Whatever the antecedents or private history of her lodger might be, Jane Rodgers could not but recognize that she lived a quiet life and gave wonderfully little trouble. Then, though she paid her rent monthly, she was in reality a yearly lodger; she had already taken Jane's house for more than a year, her rent having been all the time regularly paid. It would manifestly be a pity to give her up by any over-hastiness.
Jane resolved upon a compromise. She took up the tea, arranged the bedrooms scrupulously, and then sat down in her kitchen to await Mrs. Grey's summons.
Some time passed before it came, for Margaret would not leave her child that evening until she had seen her in the quiet, peaceful sleep that ought to come so readily at her age; and she noted with ever-increasing indignation that her little daughter was feverish and restless, that she started painfully now and then, and clung nervously to her hand.
Nothing calmed her like her mother's voice; so, after trying various other methods, Margaret sang to her in a low, sweet undertone some of the children's hymns she had taught her at different times.
It was long, long since Margaret had lifted her voice in song of any kind, and tears once or twice almost choked her utterance as the "Sweet Story of Old" and "Gentle Jesus" came falteringly from her pale lips.
She had sung them at her child's cradle with all the proud joy of a young mother happy and beloved. Now all was changed—she and her child were alone in the wide world. But the sweet old words were suggestive. As she sang the spirit of the lonely woman grew calmer and her voice faltered less.
Then—in that fair long ago—she had loved the words for their music, their sweet, pleasant harmony; now she loved them for themselves, for the healing rest they seemed to bring to her. Like the cool touch of a loving mother on the fevered brow of a sick little one were the words of these child-utterances to Margaret that evening. She grew calmer and her daughter slept.
CHAPTER XV.
A DREAM OF THE SEA.
We dream what is
About to happen to us.
The language in which Margaret condemned Jane Rodgers's conduct to her daughter was not very bitter, but it was effective. She would listen to no excuses, no recapitulation of the grievous faults of children in general, and of Miss Laura (Jane was very respectful when addressing her mother) in particular—of the urgent necessity for some kind of discipline. All this she set aside with a quiet dignity that severely impressed Jane.
"No one but myself," she said, "shall have power to correct my child. If you cannot make up your mind to promise never to attempt anything of the kind for the future, I will leave your house to-morrow, and you know very well that under the circumstances I might refuse even a month's notice."
"I only acted for the best," replied Jane. "Miss Laura was that unmanageable! For the future I won't try to look after her."
"That's all I require, Jane. I need not tell you that my confidence in you is severely shaken: I could never trust you with such an important charge again. I cannot even tell you whether I shall be able to make up my mind to remain in your house. But I shall narrowly watch your behavior, and may hope to be convinced that ignorance rather than downright badness of heart was the cause of your cruelty to my little daughter."
Jane's mouth was open to reply, but Margaret stopped her: "You have said quite enough; you may leave me now. Only remember this: I must never be forced to complain of you in this way again."
She turned to her writing-table as she spoke, and Jane with heightened color walked to the door.
She did not attempt to answer, for Margaret's severity of manner awed her; but if Mrs. Grey had looked her way she might have seen an ominous frown on her brow and a gleam of anger in her cold gray eye.
Jane prided herself on her spirit. It was next to respectability in her estimate of necessary virtues, but she seldom displayed it imprudently. When the door was between her and her mistress she clenched her fist and shook it at the senseless boards. "Her and her beggar's brat!" she muttered; "but mayhap I'll teach them yet." And with that she retired to the kitchen, leaving Margaret, very spent and sad, undisputed mistress of the field.
Perhaps it was a dear-bought victory. It might have been better for herself and Laura if she had acted upon her first determination, and left Jane Rodgers's house on the next day. But we cannot know all our kind, its varieties are so infinite, and Margaret believed in Jane still to a great extent; then the difficulties of a change of residence were very great.
Moving was an expensive business, one she could not well afford, and so far as that village was concerned (she had a certain repugnance to going elsewhere) she did not know of another place that would suit them; so the matter was decided. Margaret went to bed fully determined to remain where she was. Her bedroom window commanded the sea. She lifted the blind that night, as her habit was, and looked away wistfully over the waters. How she longed sometimes for the freedom of the white sea-gull, that skims those restless waves and passes on, on, through the light and through the darkness till it reaches the haven where it would be!
There was a haven for which she longed so passionately that at times the longing was a bitter pain: her haven was not in the heavenly country. In those days Margaret seldom thought of that, for even the passing away from things visible might not possibly put an end to her pain. It was a haven in which she had once rejoiced, but from which she had passed out into the black darkness of a dreary, shoreless ocean. The love and confidence of one poor human heart—that was the whole of her desire; and day by day, night by night, the wished-for haven seemed drifted farther away, till even hope died down, and she ceased to think she could ever reach it.
She had a dream that night: with the strange perversity of nightly visions it seemed to mingle in one and confuse inextricably the experiences and thoughts of those last few days. She saw the sea as she had seen it that evening, streaked with night-born radiance, and on it a small boat—in the boat the dark form of the man she dreaded; in her dream she loved him, and was stretching out her arms for a place by his side in the tiny skiff. Then a gradual change: the gleaming silver passed into ruddy gold, which tinged ocean and sands and rock, and she knew that it was the hour of sunset. She was sitting on the yellow sands gazing out to sea, and suddenly as she looked into the flood of color a white speck rose from its midst—a sail, which grew larger and whiter till she saw that it was no sail, but the vast wings of a gigantic bird that was leisurely skimming the water till it rested at last at her feet. And its eyes were dark and lustrous, full of love and confidence. Ah, how well she knew them! Another change: she thought that she looked up again, and the bird was gone, but in its place Laura's father stood before her stretching out his arms to her longingly. And then she woke with a start and a shiver, to see the gray dawning begin to struggle with the darkness, and to feel at her heart a cold, cold chill.
CHAPTER XVI.
UNEXPECTED VISITORS AT MIDDLETHORPE.
And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead
For all that you miss and all that you need.
After this the days passed on in the little village by the sea somewhat slowly and lingeringly. Spring blushed into summer, the bright early freshness of grass and foliage deepened into summer's maturity, the gray ocean wore a mild blue appearance as it rolled in on the yellow sands, and began to reveal its depths to those who skimmed it in the boats—some bound on pleasure and some on business—that left the shore from time to time. Over the dim, vast distance Summer cast her misty veil, shutting in earth and sea with her soft halos and vapors, and to the yellow sands came women and children, vanguard of the great army that later in the season would swoop down upon this village and others of the same type.
Margaret was often there with a book in her hand or a piece of work, and her child by her side; but generally she was unoccupied, her hands listless, her eyes growing daily deeper and more weary. For the strain on heart and spirit was rapidly becoming more than her physical strength could bear. She was fading visibly, but there was no loving eye near to note how her step grew more languid and her white fingers thinner, and her beautiful face more worn and sad till its very beauty seemed to be passing away. One noted the change, however, and took full advantage of it.
