Part 5, Chapter XXXV.
Discords.
“Those blind motions of the spring
That show the year has turned.”
Redhurst was entirely unused to absenteeism. Mrs Crichton had scarcely ever spent five months together away from it in her life, and now she seemed to have taken with her all the movement and interest of the place. From the time when the little heiress had ridden out with her father on her long-tailed pony, all through the days of her bright, joyous young ladyhood, and happy, active wifehood, she had lived among her own people; and, as she was both an affectionate and conscientious woman, she had fulfilled her duties towards them well, and found and given much pleasure in the fulfilment. Moreover, besides the Rector, the Crichtons had been the only resident gentry in the parish, though there was a large neighbourhood beyond its bounds. Substantial benefits were not intermitted, and Hugh was far too conscientious to neglect his local duties; but kind words and gossip were missing. Mr and Mrs Harcourt seemed to have grown years older; the girls, who had been wont to admire Mysie’s hats and profit by her teaching missed both; and the old women had no one to recount their aches and pains to. Some excitement was, however, derived from the fact that Ashenfold, a large farm-house in the place, had been taken by a Colonel Dysart, in search of a country residence, who brought there a large family of girls and boys—active, helpful, and good-humoured. So the pathway through the fields was trodden by other girlish feet on their way to school; other hands hung up the Christmas wreaths in Redhurst Church; and Mysie’s duties were not altogether left undone. The new folks were grumbled at and sighed over; but they had stirred the dull waters, and on their side, of course, were ready to welcome eagerly the return of the family to the great house—none the less eagerly on account of their mournful story. There would be an acquaintance, for Mr Spencer Crichton had met Colonel Dysart in Oxley, and had left a card upon him. All business matters remaining in Hugh’s hands he had been obliged sometimes to go to Redhurst, and he hardly felt one place to be more dreary than another. Indeed, he was so tired of his self-imposed solitude that he felt glad to think that his mother was coming back again. Perhaps, things would be better, somehow. Still, he could not make up his mind to be there to receive them, but made some excuse of business for the first night, and then rode home the next day, after the banking hours were over, through the cold, frosty evening, as he had done all his life till the last few months, in secure expectation of finding warmth and light, girlish voices, and little bits of news, small matters to be decided, life and comfort; in one word—home. Ah, could that busy, troublesome, foolish home come back how sweet it would have been! What would he find now? His heart beat fast as he rode up to the door, which was quickly opened, and Hugh felt an odd sort of relief at sight of the bright hall fire burning; and in another moment he was in the drawing-room, and held his mother in his arms, in, perhaps, the fondest embrace he had ever given to her since he was a little school-boy.
“Oh, mother, I’m glad you’re come home!” he said. Frederica came up promptly to kiss him, and he felt that it was all very comfortable and pleasant, and much more cheerful than he had expected. He had retained the impression of the sorrowful faces and heavy mourning of their last parting. Now there was white about his mother’s dress, and Freddie’s hair was tied with violet ribbons. He could have dispensed with the presence of the two Miss Brabazons, whose acquaintance had been made at Bournemouth; but, perhaps, as Mrs Crichton had thought, they helped to fill up blank spaces. Hugh was not a very observant person, but as he glanced round the room he saw that it had a different aspect; the coverings were of another colour, the tables and sofas had been moved, the lamp stood in a new part of the room; there seemed to be no well-known corner or combination left.
“The place looks different,” said Hugh, who was not easily affected by externals.
“Ah, yes,” said his mother, “it was best to make a few changes.”
Hugh shivered, and seemed to see the old scene through the new.
“You don’t look very well, my dear,” said Mrs Crichton. “Have you been working too hard?”
“Oh, no, mother, thank you; I’m well enough. I’ll go now and dress for dinner.” The changes in the drawing-room had caused Hugh to look out for old associations; but his mother followed him upstairs.
“You see, Hugh,” she said, “for all the young ones’ sakes it was necessary to get over old impressions. You know this old door was shut up”—suddenly opening it—“and, by closing the other, and changing the furniture, there is nothing to recall our darling’s room.”
Hugh shrank back. He saw vaguely that it all looked very different; but he could not cross the threshold.
“Yes, mother, I daresay you’re right,” he said, hurriedly; “it may make a difference.”
“And, Hugh, we must not let the house be mournful. When Arthur comes back it will be much better for him to find us cheerful.”
Hugh made no reply. He could not contemplate the thought of Arthur’s return. How had any of them come back, he thought, as he dressed hastily and went downstairs. At dinner his mother asked him if he had seen anything of the new comers to Ashenfold.
“Yes, I have seen Colonel Dysart. He is a gentleman. There are a great many of them.”
