“You will come to-morrow? I will not speak to you if I must not; but make no difference. Promise that, and I will go away.”
“I will come to-morrow,” she said. “Good-by.”
The maid was standing behind him to close the outer door. Did that account for the softening of her tone? or had she begun already to see that nothing was impossible—that her foolish, womanish prejudice about a dead husband could never stand in the way of a love like his? Mr. Wradisley’s heart was beating in his ears, as he went down the bank, as it had never done before. He had come in great excitement, but it was with much greater excitement that he was goingaway. When the maid came running after him that laboring heart stood still for an instant. He thought he was recalled, and that everything was to be as he desired; he felt even a slight regret in the joy of being recalled so soon. It would have been even better had she taken longer to think of it. But it was only his umbrella which he had forgotten. Mr. Wradisley to forget his umbrella! That showed indeed the pass to which the man had come.
It was quite dark now, and the one or two rare passers-by that he met on the way passed him like ghosts, yet turned their heads toward him suspiciously, wondering who he was. They were villagers unwillingly out in the night upon business of their own; they divined a gentleman, though it was too dark to see him, and wondered who the soft-footed, slim figure could be, no one imagining for a moment who it really was. And yet he had already made two or three pilgrimages like this to visit the lady who for the first time in his life had made the sublime Mr. Wradisley a suitor. He felt, as heopened softly his own gate, that it was a thing that must not be repeated; but yet that it was in its way natural and seemly that his suit should not be precisely like that of an ordinary man. Henceforward it could be conducted in a different way, now that she was aware of his feelings without the cognizance of any other person. If it could be possible that her prejudices or caprice should hold out, nobody need be the wiser. But he did not believe that this would be the case. She had been startled, let it even be said shocked, to have discovered that she was loved, and by such a man as himself. There was even humility—the sweetest womanly quality—in her conviction that it was impossible, impossible that she, with no first love to give him, should be sought by him. But this would not stand the reflection of a propitious night, of a new day.
Thedinner was quite a cheerful meal at Wradisbury that night. The master of the house was exactly as he always was. Punctilious in every kindness and politeness, perfect in his behavior. To see him take his mother in as he always did, as if she were the queen, and place her in her own chair, where she had presided at the head of that table for over forty years, was in itself a sight. He was the king regnant escorting a queen dowager—a queen mother, not exactly there by personal right, but by conscious delegation, yet supreme naturalness and reverence, from him. He liked to put her in her place. Except on occasions when there were guests he had always done it since the day of his father’s death, with a sort ofceremony as showing how he gave her all honor though this supreme position was no longer her absolute due. He led her in with special tenderness to-night. It perhaps might not last long, this reign of hers. Another and a brighter figure was already chosen for that place, but as long as the mother was in it, the honor shown to her should be special, above even ordinary respect. I think Ralph was a little fretted by this show of reverence. Perhaps, with that subtle understanding of each other which people have in a family, even when they reach the extreme of personal difference or almost alienation, he knew what was in his brother’s mind, and resented the consciousness of conferring honor which moved Reginald. In Ralph’s house (or so he thought) the mother would rule without any show of derived power. It would be her own, not a grace conferred; but though he chafed he was silent, for it was very certain that there was not an exception to be taken, not a word to say. It is possible that Mrs. Wradisley was aware of it too, but she likedit, liked her son’s magnanimous giving up to her of all the privileges which had for so long been hers. Many men would not have done that. They would have liked their houses to themselves; but Reginald had always been a model son. She was not in any way an exacting woman, and when she turned to her second son, come back in peace after so many wanderings, her heart overflowed with content. She was the only one in the party who was not aware that the master of the house had left his library in the darkening. The servants about the table all knew, and had formed a wonderfully close guess as to what was “up,” as they said, and Lucy knew with a great commotion and trouble of her thoughts, wondering, not knowing if she were sorry or glad, looking very wistfully at her brother to see if he had been fortunate or otherwise. Was it possible that Nelly Nugent might be her sister, and sit in her mother’s place? Oh, it would be delightful, it would be dreadful! For how would mamma take it to be dethroned? And then if Nelly would not, poor Reginald! Lucy watched himcovertly, and could scarcely contain herself. Ralph and Mr. Bertram, I fear, did not think of Mrs. Nugent, but of something less creditable to Mr. Wradisley. The mother was the only one to whom any breach in his usual habits remained unknown.
“You really mean to have this garden party to-morrow, mother?” he said.
“Oh, yes, my dear, it is all arranged—the last, the very last of the season. Not so much a garden party as a sort of farewell to summer before your shooting parties arrive. We are so late this year. The harvest has been so late,” Mrs. Wradisley said, turning toward Bertram. “St. Swithin, you know, was in full force this year, and some of the corn was still out when the month began. But the weather lately has been so fine. There was a little rain this morning, but still the weather has been quite remarkable. I am glad you came in time for our little gathering, for Raaf will see a number of old friends, and you, I hope, some of the nicest people about.”
“I suspect I must have seen the nicestpeople already,” said Bertram, with a laugh and a bow.
“Oh, that is a very kind thing to say, Mr. Bertram, and, indeed, I am very glad that Raaf’s friend should like his people. But no, you will see some very superior people to-morrow. Lord Dulham was once a Cabinet Minister, and Colonel Knox has seen an immense deal of service in different parts of the world; not to speak of Mr. Sergeant—Geoffrey Sergeant, you know, who is so well known in the literary world—but I don’t know whether you care for people who write,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
“He writes himself,” said Ralph, out of his beard. “Letters half a mile long, and leaders, and all sorts of things. If we don’t look out he’ll have us all in.”
The other members of the party looked at Bertram with alarm. Mr. Wradisley with a certain half resentment, half disgust.
“Indeed,” he said; “I thought I had been so fortunate as to discover for myself a most intelligent critic—but evidently I ought to have known.”
“Don’t say that,” said Bertram, “indeed I’m not here on false pretenses. I’m not a literary man afloat on the world, or making notes. Only a humble newspaper correspondent, Mrs. Wradisley, and only that when it happens to suit me, as your son knows.”
“Oh, I am sure we are very highly honored,” said the lady, disturbed, “only Raaf, you should have told me, or I might have said something disagreeable about literary people, and that would have been so very—I assure you we are all quite proud of Mr. Sergeant, and still more, Mr. Bertram, to have some one to meet him whom he will—whom he is sure to—”
“You might have said he was a queer fish. I think he is,” said Bertram, “but don’t suppose he knows me, or any of my sort. Raaf is only playing you a trick. I wrote something about Africa, that’s all. When one is knocking about the world for years without endless money to spend, anything to put a penny in one’s purse is good. But I can’t write a bit—except a report about Africa,” he added, hurriedly.
