CARITÀ

BY MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF “WITHIN THE PRECINCTS,” ETC.
CHEAP EDITION

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1885

All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS.

CARITÀ.

CHAPTER I.

THE BERESFORDS.

James Beresford and Annie his wife had been married for more than a dozen years—their only child, indeed, had nearly attained the age of twelve at the time when this history begins. They had both got footing on that plateau of middle age which, if it comes to something like level ground at thirty, need not think of a descending step for twenty years—the time of the greatest enjoyments and most solid progress of life. He was at one end and she at the other of the first decade; the one approaching the forties, the other scarcely well out of the twenties; both ready to laugh at the advance of years, which was as yet but a joke to them, and neither having thought of bidding any grave farewell to youth. She was impulsive, enthusiastic and nervous; he philosophical and speculative, a man ready to discuss any theory in earth or heaven, and without any prejudices such as might make one subject of discussion appear less legitimate than another. They were not very rich, but neither were they poor in any sense of the word. He had been called to the Bar, but had never gone any further in that career. They had enough between them to live on without show, but without pinching, as so many people of quietly social, semi-literary tastes do in London. They knew a number of people. They saw all the pictures, read all the books, and heard all the music that was going; not absorbed in any art, but with just enough devotion to all to make their life full and pleasant. And there could scarcely be a pleasanter life. The fantasies of youth, but not the sentiment of youth, had ended for both. Mr. Beresford had some mildly scientific pursuits, was a member of some learned societies, and of one or two new and advanced clubs where clever men were supposed to abound. Occasionally in his comfortable library he wrote an article for a review or magazine, which was very much talked about by his friends, to the great edification and amusement of people who live by writing articles and say nothing about them. This gave him an agreeable sense of duty to add seriousness to his life; and he was never without occupation—meetings of committees, scraps of semi-public business, educational and other projects, which, for the moment at least, seemed full of interest to the world, made him feel himself a not unimportant, certainly not a useless, man. Mrs. Beresford, on her side, had the natural occupation of her housekeeping, and her child, whose education gave her much thought—so much thought that many people with full nurseries listened with a certain awe to her ideas of all that was necessary for her little girl, and sighed to think how much less was possible when there were six or seven little girls to think of.

The child, however, was not so over-educated and over-cared for as might have been fancied; for the parents were young, as has been said, very fond of each other, and fond of their own way; which likings did not consist with the burden of dragging a small child with them wherever they went. The Beresfords liked to go about ‘honeymooning,’ as their friends called it, and as they themselves were not displeased to call it, by themselves, over the world. They would start sometimes quite suddenly, to the Riviera in the middle of winter, to escape London fogs and wintry chills; to Paris at Easter; to Scotland in the autumn; even to Norway sometimes, or such difficult places; and it stood to reason that they could not take the child with them when they started at a day’s notice on these delightful journeys. For their journeys were delightful. They were well enough off not to require to count the cost; they went lightly, with little luggage and no servants, and they went everywhere together. But it would have been bad for the little girl; therefore she stayed at home, under the care of the best of nurses, who had been Mrs. Beresford’s nurse before the child’s; and the father and mother, like two lovers, roamed lightly about the world. But when they were at home, Mrs. Beresford talked a great deal about education, and had plans enough to have educated six princesses, let alone one little girl of undistinguished lineage. It was a very lucky thing for all parties, their friends said, that they had but this one child. Had they been hampered by half-a-dozen, what could they have done? It would have changed their life completely. And one of their many felicities was, that whereas they were preserved from the old-maidishness of childless married persons by having a child, their freedom of action was preserved by the fact that they had but one.

And they were wonderfully free of other relations who might have hampered them. Mrs. Beresford had been an orphan from her childhood, brought up by her grandmother, who in the course of nature was dead too; and Mr. Beresford’s only two relations were a wealthy aunt, Charity Beresford, who lived in a pretty house in the country, within driving distance of London, and with whom lived his elder sister, Cherry Beresford, named after her aunt, and living in considerable subjection to that energetic woman. Miss Beresford was the richest member of the family, and her nephew had expectations from her; and Charity was the favourite female name of this branch of the race. But the idea of calling her child Charity did not at all smile upon young Mrs. Beresford when her baby was born. She was beguiled, however, by the unusual look of it, which charmed her, into calling the little girl by the more melodious name of Carità, contracted prettily into Cara in the drawing-room, and Carry in the nursery. Aunt Charity growled when she heard of this, but did not otherwise complain, and gentle Aunt Cherry declared herself unfeignedly glad that her little niece had thus escaped the worse consequences of a symbolical name. When the young couple went away pleasuring, little Cara very often would be sent to Sunninghill, to pass the quiet days there under the charge of the aunts; and so all responsibility was removed from the minds of the parents. They had a letter sent to them every day to assure them of their welfare, however far off they might go—an extravagance which Aunt Charity condemned loudly, but which Aunt Cherry was proud of, as showing the devotion of the parents to little Cara. The child herself was very happy at Sunninghill, and was a much more prominent person there than at home, where very often she was in the way, and interrupted conversation. For a father and mother who are very fond of each other, and have a great deal to talk of, often, it must be allowed, are hampered by the presence of one curious child, with quick ears and an inconveniently good memory. In this particular the half-dozen would have been more easily managed than the one.

