CHAPTER II.
IN A STRAIT.
Geoffrey Doyne had but spoken the truth when he said that his brother’s letter was a most imperative one. It had contained as sharp a summons as it was possible to send a man:—
‘Come up to London as soon as ever you receive this,’ it ran. ‘I must see you at once, and on business of the utmost importance.’
The brothers had inherited money at the death of their mother, which was invested in stock, and under the management of Michael Doyne, and Geoffrey naturally thought that his presence was needed on account of some selling-out or buying-in. His brother did not seem to him to have a soul above money. He could not imagine his troubling himself on any other matter.
He went up to town by an early train the following day, and the same idea was in his mind as he entered the lawyer’s office.
‘What’s up now?’ he said, as he encountered Michael’s portentous countenance. ‘Have Persians fallen, or Hudson’s Bay gone up? I do wish you could manage these matters without my interference, Michael. You know how I detest business, and how perfectly I am satisfied that you know a great deal more about it than I do.’
‘But this is unfortunately a matter which I could not settle on my own authority,’ replied his brother gravely. ‘Come into the inner office, Geoffrey. I cannot speak to you unless we are perfectly alone.’
‘This looks ominous,’ cried Geoffrey gaily, as he ensconced himself in an arm-chair and flicked the dust off his dainty boots.
‘It is ominous,’ replied the other, ‘and I trust you are not going to make a jest of it. It is likely to cause trouble enough before long, unless I can bring you to reason.’
‘What are you driving at?’ said Geoffrey.
‘Simply this—that Dr Robertson called at my office yesterday morning and gave me a piece of information that horrified me.’
The younger brother changed colour.
‘Well, go on,’ he said carelessly; ‘what had the old gentleman to say for himself?’
‘You know, Geoffrey, as well as I do. He came to tell me that you had broken off your engagement with his daughter Jessie.’
‘It is not true; it was Jessie who broke off her engagement with me.’
‘I cannot believe it, Geoffrey. Dr Robertson came to me in the greatest distress. He said that both he and his wife had observed that their daughter was out of health and spirits for some weeks past, but that they had not connected the circumstance with your engagement until they noticed that all correspondence had ceased between you. Then they questioned Jessie, and the truth came out—that you had written to her some time back, and said you didn’t care for her.’
‘Not exactly that,’ replied Geoffrey; ‘but I told her I did not care for her as I ought to do for the woman I was going to make my wife; and that’s the truth, Michael. I don’t care for her, and I never shall; and under the circumstances, it would be perfectly absurd my marrying her!’
‘You should have thought of that before you proposed to her,’ remarked Michael drily.
‘I did; but I was drawn into it. You know I was as thoroughly “hooked” by the old woman as ever a man could be.’
‘Perhaps you were—that is your own business; but having been “hooked,” as you call it, you must submit to be “landed.”’
‘Do you mean to say, then, that you consider I am bound to marry Jessie Robertson?’
‘I do, most decidedly.’
‘What! After she has sent me back my letters and presents?’
‘That has nothing to do with it, Geoffrey. The poor girl sent them back because she was ignorant how else to act. Had she consulted her parents, they would not have permitted her to do so. Jessie would set you free as it is; but Dr and Mrs Robertson are quite of a different opinion. They won’t let you off so easily.’
‘They intend to keep me to my word?’
‘I am afraid there is no doubt of it. The doctor might be talked over, but you know what his wife is. He says she is furious, and declares that, if you refuse to keep to your engagement with Jessie, she will sue you for a breach of promise; and that’s a sort of thing our family could not allow, you know, Geoffrey.’
The younger man sat silent and sullen, with a face of the deepest perplexity.
‘I must get out of it somehow,’ he said presently. ‘You are cleverer than I am, Michael; can’t you help me?’
‘I don’t see my way to it, Geoffrey. You proposed to the girl of your own accord, and the engagement has been made public. What earthly excuse can you have for getting out of it?’
‘Why, that I don’t love her, and that I won’t marry her. No; by George! I won’t, if I hang for it!’
‘There’s another woman in the case,’ remarked his brother casually.
‘Yes, there is,’ said Geoffrey.