“Oh, about Africa,” Mrs. Wradisley said, with an expression of greater ease, and there was a little relief in the mind of the family generally. Bertram seized the opportunity to plunge into talk about Africa and the big game, drawing Ralph subtly into the conversation. It was not easy to get Ralph set a-going, but when he was so, there was found to be much in him wanting expression, and the stranger escaped under shelter of adventures naturally more interesting to the family than any he had to tell. He laughed a little to himself over it as the talk flowed on, and left him with not much pride in the literary profession, which he had in fact only played with, but which had inspired him at moments with a little content in what he did too. These good folk, who were intelligent enough, would have been a little afraid of him, not merely gratified by his acquaintance, had he been really a writer of books. They were much more at their ease to think him only a sportsman like Ralph, and a gentlemanat large. When they went into the drawing-room afterwards, the conversation came back to the party of to-morrow, and to the pretty widow in the cottage, of whom Mrs. Wradisley began to talk, saying they would leave the flowers till Mrs. Nugent came, who was so great in decoration.
“I thought,” said Ralph, “this widow of yours—was not to be here.”
Mr. Wradisley interposed at this point from where he stood, with his back to the fire. “Ah,” he said, “oh,” with a clearing of his throat, “I happened to see Mrs. Nugent in the village to-day, and I certainly understood from her that she would be here.”
“You saw her—after I did, Reginald?” said Lucy, in spite of herself.
“Now, how can you say anything so absurd, Lucy—when you saw her just before dinner, and Reginald could only have seen her in the morning, for he never goes out late,” Mrs. Wradisley said.
Bertram felt that he was a conspirator. He gave a furtive glance at the others whoknew different. He could see that Lucy grew scarlet, but not a word was said.
“You are mistaken, mother,” said Mr. Wradisley, with his calm voice, “I sometimes do take a littlegiroin the evening.”
“Oh, agiro;” said his mother, as if that altered the matter; “however,” she added, “there never was any question about the party; that she fully knew we expected her for; but I wanted her to come for lunch that she might make Ralph’s acquaintance before the crowd came; but it doesn’t matter, for no doubt they’ll meet often enough. Only when you men begin to shoot you’re lost to all ordinary occupations; and so tired when you come in that you have not a word to throw at—a lady certainly, if you still may have at a dog.”
“I am not so bent on meeting this widow, mother, as you seem to think,” said Ralph.
“You need not always call her a widow. That’s her misfortune; it’s not her character,” said Lucy, unconsciously epigrammatic.
“Oh, well, whatever you please—this beautifullady—is that better? The other sounds designing, I allow.”
“I think,” said Mr. Wradisley, “that we have perhaps discussed Mrs. Nugent as much as is called for. She is a lady—for whom we all have the utmost respect.” He spoke as if that closed the question, as indeed it generally did; and going across the room to what he knew was the most comfortable chair, possessed himself of the evening paper, and sitting down, began to read it. Mrs. Wradisley had by no means done with her evening paper, and that Reginald should thus take it up under her very eyes filled her soul with astonishment. She looked at him with a gasp, and then, after a moment, put out her hand for her knitting. Nothing that could have happened could have given her a more bewildering and mysterious shock.
All this, perhaps, was rather like a play to Bertram, who saw everything with a certain unconscious exercise of that literary faculty which he had just found so little impressive to the people among whom he found himself. They were very kind people, and had receivedhim confidingly, asking no questions, not even wondering, as they might have done, what queer companion Ralph had picked up. Indeed, he was not at all like Ralph, though circumstances had made them close comrades. Perhaps if they could have read his life as he thought he could read theirs, they might not have opened their doors to him with such perfect trust. He had (had he?) the ruin of a woman’s happiness on his heart, and the destruction of many hopes. He had been wandering about the world for a number of years, never knowing how to make up his mind on this question. Was it indeed his fault? Was it her fault? Were they both to blame? Perhaps the last was the truth; but he knew very well he would never get her, or any one, to confess or to believe that. There are some cases in which the woman has certainly the best of it; and when the man who has been the means of bringing a young, fair, blameless creature into great trouble, even if he never meant it, is hopelessly put in the wrong even when there may be something to be said for him. He was himself bewilderednow and then when he thought it all over, wondering if indeed there might be something to be said for him. But if he could not even satisfy himself of that, how should he ever satisfy the world? He was a little stirred up and uncomfortable that night, he could scarcely tell why, for the brewing troubles of the Wradisleys, if it was trouble that was brewing, was unlikely to affect a stranger. Ralph, indeed, had been grumbling in his beard with complaints over what was in fact the blamelessness of his brother, but it did not trouble Bertram that his host should be too perfect a man. He had quite settled in his own mind what it was that was going to happen. The widow, no doubt, was some pretty adventuress who, by means of the mother and sister, had established a hold over the immaculate one, and meant to marry him and turn her patronesses adrift—the commonest story, vulgar, even. And the ladies would really have nothing to complain of, for Wradisley was certainly old enough to choose for himself, and might have married and turned off his mother to her jointure houseyears ago, and no harm done. It was not this that made Bertram sleepless and nervous, who really had so little to do with them, and no call to fight their battles. Perhaps it was the sensation of being in England, and within the rules of common life again, after long disruption from all ordinary circumstances of ordinary living. He to plunge into garden parties, and common encounters of men and women! He might meet some one who knew him, who would ask him questions, and attempt to piece his life together with guesses and conjectures. He had a great mind to repack his portmanteau and sling it over his shoulder, and tramp through the night to the nearest station. But to what good? For wherever he might go the same risk would meet him. How tranquil the night was as he looked out of the window, a great moon shining over the openings of the park, making the silence and the vacant spaces so doubly solitary! He dared not break the sanctity of that solitude by going out into it, any more than he dared disturb the quiet of the fully populated and deeply sleeping house. Hehad no right, for any caprice or personal cowardice of his, to disturb that stillness. And then it gave him a curious contradictory sensation, half of relief from his own thoughts, half of sympathy, to think that there were already here the elements of a far greater disturbance than any he could work, beginning to move within the house itself, working, perhaps, toward a catastrophe of its own. In the midst of all he suddenly stopped and laughed to himself, and went to bed at last with the most curiously subdued and softened sensation. He had remembered the look of the child whom he had lifted from the ground at the little gate of Greenbank—how she had suddenly been stilled in her childish mischief, and fixed him with her big, innocent, startled eyes. Poor little thing! She was innocent enough, whatever might be the nest from which she came. This was the thought with which he closed his eyes.
Mr. Wradisleyhad never been known to give so much attention to any of his mother’s entertainments before. Those which were more exclusively his own, the periodical dinners, the parties of guests occasionally assembled in the house either for political motives or in discharge of what he felt to be his duty as an important personage in the county, or for shooting—which was the least responsible of all, but still the man’s part in a house of the highest class—he did give a certain solemn and serious attention to. But it had never been known that he had come out of himself, or even out of his library, which was in a manner the outer shell and husk of himself, for anything in the shape of an occasional entertainment,the lighter occurrences of hospitality. On this occasion, however, he was about all the morning with a slightly anxious look about his eyes, in the first place to see that the day promised well, to examine the horizon all round, and discuss the clouds with the head gardener, who was a man of much learning and an expert, as might be said, on the great question of the weather. That great authority gave it as his opinion that it would keep fine all day. “There may be showers in the evening, I should not wonder, but the weather will keep up for to-day,” he said, backing his opinion with many minutiæ about the shape of the clouds and the indications of the wind. Mr. Wradisley repeated this at the breakfast table with much seriousness. “Stevenson says we may trust to having a fine day, though there may be showers in the evening,” he said; “but that will matter less, mother, as all your guests will be gone by that time.”