Thus the Beresfords led a very pleasant life. They had the prettiest house; naturally, travelling so much as they did, they had been able to ‘pick up’ a great many charming things. You could scarcely see their walls for pictures; some very good, one or two wonderful windfalls, and the rest pretty enough; nothing strikingly bad, or next to nothing. Where other people had ordinary china, they had genuine old faïence, and one or two plaques which Raphael himself might have seen perhaps—Urbino ware, with Messer Giorgio’s name upon it. Not to speak of the Venice point which Mrs. Beresford wore, there were brackets in the drawing-room hung with scraps of old point coupé which many a lady would have been glad to trim her dress with; and, instead of common portières, they had two pieces of old tapestry from an Italian convent which devotees went down on their knees before. But I have not space to tell you how many pretty things they had. It was one of the pleasures of their life whenever they saw anything that pleased them to bring it home for the decoration of that pretty drawing-room, or the library, which Mr. Beresford had filled with old vellum-bound volumes of curious editions, and pretty books in Russian leather which kept the room always fragrant. What was wanting to this pleasant, warm, full, delightful living? Nothing but continuance; and it had not struck either of them that there was any doubt of this for long, long years at least. What a long way off threescore years and ten look when you are not yet forty! and death looked further off still. Neither of them thought of dying. Why should they? For, to be sure, though we know very well that must happen to us some time, in our hearts we are incredulous, and do not believe that we ever can die. The Beresfords never dreamt of anything so frightful. They were well, they were happy, they were young; and as it had been, so it would be; and a world so bright they felt must mean to go on for ever.

When Cara was about ten, however, the mother began to feel less well than usual. There was nothing much the matter with her, it was thought: want of ‘tone,’—a little irritability of disposition—a nervous temperament. What she wanted was change of air and scene. And she got that, and got better, as was thought; but then became ill again. No, not ill—unwell, indisposed, mal à son aise, nothing more. There was nothing the matter with her really, the doctors thought. Her lungs and her heart, and all vital organs, were perfectly sound; but there was a little local irritation which, acting upon a nervous temperament—— The nervous temperament was perpetually kept in the front, and all sorts of evils imputed to its agency. At Sunninghill, it must be confessed, they did not believe in the illness at all.

‘Fudge,’ said Aunt Charity, who had always been strong, and had no faith in nerves, ‘don’t talk to me of your nervous temperaments. I know what it means. It means that Annie has fallen sick of always having her own way. She has everything she can desire, and she is ill of having nothing more to wish for. A case of Alexander over again in a London drawing-room—that’s what it is, and nothing else, my word upon it; and I know my niece.’

‘Yes, Mr. Maxwell; perhaps there is some truth in what Aunt Charity says,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘I think you know I don’t judge harshly——’

‘That means that I judge harshly,’ said Miss Charity, bursting in; ‘thank you, my dear. Well, you may call me uncharitable if you please; but there’s where it is; let James lose the half of his fortune, or all his china get broken, and she’d come round in no time—that’s what ails Annie. But as she belongs to a very refined society, and has a silly husband, it’s called nerves. Bless me, Cherry, I hope I knew what nerves were, and all about it, before you were born.’

‘You could not know Annie before I was born,’ said Miss Cherry, who was devoid of imagination. ‘I hope you will give her your best attention, Mr. Maxwell. My brother James is a very fond husband, poor fellow! If anything happened to Annie, he would never get the better of it. As for marrying again, or anything of that sort——’

‘Good heavens!’ said the doctor; ‘I hope there is no need to take such an idea into consideration. We must not go so fast.’

Miss Charity laughed. She was a great deal older than her niece, but much more sensible. ‘There’s the seventh commandment to be thought of,’ she said; for her remarks were sometimes more free than they ought to be, and put Miss Cherry to the blush: and this was all the worse because she immediately walked out into the garden through the open window and left the younger lady alone with the doctor, who was an old friend of the family, and contemporary of the second Charity Beresford. Very old friends they were; even it was supposed that in their youth there had been or might have been passages of sentiment between these two now sitting so calmly opposite each other. Mr. Maxwell, however, by this time was a widower, and not at all sentimental. He laughed, too, as Miss Beresford made her exit by the window. He was very well used to the family, and all its ways.

‘She wears very well,’ he said, reflectively. ‘I don’t think she has aged to speak of for these twenty years. When I used to be coming here in my early days, when I was beginning practice——’

‘The rest of us have changed very much since then.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Maxwell, thinking most of himself; ‘but she not at all. I could think when I look at her that I was still, as I say, a young fellow beginning practice——’

Miss Cherry sighed—very softly, but still she did sigh: over forty, but still in the position and with many of the sentiments of a girl. People laugh at the combination, but it is a touching one on the whole. What ages of lingering monotonous life had passed over her since her present companion began his practice, since her Aunt Charity had begun to be an old woman! Dr. Maxwell had married, had lost his wife, had gone through perhaps sharper troubles than Miss Cherry had known. He was now middle-aged and stoutish and weather-beaten—weather-beaten in aspect and in soul—while she was slim and soft and maidenly still. The sigh was half for those uneventful years, and half for the undevelopment which she was conscious of—the unchangedness of herself, underneath the outer guise, which was changed; but this was not safe ground, nor could it be talked of. So she brushed away the sigh with a little cough, and added quickly:

‘I know perhaps what nerves are better than my aunt does, and I know Annie better. Tell me seriously, Mr. Maxwell, now we are alone. You don’t apprehend anything serious? Should she go on travelling and running about as they do if there is really anything the matter? No one can be so much interested as I am. You would be quite frank with me?’

‘It is the best thing for her,’ said the doctor. ‘You now—I should not say the same for you. You are a tranquil person and patient; but for her, the more she runs about the better. It distracts her and keeps her from thinking. If she worries, it’s all over with a woman like that.’

‘She has so little to worry about.’

