Chapter Twenty Two.“The fall thou darest to despiseMaybe the slackened angel handHath suffered it, that he may riseAnd take a firmer, surer stand;Or, trusting less to earthly things,May henceforth learn to use his wings.”Adelaide Procter.When Winifred and Bessie had stopped at the post-office and taken their letters, some little remarks passed between the postmaster and his wife, who had gone out to the door and watched the two pretty, girlish figures hurried away by their impatient little pony into the green tangle of trees and hedges which a golden sunlight was brightening. It looked as if it were a sort of enchanted land, into which no storms could follow them; but Mrs Miller, who had a face which might have been intended to protest against sunshine, shook her head solemnly and said, coming back to the counter,—“There’s trouble enough in the world, to be sure, and it’s hard when the Thorpe letters, as have gone together these years, has got to part company. But there’s no saying where the love of money will lead a poor human heart.”“I’m not so sure about that matter as you are, Maria,” said her husband, cheerfully sorting his letters. “Young Mr Miles is too pleasant-spoken a young gentleman to do all the things they charge him with, in my opinion; and it’s always the way with you women, when once a bit of mud’s thrown, each of you wants to try her hand.”“It isn’t to be expected you should know better,” said Mrs Miller gravely. “When you’re converted, you’ll understand more of the depravity of the human heart. It’s a bottomless pit,” she concluded, shaking her head.“Um, um, um,” said her husband irreverently. “Then I ain’t one that’s always wanting to be poking into such places, and if I were you I’d come out for a bit into the fresh air. But,” he added, lowering his voice and giving a quick sign towards an inner room, “since he’s been here, you’re more than ever set against the old ways.”“No,” said Mrs Miller calmly, “I am not altogether satisfied that he preaches the pure gospel. It’s rare to find one who does. But I am thankful not to be blind to shortcomings, like some. And I’m sorry for Mr Miles, but what could be expected from one who was so given over to the world?”Her voice had been carefully lowered in tone, but David Stephens heard the first part of the conversation with vivid distinctness. Every word sank into his consciousness, not as something new,—for the subject was rarely absent from his thoughts,—but because they seemed to offer him a new opportunity for arguing the case, and for proving to himself yet again and again that he had done well in keeping silence about the letter. A strange complication existed in his mind. The self-deception which ensnared him was not that self-deception which conceals itself under false colours, for when he formed his resolution it was with the feeling that he was forever bidding farewell to his own peace of mind,—the voluntary acceptance of a crushing burden. It is difficult to conceive such a state, but there is no doubt that it existed in him,—whether the result of a too self-reliant creed, or owing to a stronger impulse of resistance than obedience, or to other of those secret springs which move men’s actions. In his struggle with Anthony Miles, his opponent had become a very embodiment of all the powers that league themselves against good, especially the good of other men’s souls. He had first heard him spoken of slightingly, without remembering the answer to the reproach which he might have afforded; but directly it flashed upon him he opened a pocket-book, in which were placed the few and tiny atoms of paper which he had preserved with the intention of examining, and had since forgotten. And then began the contest. Here in his hands he held, as he acknowledged, the means of clearing Anthony so as to re-establish him completely in the eyes of other men. But Anthony, triumphant and successful, represented a great antagonistic force to what David held to be his mission, and to forward which he would have thankfully endured even to the point of martyrdom. Anthony, on the contrary, with the suspicion of a dishonourable deed clinging to him, lost half his power, would cease to influence, and might no longer succeed in impressing his opinions upon Maddox, whose newly stirred fears inclined him to turn to Stephens, while an old feeling of respect yet bound him strongly to the Church, personified by the Vicar’s family. He was conscious of weighing a sin in himself against what seemed the advantage of feeble, starving souls, and he shrank from the burden with a cry of anguish, which—blame him as you will—had in it no creeping taint of hypocrisy. Only at rare times could he accept the excuses offered to his conscience,—that it was no crime of which Anthony was accused, that his interference would prove useless,—the truth generally stood out in keen cold outlines, and he would acknowledge to himself that he had done an accursed thing. Yet he would have held it a worse sin to have cast it from him. It was to save others. He might suffer; he might have lost his own soul,—he acknowledged it,—but it was that others might go in at the gate which he closed against himself. What could Anthony’s burden seem beside his own? The system in which his religious thought had been moulded had developed in Davids character both an extraordinary greatness and an extraordinary littleness; for while he longed with an ardent and intense love to save the souls about him, longed so that he would sacrifice his dearest hopes, his peace, his very integrity,—he yet appeared to himself to be fighting single-handed, to be alone in the tremendous struggle, sometimes as if our God himself were regarding it passively without stretching forth his hand to save. And this blank and awful solitude opened out before him, as the path in which he must walk, with bleeding feet, and now with the hateful companionship of a sin bound to him by a voluntary acceptance forever.
“The fall thou darest to despiseMaybe the slackened angel handHath suffered it, that he may riseAnd take a firmer, surer stand;Or, trusting less to earthly things,May henceforth learn to use his wings.”Adelaide Procter.
“The fall thou darest to despiseMaybe the slackened angel handHath suffered it, that he may riseAnd take a firmer, surer stand;Or, trusting less to earthly things,May henceforth learn to use his wings.”Adelaide Procter.
When Winifred and Bessie had stopped at the post-office and taken their letters, some little remarks passed between the postmaster and his wife, who had gone out to the door and watched the two pretty, girlish figures hurried away by their impatient little pony into the green tangle of trees and hedges which a golden sunlight was brightening. It looked as if it were a sort of enchanted land, into which no storms could follow them; but Mrs Miller, who had a face which might have been intended to protest against sunshine, shook her head solemnly and said, coming back to the counter,—
“There’s trouble enough in the world, to be sure, and it’s hard when the Thorpe letters, as have gone together these years, has got to part company. But there’s no saying where the love of money will lead a poor human heart.”
“I’m not so sure about that matter as you are, Maria,” said her husband, cheerfully sorting his letters. “Young Mr Miles is too pleasant-spoken a young gentleman to do all the things they charge him with, in my opinion; and it’s always the way with you women, when once a bit of mud’s thrown, each of you wants to try her hand.”
“It isn’t to be expected you should know better,” said Mrs Miller gravely. “When you’re converted, you’ll understand more of the depravity of the human heart. It’s a bottomless pit,” she concluded, shaking her head.
“Um, um, um,” said her husband irreverently. “Then I ain’t one that’s always wanting to be poking into such places, and if I were you I’d come out for a bit into the fresh air. But,” he added, lowering his voice and giving a quick sign towards an inner room, “since he’s been here, you’re more than ever set against the old ways.”
“No,” said Mrs Miller calmly, “I am not altogether satisfied that he preaches the pure gospel. It’s rare to find one who does. But I am thankful not to be blind to shortcomings, like some. And I’m sorry for Mr Miles, but what could be expected from one who was so given over to the world?”
Her voice had been carefully lowered in tone, but David Stephens heard the first part of the conversation with vivid distinctness. Every word sank into his consciousness, not as something new,—for the subject was rarely absent from his thoughts,—but because they seemed to offer him a new opportunity for arguing the case, and for proving to himself yet again and again that he had done well in keeping silence about the letter. A strange complication existed in his mind. The self-deception which ensnared him was not that self-deception which conceals itself under false colours, for when he formed his resolution it was with the feeling that he was forever bidding farewell to his own peace of mind,—the voluntary acceptance of a crushing burden. It is difficult to conceive such a state, but there is no doubt that it existed in him,—whether the result of a too self-reliant creed, or owing to a stronger impulse of resistance than obedience, or to other of those secret springs which move men’s actions. In his struggle with Anthony Miles, his opponent had become a very embodiment of all the powers that league themselves against good, especially the good of other men’s souls. He had first heard him spoken of slightingly, without remembering the answer to the reproach which he might have afforded; but directly it flashed upon him he opened a pocket-book, in which were placed the few and tiny atoms of paper which he had preserved with the intention of examining, and had since forgotten. And then began the contest. Here in his hands he held, as he acknowledged, the means of clearing Anthony so as to re-establish him completely in the eyes of other men. But Anthony, triumphant and successful, represented a great antagonistic force to what David held to be his mission, and to forward which he would have thankfully endured even to the point of martyrdom. Anthony, on the contrary, with the suspicion of a dishonourable deed clinging to him, lost half his power, would cease to influence, and might no longer succeed in impressing his opinions upon Maddox, whose newly stirred fears inclined him to turn to Stephens, while an old feeling of respect yet bound him strongly to the Church, personified by the Vicar’s family. He was conscious of weighing a sin in himself against what seemed the advantage of feeble, starving souls, and he shrank from the burden with a cry of anguish, which—blame him as you will—had in it no creeping taint of hypocrisy. Only at rare times could he accept the excuses offered to his conscience,—that it was no crime of which Anthony was accused, that his interference would prove useless,—the truth generally stood out in keen cold outlines, and he would acknowledge to himself that he had done an accursed thing. Yet he would have held it a worse sin to have cast it from him. It was to save others. He might suffer; he might have lost his own soul,—he acknowledged it,—but it was that others might go in at the gate which he closed against himself. What could Anthony’s burden seem beside his own? The system in which his religious thought had been moulded had developed in Davids character both an extraordinary greatness and an extraordinary littleness; for while he longed with an ardent and intense love to save the souls about him, longed so that he would sacrifice his dearest hopes, his peace, his very integrity,—he yet appeared to himself to be fighting single-handed, to be alone in the tremendous struggle, sometimes as if our God himself were regarding it passively without stretching forth his hand to save. And this blank and awful solitude opened out before him, as the path in which he must walk, with bleeding feet, and now with the hateful companionship of a sin bound to him by a voluntary acceptance forever.