‘Some girl at Ines-cedwyn?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I heard of it when I was down at Lynwern. Well, I daresay it will be hard lines, Geoffrey; but you must give her up. You can’t marry them both.’
‘I won’t marry Jessie Robertson,’ said Geoffrey stoutly.
‘You must, man—you must! Don’t talk nonsense; try to look at the matter in a reasonable light. After all, it’s only a toss-up between them, and why should one girl suffer more than the other? There are certain social laws, you know, Geoffrey, which we cannot break with impunity, and this is one of them. Your honour is concerned in your keeping your engagement, and you cannot cancel it without disgracing the whole family. For our sakes, therefore (if not for your own), you must do the right thing by Jessie Robertson.’
‘My honour may be concerned elsewhere as well,’ rejoined Geoffrey, in a somewhat lowered voice, ‘and my happiness as well as my honour. Michael, I will pay any forfeit, or incur any penalty they may choose to put upon me; but I cannot, and I will not, marry Jessie. I will cut my throat first.’
‘No, don’t do that,’ said his brother, as if he had proposed a thing of every-day occurrence. ‘I don’t approve of marriage myself as a rule, but I think of the two courses it would be the preferable one to pursue. Little Jessie isn’t half bad, you know, when you come to think of it; and if you would only believe me, my dear fellow,’ he continued, as he laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder, ‘one woman will be just the same to you as another when you have been married for three months.’
‘Ah! That’s what you think of it,’ said Geoffrey; ‘it shows how much you know of the matter.’
‘Is this young lady at Ines-cedwyn, then, so very handsome?’
‘No.’
‘Clever?’
‘Not particularly so.’
‘Rich?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then what’s the great attraction in her, that you should wish to break the heart of a good little girl like Jessie Robertson for her sake?’
‘It is one that I don’t think you’d understand, Michael,—I love her!’
The lawyer laughed.
‘My dear boy, I’ve heard you say the same thing so often before. Excuse me if I think you could manage that (if you tried) with any one of the sex.’
‘At any rate, I don’t intend to try it with Jessie Robertson.’
Michael Doyne looked grave; he did not like this determined refusal on the part of his brother. It looked so much as if (for once) Geoffrey were in earnest.
‘Well, look here!’ he said suddenly; ‘if you really want to get out of this scrape, Geoffrey, you can only do it by persuading the old people to let you off. Suppose you meet me at the Robertsons’ this evening to talk the matter over? Will you do so?’
‘I shall tell them the truth,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I shall tell them I’m in love with somebody else, and they must think what they like of it.’
‘Perhaps that will be the best plan, after all,’ replied his brother; ‘but, at any rate, you must see them. It was only by promising to summon you to London that I dissuaded the old man from following you to Lynwern.’
‘Was it so bad as that?’ asked Geoffrey, startled.
‘It was, indeed! They’re in a rare state in Blenheim Square, I can tell you, and would have written straight off to the pater if I had not promised a lot of things in your name, which I trust you will be found ready to fulfil. I hardly know how the pater would take this, Geoffrey. The Robertsons are his oldest friends, as you know; and he would be quick to resent an affront to them. I’m not sure but what it might militate against your future prospects!’
‘I can’t help it if it does,’ said Geoffrey, with a sigh. ‘I am not going to blast all my happiness for life to please anybody.’
‘Ah! That’s only talking,’ replied his brother carelessly, as he bid him good-bye, and told him not to fail to keep his appointment in Blenheim Square at nine o’clock.
Geoffrey strolled towards his club, ill at ease. He did not waver for a moment from his determination, but he was afraid he might have trouble in keeping to it. He would have had little fear of being able to make Dr Robertson see the matter in a sensible light, but the doctor was unfortunately a cipher in his own house, where Mrs Robertson reigned supreme; and Geoffrey (in common with the rest of mankind) stood terribly in awe of her.
He tried to divert his thoughts and while away the time by purchasing the promised locket for Fenella—a gold locket with a wreath of laurel on it in blue enamel—(was it prophetic of her future destiny?)—surrounding the emblems of Love and Faith and Hope. Geoffrey thought the design a pretty one, and bought the trinket on the spot. Fenella would think of him when she saw the laurel—the laurel which grows to adorn the head of heroes; and the cross and heart and anchor were emblematic of her own feelings—feelings which he had called God to witness should never be wounded through his means.
