Chapter Twelve.
“Have I made it worse?”
“Give me good fortune, I could strike him dead,
For this discomfort he hath done the house!”
Elaine.
So it was not really for from “this time to-morrow” that Lilias had so confidently anticipated, when Mrs Western opened the envelope, addressed to her by Captain Beverley, and read its contents.
“What can it mean? I cannot understand,” she said to herself, tremulously, for she was alone at the time. Then a second thought struck her, and the tremulousness gave place to hot indignation.
“Can he have been playing with her only? My child—my poor Lilias, is it possible?” she exclaimed aloud in her agitation. “What shall I do? How can I tell her?”
Just then a light, firm step sounded along the passage. Mrs Western shivered.
“If it is Lilias!” she whispered.
But it was not Lilias.
“Oh, Mary, my dearest, how thankful I am it is you!” she cried, as her second daughter entered the room. “Mary, what does this mean? Read it. How can we ever tell Lilias?” and as she spoke she held out the paper that trembled in her hands.
Mary trembled too, for an instant only, however. Then she drew herself together, as it were, by a vigorous effort, and read:
“Romary, February 19.
“My Dear Mrs Western,—
“I hardly know how to find words in which to apologise sufficiently for the ingratitude and discourtesy of which I shall appear guilty when I tell you that this note is to bid you all good-bye. For a time only, I trust and believe, but a time which seems terribly long for me to look forward to—for I am absolutely obliged to leave this neighbourhood at once, and for two years. I do not know how to thank you for all your goodness. I have never, in all my life, been so happy as under your roof, yet I have no choice but to go, without even bidding you all farewell in person.
“Will you think of me as kindly as you can, and will you allow me to send, through you, my farewell to Miss Western and her sisters, and the rest of the family? and believe me,—
“Yours most gratefully and truly,—
“Arthur Kenneth Beverley.”
Mary stood motionless. Her face grew pale, her lips compressed, but she did not speak.
“What does it mean? Mary, speak, child, tell me what it means,” said Mrs Western, with the petulance born of extreme anxiety. “It cannot be that Lilias has refused him?”
“No, mother, it is not that,” said Mary, “I wish it were.”
“What is it, then? Can he be so utterly base and dishonourable?”
“Not of himself,” replied Mary, bitterly; “weak fool that he is, he is not so bad as that. No, mother, he is not, or has been made to think he is not, his own master; it is all that man—that bad man’s doing.”
“Whose doing?” said Mrs Western, bewilderedly. “That Mr Cheviott—Mr Cheviott of Romary. Don’t you see the note is dated from there? I see it all; he found it out at the ball. Very likely he went there for the purpose of finding it out, having heard rumours of it, and at once used all his influence, whatever it is, to make that poor fool give it up. And yet he isn’t a poor fool! That is the worst of it; there is so much good in him, and Lilias cares for him—yes, that is the worst of it. Mother, she does care for him. Will it break her heart?”
And Mary, in her innocence and ignorance, looked up to her mother who had gone through life, who must know how it would be, and repeated, wistfully, “Mother, will it break her heart?”
Mrs Western shook her head.
“I do not know—I cannot say; she is so proud. Either it will harden or break her utterly. Oh, Mary, my dear, my instincts were right. Do you remember how I dreaded it from the first?”
“Yes, mother, you were right; nowadays if people are poor, they must forget they are gentle-people. It would be well to bring up Alexa and Josey not to ‘look high,’ as the servants say; a respectable tradesman—Mr Brunt, the Withenden draper’s eldest son, for instance, is the sort of man that girls like us should be taught to encourage—eh, mother?”
“Mary, don’t; you pain me. It is not like you to talk so. If what you say were true, it would make me go back upon it all and think I was wrong to marry your father. He might have done so much better—he, so attractive and popular as he was; he might have married some one rich and—”
“Hush, mother—dear mother, hush,” said Mary, kissing her; “it is wicked of me to pain you,” and in saying these words she determined to tell her mother nothing of her own personal part of the affair, her bitter indignation at the way in which Mr Cheviott had tried to win her over to take part against her sister; and for this reticence she had another, as yet hardly understood, motive—a terrible misgiving was creeping upon her. Was she to blame? Had her plainly expressed defiance and indignation raised Mr Cheviott to more decisive action than he had before contemplated? She could not tell.
“But so mean as he has shown himself, it is perfectly possible that it is so,” she reflected. “He is small-minded enough to be stung into doing what he has by even my contempt, yet how could I have spoken otherwise? though for Lilias’s sake I could almost have made a hypocrite of myself.”
But as yet she was not at leisure to think this over; she only felt instinctively that it was better it should not be told, and thus deciding, her mother’s voice recalled her to the present.
“Mary,” she repeated again, “how are we to tell Lilias?”
“Leave it to me, mother dear,” she replied, for a moment’s consideration satisfied her that nothing in the shape of sympathy or pity—not even her mother’s—was likely to be acceptable to her sister at the first.
“She may soften afterwards, but she is sure to be hard at first,” Mary said to herself, “and, dear mother,” she went on, aloud, “the less notice we seem to take of his going, to the others, the better, don’t you think? Not even to papa. If he sees Lily looking much the same as usual—and you may trust her to do that—he will not think anything about it, and Alexa and Josey must just be well snubbed if they begin any silly chatter. And you will leave Lilias to me?”
“Yes, dear; but can I do nothing? If we could arrange for her to go away somewhere for a while, for instance?”
“After a time, perhaps, but not at first. Mother, you will try not to take any notice of it at first, won’t you? Just allude to it in a commonplace way; it will be far the best and easiest for Lilias.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“It is so horrible!” said Mary, with a little shudder, “so utterly horrible that a girl should be exposed to this—that even you and I, mother—mother and sister though we are to her, should be discussing her feelings as if we were doctors and she a patient! Oh, it is horrible!”
Lilias was not in her room; she was down-stairs in the drawing-room practising duets with Alexa, while Josey hovered about chattering, and interrupting, and trying to extract gossip from her elder sister on the subject of last night’s ball.
“Josey,” said Mary, as she came in, “it is past your bed-time, and you, too, Alexa, had better go I think. Mamma is in the study, so go and say good-night to her there.”
“Is mother not coming in here again?” asked Lilias. “I hate the evenings papa has to go out; we all seem so unsettled and straggling. Yes, do go to bed, children. I am beginning to feel a little tired, Mary; aren’t you?”
