, sustained by her son Laurie’s attentions; but Mrs. Frank Renton trembled so that she could scarcely keep up the fiction of eating, and grew pale and flushed again six times in a minute, and nervously consulted the countenance of her husband, who, very silent and self-absorbed, drank his sherry, and more of it than he wanted at that hour, taking little notice of any one; then, at the other end of the table, there was Mrs. Tracy, hanging with ostentatious, artificial interest on every word uttered by Ben; and Millicent, very pale, with an excited gleam in her eyes, casting tender, wistful looks at him, which he never saw; and Hillyard talking enough for six, helping everybody, introducing a hundred indifferent subjects of conversation, whichran a feeble course half-way round the table and then died a natural death. Mrs. Westbury, one of the few people who was calm enough to remark upon the appearance of the others, concluded within herself that, after all, the strangers were a mistake. If the family party had been alone, their excitement would have been nothing beyond what was natural; but her own child, Mary, who ought at least to have been one of the calmest of the party, sat by that unhappy Guardsman pale as a ghost, once in ten minutes saying something to him, and looking as if she were about to faint; and all the others were equally under the sway of agitation and self-restraint. When this uncomfortable meal came to an end, everybody rose with an alacrity which showed how glad they were that it was over. And then there ensued another moment of supreme embarrassment. If the strangers had any sense of the position they would go away instantly, the family felt; but instead of that, Millicent moved at once to the upper end of the room, where there stood upon a crimson pedestal a bust of the last Benedict Renton, and humbly begged of Ben to explain to her who it was; and while the others stood about waiting, he had to follow and describe his grandfather, and fulfil the duties of showman, Mrs. Tracy rushing to join the group.
‘Benedict Renton—your name!’ Millicent said, with again another attempt upon his feelings, whileBen stood angrily conscious of the effort and contemptuous of the fooling, scarcely concealing his eagerness to be at liberty. ‘And this portrait, Mr. Renton? I can trace the family resemblance,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And all this while Mr. Ponsonby’s blue bag waited outside, and the family murmured, standing round in agonies of suspense to know their fate. Then once more Hillyard stood forth, vindicating his claim to be called Ben’s right-hand man.
‘Let me be cicerone,’ he said, ‘Renton, I know you are anxious to see to your business. Mrs. Rich will take me for her guide to the pictures for the moment. You know Mr. Ponsonby cannot wait, and you are losing time.’
‘If Mrs. Rich will excuse me,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, please don’t think of excuses; we can wait,’ said Millicent. ‘Mayn’t we wait to learn the news?’ and she clasped her hands softly, unseen of the bystanders, and gazed into his face. ‘Nobody,’ she murmured, lowering her voice, ‘can be more interested than I.’
‘So long as you can find anything to amuse you,’ said Ben, half frantic. ‘Hillyard, I confide it to you;’ and he had turned away, before any further dart could be thrown at him. Then there was a hurried consultation between Mrs. Renton and her sister-in-law. ‘I shall stay with them; never mind. Of course I am anxious too; but half-an-hour more or less don’t matter,’ Mrs. Westbury said, with thevoice of a martyr; and when Millicent looked round she found herself standing alone with her own special party, Hillyard at her right hand, and Mrs. Westbury, with a smile of fixed politeness, behind. Ben was gone. He had made no answer to her appeal,—he had shown no inclination to linger by her side. She had put forth all her strength for this grand finalcoup, and it had failed.
‘I don’t think Mr. Renton has improved in politeness in his travels,’ she said to Hillyard, unable altogether to restrain the expression of her despite.
‘He has not been in polite regions,’ said Hillyard; ‘and everything, you know, must give place to business, now-a-days, even the service of ladies. You must forgive him, when you consider what it is——’
‘I have nothing to do with him,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘I hope I never shall have anything to do with so rude a man;’ and then she paused, thinking she had gone too far. ‘You know it is not a way to treat an old friend——’
‘Poor Renton!’ said Hillyard. ‘He is so unlikely to be any the better for this anxiety, you know,—that is the worst of it; and I don’t think he has any hopes to speak of. He has made all his arrangements for going back to his work——’
‘You don’t say so!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, with a look at her daughter. ‘And I can’t believe it!’ cried Millicent.
‘But I assure you it is true. No one can know better than I, for I go with him,’ said Hillyard; ‘all our arrangements are made. But let me show you the pictures. This was Sir Anthony Renton, who was a—Master in Chancery in Queen Elizabeth’s time,’ pointing to a respectable merchant in snuff-coloured garments of the days of Queen Anne. But the visitors cared nothing for the family portraits, and Hillyard’s last shaft had told. If Ben was unlikely to have Renton, it was of no use spending more trouble upon him. They consulted together hastily for a moment, and then they turned their backs upon the pictures. ‘I have the pleasure to wish you good morning, Mrs. Westbury,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘Since our friends are so much occupied we will take our leave. Pray give Mrs. Renton my best sympathies.’
‘It is to be hoped some one will get the money at the end,’ said Millicent, with less civility, sweeping towards the door. And thus the strangers were got rid of at last.
‘I flatter myself I did that,’ said Hillyard, with a chuckle of satisfaction. And then he, too, took his departure, and left Aunt Lydia free to join the party in the library, where the great revelation of the future fate of the family was about to take place.