Chapter Twenty Three.Thorpe was a little excited over Mr Mannering’s garden party. To be sure it could boast of much the same amount of hospitality annually offered as the other little country-places in the neighbourhood, but, on the other hand, these hospitalities generally took the form of dinner-parties, and people came in closed carriages or flies, instead of driving in gayly with their pretty bright colours flashing out for the benefit of the women who stood on the door-steps, or the children who were all agape. Besides, owing to the Vicars death, there had been fewer gayeties than usual, and another sort of gloom had gathered about the village after the rumour of Anthony’s deed made a break in the old cordial intercourse. Robert Mannering was sorely perplexed and grieved. Faithfulness to his old love made him quick to resent for Margaret Hare any injustice done to her daughter, and yet the estrangement from Anthony was very painful to him. He had tried to prevent it, but he could not show that there was perfect trust in his mind, and Anthony was keenly offended. Throughout his boyhood and bright youth the young fellow had been full of sanguine ardour, flushed with dreams and visions of great things to be done, where he was always the champion and deliverer, and would go forth, single-handed if need were, to fight against wrong. Suddenly, in a shape of which he had never dreamed, wrong had leaped upon him, and smitten all his weapons out of his hand, so that where nothing had seemed impossible was there now anything possible except weariness and bitterness to the end? Such a mood, if he had belonged to another creed, might have driven him to become a Trappist, not from any deepening of religion, but rather from repulsion of the life he had hitherto lived, which had so instantaneously changed colour. One would speak reverently of the workings of a man’s soul in a crisis of his life, knowing that there is at times a strangeness, a madness, a wilfulness, at war with what is highest and noblest, making strife terrible, and asking from us prayer rather than judgment. Anthony chafed so hotly against the injustice of society, that he was conscious of a longing to outrage it, but the strong, tender force of associations, the purity of a father’s memory, are safeguards for which many a one is in after years thankful; only his pride revenged itself by holding aloof from his former friends. He would have gone to extremes with the Mannerings if Mr Robert had permitted it; but he was blind to all avoidance, took no notice of cold treatment, went to see Mrs Miles as usual, and though the announcement of the engagement gave his kind heart a pang for Winifred, he believed it to be for the best,—considering the Squires vehemence,—and was glad to make it a kind of opportunity for reconciliation. Personally, too, he liked Ada, who was a favourite with most of the gentlemen round, and he saw no reason why she should not enjoy her little innocent triumph. Therefore Anthony’s refusal to come to his house vexed him not a little.“If that foolish fellow is going to walk about on stilts all his days, there will be no living in the place with him,” he said, pacing up and down the study with the short, heavy steps which always produced an air of endurance in his brother. “What do you say to it, Charles? O, I see, you don’t like my moving about! Why didn’t you stop me?”“My dear Robert, I might as well stop a watch that is wound up.”“That’s nonsense. Of course, I recollect it if you’ll only speak. It’s merely that sitting down in this heat gives me the fidgets, and you can’t stand another open window. What were we talking about?—O, Anthony! Here’s his note. Did you ever in your life read such a shut-me-up epistle?”Mr Mannering read the letter, and shrugged his shoulders.“It must be one thing or the other with him.”“It’s a pity it should always be the wrong thing,” said Mr Robert, mechanically resuming his march. “The matter has blown over, and there’s an end of it. A pretty girl, and a fresh start, and not one of us but is ready to shake hands. What on earth can he expect more?”“You must have patience,” said Mr Mannering. “The lad is sore and unhappy, he may be looking at the matter from an entirely different point of view to yours, and at any rate he is not one to shake off either accusation or act readily.”“Well,” said his brother, with a little wonder, “you have been his best friend throughout, even to disbelieving plain facts.”“You should read more classic poetry, Robert.”“Pooh! Why?”“You would get rid of that terribly prosaic estimation of facts. They may be as deceptive as other many-sided things.”“Well, as Anthony insists upon drawing his sword and holding us all at arm’s length, I wish the fact that half a hundred women are coming to trample down my turf were deceptive. What a difference there would have been a year ago!” added Mr Robert, with a sigh of regret. “That boy would hare been up here twenty times a day, planning and contriving, and worrying us out of our senses. It is not right of him, Charles, whatever you may say; it’s not right for the poor girl.”“Will you be so good as to close that window, Robert?” said his brother, shivering. “When your guests come I shall be doubled up with rheumatism. To drag me into society is really an act of cruelty, for I am quite unfit for it, and as useless as a log.”Mr Robert stopped his march, and looked at his brother with a comically grave expression of sympathy. The same little comedy was acted again and again, Mr Mannering protesting against the society in which he delighted, and a victim to aches and pains until the guests arrived, when he became the perfect host, only occasionally indulging himself with an allusion to his sufferings, and full of the social presence of mind invaluable under the circumstances.Ada had been as much offended at Anthony’s desertion as it was possible for one of her nature to be, but it could not seriously ruffle her temper. All her life had been spent in a kindly appreciative atmosphere, and a certain placid self-satisfaction seems irrepressibly to radiate from such lives. No doubts were likely to trouble her. She was too serenely comfortable to be conscious of the little stings and darts which torment some people every day. She was haunted by no sense of short-coming. There looked out at her from the glass a pretty smiling face, her uncle and aunt petted her, the days were full of easy enjoyment,—all of us have been sometimes puzzled with these lives, which irritate us at the very moment of our half-envy of a placidity which seems so far beyond our reach. And now, although Anthony’s absence caused her a prick of mortification, she had no intention of resigning, in consequence, any of the honours which the occasion might bring to her feet, nor even the attendance of an admirer, for she had persuaded good-natured Mrs Bennett—always readily moved to anything in the shape of a kindness, and especially of one which affected the bodily comfort of her acquaintances—to offer a seat in the carriage to Mr Warren, a young would-be lawyer who was working under Mr Bennett, and who would otherwise have had to tramp out along the dusty road, instead of, as now, appearing in the freshest of attire, ready to be Ada’s very obedient servant, and not at all ill-pleased to stand, if only for a day, in what should have been Anthony’s place.It gave Winifred a start to come upon the two walking towards the green-houses; Ada with much the same little air of prettiness and self-consciousness which she had displayed towards Anthony on the day of the sisters’ visit, Mr Warren certainly more attentive and lover-like than the real lover had been. And Ada was not in the least discomposed by the look of astonishment in Winifred’s clear eyes. There was, on the contrary, a triumphant tone in her voice.“We are going to see Mr Mannering’s ferns. It is such a delightful day. I do think it was so charming of Mr Mannering to give this party, but then he is charming, and I was just telling Mr Warren that I had lost my heart to him.”It is strange how from some lips praise of those we like becomes much more unbearable than its reverse. Winifred had never felt so uncharitably towards Mr Robert.They went on through the flickering sunshine—which the bordering espalier trees were not tall enough to shadow—talking and laughing, while Winifred looked after them with a perplexed sadness for Anthony. What was he about?—why was he not here?—did he think he could escape pain like this? She was right in concluding that his absence would not improve his position, for people who came with the intention of being gracious were thrown back upon themselves. It looked odd, they said, to see Miss Lovell there and Mr Miles absent. It left the party incomplete. The day was exquisite: a little breeze rustled through the great elms, the lights were laden with colour, there were grave sharply cut shadows on the grass, a soft fresh warmth, full of exhilaration, Mr Robert’s brightest flowers sunning themselves, but—somehow or other there was a jar. Even Mrs Bennett began to look a little troubled at the speeches which reached her ears, especially when Mrs Featherly drew her chair close to her, and began what she intended for consolation.“You and Mr Bennett should have made a point of it, you should indeed, if only in consideration of what is past,” she said, shaking her head impressively. “There can be no doubt but that it was his duty to come. And it always grieves me deeply when you see people endeavouring to evade a duty.”“He has gone to London,” said poor Mrs Bennett, with a feeble show of indignation. “And my husband says that ladies have no idea of what business requires.”“I flatter myself that there is nothing of Mr Featherly’s business which I do not know as well as he does himself,” said Mrs Featherly loftily, “and I should make it a point of principle to be acquainted with that of any one likely to become connected with our family, especially if there were a past to be considered. But of course, if Mr Bennett is satisfied—and he is, I believe, remarkable for his caution?”It was one of Mrs Featherly’s peculiarities to credit people with virtues which could not be considered strong marks in their character. Caution was so far from being Mr Bennett’s prerogative, that one or two little difficulties in his profession had arisen from his lack of that lawyer-like quality. Mrs Bennett thought of moving to another part of the garden, but she was in a comfortable chair and could see no other vacant seat, so she murmured an assent and let her tormentor run on.“One is bound at all times to hope for the best, and, of course, we feel an interest in this young man, the son of a neighbouring clergyman and all, as my husband very properly remarked. But it is most unfortunate. Poor Ada, I am really quite sorry for her, and so is Augusta. Were you thinking of moving? I know you are so active that I dare say you hardly share my relief in sitting still. With a parish like ours I assure you the responsibilities become a very heavy burden, but, as you say, there are family responsibilities which are scarcely less trying, and poor Ada not being your daughter—”It was like a nightmare. Poor Mrs Bennett, who had not thought much of Anthony’s going to London, and was conscious of all the capabilities of comfort around her, began to feel as if everything were wrong, and had no weapons with which to defend herself. Luckily for her Mr Mannering came by, and she almost caught at him as he passed.“It is rather hot here,” she said, searching about for some physical means of accounting for her discomfort. “I think I should like to move to a shadier part.”“We will both go,” said Mrs Featherly, spreading out her dress. “Now that you are here, Mr Mannering, I may as well remind you of your promise of subscription to our organ. Was it you or Mr Robert?—but of course it is the same thing.”“I wish it were,” said Mr Mannering, in his courteous, easy manner. “Robert is the philanthropic half of the house, and I have every desire to benefit by his good deeds. I always aid and abet them at any rate, so that, if you will allow me, I will make him over to you where he shall not escape.”“Ah, but you must assist us, too,” said Mrs Featherly. “It is a most dangerous doctrine to suppose that you can avoid responsibilities. That is just what I was pointing out to our friend. Naturally she and Mr Bennett feel much anxiety with regard to their niece, and it is so unfortunate that Mr Miles did not make a point of being here to-day at all events.”There are some people in the world for whom it seems the sun never shines, the flowers never blow, the earth might be sad-coloured, for anything that it matters. Even Mrs Bennett, whom all these things affected in a material sort of way, was more influenced by them than Mrs Featherly, who shut them out of her groove with contempt.“Here is Miss Chester,” said Mr Mannering with some relief, for he did not quite know how to separate the two ladies. “Miss Winifred, I want you to be kind enough to help Mrs Featherly to find my brother. He is avoiding his debts, and must be brought to book. Mrs Bennett is tired, and I am going to take her to a shady seat.”Mr Mannerings voice was too courteous for Mrs Featherly to be able to persuade herself that she was affronted, but she certainly felt that she had not said so much as she intended to Mrs Bennett upon the subject of Anthony’s delinquencies. She was not really a malicious woman, but she considered that her position gave her a right of censorship over the morals of the neighbourhood, and that it was both incumbent upon her to see that people acted up to their duties, and to speak her mind when she was of opinion that they in any degree came short of them. And as she never had any doubt as to the exact line of duty which belonged to each person, she was not likely to distrust her own power of judgment. She prepared herself to deliver a little homily to Winifred.“My dear, I was so surprised to see Bessie here. Does your father really think it wise for so young a girl? Why, she will not come out for another year and a half.”“Bessie will be seventeen in October,” said Winifred, “and she has coaxed papa into promising that she shall go to the December ball at Aunecester.”All Mrs Featherly’s ribbons shook with disapproval.“The Aunecester ball! Impossible! It would be most injudicious. Eighteen is the earliest age at which a girl should come out. Augusta was eighteen, I remember, on the twentieth of December, and the ball was on the twenty-seventh. If her birthday had not fallen until after the ball, Augusta has so much proper feeling that no consideration would have induced her to persuade me to allow her to go. She would have known it was against my principles. Eighteen. Eighteen is the earliest, and Bessie will not be eighteen for a year. I must speak to Mr Chester myself, and point out the impropriety. I must, indeed.”“My father has promised,” said Winifred, smiling. “He never will call back a promise.”“He must be made to see that it is a matter of principle. The young people of the present day have the most extraordinary ideas. Now, there is Anthony Miles. Why is he not in his proper place to-day, when, in consideration of his position, and out of regard for our excellent friends, we were willing to meet him, and to let bygones be bygones?”“Anthony need fear no bygones,” said Winifred, with an indignant flush burning on her cheek.“You must allow other people to be the best judge of that,” said Mrs Featherly, drawing herself up stiffly. “Both Mr Featherly and I are of opinion that appearances are very much against him; and appearances, let me assure you, are exceedingly momentous things. At the same time, it may be the duty of society to make a point of not proceeding to extremities, and, taking into consideration the young man’s position in the county as a gentleman of independent means, as the son also of your late Vicar, society in my opinion acted as it should in extending its congratulations on the approaching event, while the young man has, to say the least, been injudicious. Most injudicious.”“It is certain that he would not meet society on such terms,” said Winifred, with difficulty commanding her voice.“My dear, a young lady should not undertake a gentlemans defence so warmly.”Poor Winifred was helpless, angry, and provoked almost to tears. For though her heart was not too sore to be generous, every now and then so sharp a pang struck through it, that her only refuge seemed to lie in such hard thoughts of Anthony as should convince herself that she was indifferent. She did not want to be his defender. And yet it was unendurable to hear him suspected. Perhaps she did the best that she could when she stopped and said gravely,—“If we talk about him any more, I might say things which you might call rude, and you are too old a friend for me to like to affront you. But I want you to understand that Anthony Miles was brought up like our brother, and I know it is as impossible for him to have done such an act as you suppose, as for my father to have done it. There is some unfortunate mistake. Please, whether you believe me or not, do not say any more about it. Did you not wish to see Mr Robert? There he is. I must go to Bessie.”So poor Winifred carried her swelling heart across the sunshine which lay warm on the soft grass, and past the blossoming roses, leaving Mrs Featherly more keenly mortified than she knew. No possibility of a last word was left to her, and she was so utterly discomfited that she even forgot the organ and Mr Robert. But as she drove home she said to her husband,—“James, we shall pass that man Smiths, and I must beg that you will get out and tell him that I cannot allow Mary Anne to come to the Sunday school with flowers in her bonnet.”“If you wish it, my dear, of course,” Mr Featherly said reluctantly. “But it might be as well not to irritate that man just as he is beginning to show signs of a better—”“Principle is principle.” Mrs Featherly had never felt so uncompromising. It was one of those odd links of life which baffle us. Here were Anthony and Winifred and Mr Mannering’s garden party unconsciously playing upon big Tom Smith and poor little blue-eyed Mary Anne, who had somewhere picked up a bit of finery, and decked herself out. Mrs Featherly had received a check that day, and wanted to feel the reins again. “Principle is principle,” she said unrelentingly.
Thorpe was a little excited over Mr Mannering’s garden party. To be sure it could boast of much the same amount of hospitality annually offered as the other little country-places in the neighbourhood, but, on the other hand, these hospitalities generally took the form of dinner-parties, and people came in closed carriages or flies, instead of driving in gayly with their pretty bright colours flashing out for the benefit of the women who stood on the door-steps, or the children who were all agape. Besides, owing to the Vicars death, there had been fewer gayeties than usual, and another sort of gloom had gathered about the village after the rumour of Anthony’s deed made a break in the old cordial intercourse. Robert Mannering was sorely perplexed and grieved. Faithfulness to his old love made him quick to resent for Margaret Hare any injustice done to her daughter, and yet the estrangement from Anthony was very painful to him. He had tried to prevent it, but he could not show that there was perfect trust in his mind, and Anthony was keenly offended. Throughout his boyhood and bright youth the young fellow had been full of sanguine ardour, flushed with dreams and visions of great things to be done, where he was always the champion and deliverer, and would go forth, single-handed if need were, to fight against wrong. Suddenly, in a shape of which he had never dreamed, wrong had leaped upon him, and smitten all his weapons out of his hand, so that where nothing had seemed impossible was there now anything possible except weariness and bitterness to the end? Such a mood, if he had belonged to another creed, might have driven him to become a Trappist, not from any deepening of religion, but rather from repulsion of the life he had hitherto lived, which had so instantaneously changed colour. One would speak reverently of the workings of a man’s soul in a crisis of his life, knowing that there is at times a strangeness, a madness, a wilfulness, at war with what is highest and noblest, making strife terrible, and asking from us prayer rather than judgment. Anthony chafed so hotly against the injustice of society, that he was conscious of a longing to outrage it, but the strong, tender force of associations, the purity of a father’s memory, are safeguards for which many a one is in after years thankful; only his pride revenged itself by holding aloof from his former friends. He would have gone to extremes with the Mannerings if Mr Robert had permitted it; but he was blind to all avoidance, took no notice of cold treatment, went to see Mrs Miles as usual, and though the announcement of the engagement gave his kind heart a pang for Winifred, he believed it to be for the best,—considering the Squires vehemence,—and was glad to make it a kind of opportunity for reconciliation. Personally, too, he liked Ada, who was a favourite with most of the gentlemen round, and he saw no reason why she should not enjoy her little innocent triumph. Therefore Anthony’s refusal to come to his house vexed him not a little.