“Oh, Reginald, do you think Stevenson always knows?” cried Lucy, “He promisedus fine weather the day of the bazaar, and there was a storm and everything spoiled in the afternoon.”
“I am of the same opinion as Stevenson,” said Mr. Wradisley, very quietly, which settled the matter; and, then, to be more wonderful still, he asked if the house were to be open, and if it was to be expected that any of the guests would wish to see his collection. “In that case I should direct Simmons to be in attendance,” he said.
“Oh, if you would, Reginald!—that would give us greatéclat,” said his mother; “but I did not venture to ask. It is so very kind of you to think of it, of yourself. Of course it will be wished—everybody will wish it; but I generally put them off, you know, for I know you don’t like to be worried, and I would not worry you for the world.”
“You are too good to me, mother. There is no reason why I should be worried. It is, of course, my affair as much as any one’s,” he said, in his perfectly gentle yet pointed way, which made the others, even Mrs. Wradisley herself, feel a little small, as if she had beenassuming an individual responsibility which she had not the right to assume.
“My show won’t come to much if Rege is going to exhibit, mother,” said Ralph. “I’d better keep them for another day.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Wradisley, with great suavity, “get out your savage stores. If the whole country is coming, as appears, there will be need for everything that we can do.”
“There were just as many people last time, Reginald, but you wouldn’t do anything,” said Lucy, half aggrieved, notwithstanding her mother’s “hush” and deprecating look.
“Circumstances are not always the same,” her brother said; “and I understood from my mother that this was to be the last.”
“For the season, Reginald,” said Mrs. Wradisley, with a certain alarm in her tone.
“To be sure. I meant for the season, of course—and in the circumstances,” he replied.
Mrs. Wradisley was not at all a nervous nor a timorous woman. She was very free of fancies, but still she was disturbed a little. She allowed Lucy to run on with exclamationsand conjectures after the master of the house had retired. “What is the matter with Reginald? What has happened? What does he mean by it? He never paid any attention to our garden parties before.”
Mrs. Wradisley was a very sensible woman, as has been said. After a very short interval she replied, calmly, “Most likely he does not mean anything at all, my dear. He has just taken a fancy to have everything very nice. It is delightful of him to let his collection be seen. That almost makes us independent of the weather, as there is so much in the house to see; but I do believe Stevenson is right, and that we are going to have a most beautiful day.”
But though she made this statement, a little wonder remained in her mind. She had not, she remembered, been very well lately. Did Reginald think she was failing, and that it might really be his mother’s last entertainment to her neighbors? It was not a very pleasant thought, for nothing had occurred for a long time to disturb the quiet tenor of Mrs. Wradisley’s life, and Ralph had comeback to her out of the wilds, and she was contented. She put the thought away, going out to the housekeeper to talk over anything that was necessary, but it gave her a little shock in spite of herself.
Mr. Wradisley, as may well be believed, had no thought at all of his mother’s health, which he believed to be excellent, but he had begun to think a little of brighter possibilities, of the substitution of another feminine head to the house, and entertainments in which, through her, he would take a warmer interest. But it was only partly this, and partly nothing at all, as his sensible mother said, only the suppressed excitement in him and impulse to do something to get through the time until he should see Mrs. Nugent again and know his fate. He did not feel very much afraid, notwithstanding all she had said in the shock of the moment. He could understand that to a young widow, a fanciful young woman, more or less touched by the new fancies women had taken up, the idea of replacing her husband by another, of loving a second time, which all the sentimentalistsare against, would be for the moment a great shock. She might feel the shock all the more if she felt, too, that there was something in her heart that answered to that alarming proposal, and might feel that to push off the thought with both hands, with all her might, was the only thing possible. But the reflections of the night and of the new morning, which had risen with such splendor of autumnal sunshine, would, he felt almost sure, make a great difference. Mrs. Nugent did not wear mourning; it was probably some years since her husband’s death. She was not very well off, and did not seem to have many relations who could help her, or she would not have come here so unfriended, to a district in which nobody knew her. Was it likely that she should resist all that he had to offer, the love of a good man, the shelter of a well-known, wealthy, important name and house? It was not possible that for a mere sentiment a woman so full of sense as she was, could resist these. The love of a good man—if he had not had a penny in the world, that would be worth anywoman’s while; and she would feel that. He thought, as he arranged with a zeal he had never felt before, the means of amusing and occupying his mother’s guests, that he would have all the more chance of getting her by herself, of finding time and opportunity to lead her out of the crowd to get her answer. Surely, surely, the chances were all in favor of a favorable answer. It was not as if he were a nobody, a chance-comer, a trifling or unimportant person. He had always been aware that he was an important person, and it seemed impossible that she should not see it too.
Ralph Wradisley and his friend Bertram went out for a long walk. They were both “out of it,” the son as much as the visitor, and both moved with similar inclinations to run away. “Of course I’ll meet some fellows I know,” Ralph said. “Shall I though? The fellows of my age are knocking about somewhere, or married and settled, and that sort of thing. I’ll meet the women of them, sisters, and so forth, and perhaps some wives. It’s only the women that are fixtures in acountry like this; and what are the women to you and me?”
“Well, to me nothing but strangers—but so would the men be too.”
“Ah, it’s all very well to talk,” said Ralph. “Women have their place in society, and so forth—wouldn’t be so comfortable without them, I suppose. But between you and me, Bertram, there ain’t very much in women for fellows like us. I’m not a marrying man—neither are you, I suppose? The most of them about here are even past the pretty girl stage, don’t you know, and I don’t know how to talk to them. Africa plays the deuce with you for that.”
“No,” said Bertram, “I am not a marrying man. I am—I feel I ought to tell you, Wradisley—there never was any need to go into such questions before, and you may believe I don’t want to carry a placard round my neck in the circumstances;—well—I am a married man, and that is the truth.”
Ralph turned upon him with a long whistleand a lifting of the eyebrows. “By Jove!” he said.
“I hope you won’t bear me a grudge for not telling you before. In that case I’ll be off at once and bother you no more.”
“Stuff!” cried Ralph; “what difference can it make to me? I have thought you had something on your mind sometimes; but married or single, we’re the same two fellows that have walked the desert together, and helped each other through many a scrape. I’m sorry for you, old chap—that is, if there’s anything to be sorry for. Of course, I don’t know.”