It was something to do to buy the locket, and have a piece of his hair put in it, and see it packed and addressed to Ines-cedwyn, and to picture the innocent delight of the receiver when it reached her hands the following morning. But still hours intervened before he could set off to keep his appointment in Blenheim Square, and the men who met him at his club, and ‘chaffed’ him on keeping out of town at the best season of the year, could not imagine what had come to Geoffrey Doyne—he was so distrait and peevish, not to say rude, in the irritation caused by his perplexity and doubt. When at last he reached the house, Michael was ready to receive him in the hall.
‘I thought it better for me to come here first, and smooth matters over a little,’ he said as his brother entered.
‘I almost wish now that I had written instead,’ replied Geoffrey. ‘However, I am sure that Dr Robertson is too sensible not to understand my motives.’
‘I am afraid the doctor is out,’ said Michael Doyne. ‘However, you will see Mrs Robertson, and it is all the same thing.’
He knew it was not the same thing, and so did his brother, but it was too late for remonstrance. Geoffrey was already on the threshold of the library, where Mrs Robertson sat in state to receive him.
To say that this lady was a conglomeration of all the most ferocious mothers-in-law that ever existed, is not to say too much. Her sharp tongue and vixenish temper were well known in the circle of her acquaintance, and she joined them to an obstinacy that was unequalled. It was she alone who had insisted upon Geoffrey Doyne being brought to book for his defalcation, and forced to fulfil his promises to her daughter. Good old Dr Robertson might have shaken his head over his faithlessness to his dying day, but he would never have dreamt of insisting that he should marry the girl; and Jessie herself, although she inherited somewhat of her mother’s spirit, was too young to have made such good use of it. But Mrs Robertson was above such petty scruples. Jessie was one of seven daughters, and this young man, who had the most excellent prospects, had formally entered into an engagement to marry her, and now wanted to back out of it, and her mother was determined to know the reason why. So she sat, enthroned in her husband’s arm-chair, ready to receive the culprit—her sandy hair drawn tightly off her forehead, as though to say she would admit of no compromise, and her hard steel-grey eyes fixed on him with the look of an inquisitor.
Geoffrey Doyne, though with some hesitation, advanced in the old way, and held out his hand.
‘No, thank you, Mr Doyne,’ she said tartly; ‘not until this most unpleasant business is settled between us. Be good enough to seat yourself. I am glad your brother is here to be witness to what passes at our interview.’
Geoffrey flushed to the temples, but he did as she desired him.
‘My brother is here as my friend, Mrs Robertson,’ he replied. ‘Otherwise he can have no possible concern in my private affairs.’
‘I don’t know that, Mr Doyne,’ said his hostess. ‘Did you come here as our friend, it might be so; but under the circumstances, I should think very few gentlemen would be found willing to take your side.’
‘Do you mean to insinuate, madam—’ commenced Geoffrey hotly; but Michael came between them as mediator.
‘Mrs Robertson,’ he said, ‘I persuaded my brother to come here to-night that we might have an explanation, not a quarrel; and I do not see how recrimination can help the cause on either side. Will you hear what he has to say in extenuation of his conduct, or would you prefer to be the first to speak?’
‘I wish to say first what I think of him,’ replied Mrs Robertson.
‘Let it be so, then. Geoffrey, you see the justice of this. Mrs Robertson is not only a lady and your hostess, but she stands in the position of the injured party. Let me ask you, therefore, to listen patiently to whatever she may have to say, and you can justify your own action in the matter afterwards.’
‘Which, I should imagine, Mr Geoffrey Doyne will find it most difficult to do,’ interposed Mrs Robertson.
‘No such thing, madam,’ broke in Geoffrey warmly. ‘I have the best possible excuse—’
But Michael came again to the rescue.
‘Patience, my dear fellow—patience! You will never arrive at a satisfactory conclusion unless each consents to hear what the other has to say.’
Geoffrey sank into his chair again; and Mrs Robertson turned her back on him without ceremony.