Jane Rodgers was becoming a kind of household tyrant; not that she ever again attempted the management of Laura—that would have aroused what little spirit Margaret still possessed; her tyranny was exhibited in other ways. She would do precisely what she chose, leaving everything else undone—would spend days visiting her friends under the plea of change being an absolute necessity, and leave Mrs. Grey, who could not afford extra help, to manage matters for herself in the house; she would even reply insolently at times to some simple request made by her lodger, for she saw her power. A kind of indifference to life and its comforts was creeping gradually over Margaret, a numbing sense of weakness, a languid desire for rest—only rest. In such a frame she could scarcely have roused herself to undertake the exertion of moving. She felt that between herself and her landlady matters were not so pleasant as they had formerly been, but Laura was happy, and for herself she cared very little. The one great sorrow, like an open wound whose throbbing engrosses every sense, made her comparatively indifferent to the little pin-pricks of her daily life.
She had one joy in these dark days. It was in the clinging affection of her daughter. Since the day of her return Laura and her mother had been far more to one another than ever before. The child opened her heart to her mother, told of all her little dreams and fancies, and Margaret began to talk to the little one even about the long sealed-up subject; not indeed her trouble and its origin—that would have been impossible as yet—but about the vague hope toward which in her darkness her thoughts ever turned. She spoke to Laura about her father, drew from her the story of her recollections, and tried to awaken and nourish in her young heart a reverent love for the parent she might perhaps never see.
For sometimes when Margaret felt her strength failing, a sudden fear for Laura's future would take possession of her. If—if—God should take her too from the little one! But that was a possibility at which she dared not glance. To live as she was living, lonely, unloved, was bad enough, but through all its darkness was a gleam of something bright, the hope of a vague, dim to-come, that might possibly bring back her joy. To die was to shut even this out, and for ever; to pass away unforgiven, misunderstood, a stain on her fair fame.
Would not that be past endurance?
Margaret could not face the idea of death, but with the bitter consciousness that it might come she did her duty to her child, and, though painful at first, it became sweet after a time. She trained her to think of the father who seemed to have cast her off—to love his memory, to look forward to his return: then, in any case, if indeed he too were in the land of the living, Laura would have a refuge. She would not pass from her mother's care and tenderness to the protection of one of whom she knew nothing; her father would be her father, the longed, the looked-for, and perhaps in after days (it was seldom Margaret had strength to carry her thoughts so far), when she would have long been cold, he might hear from the lips of his daughter the tale of her ever-faithful love.
It was one of those warm, languid June days. The very sea seemed lazy as ripple after ripple crept in sighing to the shore. There was a blue, hazy vapor on even the near horizon, and scarcely a breath of air was stirring.
Margaret and Laura had found an approach to shelter from the fierce midday sun far up on one of the sand-cliffs, under a stunted shrub. They were sitting there together, the little Laura rather stiller than usual.
She had been running about on the sands with some small friends picked up among the visitors, and the heat had tired her. She sat at her mother's feet, with her head buried in her lap to hide it from the sun.
"Mamma," she cried from her safe retreat, "I had such fun just now."
Margaret's thoughts were far away. She recalled them to interest herself in her child's amusements: "Had you, darling? Who were you playing with?—those little children in blue frocks?"
"One of them's bigger than me, mamma," said Laura reprovingly. "You saw me then, but you didn't see the tall gentleman with a big dog, for we were far away along the sands. He made his dog go in the water for his stick, oh, ever so many times! and then—Mamma, are you listening?"
"Yes, dear; what then?"
"He took me up on his shoulder and carried me a long way."
Margaret smiled languidly: "He must have taken a fancy to my little girl."
"But wasn't it funny?" said Laura meditatively; then starting up suddenly in her eagerness: "Mamma, do you know what I thought when he was so kind?"
"No, darling, how can I?"
"I thought"—Laura's eyes were sparkling with excitement—"that perhaps it was papa come back."
Her eager voice roused Margaret from her languor. She rose from her improvised couch among the branches, and resting one hand on the child's shoulder said as quietly as she could, "What brought such an idea into your little head?"
"Why, mamma, don't you see? I always think papa will come like that; he'll want to surprise us and see if we remember him. This gentleman asked me about my papa, and if he lived here. And when I said no, but he was coming back, he looked at me so funnily; then, before he let me go, he kissed me—a big kiss, mamma, like my papa used to give me long ago, when he lived here."
Margaret's heart had been swelling as the little voice flowed on. She could never have told why the childish fancy took such a hold upon her mind, but so it was; with Laura, she could not help feeling that the gentleman took more than a common interest in her. Was it true, then? Had he come back to them? Was her trouble to end? for she did not fear her Maurice; one short half hour, face to face, would be sufficient for them both—sufficient to break the icy barrier that lay between them, and to make them one again.
"Laura," she said, still with that forced quiet in her voice, "try and tell me what the gentleman was like."
This was a difficult task for the little one. She looked up to the sky for inspiration. "He was tall, mamma," she said at last, "and I think—I think there was something funny about his eyes; but he looked kind, and I haven't seen anybody like him before. Of course I don't remember what papa was like. He had a great big dog—so big" (she extended both her arms by way of illustration)—"with a curly black coat and brown eyes, and a tail that wagged so funnily."
The dog was evidently easier to describe than the gentleman. Perhaps Laura was not singular in finding it rather difficult to string together his merits and demerits, even physically considered. He had been a puzzle to more than one in his transit through the world.
Margaret smiled at her child's enthusiasm. She was not much clearer about the identity of the stranger than she had been before, but a longing came over her to unravel the little mystery. She was ready to ridicule her own folly for seeing any mystery in the matter. Probably the gentleman was only some stray visitor at Middlethorpe's small hotel who had been pleased with Laura's fair, childish beauty; and yet the feeling was there. She must find him out and satisfy herself that he was a stranger.
"Run home, darling," she said to her little girl, "and tell Jane to give you your dinner; afterward sit quietly in the parlor with your new story-book; before tea-time I shall be at home."
Laura hesitated: "You won't go to London, mamma?"
"Certainly not, my little daughter; now run away like a good child."
There was no disputing this. Laura returned to the little cottage, and Margaret remained alone on the cliff. She was anxious to find out her daughter's friend, and thus put out of her mind at once the haunting thoughts that Laura's simple fancy had implanted there.
It could not be a difficult task; there were few gentlemen with big dogs at Middlethorpe, for the lords of creation had not begun to indulge in the luxury of seaside idleness. They had sent some of their womenkind before; themselves were still busy on the world's highways. The gentleman who had taken so kindly an interest in her little daughter would certainly be identified with ease.