The air of restrained excitement in this room was such that it would have communicated itself tothe merest stranger who had entered. It was a dark room by nature; and a cloud had just passed, as if in sympathy, over the brightness of the day. The window was open, and the blind beat and flapped against it in the wind, which was a sound that startled everybody, and yet that nobody had nerve enough to stop. Mrs. Renton had been placed in an easy chair near the vacant fireplace. Alice and Mary sat formally on two chairs against the wall; and the three brothers stood up together in a lump, though they neither spoke nor looked at each other. Mr. Ponsonby was seated at the writing-table, arranging his papers and holding in his hand a large blue envelope, sealed. There was complete silence, except now and then the rustle of papers, as the lawyer turned them over. The members of the family scarcely ventured to breathe. When Aunt Lydia entered they all turned round with a look of reproach; their nerves were so highly strung that the least motion startled them. In the midst of this silence, all at once Mrs. Renton began to sob and cry, ‘I feel as if you had just come home from the funeral!’ she said, with a wail of feeble grief. There was a little momentary stir at the suggestion, so true was it; and Alice, being at the end of her strength, cried too, silently, out of excitement. As for the brothers, they were beyond taking much notice of the interruption. They were now so much wiser, so much more experienced, since the day ofthe funeral, the last time they had all met together in this solemn way. Now they did not know what they were to expect: their confidence in their father and the world and things in general was destroyed. By this time it had become apparent to them that things the most longed for were about the last things to be attained. Had they been all sent away again for another seven years, or had the property been alienated for ever and ever, the brothers would not have been surprised. Whether they would have submitted, was a different question. Their opinions about many things had changed. Their unhesitating resolution to obey their father’s will seven years ago, without a word of blame, appeared to them now simple Quixotism. They were scarcely moved by their mother’s tears. He had done them harm, though they had been dutiful to him. He might now be about to do them more harm for anything they could tell. The uncriticising anxiety and expectation which filled the women of the party was a very different sentiment from the uneasy, angry anticipations of ‘the boys.’ Few dead men have ever managed to secure for themselves such a vigorous posthumous opposition. In short, he was not to them a dead man at all, but a living power, against which they might yet have to struggle for their lives.
Mr. Ponsonby looked round upon this strange company, with the big envelope in his hand andan excitement equal to their own. He looked at them all, after Mrs. Renton’s crying had been quieted, and cleared his throat. ‘Boys,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘I don’t know what’s in this any more than you do. He did it without consulting me. If it is the will of ‘54 that is here, it is all just and right; but if it is any new-fangled nonsense, like what I read to you here seven years ago, by the Lord I will fight it for you, die or win!’
This extraordinary speech, it may be supposed, did not lessen the excitement of the listeners. Alice crossed over suddenly to her husband, and clung to him, taking it for granted that disappointment and downfall were involved in these words. ‘Dear, if there is nothing for us, I shall not mind!’ she cried, gazing at Mr. Ponsonby with a kind of terror. ‘Quickly, please; let us wait no longer than is necessary,’ said Ben, with a certain peremptoriness of tone. Mr. Ponsonby had settled down in a moment, after this outburst, to his usual look and tone.
‘I need not trouble you with many preliminaries,’ he said; ‘you all remember how everything happened. He sent for me a week before his death, and gave me this,’ holding up the envelope, ‘and this letter, which I have also here. When I remonstrated his answer was, “If the one harms, the other will set right.” My own impression now is, I tell you frankly, that his mind was affected. Have patience one moment. Nothing in the shape of a will, evenin draft, was found among his papers, so that there is nothing whatever to set against this, or explain his intention. If it is that of ‘54 it is all right——’
‘No more!’ cried Ben; ‘let us know what it is at once.’
Then the lawyer tore open the envelope. Not a sound but the tearing of the paper and crackling sound of the document within was to be heard in the room, except one sob from Mrs. Renton, which seemed to express in one sound the universal thirst of all their hearts. Mr. Ponsonby rose up as he unfolded the paper; he stopped and gazed round upon them blankly, with consternation in his eyes. Then he opened the sheet in his hand, turned it over and over, shook out the very folds to make sure that nothing lurked within,—then caught up the torn envelope and did the same. And then he uttered an oath. The man was moved out of himself,—he stamped his foot unconsciously, and clenched his fist, and swore at his dead antagonist. ‘D—— him!’ he cried fiercely. This pantomime drove the spectators wild. When he held up the paper to them they all crowded on each other to see, but understood nothing. It was a great sheet of blue paper, spotless—without a word upon it. Mr. Ponsonby in his rage tossed it down on the floor at their feet across the table. ‘Take it for what it is worth!’ he shouted, almost foaming with rage. Frank, at whose feet itfell, picked it up, and held it in his hands, turning it over, stupid with wonder. ‘What does it mean?’ cried Ben, hoarsely. Surprise and excitement had taken away their wits.
‘Give it to me!’ said Mrs. Renton, from behind; and her son, upon whom the truth was beginning to dawn, threw it into her lap. It flashed upon them all at once, and a kind of delirium, fell on the party,—flouted, laughed at, turned into derision, as it seemed, by the implacable dead.
‘It means that there is no will. I have been keeping a blank sheet of paper for you,’ said Mr. Ponsonby bitterly, ‘for seven years.’