‘Just so; and the less one has to bear the less one is fit for; that is to say,’ said the doctor, getting up and going to the window, ‘the less some people are fit for. There’s that old aunt of yours to prove me a fool. She has never had anything to bear, that I know of; and she is strong enough to bear anything. Sixty-eight, and just look at her. There’s a physique for you—that is the kind of woman,’ Mr. Maxwell said, with a little outburst of professional enthusiasm, ‘that I admire—as straight as a rod still, and every faculty in good order. That a woman like that should never have married is a loss to the world.’

Miss Cherry, who had gone to the window too, and stood by his side, looked out somewhat wistfully at her old aunt. Cherry was not like her, but took after the other side of the family, her own mother, who had died young, and had not possessed any physique to speak of. ‘It is very sweet to-day in the garden,’ she said, inconsequently, and stepped out into the world of flowers and sunshine. Sunninghill was an ideal house for two ladies, a place which people who were shut out from such delights considered quite enough for happiness. Indeed, Miss Cherry Beresford’s friends in general resented deeply the little plaintive air she sometimes took upon her. ‘What could she wish for more?’ they said, indignantly; ‘a place that was just too good to be wasted on two single women. There should be a family in it.’ This was especially the sentiment of the rector’s wife, who was a friend of Cherry’s, and who felt it a personal slight to herself, who had a large family and many cares, when Cherry Beresford, with not a thing in the world to trouble her, presumed to look as if she was not quite happy. The house stood upon a hill, fringed round with small but delightful woods. These woods were on a level with the highest turrets of the great beautiful royal Castle of St. George, which lay full within sight in the afternoon sunshine. So you may imagine what a view it was that was visible from the old smooth velvet lawn round the house, which formed the apex to these woods. The quiet plain all around lay basking in the light underneath, and the Castle upon its hill dominated, with a broad and placid grandeur, that majestic sweep of country, with all its lights and shadows. The royal flag fluttered on the breeze, the great tower rose grey and solid against the sky. Green branches framed in this picture on every side; the cuttings in the trees made a picture-gallery indeed of different views for different hours, according to the lights. ‘What a lovely place it is!’ Mr. Maxwell said, with sudden enthusiasm; ‘I always forget how lovely it is till I come back.’

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ said Cherry, who was used to it. ‘If you are going to send them away, I suppose Cara may come to us for the summer?—that makes such a difference.’ Cherry was very well used to the different lights. She acknowledged the beauty of her home, and yet I can fancy circumstances under which she would have liked a little house in a street better. Man or woman either cannot live by beauty alone any more than by bread.

‘Here’s a pretty business,’ said Miss Beresford, briskly; ‘half of my roses, I believe, spoiled for this year; no second show this time. Jones is the greatest idiot; he pretends to know everything, and he knows nothing. Your protégé, Cherry, of course. All the incapables hang on by you.’

‘I can’t see any signs of deficiency,’ said the doctor, looking round.

‘Not at this moment; if there were, he should have his dismissal on the spot. If those two go off again, as you are always sending them off, tell James I insist on the child coming here. Ah! that’s what your women of nervous temperament do—leave their children at home in a poky London square, while they go wandering over the world. Tell them I wish it,’ said Miss Beresford, with a laugh; ‘they never go against me.’

‘They know how kind you always are.’

‘They know I’m old and will have something to leave behind me, that’s the plain English of it—as if I was going to accept poor Cherry’s subjection, poor soul, without rewarding her for it! It is she who will have everything when I’m gone. I’ve told them that, but still they think there’s a chance that Cara might cut her old aunt out. I can see through them. I see through most people,’ she added, with a laugh, looking at him full. How could she know the thought passing through his mind at the moment, which was the abrupt reflection, uncalled for perhaps, that for a professional man, who had made no extraordinary name in his profession, Cherry Beresford, though an old maiden, would make not such a bad wife? Could the old witch see through broadcloth, and the comfortable coating of middle-aged flesh and blood, straight into a man’s heart? He grew red foolishly, as if that were possible, and stammered a little in his reply:

‘I can believe everything that is clever of you as well as everything that is kind; though why you ladies should make such a point of having a little chit like that, who can only disturb your quiet in this paradise of a place——’

‘Oh, how can you say so!’ said Cherry. ‘The child’s voice and the child’s face make all the difference—they are better than sunshine. They make the place beautiful. I would give it all, twenty times over, to have the child.’

‘Whom her mother is very glad to leave behind her.’

‘Hold your tongue, Cherry,’ said the elder lady; ‘you mild little old maids, you are always in a way about children. I never took up that line. A child in the abstract is a nuisance. Now, a man—there are advantages about a man. Sometimes he’s a nuisance too, but sometimes he’s a help. Believe them, and they’ll tell you that marriage was always far from their thoughts, but that children are their delight. That’s not my way of thinking. But I happen to like little Cara because she is Cara, not because she is a child. So she may come and take her chance with the rest.’

Cherry had turned away along the garden path, and was looking through one of the openings at one of the views. She knew it by heart—exactly how the light fell, and where were the shadows, and the name of every tower, and almost the shape of every cloud. Was it wonderful that this was not so delightful to her as to the strangers who could not see that view every day in their lives? To some people, indeed, the atmospheric changes, the effects of wind and colour, the waverings and dispersions of those clouds, would have made poetry enough to fill up all that was wanting; but poor Miss Cherry was not poetical in this big way, though she was very fond of pretty verses, and even wrote some occasionally; but how she longed for the child’s innocent looks—the child’s ceaseless prattle! Her gentle delicacy was hurt at that unnecessary gibe about the old-maidishness, and her supposed sham rejection of the husband who had never come her way. ‘Why should she talk of men—especially before him? What do I want with men?’ said poor Miss Cherry to herself; ‘but my own niece—my brother’s child—surely I may wish for her.’ And surely there could not have been a more innocent wish.