With a view to his discovery Margaret looked below. The sands, so busy a few minutes before, were dull and silent, for the flocks of little ones, with their nurses and mammas, had gone in for the early dinner, a necessary part of seaside life, and Middlethorpe might have been perfectly empty.
It was the stillness of a summer noontide, strangely oppressive to a restless heart. This way and that Margaret looked, up and down the sands, across the sea; no gentleman or big dog was in sight, and with a little sigh she turned to look for the book that had been lying by her side, to while away in its company the hour of forced inaction.
She turned, and became suddenly conscious of the startling fact that she was not alone—that while she had been looking down at the sands and across over the sea she had been joined by an unlooked-for companion, and he must have been there some minutes, for he had found time to settle himself satisfactorily. He looked perfectly at his ease, very near her in a reclining posture, his elbows on the sands and his head in his hand; he was not looking at her. He seemed to be watching the feathery clouds that were passing over the blue depths above or counting the insects that flitted past unceasingly; but she, when she caught sight of him, was not so calm. Her face blanched suddenly; she covered it with her hands, and a low cry—it might be of anger, it might be of dismay—came from her quivering lips.
At the sound he turned his gaze in her direction, showing as he did so a broad square brow, deep-set eyes and a dark, strongly-lined face, its plainness only relieved by the mouth, which was full yet delicately formed, the lips soft and ripe as those of any woman. It was partially veiled by a dark moustache, contrasting rather strangely with his head, which was covered by a crop of short gray hair. He did not look an Englishman; indeed, there was something strange in his appearance which would have rendered the classification of his type a difficult matter to the most skilful physiognomist. Only one point seemed to be tolerably evident: he belonged to the ardent South rather than the cold North, for even at the moment of her discovery, when he was striving, with all the strength of a strong nature, to show nothing but cool indifference, his breath was coming quick and hot, his eyes were sparkling, his fine mouth was quivering with excitement, and in his voice there was an unmistakable quiver as he spoke after a few moments' silence, spent by her in averting her face from his gaze, by him in watching curiously her every movement: "Marguerite!"
A deep musical voice and a slightly foreign accent. It seemed to excite her. She trembled from head to foot, and tried to rise from her seat. He put out his hand to detain her. "Not yet," he said sternly. "I must know first what all this means."
She looked up wonderingly.
"Ah! you know well," he continued more rapidly, and his voice taking a firmer timbre. "Why have you hid yourself? Why have you fled to the outskirts of creation to avoid me? Why are you shocked, terrified, when in my tenderest voice I speak the dear name you used to love to hear from my lips? Have I grown so very monstrous, or do you wish to kill yourself with this savage loneliness that your English nation so dearly loves? Speak! speak!—or rather speak not at all. Let me sit here for ever and feast my eyes on the loveliness a woman's whim has hid from me so long. Marguerite! Marguerite! my white pearl, it will be difficult for you to hide from me again."
She had risen to her feet, the angry color coming and going on her fair face, but, crouching before her, he held her by the dress and refused to let her stir.
"Marguerite," he cried, bitter pain in his voice, "I know I speak folly; you are not one of my warm race; you are a cold daughter of proud England. But see, love, I will be patient. Sit down again. I am not near you now; only," and his brow contracted into a frown so fierce that it might mean a menace, "I am here now, and I must and will be heard."
Margaret reseated herself, but her face grew pale with suppressed anger. "If it is the manner of your race to insult the unprotected," she said bitterly, "I must congratulate myself on the fact that I do not belong to it."
His face kindled. "Spoken like yourself, ma reine," he said softly. "I kiss your hands. I am, what I have ever been, your devoted servitor."
"If so, Mr. L'Estrange," she said, slowly and distinctly, but as if speaking with some difficulty, "I must beg you to leave me at once."
He smiled—a smile that irradiated his face like sunshine: "I was rash, ma belle; sometimes obedience is an impossibility. But see! what are you afraid of? Look at me, devoted to you body and soul, your friend, ready to do you the smallest service; only asking this in return, that I may be permitted to stay where I can see you, can offer you kindly greeting from time to time—a common acquaintance, nothing more."
She would not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on a distant speck on the horizon—the sail of a ship or the long line of smoke from a passing steamer.
"You have forced yourself upon me," she said in a low, constrained voice; "you know your presence is distasteful, and you know why. But for you these years of what you are pleased to call savage loneliness would never have been."
He did not seem to hear her; he was carrying on a kind of soliloquy. "She is changed," he said, gazing at her still, "yes, and fading. The rich bloom in her cheek, the laughing sparkle in her eye, the fair roundness of form, it is passing—passing; but, hélas! mon Dieu! is she not fairer than ever in her pure, sad whiteness? Ah, Marguerite, my pearl! how could he ever have doubted you?"
Almost fiercely she answered, the fire of indignation giving back to her eyes the sparkle of the olden days: "And you can ask that—you from whom all the misery came? He knew what had passed between you and me before our marriage. He trusted me, my life was blest; you came between us and destroyed my happiness."
"Gently, gently, my fair Marguerite," he said, pleadingly; "you English are a justice-loving people. Is it not your law that allows what they call extenuating circumstances? That meeting between you and me need never have taken place. If you remember, I warned you. I received no answer. Silence gives consent. Was I less or more than human not to avail myself of it?"
It was true—too true. Margaret hid her face in her hands, and when she next spoke her voice was low and pleading: "Mr. L'Estrange, you are cruel. Yes—God forgive me!—I was to blame, and He has punished me sorely; but have pity on me—leave me here."
A smile played over his lips, but she could not see it; he drew nearer to her and touched the folds of her dress with a hand that was burning.
"It is time it should end," he said, trying to gaze into her hidden face, "It was all a mistake, a grand mistake. I should never have allowed it, only I wanted faith. I dared not drag you into any uncertain future. Ah, my white pearl! who understands you so well as I? Do you remember—shall I, can I, ever forget?—those few blessed days? We were happy, Margaret—happy as children to whom the present is all; the future was not even named between us, for when a cloud, born of the North, your childhood's home, passed over your gentle mind, I was able to dispel it. Those moonlight excursions on the silver water of fair Venice—your friends were with us, yet we were alone, for the kindly darkness made us almost forget their presence; the serenades—ah! I see your memory is no worse than mine; the soft harmonies dying away in the far distance as we sat together in our gondola, our hands clasped, our souls rapt to ecstasy; the lessons in astronomy on those clear spring evenings when you and notre chère fillette scanned in turns the deep, star-spangled sky; that day spent in exploring, Margaret—your pretty coquetry had vexed me, but the soft golden radiance of pictured glass, the sculptured marbles in that beautiful church, the Scalzi, soothed my soul and I was at rest, your softly gleaming eyes telling of your sympathy in my joy; the pictures, Margaret—our delight when we were able to trace the hand of the greatest masters, and pronounce, without guide or cicerone, on the authorship of one of our favorites,—yes, these were pleasures. I sometimes think that they were pleasures too pure, too high, for any but the gods, and in their jealousy they dashed the cup of bliss from our lips. But," his voice deepened; he drew so near to her that his hot, passionate breath fanned her cheek, "they have given us one more chance. Shall we be wise and seize it? Ah, ma belle! I see it passing. Happiness! think what that is; it is not often offered to the dull sons and daughters of humanity, and, Margaret, we have once rejected it."