And then there was another pause, and they all looked at each other, too much bewildered to understand the position, as if the earth had been rent asunder at their very feet.
‘We never did anything to him to deserve this!’ said Laurie suddenly, with a voice of pain. ‘Is there no mistake?’
As for Ben, he said nothing. His eyes followed the gleam of the paper, which his mother was turning over and over in her helpless hands, as if the secret of it might still be found out. But by degrees his eyes lighted up. Almost unconsciously he made a step apart, separating himself, as it were, from the audience, placing himself by Mr. Ponsonby’s side as a speaker. There was a certain triumph in his eye. After all, he was but a man, like other men,and the heir; and his rights had been debated and questioned by everybody, himself included. There was a flush and movement of satisfaction about him,—a sudden warm blaze out of the absorbing disappointment, baffled hopes, and bitter resentment which were rising round him.
‘If there is no will,’ he said, with a deep flush on his face, and nervous gesture of his hand, ‘Renton is mine, as it ought to be. I am in my father’s place; and what has been done amiss, it is my place to undo. I cannot believe that there is any one here who doubts me.’
While he was speaking, Alice uttered a little cry. She had turned to him her white face, but without seeing him or any one. ‘Must we go back to India?’ she said, with a voice of anguish. That was the shape it took to the young pair. She was pale as marble, but Frank’s face was blazing red.
‘Hush, Alice!’ he said, fiercely; ‘that is our own affair.’
Ben made a movement towards them in his impatience. ‘I have told you you should not go back!’ he cried. ‘I am here in my father’s place to set all right.’
‘Stop a little,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, suddenly coming forward with a chair in his hand, which he placed in the midst of them, sitting down upon it, amid the agitated group. ‘You have not done with me yet. We have not come to such simple meansyet. Mrs. Frank, my dear, don’t be angry, and don’t give way to your feelings. Things are not so bad as you suppose. I lost my head, which is inexcusable in a man of my profession. It was a dirty trick of him, after a friendship of thirty years. My dear young people, sit down, all of you, and listen to me.’
No one made any change of position, but they all turned their eyes upon him with looks differing in intensity, but full of a hundred questions. Frank was defiant; Alice wild with despairing anxiety; Mrs. Renton crying; Laurie soothing her; Ben very watchful, eager, and attentive. Mr. Ponsonby, however, had entirely recovered his composure, which unconsciously had a calming effect upon them all.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lost my head, which I had no right to do; but I am coming to myself. Now, listen to me. There is no will; and Ben from this moment is master of Renton, as he says. But stop a little. The personal property remains, which is worth as much as Renton. I don’t know what I could have been thinking of to forget that. After all, there is really nothing to find fault with but the look of the thing. The money has been accumulating these seven years;—it has been as good as a long minority;—and some of the investments have done very well. The land, of course, goes to the eldest son; but the personality, as some of you ought tohave known, is divided. It comes to just about the same thing. God forgive me if I said anything I ought not to have said in the excitement of the moment. It is shabby to me, but it won’t harm you, thank God! I lost my head, that was all, and more shame to me. The will of ‘54 would have come to much about the same thing.’
‘Oh, Mr. Ponsonby,’ cried Alice, with streaming eyes, thrusting herself, unconscious of what she was about, in front of them all; ‘tell me, will there be enough to keep us from going to India again?’
‘There will be twenty thousand pounds, or more,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘if you can live on that; and I could, for my part.’
Alice, like the lawyer, had lost her head. She was too young to bear this wonderful strain of emotion. She threw her arms about his neck in her joy, and wept aloud, while they all stood by looking on, with such feelings as may be supposed.
She was the only one who spoke. Her husband drew her back at this point, half angry, half sullen, with his disappointment still dark in his face. ‘You had better go,’ he said to her, almost harshly; ‘you have heard all that there is to be heard. It is best we should discuss the real business by ourselves.’
‘Yes, come along,’ said Laurie, ‘all you ladies. You have heard it is all right. You don’t want to hear the accounts, and all that legal stuff. We willmanage the business. I will take you back to your sofa, mother, now you know all’s right.’
‘But is it all right?’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I don’t seem to understand anything. Ben, will you come and tell me? Have they all got their money,—all the boys? And what is Frank to have for his children? Till you have children of your own, it is his boy who is the heir. Laurie is always telling me it will come right. I would rather hear it from the rest. Oh, boys! your poor father meant it for the best.’
‘It is all right, mother,’ said Ben; ‘better than we thought.’
‘Ah, but Frank says nothing,’ said the mother. ‘I will not go away till I am satisfied about Frank.’
‘You heard Alice, I suppose,’ said Frank, somewhat sulky still. ‘I do think it is a shame there is no will; but if we are to have our shares, as Mr. Ponsonby says, I suppose, mother, it is all right.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Laurie. ‘Come, and I’ll see if the carriage is round for your drive. You know how important it is you should have your drive.’
‘Your dear papa always made such a point of it, Laurie,’ Mrs. Renton said, holding her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘or else I am sure I never could have the heart to go out on such a day.’