‘You will excuse me, Mr Doyne,’ she said to the elder brother, ‘if I prefer, for the present at all events, to address myself to you. The case stands simply thus. Last year Mr Geoffrey Doyne stayed for a month in our house, and I trusted him implicitly in the company of all my daughters, with whom he appeared on the best of terms—’
‘Of course I was. I romped with one as much as the other,’ interposed Geoffrey.
But Mrs Robertson took no notice of the remark.
‘After a while, however, I perceived that he admired Jessie above the rest; indeed, on several occasions I had seen familiarities take place between them—’
‘She used to come and sit on my lap whether I would or no,’ grumbled Geoffrey.
‘So I considered it my duty as a mother,’ continued the lady, waving her hand, as though to wave the younger brother off into infinitesimal space, ‘to ask him his intentions with regard to her, and was greatly astonished to find that he had no intentions whatever.’
‘Of course I hadn’t—never thought of such a thing,’ said Geoffrey.
‘But you ought to have thought of it; it was most reprehensible,’ replied his brother, frowning.
‘I am so glad you see it in our light, dear Mr Doyne,’ rejoined Mrs Robertson; ‘for it is hard, after so many years of friendly intercourse have subsisted between the families, to think of a rupture taking place now. The dear doctor feels it keenly. The suspense has quite aged him.’
‘Oh, it must not be,’ said Michael decidedly; and Geoffrey felt a chill run through him at the words.
‘Of course I remonstrated with your brother,’ resumed Mrs Robertson, ‘as he will do me the justice to acknowledge, and pointed out to him the harm he had done our dear girl, and the misery he had caused her. And then Dr Robertson and his father both spoke to him; and the issue was, that he proposed formally to my husband for Jessie’s hand (we have the letter now, Mr Doyne), and the engagement was ratified between them. Of course our friends all know of it; we never dreamt for a moment that Mr Geoffrey Doyne could be so base to go back from his written word; and the poor child has been actually making the linen for her trousseau for the last three months. When, the other day, as I was questioning her on her altered looks and spirits, she burst into tears, and, to my amazement, told me that it was all over between them; that Mr Geoffrey Doyne had sent for his letters and presents to be returned to him, and that he had been cruel enough to write and tell the dear girl that he had never cared for her, and that he refused to marry her,—the basest, cruellest, most heartless conduct I ever heard of in my life,’ continued Mrs Robertson, trembling with anger, ‘and after the kindness and hospitality he had received at our hands too! But it cannot be allowed, Mr Doyne. I will not sit by quietly and see my poor child pine away in consequence of such treachery. Your brother must fulfil the engagement he entered into with her, or she shall have public compensation for his desertion. The world shall not have it in its power to say that we boasted idly of our daughter’s expectations.’
‘Am I to be allowed to speak now?’ demanded Geoffrey, who had with difficulty kept quiet during the last part of this harangue.
‘If Mrs Robertson has quite finished,’ said his brother coldly.
‘I have said all I wish to say,’ replied the lady, ‘and no explanations Mr Geoffrey Doyne can offer me in return can ever excuse his conduct to my daughter.’
‘Perhaps not in your eyes, madam,’ said Geoffrey; ‘but you have appealed to the judgment of the world. I am glad you have done me the justice to acknowledge that I never had any intention of proposing to Jessie until you forced me to do so. And therein lies my greatest fault. I should have resisted your arguments then as I do now. I have made the task doubly hard by delay. Ever since I yielded to your wishes in that respect, I have seen how wrong I was to do so. Each day has convinced me, more and more, that I am not, and I never was, in love with your daughter, and that, if I marry her we shall only make each other miserable for life. It was with this conviction that I wrote to her a month ago—telling her the truth. I did not say I would not marry her, neither did I ask her to return my letters or presents. I said just what I have told you—that I had not considered sufficiently before I made that proposal of marriage to her, and that I did not care for her so much as I ought to do. And if that is being base and dishonourable in your eyes, it is not in mine. I consider I should have been much more to blame had I married her without telling her the truth.’