“No—yes, a little. I really don’t know,” said Mary.
Lilias laughed merrily.
“Why, I believe you are half asleep, child!” she exclaimed. “We are evidently not intended to be fine ladies, if one ball knocks us up so. I wonder what all the people who were there last night are doing with themselves now? Very likely they are having carpet dances tonight, and all sorts of fun. The Cleavelands party is broken up, though. The Cheviotts were going back to Romary last night.”
“Yes,” said Mary.
“No note has come for me, I suppose?” asked Lilias, with a little hesitation. “I did not like to ask you before the girls, but one of them said something about a groom on horseback having been at the stable door a little while ago.”
“There was no note for you,” said Mary, her voice sounding even to herself set and hard, “but there was one for mamma. She told me to bring it to you. Here it is.”
Lilias took it, but something in Mary’s manner startled her.
“What is it?” she said, hastily. “Why do you look so strange, Mary?”
“Read the note, Lily, please,” said Mary. “I’m going back to mamma—I won’t be a minute,” and as she spoke she turned to leave the room.
“Don’t go, Mary!” cried Lilias, but Mary had already gone.
Ten minutes after she returned to the drawing-room, but no Lilias was there. Mary’s heart failed her.
“Was I wrong to leave her?” she said to herself. “I thought it would be so horrid for me to seem to be watching how she took it.”
She flew up-stairs to her sister’s bedroom. The door was shut, but not locked. Mary knocked.
“Come in,” said Lilias’s voice, and hardly knowing what she was going to see, Mary entered.
There stood Lilias in the centre of the room, her beautiful fair hair all loosened, hanging about her like a cloud, her face pale, but eyes very bright—brighter than usual it seemed to Mary.
“Lily!” she exclaimed.
“Why do you say ‘Lily,’ and look at me like that?” replied her sister, sharply. “There’s nothing the matter. I’m tired, and going to bed early, that’s all. Please tell mamma so, and do ask her not to come to say goodnight to me. No, don’t kiss me, please, Mary. I’m cross, I suppose, just say good-night.”
“Very well,” said Mary, submissively.
She turned sadly to go, but had not reached the door when her sister’s voice recalled her.
“Oh! Mary,” it cried, and the sharp accent of pain which rang through the two little words went straight to Mary’s heart, “don’t misunderstand me. I want to be unselfish and brave, and just now it seemed to me that, if any one seemed to feel for me, I could not manage to get on. But I don’t want to make you unhappy, and you may talk to me if you like.”
Mary gently closed the door, then she came back to her sister, and drew her down on to a seat.
“What am I to say Lily? I wish I knew.”
“Anything,” replied Lilias; “you may say anything, Mary, except one thing.”
“And what is that?”
“Blame of him,” said Lilias, her eyes sparkling, “that, Mary, is the one thing I could not bear. I have made up my mind absolutely about this—if—if it is never explained, I will still keep to it, he is, in some way, not his own master.”
“But if it is so, Lilias, it still does not free him from blame, though it alters the kind. If he is not his own master, he should not have let himself got to care for you, and, still worse, have taught you to care for him.”
“Oh! yes, I dare say that is true enough—at least, it sounds so,” said Lilias; “but in some way or other it isn’t true, though I can’t explain it, and can’t argue about it. Besides, Mary,” she went on, with some hesitation, her pale face flushing crimson as she spoke, “it isn’t as if he had said good-bye for ever. He says distinctly, ‘two years’.”
“Ah! yes, and that is the mean bit of it,” said Mary, indignantly; “he had no right to allude to any future at all. He should leave you absolutely free, if he cannot claim you openly—leave you, I mean, absolutely free for those two years, even if he really expects to be able to return at their end. What right has he to expect you to waste your youth and happiness for him? If you were engaged a separation of two years would be nothing, or if even he had said that at the end of the time he would be free to ask you to marry him.”
“But that would have been binding me unfairly, most people would say,” replied Lilias, softly. “I believe he means to leave me quite free, but that he could not help catching at a straw, as it were, and therefore said that about two years.”
“I don’t believe in the two years,” persisted Mary; “even if he does not come into his property for two years, you might have been engaged, though not marrying for that time. No, I see no sense in it—it is some clever pretext of that—” “that scheming Mr Cheviott’s,” she was going to have said, but she stopped in time.
“Mary,” said Lilias, drawing away the hand which her sister had held in hers, “I told you I would not let you speak against him.”
“Forgive me. I won’t,” said Mary, penitently.
“Whatever the future brings—if he marry some one else within the two years,” said Lilias, “I shall still always believe in the Arthur Beverley I have known. He may change—circumstances and other influences may change him, but the man I have known is true and honourable, and has wished and tried to act rightly. This I shall always believe—till I am quite an old woman—an old maid,” she added with an attempt at a smile.
“Lily,” exclaimed Mary, with a touch of actual passion in her tone—“Lily, don’t. You are so beautiful, my own Lily, why should you be so tried? So beautiful and so good!” And Mary, Mary the calm, Mary the wise, ended up her attempt at strengthening and consoling her sister by bursting into tears herself.
It did Lilias good. Now it was her turn to comfort and support.
“I am not an old woman yet, Mary,” she said, caressingly, “and I don’t intend to become one any sooner than I can help. My hair isn’t going to turn grey by to-morrow morning. To-morrow, oh! Mary, do you remember what I said yesterday about ‘this time to-morrow’? I was so happy this time yesterday, and he said he would be here to-day—it was the very last thing he said to me. What can have happened to change it all?”
Again the misgiving shot through Mary’s heart. Had she done harm? She said nothing, and after a moment’s pause Lilias spoke again:
“The great thing you can do to help me just now, Mary, is to prevent any of the others thinking there is anything the matter. Outside people may say what they like—I don’t care for that—but it is at home I couldn’t stand it. Besides, we have so few neighbours and friends, we are not likely to be troubled with many remarks. Except Mrs Greville, perhaps, I don’t suppose any one has heard anything about Captain Beverley’s knowing us.”
“Only at the ball,” said Mary, hesitatingly; “he picked you out so.”
“Yes,” said Lilias, smiling sarcastically, “no doubt all the great people said I was behaving most unbecomingly; but they may say what they like. I know I don’t care for that part of it. Mary, you will say something to mother to prevent her asking me about it.”
“Yes,” said Mary. “Lilias, would you like to go away from home for a while?”