And thus the ladies were dismissed, and the brothers held their meeting, and settled their business by themselves. It would be vain to say that theywere satisfied. Frank, whose mind had been vaguely excited,—he could not tell why,—and to whom it had begun to seem inevitable that some special provision should have been made for the only one of the three who had ‘ties’ and a family to provide for, had experienced a most sharp and painful downfall. And it took him a long time to accustom himself to the idea that after all he was not wronged. It was a personal offence to him, as it had been to his wife, that Ben should look satisfied. ‘When he has Renton, I do not see the justice of Ben having his share of the money too,’ he said, with a little bitterness in his unreasonable disappointment. And Ben was half displeased to feel that it was not to be his magnanimous part to provide for his brothers, but that their own right and share remained to them as indisputably as Renton was his. His proposal was that they should return to the will of ‘54, of which Mr. Ponsonby still possessed the draft, and a great deal of discussion took place between them. It was half-past six o’clock before any of the party emerged out of the dark library, where they had spent between three and four hours. Mr. Ponsonby came out, declaring that he was tired and thirsty and half dead, and demanding sherry from the butler, who was preparing the table for dinner. They all went in and stood by the sideboard, and swallowed something to refresh themselves. ‘And, my dear boys, give me the satisfaction of hearing you say you arecontented,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘before dinner comes on; for I should like to be jolly, if I may.’
‘I am perfectly satisfied,’ said Laurie; ‘and Ben is happy for the first time for some years. As for Frank, he must speak for himself; he has been dreaming, and it is sometimes unpleasant to wake up.’
‘If I have been dreaming, it was not for myself,’ said Frank; ‘a man with a family is so different from you fellows; but if it will be any satisfaction to you, I think I may say I am content, since better can’t be.’
And then he went up-stairs abruptly to dress. Alice had been waiting for him long, trembling a little, and not daring to believe anything till her authorised expositor of external events came to deliver the judgment to her. It did not seem right to Alice that Frank should not be the first in any distribution of prizes or honours. And yet she was not insensible to the claims of natural justice. ‘We should never have been able to give it up if it had come to us,’ she said to herself; ‘and it would have been contrary to all traditions of the family to disinherit Ben.’
‘You always told me he was to have it,’ she said, when Frank came in, with the remnants of his sulkiness still hanging about him. ‘You used to say if it came to you, you would give it up to Ben.’
‘And so I should, of course,’ said Frank; ‘thething is, the fellow was so self-satisfied,—with a kind of look of pleasure that we were all cut out. That was what I could not stand.’
‘But don’t you think he meant to be good to us?’ Alice said, trying hard to smoothe her savage down.
‘Good to us, by Jove! but fortunately that’s all over,’ said Frank. ‘We are safe enough. No need to worry yourself over those blessed children any more. Poor little beggar! he won’t have much to look forward to; but still you may bring him up at home, and that is all you care for, you little goose,’ the young husband said, softening over the happiness in Alice’s eyes.
‘How much shall we have, Frank?’ she asked, with a sudden relapse into prudence.
‘Let me dress now,—and go and make yourself pretty,’ he said. ‘We shall not be so badly off; there will be something like a thousand a-year.’
And thus Frank Renton too acknowledged to himself that things might have been worse, and that he was content.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all was that Mrs. Westbury withdrew into her daughter’s room, and locked the door, and had a cry, in which Mary, over-worn and over-excited, was quite disposed to share, though for a different reason. ‘I cannot understand your uncle Laurence,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I am sure I am not mercenary. I havegiven you up to your aunt, and never grumbled, much though I wanted you; and you have given up seven years of your life to her, and he has not left you so much as a gown. I do feel it, my dear, for you.’
‘I am sure, mamma, I don’t feel it for myself,’ said Mary, with a smile. ‘One does not mind so long as all is right with the boys.’
‘The boys are all very well,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘but he might have left something, my dear, to you.’
‘I did not want anything, mamma,’ said Mary. ‘But godmamma will not want me so much when she has Ben, and oh, I do so long to get home!’ Poor Mary was over-done, over-worn, excited by so many diverse feelings that her power of self-command failed her at last. She put her arms round her mother’s neck, and threw, as it were, all her weight of unexpressed cares and griefs upon her. ‘Take me home, mamma!’ she said, and wept in the abandonment of weariness and disappointment, and that overwhelming despondency for which one can give no reason, on her mother’s neck.
Mrs. Westbury was a woman fond of explanations from other people, but she understood her child by instinct, ‘Yes, yes, you shall go home, my darling!’ she said, soothing her, but without any intention of carrying out her promise. It was early days, as she said to herself. Before any change was made, itmust be made plainly apparent what the rest of the family meant to do.
On the whole, the dinner-table was more cheerful that night. They were all worn out with excitement, it is true, and signs of tears were about the women’s eyes; but still there was the sense that, after all, justice was once more in force, and natural law ruling their affairs. One man’s will, fantastic and unaccountable, was no longer supreme over them. Ben took his place at the head of the table with a certain glow of satisfaction. ‘I know none of you would have seen me wronged,’ he said when they were sipping over their wine. It was the first time that he had taken any notice of the often-repeated declaration of his younger brothers.
‘Not if the prize had been Great Britain, instead of Renton,’ said Laurie; ‘though, to tell the truth, the one would have been as great a bore as the other, had it come to me.’
‘Of course I should have given it up to Ben,’ said Frank; ‘but it would have been a struggle; therefore I’m very glad things have been settled as they are without my help.’