“If that foolish fellow is going to walk about on stilts all his days, there will be no living in the place with him,” he said, pacing up and down the study with the short, heavy steps which always produced an air of endurance in his brother. “What do you say to it, Charles? O, I see, you don’t like my moving about! Why didn’t you stop me?”
“My dear Robert, I might as well stop a watch that is wound up.”
“That’s nonsense. Of course, I recollect it if you’ll only speak. It’s merely that sitting down in this heat gives me the fidgets, and you can’t stand another open window. What were we talking about?—O, Anthony! Here’s his note. Did you ever in your life read such a shut-me-up epistle?”
Mr Mannering read the letter, and shrugged his shoulders.
“It must be one thing or the other with him.”
“It’s a pity it should always be the wrong thing,” said Mr Robert, mechanically resuming his march. “The matter has blown over, and there’s an end of it. A pretty girl, and a fresh start, and not one of us but is ready to shake hands. What on earth can he expect more?”
“You must have patience,” said Mr Mannering. “The lad is sore and unhappy, he may be looking at the matter from an entirely different point of view to yours, and at any rate he is not one to shake off either accusation or act readily.”
“Well,” said his brother, with a little wonder, “you have been his best friend throughout, even to disbelieving plain facts.”
“You should read more classic poetry, Robert.”
“Pooh! Why?”
“You would get rid of that terribly prosaic estimation of facts. They may be as deceptive as other many-sided things.”
“Well, as Anthony insists upon drawing his sword and holding us all at arm’s length, I wish the fact that half a hundred women are coming to trample down my turf were deceptive. What a difference there would have been a year ago!” added Mr Robert, with a sigh of regret. “That boy would hare been up here twenty times a day, planning and contriving, and worrying us out of our senses. It is not right of him, Charles, whatever you may say; it’s not right for the poor girl.”
“Will you be so good as to close that window, Robert?” said his brother, shivering. “When your guests come I shall be doubled up with rheumatism. To drag me into society is really an act of cruelty, for I am quite unfit for it, and as useless as a log.”
Mr Robert stopped his march, and looked at his brother with a comically grave expression of sympathy. The same little comedy was acted again and again, Mr Mannering protesting against the society in which he delighted, and a victim to aches and pains until the guests arrived, when he became the perfect host, only occasionally indulging himself with an allusion to his sufferings, and full of the social presence of mind invaluable under the circumstances.
Ada had been as much offended at Anthony’s desertion as it was possible for one of her nature to be, but it could not seriously ruffle her temper. All her life had been spent in a kindly appreciative atmosphere, and a certain placid self-satisfaction seems irrepressibly to radiate from such lives. No doubts were likely to trouble her. She was too serenely comfortable to be conscious of the little stings and darts which torment some people every day. She was haunted by no sense of short-coming. There looked out at her from the glass a pretty smiling face, her uncle and aunt petted her, the days were full of easy enjoyment,—all of us have been sometimes puzzled with these lives, which irritate us at the very moment of our half-envy of a placidity which seems so far beyond our reach. And now, although Anthony’s absence caused her a prick of mortification, she had no intention of resigning, in consequence, any of the honours which the occasion might bring to her feet, nor even the attendance of an admirer, for she had persuaded good-natured Mrs Bennett—always readily moved to anything in the shape of a kindness, and especially of one which affected the bodily comfort of her acquaintances—to offer a seat in the carriage to Mr Warren, a young would-be lawyer who was working under Mr Bennett, and who would otherwise have had to tramp out along the dusty road, instead of, as now, appearing in the freshest of attire, ready to be Ada’s very obedient servant, and not at all ill-pleased to stand, if only for a day, in what should have been Anthony’s place.
It gave Winifred a start to come upon the two walking towards the green-houses; Ada with much the same little air of prettiness and self-consciousness which she had displayed towards Anthony on the day of the sisters’ visit, Mr Warren certainly more attentive and lover-like than the real lover had been. And Ada was not in the least discomposed by the look of astonishment in Winifred’s clear eyes. There was, on the contrary, a triumphant tone in her voice.
“We are going to see Mr Mannering’s ferns. It is such a delightful day. I do think it was so charming of Mr Mannering to give this party, but then he is charming, and I was just telling Mr Warren that I had lost my heart to him.”
It is strange how from some lips praise of those we like becomes much more unbearable than its reverse. Winifred had never felt so uncharitably towards Mr Robert.
They went on through the flickering sunshine—which the bordering espalier trees were not tall enough to shadow—talking and laughing, while Winifred looked after them with a perplexed sadness for Anthony. What was he about?—why was he not here?—did he think he could escape pain like this? She was right in concluding that his absence would not improve his position, for people who came with the intention of being gracious were thrown back upon themselves. It looked odd, they said, to see Miss Lovell there and Mr Miles absent. It left the party incomplete. The day was exquisite: a little breeze rustled through the great elms, the lights were laden with colour, there were grave sharply cut shadows on the grass, a soft fresh warmth, full of exhilaration, Mr Robert’s brightest flowers sunning themselves, but—somehow or other there was a jar. Even Mrs Bennett began to look a little troubled at the speeches which reached her ears, especially when Mrs Featherly drew her chair close to her, and began what she intended for consolation.
“You and Mr Bennett should have made a point of it, you should indeed, if only in consideration of what is past,” she said, shaking her head impressively. “There can be no doubt but that it was his duty to come. And it always grieves me deeply when you see people endeavouring to evade a duty.”
“He has gone to London,” said poor Mrs Bennett, with a feeble show of indignation. “And my husband says that ladies have no idea of what business requires.”
“I flatter myself that there is nothing of Mr Featherly’s business which I do not know as well as he does himself,” said Mrs Featherly loftily, “and I should make it a point of principle to be acquainted with that of any one likely to become connected with our family, especially if there were a past to be considered. But of course, if Mr Bennett is satisfied—and he is, I believe, remarkable for his caution?”
It was one of Mrs Featherly’s peculiarities to credit people with virtues which could not be considered strong marks in their character. Caution was so far from being Mr Bennett’s prerogative, that one or two little difficulties in his profession had arisen from his lack of that lawyer-like quality. Mrs Bennett thought of moving to another part of the garden, but she was in a comfortable chair and could see no other vacant seat, so she murmured an assent and let her tormentor run on.
“One is bound at all times to hope for the best, and, of course, we feel an interest in this young man, the son of a neighbouring clergyman and all, as my husband very properly remarked. But it is most unfortunate. Poor Ada, I am really quite sorry for her, and so is Augusta. Were you thinking of moving? I know you are so active that I dare say you hardly share my relief in sitting still. With a parish like ours I assure you the responsibilities become a very heavy burden, but, as you say, there are family responsibilities which are scarcely less trying, and poor Ada not being your daughter—”
It was like a nightmare. Poor Mrs Bennett, who had not thought much of Anthony’s going to London, and was conscious of all the capabilities of comfort around her, began to feel as if everything were wrong, and had no weapons with which to defend herself. Luckily for her Mr Mannering came by, and she almost caught at him as he passed.
“It is rather hot here,” she said, searching about for some physical means of accounting for her discomfort. “I think I should like to move to a shadier part.”
“We will both go,” said Mrs Featherly, spreading out her dress. “Now that you are here, Mr Mannering, I may as well remind you of your promise of subscription to our organ. Was it you or Mr Robert?—but of course it is the same thing.”
“I wish it were,” said Mr Mannering, in his courteous, easy manner. “Robert is the philanthropic half of the house, and I have every desire to benefit by his good deeds. I always aid and abet them at any rate, so that, if you will allow me, I will make him over to you where he shall not escape.”
“Ah, but you must assist us, too,” said Mrs Featherly. “It is a most dangerous doctrine to suppose that you can avoid responsibilities. That is just what I was pointing out to our friend. Naturally she and Mr Bennett feel much anxiety with regard to their niece, and it is so unfortunate that Mr Miles did not make a point of being here to-day at all events.”
There are some people in the world for whom it seems the sun never shines, the flowers never blow, the earth might be sad-coloured, for anything that it matters. Even Mrs Bennett, whom all these things affected in a material sort of way, was more influenced by them than Mrs Featherly, who shut them out of her groove with contempt.
“Here is Miss Chester,” said Mr Mannering with some relief, for he did not quite know how to separate the two ladies. “Miss Winifred, I want you to be kind enough to help Mrs Featherly to find my brother. He is avoiding his debts, and must be brought to book. Mrs Bennett is tired, and I am going to take her to a shady seat.”
Mr Mannerings voice was too courteous for Mrs Featherly to be able to persuade herself that she was affronted, but she certainly felt that she had not said so much as she intended to Mrs Bennett upon the subject of Anthony’s delinquencies. She was not really a malicious woman, but she considered that her position gave her a right of censorship over the morals of the neighbourhood, and that it was both incumbent upon her to see that people acted up to their duties, and to speak her mind when she was of opinion that they in any degree came short of them. And as she never had any doubt as to the exact line of duty which belonged to each person, she was not likely to distrust her own power of judgment. She prepared herself to deliver a little homily to Winifred.
“My dear, I was so surprised to see Bessie here. Does your father really think it wise for so young a girl? Why, she will not come out for another year and a half.”
“Bessie will be seventeen in October,” said Winifred, “and she has coaxed papa into promising that she shall go to the December ball at Aunecester.”
All Mrs Featherly’s ribbons shook with disapproval.
“The Aunecester ball! Impossible! It would be most injudicious. Eighteen is the earliest age at which a girl should come out. Augusta was eighteen, I remember, on the twentieth of December, and the ball was on the twenty-seventh. If her birthday had not fallen until after the ball, Augusta has so much proper feeling that no consideration would have induced her to persuade me to allow her to go. She would have known it was against my principles. Eighteen. Eighteen is the earliest, and Bessie will not be eighteen for a year. I must speak to Mr Chester myself, and point out the impropriety. I must, indeed.”
“My father has promised,” said Winifred, smiling. “He never will call back a promise.”
“He must be made to see that it is a matter of principle. The young people of the present day have the most extraordinary ideas. Now, there is Anthony Miles. Why is he not in his proper place to-day, when, in consideration of his position, and out of regard for our excellent friends, we were willing to meet him, and to let bygones be bygones?”
“Anthony need fear no bygones,” said Winifred, with an indignant flush burning on her cheek.
“You must allow other people to be the best judge of that,” said Mrs Featherly, drawing herself up stiffly. “Both Mr Featherly and I are of opinion that appearances are very much against him; and appearances, let me assure you, are exceedingly momentous things. At the same time, it may be the duty of society to make a point of not proceeding to extremities, and, taking into consideration the young man’s position in the county as a gentleman of independent means, as the son also of your late Vicar, society in my opinion acted as it should in extending its congratulations on the approaching event, while the young man has, to say the least, been injudicious. Most injudicious.”
“It is certain that he would not meet society on such terms,” said Winifred, with difficulty commanding her voice.
“My dear, a young lady should not undertake a gentlemans defence so warmly.”
Poor Winifred was helpless, angry, and provoked almost to tears. For though her heart was not too sore to be generous, every now and then so sharp a pang struck through it, that her only refuge seemed to lie in such hard thoughts of Anthony as should convince herself that she was indifferent. She did not want to be his defender. And yet it was unendurable to hear him suspected. Perhaps she did the best that she could when she stopped and said gravely,—
“If we talk about him any more, I might say things which you might call rude, and you are too old a friend for me to like to affront you. But I want you to understand that Anthony Miles was brought up like our brother, and I know it is as impossible for him to have done such an act as you suppose, as for my father to have done it. There is some unfortunate mistake. Please, whether you believe me or not, do not say any more about it. Did you not wish to see Mr Robert? There he is. I must go to Bessie.”
So poor Winifred carried her swelling heart across the sunshine which lay warm on the soft grass, and past the blossoming roses, leaving Mrs Featherly more keenly mortified than she knew. No possibility of a last word was left to her, and she was so utterly discomfited that she even forgot the organ and Mr Robert. But as she drove home she said to her husband,—
“James, we shall pass that man Smiths, and I must beg that you will get out and tell him that I cannot allow Mary Anne to come to the Sunday school with flowers in her bonnet.”