“I don’t know. How could I? There is nowhere I could go, unless you mean that I should be a governess, after all, and—” She stopped, and her face flushed again.
“And what?”
“I don’t like to say it; you will not enter into my feelings—I don’t like to do anything he would not like.”
Mary looked at her sadly.
“Poor Lilias!” she thought, “is ‘he’ worthy of it all?”—“I was not thinking of that,” she said aloud. “I meant, if it could be arranged, for you to go away for a visit for a little. Mrs Greville’s sister asked you once.”
“Yes, but ever so long ago, and I wouldn’t on any account propose such a thing to Mrs Greville just now.”
“Very well,” said Mary.
Then they kissed each other, and said good-night.
“Two years—two long years!” were the words that Lilias said to herself over and over again that night—words that mingled themselves in the dreams that disturbed such sleep as came to her. “Two years!—what can it all mean? But I will trust you, Arthur—I will trust you!”
“Two years!” thought Mary. “That part of it can be nothing but a pretext. And if Lilias goes on trusting and hoping, it will make it all the worse for her in the end. She has never had any real trouble, and she thinks herself stronger to bear it than she really is. I have always heard that that terrible sort of waiting is worse for a girl than anything. Oh! Lily, what can I do for you? And have I made it worse? If I had been gentler, perhaps, to that hard, proud man—there was a kind look in his eyes once or twice; he cannot know that it is no piece of idle flirtation—he cannot know how Lilias cares. If I could see him again! I feel as if I could say burning words that would make him realise the wretchedness of separating those two.”
Chapter Thirteen.
A Tempting Opportunity.
“Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.”
Richard III.
The days went on, and things at Hathercourt Rectory looked much the same as usual. But not many had passed before, to Mary’s watching eyes, it seemed that Lilias was flagging. She had kept up, as she said she would, she had seemed as cheerful, almost, as usual, she had not overacted her part either, there had been no excitement or affectation about her in any way. But, all the more, it had been hard work, very hard work, and Mary’s heart ached when she saw the first signs of physical prostration beginning to show themselves.
“She looks so pale and so thin, and her eyes haven’t the least of their old sparkle,” said Mary to herself, “if it goes on, she will get really ill, I know.”
And, in truth, Lilias was beginning herself to lose faith in her own strength and self-control. She had been buoyed up by a hope she had not liked to allude to to Mary. A hope which, long deferred, has made many a heart sick besides Lilias Western’s—the hope of a letter!
There was no reason, which she knew of, why Arthur should not write to her.
“He might say in a letter what, perhaps, he would have shrunk from saying directly,” she thought, forgetting that the same strong influence which had sent Arthur away would have foreseen and guarded against his writing to her. And as day by day came and went, and every morning the post-bag was opened without her hopes being fulfilled, Lilias’s heart grew very weary.
“If I had known him anywhere but here,” she said to Mary one day, “I don’t think it would have been quite so hard. But here, at home, he seemed to have grown already so associated with everything. And, Mary,” she went on, with a sort of little sob, “it wasn’t all only about myself I was thinking. He is rich, you know; and I couldn’t help fancying sometimes it might be a good thing for us all—for you and the younger girls, and for mother. He even encouraged this, for he more than once made little allusions to the sort of things he would like to do if he dared. One day, I remember, when mother was tired, he said to me ‘how he would like to choose a pony carriage for her that she could get about in, and have more variety without fatigue.’ We were walking up and down the terrace—it was late in the afternoon, and there was red in the sky that shone through the branches of the group of old oaks at the end—do you remember that afternoon, Mary? The sky looks something the same to-day, but not so bright—it was that that reminded me of it.”
“No,” said Mary, “I don’t remember that particular afternoon. But I do know that he was always kind and considerate, especially to mother, and I cannot believe that it was not sincere.”
She gave a little sigh as she spoke; they were standing together at the window, and as Lilias leaned against the panes, gazing out, her attitude so languid and hopeless, the sharpened lines of her profile, all struck Mary with a chill misgiving.
“Lilias,” she said, suddenly, “you must go away from home for a while. What you have said just now about the associations here strengthens my feeling about it. You must have some change.”
“I don’t think it is possible, and I would much, very much rather stay at home,” said Lilias.
And till she had some definite scheme to propose, Mary thought it no use to contradict her.
But morning, noon, and night she was thinking of Lilias, always of Lilias and her troubles, and revolving in her head over and over again every possible and impossible means of making her happy again.
Two mornings after the conversation in the window the postboy brought a note for Lilias from Mrs Greville. It was at breakfast-time that it came. They were all together at the table.
“A letter for you, Lilias,” said her father, as he handed it to her.
Now letters for the Western girls were a rarity. They had few relations and almost fewer friends, for they had never been at school, and seldom left home. So when Mr Western’s apparently most commonplace announcement was made, six pair of eyes turned with interest, not to say curiosity, in Lilias’s direction, and even her mother and Mary glanced towards her with involuntary anxiety.
“A letter for Lily,” cried Josey, darting up from her seat. “Do let’s see it. Who’s it from?”
“Josephine!” exclaimed Mary, severely, “how can you be so unladylike? Mother, do speak to her,” and the little bustle of reproof of Josey that ensued effectually diverted the general attention.
Mary’s little ruse had succeeded, and her mother understood it. But for this, even little Francie could hardly have failed to notice the deathly paleness which, at her father’s words, overspread poor Lilias’s face. For an instant only; one glance at the envelope, and the intensity passed out of her eyes.
“A note from Mrs Greville,” she said, carelessly, as soon as she felt able to control the trembling in her voice. “She wants Mary and me to go to stay there for two nights—she expects one or two young friends from somewhere or other, and wants us to help to entertain them, I suppose.”
“It is very kind of her to think of the variety for you, I think,” said Mr Western. “Why should you be so ungracious about it, Lilias?”
The girl’s face flushed painfully.
“I don’t mean to be ungracious, father dear,” she said, gently, “but I don’t care about going.”
Mr Western was beginning to look, mystified, when Mary’s voice diverted his attention.
“I shall go,” she said, abruptly, “that is to say,” she added, colouring a little in her turn, “I should like to go, if I can.”
“Dear me,” said her father, “how the tables are turned! It used to be always Lilias who was eager to go, and Mary to stay at home.”
“But there is no objection to Mary’s going, if she likes,” interposed Mrs Western, hastily.