‘Bravo!’ cried Mr. Ponsonby, ‘that is the best sentiment I have heard to-night.’
‘Shake hands, old fellow,’ said Ben, holding out his hand. Laurie somehow did not count. The world would indeed have been coming to an end had he been out of temper about his rights. It was theyounger and the elder who exchanged the grasp of peace and mutual amity. ‘And, remember, Renton is home to us all,’ Ben said, with moisture in his eyes. ‘Of course my mother remains here; as it has always been, with room for all.’
‘Bravo, bravo!’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘now is the time for generous feelings! My dear fellows, prosperity is the thing that opens men’s hearts. Don’t talk to me of the benefits of misfortune! Let a man feel he has his thousand a-year, or his five thousand a-year, safe in his pocket, and then is the time his heart warms. But I’d have Mrs. Frank come to an understanding with Mrs. Ben before I would take the invitation in too literal a sense,’ said the old lawyer, with a chuckle over his own wit.
‘I do not expect there will ever be a Mrs. Ben,’ said the heir, with an impatient movement of his head.
‘Tell me that this time twelvemonths,’ said Mr. Ponsonby; and then they all went out to the lawn to smoke their evening cigar.
IfI do not enter very particularly into the family arrangements which were made after this settlement, it is because, in the circumstances, so much detail is unnecessary. Had Ben been in Frank’s position, a married man with a family, it would of course have been needful that some arrangements should have been made about Mrs. Renton’s future habitation. She herself was provided for by her marriage settlements, and had a little fortune of her own, settled on herself, which was something for the babies to look forward to; and there was a jointure-house on the estate, known by the name of the Dovecote, a pretty, small house, with a view on the river, and only a mile’s drive from Cookesley, where there can be no doubt Mrs. Renton, had there been any need for it, would have been very comfortable. But as Ben was not married, what did it matter? It was better his mother should keep house for him, as she said in her innocence, than leave him to servants. There was a consultation held in her roomnext morning, to the interruption of the newspaper-reading; but as this was a crisis, full of events, for once in a way she did not mind.
‘I would go to the Dovecote, my dear boy, if you thought I should be in your way,’ she said; ‘but I think I had much better stay and keep house for you, till you have a wife of your own to keep your house.’
‘I don’t think that is a very likely event,’ said Ben. ‘Of course you will keep house for me. And I think you should give the Dovecote to Frank,—that is one thing I wanted to speak to you about. I will have it fitted up, and do what I can to make it comfortable, and then you can have the children always at hand to amuse you while I am away.’
‘But you are not going away?’
Mary was quite at the other end of the room, working by the window. It was only her aunt’s worsted-work she was doing—not a very serious occupation—but it always wanted a remarkable amount of light when Ben was in the room. She was sitting there by herself, listening eagerly, with a sore feeling in her heart, as of being excluded,—she who had sacrificed so much to the comfort of the family. After all, though she was so nearly related, and had spent her life with them, she was not a Renton. Not like a daughter of the house, whose opinion would have weight and whose comfort had tobe consulted. Talk of Mrs. Renton keeping the house! The meaning of that of course was that Mary was to keep house. But of Ben’s house she never would be the honorary housekeeper,—of that she was sure. When she heard her aunt’s frightened exclamation, she too looked up a little,—of course it must be only a figure of speech about his going away. Or he meant going to London perhaps, or to the moors, or something temporary. Ben came to the window, with his hands in his pockets, before he answered. Not as if he were coming to Mary. It was only the restless habit men have of wandering about a room. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking out, and addressing nobody, ‘I am going away. Of course I must go back to my work. You forget that when I came home I had not the least idea of what was to become of me. And to throw away the work I had been making my bread by for six years, would have been a great piece of folly. Indeed, the fact is,—and I hope you won’t be vexed, mother, I assure you it is quite necessary,—I am going to-morrow. I must finish what I’ve got to do.’
‘Going to-morrow!’ said Mrs. Renton, with a little shriek. Mary did not even lift up her head from her work. She kept on bending over the worsted roses as if they were the most important things in the world; but her heart suddenly had taken to flutter in the wildest way against her quiet breast.
‘Yes, Mary,’ said Ben, suddenly, ‘don’t you see that it is necessary? I must finish my work.’
Mary made him no answer, being intent on the shade of a pink, and he took a few turns about the room in his impatience; for his mother had begun to cry softly in her bed.
‘That is always the worst of talking to you women,’ he said. ‘Mother, can’t you understand? You can’t go breaking off threads in life, as you do it in your sewing. I must wind up my affairs. There are some things I must see after for myself.’
‘Oh, Ben, after I had made up my mind to something so different!’ said his mother. ‘I did not sleep a bit last night for making up how it was to be. I had quite settled in my mind what parties it would be necessary to give. We have not entertained since your poor dear father died, not once,—but now I had been thinking there ought to be a series of dinners, and perhaps a ball, to give Renton its proper place again in the county, and prove that everything is settled. And now you come and break my heart, and tell me you are going away!’
‘But, dear godmamma, he will soon come back,’ said Mary, coming to the rescue. ‘He does not mean he is to go on making railways all his life. He is going to finish his work,—that is what he said; though it is disappointing of course.’
‘Because of the ball?’ said Ben, looking at her across his mother; but Mary was not able at thatmoment to take her part in any encounter of wit.