He spoke, and gradually the bitterness seemed to pass from Margaret's face. There came into her eyes a lustrous shining to replace the fierce light with which she had greeted his first words; she even leant over toward him and allowed him to touch her pale face with his strong, nervous hand. For all was on his side for the moment. The strange, wellnigh overpowering fascination he possessed—memory, imagination, present loneliness and a certain bitter rising of indignation which the readiness of her husband's mistrust and desertion could not but cause her at times.
He saw his advantage. "It is not all forgotten, then, ma bien-aimée?" he whispered tenderly. "That past beautiful time is still there—there in the shrine of your pure heart. Tell me once for all, shall it return? He has forsaken you, insulted you by his mistrust; you owe him no duty; and what is it that I ask of you? The restoration of your friendship—nothing more."
The voice was soft, thrilling, full of an unspeakable pathos, and at first as she heard her brain felt dizzy and a delicious languor seemed to steal over her senses. It would be so sweet to yield, to renew in her dull prime some of the fair joys of youth. Could she not accept his friendship, for that, after all, is an every-day matter? He knew her too well to presume.
And while she pondered, with a weakness utterly new to this fair, proud woman, he stood before her, looking down upon her fixedly. Her eyes fell before his. What met them? Nothing more novel than the Indian scarf she usually wore. It had dropped from her shoulders and was hanging on her arm.
A trifle at such a time, but do not life and its issues hang sometimes on a thread? The scarf recalled Margaret to herself, for it brought another past to her mind. It had been her husband's gift to her—presented on the occasion of the little Laura's birth—and as she glanced on it there came to her mind a host of gentle memories. His words, his looks, his pride in her, the glad confidence of his strong, young manhood,—she felt them once more around her like the pale ghosts of a happy time gone by for ever; but they had been real once, warm, living flesh and blood; and with their holy power they warded off the tempter's influence.
Her first feeling was of burning shame and penitence. Was she then so absolutely weak? Should it be possible for misery and loneliness even to degrade her, to take from her that in which, through all her misery, she had rejoiced—the proud consciousness of unshaken rectitude? For even to listen to this man's blandishments was infinite degradation, the dragging down of her white soul to the base level of his.
Thoughts like these rushed tumultuously into her mind as she looked down still upon her husband's gift; and suddenly she drew herself back shivering, as one might do who had been standing unconsciously close to the edge of a great abyss.
He did not understand her gesture. The soft look was still in his eyes, and he made a movement to take her in his arms. But the new strength of her soul, born of the agonizing penitence for that one weak thought, seemed to have given to her the power she needed. She thrust out both her hands before her, pushing him back so rudely that he stumbled some steps down the sand-cliff; but he soon recovered his footing. With a look in which pleading and indignation were mingled he tried to approach her; she kept him off still.
"Leave me! leave me!" she cried "What have I said, what have I done, that you should look at me like this?" And then she covered her face with both hands. "My God! my God!" she moaned, piteously; "has even good forsaken me?"
Middlethorpe dinner-hour was over. The sun had passed its meridian height, the shadows of shrub and cliff were beginning to lengthen, and with the drawing on of evening came a moaning, sighing wind that ruffled the pale waters at their feet. It seemed an echo of Margaret's wail.
Her persecutor had turned from her; apparently he could control himself no longer. Taking a stone, he threw it far out into the sea: it was the angry gesture of a child whose will has been crossed. He walked a few steps along the path that skirted the cliff, but it seemed as if he could not go finally. He went back to where he had left her sitting mute and helpless.
"I thought you had gone," she said, flashing up at him a glance that was not pleasant to meet.
He looked down upon her with apparent calmness, though all his pulses were quivering with rage and disappointment: "I have not much more to say, ma belle, for I fear you are in earnest this time. What a fool I was to imagine for one moment that you possessed a heart! Go your own way, then; starve yourself of all happiness, die, for the sake of your husband, the man who has cast you off. But—you remember the old days; I was always something of a prophet, and my predictions came to pass—I tell you this: a trouble—one I could have averted—is hanging over you still. You shake your head, you have suffered to the extent of suffering. Bah! in all hearts there is one assailable point. You are not superhuman, ma reine. It is possible that your husband, the man who loved you once, may be nearer than you dream, and thinking other thoughts than yours."
What could he mean? Margaret looked up wildly, for he was turning from her to the winding path that led down the sand-cliff to the sea. "Stay, stay!" she cried.
He looked round at her. "Madam," he said politely, with the bow of a courtier, "it is my turn to be obdurate. I would fain obey you—I cannot: your refusal of all friendly offices has sealed my lips, and time presses. Farewell! The humblest of all your devotees kisses your hands and wishes you joy."
PART II.
A MAN AT WAR WITH HIMSELF.
CHAPTER I.
MAURICE GREY.
But the living and the lost—
For them our souls must weep;
For them we suffer a yearning pain
That will not let us sleep.
A change. From the shores of the gray British seas to those of the grayer Baltic—from the yellow sands and purple moors of Yorkshire to the wellnigh boundless forests and plains of Western Russia—thousands of miles of wood, lake and river, only diversified by some few castles and villages.
It was July, hot and radiant, but in the depths of those woods coolness is always attainable. By one of the broad silver lakes, under a group of birches that rose gracefully from its shores, a young man was resting through the noontide.
He appeared to be a hunter, for his horse was tethered to one of the trees and a brace of fine hounds were baying out their impatience at his side. But for these dumb companions he seemed to be alone, and yet all the accessories spoke of comfort. A kind of table had been extemporized at his feet, and on it a large meat-pasty, some bread and salt, a knife and fork and a flask of sherry were lying. He had not done much justice to the provisions; he was leaning back against the tree and looking out over the lake, a kind of disgust in his fine face. Suddenly, bethinking himself, he raised two fingers to his lips and gave a prolonged whistle.
It brought from the surrounding woods two stately-looking Russians, long-bearded and sedate. Their master pointed to the provisions before him—a gesture which was evidently understood without difficulty, for they carried away the food, retired respectfully to some distance, and soon made a great inroad into both pasty and bread, packing up what was left in a small haversack which one of them carried on his back. The other then approached his master and made a low bow.
"Time to mount?" said the young man, evidently English from his appearance and accent. "Ha! so much the better."
The horse was untethered, wiped down admiringly, and held in readiness by the bearded Russian, his companion in the mean time bringing out two stout little ponies from the trees. And in a few moments the small cavalcade was ranging the woods.