“I’ve been afloat on the world ever since,” said Bertram. “It was all my fault. I was a cursed fool, and trapped when I was a boy. Then I thought the woman was dead—had all the proofs and everything, and—You say you know nothing about that sort of thing, Wradisley. Well, I won’t say anything about it. I fell in love with a lady every way better than I—she was—perhaps you do know more than you say. I married her—that’s the short and the long of it; andin a year, when the baby had come, the other woman, the horrible creature, arrived at my very door.”
“Good Lord!” cried Ralph softly, in his beard.
“She was dying, that was one good thing; she died—in my house. And then—We were married again, my wife and I—she allowed that; but—I have never seen her since,” said Bertram, turning his head away.
“By Jove!” said Ralph Wradisley once more, in his beard; and they walked on in silence for a mile, and said not another word. At last—
“Old chap,” said Ralph, touching his friend on the shoulder, “I never was one to talk; but it’s very hard lines on you, and Mrs. Bertram ought to be told so, if she were the queen.”
Bertram shook his head. “I don’t know why I told you,” he said; “don’t let us talk of it any more. The thing’s done and can’t be undone. I don’t know if I wish any change. When two paths part in this world, Wradisley, don’t you know, the longer theygo, the wider apart they get—or at least that’s my experience. They say your whole body changes every seven years—it doesn’t take so long as that to alter a man’s thoughts and his soul—and a woman’s, too, I suppose. She’s far enough from me now, and I from her. I’m not sure I—regret it. In some ways it—didn’t suit me, so to speak. Perhaps things are best as they are.”
“Well,” said Ralph, “I’d choose a free life for myself, but not exactly in that way, Bertram—not if I were you.”
“Fortunately we are none of us each other,” Bertram said, with a laugh which had little mirth in it. He added, after a moment: “You’ll use your own discretion about telling this sorry tale of mine, Wradisley. I felt I had to tell you. I can’t go about under false pretenses while you’re responsible for me. Now you know the whole business, and we need not speak of it any more.”
“All right, old fellow,” Ralph said; and they quickened their pace, and put on I don’t know how many miles more before they got back—too late for lunch, and very muddyabout the legs—to eat a great deal of cold beef at the sideboard, while the servants chafed behind them, intent upon changing the great dining-room into a bower of chrysanthemums and temple of tea. They had to change their dress afterwards, which took up all their time until the roll of carriages began. Bertram, for his part, being a stranger and not at all on duty, took a long time to put himself into more presentable clothes. He did not want to have any more of the garden party than was necessary. And his mind had been considerably stirred up by his confession, brief as it was. It had been necessary to do it, and his mind was relieved; but he did not feel that it was possible to remain long at Wradisbury now that he had disclosed his mystery, such as it was. What did they care about his mystery? Nothing—not enough to make a day’s conversation out of it. He knew very well in what way Ralph would tell his story. He would not announce it as a discovery—it would drop from his beard like the most casual statement of fact: “Unlucky beggar, Bertram—got a wife andall that sort of thing—place down Devonshire way—but he and she don’t hit it off, somehow.” In such terms the story would be told, without any mystery at all. But Bertram, who was a proud man, did not feel that he could live among a set of people who looked at him curiously across the table and wondered how it was that he did not “hit it off” with his wife. He knew that he would read that question in Mrs. Wradisley’s face when she bade him good-morning; and in Lucy’s eyes—Lucy’s eyes, he thought, with a half smile, would be the most inquisitive—they would ask him a hundred questions. They would say, with almost a look of anxiety in them, “Oh! Mr. Bertram—why?” It amused him to think that Lucy would be the most curious of them all, though why, I could not venture to say. He got himself ready very slowly, looking out from the corner of his window at all the smart people of the county gathering upon the lawn. There was tennis going on somewhere, he could hear, and the less loud but equally characteristic stroke of the croquet balls. And the band,which was a famous band from London, had begun to play. If he was to appear at all, it was time that he should go downstairs; but, as a matter of fact, he was not really moved to do this, until he saw a little flight across the green of a small child in white, so swift that some one had to stoop and pick her up as he picked up Tiny at the gate of Greenbank. The man on the lawn who caught this little thing lifted her up as Bertram had done. Would the child be hushed by his grasp, and look into his face as Tiny had looked at him? Perhaps this was not Tiny—at all events, it gave no look, but wriggled and struggled out of its captor’s hands. This sight decided Bertram to present himself in the midst of Mrs. Wradisley’s guests. He wanted to see Tiny once again.
Bertramsoon lost himself among the crowd on the lawn, among all the county people and the village people, making his way out and in, in a solitude which never feels so great as among a crowd. It seemed wonderful to him, as it is specially to those who have been more or less in what is called “Society,” that he saw nobody whom he knew. That is a thing almost impossible to happen for those that are born within that charmed circle. Whether at the end of the world or in the midst of it, it is incredible that you should see an assemblage of human creatures without discovering one who is familiar at least, if not friendly—unless, indeed, you wander into regions unknown to society; and Mrs. Wradisley and her guests wouldall have been indignant indeed had that been for a moment imagined of them. But yet this is a thing that does happen now and then, and Bertram traversed the lawns and flower gardens and conservatories without meeting a single face which he recognized or being greeted by one voice he had ever heard before. To be sure, this was partly owing to the fact that the person of whom he was specially in search was a very small person, to be distinguished at a very low pitch of stature near to the ground, not at tall on a level with the other forms. There were a few children among the groups on the lawn, and he pursued a white frock in various directions, which, when found, proved to contain some one who was not Tiny; but at last he came to that little person clinging to Lucy’s skirts as she moved about among her mother’s guests. Lucy turned round upon Bertram with a little surprise to find him so near her, and then a little rising glow of color and a look in her mild eyes of mingled curiosity and compassion, which penetrated him with sudden consciousness, annoyance,yet amusement. Already it was evident Ralph had found a moment a tell his tale. “Oh, Mr. Bertram!” Lucy said. She would have said precisely the same in whatever circumstances; the whole difference was in the tone.
Then a small voice was uplifted at her feet. “It is the gemplemans,” Tiny said.
“So you remember me, little one? though we only saw each other in the dark. Will you come for a walk with me, Tiny?” Bertram said.
The child looked at him with serious eyes. Now that he saw her in daylight she was not the common model of the angelic child, but dark, with a little olive tint in her cheeks and dark brown hair waving upon her shoulders. He scarcely recognized, except by the serious look, the little runaway of the previous night, yet recognized something in her for which he was not at all prepared, which he could not explain to himself. Why did the child look at him so? And he looked at her, not with the half fantastic, amused liking which had made him seek her out, but seriouslytoo, infected by her survey of him, which was so penetrating and so grave. After Tiny had given him this investigating look, she put her little velvety hand into his, with the absolute confidence of her age, “’Ess, me go for a walk,” she said.