‘Unfortunately, you see, Geoffrey, it is not what you think, but what the world will say about the matter,’ remarked Michael gravely; ‘and there is no doubt that a thing of this kind militates against a girl’s prospects in life.’
‘Militates against her prospects!’ cried Mrs Robertson shrilly; ‘I should think it did—it ruins them! Do you suppose I am going to let my daughter be pointed at as having been jilted—and by you!’ she ended, with withering scorn.
‘Would you prefer her, then, to marry a man who does not love her?’ retorted Geoffrey.
‘That is of little consequence,’ replied the lady. ‘No men care for their wives (as far as I can see) in the present day. The mere fact of their being their wives is sufficient to make them indifferent! But my daughter is of a very different disposition from you. She is amiable and affectionate and loving, and I will not see her heart broken and her future prospects spoiled for any man alive.’
‘If you knew all, Mrs Robertson,’ resumed Geoffrey, colouring, ‘you would see that you could not break her heart more readily than by marrying her to me.’
‘You had better make a clean breast whilst you are about it,’ suggested his brother.
‘Perhaps you are right. Well, then, Mrs Robertson, my objection to renewing my engagement with Jessie does not lie wholly in the fact that I do not care sufficiently for her to make her a good husband. There is a stronger reason than that—a more insurmountable one. I am in love with another woman!’
He said the words slowly, as though they contained an argument to quench all her maternal hopes. But they had only the effect of making her more angry and determined.
‘And do you call that an excuse?’ she exclaimed; ‘it is an aggravation of your offence. You are in love with another woman, and so my daughter is to go to the wall! My Jessie is to be deprived throughout life of all you had promised to give her, because you have taken it into your head to set up some one else in her stead. But you will find it is not quite so easy to chop and change in that manner, Mr Doyne. You have pledged your word to my daughter, and you must redeem it—or give her such compensation as the law may award her.’
‘You will surely not bring this matter into court?’ cried Geoffrey, with horror. ‘You will never drag your daughter’s name through the newspapers as the plaintiff in a breach of promise case?’
Mrs Robertson saw her advantage, and clung to it.
‘We certainly shall,’ she replied, ‘unless you think better of the insult you have offered us. The doctor and I have talked this matter over, and he has left it entirely in my hands. He is no more disposed to sit by quietly, and see Jessie’s heart broken without an effort to save her, than I am.’
‘But how can you improve the affair by making it public? You should consider your daughter’s feelings,’ said the young man, in evident distress. He did not perceive that the agitation he evinced was the weakest card he could play into her hands; nor did he guess that the threat she used towards him had been suggested by his astute lawyer brother.
‘That is our business,’ replied Mrs Robertson coldly, ‘and we shall do what we consider best for our child without any reference to her feelings. Neither do I think you are the proper person to remind me of my duty in that respect, Mr Doyne, considering the very little regard you have shown towards them yourself.’
‘What am I to do?’ demanded Geoffrey, in a low voice, of his brother.
‘You’ll have to stick to it, my boy. I don’t see any way out of it,’ replied Michael, in the same tone.
‘I cannot—it is impossible. I will die first,’ said the younger man, in a voice of despair.
‘Well, Mr Doyne,’ exclaimed Mrs Robertson after a short pause, ‘is it of any use our prolonging this interview? Mr Geoffrey does not appear to be disposed to do what is right and honourable in the matter, and therefore it only remains for the doctor and myself to take the steps that seem best to us. And the first thing, I believe, my husband proposes to do is to go down and have an interview with your father at Ryelands.’
‘Might I ask you, my dear Mrs Robertson, as a personal favour to myself,’ said Michael Doyne, in his blandest voice, ‘to allow Geoffrey a couple of days in which to think over what you have said to him? I feel convinced that, if you will do so, we shall have arrived at some satisfactory conclusion by that time. For my sake, Mrs Robertson—will you do it for my sake?’
‘Well, Mr Doyne, for your sake I will; for I know we have your good wishes, although we appear to have lost those of your brother. In a couple of days, then, I shall expect to hear from you; and meanwhile I shall say nothing to my daughter, nor take any more decided steps in the matter. Good-night, dear Mr Doyne; whatever happens, I shall always feel that you have proved yourself a true and faithful friend to us,’ and shaking hands with the elder brother, Mrs Robertson swept out of the room without vouchsafing one glance towards the spot where Geoffrey stood, silent and dejected.