The black eagle was flapping its great wings above them, feathered fowl of a thousand varieties were twittering on the branches of the trees. Many of the coverts might harbor the wolf or lynx; in the reach of meadow to which a forest-glade might lead the gigantic elk would probably be resting with her young.
It was a position to exhilarate the coldest brain, and the Englishman, who took the lead into the forest, did not look particularly torpid.
He was monarch, too, of all he surveyed, for one of the hospitable nobles of Courland had given his guest a free permission to shoot not only through his estates, which were sufficiently vast, but through those of his neighbors; indeed, the whole province was free to Maurice Grey. With gun and dogs he might traverse the wilds of Courland in all their length and breadth.
To an Englishman, a lover of sport for its own sake, could any position be more delightful? He seemed to feel this. Mounted on his horse, a fine little mare of Arab extraction, his keen sportsman's eye scanning the depths of wood, his ear intent on the faintest sound, he looked another man from the jaded, weary traveller resting listlessly on the shores of the silver lake.
But the dogs looked uneasy; there was a rustling in the underwood; the dry fallen leaves crackled ominously. He cocked his gun. Hist! a long, gray-looking animal, gliding ghost-like out of the bush, but not within range. It was a fierce she-wolf—the terror of the neighborhood; this the Englishman discovered, and then the chase began. The wily dogs urged her out into the open; bewildered she fled before them—long, swift, seemingly untiring. With bellies to the ground, and legs that seemed barely to skim it, followed the noble hounds, and after them their master, urging them on by his voice, till dogs, wolf and horseman seemed to fly over the plain.
On, on, leaving the Russian servants and ponies in the far distance, the forest behind, the blue distance before them, till at last the wolf grew weary, her pace perceptibly flagged: she tried to stand at bay, but exhaustion overcame her; the hounds were on her haunches; they pinned her to the ground till the voice of their master called them off, and a shot put an end for ever to the robber of Russian hen-roosts and the terror of Russian babies.
Various other feats were performed that day, each exciting in its kind; and when the young Englishman, who had ridden far into the short, bright night of that season, rested at last in a kind of log-built hunting-lodge, where the hospitable owner of the estate had always a few necessaries in readiness for the guests of the hunt, he was quite ready for refreshment and repose. He partook of the provisions put before him by his servants, bathed in the river that flowed at no great distance, and laid himself down to rest, rejoicing in the glorious solitude, in the freedom from anxiety, in the triumph of having found one pursuit that could put to flight, even for a time, haunting care and cruel retrospect.
But the triumph was short. The few hours of night passed, and kindly sleep would hold his restless spirit no longer. With the gray dawning Maurice lifted his head from his couch and looked around him. The Russian servants, wrapped in sheepskins, were lying on mats at his feet, fast asleep; even the hounds were silent and motionless, wearied with their day of hard work. The neighborhood of the sleepers was oppressive. He rose and wandered out into the little clearing in the midst of which the hut was built.
Yes, this was solitude, true solitude, without excitement of any kind to fill it; and as Maurice looked listlessly at the sun rising over the woods he tried to persuade himself that it was delightful. Far from the babble of false men and falser women, not even the rising of a thin wreath of smoke in the far distance telling of their existence,—this was what he had been seeking, and hitherto seeking in vain. He seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree to look this great loneliness in the face and realize the comfort of his position, but it would not do.
Insensibly, as he thought and gazed, came visions of the past, dreams of the future, like weird, shapeless demons whom memory had robed in horrors to rob him of his peace and fill his solitude with care. For Maurice Grey had loved as some men can and do love, throwing all the strength of their nature into this one thing. And he had lost, not by the hand of death—so pitiless when put forth to take the loved—but by a something more dread, more pitiless still—the discovery of his lady's falsehood. Oh, he had honored her, trusted her, given her his all; and what had he found? That through the long years they had passed together in such perfect harmony her heart had been not his, but another's. He had given all; she had given nothing—worse than nothing. And in the bitter revulsion of feeling consequent on the discovery he had not waited for explanations; he had left her, vowing, in a vow that came from the very depths of his stricken heart, not to look upon her fair, false face again.
Since then he had been striving after forgetfulness. He would not hear of her, he would not ask about her. In the various business letters that necessarily passed between him and his solicitor in England—for he was a man of some property—her name was never mentioned. He had left amply sufficient for her maintenance. The property she had brought was paid over to her without the slightest reference to him. Thus, he considered, bare duty was fulfilled, and for anything further—bah! woman-like, would she not rejoice in the absence of restraint? It was possible that he might desire to have a voice in the education of his child; about his wife he would trouble himself no further.
But the mind is volatile and independent; it receives not the "Thou shalt not" with which poor mortals would fetter it. Over flood and field, through cities and solitudes, Maurice had been wandering with this one idea—to banish for ever from his mind the beautiful, haunting face of his lost Margaret—and all was in vain. More persistently than ever it returned on this morning in the wilds, looking at him with her lustrous eyes, speaking to him with her sweet, low voice, maddening him with the cruel recollections it brought of loss and shame.
For in a case of this kind the man is, perhaps, a greater sufferer than the woman. True, he can wander hither and thither, throwing himself into the stirring life of the world—business, pleasure, excitement; but in the deep, strong nature the sting remains, bitter, poignant, ever present; not the soft sadness of the weaker sex, which in many cases, stooping down under the stroke, reaps the reward of submission in a certain gradual dulling of the pain; but the fierce, angry plunging of a soul that will not yield to dire necessity—that will not look its sorrow in the face and bear it.
And no trial is fitter to raise this ceaseless tempest in the spirit than that under which Maurice was smarting. He had trusted in her as he trusted in his God; she had been to him the embodiment of all that is good, pure, beautiful in womankind, and the discovery of her treachery was like the breaking away of solid ground from beneath his feet.
From that moment he believed in nothing. Writhing under the bitter pain of the wound inflicted on him, he would yet show no signs of weakness. He would forget; he would cut the ties that bound him to the past; he would tear her from his heart. In the struggle his nature seemed to change. He whom Margaret had loved for his gentle thoughtfulness, his manly courage, his geniality, his bright, joyous spirit, became another man. Irritable, morose, cynical, gayest among the gay at the festive season, though of his laughter it might have been said that it was mad, of his mirth that it was "the crackling of thorns under a pot;" at other times dull and listless, uneasy, changeable, passionate. These were some of his characteristics after many months' wandering. And he felt the change; sometimes he professed to rejoice in it. He told himself that he was getting hardened—that soon, soon, the past would be as though it had not been; but there was a secret consciousness within which told him that this could not be.
Such was the feeling which spoke to him on that still July morning through the solitude till he could bear his own society no longer. He returned to the hut, awoke his servants with some roughness, and intimated to them, in the best Russian he could command, that he was tired of wandering; he would return to their lord's castle that day, and then join him and his family in St. Petersburg.