“If you wish it, my dear, of course,” Mr Featherly said reluctantly. “But it might be as well not to irritate that man just as he is beginning to show signs of a better—”
“Principle is principle.” Mrs Featherly had never felt so uncompromising. It was one of those odd links of life which baffle us. Here were Anthony and Winifred and Mr Mannering’s garden party unconsciously playing upon big Tom Smith and poor little blue-eyed Mary Anne, who had somewhere picked up a bit of finery, and decked herself out. Mrs Featherly had received a check that day, and wanted to feel the reins again. “Principle is principle,” she said unrelentingly.
Chapter Twenty Four.“The days have vanished, tone and tint,And yet perhaps the hoarding senseGives out at times (he knows not whence)A little flash, a mystic hint.”In Memoriam.When September came, things had changed but little since the summer, except that talk had drifted into other channels, and there was less curiosity in noticing Anthony Miles’s behaviour. He still kept aloof from his friends, and looked worn and haggard, while the charm which used to take the people by storm was rarely visible. The men, who had never liked him so well as the women, grumbled at his manners, and the women confessed that he had lost his pleasantness. Winifred, who now scarcely saw him, used to wonder how true it was, and what she would have found out if the old intercourse had not ceased. One day, when she and Bessie were in the High Street of Aunecester, they met the Bennetts, and Anthony with them; and as they were coming out of a shop it was impossible to avoid walking with them, though he was so cold and constrained that Winifred longed to escape. It was a keen autumnal day, the old town had put on its gayest, in honour of a visit from some learned Association or other; there were bright flags hung across the narrow street, setting off the picturesque gables and archways, and here and there decking some building black with age.“Are you going to the concert?” asked Mrs Bennett. “Ada would be sadly disappointed if I did not take her; but, really, I have been sitting in the hall and listening to all those lecturers until I have a headache. I think it would be much nicer if they stopped now and then, and let one think about it, for I became quite confused once or twice when the heat made me doze a little, and I heard their voices going on and on about sandstones, and slate, and things that never seemed to come to an end.”“I was so glad to get out,” Ada said. “I believe Anthony wanted to stay, but I really could not, it was much too learned for me. I suppose you liked it, Miss Chester?”It seemed as if she could not resist a little impertinent ring in her voice when she spoke to Winifred, and Bessie was going to rush in with a headlong attack, when Mrs Bennett made one of her useful unconscious diversions.“There are the Needhams,” she said.“They are going to the concert, I dare say,” said Ada. “Anthony, I hope you took good seats for us?”“I took what I was given,” he said, a little shortly, and at that moment Ada spied Mr Warren, and invited him graciously to accompany them. It turned out that he had no ticket, and Anthony immediately offered his own.“Then I shall go back to the hall,” he said, “for Pelham is going to speak, and one does not often get such an opportunity.”“That will be a capital plan,” said Ada. Winifred could not tell whether she were vexed or not. To her own relief they had reached the end of the street, and there was a little separation; the concert people went one way, the Chesters another, Anthony went back to his lecturing. Just as they parted Winifred asked for Marion.“She is better, thank you,” he said gravely. “She has been very ill, but we hope it will all go well now.”“I did not know she had been ill,” said Winifred. She could not avoid a reproachful jar in her voice, and the feeling that her lot was harder than Anthony’s, since she met distrust from him, and he only from an indifferent world. “Does he think we are made of stone?” she said, walking away with a sad heart. Perhaps she was not far wrong. For Anthony’s was a nature which such a blow as he had received, anything indeed which shook his faith in himself or in others, would have a disposition to harden, and all that was about him would certainly take its colouring from himself. He was letting his sympathies dry up, almost forcing them back out of their channels, and was ceasing to believe in any broader or more genial flow in others. People are not so much to us what they are as what we see them, so that there are some for whom the world must be full of terrible companions.And with poor Anthony the colouring he laid on at this time was cold and grey enough. Every gleam of brightness lay behind him in the old days which had suddenly grown a lifetime apart,—school, college, home, where on all sides he was the most popular, the most brilliant, the most full of life. And now—old friends had failed him, old hopes had been killed, old aims seemed unreal, old dreams foolishness. The saddest part of it all was that he was making even his dreariest fancies truth. There are few friendships that will stand the test of one dropping away from the bond: as to hopes and dreams and aims, they too become what a man makes them,—no less and no more. He was beginning to feel with impatient weariness that his engagement was not fulfilling even the moderate amount of contentment which he had expected. He had never professed to himself any overwhelming passion of love for Ada, but he had turned to her when he was sore and wroth with all the world, and it had seemed to him as if here were a little haven of moderate calm. If he had loved her better he would have felt as if she had a right to demand more, but I doubt whether this ever troubled him. With an older man also the experiment might have succeeded better, but his life was too young, and as yet too full of mute yearnings, for a reaction not to follow. It was not that clear-sightedness was awakened in him: the girl’s character was just one which the dullest woman would have fathomed, and scarcely a man have read rightly,—it was rather a cloudy dissatisfaction, a weariness, a consciousness that neither touched the other nor ever would, a sense of failure. No thought of escape was haunting him, he had a vague impression that his destiny might for a time be delayed, but meanwhile his destiny stood before him, and he knew that he was moving towards it, whether with willing or reluctant steps.Of Winifred he thought very little. He did not choose to think of her. If ever there had been a day when it had seemed as if she might have become a part of his life, that day was gone like many another day. She and the world were against him, and if his own heart had been on that side, poor Anthony in his desperation would have fought against them,—heart and all. It would all come to an end some time, and meanwhile—Well, meanwhile he could go on towards the end.As he walked down the old street under the flags, a sudden brightening of sunshine lit up the gay fluttering colours, a fresh breeze was blowing, the houses had irregular lines, rich bits of carving, black woodwork,—an odd sort of mediaeval life quietly kept, as it were, above the buying and selling and coming and going: now and then a narrow opening would disclose some little crooked passage, narrow, and ill-paved with stones which many a generation had worn down; while between the gables you might catch a glimpse of the soft darkness of the old Cathedral rising out of the green turf, trees from which a yellow leaf or two was sweeping softly down, a misty, tender autumnal sky, figures passing with a kind of grave busy idleness. There was a band marching up the street, and at the corner Anthony met Mr Wood, of the Grange, and at the same moment Mr Robert Mannering.“Glad to see you,” said the latter, ignoring the younger man’s evident desire to hurry on. “You’re the very couple I should have chosen to run my head against, for Charles never rested until he had made Pelham and Smith, and half a dozen of their like, engage to dine with us to-morrow, and they’ll certainly not be content with me for a listener, so take pity, both of you, will you? Half past seven, unless they give us a terribly long-winded afternoon, and then Mrs Jones will be in a rage, and woe betide us!”“No, no,” said Mr Wood, shaking his head, and going on. “Don’t expect me. I’ve just had a dose of Smith, and his long words frighten me. They don’t seem quite tame.”“I’m sorry that I can’t join you,” said Anthony, putting on his impracticable look.“Come, come. You’ve treated us very scurvily of late. Miss Lovell must spare you for once, Anthony.”“Thank you. It is not possible.”He said it so curtly, that Mr Robert’s face grew a shade redder; but as he watched the young man walking away down the street with short, quick steps, the anger changed in a moment into a sort of kind trouble.“He’ll have none of it, and if it’s shame I don’t know but what I like him the better, poor boy! I know I’d give pretty nearly anything to be able to put out my hand and tell him I believe that confounded story to be a lie. But I can’t, and he knows it. The mischief I’ve seen in my day that had money at the bottom of it! Well, I hope that pretty little girl will make him a good wife, and I shall make it up to Margaret’s child by and by. There goes Sir Peter, on his way to patronise the Association, I’ll be bound. He’ll walk up to the front and believe they know all about him, how many pheasants he has in his covers, and what a big man he is in his own little particular valley. Why shouldn’t he?—we’re all alike. I caught myself thinking that Parker would be astonished if he could only see my Farleyense; and there’s Charles as proud as a peacock over his Homer that he’s going to display, and Mrs Jones thinking all the world will be struck with the frilling in which she’ll dress up her ham, and so we go on,—one fool very much like another fool. And as the least we can do is to humour one another, and as, to judge from the shops, the Association has in it a largely devouring element, I’ll go and look after Mrs Jones’s lobster.”He turned down a narrow street. The Cathedral chimes were ringing, dropping down one after the other with a slow stately gravity. People were making their way across the Close to the different doors. The streets had their gay flags, and carriages, and groups in the shops, and mothers bringing little convoys from the dancing academy, and stopping to look at materials for winter frocks,—but hardly a touch of these excitements had reached the Close. It seemed as if nothing could ruffle its quiet air; as if, under the shadow of the old Cathedral, life and death itself would make no stir. The chimes ceased, the figures had gone softly in; presently there floated out dim harmonies from the organ. As Mr Mannering passed along under one of the old houses he met the Squire.“Winifred and Bess are there,” he said, nodding towards the Cathedral. “The children like to go in for the service. They’re good children—mine—God bless them!” he went on, with a sudden abruptness which made Mr Robert glance in his face.“Good? They’re as good as gold.”“So I think, so I think. Bess, now. She’s a spirit of her own, up in a moment, like a horse that has got a mouth worth humouring, but all over with the flash, and not a bit of sulkiness to turn sour afterwards. And Winifred, she’s been a mother to her sister. She has, hasn’t she, Mannering?”“Don’t harrow a poor old bachelor’s feelings. You know I have lost my heart to Miss Winifred ever since she was ten years old, and she refused to marry me, even then,—point-blank.”But the Squire did not seem to be listening to his answer, or if he heard it, it blended itself with other thoughts. He said with something that seemed like a painful effort, “Pitt had a notion that Anthony Miles liked Winifred. There never was anything of the kind, but he took it into his head. I’m glad with all my heart that Pitt was mistaken, for I would not have one of my girls suffer in that way for a thousand pounds. But I’ve been thinking to-day,—I don’t know what sets all these things running in my head, unless it is that it is my wedding-day.—My wedding-day, seven-and-twenty years ago, and little Harry was born the year after. I wasn’t as good a husband as I should have been, I know, Mannering, but I used to think, if little Harry had lived—”He stopped. He had been speaking throughout in a slow disjointed way, so unlike himself that Mr Robert felt uncomfortable while hardly knowing why.“Come,” he said cheerily. “Look at your two girls, and remember what you have just been saying about them.”The Squire shook his head.“They’re well enough,” he said, “but they’re not Harry. Who was I talking of—Anthony Miles, wasn’t it? I’ve been thinking that perhaps I’ve been too hard on the boy. It would have broken his father’s heart if he had known it, for there wasn’t a more honourable man breathing; but if my Harry had grown up, though he never could have done such a thing as that, he might have got into scrapes, and then if I had been dead and gone it would have been hard for never a one to stick by the lad. I don’t know how it is. I believe I’ve such a hasty tongue I never could keep back what comes uppermost. Many a box in the ear my poor mother has given me for it, though she always said all the same, ‘Have it out, and have done with it, Frank.’ It was a low thing for him to do, sir,” went on the Squire, firing up, and striking the ground with his stick by way of emphasis, “but—I don’t know—I should be glad to shake hands with him again. Somehow I feel as if it couldn’t be right as it is, with his father gone, and my little lad who might have grown up.”And so, across long years there came the clasp of baby fingers, and the echo of a message which was given to us for a Child’s sake,—peace and good-will.“I wish you would,” Mr Mannering said heartily. “He is somewhere about in the town at this very minute; perhaps you’ll meet him. Only you mustn’t mind—”He hesitated, for he did not feel sure of Anthony’s manner of accepting a reconciliation, or whether, indeed, he would accept it at all, and yet he did not like to throw difficulties in the way. But the Squire understood him with unusual quickness.“You mean the lad’s a bit cranky,” he said, “but that’s to be expected. Perhaps he and I may fire up a little, for, as I said, I’m never sure of myself, but there’s his father between us, and—well, I think we shall shake hands this time.”Not as he thought; but was it the less truly so far as he was concerned? For a minute or two Mr Robert stood and looked after him as he went along the Close, a thick, sturdy figure, with country-cut clothes, and the unmistakable air of a gentleman. The Cathedral towers rose up on one side in soft noble lines against the quiet sky, leaves fluttered gently down, a little child ran across the stones in pursuit of a puppy, and fell almost at the Squire’s feet. Mr Robert saw him pick it up, brush its frock like a woman, and stop its cries with something out of his pocket. The child toddled back triumphant, the Squire walked on towards the High Street, and Mr Robert turned in the other direction. Some indefinite sense of uneasiness had touched him, though, after all, there was no form to give it. If Mr Chester’s manner had been at first slightly unusual, he explained it himself by saying that he had been stirred by old recollections, and the vagueness his friend had noticed quite died away by the end of their conversation. He was walking slowly, but with no perceptible faltering.“And a man’s wedding-day must be enough to set things going in his head,” Mr Robert reflected. “If matters had fallen out differently now with Margaret Hare—Well, well, so I am going to make an old fool of myself, too. I’d better get on to the carrier, and set Mrs Jones’s mind easy about her lobster.”Distances are not very great in Aunecester, and it did not take long for Mr Mannering to reach the White Horse, transact his business, and go back to the principal street to wait for his brother. There was one particular bookseller’s shop, to which people had parcels sent, and where they lounged away what time they had in hand, and just before he reached it Mr Mannering noticed an unusual stir and thickening of the passers-by. He concluded that the band might be playing again, or that some little event connected with the Association had attracted a crowd. It was not until he was close to one of the groups that the scattered words they let fall attracted his attention.“An accident, did you say?” he said, stopping before a man whose face was red and heated.“Yes, sir. A gentleman knocked down. That’s the boy, and a chase I’ve had to catch him.”Mr Mannering began to see a horse, a policeman, and a frightened-looking lad in the midst of the crowd.“Nothing very serious, I hope?”“It looked serious, sir, when we picked him up. He is took into the shop, and they’ve sent for the doctor. Boys don’t care what they ride over.”“I fancy something was wrong before the horse touched him, though,” said another man, with a child in his arms. “There was time enough else for him to have got out of the way.”“Who is it?” asked Mr Mannering, with a sudden wakening of anxiety. At that moment Anthony Miles came quickly out of the shop, almost running against him in his hurry.“Have you seen them?” he said hastily, when he saw who it was. His face was drawn and pallid, like that of a man who has received a great shock.“Who, who?” said Mr Robert, gripping his arm. “It isn’t the Squire that’s hurt?”“Yes,” said Anthony impatiently. “He’s in there. Somebody must find Winifred, or she’ll be in the thick of it in a minute.”“She is at the Cathedral, she and Bessie,” said Mr Mannering, asking no more questions, but feeling his heart sink. “They must be coming out about this time. God help them, poor children!”Anthony was off before the words were out of his mouth. Mr Robert, his kind ugly face a shade paler than usual, turned into the shop, which was full of curious customers, and made his way to a back room to which they motioned him gravely.It was a little dark room, lit only by a skylight, on which the blacks had rested many a day, and hung all round with heavy draperies of cloaks and other garments, which at this moment had something weird in their familiar aspect. The Squire had been laid upon chairs, hastily placed together to form a couch; the doctor and one or two of the shop-people were talking together in a low voice as Mr Robert came in, and a frightened girl, holding a bottle in her hand, stood a little behind the group.By their faces he knew at once that there was no hope. Perhaps for the moment what came most sharply home to him was the incongruity of the Squire’s fresh open-air daily life, and this strange death-room of his. He said eagerly to the doctor,—“Can’t we get him out of this?”“Not to Thorpe,” Dr Fletcher said gravely. “But we can move him to my house. I have sent for a carriage.”“Is he quite unconscious?”“Quite. There will be no suffering.”There was no need to ask more. Death itself seems as helplessly matter of fact as the life before it. Mr Robert stood and looked down with moist eyes at the honest face that had been so full of vigour but the day before, when the Squire went through his day’s shooting like a man of half his years; and then thought of him as he had seen him that very hour, on his way to make peace, comforting a little child. Those had been his last words, the kind, good heart showing itself behind its little roughnesses, and softened as it may have been—who knows?—by a dim foreshadowing.