“Objection, of course not. There is no objection to their both going that I can see,” said Mr Western.
“Well, we’ll talk about it afterwards,” said Mrs Western. “Girls, you had better go to the school-room. We are later than usual this morning.”
They all rose, and Lilias was thankful to get away; but as Mary and she left the room together, they overheard a remark of their father to the effect that Lilias was not looking well, had not her mother observed it?
“I dare say she would be the better for a thorough change,” replied Mrs Western. “It is so long since she left home.”
“Oh, yes!” said her father, with a sigh. “They would all enjoy a change, and no one needs it more than yourself, Margaret. It makes me very anxious when I think about these girls sometimes.”
“But, at the worst, they are far better off in every other way than I was at their age,” said Mrs Western, “and see how happy I have been.”
“Ideas of happiness differ so,” said her husband. “I fear a quiet life in a country parsonage on limited means would hardly satisfy Lilias. As to Mary, I somehow feel less anxiety. She takes things so placidly.”
“Not always,” said Mrs Western, under her breath; but she was glad that her husband did not catch the words, and that little Brooke’s running in with some inquiry about his lessons interrupted the conversation—for it was trenching on dangerous ground.
“I am afraid papa thinks there is something vexing me,” said Lilias, when Mary and she were alone together for a little.
“You have yourself to blame for it,” said Mary, with some asperity; “why did you speak so indifferently of Mrs Greville’s invitation? Usually you would have been very pleased to go.”
“Oh, Mary, don’t scold me,” said Lilias, pathetically. “I couldn’t go to Uxley—you forget how near Romary it is—I should be sure to hear gossip about him—perhaps that he was going to be married, or some falsehood of the kind. I could not bear it. I almost wondered at your saying you would like to go.”
“It will only be for a couple of days,” said Mary.
“But you are not intending to make any plan with Mrs Greville for my leaving home, I hope, Mary?” said Lilias, anxiously. “It may be better for me to go away after a while, but not yet. And if you came upon the subject with Mrs Greville in the very least, she would suspect something. Promise me you will not do anything without telling me.”
“Of course not,” said Mary. “I would not dream of doing such a thing without telling you.”
But her conscience smote her slightly as she spoke. Why?
A design was slowly but steadily taking shape in her mind, and Mrs Greville’s note this morning had strangely forwarded and confirmed it. Practically speaking, indeed, it had done more than confirm it—it had rendered feasible what had before floated in Mary’s brain as an act of devotion scarcely more possible of achievement than poor Prascovia’s journey across Siberia. And though Mary was sensible and reasonable, there lay below this quiet surface stormy possibilities and an impressionability little suspected by those who knew her best. Her mind, too, from dwelling of late so incessantly on her sister’s affairs, had grown morbidly imaginative on the point, though to this she herself was hardly alive.
“I am not superstitious or fanciful—I know I am not. I never have been,” she argued, “yet it does seem as if this invitation to Uxley had come on purpose. If I were superstitious I should think it a ‘sign.’”
And who is not superstitious?—only for no other human weakness have we so many names, so many or such skilfully contrived disguises!
Two days later, “the day after to-morrow,” found Mary on her way to Uxley Vicarage. Mrs Greville had sent her pony-carriage to fetch her. The old man who drove it was very deaf and hopelessly irresponsive, therefore, to the young lady’s kindly-meant civilities in the shape of inquiries about the road and commendation of the fat pony, so before long she felt herself free to lapse into perfect silence, and as they jogged along the pretty country lanes—pretty to-day, though only February, for the sky was clear and the air mild with a faint odour of coming spring about it—Mary had plenty of time to think over her plan of action.
But thinking it over, after all, was not much good, till she knew more of her ground.
“I must to some extent be guided by circumstances,” she said to herself, but with a strong sense of confidence in her own ability to prevent circumstances being too much for her. She had never before felt so certain of herself as now, when about, for the first time in her life, to act entirely on her own responsibility, and the sensation brought with it a curious excitement and invigoration. She had not felt so hopeful or light-hearted since the day of the Brocklehurst bail, and she was thankful to feel so, and to be told by Mrs Greville, when she jumped out of the pony-carriage and was met by her hospitable hostess at the gate, that she had never seen her looking so well in her life.
“There is no fear of her suspecting anything about Lilias,” thought Mary, with relief, “if she thinks me in such good spirits.”
“And how are you all at home, my dear?” said Mrs Greville, as she led Mary into her comfortable drawing-room, and bade her “toast” herself a little before unfastening her wraps. “Your poor dear mother and all?”
“They are all very well, thank you,” Mary replied. “Mamma is quite well, and so pleased at Basil’s getting on so well—we have such good news of him.”
She always felt inclined to make the very best of the family chronicle in answer to Mrs Greville’s inquiries, for though unmistakably prompted by the purest kindness her want of tact often invested them with a slight tone of patronage which Lilias herself could scarcely have resented more keenly than her less impulsive sister. The “poor dear mother,” especially grated on Mary’s ears. “Mamma,” so pretty and young-looking, was no fit object for the “poor dears” of any one but themselves, thought Mrs Western’s tall sons and daughters.
But of course it would have been no less ungrateful than senseless to have taken amiss Mrs Greville’s well-meant interest and sympathy, even when they directed themselves to more delicate ground.
“And what about Lilias, Mary dear?” she inquired next. “I had been longing to hear all about it, and wishing so I had authority to contradict the absurd rumours that I have heard about Captain Beverley. I was dreadfully disappointed at Lilias’s not coming, but consoled myself by thinking you would tell me all about it.”
“But what are the rumours, and what have they to do with Lilias?” asked Mary.
“That’s just what I want to know,” replied Mrs Greville. “Captain Beverley has left Romary suddenly—of course you know that—and some people say he has made a vow never to return there because Miss Cheviott refused him the night of the Brocklehurst ball. That story I don’t believe, of course. Others say it was not Miss Cheviott, but another young lady, whose name no one about here seems to know, but whom he was seen to dance with tremendously that night, who refused him.”
Mrs Greville stopped and looked curiously at Mary, who smiled quietly, but said nothing, and felt increasingly thankful that Lilias had not accompanied her to Uxley.
“And there are stranger stories than these even,” pursued Mrs Greville. “You will think me a terrible gossip, Mary, but in a general way I really don’t listen to idle talk, only I felt so interested in Captain Beverley after what I saw, and I can’t believe any harm of him.”