“Now, Tiny, talk properly to this gentleman; let him see what a lady you can be when you please,” said Lucy. “She’s too old to talk like that, isn’t she, Mr. Bertram? She is nearly five! and she really can talk just as well as I can, when she likes. Tiny! now remember!” Lucy was very earnest in her desire that Tiny should do herself justice; but once more lifted the swift, interrogative look which seemed to say, as he knew she would, “Oh, Mr. Bertram—why?”
“Where shall we go for our walk, Tiny?” Bertram said.
“Take Tiny down to the pond; nobody never take me down to the wasser. Mamma says Tiny tumble in, but gemplemans twite safe. Come, come, afore mummie sees and says no.”
“But, Tiny, if you’re sure your mother would say no—”
“Qwick, qwick!” cried Tiny. “If mummie says nuffin, no matter; but if she says no!”—this was uttered with a little stamp of the foot and raised voice as if in imitation of a familiar prohibition—“then Tiny tan’t go. Come along, quick, quick.”
It was clear that Tiny’s obedience was to the letter, not the spirit.
“But I don’t know the way,” said Bertram, holding a little back.
“Come, come!” cried the child, dragging him on. “Tiny show you the way.”
“And what if we both fall in, Tiny?”
“You’s too old, too big gemplemans to fall into the wasser—too big to have any mummie.”
“Alas! that’s true,” he said.
“Then never mind,” said the little girl. “No mummie, no nursie, nobody to scold you. You can go in the boat if you like. Come! Oh, Tiny do, do want to go in the boat; and there’s flowers on the udder side,fordet-me-nots!—wants to get fordet-me-nots. Come, gemplemans, come!”
“Would you like to ride on my shoulder? and then we shall go quicker,” he said.
She stood still at once, and held out her arms to be lifted up. Now Bertram was not the kind of man who makes himself into the horse, the bear, the lion, as occasion demands, for the amusement of children. He was more surprised to find himself with this little creature seated on his shoulder, than she was on her elevated seat, where indeed she was entirely at her ease, guiding him with imperative tugs at the collar of his coat and beating her small foot against his breast, as if she had the most perfect right to his attention and devotion. “This way, this way,” sang Tiny; “that way nasty way, down among the thorns—this way nice way; get fordet-me-nots for mummie; mummie never say nuffin—Tiny tan go!”
He found himself thus hurrying over the park, with the child’s voice singing its little monologue over his head, flushed with rebellion against the unconscious mother, much amused at himself. And yet it was notamusement; it was a curious sensation which Bertram could not understand. It is not quite an unexampled thing to fall in love with a child at first sight; but he was not aware that he had ever done it before, and to be turned so completely by the child into the instrument of her little rebellions and pleasures was more wonderful still. He laughed within himself, but his laugh went out of him like the flame of a candle in the wind. He felt more like to cry, if he had been a subject for crying. But why he could not tell. Never was man in a more disturbed and perplexed state of mind. Guided by Tiny’s pullings and beatings, he got to the pond at last, a pond upon the other side of which there was, strange to say, visible among the russet foliage, one little clump of belated forget-me-nots quite out of season. The child’s quick eye had noted them as she had gone by with her nurse on some recent walk. Bertram knew a great many things, but it is very doubtful whether he was aware that it was wonderful to find forget-me-nots so late. And Tiny was a sight tosee when he put her down in the stern of the boat and pulled across the pond with a few long strokes. Her eyes, which had a golden light in their darkness, shone with triumph and delight; the brown of her little sunburnt face glowed transparent as if there was a light within; her dark curls waved; the piquancy of the complexion so unusual in a child, the chant of her little voice shouting, “Fordet-me-nots, fordet-me-nots!” her little rapture of eagerness and pleasure carried him altogether out of himself. He had loved that complexion in his day; perhaps it was some recollection, some resemblance, which was at the bottom of this strange absorption in the little creature of whose very existence he had not been aware till last night. Now, if he had been called on to give his very life for Tiny he would have been capable of it, without knowing why; and, indeed, there would have been a very likely occasion of giving his life for Tiny, or of sacrificing hers, as her mother foresaw, if he had not caught her as she stretched herself out of the boat to reach the flowers. His gripof her was almost violent—and there was a moment during which Tiny’s little glow disappeared in a sudden thunder-cloud, changing the character of her little face, and a small incipient stamp of passion on the planks betrayed rebellion ready to rise. But Tiny looked at Bertram, who held her very firmly, fixed him with much the same look as she had given him at their first meeting, and suddenly changed countenance again. What did that look mean? He had said laughingly on the previous night that it was a look of recognition. She suddenly put her two little hands round his neck, and said, “Tiny will be dood.” And the effect of the little rebel’s embrace was that tears—actual wet tears, which for a moment blinded eyes which had looked every kind of wonder and terror in the face—surprised him before he knew. What did it mean? What did it mean? It was too wonderful for words.
The flowers were gathered after this in perfect safety and harmony; Tiny puddling with her hands in the mud to get the nearest ones “nice and long,” as she said, while Bertramsecured those that were further off. And then there arose a great difficulty as to how to carry these wet and rather muddy spoils. Tiny’s pretty frock, which she held out in both hands to receive them like a ballet dancer, could not be thought of.
“For what would your mother say if your frock was wet and dirty?” said Bertram, seriously troubled.
“Mummie say, ‘Oh, Tiny, Tiny, naughty schild,’”said the little girl, with a very grave face; “never come no more to garden party.”
Finally an expedient was devised in the shape of Bertram’s handkerchief tied together at the corners, and swung upon a switch of willow which was light enough for Tiny to carry; in which guise the pair set out again toward the house and the smart people, Tiny once more on Bertram’s shoulder, with the bundle of flowers bobbing in front of his nose, and, it need not be said, some trace of the gathering of the flowers and of the muddy edges of the pool, and the moss-grown planks of the boat showing on both performers—onTiny’s frock, which was a little wet, and on Bertram’s coat, marked by the beating of the little feet, which had gathered a little mud and greenness too. Tiny began to question him on the returning way.
“Gemplemans too big to have got a mummie,” said Tiny; “have you got a little girl?”
Not getting any immediate answer to this question, she sang it over him in her way, repeating it again and again—“Have zoo dot a little girl?”—her dialect varying according to her caprice, until the small refrain got into his head.
The man was utterly confused and troubled; he could not give Tiny any answer, nor could he answer the wonderful maze of questions and thoughts which this innocent demand of hers awakened in his breast. When they came within sight of the lawn and its gay crowd, Bertram bethought him that it would be better to put his little rider down, and to present her to perhaps an anxious or angry mother on a level, which would make her impaired toilet less conspicuous.After all, there was nothing so wonderful in the fact that a little girl had dirtied her frock. He had no occasion to feel so guilty and disturbed about it. And this is how it happened that the adventurers appeared quite humbly, Tiny not half pleased to descend from her eminence and carrying now over her shoulder, as Bertram suggested, the stick which supported her packet of flowers, while he walked rather shamefaced by her, holding her hand, and looking out with a little trepidation for the mother, who, after all, could not bring down very condign punishment upon him for running away with her child.
