But none of these fine sentiments were in Bertram’s mind. He went out, stumbling as he went, because a high tide of personal emotion had surged up in him, swelling to his very brain. That may not be a right way to describe it, because they say all feeling comes from the brain—but that was how he felt. He scarcely heard the jabberings of these Wradisley people, who knew nothing about it. He who was the only man who had anything to say in the matter, to defend her or to assail her—he would have liked to knock down that fellow Ralph; but he would haveliked still more to kick Ralph’s brother out of the way, who had taken upon him to interfere and stand up for her, forsooth, as if he knew anything about her, whereas it was he, only he, Frank Bertram, who knew. He went staggering out of the house, but shook himself up when he got into the open air, and pulled himself together. There had been such a strong impulse upon him to go after her last night and seize hold upon her, to tell her all this was folly and nonsense, and couldn’t be. Why had he not done it? He couldn’t tell. To think that was his own child that he had carried about, and that after all she had been called Laetitia, after his mother, thoughhermother had cut him off and banished him for no immediate fault of his. It was his fault, but it was the fault of ignorance, not of intention. He had believed what he had so intently wished to be true, but he had no more meant to harm Nelly or her child than to sully the sunshine or the skies. And now, when chance or providence, or whatever you chose to call it, had brought them within sight of each otheragain, that he should not have had the heart to follow that meeting out at once, and insist upon his rights! Perhaps she would not have denied him—he had thought for a moment that there had been something in her eyes—and then, like the dolt he was, like the coward he was, he had let her go, and had gone in to dinner, and had sat through the evening and listened to their talk and their music, and had gone to bed and tossed and dreamed all night, and let her go. There had been impulses in him against all these things. He had thought of excusing himself from dinner. He had thought of pretending a headache, and stealing out later; but he had not done it. He had stuck there in their infernal routine, and let her go. Oh, what a dolt and coward slave am I! He would not put forth a hand to hold her, to clutch her, not a finger! But began to bestir himself as soon as she was out of his reach and had got clear away.
He went straight on toward the gate and the village, not much thinking where he was going, nor meaning anything in particular byit; but before he was aware found himself at Greenbank, where he had stopped once in the darkness, all unaware who was within, and listened to Ralph Wradisley (the cad! his brother was right) bringing forth his foolish rubbish about the pretty widow, confound him! And some one had asked him if perhaps he knew the Nugents, and he had said, Yes; but they were old people. Yes, he knew some Nugents, he had said. They had only been her grandparents, that was all. It was her mother’s name she had taken, but he never guessed it, never divined it, though Tiny had divined it when she suddenly grew silent in his hands and gave him that look. Tiny had recognized him, like a shot! Though she had never seen him, though she was only five weeks old when—But he had not known her, had not known anything, nor how to behave himself when Providence placed such an unlooked for chance in his hands.
He went up to the house, the door of which stood wide open, and went in. All the doors were open with a visible emptiness, and thatlook of mute disorder and almost complaint which a deserted house bears when its inmates have gone away. A woman came out of the back regions on hearing his step, and explained that she had acted as Mrs. Nugent’s cook, but was the caretaker put in by the landlord, and let or not with the house as might suit the inmate. Mrs. Nugent had behaved very handsome to her, she said, with wages and board wages, and to Lizzie too, the housemaid, who had gone back to her mother’s, and refused to stay and help to clean out the house. It was out of order, as Mrs. Nugent only went last night; but if the gentleman would like to see over it—Bertram behaved handsome to her also, bidding her not trouble herself, and then was permitted to wander through the house at his will. There was nothing to be seen anywhere which had any association either to soothe or hurt his excited mind—a broken doll, an old yellow novel, a chair turned over in one room, the white coverlet in another twisted as if packing of some sort had been performed upon it—nothing but the merest vulgartraces of a sudden going away. In the little drawing-room there were some violets in water in a china cup—he remembered that she had worn them yesterday—and by their side and on the carpet beneath two or three of the forget-me-nots he had gathered for Tiny. He had almost thought of taking some of the violets (which was folly) away with him. But when he saw the forget-me-nots he changed his mind, and left them as he found them. His flowers had not found favor in her sight, it appeared! It was astonishing how much bitterness that trivial circumstance added to his feelings. He went out by the open window, relieved to get into the open air again, and went round and round the little garden, finding here and there play places of Tiny, where a broken toy or two, and some daisies threaded for a chain, betrayed her. And then it suddenly occurred to him that there were but two or three forget-me-nots, which might easily have fallen from Tiny’s hot little hand, whereas there had been a large number gathered. What had been done with the rest? Hadthey by any possibility been carried away? The thought came with a certain balm to his heart. He said Folly! to himself, but yet there was a consolation in the thought.