“I must go and call. Didn’t you tell me, Freddie, that some of them were going to Miss Venning’s?”
“So Flossy said in her letter,” returned Freddie.
“They have been kind and helpful, I hear. It is a great thing to have that house occupied.”
“We did very well with the old Horehams,” said Hugh, “though Colonel Dysart is likely to be a good neighbour. Have you been to the Rectory?”
“Oh, yes, we went over at once. I think the dear old folks want us back again. You should have looked in on them now and then on a Sunday, Hugh.”
“It is you they want, not me,” he said. “I went to Oxley parish church generally. You have not seen the town yet, I suppose, Miss Brabazon?” he added, to change the conversation.
Before the evening was over, Hugh was doubtful whether the cheerfulness around him was not dearly bought by the effort to join in it. There was no want of affectionate feeling in Mrs Crichton; she missed Mysie every hour, and acknowledged their loss to the full; but she was determined that it should be regarded as nothing more than a loss, and that, as she phrased it, “no morbid feelings should be allowed to exist;” and she would not acknowledge that Hugh had any special occasion for sensitiveness. Being, with all her good-nature and easiness of discipline, a person of strong will she was determined to create external cheerfulness. Frederica, who had now, of course, become a more important element in the household, was reserved by nature, and, like many young girls, afraid of the force of her own emotions. She could not bear to speak or hear of Mysie, so she turned vehemently to other things; while, the more her high spirits regained their sway, the less she liked any infringement on them.
Hugh was away at the Bank on the day that Flossy came to see them: but she, too, nervous, and inwardly agitated, was glad to talk of external things—about the new people, and their girls coming to school, and the dear little signorina of whom she was growing so fond, and whose wonderful sweet face was like a poem or a picture.
“You must bring her to see us, Flossy, when Freddie asks some of her schoolfellows,” said Mrs Crichton.
So, little pleasant plans were made, and Redhurst came back into Flossy’s life. Yet, as she walked home through the cold afternoon, the tears rolled down her cheeks. It seemed cruel for the home to be regaining its cheerfulness while Arthur was away, solitary and unhappy. Yet she, herself, how full her life was; how fast the world went on!
“And we forget because we must And not because we will,” thought Flossy, and in this mood Violante’s tears had surely met with warm sympathy.
Colonel and Mrs Dysart were called upon, and the family proved to be what is called in country neighbourhoods an “acquisition.” They had done up their house. Colonel Dysart hunted and was anxious to get some shooting. There were four sons and five daughters, all between nine and twenty-eight, ready to be sociable. Two of the girls went to school with Freddie; one of the elder ones was useful in the village; some among them rode, sang, and drew—it was worth while being attentive to them; and a promising acquaintance began to spring up. Even old Mrs Harcourt found visits from the children enlivening to her, and liked to give them winter apples and Christmas roses. It was a good thing, too, to have someone to take an interest in the choir, and the curate, whom Mr Harcourt’s age had recently rendered necessary, found work for the young ladies; while they spoke together with a certain tender curiosity of her whose sweet life and sad fate was already becoming a tradition, to give to the scenery of the tragedy a certain mournful interest, and to make the touching of Mysie’s doings and the taking-up of her duties something of a rare privilege. So, new lives and new possibilities were springing up, slowly and naturally, as the snowdrops began to peep on Mysie’s grave.
Hugh did not see much of the new comers; he was away all day, and did not always come out from Oxley in the evening; and he paid so little attention to the talk going on around him that he neither discovered the names and ages of the Dysarts, nor heard anything of the charms of Freddie’s new Italian teacher, whose youth and gentleness excited her surprise and delight. But one sunny morning, as he rode into Oxley, a little incident occurred to him. He was passing Oxley Manor, riding slowly under its ivied wall and thinking of nothing less than of its inhabitants, when, from one of the upper windows that looked out close on the road, something fell on his horse’s neck, and then down into the dust at his feet. Hugh looked down—it was a little bunch of violets; then glanced carelessly up at the windows with a laugh. “Those girls must be very hard up! What would Flossy say?” he thought. But no one peeped out to see what had become of her violets, and he rode on, amused as he recalled various boyish pranks of Jem’s and Arthur’s, and left the violets lying in the dust.
When he came back that afternoon his mother called him into the drawing-room. “Hugh,” she said, eagerly, “here is a letter from Arthur, which greatly concerns you.”