Mrs. Nugenthad been very unwilling to fulfill her promise and appear at Mrs. Wradisley’s party. She had put off her arrival till the last moment, and as she walked up from the village with her little girl she had flattered herself that, arriving late under shelter of various other parties who made much more commotion, she might have escaped observation. But if Bertram, of whom she knew nothing, had been intent on finding Tiny, Mr. Wradisley was much more intent on finding Tiny’s mother. He had been on the watch and had not missed her from the first moment of her appearance, carefully as she thought she had sheltered it from observation. And even her appearance, though she had condemned it herself asexcited and sullen, when she gave herself a last look in the glass before coming away, did not discourage him. Excitement brightens a woman’s eye and gives additional color to her face, or at least it did so to Nelly. The gentle carelessness of the ordinary was not in her aspect at all. She was more erect, carrying her animated head high. Nobody could call her ordinary at any time. She was so full of life and action. But on that day every line of her soft, light dress seemed to have expression. The little curls on her forehead were more crisp, the shining of her eyes more brilliant. There was a little nervous movement about her mouth which testified to the agitation in her. “Is there anything wrong, dear?” asked Mrs. Wradisley, pausing, holding her by the hand, looking into her face, startled by this unusual look, even in the midst of her guests.
“Oh, no—yes. I have had some disturbing news, but nothing to take any notice of. I will tell you afterwards,” Mrs. Nugent said. Lucy too hung upon her, eager to know what was the matter. “Only some blunders—about my affairs,” she had replied, “which I can set right.”
“Oh, if that is all!” Lucy had cried, running off to salute some other new-comers and carrying Tiny in her train. “Affairs” meant business to Lucy, and business, so far as she was aware, touched only the outside, and could have nothing to do with any one’s happiness. Besides, her mind was in a turmoil for the moment with that strange story of Mrs. Bertram which her mother had just told her by way of precaution, filtered from Ralph. “Mr. Bertram is married, it appears; but he and his wife don’t get on,” was what Mr. Wradisley had said. Lucy’s imagination had, as we are aware, been busy about Bertram, and she was startled by this strange and sudden conclusion to her self-inquiry whether by any chance he might be the Ideal man.
It was thus that Mrs. Nugent had been suddenly left without even the protection of her child, and though she had managed for some time to hide herself, as she supposed (though his watchful gaze in reality followedher everywhere), from her host amid the crowd of other people assembled, there came the inevitable moment when she could keep herself from him no longer. He came up to her while the people who surrounded dispersed to examine his collection or to go in for tea.
“But I have seen your collection, Mr. Wradisley,” she said; “you were so kind as to show me everything.”
“It is not my collection,” he said; “it is—a flower I want to show you. The new orchid—the new—Let me take you into the conservatory. I must,” he said, in a lower tone. “You must be merciful and let me speak to you.”
“Mr. Wradisley,” she cried, almost under her breath, “do not, for pity’s sake, say any more.”
“I must,” he said, impetuously. “I must know.” And then he added in his usual tone, “Stevenson is very proud of it. It is a very rare kind, you know, and the finest specimen, he says.”
“Oh, what is that, Mr. Wradisley?—an orchid? May I come too?” said another guest, without discrimination.
“Certainly,” he said; “but all in its order. Simmons comes first, Stevenson afterwards. You have not seen my Etruscan collection.” Mrs. Nugent was aware that he had caught a floating ribbon of the light cloak she carried on her arm, and held it fast while he directed with his usual grave propriety the other lady by her side. “Now,” he said, looking up to her. If it was the only thing that could be done, then perhaps it was better that it should be done at once. He led her through the lines of gleaming glass, the fruit, and the flowers, for Wradisbury was famous for its vineries and its conservatories—meeting a few wanderers by the way, whom it was difficult to prevent from following—till at last they got to the inner sanctuary of all, where a great fantastic blossom, a flower, but counterfeiting something that was not a flower, blazed aloft in the ruddy afternoon light, which of itself could never have produced that unnatural tropical blossom. Neither the man nor the woman looked at the orchid.She said to him eagerly before he could speak: “This is all dreadful to me. You ought to let me go. You ought to be satisfied with my word. Should I speak as I have done if I had not meant it? Mr. Wradisley, for God’s sake, accept what I have already said to you and let me go.”
“No,” he said. She stood beside the flower, her brown beauty shining against the long leaves and strong stem of the beautiful monster, and he planted himself in front of her as if to prevent her escape. “You think I am tyrannical,” he said; “so I am. You are shocked and startled by what I have said to you. It is because I understand that that I am so pressing, so arbitrary now. Mrs. Nugent, you can’t bear that a man should speak to you of love. You think that love only comes once, that your heart should be buried with your husband; that is folly, it is fancy, it is prejudice, it is not a real feeling. That is why I force you almost to hear me. Pause a moment, and hear me.”
“Not a moment, not a moment!” she cried.“It is more than that. Take my word for it, and let me go and say no more.”
“A widow,” he said, “you make up an idea to yourself that it’s something sacred. You are never to love, never to think of any one again. But all that is fiction—don’t interrupt me—it is mere fiction. You are living, and he is dead.”
“You force me,” she cried, “to betray myself. You force me—to tell you my secrets. You have no right to force my secret from me. Mr. Wradisley, every word you say to me is an offense. It is my own fault; but a man ought surely to be generous and take a woman’s word without compelling her in self defense—”
“I know by heart all that you can say in self-defense,” he cried, vehemently, “and you ought to be told that these are all fictions—sentimentalisms—never to be weighed against a true affection—a man’s love—and home and protection—both for yourself and your child.”
The young woman’s high spirit was aroused. “I will have no more of this,” shesaid. “I am quite able to protect myself and my child. Let me go—I will go, Mr. Wradisley. I do not call this love. I call it persecution. Not a word more.”
Mr. Wradisley was more astonished than words could say. He fell back, and allowed her to pass. He had thought, with a high hand, in the exercise of that superior position and judgment which everybody allowed him, to bring her to reason. Was it possible that she was not to be brought to reason? “I think,” he said, “Mrs. Nugent, that when you are calm and consider everything at your leisure you will feel—that I am justified.”
“You can never be justified in assuming that you know—another person’s position and feelings; which you don’t, and can’t know.”
“I argue from the general,” said Mr. Wradisley, with an air almost of meekness, “and when you think—when you take time to consider—”
“No time would make any difference,” she said, quickly; and then, for she was now freeand going back again toward the lawn, her heart smote her. “Don’t bear me any malice,” she said. “I respect you very much; any woman might be proud—of your love”—her face gave a little twitch, whether toward laughing or crying it was difficult to tell—“but I couldn’t have given you mine in any circumstances, not if I had been—entirely free.”
“Which you are—from everything but false sentiment,” he said, doggedly.