“The days have vanished, tone and tint,And yet perhaps the hoarding senseGives out at times (he knows not whence)A little flash, a mystic hint.”In Memoriam.
“The days have vanished, tone and tint,And yet perhaps the hoarding senseGives out at times (he knows not whence)A little flash, a mystic hint.”In Memoriam.
When September came, things had changed but little since the summer, except that talk had drifted into other channels, and there was less curiosity in noticing Anthony Miles’s behaviour. He still kept aloof from his friends, and looked worn and haggard, while the charm which used to take the people by storm was rarely visible. The men, who had never liked him so well as the women, grumbled at his manners, and the women confessed that he had lost his pleasantness. Winifred, who now scarcely saw him, used to wonder how true it was, and what she would have found out if the old intercourse had not ceased. One day, when she and Bessie were in the High Street of Aunecester, they met the Bennetts, and Anthony with them; and as they were coming out of a shop it was impossible to avoid walking with them, though he was so cold and constrained that Winifred longed to escape. It was a keen autumnal day, the old town had put on its gayest, in honour of a visit from some learned Association or other; there were bright flags hung across the narrow street, setting off the picturesque gables and archways, and here and there decking some building black with age.
“Are you going to the concert?” asked Mrs Bennett. “Ada would be sadly disappointed if I did not take her; but, really, I have been sitting in the hall and listening to all those lecturers until I have a headache. I think it would be much nicer if they stopped now and then, and let one think about it, for I became quite confused once or twice when the heat made me doze a little, and I heard their voices going on and on about sandstones, and slate, and things that never seemed to come to an end.”
“I was so glad to get out,” Ada said. “I believe Anthony wanted to stay, but I really could not, it was much too learned for me. I suppose you liked it, Miss Chester?”
It seemed as if she could not resist a little impertinent ring in her voice when she spoke to Winifred, and Bessie was going to rush in with a headlong attack, when Mrs Bennett made one of her useful unconscious diversions.
“There are the Needhams,” she said.
“They are going to the concert, I dare say,” said Ada. “Anthony, I hope you took good seats for us?”
“I took what I was given,” he said, a little shortly, and at that moment Ada spied Mr Warren, and invited him graciously to accompany them. It turned out that he had no ticket, and Anthony immediately offered his own.
“Then I shall go back to the hall,” he said, “for Pelham is going to speak, and one does not often get such an opportunity.”
“That will be a capital plan,” said Ada. Winifred could not tell whether she were vexed or not. To her own relief they had reached the end of the street, and there was a little separation; the concert people went one way, the Chesters another, Anthony went back to his lecturing. Just as they parted Winifred asked for Marion.
“She is better, thank you,” he said gravely. “She has been very ill, but we hope it will all go well now.”
“I did not know she had been ill,” said Winifred. She could not avoid a reproachful jar in her voice, and the feeling that her lot was harder than Anthony’s, since she met distrust from him, and he only from an indifferent world. “Does he think we are made of stone?” she said, walking away with a sad heart. Perhaps she was not far wrong. For Anthony’s was a nature which such a blow as he had received, anything indeed which shook his faith in himself or in others, would have a disposition to harden, and all that was about him would certainly take its colouring from himself. He was letting his sympathies dry up, almost forcing them back out of their channels, and was ceasing to believe in any broader or more genial flow in others. People are not so much to us what they are as what we see them, so that there are some for whom the world must be full of terrible companions.
And with poor Anthony the colouring he laid on at this time was cold and grey enough. Every gleam of brightness lay behind him in the old days which had suddenly grown a lifetime apart,—school, college, home, where on all sides he was the most popular, the most brilliant, the most full of life. And now—old friends had failed him, old hopes had been killed, old aims seemed unreal, old dreams foolishness. The saddest part of it all was that he was making even his dreariest fancies truth. There are few friendships that will stand the test of one dropping away from the bond: as to hopes and dreams and aims, they too become what a man makes them,—no less and no more. He was beginning to feel with impatient weariness that his engagement was not fulfilling even the moderate amount of contentment which he had expected. He had never professed to himself any overwhelming passion of love for Ada, but he had turned to her when he was sore and wroth with all the world, and it had seemed to him as if here were a little haven of moderate calm. If he had loved her better he would have felt as if she had a right to demand more, but I doubt whether this ever troubled him. With an older man also the experiment might have succeeded better, but his life was too young, and as yet too full of mute yearnings, for a reaction not to follow. It was not that clear-sightedness was awakened in him: the girl’s character was just one which the dullest woman would have fathomed, and scarcely a man have read rightly,—it was rather a cloudy dissatisfaction, a weariness, a consciousness that neither touched the other nor ever would, a sense of failure. No thought of escape was haunting him, he had a vague impression that his destiny might for a time be delayed, but meanwhile his destiny stood before him, and he knew that he was moving towards it, whether with willing or reluctant steps.
Of Winifred he thought very little. He did not choose to think of her. If ever there had been a day when it had seemed as if she might have become a part of his life, that day was gone like many another day. She and the world were against him, and if his own heart had been on that side, poor Anthony in his desperation would have fought against them,—heart and all. It would all come to an end some time, and meanwhile—Well, meanwhile he could go on towards the end.
As he walked down the old street under the flags, a sudden brightening of sunshine lit up the gay fluttering colours, a fresh breeze was blowing, the houses had irregular lines, rich bits of carving, black woodwork,—an odd sort of mediaeval life quietly kept, as it were, above the buying and selling and coming and going: now and then a narrow opening would disclose some little crooked passage, narrow, and ill-paved with stones which many a generation had worn down; while between the gables you might catch a glimpse of the soft darkness of the old Cathedral rising out of the green turf, trees from which a yellow leaf or two was sweeping softly down, a misty, tender autumnal sky, figures passing with a kind of grave busy idleness. There was a band marching up the street, and at the corner Anthony met Mr Wood, of the Grange, and at the same moment Mr Robert Mannering.
“Glad to see you,” said the latter, ignoring the younger man’s evident desire to hurry on. “You’re the very couple I should have chosen to run my head against, for Charles never rested until he had made Pelham and Smith, and half a dozen of their like, engage to dine with us to-morrow, and they’ll certainly not be content with me for a listener, so take pity, both of you, will you? Half past seven, unless they give us a terribly long-winded afternoon, and then Mrs Jones will be in a rage, and woe betide us!”
“No, no,” said Mr Wood, shaking his head, and going on. “Don’t expect me. I’ve just had a dose of Smith, and his long words frighten me. They don’t seem quite tame.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t join you,” said Anthony, putting on his impracticable look.
“Come, come. You’ve treated us very scurvily of late. Miss Lovell must spare you for once, Anthony.”
“Thank you. It is not possible.”
He said it so curtly, that Mr Robert’s face grew a shade redder; but as he watched the young man walking away down the street with short, quick steps, the anger changed in a moment into a sort of kind trouble.
“He’ll have none of it, and if it’s shame I don’t know but what I like him the better, poor boy! I know I’d give pretty nearly anything to be able to put out my hand and tell him I believe that confounded story to be a lie. But I can’t, and he knows it. The mischief I’ve seen in my day that had money at the bottom of it! Well, I hope that pretty little girl will make him a good wife, and I shall make it up to Margaret’s child by and by. There goes Sir Peter, on his way to patronise the Association, I’ll be bound. He’ll walk up to the front and believe they know all about him, how many pheasants he has in his covers, and what a big man he is in his own little particular valley. Why shouldn’t he?—we’re all alike. I caught myself thinking that Parker would be astonished if he could only see my Farleyense; and there’s Charles as proud as a peacock over his Homer that he’s going to display, and Mrs Jones thinking all the world will be struck with the frilling in which she’ll dress up her ham, and so we go on,—one fool very much like another fool. And as the least we can do is to humour one another, and as, to judge from the shops, the Association has in it a largely devouring element, I’ll go and look after Mrs Jones’s lobster.”
He turned down a narrow street. The Cathedral chimes were ringing, dropping down one after the other with a slow stately gravity. People were making their way across the Close to the different doors. The streets had their gay flags, and carriages, and groups in the shops, and mothers bringing little convoys from the dancing academy, and stopping to look at materials for winter frocks,—but hardly a touch of these excitements had reached the Close. It seemed as if nothing could ruffle its quiet air; as if, under the shadow of the old Cathedral, life and death itself would make no stir. The chimes ceased, the figures had gone softly in; presently there floated out dim harmonies from the organ. As Mr Mannering passed along under one of the old houses he met the Squire.
“Winifred and Bess are there,” he said, nodding towards the Cathedral. “The children like to go in for the service. They’re good children—mine—God bless them!” he went on, with a sudden abruptness which made Mr Robert glance in his face.
“Good? They’re as good as gold.”
“So I think, so I think. Bess, now. She’s a spirit of her own, up in a moment, like a horse that has got a mouth worth humouring, but all over with the flash, and not a bit of sulkiness to turn sour afterwards. And Winifred, she’s been a mother to her sister. She has, hasn’t she, Mannering?”
“Don’t harrow a poor old bachelor’s feelings. You know I have lost my heart to Miss Winifred ever since she was ten years old, and she refused to marry me, even then,—point-blank.”
But the Squire did not seem to be listening to his answer, or if he heard it, it blended itself with other thoughts. He said with something that seemed like a painful effort, “Pitt had a notion that Anthony Miles liked Winifred. There never was anything of the kind, but he took it into his head. I’m glad with all my heart that Pitt was mistaken, for I would not have one of my girls suffer in that way for a thousand pounds. But I’ve been thinking to-day,—I don’t know what sets all these things running in my head, unless it is that it is my wedding-day.—My wedding-day, seven-and-twenty years ago, and little Harry was born the year after. I wasn’t as good a husband as I should have been, I know, Mannering, but I used to think, if little Harry had lived—”
He stopped. He had been speaking throughout in a slow disjointed way, so unlike himself that Mr Robert felt uncomfortable while hardly knowing why.