CHAPTER II.

A FRIGHT.

Mrs. Beresford looked at the doctor with very keen, eager eyes—eyes which had grown bigger and keener of late, perhaps from the failing of the round, smooth outlines of the face. She noticed that, though Maxwell saw very well that she was looking at him, he did not reply to those looks, but rather turned to her husband and answered him, as if he had not observed her at all.

‘I don’t mean to be at all disrespectful,’ he said; ‘there is a little disturbance of the system, which might turn to something as serious as you could desire, and take away the comfort of life perhaps more completely than a regular disease; but I hope that is not likely to happen here.’

‘No; I don’t think it,’ said the easy man. ‘We shall try Baden, which is the prettiest—unless you prefer some other place; in short, we shall go off without guide or compass, and do exactly what pleases ourselves. We have done so, it must be allowed, pretty often before—but to do it with the sanction of the faculty——’

‘And the child—as usual—will go to Sunninghill?’

‘Why should you say as usual, Mr. Maxwell?’ said Mrs. Beresford, with a suspicion of offence. ‘Do you think I ought to take her with me? Do you suppose, perhaps, that I might not come back again—that I might never—see——’

‘This is so unnecessary,’ said the doctor, remonstrating. ‘What must I say? I wish I was as certain of a thousand a year. You will come back quite well, I hope.’

‘When people are very ill don’t you say much the same things to them? There was poor Susan Maitland, whom you banished to Italy to die. People talked of her coming back again. Oh, no! I am not thinking of myself, but of the subject in general. One needed only to look in her face to see that she would never come back.’

‘People have different ideas of their duty,’ said Maxwell. ‘Some think it best not to frighten a patient with thoughts of death. I don’t know that one can lay down any rule; one is guided by circumstances. To some nervous people it is best not to say anything. Some are more frightened than others—just as some people are more susceptible to pain than others.’

‘Now I am going to ask you another question,’ said Mrs. Beresford. ‘Suppose you had a patient very ill—I mean hopelessly ill, beyond all cure—do you think it is right to keep them alive as you do now, struggling to the last, staving off every new attack that might carry them off in quiet, fighting on and on to the last moment, and even prolonging that, when it comes so far, with cordials and stimulants? Keeping their breath in their poor, suffering bodies till you get to the end of your resources—your dreadful, cruel resources, that is what I call them. Do you think this is right? I had an aunt who died dreadfully—of cancer——’

‘Ah! An aunt? You did not tell me this,’ said the doctor, off his guard; then, recovering himself, with something that looked like alarm, he said, hurriedly: ‘What would you have us do—kill the poor creatures? neglect them? refuse what aid, what alleviations we can——’

‘I’ll tell you what I should like you to do if it were me,’ she said, eagerly. ‘When it was all over, when you were sure I could not get better, when there was nothing more in life but to suffer—suffer: then I should like you to make a strong, sweet dose for me to put me out of my trouble. I should like James to give it me. Do you remember what was said that time in India, in the mutiny? I don’t know if it was true, but people said it. That the husbands of some of the poor ladies kissed them and shot them, to save them; don’t you remember? That is what I should like you to do—a sweet, strong dose; and James would bring it to me and kiss me, and put it to my lips. That would be true love!’ she said, growing excited, the pale roses in her cheeks becoming hectic red; ‘that would be true friendship, Mr. Maxwell! Then I should not feel afraid. I should feel that you two stood between me and anguish, between me and agony——’

Both the men rose to their feet as if to restrain her vehemence, with one impulse. ‘My darling, my darling!’ said James Beresford, in dismay, ‘what are you thinking of?’ As for Mr. Maxwell, he walked to the window and looked out, his features working painfully. There was a moment in which the husband and wife clung together, he consoling her with every reassuring word that he could think of, she clinging to him with long, hysterical sobs. ‘My love, what has put this into your head?’ he said, half sobbing too, yet pretending to laugh. ‘My Annie, what fancy is this? Have you lost your wits, my darling? Why, this is all folly; it is a dream; it is a craze you have taken into your head. Here is Maxwell will tell you——’

But Maxwell made him a sign over his wife’s head so impassioned and imperative that the man was struck dumb for the moment. He gazed blankly at the doctor, then stooped down to murmur fond words less distinct and articulate in her ear. Fortunately, she was too much excited, too much disturbed, to notice this sudden pause, or that the doctor said nothing in response to her husband’s appeal. She held fast by his arm and sobbed, but gradually grew calmer, soothed by his tenderness, and after a while made a half-smiling, tearful apology for her weakness. It was after dinner on a lovely summer evening, not more than twilight, though it was late. The two gentlemen had been lingering over their claret, while she lay on the sofa waiting for them, for she did not choose to be shut up upstairs all by herself, she said. After she had recovered they went to the drawing-room, where the windows were all open, and a couple of softly-burning lamps lit up the twilight with two half-veiled moons of light. There was not a lovely prospect as at Sunninghill; nothing, indeed, but the London square, where a few trees vegetated, just room enough for the dews to fall, and for ‘the little span of sky and little lot of stars’ to unfold themselves. But even London air grows soft with that musical effect of summer, and the sounds of passing voices and footsteps broke in with a faint, far-off sound as in dreams: the country itself could not have been more peaceful. Mrs. Beresford, half ashamed of herself, sat down at the little, bright tea-table, just within the circle of one of the lamps, and made tea, talking with a little attempt at gaiety, in which, indeed, the natural revulsion of relief after that outbreak of alarm and melancholy was evident. It was she now who was the soul of the little party; for the doctor was moody and preoccupied, and her husband watched her with an anxiety almost too great to be kept within the bounds of ordinary calm. She rose, however, to the occasion. She began to talk of their probable travels, of Baden and Homburg, and all the other places which had been suggested to her. ‘We shall be as well known about the world as the Wandering Jew,’ she said; ‘better, for he had not a wife; and now that we have nearly exhausted Europe, there will be nothing for us but the East or Egypt—suppose we go to Egypt; that would be original?’