With the curious sense of reluctance with which he always received anything connected with his cousin, Hugh took the letter, and read—
“Rome, January 28, 18—
“My dear Aunt Lily,—I am glad to hear you are at home again; I did not like to think of the place being empty. This is a wonderful city, and it is impossible even to mention all the objects of interest it contains. I wish Jem was near to enjoy them. If I tried to describe them it would be like copying a guide-book, and I would rather tell you something of what I have seen when me meet; and I hope that will be soon, for, my dear aunt, I think I have led this wandering life long enough. I have been thinking over things of late, and I wish, if you and Hugh consent, to come home again, and take my place in the Bank, as was originally proposed, and try and do as well as I can. I am very tired of travelling; and, as for choosing any other profession, I don’t feel that I can turn my mind to anything fresh, and something I must settle upon. Give my love to Hugh, and tell him I hope I shall be able to make myself useful to him. I shall be very glad to see you all again; and, though life is for ever changed to me, all that is left to me is at Redhurst with you and my sister and my brother—my brothers, I should say, for so Hugh and Jem have been and must be. I hope and pray not to be idle or useless for her sake.
“Ever your loving nephew,—
“Arthur Spencer.”
Hugh read the letter through, and it touched him to the heart—the exceeding sadness that the writer could hardly disguise, the unwonted profession of affection for himself, and yet the coupling of his name with Jem’s, as if to hide that there was any reason for such profession. He saw how conscientiously Arthur was endeavouring to act, and yet the proposal was terrible to him.
“Well, Hugh,” said his mother, after a long pause, “it is the best thing for the poor boy, isn’t it?”
“Of course, mother,” said Hugh, slowly. “Arthur must do exactly as he pleases, have everything as he wishes it; but—but—I think he is mistaken.”
“Mistaken, how?”
“I think he is trying to do what he will not be equal to. How can he bear this place?” said Hugh, in a passionate undertone. “Every day would be an agony to him. It is—it would be to me!”
“Of course,” said Mrs Crichton, “there will be much that is painful at first; but he will get over it, and he cannot be banished for ever. Depend upon it, Hugh, the truest kindness will be to let everything be as much a matter of course as possible. The world could not go on if everyone shrank from the scenes of their misfortunes. Arthur is perfectly right, and I am sure he will be much happier in having something to do; and you’ll find his natural cheerfulness will help him through. We must make it as pleasant and easy as possible.”
Hugh rose and gave the letter back to his mother. “Tell him it shall be as he wishes,” he said; “but tell him also that if ever he changes his mind I will not hold him to his word;” and, without waiting for an answer, he went hurriedly away to his own room. How should he bear Arthur’s presence, how endure the sight of his sorrow? Could he ride into Oxley with him every day, when every weary look and dispirited tone would be like the thrust of a dagger. The more generous and unselfish Arthur was, the bitterer seemed the reproach. The idea of constant association was so terrible to him that, just in judgment as Hugh was, it almost seemed to him as if a choice so unlike his own must be dictated by feelings less intense and a memory less keen. “How can he bear the sight of me?” he thought. “I would have gone to the ends of the earth sooner than come back. If he has any feeling he will not be able to endure it! However, it doesn’t matter what it is to me!”
Hugh honoured the sacrifice, and yet half despised his cousin for the power of making it. He would have considered it his duty to yield up his most cherished feelings for Arthur, and yet he regarded him with a shrinking that, in so passionate a nature, was almost hate. Truly, his mother was right in thinking that such morbid feelings, did not deserve encouragement. And then there was the constant haunting belief that he was enduring in silence a loss and a want similar to that for which everyone was pitying his cousin. And when Hugh’s thoughts took that turn he sometimes felt as if he were making a sort of secret atonement. But all this was in the depths of Hugh’s soul; his sensible outer judgment knew the probable risk of reaction for so young a man as Arthur, and felt that home and work were his best safeguards. And Hugh remembered that he had still his rooms at the Bank House, where a press of business might always detain him if Redhurst became quite unendurable. When Frederica went to school the next morning she told Flossy, as she came into her Italian class and was waiting for some of her companions, that Arthur was coming home.
“Signor Arthur?” said Violante, who was standing by.
“Yes,” answered Frederica, who, of course, had been informed of the meeting at Caletto; “he will be surprised to see you, signorina. He is coming back and going to begin at the Bank, and go on as usual.”
“I hope—it will do,” said Flossy, rather tremulously. Violante glanced at her and began to read herself, as the girls came in and took their places; and Miss Florence let her take the lead, and neither asked nor answered a question for full five minutes.
End of the Second Volume.
Part 5, Chapter XXXVI.
Beginning Afresh.
“When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown,
And all the sport is stale, lad.
And all the wheels run down.”