“Who can have said any harm of him?” inquired Mary. “I should have thought him quite a general favourite; he is so bright, and kindly, and unaffected.”
“Yes, I thought him very nice,” said Mrs Greville. “But there are dreadful stories about, as to the reason of his leaving Romary so suddenly. One is that he has been gambling so furiously that he is embarrassed past redemption, and that he will only come into his property for it to be sold; and another is that Mr Cheviott found out that he had secretly made some low marriage, and turned him out of the house on that account, it having been always intended that he should marry Miss Cheviott.” Mary was standing by the fire looking down on it as Mrs Greville spoke—the reflection of its ruddy glow hid the intense paleness which came over her face, and explained, too, the burning flush which almost instantly succeeded it. She felt obliged to speak, for silence might have seemed suspicious.
“What a shame of people to say such things!” she exclaimed, looking up indignantly. “No, I certainly don’t believe them, but I am glad to know about it all, for it shows what disagreeable gossip there might have been about Lilias had her name been mixed up with it.”
“Yes, indeed, but my dear child, you are scorching your face to cinders—you should not play such pranks with your complexion, though that brawny pink skin of yours is a very good kind to wear, and quite as pretty in my opinion, as Lilias’s lilies and roses—but what was I saying? Oh, yes, by-the-bye, I do wish you would tell me—I shall be as discreet as possible—is Lilias engaged to him?”
Mary hesitated a moment, then she said, gently:
“Dear Mrs Greville, I wish you wouldn’t ask me, for I can’t tell you.”
“Ah, well, never mind,” said her hostess, good-naturedly. “You’ll tell me whenever you can, no doubt, and I hope it will all come right in the end, however it stands at present.”
“Thank you,” said Mary, with sincerity.
Then they went on to talk of other things. Mrs Greville described to Mary the “young people” who were staying with her, two girls and their brother, cousins of Mr Greville’s first wife, and counselled her to make herself as pretty and charming as possible, to fascinate young Morpeth, who would be a conquest by no means to be despised.
“He is nothing at present,” she said; “he has a thousand a year, and his sisters the same between them. They are orphans and have had no settled home since their mother’s death. Vance Morpeth is talking of going into the cavalry for a few years, but his elder sister is against it, and he will be too old if he isn’t quick about it. They have been abroad all the winter. Now remember, Mary, you are to do your best to captivate him, unless, indeed,” she went on, as Mary was turning to her with some smiling rejoinder—“unless you have some little secret of your own too, with that haughty-looking Mr Cheviott for its hero.”
The smile died out of Mary’s face.
“Don’t joke about that man, please, Mrs Greville,” she said, beseechingly. “You do not know how I dislike him. I have never regretted anything more in my whole life than dancing with him that night.”
And just then the time-piece striking five, she was glad to make the excuse that she would be late for dinner unless she hurried up-stairs to get her things unpacked, for fashionable hours had not yet penetrated to Uxley.
“Yes, go, my dear,” said Mrs Greville. “Fancy, we have been a whole hour talking over the fire. I hear the Morpeths coming in—they must have been a very long walk, and it’s quite dark outside. I cannot understand why people can’t go walks in the morning instead of putting off till late in the afternoon, and then catching colds and all sorts of disagreeables. Run off, Mary. I dare say you would rather not see them till you are dressed.”
Which Mary, who cared very little for seeing “them” at all, rightly interpreted as meaning, “I don’t want Mr Morpeth to see you till you are nicely dressed, and looking to the best advantage.”
Her powers of looking her best depended much more on herself than on her clothes, for her choice of attire was limited enough. But the suppressed excitement under which she was labouring had given unusual brilliance to Mary’s at all times beautiful brown eyes, and a certain vivacity to her manner, in general somewhat too staid and sober for her age. So she looked more than “pretty” this evening, though her dress was nothing but a many-times-washed white muslin, brightened up here and there by a little rose-coloured ribbon.
“I thought you told me that it was not the pretty Miss Western that you expected?” said Mr Morpeth to Mrs Greville in a low voice, after the introductions had been accomplished.
Mrs Greville glanced up to the young man as she answered. There was a puzzled expression in his innocent-looking eyes; she saw that he was quite in earnest, and, indeed, she felt sure he was too little, of a man of the world to have intended his inquiry for a compliment.
“Does that mean that you think this one pretty?” she asked.
“Of course it does. I think she’s awfully pretty, don’t you?” he said, frankly.
Mrs Greville felt well pleased, but the announcement of dinner interrupted any more talk between them. Mr Morpeth had to take Mrs Greville, but she took care that Mary should sit at his other side.
“How would you define ‘awfully pretty,’ Mary?” she said, mischievously, when they were all seated at table, and the grace had been said, and nobody seemed to have anything particular to talk about.
“Awfully pretty,” repeated Mary. “Awfully pretty what?”
“An ‘awfully pretty’ girl was the ‘what’ in question,” said Mr Morpeth, shielding himself by taking the bull by the horns, with more alertness than Mrs Greville had given him credit for.
Mary smiled.
“I could easily define, or point out to you rather, what, if I were a man, I should call an awfully pretty girl in this very neighbourhood,” she said, turning to Mrs Greville.
“I know whom you mean,” replied her hostess. “Miss Cheviott, is it not? Yes, she is exceedingly pretty. You have not seen her, Frances,” she went on to the eldest Miss Morpeth. “I wish you could.”
“Shall we not see her at church on Sunday?” said Miss Morpeth. “Are not the Cheviotts the principal people here, now?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Greville, “but they are a good deal away from home.” Here Mary’s heart almost stopped beating—this was what she had been longing yet dreaded to inquire about—what would become of all her plans should Mr Cheviott be away? But it was not so. “They are a good deal away from home,” Mrs Greville went on, “and there is another church nearer Romary than ours, where they go in the morning. But they very often—indeed, almost always the last few weeks, come to Uxley in the afternoon—Mr Cheviott likes Mr Greville’s preaching better than the old man’s at Romary Moor.”
“That’s not much of a compliment, my dear,” said Mr Greville from the end of the table, “considering that poor old Wells is so asthmatic that you can hardly catch a word he says now.”
A little laugh went round, and under cover of it Mary managed to say gently to Mr Greville:
“Then Mr Cheviott is at Romary now?”
“Oh, yes; saw him this morning riding past,” was the reply.