‘Come on, Geoff,’ said Michael briskly, as soon as she had disappeared; ‘we had better be going home; it is no use our remaining longer here.’
The younger man followed him mechanically to the hall door. His brain was in such a whirl he hardly knew what he was about.
‘What am I to do?’ he repeated, in a confused manner, as they walked through the square together.
‘Well, to tell you the plain truth, Geoffrey, I only see one thing for you to do, and that is to renew your engagement, and marry the girl, and take her back to India with you.’
‘You forget the other,’ said Geoffrey gloomily.
‘No, I don’t, my dear boy. I see the mess you’re in as plainly as you do. But the other is a matter of feeling, Geoffrey, and this is a matter of right. Tell me a little about this young lady at Ines-cedwyn. Are her parents staying there?’
‘No; she is with a servant.’
‘You haven’t said anything to them about marrying her, then?’
‘Not yet.’
‘It’s only been a little spooning affair on your own account, eh?’
‘Yes; I suppose you’d call it so.’
‘Well, then, my dear Geoffrey, there’s no question about the matter. You must break it off.’
‘I can’t do that, Michael.’
‘You can, if you choose.’
‘I cannot. There are reasons—’
‘Oh yes! I understand all your reasons before you tell me. You like her much better than this one; in fact, you’re over head and ears in love with her, and you want to marry her, and take her out to India. That’s it now, isn’t it? Well, I allow that it is very hard, and, as I said before, I daresay it will cut you up to have to part from her and marry Jessie Robertson instead; but it must be done, Geoffrey. There’s the long and the short of it. Your honour demands the sacrifice, and respect for your family demands it. We can’t have our name dragged through a breach of promise case, and connected with that of the Robertsons. It would be too disgraceful. I don’t believe my father would ever speak to you again. And then, there’s something to be said for Jessie into the bargain. The girl’s awfully fond of you. The doctor says she’s so changed by your behaviour, that you’d hardly know her; and I don’t see why she should be made to suffer any more than the other one. You can’t keep your word to both, that’s clear; and Jessie Robertson will bear the more open disgrace of the two, if you break with her. Now, do go home and try to think it over in that light. Some one must bear the brunt of your folly in any case; but if you persevere in your present determination, we shall all have to bear it, which isn’t quite fair upon us.’
Geoffrey did go home—miserable, undecided, and almost hopeless. Still, he trusted that something might turn up to help him out of his difficulty—that Jessie’s parents might relent, or the girl herself refuse to renew their engagement. Surely, he thought, if he told her to her face he didn’t love her, she would never hold him to his word.
Meanwhile there was no reason that his poor trusting Fenella should suffer for his fault. Time enough for her to learn the worst when the worst came. So he sat down and wrote her a long loving letter (such as he knew she would carry in her bosom all the day), and told her he was afraid his business would detain him in town longer than he had expected; but he did not mention what that business was. And when he had finished the letter, he laid his head down upon the paper and burst into tears.
‘It is impossible,’ he kept on repeating to himself. ‘I cannot—I must not desert her. Not now—O God! Not now.’
His task would have been much easier if the other girl had not cared for him also, but he knew too well that she did care. It had been his flattered vanity at her evident affection that had drawn him into the noose that galled him now. Still he thought, if all other means failed, he must make an appeal to Jessie’s generosity to set him free. He did not know that her temperament was of so jealous a nature, that the very plea he urged for liberty would be an incentive to her to bind him closer. When the two days of grace were over, he was as distracted and undecided as ever, and Michael had the greatest difficulty in persuading him to put in an appearance in Blenheim Square.
The meeting this time, however, was of a more friendly character. Dr Robertson was present, and Michael Doyne had already consulted with the parents on the most politic step to be taken.
‘We have no wish to appear harsh or oppressive, my dear young friend,’ commenced the doctor, who had been previously ‘coached’ by his wife what to say; ‘but we have our child’s happiness to consult in this matter, and I am bound to tell you that it is very seriously concerned. Mrs Robertson and I have, therefore, after mature deliberation, come to the conclusion that Jessie is, after all, the proper person to decide whether the engagement shall continue or not, and we shall leave it entirely in her hands.’