‘No,’ she said, almost angrily, ‘not because of the ball. I am not young enough now to care very much for balls; but because I thought it was your turn now to take care of godmamma, and——’ Mary could trust herself no further. She went back abruptly to her work, leaving both mother and son in a state of the utmost surprise and consternation.
‘I think you are all bent on driving me wild,’ said poor Mrs. Renton. ‘It seemed as if everything was over yesterday; but now here is Ben going away, and Mary is disagreeable. And who have I to fall back upon? Laurie is very kind, but he will be going too; and Alice is nice, but I am not used to her. If Mary is to be sharp with me like this, what am I to do?’
‘I will never be sharp with you, godmamma,’ said Mary, who for the first time in her gentle life felt herself driven further than she could bear. ‘But you must remember sometimes that I have a home and people of my own. You have wanted me very much for these seven years, and you know I have never said a word,—but now that the boys have all come home, I did hope——’
She would not break down and cry,—not for the world, while Ben kept gazing at her from his mother’s bedside. But she stopped short abruptly, in the middle of her sentence, which was the onlyalternative, and applied herself with a kind of fury, with trembling fingers, and eyes blind with unshed tears, to the worsted work. Calculating upon her services as if she were a piece of furniture! Making all these arrangements without any reference to her! It was more than Mary could bear.
‘Ben, speak to her,’ said Mrs. Renton, faintly. ‘Oh, my dear, the boys! Of course I am fond of the boys; but what can boys do for a poor woman like me? Oh, Ben, speak to her! You would not go and forsake me, Mary, when I want you most?’
Ben did not speak, however. He was startled, and out of his reckoning. He went to the window again, and stood opposite to his cousin, and gazed down upon her, with his hands in his pockets and a look of profound concern and uncertainty on his face.
‘I won’t forsake you, godmamma,’ said Mary, with a trembling voice; ‘but surely you might think,—plan out something,—make some arrangement.’ How hard it is for a woman to assert herself, to speak out of a heart sore with the consciousness of being made no account of, and not to cry! It would have been easier for Mary to put herself down under their feet and allow them to walk over her,—as, indeed, it seemed to her she had been doing. And they did not know it! They had endured their seven years’ bondage, and it had come to an end, and all was right again; but for her the same round was to go on for ever, and nobody even was awarefor what poor hire she had sacrificed her life and her youth.
‘Davison, Miss Mary says she is going to leave us,’ said Mrs. Renton, as the maid came in. ‘No, no; take it away. I could not swallow it. I am sure if I thought there was anything in the world she wanted, I would have got it for her, Davison. And I always thought she was so happy with me. No, it would choke me, I tell you. And if she was not happy with me, there are years and years that I might have got used to it; but to go and tell me now, just when I want her most——’
‘You’ll take your arrowroot, ma’am,’ said Davison, soothingly. ‘It’s just as you like it, neither too hot nor too cold. Miss Mary agoing away! That’s a fine joke. Miss Mary couldn’t stay away, ma’am, not if you was to send her. She’s a deal too fond of you. It’s just nice now, just as you like it. It’s all her fun, that’s what it is!’
‘I don’t see any fun in it,’ said Mrs. Renton, feebly. But she was consoled by the fuss, and the re-arrangement of her pillows, and the arrowroot. ‘You’ll speak to her, Davison, won’t you?—and tell her I couldn’t bear it. I am sure it would cost me my life.’
‘To be sure, ma’am, I’ll tell her,’ said the maid.
While this little scene was going on, Ben stoodby the window, always with his hands in his pockets, gazing at his cousin, who worked with fury, with hands that trembled, and eyes blind with tears. She kept them from falling with a superhuman effort, but she could not see anything but great blurs of mixed colour on the piece of embroidery before her, harmless bits of worsted all dilated and magnified through the tears.
‘Do you really mean it, Mary?’ he said, looking down upon her with a look of grief, which she did not see, and yet knew of, and was stung by to the bottom of her heart.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘Ben. I can’t tell. I don’t want to give you more trouble. I don’t know what I am saying. It has all been too much,—too much!’
‘Come out into the air,’ said Ben. ‘I see it has been too much. We are all such selfish wretches, thinking only of our own concerns. Come out into the air.’
‘I think I am more fit to go to bed,’ said Mary, and the tears fell in spite of her. ‘Never mind me. I have got such a headache,—and,—a bad temper. Never mind! I think I shall go to bed.’
‘Come out to the woods instead,’ said Ben, with a brother’s tender sympathy. ‘Never mind, mother,—she will come round. It is only that she is worn out and over-done. I am going to take her out into the air.’
And so he did, though there was nothing she less desired. He took her out, giving her his arm, and suiting his steps to hers as if she had been ill. She was moved to a weary laugh, half of exasperation, when she had been thus led forth. ‘There is nothing the matter with me, Ben. Don’t make all this fuss. You make me ashamed of myself,’ she said.
‘There is something the matter with you,’ said Ben. ‘Come and sit down here, where we can have a good talk. I see now, though I was such a selfish ass as not to think of it before. You see, Mary, you have always been so much one of ourselves, that it never occurred to me to think of the sacrifice you were making in living here.’