Mary gave a little sigh of relief, yet her heart beat faster for the rest of the evening.
“I wonder if I must do it to-morrow,” she said to herself, “or not till the day after. I have only the two days to count upon, and supposing he is out and I have to go again! I must try for to-morrow, I think.”
“Romary is just two miles from here, is it not?” she said, in a commonplace tone.
“Not so much,” replied Mr Greville. “Have you never seen it? It is quite a show place.”
“I was there once—some years ago,” said Mary.
“It is very much improved of late. If the family had been away we might easily have driven you over to see it,” said Mr Greville, good-naturedly. “However, some other time, perhaps, when your sister is here too. You must come over oftener this summer,” he added, utterly forgetting, if ever he had quite taken in, all his wife’s confidences about the Western girls’ wonderful successes at the Brocklehurst ball, and her more recent misgiving that something had “come between” Lilias and “that handsome Captain Beverley.”
“Thank you,” said Mary; and after this no more was said about Romary or the Cheviotts.
Chapter Fourteen.
Mr Cheviott’s Ultimatum.
”‘But methinks,’ quoth I, under my breath,
‘’Twas but cowardly work.’”
Songs of Two Worlds.
The next morning gave promise of a fine day, and Mary felt that she must be in readiness to seize any favourable opportunity for her meditated expedition.
“For to-morrow,” she said to herself, while she was dressing, “may be wet and stormy, and I must not weaken my position by making myself look ridiculous, if I can help it. And I certainly should look the reverse of dignified if I trudged over to Romary in a waterproof and goloshes! I very much doubt if I should get a sight of Mr Cheviott at all in such a case.”
She was trying to laugh at herself, by way of keeping up her spirits, but of real laughter there was very little in her heart. Even yesterday’s excitement seemed to have deserted her, and but for a curious kind of self-reliance, self-trust rather, which Mary possessed a good deal of, the chances are that she would have given up her intention and returned to Hathercourt and to Lilias, feeling that the attempt to interfere had been impossible for her.
“But I foresaw this,” she said to herself, reassuringly. “I knew I should lose heart and courage when it came to close quarters—but close quarters is not the best position for deciding such an action as this. I must remember that I resolved upon what I am going to do deliberately and coolly. It seemed to me a right thing to do, and I must have faith in my own decision. At the worst, at the very worst, all that can happen to me will be that that man will think I am mad, or something like it, to take such a step—perhaps he will make a good story of it, and laugh me over with his friends—though I must say he hasn’t the look of being given to laugh at anything! But why need I care if he does? I care nothing, less than nothing, what he thinks of me. I can keep my own self-respect, and that is all I need to care about.”
And so speaking to herself, in all sincerity, with no bravado or exaggeration, Mary more firmly riveted her own decision, and determined to go back upon it no more.
But she was paler than usual this, morning when she made her appearance at Mrs Greville’s breakfast-table, and her eyes had an unmistakable look of anxiety and weariness.
“Have you not slept well, my dear Mary?” asked Mrs Greville, kindly. “You look so tired, and last night you looked so very well.”
Mary’s colour rose quickly at these words and under the consciousness of a somewhat searching glance from Mr Morpeth, who was seated opposite her.
“I am perfectly well, thank you,” she replied, to her hostess, “but somehow I don’t think I did sleep quite as soundly as usual.”
“Miss Western’s room is not haunted, surely?” said Mr Morpeth, laughing. “All this sounds so like the preamble to some ghostly revelation.”
“No, indeed. There is no corner of this house that we could possibly flatter ourselves was haunted. I wish there were—it is all so very modern,” said Mrs Greville. “At Romary, now, there is such an exquisite haunted room—or suite of rooms rather. They are never used, but I think them the prettiest rooms in the house. It is so provoking that the Cheviotts are at home just now. I should so have liked you and Cecilia to see the house, Frances—and you, too, Mary, as you had never been there, and we can get an order from the agent any time.”
“I think the outside of the house as well worth seeing as any part of it,” said Mr Greville. “It is so well situated, and seen from the high road it looks very well indeed. By-the-bye, I shall be driving that way this afternoon if any of you young ladies care to come with me in the dog-cart? I am going on to Little Bexton, but if you don’t care to come so far, I could drop you about Romary, and you could walk back. The country is not pretty after that. Would you like to come, Frances? Cecilia has a cold, I hear.”
“Yes,” said Cecilia, “but not a very bad one. But I don’t think either of us can go, Mr Greville, for Miss Bentley is coming to see us this afternoon, and we must not be out.”
“Mary, then?” said Mr Greville.
Mary’s heart was beating fast, and she was almost afraid that the tremble in her voice was perceptible as she replied that she would enjoy the drive very much, she was sure.
“But I will not go all the way to Little Bexton, I think, if you don’t mind dropping me on the road. I should like the walk home,” she said to Mr Greville, and so it was decided. And for a wonder nothing came in the way.
It was years and years since Mary had been at Romary. When Mr Greville “dropped her” on the road, at a point about half a mile beyond the lodge gates, all about her seemed so strange and unfamiliar that she could scarcely believe she had ever been there before. Strange and unfamiliar, even though she was not more than ten miles from her own home, and though the general features of the landscape were the same. For to a real dweller in the country, differences and variations, which by a casual visitor are unobservable, are extraordinarily obtrusive. Mary had lived all her life at Hathercourt, and knew its fields and its trees, its cottages and lanes, as accurately as the furniture of her mother’s drawing-room. It was strange to her to meet even a dog on the road whose ownership she was unacquainted with, and when a countryman or two passed her with half a stare of curiosity instead of the familiar “Good-day to you, Miss Mary,” she felt herself “very far west” indeed, and instinctively hastened her steps.
“It is a good thing no one does know me about here,” she said to herself; “but how strange it seems! What a different life we have led from most people nowadays! I dare say it would never occur to Miss Cheviott, for instance, to think it at all strange to meet people on the road whose names and histories she knew nothing of. Young as she is, I dare say she has more friends and acquaintances than she can remember. How different from Lilias and me—ah, yes, it is that that makes what her brother has done so awfully wrong—so mean—but will he understand? Shall I be able to show it him?”
Mary stopped short—she was close to the lodge gates now. She stood still for a moment in a sort of silence of excitement and determination—then resolutely walked on again and hesitated no more. These Romary lodge gates had become to her a Rubicon.