Geoffrey’s face flushed with hope.
‘Do I understand you, sir, that Miss Robertson and I are to settle this business by ourselves, and that you will abide by her decision, whatever it may be?’
‘Yes; that is our wish, Mr Doyne. After all, it is her happiness, and not ours, that is at stake; and if she tells us she has released you of her own free will, we shall take no further steps in the matter.’
‘Thank you—thank you a thousand times,’ said Geoffrey fervently. ‘Does Jessie know I am in the house? May I see her now?’
‘Yes; I have prepared my daughter for the interview,’ replied Mrs Robertson, with a grim smile, as she preceded the young man out of the room.
Geoffrey followed her briskly, his heart throbbing with hope. He thought he should have no difficulty in making Jessie understand how much better it would be for both of them to be free.
Mrs Robertson led him to the drawing-room and opened the door.
‘Jessie, my dear,’ she said quietly, ‘here is Mr Geoffrey Doyne, who wishes to speak to you.’
Then she retreated, and left the young people together.
Now, until that morning Jessie Robertson had been entirely ignorant that she had any rival to dispute her possession of Geoffrey Doyne. She had accepted his letter just as he wrote it, and had never lost hope that he would find out he had been mistaken, and return some day and ask her to take back those presents, and give him a place in her affections once more. And she was quite ready to do so, for, truth to say, he had never lost that place. His handsome face and figure had made an irrevocable impression on her mind, and if she did not love him with all the ardour of Fenella Barrington, she loved him to the utmost power of her nature—and no one can do more. The rupture of their engagement had been a great shock to her, and the disappointment had left its traces on her features—had darkened the lines beneath her eyes, and washed the colour from her rosy cheeks.
Mrs Robertson had seen all this; she knew that the girl looked pathetic and pretty, and the young man was emotional and easily impressed; and she trusted a great deal to the effect Jessie’s altered appearance would have upon him. Besides, she had, as she said, prepared her daughter for this interview. She had hinted at the possibility of some low-born rival as a means of rousing the girl’s jealousy, and then she had implored her, for the sake of Geoffrey Doyne’s family (no less than for his own), to be firm, and bring him back to his allegiance. He would thank her for it afterwards (the mother said), when he knew his own heart better, and could rate her devotion for him at its true value. So Jessie came forward—rather timidly, it is true, but still very affectionately, and much in the old style, and lifted her tearful blue eyes to his face.
‘I knew you would come back,’ she murmured. ‘I knew you would remember our old affection some day. Mamma said it was impossible that you could quite forget me.’
For a moment he almost forgot his mission in looking at her pale cheeks and attenuated figure.
‘Why, Jessie,’ he exclaimed, ‘have you been ill?’
‘Yes—a little. What does it matter? I fretted, of course—I could not help fretting; but I shall be all right again now.’
‘Do you mean to say my letter caused this? Oh, what a brute I am!’ cried Geoffrey.
‘Don’t say that,’ replied Jessie softly, as she sat down beside him. ‘You did it for the best, I am sure.’
‘I did indeed. I thought it would be less dishonourable to cancel our engagement than to let you marry me without knowing the truth. For I am not worthy of you, Jessie, and since we have been separated I have thought so much more seriously of such things. Marriage is a very solemn contract, is it not? And it would be unjust to let you enter into it with any one who does not love you as you deserve. Don’t you agree with me?’
‘But I always thought you loved me more than I deserved, Geoffrey,’ she said, in a low voice; ‘for, after all, what is there in me to love?’
‘There is everything—everything to make a man happy, if he were not only too great a fool to appreciate it, Jessie.’
‘But you made me quite happy,’ she whispered.
‘Did I? I am afraid I should not make you happy for long. I own an atrociously bad temper, Jessie—irritable and easily put out; and I am a selfish, heartless sort of fellow at the best. You would have wearied of me in no time, and then there would have been no remedy for either of us. It was better to put a stop to it before it was too late, wasn’t it?’