“Come,” he said cheerily. “Look at your two girls, and remember what you have just been saying about them.”
The Squire shook his head.
“They’re well enough,” he said, “but they’re not Harry. Who was I talking of—Anthony Miles, wasn’t it? I’ve been thinking that perhaps I’ve been too hard on the boy. It would have broken his father’s heart if he had known it, for there wasn’t a more honourable man breathing; but if my Harry had grown up, though he never could have done such a thing as that, he might have got into scrapes, and then if I had been dead and gone it would have been hard for never a one to stick by the lad. I don’t know how it is. I believe I’ve such a hasty tongue I never could keep back what comes uppermost. Many a box in the ear my poor mother has given me for it, though she always said all the same, ‘Have it out, and have done with it, Frank.’ It was a low thing for him to do, sir,” went on the Squire, firing up, and striking the ground with his stick by way of emphasis, “but—I don’t know—I should be glad to shake hands with him again. Somehow I feel as if it couldn’t be right as it is, with his father gone, and my little lad who might have grown up.”
And so, across long years there came the clasp of baby fingers, and the echo of a message which was given to us for a Child’s sake,—peace and good-will.
“I wish you would,” Mr Mannering said heartily. “He is somewhere about in the town at this very minute; perhaps you’ll meet him. Only you mustn’t mind—”
He hesitated, for he did not feel sure of Anthony’s manner of accepting a reconciliation, or whether, indeed, he would accept it at all, and yet he did not like to throw difficulties in the way. But the Squire understood him with unusual quickness.
“You mean the lad’s a bit cranky,” he said, “but that’s to be expected. Perhaps he and I may fire up a little, for, as I said, I’m never sure of myself, but there’s his father between us, and—well, I think we shall shake hands this time.”
Not as he thought; but was it the less truly so far as he was concerned? For a minute or two Mr Robert stood and looked after him as he went along the Close, a thick, sturdy figure, with country-cut clothes, and the unmistakable air of a gentleman. The Cathedral towers rose up on one side in soft noble lines against the quiet sky, leaves fluttered gently down, a little child ran across the stones in pursuit of a puppy, and fell almost at the Squire’s feet. Mr Robert saw him pick it up, brush its frock like a woman, and stop its cries with something out of his pocket. The child toddled back triumphant, the Squire walked on towards the High Street, and Mr Robert turned in the other direction. Some indefinite sense of uneasiness had touched him, though, after all, there was no form to give it. If Mr Chester’s manner had been at first slightly unusual, he explained it himself by saying that he had been stirred by old recollections, and the vagueness his friend had noticed quite died away by the end of their conversation. He was walking slowly, but with no perceptible faltering.
“And a man’s wedding-day must be enough to set things going in his head,” Mr Robert reflected. “If matters had fallen out differently now with Margaret Hare—Well, well, so I am going to make an old fool of myself, too. I’d better get on to the carrier, and set Mrs Jones’s mind easy about her lobster.”
Distances are not very great in Aunecester, and it did not take long for Mr Mannering to reach the White Horse, transact his business, and go back to the principal street to wait for his brother. There was one particular bookseller’s shop, to which people had parcels sent, and where they lounged away what time they had in hand, and just before he reached it Mr Mannering noticed an unusual stir and thickening of the passers-by. He concluded that the band might be playing again, or that some little event connected with the Association had attracted a crowd. It was not until he was close to one of the groups that the scattered words they let fall attracted his attention.
“An accident, did you say?” he said, stopping before a man whose face was red and heated.
“Yes, sir. A gentleman knocked down. That’s the boy, and a chase I’ve had to catch him.”
Mr Mannering began to see a horse, a policeman, and a frightened-looking lad in the midst of the crowd.
“Nothing very serious, I hope?”
“It looked serious, sir, when we picked him up. He is took into the shop, and they’ve sent for the doctor. Boys don’t care what they ride over.”
“I fancy something was wrong before the horse touched him, though,” said another man, with a child in his arms. “There was time enough else for him to have got out of the way.”
“Who is it?” asked Mr Mannering, with a sudden wakening of anxiety. At that moment Anthony Miles came quickly out of the shop, almost running against him in his hurry.
“Have you seen them?” he said hastily, when he saw who it was. His face was drawn and pallid, like that of a man who has received a great shock.
“Who, who?” said Mr Robert, gripping his arm. “It isn’t the Squire that’s hurt?”
“Yes,” said Anthony impatiently. “He’s in there. Somebody must find Winifred, or she’ll be in the thick of it in a minute.”
“She is at the Cathedral, she and Bessie,” said Mr Mannering, asking no more questions, but feeling his heart sink. “They must be coming out about this time. God help them, poor children!”
Anthony was off before the words were out of his mouth. Mr Robert, his kind ugly face a shade paler than usual, turned into the shop, which was full of curious customers, and made his way to a back room to which they motioned him gravely.
It was a little dark room, lit only by a skylight, on which the blacks had rested many a day, and hung all round with heavy draperies of cloaks and other garments, which at this moment had something weird in their familiar aspect. The Squire had been laid upon chairs, hastily placed together to form a couch; the doctor and one or two of the shop-people were talking together in a low voice as Mr Robert came in, and a frightened girl, holding a bottle in her hand, stood a little behind the group.
By their faces he knew at once that there was no hope. Perhaps for the moment what came most sharply home to him was the incongruity of the Squire’s fresh open-air daily life, and this strange death-room of his. He said eagerly to the doctor,—
“Can’t we get him out of this?”
“Not to Thorpe,” Dr Fletcher said gravely. “But we can move him to my house. I have sent for a carriage.”
“Is he quite unconscious?”
“Quite. There will be no suffering.”
There was no need to ask more. Death itself seems as helplessly matter of fact as the life before it. Mr Robert stood and looked down with moist eyes at the honest face that had been so full of vigour but the day before, when the Squire went through his day’s shooting like a man of half his years; and then thought of him as he had seen him that very hour, on his way to make peace, comforting a little child. Those had been his last words, the kind, good heart showing itself behind its little roughnesses, and softened as it may have been—who knows?—by a dim foreshadowing.
Chapter Twenty Five.“Its silence made the tumult in my breastMore audible; its peace revealed my own unrest.”Jean Ingelow.Anthony told everything on their way from the Cathedral to the shop, for, indeed, he did not know what might not have happened even in so short a time. But except that the crowd had pretty well dispersed, leaving only a few of the more curious idlers to hang about, all was much as he left it, outside and in. Bessie was crying and trembling, but Winifred went softly in, without looking to the right or left, and, kneeling by her father’s side, clasped his hand in hers.“We are going to take Mr Chester to my house, where he will be a good deal more comfortable,” said the doctor with the cheerfulness which is at all events intended for kindness.“Not home?” Winifred asked, without looking up.“My dear, the long drive would be more than he could bear while he is in this condition,” said Mr Robert gravely. “And now Dr Fletcher will have him altogether under his care, which is particularly desirable. The carriage is here: we only waited for you.”She rose up, showing no agitation except a tremulous shiver which she could not repress, while Bessie clung to her and sobbed convulsively. Anthony, who was greatly shocked, had fallen involuntarily into his old brotherly ways. He brought a fly, and put the two sisters into it, and when Bessie looked at him imploringly, got in by their side instead of walking round with Mr Mannering. It was like a dream, the flags, and the bustle, and the people coming down the street from the concert, and this sad cloud chilling their hearts. He saw on the other side Mrs Bennett, and Ada, and Mr Warren: Ada was staring in wonder, but he cared nothing for that or anything else except the beseeching look in Winifred’s sad eyes.By the time they reached the doctor’s house, Bessie had rallied from the first terror of the shock, and Winifred was as outwardly calm as possible, ready to receive her father, quick to comprehend Dr Fletcher’s directions, and so helpful and quiet that it was only now and then that Anthony knew that she turned to him with a mute appeal in the look, as if in this wave of sorrow she too had forgotten all estrangement and coldness, and gone back to the old days which both believed had passed away forever. There was a strange sort of tender pride in the way he watched her, which must have startled himself if he had been aware of it. But he was not. He was not thinking about himself, and, indeed, might have argued that the veriest stranger must have been touched and moved at such a time. When he was obliged to leave her, he could hardly bear to do so.“I may come back in the morning, may I not?” he said, unable to avoid saying it.“Do come,” Winifred had answered with a quiet acceptance, of his help, and going on to tell him what was wanted from Hardlands. As he went out of the door he met Mr Robert coming to see if he could be of any further use.“I have made Charles go home, for he is not fit for this sad business,” said Mr Robert in an altered voice. “Poor things, poor things! It is one comfort to know he does not suffer. Fletcher says he will not recover consciousness. Good Heavens, I can’t believe it now! His last words,—ah! to be sure, Anthony, he was going off after you when it happened.”And he told him what the Squire had said.It touched Anthony inexpressibly, but it seemed also to bring back an avenging army of forgotten things, so that Mr Robert could not understand what made his face grow dark, and let his voice drop coldly as if it were a shame to waste a sacred thing on one so unforgiving, not knowing to what his words had suddenly recalled him. The past had been sweet through all its sorrow, and now it was over, and he must gather up his burden.“The Bennetts are at Griffith’s, and were inquiring for you. Good-night,” said Mr Mannering shortly.Anthony went mechanically towards the bookseller’s, knowing exactly all that would be said to him, the exclamations and questions which Ada was likely to pour out seeming unutterably wearisome at this moment when Winifred’s face would persistently rise before him, so brave, so patient, so womanly in its sorrow, that Ada could not stand the contrast. And yet he was to marry Ada, to become one with her, to swear to love her. He turned white when the thought struck him suddenly, as if it were a new knowledge. She was standing at the bookseller’s door, waiting impatiently, and smiling a pretty show of welcome, as usual.“I am so glad you are come, Anthony; it was such a pity you did not go to the concert. And poor old Mr Chester,—do tell us all about it I don’t think I shall ever fancy Springfield’s shop again.”“I don’t wonder you are shocked,” Anthony said, rousing himself and conscious that he owed her amends for the very agony of the last few minutes. “It seems hardly possible as yet to realise it.”“No, it is dreadful,” said Ada, her looks wandering away. “Does Miss Chester feel it much? She looks as if it would take a good deal to move her. There are the Watsons,—you didn’t bow.” Mrs Bennett’s face at the other end of the shop looked like a refuge to which he might escape. To escape,—and he was to marry her! He had not yet heard the end of the petty inquiries which fluttered down upon him, but at length he saw Mrs Bennett and Ada driving away, and Ada pointing towards Springfield’s and explaining. Anthony went quickly into a back room, wrote two or three letters to the Squire’s nearest relations, rode as fast as he could to Thorpe, gave Miss Chesters directions to the Hardlands servants, and then, after a moment’s thought, turned his horse’s head back to Aunecester.He said to Dr Fletcher, “Do not say anything of my being here to Miss Chester; it can do no good, I know, but—we were near neighbours, and I may as well sleep to-night at the Globe, so as to be at hand if I am wanted. You’ll send for me if I can do anything of any sort? And there is no change?”“None whatever. We have, of course, had a consultation, and Dr Hill entirely takes my view of the case. I regret that I cannot tell you that he is more hopeful. I am inclined to think Mr Chester’s condition not altogether attributable to the blow, but that there might have been a simultaneous attack.”There was nothing to stay for, and Anthony went, though not to the inn. He walked about the old town for more hours than he knew, thinking of many things. Those last words of the Squire had touched him acutely, and his thoughts were softened and almost tender towards the friends whose countenance he had been rejecting. But the idea which seemed to hold him with a rush of force was that he must see Winifred again; that, happen what might, it was impossible but that there should be a meeting, if not one day at least another. It did not strike him as an inconsistency that this thing which he wanted had been within his reach a hundred times when he would not avail himself of it; like most men when under the influence of a dominant feeling, he did not care to look back and trace the manner in which its dominion had gradually asserted itself, nor, indeed, to dwell upon it so far as to admit that it was a dominion at all. Was he not to marry Ada Lovell? Only pity moved him, pity that was natural enough, remembering the old familiar relations, or allowing himself to dwell upon the sweet womanly eyes which no darkness could shut out from him. For gradually the dusk had deepened into night, the Close in which he found himself was singularly deserted, now and then a figure that might have been a shadow passed him, a quiet light or two gleamed behind homely blinds, and by and by was extinguished, the trees stood black and motionless against the sky, only the great bell of the Cathedral clock now and then broke the silence, and was answered far and near by echoing tongues. Such a night was full of tender sadness, to poor Anthony perhaps dangerously soft and sweet, for he had been living of late, in spite of his engagement, in an atmosphere of cold restraint, peculiarly galling to his reserved yet affectionate nature. All Ada’s pretty assurances and the pleasant amenities of the Bennetts’ house had never removed the chill. They were something belonging to him, at which he looked equably, but they had never become part of himself. Alas, and yet to-day a word or two of Winifred’s—Winifred whom he did not love—had pierced it.Winifred—whom he did not love.With one of those unaccountable flashes by which an image is suddenly brought into our memory, there started before