‘Not at all original,’ said Mr. Maxwell, who seemed half to resent her new-born gaiety. ‘All the cockneys in the world go to Egypt. Mr. Cook does the Pyramids regularly; and as for Jerusalem, it is common, common as Margate, and the society not much unlike.’

‘Margate is very bracing, I have always heard,’ said Mrs. Beresford, ‘and much cheaper than a German bath. What do you say to saving money, James, and eating shrimps and riding donkeys? I remember being at Margate when I was a child. They say there is no such air anywhere; and Mr. Maxwell says that the sea, if I like the sea——’

‘As for bracing air, my love, I think there is nothing like St. Moritz. Do you remember how it set me up after that—that——’

‘Give him a big, well-sounding name, doctor,’ said Mrs. Beresford, laughing; ‘it was only a bilious attack. But talking of the sea, there is Biarritz—that would do, don’t you think? It is warm, and it was gay. After all, however, I don’t think I care for the sea. The Italian lakes are fine in the autumn, and as it gets cooler we might get on perhaps to Florence, or even Rome—or Kamtschatka, or Timbuctoo, or the Great Sahara,’ she said, with a burst of laughter. ‘You are complaisance itself, you gentlemen. Now I’ll go and sing you something to reward you for humouring me to the top of my bent, and licensing me to go where I please.’

She had a pretty voice and sang well. The piano was at the other end of the room, the ‘back drawing-room’ of the commonplace London house. The two men kept their places while she went away into the dim evening, and sat down there scarcely visible, and sang. The soft, sweet voice, not powerful, but penetrating, rose like a bird in the soft gloom. James Beresford looked at the doctor with an entreating look of secret anguish as the first notes rose into the air, so liquid, so tender, so sweet.

‘Are you afraid? tell me!’ he said, with pathetic brevity.

Maxwell could not bear this questioning. He started up, and went to look this time at a picture on the wall. ‘I don’t know that I have any occasion to be afraid,’ he said, standing with his back turned to his questioner, and quite invisible from the piano. ‘I’m—a nervous man for a doctor when I’m interested in a case——’

Here there was a pause, for she had ended the first verse of the song, and the low warble of the symphony was not enough to cover their voices.

‘Don’t speak of her as a case,’ said Beresford, low but eager, as the singing recommenced: ‘you chill my very blood.’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ said the doctor, with colloquial homeliness; and he went away into the back drawing-room and sat down near the piano, to escape being questioned, poor Beresford thought, who sat still mournfully in the narrow circle of the lamplight, asking himself whether there was really anything to fear. The soft security of the house with all its open windows, the friendly voices heard outside, the subdued pleasant light, the sweet voice singing in the dimness, what a picture of safety and tranquillity it made! What should happen to disturb it? Why should it not go on for ever? James Beresford’s sober head grew giddy as he asked himself this question, a sudden new ache undreamed of before leaping up, in spite of him, into his heart. The doctor pretended to be absorbed in the song; he beat time with his fingers as the measure went on. Never in the memory of man had he shown so much interest in singing before. Was it to conceal something else, something which could not be put into words, against the peace of this happy house, which had come into his heart?

Fortunately, however, Beresford thought, his wife forgot all about that agitating scene for some days. She did not speak of it again; and for about a week after was unusually lively and gay, stronger and better than she had been for some time, and more light in heart, talking of their journey, and making preparations for it with all the pleasant little sentiment which their ‘honeymooning’ expeditions had always roused in her. When everything was ready, however, the evening before they left home a change again came over her. Cara had been sent to Sunninghill with her nurse that day, and the child had been unwilling to go, and had clung to her mother with unusual pertinacity. Even when this is inconvenient it is always flattering: and perhaps Mrs. Beresford was pleased with the slight annoyance and embarrassment which it caused.

‘Remember, James,’ she said, with some vivacity, as they sat together that evening, ‘this is to be the last time we go honeymooning. Next time we are to be respectable old married people (as we are, with our almost grown-up daughter). She is nearly as tall as I am, the child! nearly eleven—and so very tall for her age.’

‘I think we might take her,’ said Beresford, who indeed had often wished for her before. ‘She is old enough to bear the travelling, and otherwise it would do her good.’

‘Yes; this must be the last time,’ she said, her voice suddenly dropping into a sigh, and her mood changing as rapidly. A house is dreary on the eve of departure. Boxes in the hall, pinafores on the furniture, the pretty china, the most valuable nicknacks all carried away and locked up—even the habitual books disturbed from their places, the last Pall Mall on the table. The cloud came over her face as shadows flit over the hills, coming down even while she was speaking. ‘The last time!’ she said. ‘I can’t help shivering. Has it grown cold? or is it that someone is walking over my grave, as people say?’

‘Why, Annie, I never knew you were superstitious.’