He was seated on the rude little bench where Tiny had played, looking at her daisies, when he heard a step; and, looking through the hedge of lilac bushes which enclosed him, he saw to his great surprise Mr. Wradisley walking along the little terrace upon which the drawing-room windows opened. Mr. Wradisley could not be stealthy, that was impossible, but his step was subdued; and if anything could have made his look furtive, as if he were afraid of being seen, that would have been his aspect. He walked up and down the little terrace once or twice, and then he went in softly by the open window. In another moment he reappeared. He was carefully straightening out in his hands the limp forget-me-nots which had fallen from the table to the carpet out (no doubt) of Tiny’s little hot hands. Mr. Wradisley took out a delicate pocket-book bound in morocco, and edged with silver, and with the greatestcare, as if they had been the most rare specimens, arranged in it the very limp and faded flowers. Then he placed the book in his breast-pocket, and turned away. Bertram, in the little damp arbor, laid himself upon the bench to suppress the tempest of laughter which tore him in two. It was more like a convulsion than a fit of merriment, for laughter is a tragic expression sometimes, and it came to an end very abruptly in something not unlike a groan. Mr. Wradisley was already at some distance, but he stopped involuntarily at the sound of this groan, and looked back, but seeing nothing to account for it, walked on again at his usual dignified pace, carrying Tiny’s little muddy, draggled forget-me-nots over his heart.
It was not till some time after that Bertram followed him up to the hall. He had neither taken Nelly’s violets nor Tiny’s daisies, though he had looked at them both with feelings which half longed for and half despised such poor tokens of the two who had fled from him. The thought of poor Mr. Wradisley’s mistake gave him again and againa spasm of inaudible laughter as he went along the winding ways after him. After all, was it not a willful mistake, a piece of false sentiment altogether? for the man might have remembered, he said to himself, that Nelly wore violets, autumn violets, and not forget-me-nots. When he got to the house, Bertram found, as he had expected, a telegram summoning him to instant departure. He had taken means to have it sent when he passed through the village. And the same afternoon went away, offering many regrets for the shortness of his visit.
“Three days—a poor sort of Saturday to Monday affair,” said Mrs. Wradisley. “You must come again and give us the rest that is owing to us.”
“It is just my beastly luck,” Bertram said.
As for Lucy, she tried to throw a great deal of meaning into her eyes as she bade him good-by; but Bertram did not in the least understand what the meaning was. He had an uncomfortable feeling for the moment, as if it might be that Lucy’s heart had beentouched, unluckily, as her brother’s had been; but grew hot all over with shame, looking again at her innocent, intent face though what was in it, it was not given to him to read. What Lucy would have said had she dared would have been, “Oh, Mr. Bertram, go home to your wife and live happy ever after!” but this of course she had no right to say. Ralph, however, the downright, whom no one suspected of tact or delicacy, said something like it as he walked with his friend to the station. Or rather it was at the very last moment as he shook hands through the window of the railway carriage.
“Good-by, Bertram,” he said; “I’d hunt up Mrs. Bertram and make it up, if I were you. Things like that can’t go on forever, don’t you know.”
“There’s something in what you say, Wradisley,” Bertram replied.
THE END.