The Russians bowed simultaneously. They were accustomed to the caprices of their lord, and did not show the least surprise at this sudden termination, after two or three days, of an excursion that was to have lasted at least a fortnight.
They escorted their lord's guest to the castle, and on the same evening Maurice Grey left it for a St. Petersburg mansion.
CHAPTER II.
SOCIETY VERSUS SOLITUDE.
Come, let us to the hills, where none but God
Can overlook us; for I hate to breathe
The breaths and think the thoughts of other men.
A few days later and the wilds of Courland were given up, as far as Maurice Grey was concerned, to the animals that ranged them; he was in St. Petersburg, installed as a welcome guest in the grand city mansion of Count ——, one of the Courland nobles, his son, who had mixed in the best society of both London and Paris, having been for some time one of Maurice Grey's warmest friends.
Into the gay life of his brilliant city the young man welcomed his English friend with the utmost cordiality, and Maurice was soon immersed in a round of gayeties. It was a good time to see St. Petersburg, for all the misery of the spring melting of ice and snow was over. The stately Neva, clear as crystal and covered with craft of every description, was flowing in full magnificence after its winter sleep through the streets and piazzas of the city. The highways were full of vehicles, from the grand carriage-and-four of the general or prince to the plain hired droshki that seemed ubiquitous. Pleasure was the order of the day in the city, for all, high and low, rich and poor, were revelling in the charms of the short-lived summer-time.
Maurice threw himself into this new life with the utmost eagerness. French is the language of the crème de la crème in St. Petersburg, and as he was master of the seductive mistress of conversation, his ignorance of Russian by no means interfered with any of his amusements. And he entered into them thoroughly. Lounging about on the Prospekt or Grand English Quay in the morning with a few young Russians; flirting with pretty French coquettes, or rarer Russian beauties, in the ladies' afternoon receptions; floating at night in the grand barge of one of the princes on the wide Neva, in company of the fair and gay and to the sounds of delicious music; dancing far into the morning and supping with the dawn;—this was the life of St. Petersburg, and for some days he enjoyed it thoroughly. One thing was certain: it allowed very little time for thought. But he had not the constitution or power of endurance of some of his Russian friends. A week or two of this hard life knocked him up. He was compelled to rest, whether he would or no. And then reaction came. The crowd and bustle were once more hateful to him. Biliousness, that great foe of the fashionable, cast its jaundiced veil over his eyes. He began to loathe the luxurious saloons and crowded rooms and made-up beauties—to long again for his own society, for the scenes of Nature, for the solitude from which he had only just escaped.
"Be thine own heart thy palace, or the world's a jail,"
said the great Shakespeare. The world was a jail to Maurice Grey because of the bitterness his heart contained; and, unhappily, go where we will, we cannot escape the world, or that throbbing, torturing consciousness of good and evil, of pain and delight, that mortals call the heart. He could not hide his cynicism; like the thorn that the rose-leaves conceal, it peeped out when it was least expected, and the fair ladies with whose society he pleased himself began gayly to question him on the mysterious cause of his gloomy ideas.
This alarmed Maurice. His wound was of such a kind as to be sensitive to the lightest touch. He could not bear that what he looked upon as his dishonor should be the common talk of his associates. It was this that had made him leave England and break all connection with those who had known him there. When, therefore, it became the custom of his fair St. Petersburg friends to question him curiously about his past, to suggest a probable history in his dark, melancholy eyes, to speak to him with sentimental pathos about life and love, he took fright; and to the grief of his many friends—for the Englishman had become the fashion in St. Petersburg—announced his intention of departure. Loud and long was the opposition, and Maurice grew weary of the delay and sick of the great city before his friends would allow him to go; but at last they were left behind him. With no companion, not even a servant this time, he was travelling through the length and breadth of Russia, by her scattered cities and vast plains, to Moscow, the ancient capital; there only a few hours, and then on once more, for Russia had become distasteful to him.
He would scarcely pause, for he was in a fever to be on, on and away, far from the vexations of "towered cities" and their "busy hum"—far, if it were possible, even from men. There was a little village that he had known in happier days. It was far up in the Swiss mountains; it was lonely, save for the coming and going of tourists, and even these did not honor it with their presence for long. Two glaciers stooped down into its valley, and it was watched evermore by pillars of purest snow. There, perhaps, in the savage grandeur of holy Nature, he might find the rest for which he craved, and with a feverish anxiety he pressed on to his goal.
Switzerland at last!—a mountain-pass, snow-crowned hills, land-locked lakes and white foaming torrents. A certain satisfaction glowed in the breast of the world-weary man as he looked out upon it all.
He and his sorrow seemed dwarfed, for the moment, by the grand magnificence of the world as God made it—not the world of cities, but the world of Nature. His hand was visible in the grouping of the Alpine giants, in the variegated beauty of their hidden vales, and beneath that hand the traveller felt himself.
Of carriages and mules he would have none. With his staff in his hand he crossed the mountains, courting the healthy physical weariness, sure precursor of that which denies itself to the brain overwrought by excitement—blessed sleep. And with the exertion and consequent rest his health returned, his muscles played freely, Life carried on her great functions with ease. By the time he had reached Grindelwald, the little village in which he intended to stay for some time, even some of his cynicism had melted. Doubtless it was only for the time. Nature can do much, but she cannot really draw the sting of bitter aching from the heart, or give back to the spirit the brightness and elasticity of that fresh time when men are divine and women are earth-angels, and the world is a region of enchantment, a "palace of delights;" even the eternal snows and the grand sights and sounds of the mountain-country may pall upon the eyes and sicken the disappointed heart. For in human nature are the elements of the divine—its infinite cravings only the Infinite can fill. Beautiful as God's world may be, it is powerless to fill the heart or satisfy the soul of man. Hither and thither he may wander; like the dying poet Shelley's marvellous creation,
"Nature's most secret steps
He, like her shadow, may pursue;"
and yet for the haunting vision, the great unfound loveliness, the unfelt joy, his spirit may sicken unceasingly.
PART III.
A DOUBLE MYSTERY.
CHAPTER I.
PARTIAL DISCOVERIES.
She seemed to be all nature,
And all varieties of things in one;
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances,
But think what others only dreamed about,
And say what others did but think, and do
What others would but say, and glory in
What others dared but do.
"I have no sympathy for you, Adèle—not the slightest."
So spoke Mrs. Churchill, standing by a sofa in her boudoir with a glass of port in the one hand and a bottle of quinine in the other, giving careful attention to the dripping of a certain number of drops from the bottle to the glass.
Her young daughter was on the sofa, looking rather languid and worn. She raised her head, supporting it on her elbow, and her voice was a little peevish as she answered, "I have told you, mamma, that I don't want either sympathy or medicine."
"In the name of all that's sensible try and tell me what you do want, child!"