‘It was no sacrifice!’ cried Mary. ‘Don’t make me wretched, Ben. I lost my temper, that was all. I thought you were making all your plans, as if it were to go on for ever and ever; and that I was only a piece of furniture that nobody thought of. Don’t pay any attention to me.’
‘My poor little Mary!’ said Ben, taking her hand into his. He made her sit down on the root of the beech, and bent his eyes wistfully on her, holding her hand in one of his, and with the other stroking his moustache, as is the wont of men in trouble. He saw there was something in it, more than met the eye; and he looked at her with a certain blank wistfulness. What did Mary want? If it had been anything hecould fetch for her from the ends of the earth, he would have done it. If he had only known what it was!—or what would please her,—or how to soothe the nerves, which were evidently all ajar. Mary could not bear that gaze. Shame, and a sense of humiliation, and all the sensitive pride of a woman, overwhelmed her. Was there something in her heart which she would not have him discover? She put up her other hand and covered her face with it, turning away from him; and whether any sort of enlightenment might by degrees have penetrated the blank anxiety of his gaze, I cannot tell; for at that moment they were interrupted in such a way as Mary remembered to the end of her life.
All at once a rustle was audible as of some one coming,—indeed, of some one quite near; and then there was a little, light laugh. “Oh, good gracious! we have come at an unlucky moment,’ said Millicent’s voice, close at their side. Mary sprang to her feet, drawing her hand away from Ben’s, raising her flushed face in a kind of desperation. Mrs. Tracy and her daughter had just turned the corner round the beech-tree, from which Ben rose, too, with more surprise than delight. Millicent had put on a white dress, with no sign, except in the black ribbons, of her mourning. She was in the full splendour of her beauty, excited into more brilliancy than usual. ‘I am sure I am very sorry if I have interrupted anything,’ she said, with the colour rising intoher cheek, and a laughing devil of malice in her eyes.
‘Yes, you interrupted a serious discussion,’ said Ben. ‘Mary is worn out, and I have been questioning her about her health. She has been shutting herself up a great deal too much, and she denies it, as all women do.’
‘How sorry I am! and you were feeling her pulse, I suppose?’ said Millicent. ‘It looked the prettiest scene imaginable, seen through the trees. You did not hear us coming, you were so pleasantly,—I mean seriously,—occupied. And have you found out what is the matter with her, Mr. Ben?’ This was said with the air half-malicious, half-friendly of the discoverer of a secret. And on the score of this pretended confidence, Millicent approached him closely, and used all her weapons against the man who had once knelt at her feet. She looked him in the face with eyes as much brighter than Mary Westbury’s as they had been in the earlier days,—with the sweet tints of her complexion increased by exercise, and by, perhaps a little excitement over this supposed discovery,—with the morning air puffing out the white frills and trimmings of her dress, and ruffling a curl which, after the fashion of the day, fell over her shoulder. The mother had immediately appropriated Mary, who, wild with shame and confusion and anger, stood at bay, and was now with difficulty restraining her inclination to burst away from the intruder, and gohome and bury herself in her room, where nobody could see her hot blushes and angry tears. Ben was moved by a certain confusion, too, against his will. It was an awkward attitude, certainly, in which to be seen by any stranger eye.
‘I am not much of a physician,’ he said; ‘but we have all had a great deal of excitement lately, and Mary is worn out. I trust it is nothing more.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Millicent. ‘I know that; indeed, I had thought I might come and inquire this morning as an old friend. You forget that you told me all about it,—once. I thought I might ask, for the sake of old times, if all was right at last.’
‘You do me a great deal of honour to remember anything about my affairs,’ said Ben. ‘Are you going to the river?’ and he turned with her to go down in the direction she had been taking. ‘Have you a boat?’
‘Yes; the old gardener put us across,’ said Millicent. ‘You do not give me credit for any friendly feeling, and you always try to get rid of me, Mr. Renton. Oh, indeed, I can see it very well. I do not feel angry, for perhaps you have had provocation; though I can see it very well. But it would not do you any harm, nor me much good—except for old friendship’s sake,—if you were to answer my question. Is it all right?’
‘It is perfectly right,’ said Ben, with a little bow. ‘I don’t know that there was ever any doubt onthat subject. I must thank you for taking so much interest in us and our affairs.’
‘That is all you say now,’ cried Millicent, with ready tears springing to her eyes; and tears come as readily from mortification and the passion of anger as from any other cause. ‘You would not have answered me like that once. Ah, Ben Renton, how much you are changed!’
‘I think it is very natural I should be,’ said Ben. ‘You are changed, too, Mrs. Rich; though not in anything external,—unless it may be for the better, if that were possible,’ he added, with a certain grudge in his words. The man was but a man, and they were extorted from him by the beauty which could neither be mistaken nor overlooked.
‘If I am not changed in externals, you may be sure I am changed in nothing else,’ said Millicent, turning upon him with a smile of such eager sweetness and hope, that it almost reached his heart. She, poor creature! believed she was winning him back. The thought quickened all her powers, quickened the very springs of being in her. She forgot Mary, and the attitude which for a moment had driven her to despair. So much the better if he had been Mary’s lover,—a touch of triumph the more! ‘I have had a great deal to endure since we parted,’ she went on. ‘Oh, you cannot tell all I have had to bear! And I thought time had worn me and aged me, and that youwould scarcely have known me again. But nothing has ever changed me at heart.’