But what did it matter?—he was following her out, her face was turned from him, her ears were deaf to his impressive words, as her eyes were turned from his looks, which were more impressive still. Mr. Wradisley had failed, and it was the first time for many years that he had done so; he had even forgotten that such a thing was possible. When they came, thus walking solemnly one behind the other, to the outer house where some of the other guests were lingering, Mrs. Nugent stopped to speak to some of them, to describe the new orchid. “It is the most uncanny thing I ever saw,” she said. And thenLady Dulham, the great lady of that side of the county, the person whom he most disliked, appealed to Mr. Wradisley to show her too the new wonder. It was perhaps on the whole the best way he could have got out of this false position. He offered the old lady his arm with a deeply wounded, hotly offended heart.
Mrs. Nugent lingered a little with the others in the great relief and ease of mind which, though it was only momentary, was great. She had not after all been obliged to reveal any of her secrets, whatever they might be. If he had been less peremptory, more reasonable, she would have been obliged to explain to him; and that she had very little mind to do. After the first relief, however, she began to feel what a blow had been struck at her temporary comfort in this place by so untoward an accident. His mother and sister were her chief friends; they had received her so generously, so kindly, with such confidence. Her secret was no guilty one, but still it had made her uncomfortable, it had been the subject of various annoyances; butnone of these kind people had asked her any questions; they had received her for herself, never doubting. And now it seemed that she had only appeared among them to do harm. She was a pretty and attractive young woman, and not altogether unaware that people liked her on that account; but yet she never had been one of those women with whom everybody is acquainted, in novels, at least, before whom every man falls down. She had had her share, but she had not been persecuted by inopportune lovers. And she had not entertained any alarm in respect to Mr. Wradisley. She hoped now that his pride would help him through it, and that nobody would be the wiser; but still she could not continue here under the very wing of the family after so humiliating its head, either meeting him, or compelling him to avoid her. She went on turning over this question in her mind, pausing to talk to this one and that one, to do her duty to Mrs. Wradisley still by amusing and occupying her guests, putting on her smiles as if they had been ribbons to conceal some little spotor rent beneath. Indeed, it was no rent. She had not been very long at Wradisbury. It would be no dreadful business to go away. She was neither without friends nor protectors, and London was always a ready and natural refuge, where it would be so simple to go. But this fiasco, as she called it to herself, vexed her. She wanted to get away as soon as possible, to think it over at leisure, to find Tiny, who no doubt was hanging on Lucy Wradisley’s skirts somewhere, or else playing with the other children, and to steal home as soon as there was any pretext for departure. She felt that she would prefer not to meet his mother’s eye.
She was beginning to get very impatient of waiting when at last she caught sight of Tiny being set down on the ground from somebody’s shoulders. She did not pay any attention for the moment to the man. Tiny had so many friends; for the child was not shy; she had no objection to trust herself to any one who pleased her, though it was not every one who had this advantage and pleased Tiny. The mother saw at once that Tiny’s best frock had suffered, and a momentary alarm about the pond, which was one of her favorite panics, seized her. But the child was evidently quite right, which settled that question. She went to meet Tiny with a word of playful reproof for her disheveled condition on her lips. The child and her guardian were coming round a clump of trees which hid them for a moment, and toward which Mrs. Nugent turned her steps. She heard the small voice running on in its usual little sing-song of monologue.
“Have zoo dot a little girl? Have zoo dot a little girl?”
What an odd question for Tiny to ask! The child must really be trained to be a little more like other children, not to push her little inquiries so far, not to ask questions. Mrs. Nugent could not help smiling a little at the sound of her small daughter’s voice, especially as there was no reply made to it. The man had a big beard, that was all she had observed of him; perhaps it was the other son, the brother Raaf, the adventurer,or perhaps prodigal, who had newly come home.
These were her thoughts as she turned round the great bole of that big tree of which the Wradisleys were so proud. Bertram was coming on the other side, half smiling, too, at Tiny’s little song; while she, spying some children in the distance, swayed backward from his hold to call to them, and then detaching herself from his hand altogether, ran back a few paces to show them her treasures. His face half averted for a moment looking after her thus, gave Mrs. Nugent one breath of preparation, but none to him, who turned round again half conscious of some one coming to meet him, with still that half smile and the tender expression in his eyes. He stood still, he wavered for a moment as if, strong man as he was, he would have fallen.
“My God—Nelly!” he cried.
Afterthe most successful party, even if it is only a garden party, a flatness is apt to fall upon the family of the entertainers who have been so nobly doing their best to amuse their friends. Besides the grateful sense of success, and of the fact that the trouble is well over, comes a flagging of both physical and mental powers. The dinner at Wradisbury was heavy after the great success of the afternoon; there was a little conversation about that, and about how everybody looked, and on Ralph’s part, who was decidedly the least dull of the party, on the changes that time had made, especially upon the women whom he remembered as little girls, and who were now, as he said, “elderly,” some of them with little girls of their own; butneither Mr. Wradisley nor Mr. Bertram were at all amused, and Lucy was tired, and agreeing with Ralph completely in his estimation of the old young ladies, was not exhilarated by it as she might have been. The master of the house did not indeed betray fatigue or ill-humor, he was too well bred for that. But he was a little cross to the butler, and dissatisfied with the dinner, which was an unusual thing; he even said something to his mother about “yourcook,” as if he thought the sins of that important person resulted from the fact that she was Mrs. Wradisley’s cook, and had received bad advice from her mistress. When he was pleased he said “my cook,” and on ordinary occasions “the cook,” impersonally and impartially. Bertram on the other hand, had the air of a man who had fallen from a great height, and had not been able to pick himself up—he was pale, his face was drawn. He scarcely heard when he was spoken to. When he perceived that he was being addressed he woke up with an effort. All this Lucy perceived keenly and put downto what was in fact its real reason, though with a difference. She said to herself:
“Nelly Nugent must have known him. She must have known his wife and all about him, and how it was they didn’t get on. I’ll make her tell me,” Lucy said to herself, and she addressed herself very particularly to Mr. Bertram’s solace and entertainment, partly because she was romantically interested and very sorry for him, and partly to show her mother, who had told her with a certain air that Mr. Bertram was married, that his marriage made not the slightest difference to her. She tried to draw him out about Tiny, who was the first and most natural subject.
“Isn’t she a delightful little thing? I am sure she made a slave of you, Mr. Bertram, and got you to do everything she wanted. She always does. She is a little witch,” Lucy said.
“Oh, Tiny,” said Bertram, with a slight change of color. “Yes—I had not been thinking. What is her—real name?”
“I believe it is Agnes, and another nametoo—an old-fashioned name; do you remember, mother?”
“Laetitia. I don’t know what you mean by an old-fashioned name. I had once a great friend whose name was Laetitia. It means light-heartedness, doesn’t it?—joy. And a very nice meaning, too. It would just suit Tiny. They can call her Letty when she gets a little older. But the worst of these baby names is that there is no getting rid of them; and Tiny is so absurd for a big girl.”