"I want to see Arthur." Adèle blushed as she spoke.
"To see Arthur, indeed!" Here Mrs. Churchill passed the carefully-prepared dose to her daughter. "You are a pretty pair! I imagine he wants quinine and sea-air as much as you do. And now, forsooth, he must turn studious, ambitious of literary distinction, and what not. The next thing I shall hear about him is that he has taken to the editing of a popular journal. Really, young people of the present day are past my comprehension altogether, and, Adèle, you and Arthur carry matters to the verge of absurdity. You fall in love simultaneously with a pretty widow—whether a widow or not, Goodness alone knows—you suspend your own engagement for a time, as you assure one another, by mutual consent, and then begin the process of fading away, Arthur throwing himself into literature, and you into so-called charity; but, my dear"—here Mrs. Churchill grew severe—"I have always heard that charity begins at home. If charity consists in making your mother's life miserable, and allowing all kinds of absurd notions in the head of the man who is to be your husband (for I believe that these new follies can't possibly outlive your teens), then, so far as I am concerned, the less of charity the better."
Adèle during this harangue had turned her face from her mother. The answer came from the depths of the sofa-cushion in which she had buried her face: "I wish I hadn't told you, mamma."
"Happily, I found out the greater part for myself." Mrs. Churchill was still severe. "Upon my word, Adèle, it was dutiful to begin such a correspondence without your mother's consent or knowledge; but perhaps I have spoken and thought enough on that subject already. Apropos of this Mrs. Grey of yours, I have heard something which will probably interest you. Of course it is not for me to say whether her name is really Mrs. Grey, but some of the incidents in the stories I heard seem to fit in rather strangely."
"Mamma!" In Adèle's excitement she rose to a sitting posture on the sofa and her cheeks flamed suddenly into an angry crimson. "You may say what you like; I know that Margaret Grey is good and true, and it's too bad to believe in nobody."
Her excitement rather alarmed good Mrs. Churchill. "Adèle! Adèle!" she said, "do, like a good child, make an effort to be reasonable. The next thing will be brain fever if you excite yourself in this way. Silly little goose! try and believe that your mother knows more of the world than you do. Some of these days you will be wiser."
"Never so wise, I hope, as to think ill of everybody," said Adèle, half sobbing after her excitement.
"Well! well!" said her mother soothingly, "only be patient and I will admit that everybody is angelic; indeed, after all, why should I take the trouble of pointing out the fallacy? Circumstances will do that for you before you have lived many more years in the world. But about this Mrs. Grey. Very good I must call her to spare your feelings, and doubtless very beautiful, or she could not have taken such violent possession of the heart and head of my impulsive little daughter. It is a pity, by the bye, Adèle, that Providence did not see fit to make you a boy. It would have been possible then for you to have devoted life and fortune to this interesting person, only I'm not so sure that there's not a lingering weakness for Arthur in your contradictory little heart. There, my dear! don't blush about it; you will certainly have no roses for the evening if you expend them so liberally now, and pale cheeks don't suit your style."
"As if I cared about my style, mamma!"
"Well, if you don't, Adèle, I do; and as, at your age, rouge would be rather absurd, I must beg you to give us some of those pretty little blushes this evening. Perhaps you may be able to persuade Arthur to leave his books for a few hours and escort us to Lady C——'s. Is music, by the bye, among the vanities to which he has sworn undying hatred? Signor Mario has promised her a song, and—ah! I am so bad at names!—the great violinist—you remember, Mr. Godolphin was so wild about him—has promised to attend. But really, Adèle," Mrs. Churchill gave an impatient sigh, "one might think you a worn-out woman of the world, or six seasons out at least; you take not the slightest interest in anything I tell you."
Adèle reddened: "I beg your pardon, mamma. No doubt it will be pleasant, and the beautiful new necklace you gave me to-day will be the very thing to wear. If Arthur comes in I shall ask him; but what were you saying a few minutes ago about Mrs. Grey?"
"That interests you far more than either soirée or necklace, I do believe. I wonder how it is, Adèle, that you are so very different from other girls at your age? What I have heard is, after all, not much; and mind, if it excites you I shall leave off telling you at once. It does not redound particularly to the credit of your friend."
Again Adèle buried her face in the sofa-pillow: "Who told you, mamma?"
"You remember that handsome young Russian at Mrs. Gordon's the other night. He took me in to supper, and we got into conversation. Very frank and open these foreigners are—there is none of that English reserve about them. He told me at once what brought him to London. It seems he is in search of an English friend, a certain Maurice Grey, who, after having made himself quite the rage in St. Petersburg (he was staying with the young count's father), suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace behind him. He would not let his friends know where he was going, nor did he write a single line to tell of his safe arrival at any point in his journey. It appears that one and another in St. Petersburg began talking about him, and it came out that he had let fall certain mysterious hints about a great sorrow, weariness of life, and so on—in your romantic style, Adèle. Whether he only wished to make himself interesting to the ladies—who seem to have been the chief movers of the rumor—does not precisely appear: I should think it highly probable. However, St. Petersburg society took a different view. When a week passed and nothing was heard of Maurice Grey, his friends killed him—that is, they determined among themselves that he had killed himself. There seems to have been quite a fever of anxiety about the young man's fate. At last the young count, to satisfy his fair relatives and friends—himself also, for he firmly believes in his English guest, mystery and all—came over here, thinking that in London he might find some clue to his whereabouts. And now comes the part of the story which may perhaps fit in with yours. There are a good many Greys, so I did not particularly interest myself until Count —— informed me by way of sequel that during a former visit of his to London his friend, Maurice Grey, had married one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. It was, of course, the prevailing idea in St. Petersburg that a woman had something to do with the Englishman's gloom, and as he never made the faintest allusion to his wife, it had been presumed that her conduct after marriage had caused a separation or a scandal of some kind. Count —— has set on foot an inquiry about this person. Mrs. Grey—Margaret, he told me, was her Christian name—must certainly be still living. He heard of her from her man of business, but her place of residence is, for some reason, kept a profound secret."
Adèle had risen from the sofa. She was listening to her mother's tale with earnest eyes fixed on her face. When it was over she gave a low, deep-drawn sigh: "Maurice, mamma? Are you sure his name was Maurice?"
"The Englishman's, Adèle? Yes, Count —— called him by that name once or twice in the course of our conversation."
Adèle clasped her hands: "Then there can be no doubt it is the same. That will explain her sadness. Some fearful misunderstanding has come between them. Oh how I wish I could see Count ——! or if Arthur would only come! Perhaps—mamma, how delightful it would be!—perhaps we shall be able to set it all right—to make her happy again!"