him a remembrance of her in the old Vicarage garden, that Sunday morning when he and she had strolled together to the mulberry-tree,—the quaintly formal hollyhocks, the busy martins flashing in and out, the daisies in the grass, Winifred softly singing the old psalm tune, and laying the cool rose against her cheek. Had he forgotten one of her words that day, this Winifred whom he did not love? And then he thought of her again at a time which he had never liked to look back upon, that winter day when she had met him in the lane, a spot of warm colour amidst the faded browns and greys,—thought of the gate and the cold distant moorland, and the words which had struck a chill into his life. It had seemed to him then as if it had been she who had done it, and he had never been able to dissociate her from her tidings; so that no generous pity for the woman who had wounded him, nor any understanding that she had done it because from another it might have come with too cruel harshness, had stirred his heart, until now when another compassion had forced the door, turned his eyes from himself, and shown him what Winifred had been.The darkness reveals many things to us, and that night other things were abroad in the darkness,—death, the unfulfilled purpose of one whom he had chosen to regard as his enemy, if, indeed, it were not rather that God had fulfilled it in his own more perfect way,—these were working upon him, however unconsciously. Yet those revelations were full of anguish, opening out mistake after mistake in a manner which to a man who has over-trusted himself becomes an intolerable reproach. The accusation which had seemed literally to blast his life stood before him in juster, soberer proportions; his manner of meeting it became more cowardly and faithless, made bitter by an almost entire forgetfulness of the Hand from which the trial came. And in the midst of his angry despair, by his own act he must deliberately add another pang to his lot, and, putting away his friends, bind himself for life to a woman for whom his strongest feeling was the fancy for a smiling face. Perhaps, as yet, he hardly knew how slight that feeling was, but even by this time he was bitterly tasting the draught his own weakness had prepared. These thoughts all came to him with a quiet significance, adding tenfold to their power, yet touched by a certain solemn gravity which gave him the sense for which he most craved just now, the old childlike trustfulness in an overruling care. As we sow, so we must reap, but even the saddest harvest may yield us good sheaves, though not the crop we longed and hoped to gather. And this night was the first hour which seemed to bring Anthony face to face with his own work.He had been walking mechanically about the Close. Turning out of it at last, he went back to Dr Fletcher’s house, and looked up at a light burning in an upper window, little thinking, however, that it was a watch by the dead, and not by the living, that it marked; for in spite of what Dr Fletcher had told him, the tidings he heard in the early morning fell like an unexpected blow. He would have gone away without a word, but that Dr Fletcher came out at the moment.“There was never any rally or return to consciousness,” he said, leading the way into the dining-room, where his breakfast was spread, “and although this naturally aggravates the shock to his daughters, they have been spared a good deal that must have been very painful, poor things! My wife is with them. Will you have a cup of coffee with me?”“He was always supposed to have such a good constitution,” said Anthony, looking stunned.“Perhaps not so good as it seemed. He led a regular life, temperate and healthy,—I only wish there were more like him,—and he had never been tried by any severe illness. As to this, a more tenacious vitality might only have prolonged the suffering. I think you said you had written to the relations? I would have telegraphed this morning, but Miss Chester was anxious that her aunt should be spared the shock.”“My letters will bring them as soon as possible,” Anthony said. “There is a sister of the Squire’s, a widow, an invalid, and her step-son is quartered at Colchester. Besides them there are only cousins. Mrs Orde will start at once—But, good heavens,” he went on, breaking down, and burying his face in his hands, “it is so awfully sudden! What will they do?”Dr Fletcher made no immediate reply. He was a kind-hearted man, but his sympathies were chiefly bounded by his profession, and it was easier for him to be energetic in behalf of a suffering body, than to express anything which touched more internal springs. He was wondering whether Anthony would have the courage to face a woman’s grief, and meditating on the possibility of giving up his own morning’s work, when he said aloud, quietly,—“Miss Chester will probably return to Hardlands to-day. Is there any one who can be with her and her sister?”“My mother is their oldest friend,” Anthony said, without looking up, and pushing his plate from him with a slight nervous movement. The doctor waited for some assurance to follow this assertion, but Anthony could not give it, for his mind quickly ran over the situation, and foresaw that his mother’s kindness would not suffice to guide her past the little embarrassments which awaken so great throbs of pain at such a time. Finding he was silent, Dr Fletcher went on,—“Would you wish me to inquire whether Miss Chester is ready to see you? That is, unless I can persuade you to take a little more food?”“I am quite ready,” said Anthony, getting up hastily. He dreaded the interview fully as much as the doctor had divined, and the force with which he compelled himself to meet it produced a certain hardness which, to a shallow observer, might appear like cold indifference: certainly there were hard-set lines on his face as he stood at a window waiting for Winifred. Trees, with iron railings before them, were planted in the space in front of Dr Fletcher’s house; there were crimson berries on the thorn-trees, a robin or two hopping about familiarly, a grey rainy-looking sky, and now and then a warning drop on the pavement below. Winifred did not come at once, for it was difficult for her to leave Bessie, who was overwrought as much with terror as sorrow; and Anthony, having strung himself up to the meeting, lost himself again in thoughts which grew out of but did not absolutely belong to it, and did not hear her behind him when at last she entered the room.When he turned round she was standing close by him, and put out her hand.“I thought you would come,” she said simply.But she saw in a moment that it was she who must be the comforter, and went on without leaving a pause which should oblige him to speak. “It was all so calm and so peaceful that I cannot realise anything beyond the comfort of knowing that he had no suffering to endure. Poor Bessie’s grief seems something for which I am very sorry, but in which I have no share. It must be as I have read and never quite believed, that a great shock deadens all one’s perceptions.”“Yes, indeed,” said Anthony, relieved by her quietness and the simple words which had nothing constrained about them. “And by and by you will be thankful that you were with him,—so close at hand—”“O, I am thankful now!” said Winifred, with intense earnestness. “It does not seem as if one could have borne it to be otherwise; but now I have all the last looks,—the knowledge that there was nothing lost. You can think what that must be.”Twenty-four hours had put away on her side all the divisions that had existed, and taken her back to the old familiar friendship, so that if she remembered any cause of estrangement, it was that she might touch it softly, and let Anthony feel that it had only been a shadow, not affecting the true kindness of her father. With an instinctive loyalty she would have liked to clothe the dead in a hundred virtues. But Anthony himself was feeling the separation with a strength that almost maddened him. There was a gulf between them which was of his own digging. There they were, he and she, and yet he could not put out a hand, could not take her to his heart and comfort her. As she spoke he shook his head with a quick gesture, throwing it back, and turned away from her towards the window, against which the rain was now pattering gently. Winifred was surprised, and a little hurt, but as it struck her that he might dread what she was going to say, she went on with a voice that faltered for the first time,—“Dr Fletcher told me that you would settle for me what ought to be done, but—perhaps—I believe that I can give directions—if it is painful to you—”“That is impossible,” Anthony said, almost sharply, and without looking round. “I will do it all,—why else am I here?”She drew back almost imperceptibly, but then, as if moved by an opposite feeling, went up to him, and touched his arm.“Anthony,” she said in a low voice.If it was to oblige him to look at her she succeeded, for he immediately glanced round, although he did not answer, and indeed she went on hurriedly,—“I dare say you think I do not know, but Dr Fletcher explained to me that there must be an inquest. It is not so painful as you fancy,—nothing seems painful just now,—do not be afraid to tell us what is necessary. Dr Fletcher says it had better be here, he will make them come as soon as possible, and he wishes us to go back to Hardlands at once. I would rather have stayed, but I can see that it would be bad for Bessie, and—he would have liked her to be spared. Richardson is in the house, if you would tell him to go back, and bring the carriage at once—and,”—she hesitated wistfully, for it did not seem quite so easy to her to ask anything of Anthony as it had been at the beginning of their interview—“would it be possible for you to stay,—so as to be at hand,—to stay until to-morrow, or till my cousin comes? Some one must be here,” she said, with a little passionate cry of sorrow, as her self-control broke down; “he shall not be left alone.” She stopped again, this time for an answer, but when none came she said with an effort, “Perhaps you cannot stay,—perhaps Mr Mannering would come?”“Of course I shall stay,” Anthony said, in a bitter, half-choked voice.He knew that she thought him cruelly hard and cold: he heard her give a little sigh as she moved away a step or two, but it was with almost a feeling of relief, anything being better than that she should know the real feelings of the moment. Winifred was not thinking of him as he imagined, but something in his manner brought to her a keen impression of the breach between the dead and the living, which she had been trying to make him forget. She stood for a moment with her hand on the door, and her head bent,—thinking. She said at last, softly and pleadingly,—“If it has not been between you and him of late quite as it was in the old days, you will not remember that any more, will you, Anthony? If he ever did you an injustice in his thoughts, it was not willingly, only—only one of those misunderstandings which the best, the noblest, sometimes fall into. If he had lived he would have told you this himself one day, and therefore I say it to you from him,” she added, lifting her eyes, and speaking with grave steadfastness, as if she were indeed delivering a message from the dead, “and I know that you will be glad to think that it is so, and to help us for his sake.”The moment she had said this she went away so quickly that Anthony’s call did not even reach her ears. It was only one word, “Winifred!” but it was as well she did not hear, since one word is sometimes strong enough to carry a whole load of anguish and of yearning love.
“Its silence made the tumult in my breastMore audible; its peace revealed my own unrest.”Jean Ingelow.
“Its silence made the tumult in my breastMore audible; its peace revealed my own unrest.”Jean Ingelow.
Anthony told everything on their way from the Cathedral to the shop, for, indeed, he did not know what might not have happened even in so short a time. But except that the crowd had pretty well dispersed, leaving only a few of the more curious idlers to hang about, all was much as he left it, outside and in. Bessie was crying and trembling, but Winifred went softly in, without looking to the right or left, and, kneeling by her father’s side, clasped his hand in hers.
“We are going to take Mr Chester to my house, where he will be a good deal more comfortable,” said the doctor with the cheerfulness which is at all events intended for kindness.
“Not home?” Winifred asked, without looking up.
“My dear, the long drive would be more than he could bear while he is in this condition,” said Mr Robert gravely. “And now Dr Fletcher will have him altogether under his care, which is particularly desirable. The carriage is here: we only waited for you.”
She rose up, showing no agitation except a tremulous shiver which she could not repress, while Bessie clung to her and sobbed convulsively. Anthony, who was greatly shocked, had fallen involuntarily into his old brotherly ways. He brought a fly, and put the two sisters into it, and when Bessie looked at him imploringly, got in by their side instead of walking round with Mr Mannering. It was like a dream, the flags, and the bustle, and the people coming down the street from the concert, and this sad cloud chilling their hearts. He saw on the other side Mrs Bennett, and Ada, and Mr Warren: Ada was staring in wonder, but he cared nothing for that or anything else except the beseeching look in Winifred’s sad eyes.
By the time they reached the doctor’s house, Bessie had rallied from the first terror of the shock, and Winifred was as outwardly calm as possible, ready to receive her father, quick to comprehend Dr Fletcher’s directions, and so helpful and quiet that it was only now and then that Anthony knew that she turned to him with a mute appeal in the look, as if in this wave of sorrow she too had forgotten all estrangement and coldness, and gone back to the old days which both believed had passed away forever. There was a strange sort of tender pride in the way he watched her, which must have startled himself if he had been aware of it. But he was not. He was not thinking about himself, and, indeed, might have argued that the veriest stranger must have been touched and moved at such a time. When he was obliged to leave her, he could hardly bear to do so.
“I may come back in the morning, may I not?” he said, unable to avoid saying it.
“Do come,” Winifred had answered with a quiet acceptance, of his help, and going on to tell him what was wanted from Hardlands. As he went out of the door he met Mr Robert coming to see if he could be of any further use.
“I have made Charles go home, for he is not fit for this sad business,” said Mr Robert in an altered voice. “Poor things, poor things! It is one comfort to know he does not suffer. Fletcher says he will not recover consciousness. Good Heavens, I can’t believe it now! His last words,—ah! to be sure, Anthony, he was going off after you when it happened.”
And he told him what the Squire had said.
It touched Anthony inexpressibly, but it seemed also to bring back an avenging army of forgotten things, so that Mr Robert could not understand what made his face grow dark, and let his voice drop coldly as if it were a shame to waste a sacred thing on one so unforgiving, not knowing to what his words had suddenly recalled him. The past had been sweet through all its sorrow, and now it was over, and he must gather up his burden.
“The Bennetts are at Griffith’s, and were inquiring for you. Good-night,” said Mr Mannering shortly.