‘No. It is a new thing for me; but that is scarcely superstition. And why should I care who walked over my grave? I must die some time or other and be buried, unless they have taken to burning before then. But there is one thing I feel a great deal about,’ she added, suddenly. ‘I said it once before, and you were frightened, James. If you knew that I was going to die of a painful disease—must die—that nothing could happen to save me, that there was nothing before me but hopeless pain—James, dear, listen to me!—don’t you think you would have the courage for my sake to make an end of me, to put me out of my trouble?’

‘Annie, for Heaven’s sake don’t talk so. It is nonsense, but it makes me unhappy.’

‘As a matter of speculation,’ she said, with a knowledge of his weakness, ‘you can’t think it would be wrong to do it—do you, James?’

‘As a matter of speculation,’ he said; and the natural man awoke in him. He forgot the pain the idea had caused him, and thought of it only as an idea; to put it in other words, the woman beguiled him, and he got upon one of his hobbies. ‘There are many things one allows as speculation which one is not fond of in fact. People must have a certain power over their own lives, and I think with you, my love, that it is no charity to keep infirm and suffering people just alive, and compel them to drag their existence on from day to day. Notwithstanding Heaven’s canon ‘gainst self-slaughter, I think people should be allowed a certain choice. I am not altogether against euthanasia; and if indeed recovery is hopeless and life only pain——’

‘Yes, James,’ she said, eagerly, her eyes lighting up, her cheeks flaming with the red of excitement; ‘I am glad you see it like that; one might go further perhaps—when from any reason life was a burden; when one was useless, hopeless, unhappy——’

‘Stop a little; we are going too fast,’ he said, with a smile, so entirely did the argument beguile him. ‘No one is justified in treating unhappiness like a mortal disease; unhappiness may pass away—does pass away, we all know, even when it seems worst. I cannot allow that; neither would I let people judge which lives were useless, their own or other people’s; but illness which was beyond the possibility of cure might be different; therefore, if the patient wished it, his wish, I think, should be law—— Annie, my darling! what is this? what do you mean?’

She had suddenly risen from where she was sitting near him, and thrown herself half at his feet, halt into his arms.

‘Only this,’ she said; ‘promise me—promise me, James! if this should ever happen to me—if you had the assurance, not only from me, but from—the people who know—that I had a terrible complaint, that I could never get better; promise that you would put me out of my pain, James. Promise that you would give me something to deliver me. You would not stand by and see me going down, down into the valley of death, into misery and weariness and constant pain, and, O God! loathsomeness, James!’

She buried her head in his breast, clinging to him with a grasp which was almost fierce; her very fingers which held him, appealing strenuously, forcing a consent from him. What could he say? He was too much distressed and horrified to know how to shape his answer. Fond words, caresses, soothings of every kind were all in vain for use at such a moment. ‘Far be it from you, my darling; far be it from you,’ he cried. ‘You! oh, how can you let your imagination cheat you so, my love! Nothing like this is going to happen, my Annie, my best, my dearest—— ’

‘Ah!’ she cried; ‘but if it were not imagination!—promise me, James.’

Whether she did eventually wring this wild promise from him he never knew. He would have said anything to calm her, and finally he succeeded; and having once more cleared her bosom of this perilous stuff, she regained her gaiety, her courage and spirits, and they set off as cheerful as any pair of honeymoon travellers need wish to be. But after she had left him and gone to her room pacified and comforted that night, you may fancy what sort of a half hour that poor man had as he closed the windows, which had still been left open, and put out the lamps, as was his practice, for they were considerate people and did not keep their servants out of bed. He stepped out on the balcony and looked up at the moon, which was shedding her stream of silver light as impartially upon the London housetops as if those white roofs had been forest trees. How still it seemed, every one asleep or going to rest, for it was late—a few lights glimmering in high windows, a sensation of soft repose in the very air! God help this silent, sleeping earth, upon which, even in her sleep, dark evils were creeping! Was someone perhaps dying somewhere even at that serene moment, in the sweet and tranquil stillness? His heart contracted with a great pang. In the midst of life we are in death. Why had those haunting, terrible words come into his ears?

CHAPTER III.

HONEYMOONING.

The real honeymoon is not always a delightful moment. This, which sounds like heresy to the romantic, and blasphemy to the young, is a fact which a great many people acknowledge readily enough when they have got beyond the stage at which it sounds like an offence to the wife or to the husband who is supposed to have made that period rapturous. The new pair have not the easy acquaintance with each other which makes the happiness of close companionship; perhaps they have not that sympathy with each other’s tastes which is almost a better practical tie than simple love. They are half afraid of each other; they are making discoveries every day of new points in each other’s characters, delightful or undelightful as may be, which bewilder their first confidence of union; and the more mind and feeling there is between them, the more likely is this to be the case. The shallow and superficial ‘get on’ better than those who have a great deal of excellence or tender depth of sentiment to be found out. But after the pair have come to full acquaintance, after they have learned each other from A B C up to the most difficult chapter; after the intercourse of ordinary life has borne its fruit; there is nothing in the world so delightful as the honeymooning which has passed by many years the legitimate period of the honeymoon. Sometimes one sees respectable fathers and mothers enjoying it, who have sent off their children to the orthodox honeymoon, and only then feel with a surprised pleasure how sweet it is to have their own solitude à deux; to be left to themselves for a serene and happy moment; to feel themselves dearer and nearer than they ever were before. There is something infinitely touching and tender in this honeymooning of the old. James Beresford and his wife, however, were not of these. They were still young, and of all the pleasures they had there was none equal to this close and unbroken companionship. They knew each other so well, and all their mutual tastes, that they scarcely required to put their intercourse into words; and yet how they would talk—about everything, about nothing, as if they had just met after a long absence, and had thoughts to exchange on every subject. This is a paradox; but we are not bound to explain paradoxes which are of the very essence of life, and the most attractive things in it. It had been the habit of these two to go everywhere together. Mrs. Beresford had not the prejudices of an English female Philistine. She went where her husband wanted to go, fearing nothing, and trotted about with him high and low, through picture galleries and old churches, to studios, even behind the scenes of the operas, and through the smoke clouds of big ateliers. Nothing came amiss to her with him by her side. It is almost the only way in which a woman can enjoy the freedom of movement, the easy locomotion of a man. Mrs. Beresford went away quite cheerfully, as we have said. She forgot or put away her mysterious terrors. She addressed herself to all the ordinary enjoyments which she knew so well. ‘We shall never be so free again,’ she said, half laughing, half with a remote infinitesimal pang. ‘We shall have to go to the correct places and do the right things when Cara is with us.’ ‘We must give up bric-a-brac,’ she said afterwards. ‘Cara must not grow up acquainted with all those dusty back premises; her pretty frocks would be spoiled and her infantine sincerity. If she had heard you bargaining, James, for that Buen Retiro cup! Saying it is naught, it is naught, and then bragging of the treasure you had found as soon as it was out of the dealer’s hands.’