‘Mrs. Rich, you forget that this conveys very little information to me,’ said Ben, moved with sudden vindictiveness. ‘In those days of which you speak,—and I don’t know why you should speak of them, the recollection cannot be a pleasant one,—I remember clearly enough what a fool I made of myself. My heart was open enough,—ass as I was,—but I don’t know now, and I did not then, what were the sentiments of yours,—if indeed——’
‘I had one!’ cried Millicent. ‘Oh, that you should say this to me! And yet I feel that I deserve it. I acted as if I had none. What can I say or do to make you know how sorry I am? Sorry is too poor a word. Oh, Ben, I know I ought not to say it; but if either then or now you could have seen into my heart——’
Her eyes were shining through her tears; her cheeks glowed with soft blushes; her look besought, implored, entreated him. Poor soul! she said true. If he could have seen into her heart, then or now, this is what he would have seen there:—If Ben Renton will lift me out of all the necessities of my scheming, wretched life,—if he will give me plenty, money, luxury, comfort, what my soul sighs for,—then I will do my best to love him. I will be a good wife to him,—I will be good in my way,—I will,—I will,—I will! She had said all this to God many atime saying her prayers, and this is what her heart would have said to Ben, with a kind of desperate ingenuousness,—innocence in the midst of guile. And he looked at her, and the man’s soul was shaken within him. Something of the truth became visible to him;—not the ineffable charm of love. If it had been very love that shone in her eyes,—however his finer sense had been revolted by its over-frankness,—no doubt he would have fallen a victim. For he had loved her once, and she had never been more beautiful, perhaps never so beautiful in her life. He was touched by her loveliness, by her eagerness, by the pitiful intensity of expression in her eyes. Take me,—save me!—she seemed to be crying to him: and, good heavens! to think what one gleam of this fire, one such look, would have been to him once! Ben grew confused in himself, half with recollections, half with pity; and the softness of success and restoration was in his mind,—even of triumph,—for had not he won a victory, and silenced all opposers? His voice faltered as he answered her, if answer it could be called.
‘It is a long time ago,’ he said; ‘one’s very body and being alter you know, they say, completely in seven years.’
‘But one’s heart never changes,’ murmured Millicent. And that was the moment when Mrs. Tracy, feeling that the conflict was not progressing, chose to come in like a watchful goddess, who sees that her champion’s arms do not prevail.
‘My dear, we are taking Mr. Renton away from his cousin,’ she said, ‘and from talking over family matters; but since we have done so, could you not persuade him, Millicent, to come over to us to luncheon? You might go on the water a little; you are so fond of it; and then lunch would be ready. Mr. Renton, you must not think it strange that we are anxious to see a little of such a kind friend as you are. I always say your ready kindness saved my life.’
Millicent turned sharp round, and involuntarily clenched her hand, as if she would have struck her mother. ‘It is all over now!’ she said to herself; and never had the battle been so nearly won. As for Ben, the sound of the new voice woke him up in a moment. He gave himself a little shake, and recovered his self-command. Good heavens! to think how near a step it had been to falling helpless into the syren’s snare!
‘Thanks; but we must turn back when we have seen you to your boat,’ he said; and lingered to let Mrs. Tracy join them. ‘I have no time for any such pleasures. My mother thinks it hard enough already, and I must give her what little time remains. I am going away to-morrow.’
‘To-morrow!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a half-sneer and a look at her daughter, to which Millicent, flushed, and pouting, and angry, made no reply. ‘Then is it a mistake, after all? I thought I heardyou say all was right. I beg your pardon, I am sure——’
‘About the property it is all right,’ said Ben; ‘but I am not the idle fellow you once knew me. Those were the only six months I ever absolutely threw away in my life. And I can’t give up my work in a moment because I have got back my rights.’
‘It was a pity you threw away those six months you speak of,’ said Millicent. ‘Come, mamma; why should we trouble Mr. Renton to go with us to the boat? Of course he must have a great deal to talk of,—to his mother,—and to Mary,—his own people. We are strangers, and have no claim upon him.’
‘There are some things which one gives all the more freely because there is no claim,’ said Ben, with good-nature. ‘The path is rather rough here. Mrs. Tracy, give me your hand.’
‘Thank you, I want no help!’ Millicent cried, when he turned to her, and she sprang over the gnarled mass of roots, and ran down the path to the green river-bank. She stood there, framed in by the thick foliage, her white figure standing out against the light of the river,—a picture not to be easily forgotten. Emerald green below,—green, just touched with points of autumnal colour, here and there a yellow leaf above;—gleams of blue sky looking through;—one long line of light reflecting all the darker objects, the river, with one boat lyingclose to the grassy margin; and in the midst the beautiful, flushed, brilliant creature, full of passion, and mortification, and an angry despair. She did not think it worth while now to hide the strong emotions in her mind, but stood with her face turned to them as they followed, humiliated, yet defiant,—the crown of all the scene, and the only discord in it. Poor Millicent! her eyebrows lowered, her eyes shone; her colour was high with the shame of her defeat; and yet, beyond the angry glance in her eye, there was a tear, and the corners of her mouth drooped; and, scarcely concealed by the hard, little laugh of artificial gaiety, a sob was sounding in her throat.