It was a quarter of a mile at least from the gates to the house, but to Mary it seemed scarcely half a dozen yards. As in a dream she walked on steadily, heedless of the scene around her, that at another time would have roused her keen admiration—the beautiful old trees, beautiful even in leafless February; the wide stretching park with its gentle ups and downs and far-off boundary of forestland; the wistful-eyed deer, too tame to be scared by her approach; the sudden vision of a rabbit scuttering across her path—Mary saw none of them. Only once as she stood still for an instant to unlatch a gate in the wire fence inclosing the grounds close to the house, she looked round her and her gaze rested on a cluster of oaks at a little distance.
“When I see that clump of trees next,” she said to herself, “it will be over, and I shall know Lilias’s fate.”
Then she walked on again.
The bell clanged loudly as she pulled it at the hall door—to Mary, at least, it sounded so, and the interval was very short between its tones fading away into silence and the door’s being flung open by a footman, who gave a little start of astonishment when Mary’s unfamiliar voice caught his ear.
“I thought it was Miss Cheviott; I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, civilly enough, and the civility was a relief to Mary. “Is it Miss Cheviott you wish to see?”
“No, thank you,” said Mary, quietly. “I want to see Mr Cheviott, if he is at home—on a matter of business, perhaps you will be good enough to say.”
The man looked puzzled, and, for a moment, hesitated.
“If it is anything I could say, perhaps,” he began. “Unless it was anything very particular. My master is very busy to-day, and gave orders not to be disturbed.”
“It is something particular—that is to say, I wish to see Mr Cheviott himself. Perhaps you will inquire if he is to be seen,” said Mary, more coldly.
The man looked at her again, and Mary felt glad she had not her old waterproof cloak on. As it was, she was prettily, at least not unbecomingly, dressed in a thick, rough tweed and small, close-fitting felt hat. Her boots were neat, and her gloves—the only new pair she had had this winter—fitted well. There was nothing about her attire plainer or poorer than what would be worn by many a girl of her age, “regardless of expense,” for a country ramble. And Mr Cheviott’s servant was not to know it was all her Sunday best! Then she was tall! An immense advantage, now and then, in life.
“Certainly, ma’am, I will inquire at once,” said the man. He was a new-comer who had served a town apprenticeship to the dangers of indiscriminate admittance, and felt, despite appearances, he must be on his guard against a young woman who so resolutely demanded a personal interview with a gentleman. A man in disguise—what might she not be? But something in Mary’s low-toned “thank you” re-assured him.
“Will you step into the library while I ask?” he said, amiably, and Mary judged it best to do as he proposed.
There was no one in the library, and one of Mary’s but half-acknowledged wild hopes faded away as she entered the empty room. She had had a dream of perhaps meeting with Alys in the first place—the girl with the beautiful face and bewitching smile—of her guessing her errand, and pleading on her side.
“She looked so sympathisingly at me that night at Brocklehurst,” thought Mary—“almost as if she suspected my anxiety. Oh! if only I could talk to her, instead of that proud, cold brother of hers!”
But there was no Alys in the library, and an instant’s thought reminded Mary that of course she, a stranger calling on “business,” would not have been ushered except by mistake into Miss Cheviott’s presence, and she gave a little sigh as she mechanically crossed the room and stood gazing out of the window.
The servant’s voice recalled her thoughts.
“Your name, if you please, ma’am?” he was asking.
Mary was prepared for this.
“It would be no use giving my name,” she said quietly. “If you will be so good as to say to Mr Cheviott that I am only in this neighbourhood for a day or two, and have called to see him purely on a matter of business, I shall be much obliged to you.”
The man left the room. He went into Mr Cheviott’s Study by another door than the one by which it communicated with the library, but through this last, firmly closed though it was, in a moment or two the murmur of voices caught Mary’s quick ears, then some words, spoken loudly enough for her to distinguish their Sense.
“Where, do you say—in the library? A lady! Nonsense, it must be some mistake.”
Then the servant’s voice again in explanation. Mary moved away from the vicinity of the treacherous door.
A minute or two passed. Then the man appeared again.
“I am sorry, ma’am,” he began, apologetically, “but particularly obliged by your sending my master your name. He is so much engaged to-day—would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and—” He hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to Mr Cheviott that very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him.
“It is something particular,” said Mary, chafing inwardly not a little at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of Mr Cheviott—“as if he were a royal personage almost,” she said to herself. “You can tell Mr Cheviott that the business on which I wish to see him is something particular; and my name is Miss Western.”
Again the envoy disappeared. Again the murmuring voices through the door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and some one came into the library. Not the man-servant this time, nor did he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for Mr Cheviott, advancing but one step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned sharply and closed the door in the man’s face before giving any sign of recognition of his visitor—before, in fact, seeming to have perceived her at all. Then he came forward slowly.
Mary was still standing; as Mr Cheviott came nearer her, she bowed slightly, and began at once to speak.
“I can hardly expect you to recognise me,” she said, calmly. “I am Miss Western, the second Miss Western, from Hathercourt.”
Mr Cheviott bowed.
“I had the pleasure of being intro—I had the honour of meeting you at one of the Brocklehurst balls,” he said, inquiringly.
“Yes,” said Mary, “and once before—at Hathercourt Church one Sunday when you and your friends came over to the morning service. Before that day I do not think I ever heard your name, and yet I have come to your house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old friend—to ask you to listen while I try to make you see that you have been interfering unwarrantably in other people’s affairs; that what you have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that I believe you will repent, Mr Cheviott, if you are not already doing so?”
She raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and, for the first time, looked up, straight into Mr Cheviott’s face. She had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her, as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. Now she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. It seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for Mr Cheviott to speak first.
She looked at him, and for an instant there was silence. His countenance was not so stern and impassive as she had once before seen it, but its expression was even more unpromising. It bespoke extreme annoyance and surprise, “disgusted surprise,” said Mary to herself; “he thinks me lost to all sense of propriety, I can see.”
She could not see her own face; she was unconscious of the pale anxiety which overspread it, of the wistful questioning in the brown eyes which Mr Cheviott remembered so bright and sunny; she could not know that it would have needed a more than hard heart, an actually cruel one, not to be touched by the intensity in her young face—by the pathos of her position of appeal.
At first some instinct—a not unchivalrous instinct either—urged Mr Cheviott to refrain from a direct reply to Mary’s unmistakably direct attack.