‘Well,’ he said, with a shrug of his shoulders; ‘I only do as other people do. Principles of honour don’t consist with collecting. I am no worse than my neighbours.’

‘But that will never do for Cara,’ said the mother; ‘if you and I are not all her fancy painted us, we will not do for Cara. No; I thought you had never remarked her really. She is the most uncompromising little idealist! and if we disappoint her, James, I don’t know what the child will do.’

‘It appears to me that you are making a bugbear of Cara.’

‘No; but I know her. We must give up the bric-a-brac; for if you continue with it under her blue eyes you will be ruined. If she was here she would make you go back and tell the man he has sold you that cup too cheap.’

‘That would be nonsense,’ said Mr. Beresford, involuntarily putting his hand into the pocket where he kept his money. ‘Folly! You don’t suppose he gave half as much for it as he sold it to us for. The very mention of that sort of sickening conscientiousness puts one out. We are to sell in the dearest and buy in the cheapest market, eh? That’s the true principle of trade.’

‘It is not in the Bible, though,’ said Mrs. Beresford, with a smile. ‘Cara would open her eyes and wonder; and you, who are the weakest of men, could never stand against her if Cara made big eyes.’

‘The weakest of men! You flatter me, it must be allowed——’

‘Yes; so you are, James. You could not endure to be disapproved of. What would have become of you if I, instead of giving in to all your ways, had been a more correct and proper person? If I had made you visit just the right things—go to English parties, and keep to the proper sort of tourist society? If you had been obliged to sit indoors in the evenings and read a Galignani or a Tauchnitz novel while I worked, what would have become of you? I know well enough, for my part.’

‘I should have done it, I suppose,’ he said, half laughing; ‘and will Cara—little Cara—be like that? You frighten me, Annie; we had better make away with her somehow; marry her, or hand her over to the aunts, before it comes to this.’

Then a sudden change came over the smiling face. ‘Cara—or someone else—will most likely be like that. Poor James! I foresee trouble for you. How you will think of me when you are in bonds! when you want to go out and roam about on the Boulevards, and have to sit still instead and read aloud to somebody! Ah, how you will think of me! You will say, Poor Annie! if Annie had but lived——’

‘What is this? what is this?’ he said. ‘Again, Annie! I think you want to make me miserable; to take all the comfort out of my life.’

‘Oh, no, no; not that,’ she said. ‘I am only going to get my bonnet, and then we shall go out. Cara is not here yet to keep us in order. We can honeymoon yet for one more year.’

Was this only the caprice of her nature (she had always been capricious) going a little further than usual? Her husband liked her all the better for her quick changes of sentiment; the laughing and crying that were like an April sky. He said to himself that she had always been like that; always changing in a moment, quarrelling sometimes even, making him uncomfortable for mere variety. Monotony was the thing she hated; and now she had taken this fad, this fancy, and thought herself ill. How could she be ill when she still could run about with him and enjoy herself as much as ever? How keen she had been in the bric-a-brac shop of which she had chosen to talk! He never should have found out that Buen Retiro cup but for her. It was her sharp eyes that saw it. It was she who had rummaged through the dust and all the commonplace gatherings to those things which had really interest. Ill! though all the College of Physicians swore it, and she to boot, he would not believe that she was ill. Disturbance of the system—that was all the worst of them ever said; but how little meaning there was in that! Out of sorts! reduced to plain English, that was what disturbance of the system meant; and everybody was subject to as much. She came in, while he was in the full course of these thoughts, with a brilliant little flush on her cheeks, her eyes shining, her whole aspect full of animation. ‘I am ready, Sir,’ she said, making him a mocking curtsey. Yes; capricious, that was what she had always been, and he loved her for it. It explained her changes, her fancies, her strange notions better than anything else could do.

That was the first day, however, on which her strength really showed symptoms of breaking down. She got tired, which was a thing she never owned to; lost the pretty flush on her cheek, became pale, and worn out. ‘I don’t know what is the matter with me,’ she said; ‘all at once I feel so tired.’