Mrs. Churchill groaned: "I thought my story would have had the effect of curing you, Adèle; and now I believe you are actually farther gone than ever with your enthusiasm and your poetic notions. When shall I teach you that all this is childish? 'Perhaps you will set all right'—'make her life happy!' Perhaps, rather, you will obey your mother, and have nothing further to do with a person who has deceived her husband and is otherwise not at all correct. Why, if I don't very much mistake—and I can say, without boasting, I think that I am always pretty well up in these matters—before the season is over your Mrs. Grey will be the talk of every dinner-table in London, for Count —— tells his story freely, and he seems to have the entrée everywhere. 'Miss Churchill's particular friend'—that would be a pleasant addition to the tale when repeated with sundry additions, my dear, in our circle of acquaintance. Thank Goodness! Arthur is the only person who knows anything of your absurd adventure, and his tongue is happily tied."
Adèle looked up indignantly: "Don't think that I shall hide from anybody my friendship for Margaret Grey," she said; "you may feel ashamed—I glory in it. All I regret is that I did so little for her when I had the opportunity." Then, softening, "If you had once seen her, mamma, you could never have believed these cruel tales."
"I should have instantly fallen under the spell, no doubt, like you and Arthur? No, Adèle, it is long since a pretty face affected me so powerfully; indeed, I never remember being so absurdly romantic as you are. But, dear me! there are visitors; you look rather pale, so I suppose, for this one afternoon, I must let you off and leave you here with your book."
Mrs. Churchill really loved her daughter, though she did not quite understand her, but she was certainly tolerably gentle toward what she looked upon as her follies. She stooped and kissed her on the brow before she left the room, saying, with something between a smile and a sigh, "Ah, my dear, perhaps some day you will understand your mother better."
Adèle returned the caress affectionately, but it was a relief to her when the door of her mother's boudoir closed behind her and she was left alone to think and plan, for the story of the Russian had thrown a new light on the subject that had engrossed her so much since that May afternoon in the Academy.
CHAPTER II.
GO AND SEE HER.
Love's very pain is sweet.
Miss Churchill was not allowed to indulge long in the luxury of solitude. Her mother had scarcely left her before there was a well-known knock at the hall door, followed after a few moments' interval by a short, intimate tap at the door of the sitting-room, and Adèle rose from her sofa and held out both hands eagerly to greet her cousin.
Perhaps he did not respond with sufficient warmth to her impulsive welcome, for the light of pleasure died quickly out of her face, she sank languidly into a chair and plunged headlong into commonplaces. "Are you going to Lady C——'s to-night, Arthur?" she asked; "I hear there's to be some first-rate music."
"That means, I suppose, that you and Aunt Ellen want an escort."
"That means nothing of the kind, Arthur. Surely mamma is old enough to take care of herself and me without your assistance."
"Pray don't take offence at such a small thing, Adèle. They say, you know, that people who take offence lightly are in want of a real grievance."
"Heaven knows I needn't look far for a grievance when you are concerned," said Adèle bitterly.
"You are the most forbearing of your sex, my fair cousin," returned he with provoking coolness. "In humble emulation of your patience behold me a willing listener to this list of grievances."
He spoke with a half smile, then threw himself back in an arm-chair and assumed an appearance of rapt attention; but Adèle turned away to hide a treacherous tear. "I wonder how it is that we never meet without quarrelling now," she said plaintively.
He shrugged his shoulders: "That, I fancy, is your affair, my little cousin; you seem to take a delight in snapping me up, now-a-days; which being the case, what can I do but submit and give your woman's wit material to work upon?"
Adèle pouted: "Of course it is anybody's fault but your own, Arthur; but that's always the way with boys—they can't possibly be in fault."
Arthur rose from his seat: "This may be, and no doubt is, highly interesting to you, Adèle. I can't say that I feel the charm of sparring; but then, as you politely observe, I am only a boy, and boys are often unappreciative of women's fine sallies, therefore I think the boy must beg to be excused."
He held out his hand. Adèle was on the point of taking him at his word and allowing him to leave her, but when she looked up at him her mood changed suddenly, for, after all, only her affection had made her peevish. It was a difficult task Adèle had set herself on that day when Arthur first let her into the secret of his love. She had begun grandly. In her, as in many of her sisters, the spirit of self-sacrifice was strong. On the altar of her great love for her cousin, her enthusiastic admiration for the woman of his choice, she had been ready to immolate everything; she would throw her own wishes, her hopes, her future joy to the winds, so that they might be happy; and if in that first moment she could have consummated her sacrifice, could have given them one to the other, she would have done it freely, whatever it might have cost herself. But the daily annoyance her sacrifice entailed; the obligation of listening to her cousin's rhapsodies; the knowledge that though with her in body his mind was far away; even the light way in which he treated her unselfish exertions in his interest,—all these were somewhat hard to bear.
In the conflict Adèle's health was giving way; she grew peevish and irritable. Her gayety and lightheartedness departed, she was not the amusing companion she had once been, and her cousin's visits were in consequence fewer. When he did come, it was only to pour out his heart on the subject which engrossed him—Margaret Grey. Generally she listened patiently, with an appearance of interest and sympathy; and this was all he desired. Arthur did not mean to be unkind—he was one of the most good-natured of his sex—but he had been so much accustomed to consider that what interested him would of necessity interest Adèle that he could not have thought he was giving her pain, and with his every visit planting pin-pricks in her poor little heart.
When, therefore, as sometimes happened in these days—for Adèle's weakness was beginning to prey upon her nerves—she showed herself impatient, was unsympathetic or irritable, Arthur was, as on this occasion, surprised and offended, and deprived her for some days of the pleasure of his society.
But this time Adèle would not let him go off in ill-temper. She looked up, and her woman's heart was moved to self-forgetfulness. "Don't go yet, dear," she said, her voice trembling in spite of strenuous efforts to be calm; "you must forgive my pettishness. I think what mamma says is true. I can't be very well just now. And you look pale and ill, my poor old fellow; you shut yourself up too much with your books. You should leave London and go to some seaside place for a time."
"I scarcely think the books are to blame, Adèle." Arthur gave a little sigh and glanced furtively at the mirror. Through all his new earnestness he had preserved the boyish weakness of a certain pleasure in interesting delicacy. "One must do something," he continued, pacing the room restlessly, "and I've been too long an idle good-for-nothing. I think I have literary tastes. I have been looking up the classics with a view to a novel—something in Bulwer's style, you know, the scene laid in Athens during her palmy days; or perhaps Palmyra, with all the details in the true antique. My heroine must be Greek, fine classic features, and that kind of thing. I have a grand description in my head. Shall I give it to you?"
Adèle smiled: "I think I could give it myself. Certainly I know the model. Am I right?"
Arthur had taken a seat again; he buried his head in his hands: "I have had such a mad idea, Adèle. But no; to do her justice in any description would be impossible, absolutely impossible. It's easy enough to write about dark eyes and fine features and golden hair, but that would not be Margaret. It is the wonderful look in her face, that kind of spiritual beauty belonging neither to form nor coloring, which gives it its chief charm."