‘I should soon have grown used to your tempers, Geoffrey—all men have them, mamma says—and I never thought you heartless; at least, not until you sent me that letter.’ And then she began to cry.
‘Jessie, did that letter hurt you so very much?’
‘Oh, terribly,’ she said, amidst her sobs; ‘how could it be otherwise when I had made up my mind we were to be married so soon, and half my things were made, too, and I had asked my cousins to be bridesmaids? And now—now it seems as if everything in the whole world was over for me, and I should never be happy again—never!’
‘Oh, don’t cry—for Heaven’s sake, don’t cry!’ said Geoffrey despairingly, ‘and let me try and think what is best to be done.’
They sat silent for a few moments, whilst Jessie caught her breath, and dabbed her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief. Then Geoffrey said gravely,—
‘Jessie! I thought—and I think still—that we shall never be happy as man and wife; but your father and mother consider that I have gone so far in proposing to you, that I have no right even to suggest such a thing as altering our minds, and that it must rest with you to decide whether our marriage takes place or not.’
‘I would much rather it took place,’ sobbed the girl.
‘Listen to me,’ went on her companion, ‘and don’t decide in a hurry. Remember the whole happiness of our lives depends upon your answer. I am compelled to tell you—in justice to you and to myself—that I do not love you as I ought to do. In fact, Jessie, I—I—(don’t be angry with me for saying it)—but I—care for somebody else; and that fact alone would make my marriage with you a sacrilege and a blasphemy which I do not dare to contemplate.’
She did not answer him, and after a while he proceeded,—
‘Don’t you think it would be very wrong of us to marry under the circumstances, Jessie? Don’t you think it may be the wrecking of both our lives to know there is such a barrier between us? Don’t you think it would be more honourable in the sight of God and man for us to go our different ways in the world, than to take vows upon ourselves which we know it is not in our power to perform?’
He paused, waiting for and expecting her acquiescence; and had the girl followed the natural instincts of her womanhood, she would have told him he was right. But the hint he had given her of his love for another, vague and undefined though it was, had raised the worst feelings of which Jessie Robertson was capable, and made her resolve, at all hazards, to claim him for her own. He should never, never (so she said to herself) be free to go and marry that other woman, and leave her to be laughed at or pitied by all their acquaintance. She loved the man, but she loved herself better, and she was determined if possible to keep him by her side. So all she answered was,—
‘I could fulfil them, Geoffrey, easily enough. Nothing could be difficult for me to do that was done for you.’
‘By heavens!’ he exclaimed, driven to desperation by her quiet perseverance, ‘do you mean to say that you would stoop to marry me when I tell you plainly that I do not care for you?’
‘Yes, Geoffrey, I would; because you will care for me some day. I am sure you will.’
‘And with the knowledge that I love some one else?’
‘It is not pleasant for me to hear, of course,’ said Jessie, ‘but you will get over it in time—and you were engaged to me first.’
‘Then I am to understand,’ rejoined the young man gloomily, ‘that you desire me to hold to this engagement, of which I have told you frankly I am weary?’
‘Because you fail in your promises to me, is that any reason I should fail also?’ she replied. ‘I should consider myself bound to you, Geoffrey, whether you deserted me or not.’
‘And this is your final decision?’ asked her companion, with white lips.
‘How could I come to any other? I should only be telling a story if I said I did?’
‘Jessie! I told Dr and Mrs Robertson that I would abide by what you said. Think once more; for God’s sake, think before you answer me! Remember it is the happiness or misery of our whole lives upon which you are deciding. Are we to be married to each other, or are we not?’
He hung upon her reply as the criminal in the dock hangs upon the decision of the jury, and she gave it with apparently as little personal feeling.
‘If you ask me, Geoffrey, I can only say what I have said before, Yes. If I hadn’t wished to marry you, I should never have consented to be engaged to you. I don’t change my mind every other day, as you seem to do!’
‘God forgive you!’ was trembling on his lips as he regarded her, but with an effort he altered the words. ‘Be it so, then!’ he said, between his teeth; and then, without another look, he turned upon his heel and quitted the house, leaving Jessie Robertson to announce to her father and mother the determination at which she had arrived.