“Will she not regret this fearfully afterwards?” he said to himself. “When she finds that I remain quite untouched, when she decides, as she must, that I am a brute! I will give her time to draw back by showing her the uselessness of all this before she commits herself further.”
But Mary saw his hesitation, and it deepened the resentment with which she heard his reply.
“Miss Western,” he said, “you must be under some extraordinary delusion. I will not pretend entire ignorance of what your words—words that, of course, from a lady I cannot resent—of what your words refer to, but pray stop before you say more. I ventured once before to try to warn you—or rather another through you, and this, I suppose, has led to your taking this—this very unusual step,” (“what a mean brute I am making of myself,” he said to himself, “but it is the kindest in the end to show her the hopelessness at once”)—“under, I must repeat, some delusion, or rather complete misapprehension of my possible influence in the matter.”
Mary was silent.
“You must allow me to remind you,” continued Mr Cheviott, hating himself, or the self he was obliged to make himself appear, more and more with each word he uttered, “that you are very young and inexperienced, and little attentions—passing trivialities, in fact, which more worldly-wise young ladies would attach no significance to, may have acquired a mistaken importance with you and your sister. I am very sorry—very sorry that any one connected with me should have acted so thoughtlessly; but you must allow, Miss Western, that I warned you—Went out of my way to warn you, as delicately as I knew how, when I saw the danger of—of—any mistake being made.”
Mary heard him out. Then she looked up again, with no appeal this time in her eyes, but in its stead righteous wrath and indignation.
“You are not speaking the truth,” she said, “at least, what you are inferring is not the truth. If it were the case that Captain Beverley’s ‘attentions’ to my sister were so trifling and meaningless—such as he may have paid to other girls scores of times—why did you go out of your way to warn us? It could not possibly have been out of respect for us; you knew and cared as little about us as we about you, and if you had said it was out of any care for us, the saying so would have been an unwarrantable freedom. No, Mr Cheviott, you knew Captain Beverley was in earnest, and your pride took fright lest he should make so poor a marriage. That is the truth, but I wish you had not made matters worse by denying it.”
The blood mounted to Mr Cheviott’s forehead; his dark face looked darker. That last speech of his had been a false move, and Mary knew it, and he knew it; still his presence of mind did not desert him.
“Believing what you do, then, Miss Western—I shall not again trouble you to believe anything I say—may I ask how, supposing my cousin to have been, as you express it, in earnest, you explain his not having gone further?”
“How I explain it?” exclaimed Mary. “You ask me that? I explain it by the fact that brought me here; you stopped his going further.”
“Influenced, no doubt, by the pride you alluded to just now.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mary, dejectedly. “Influenced, at least, by some motive that blinded you to what you were doing. A girl’s broken heart is a trifle, I know, but the loss of a good influence over a man’s life is not a trifle, even you will allow. Captain Beverley thinks he owes you a great deal; I strongly suspect he owes you a great deal more than he at present realises. Mr Cheviott, do you not know that what you have done is a wrong and bad thing?”
Again her eyes took the pleading expression. Mr Cheviott turned away to avoid it. Then he said, very coldly:
“It is extremely unpleasant to have to say unpleasant things, but you force me to it. Supposing, for argument’s sake—supposing things were as you believe, I should certainly act as you believe I have acted. I should by every means in my power, endeavour to prevent my cousin’s making a marriage which would be utterly ill-advised and unsuitable, which would destroy his happiness, and which I cannot believe would be for the happiness of any one concerned.”
Mary’s face grew white as death. It was all over, then. She had lowered herself to this man for nothing. In the misery of thoroughly realising her defeat—the downthrow of all the hopes which unconsciously she had been cherishing more fondly than she had had any idea of—she, for the moment, forgot to be angry—she lost sight, as it were, of Mr Cheviott; in the depth of her disappointment, he became simply the incarnation of a cruel fate.
But he, at this juncture, was very far from losing sight of Mary. Her silent pallor frightened him, he thought she was going to faint, and he felt as if he were a murderer. A rush of pity and compunction roused his instinct of hospitality.
“Miss Western,” he said, gently, and with a look in his eyes of which Mary, when she afterwards recalled it, could not altogether deny the kindness and sympathy, “I fear you have overtired yourself. This wretched business has been too much for you. Will you allow me to get you a glass of wine?”
Mary hastily shook her head, and the effort to recover her self-control—for she felt herself on the point of bursting into tears—brought back the colour to her cheeks.
“I will go now,” she said, turning towards the door.
Mr Cheviott interrupted her.
“Will you not allow me to say one word of regret for the pain I have caused you?” he said, anxiously, humbly almost, “will you not allow me to say how deeply I admire and—and respect your courage and sisterly devotion?”
Mary shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I could not believe you if you said anything of the kind, knowing you now as I do. And I earnestly hope I may never see you and never speak to you again.”
The words were childish, but the tone and manner gave them force, and their force went home. Mr Cheviott winced visibly. Yet once again he spoke.
“You may resent my saying so at present,” he said, “but afterwards you may be glad to recall my assurance that no one shall ever hear from me one word of what has been said just now.”
Mary turned upon him with ineffable contempt.
“I dare say not,” she said. “For your own sake you will do well to keep silence. For mine you may tell it where and to whom you choose.”
Again Mr Cheviott’s face flushed.
“You are a foolish child,” he said, under his breath. Whether Mary caught the words or not he could not tell, but in a gentler tone she added, as she was passing through the door-way, “I think, however, I should tell you that no one—my sister, of course not—no one knows of my coming here to-day.”
Mr Cheviott bowed.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, with what Mary imagined to be extreme irony.
He crossed the hall with her, and opened the large door himself. But Mary did not look at him as she passed out. And, when she had got some way down the carriage-drive in sight of the dump of oak trees, she burst into a flood of bitter tears. Tears that Mr Cheviott suspected, though he did not see them.
“Poor child,” he said, as he returned to his study, “I trust she will meet no one in the park. Those gossiping servants—Well, surely I can never have a more wretched piece of work to go through than this! What a mean, despicable snob she thinks me!” he laughed, bitterly. “Why, I wonder, is it the fate of some people to be constantly doing other people’s dirty work? I have had my share of it, Heaven knows; but I think I am growing quite reckless to what people think of me. What eyes that child has—and how she must love that sister of hers! If it had been she that Arthur had made a fool of himself about—”