‘And with very good reason,’ said he. ‘Think how rapidly we have been travelling; think what we have been doing since. Why, you were on foot the whole morning. You are tired; so am I, for that matter. I was thinking of saying so, but you are always so hard upon my little fatigues. What a comfort for me to find that you, too, for once in a way, can give in!’ Thus he tried to take her favourite part and laugh her out of her terrors. She consented with a smile more serious than her gravity had been of old, and they went back to their room and dined ‘quietly;’ and he sat and read to her, according to the picture of English domesticity which she had drawn out with smiles a few hours before. It was so soon after that tirade of hers that they could not but remember it, both of them. As it happened, there was nothing but a Tauchnitz novel to read (and who that has been ill or sad, or who has had illness or sadness to solace in a foreign place, but has blessed the novels of Tauchnitz?) and he read it, scarcely knowing what the words were which fluttered before his eyes. And as for her, she did not take much notice of the story either, but lay on the sofa, and listened, partly to his voice, partly to the distant sound of the band playing, with strange heaviness and aching in her heart. It was not that she wished to be out listening to the band, moving about in the warm air, hearing the babble of society—that was not what she cared for; but to be lying there out of the current; to have dropped aside out of the stream; to be unable for the common strain of life! So he read, sadly thinking, not knowing what he read; and she half listened, not knowing what she was listening to. It was the first time, and the first time is the worst, though the best. ‘It is only once in a way,’ he said to her, when the long evening was over; ‘to-morrow you will be as well as ever.’ And so she was. It was the most natural thing in the world that both or either of them should be tired, once in a way.

The Beresfords stayed for a long time on the Continent that year. They went about to a great many places. They stayed at Baden till they were tired of the place. They went to Dresden, because Mrs. Beresford took a fancy to see the great San Sisto picture again. Then they went on to lovely old-world Prague, and to lively Vienna, and through the Tyrol to Milan, and then back again to the Italian lakes. Wherever they went they found people whom it was pleasant to know, whom they had met before on their many journeys—people of all countries and every tongue—noble people, beautiful people, clever people—the sort of society which can only be had by taking a great deal of trouble about it, and which, even with the greatest amount of trouble, many people miss entirely. This society included ambassadors and hill-farmers, poor curés, bishops, great statesmen, and professors who were passing rich on five shillings a day: nothing was too great or too small for them; and as wherever they went they had been before, so wherever they went they found friends. Sometimes it was only a chambermaid; but, nevertheless, there she was with a pleasant human smile. And, to tell the truth, James Beresford began to be very glad of the friendly chambermaids, and to calculate more where they were to be found than upon any other kind of society; for his wife had followed her usual practice of coming without a maid, and, as her strength flagged often, he was thankful, too thankful, to have someone who would be tender of her, and care for her as he himself was not always permitted to do, and as nobody else but a woman could. Oh, how he longed to get home, while he wandered about from one beautiful spot to another, hating the fine scenery, loathing and sickening at everything he had loved! Commonplace London and the square with its comforts would have pleased him a hundred times better than lovely Como or the wild glory of the mountains; but she would not hear of going home. One day, when the solemn English of a favourite Kammer Mädchen had roused him to the intolerable nature of the situation, he had tried, indeed, with all his might to move her to return. ‘Your goot laty,’ Gretchen had said, ‘is nod—well. I ton’t untershtand your goot laty. She would be bedder, mooch bedder at ‘ome, in Lonton.’ ‘I think you are right, Gretchen,’ he had said, and very humbly went in to try what he could do. ‘My love,’ he said, ‘I am beginning to get tired of the Tyrol. I should like to get home. The Societies are beginning. I see Huxley’s lectures start next week. I like to be there, you know, when all my friends are there. Shouldn’t you be pleased to get home?’

‘No,’ she said. She had been lying on the sofa, but got up as soon as he came in. ‘You know I hate autumn in London; the fogs kill me. I can’t—I can’t go back to the fogs. Go yourself, James, if you please, and attend all your dear Societies, and hear Mr. Huxley. Take me to Como first, and get me rooms that look on the lake, and hire Abbondio’s boat for me; and then you can go.’

‘It is likely that I should go,’ he said, ‘without you, my darling! When did I ever leave you? But there are so many comforts at home you can’t have here; and advice—I want advice. You don’t get better so fast as I hoped.’

She looked at him with a strange smile. ‘No; I don’t get better, do I?’ she said. ‘Those doctors tell such lies; but I don’t get worse, James; you must allow I don’t get worse. I am not so strong as I thought I was; I can’t go running about everywhere as I used to do. I am getting old, you know. After thirty I believe there is always a difference.’

‘What nonsense, Annie! there is no difference in you. You don’t get back your strength——’

‘That’s it; that’s all. If you were to leave me quite alone and quiet, to recruit now; yes, I think I should like to know that you were in London enjoying yourself. Why shouldn’t you enjoy yourself? Women get worn out sooner than men; and I don’t want to cripple you, James. No; take me to Como—I have taken a fancy to Como—and then you can come back for me whenever you please.’

‘I am not going to leave you,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘You must not be unreasonable, my darling. What pleasure would it be to me to go home without you? It was you I was thinking of; for me it is all right. I am quite happy here. As for Huxley and the rest, you don’t think I care for them. It was you I was thinking of.’

‘You said the Societies. Whatever you do, James, speak the truth. I suppose,’ she added, with a laugh which sounded harsh, ‘you are afraid I shall get very ill—die, perhaps, away from home?’

Poor man! what was he to say? ‘Oh, Annie!’ he cried, ‘how you stab me! If I thought anything of the kind, you know I’d have Sir William here to-morrow, or any one, if it should cost me all I have. I know very well there is no danger,’ he went on, taking a certain forlorn comfort out of his own bold words; ‘but you don’t get up your strength as you ought, and knocking about in these bare rooms can’t be good for you; and, living as we are—and you have no maid——’