During this rather long speech Bertram sat with a strange look, as if he could have cried, Lucy thought, which, however, must have been absurd, for what he did do was to laugh. “Yes, they do stick; and the more absurd they are the longer they last.”
“Tiny, however, is not absurd in the least; and isn’t she a delightful little thing?” Lucy repeated. She was not, perhaps, though so very good a girl, very rapid in her perceptions, and besides, it would have been entirely idiotic to imagine the existence of any reason why Bertram should not discuss freely the little characteristics of Mrs. Nugent’s child.
“Poor little Tiny!” he said, quite inappropriately, with a sort of stifled sigh.
“Oh! do you mean because her father is dead?” said Lucy, with a countenance of dismay. She blamed herself immediately for having thought so little of that misfortune. Perhaps the thing was that Mr. Bertram had been a friend of Tiny’s father, and it was this that made him so grave. She added, “I am sure I am very sorry for poor Mr. Nugent; but then I never knew him, or knew anybody that knew him. Yes, to be sure, poor little Tiny! But, Mr. Bertram, she has such a very nice mother. Don’t you think for a girl the most important thing is to have a nice mother?”
“No doubt,” Bertram said very gravely, and again he sighed.
Lucy was full of compunction, but scarcely knew how to express it. He must have been a very great friend of poor Mr. Nugent, and perhaps he had felt, seeing Nelly quite out of mourning, and looking on the whole so bright, that his friend had been forgotten. But no! Lucy was ready to go to the stakefor it, that Mrs. Nugent had not forgotten her husband—more at least than it was inevitable and kind to her other friends to forget.
And then Mr. Wradisley, having finished his complaints about “your cook,” told his mother across the table that it was quite possible he might have to go to town in a few days. “Perhaps to-morrow,” he said. The dealer in antiquities, through whose hands he spent a great deal of money, had some quite unique examples which it would be sinful to let slip by.
Mrs. Wradisley exclaimed against this suggestion. “I thought, Reginald, you were to be at home with us all the winter; and Ralph just come, too,” she said.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Ralph.
“Ralph may be sure, mother,” said Mr. Wradisley, with his usual dignity, “that I mind him very much. Still there are opportunities that occur but once in a lifetime. But nothing,” he added, “need be settled till to-morrow.”
What did Reginald expect to-morrow? Mr. Bertram looked up too with a sort ofinvoluntary movement, as if he were about to say something concerning to-morrow; but then changed his mind and did not speak. This was Lucy’s observation, who was uneasy, watching them all, and feeling commotion, though she knew not whence it came, in the air.
In the morning there was still the same commotion in the air to Lucy’s consciousness, who perhaps, however, was the only person who was aware of it. But any vague sensation of that sort was speedily dispersed by the exclamation of Mrs. Wradisley, after she had poured out the tea and coffee (which was an office she retained in her own hands, to Lucy’s indignation). While she did this she glanced at the outside of the letters which lay by the side of her plate; for they retained the bad habit in Wradisbury of giving you your letters at breakfast, instead of sending them up to your room as soon as they arrived; so that you received your tailor’s bill or your lover’s letter before the curious eyes of all the world, so to speak. Mrs. Wradisley looked askance at her letters asshe poured out the tea, and said, half to herself, “Ah! Mrs. Nugent. Now what can she be writing to me about? I saw her last night, and I shall probably see her to-day.”
“It will be about those cuttings for the garden, mother,” said Lucy. “May I open it and see?”
Mrs. Wradisley put her hand for a moment on the little pile. “I prefer to open my letters myself. No one has ever done that for me yet.”
“Nor made the tea either, mother,” said Ralph.
“Nor made the tea either, Raaf, though Lucy would like to put me out, I know,” said Mrs. Wradisley, with a little nod of her head; and then, having finished that piece of business like one who felt her very life attacked by any who should question her powers of doing it, she proceeded to open her letters—one or two others before that on which she had remarked.
Lucy was so much interested herself that she did not see how still her elder brother sat behind his paper, or how uneasy Bertramwas, cutting his roll into small pieces on his plate. Then Mrs. Wradisley gave a little scream, and gave them all an excuse for looking up at her, and Mr. Wradisley for demanding, “What is the matter, mother?” in his quiet tones.
“Dear me! I beg your pardon, Reginald, for crying out; how very absurd of me. Mrs. Nugent has gone away! I was so startled I could not help it. She’s gone away! This is to tell me—and she was here all the afternoon yesterday, and never said a word.”
“Oh, that’s the little widow,” said Ralph; “and a very good thing too, I should say, mother. Nothing so dangerous as little widows about.”
Again I am sorry that Lucy was so much absorbed in her own emotions as not to be capable of general observation, or she would have seen that both her brother Reginald and Mr. Bertram looked at Raaf as if they would like to cut his throat.
“She says she did tell me yesterday,” said Mrs. Wradisley, reading her letter. “‘Imentioned that I had news that disturbed me a little.’ Yes, now I recollect she did. I thought she wasn’t looking herself, and of course I asked what was the matter. But I had forgotten all about it, and I never thought it was serious. ‘And now I find that I must go. You have all been so kind to me, and I am so sorry to leave. Tiny, too, will break her little heart; only a child always believes she is coming back again to-morrow; and the worst of it is I don’t know when I may be able to get back.’”
“But, mother, she can’t have gone yet; there will be time to run and say good-by by the ten o’clock train,” said Lucy, getting up hurriedly.
Once more Mrs. Wradisley raised a restraining hand, “Listen,” she said, “you’ve not heard the end. ‘To-night I am going up to town by the eight o’clock train. I have not quite settled what my movements will be afterwards; but you shall hear when I know myself.’ That’s all,” said the mother, “and very unsatisfactory I call it; but you see you will do no manner of good, Lucy, jumpingup and disturbing everybody at breakfast on account of the ten o’clock train.”
“Well,” said Lucy, drawing a long breath, “that is something at least—if she will really let us know as soon as she knows herself.”
“Gammon,” said Ralph. “My belief is you will never hear of your pretty widow again. She’s seen somebody that is up to her tricks, or she’s broken down in some little game, or—”
“Raaf!” cried mother and sister together.
But that was not all. Mr. Wradisley put down his newspaper; his countenance appeared from behind it a little white and drawn, with his eyebrows lowering. “I am sorry, indeed,” he said, “to hear a man of my name speak of a lady he knows nothing about as perhaps—a cad might speak, but not a gentleman.”
“Reginald!” the ladies cried now in chorus, with tones of agitation and dismay.
Meanwhile Bertram had got up from the table with a disregard of good manners of which in the tumult of his feelings he was quite unconscious, and stalked away, goingout of the room and the house, his head thrust forward as if he did not quite realize where he was going. The ladies afterwards, when they discussed this incident, and had got over their terror lest hot words should ensue between the brothers, as for the moment seemed likely—gave Bertram credit for the greatest tact and delicacy; since it was evident that he too thought a crisis was coming, and would not risk the chance of being a spectator of a scene which no stranger to the family ought to see.