Anthony went mechanically towards the bookseller’s, knowing exactly all that would be said to him, the exclamations and questions which Ada was likely to pour out seeming unutterably wearisome at this moment when Winifred’s face would persistently rise before him, so brave, so patient, so womanly in its sorrow, that Ada could not stand the contrast. And yet he was to marry Ada, to become one with her, to swear to love her. He turned white when the thought struck him suddenly, as if it were a new knowledge. She was standing at the bookseller’s door, waiting impatiently, and smiling a pretty show of welcome, as usual.
“I am so glad you are come, Anthony; it was such a pity you did not go to the concert. And poor old Mr Chester,—do tell us all about it I don’t think I shall ever fancy Springfield’s shop again.”
“I don’t wonder you are shocked,” Anthony said, rousing himself and conscious that he owed her amends for the very agony of the last few minutes. “It seems hardly possible as yet to realise it.”
“No, it is dreadful,” said Ada, her looks wandering away. “Does Miss Chester feel it much? She looks as if it would take a good deal to move her. There are the Watsons,—you didn’t bow.” Mrs Bennett’s face at the other end of the shop looked like a refuge to which he might escape. To escape,—and he was to marry her! He had not yet heard the end of the petty inquiries which fluttered down upon him, but at length he saw Mrs Bennett and Ada driving away, and Ada pointing towards Springfield’s and explaining. Anthony went quickly into a back room, wrote two or three letters to the Squire’s nearest relations, rode as fast as he could to Thorpe, gave Miss Chesters directions to the Hardlands servants, and then, after a moment’s thought, turned his horse’s head back to Aunecester.
He said to Dr Fletcher, “Do not say anything of my being here to Miss Chester; it can do no good, I know, but—we were near neighbours, and I may as well sleep to-night at the Globe, so as to be at hand if I am wanted. You’ll send for me if I can do anything of any sort? And there is no change?”
“None whatever. We have, of course, had a consultation, and Dr Hill entirely takes my view of the case. I regret that I cannot tell you that he is more hopeful. I am inclined to think Mr Chester’s condition not altogether attributable to the blow, but that there might have been a simultaneous attack.”
There was nothing to stay for, and Anthony went, though not to the inn. He walked about the old town for more hours than he knew, thinking of many things. Those last words of the Squire had touched him acutely, and his thoughts were softened and almost tender towards the friends whose countenance he had been rejecting. But the idea which seemed to hold him with a rush of force was that he must see Winifred again; that, happen what might, it was impossible but that there should be a meeting, if not one day at least another. It did not strike him as an inconsistency that this thing which he wanted had been within his reach a hundred times when he would not avail himself of it; like most men when under the influence of a dominant feeling, he did not care to look back and trace the manner in which its dominion had gradually asserted itself, nor, indeed, to dwell upon it so far as to admit that it was a dominion at all. Was he not to marry Ada Lovell? Only pity moved him, pity that was natural enough, remembering the old familiar relations, or allowing himself to dwell upon the sweet womanly eyes which no darkness could shut out from him. For gradually the dusk had deepened into night, the Close in which he found himself was singularly deserted, now and then a figure that might have been a shadow passed him, a quiet light or two gleamed behind homely blinds, and by and by was extinguished, the trees stood black and motionless against the sky, only the great bell of the Cathedral clock now and then broke the silence, and was answered far and near by echoing tongues. Such a night was full of tender sadness, to poor Anthony perhaps dangerously soft and sweet, for he had been living of late, in spite of his engagement, in an atmosphere of cold restraint, peculiarly galling to his reserved yet affectionate nature. All Ada’s pretty assurances and the pleasant amenities of the Bennetts’ house had never removed the chill. They were something belonging to him, at which he looked equably, but they had never become part of himself. Alas, and yet to-day a word or two of Winifred’s—Winifred whom he did not love—had pierced it.
Winifred—whom he did not love.
With one of those unaccountable flashes by which an image is suddenly brought into our memory, there started before him a remembrance of her in the old Vicarage garden, that Sunday morning when he and she had strolled together to the mulberry-tree,—the quaintly formal hollyhocks, the busy martins flashing in and out, the daisies in the grass, Winifred softly singing the old psalm tune, and laying the cool rose against her cheek. Had he forgotten one of her words that day, this Winifred whom he did not love? And then he thought of her again at a time which he had never liked to look back upon, that winter day when she had met him in the lane, a spot of warm colour amidst the faded browns and greys,—thought of the gate and the cold distant moorland, and the words which had struck a chill into his life. It had seemed to him then as if it had been she who had done it, and he had never been able to dissociate her from her tidings; so that no generous pity for the woman who had wounded him, nor any understanding that she had done it because from another it might have come with too cruel harshness, had stirred his heart, until now when another compassion had forced the door, turned his eyes from himself, and shown him what Winifred had been.
The darkness reveals many things to us, and that night other things were abroad in the darkness,—death, the unfulfilled purpose of one whom he had chosen to regard as his enemy, if, indeed, it were not rather that God had fulfilled it in his own more perfect way,—these were working upon him, however unconsciously. Yet those revelations were full of anguish, opening out mistake after mistake in a manner which to a man who has over-trusted himself becomes an intolerable reproach. The accusation which had seemed literally to blast his life stood before him in juster, soberer proportions; his manner of meeting it became more cowardly and faithless, made bitter by an almost entire forgetfulness of the Hand from which the trial came. And in the midst of his angry despair, by his own act he must deliberately add another pang to his lot, and, putting away his friends, bind himself for life to a woman for whom his strongest feeling was the fancy for a smiling face. Perhaps, as yet, he hardly knew how slight that feeling was, but even by this time he was bitterly tasting the draught his own weakness had prepared. These thoughts all came to him with a quiet significance, adding tenfold to their power, yet touched by a certain solemn gravity which gave him the sense for which he most craved just now, the old childlike trustfulness in an overruling care. As we sow, so we must reap, but even the saddest harvest may yield us good sheaves, though not the crop we longed and hoped to gather. And this night was the first hour which seemed to bring Anthony face to face with his own work.
He had been walking mechanically about the Close. Turning out of it at last, he went back to Dr Fletcher’s house, and looked up at a light burning in an upper window, little thinking, however, that it was a watch by the dead, and not by the living, that it marked; for in spite of what Dr Fletcher had told him, the tidings he heard in the early morning fell like an unexpected blow. He would have gone away without a word, but that Dr Fletcher came out at the moment.
“There was never any rally or return to consciousness,” he said, leading the way into the dining-room, where his breakfast was spread, “and although this naturally aggravates the shock to his daughters, they have been spared a good deal that must have been very painful, poor things! My wife is with them. Will you have a cup of coffee with me?”
“He was always supposed to have such a good constitution,” said Anthony, looking stunned.
“Perhaps not so good as it seemed. He led a regular life, temperate and healthy,—I only wish there were more like him,—and he had never been tried by any severe illness. As to this, a more tenacious vitality might only have prolonged the suffering. I think you said you had written to the relations? I would have telegraphed this morning, but Miss Chester was anxious that her aunt should be spared the shock.”
“My letters will bring them as soon as possible,” Anthony said. “There is a sister of the Squire’s, a widow, an invalid, and her step-son is quartered at Colchester. Besides them there are only cousins. Mrs Orde will start at once—But, good heavens,” he went on, breaking down, and burying his face in his hands, “it is so awfully sudden! What will they do?”
Dr Fletcher made no immediate reply. He was a kind-hearted man, but his sympathies were chiefly bounded by his profession, and it was easier for him to be energetic in behalf of a suffering body, than to express anything which touched more internal springs. He was wondering whether Anthony would have the courage to face a woman’s grief, and meditating on the possibility of giving up his own morning’s work, when he said aloud, quietly,—
“Miss Chester will probably return to Hardlands to-day. Is there any one who can be with her and her sister?”
“My mother is their oldest friend,” Anthony said, without looking up, and pushing his plate from him with a slight nervous movement. The doctor waited for some assurance to follow this assertion, but Anthony could not give it, for his mind quickly ran over the situation, and foresaw that his mother’s kindness would not suffice to guide her past the little embarrassments which awaken so great throbs of pain at such a time. Finding he was silent, Dr Fletcher went on,—
“Would you wish me to inquire whether Miss Chester is ready to see you? That is, unless I can persuade you to take a little more food?”
“I am quite ready,” said Anthony, getting up hastily. He dreaded the interview fully as much as the doctor had divined, and the force with which he compelled himself to meet it produced a certain hardness which, to a shallow observer, might appear like cold indifference: certainly there were hard-set lines on his face as he stood at a window waiting for Winifred. Trees, with iron railings before them, were planted in the space in front of Dr Fletcher’s house; there were crimson berries on the thorn-trees, a robin or two hopping about familiarly, a grey rainy-looking sky, and now and then a warning drop on the pavement below. Winifred did not come at once, for it was difficult for her to leave Bessie, who was overwrought as much with terror as sorrow; and Anthony, having strung himself up to the meeting, lost himself again in thoughts which grew out of but did not absolutely belong to it, and did not hear her behind him when at last she entered the room.
When he turned round she was standing close by him, and put out her hand.
“I thought you would come,” she said simply.
But she saw in a moment that it was she who must be the comforter, and went on without leaving a pause which should oblige him to speak. “It was all so calm and so peaceful that I cannot realise anything beyond the comfort of knowing that he had no suffering to endure. Poor Bessie’s grief seems something for which I am very sorry, but in which I have no share. It must be as I have read and never quite believed, that a great shock deadens all one’s perceptions.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Anthony, relieved by her quietness and the simple words which had nothing constrained about them. “And by and by you will be thankful that you were with him,—so close at hand—”
“O, I am thankful now!” said Winifred, with intense earnestness. “It does not seem as if one could have borne it to be otherwise; but now I have all the last looks,—the knowledge that there was nothing lost. You can think what that must be.”
Twenty-four hours had put away on her side all the divisions that had existed, and taken her back to the old familiar friendship, so that if she remembered any cause of estrangement, it was that she might touch it softly, and let Anthony feel that it had only been a shadow, not affecting the true kindness of her father. With an instinctive loyalty she would have liked to clothe the dead in a hundred virtues. But Anthony himself was feeling the separation with a strength that almost maddened him. There was a gulf between them which was of his own digging. There they were, he and she, and yet he could not put out a hand, could not take her to his heart and comfort her. As she spoke he shook his head with a quick gesture, throwing it back, and turned away from her towards the window, against which the rain was now pattering gently. Winifred was surprised, and a little hurt, but as it struck her that he might dread what she was going to say, she went on with a voice that faltered for the first time,—
“Dr Fletcher told me that you would settle for me what ought to be done, but—perhaps—I believe that I can give directions—if it is painful to you—”
“That is impossible,” Anthony said, almost sharply, and without looking round. “I will do it all,—why else am I here?”
She drew back almost imperceptibly, but then, as if moved by an opposite feeling, went up to him, and touched his arm.
“Anthony,” she said in a low voice.
If it was to oblige him to look at her she succeeded, for he immediately glanced round, although he did not answer, and indeed she went on hurriedly,—
“I dare say you think I do not know, but Dr Fletcher explained to me that there must be an inquest. It is not so painful as you fancy,—nothing seems painful just now,—do not be afraid to tell us what is necessary. Dr Fletcher says it had better be here, he will make them come as soon as possible, and he wishes us to go back to Hardlands at once. I would rather have stayed, but I can see that it would be bad for Bessie, and—he would have liked her to be spared. Richardson is in the house, if you would tell him to go back, and bring the carriage at once—and,”—she hesitated wistfully, for it did not seem quite so easy to her to ask anything of Anthony as it had been at the beginning of their interview—“would it be possible for you to stay,—so as to be at hand,—to stay until to-morrow, or till my cousin comes? Some one must be here,” she said, with a little passionate cry of sorrow, as her self-control broke down; “he shall not be left alone.” She stopped again, this time for an answer, but when none came she said with an effort, “Perhaps you cannot stay,—perhaps Mr Mannering would come?”
“Of course I shall stay,” Anthony said, in a bitter, half-choked voice.
He knew that she thought him cruelly hard and cold: he heard her give a little sigh as she moved away a step or two, but it was with almost a feeling of relief, anything being better than that she should know the real feelings of the moment. Winifred was not thinking of him as he imagined, but something in his manner brought to her a keen impression of the breach between the dead and the living, which she had been trying to make him forget. She stood for a moment with her hand on the door, and her head bent,—thinking. She said at last, softly and pleadingly,—
“If it has not been between you and him of late quite as it was in the old days, you will not remember that any more, will you, Anthony? If he ever did you an injustice in his thoughts, it was not willingly, only—only one of those misunderstandings which the best, the noblest, sometimes fall into. If he had lived he would have told you this himself one day, and therefore I say it to you from him,” she added, lifting her eyes, and speaking with grave steadfastness, as if she were indeed delivering a message from the dead, “and I know that you will be glad to think that it is so, and to help us for his sake.”
The moment she had said this she went away so quickly that Anthony’s call did not even reach her ears. It was only one word, “Winifred!” but it was as well she did not hear, since one word is sometimes strong enough to carry a whole load of anguish and of yearning love.