It was on a soft mild afternoon early in February that Arthur came home—an afternoon with a pearly sky and gleams of pale spring sunshine to light the starry celandines and budding palms. Spring was coming—there were lambs in the meadows, and birds in the hedges, the gaily-painted barges floated down the slow water, children and young ladies tripped along the path—nothing was changed. Redhurst, always a cheerful place, was at its brightest, fresh and spring-like, yet familiar as the golden crocuses in the garden-beds.
Mrs Crichton was glad of the sunshine. Though rarely nervous she longed for the arrival to be over, and sent her young ladies to meet Frederica as she came from school, so that there was no one to receive her nephew but herself, arrayed in mourning, purposely lightened before his return. She heard him ring the bell, perhaps for the first time in his life, and came out to meet him.
“Well, my dear boy, I hardly expected you so soon; come in—I’m glad to see you.”
Arthur kissed her warmly, and followed her into the drawing-room.
“I think the train was punctual,” he said.
“Are you tired—did you stop in London?”
“Oh, yes, and I saw Jem. He says he will run down soon. I crossed yesterday, so I have had nothing of a journey to-day.”
“And—are you quite well, my dear?”
Mrs Crichton did not mean to make much of the meeting; but she put her hand on his arm and looked at him tenderly, hardly able to speak. Arthur smiled a little.
“Very well,” he said, “and glad to see you.”
Arthur was quite quiet and calm; but he was very grave, and made no attempt to feign an ordinary tone of feeling that could not have been real; he was always entirely genuine, and rarely thought of the effect of his own demeanour. Mrs Crichton looked at him anxiously, he was a good deal tanned and rather thinner than of old; but she thought that he did look well and wonderfully like himself.
“Isn’t Freddie here?” he said.
“Yes—there she is—she has been at school.”
Ah! he went forward rather eagerly to meet her; but Frederica, nervous and excited, and by no means sharing his absence of self-consciousness, kissed him rather boisterously than tenderly, and began to talk fast because she was afraid of crying.
“I suppose Hugh is at the Bank,” said Arthur; but as he spoke there was a rush and a scamper through the hall, and Snap, his terrier, rushed upon him with a welcome in which there was no cloud of embarrassment, and no room for regrets. After that Arthur was glad to get away to look after his luggage, and when he came back afternoon tea was in progress, and he sat down and talked about his journey and the wonders of Rome, and the new coloured curtains Jem had hung up in his highly-decorated rooms. Arthur was a pleasant talker, and they thought how nice it was to have him at home again. But he looked vaguely about the room between whiles, as if its changes perplexed him. He walked over to the window and looked out, where the light was dying away on the garden-paths. He had expected to feel the first sight of home severely—he hardly felt anything except that he had been there for a long time—an interminable number of hours.
Hugh was, perhaps purposely, late, and at length Mrs Crichton proposed going to dress, audibly wondering why he did not come.
“There he is!” said Freddie, as a horse’s hoofs sounded. “Hugh,” she added, throwing open the door, “here’s Arthur!”
Arthur started up and went forward.
“Hugh!” he said with a sort of eagerness:
“Well, Arthur, how d’ye do?” but as Hugh uttered this commonplace greeting his hand was as cold as ice. They exchanged half-a-dozen words as to Arthur’s journey and the weather, and separated in two minutes to dress; and the much-dreaded meeting was over.
Everyone was eager to talk at dinner, and a little bit afraid of home topics, and soon Frederica started what she conceived to be a delightfully safe and interesting subject.
“Oh, Arthur, we have heard of you lately from someone you met in Italy.”
“Really; who is that?”
“Why, a young lady who teaches us Italian—she was at a place called Caletto.”
“Miss Rosa Mattei?” said Arthur. “Has she come here?”
“No—it is her sister. Oh, she is the dearest little thing—her name is Violante—do you remember?”
“Violante! You don’t say so! I remember her perfectly. Is she at Miss Venning’s? Well, that is the most extraordinary chance!” exclaimed Arthur, much interested. “I never thought she would really go to school!”
“Oh, yes; Miss Venning knows her aunt, I believe.”
“Poor little thing!” said Arthur. “I was so sorry for her. She—she lost her voice, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about it. Flossy told me. She likes being at school much better than on the stage.”
“They were very kind to me. It was like a bit of a romance. She used to ask me questions about England. Why, they don’t make her teach, do they? What a shame!”
“Arthur, what nonsense!” cried his sister. “But Violante just bewitches people.”
“Well! she doesn’t look fit to light her way. By the by, Hugh, Jem told me that you and he saw her act. It was rather a failure, wasn’t it?”
As no one had expected Hugh to take any particular interest in this conversation his dead silence surprised no one. A great fern hid him from his mother, and no one else looked at or thought of him. He answered Arthur, mechanically:
“I believe it was considered so.”
“But was her voice so lovely?” said Freddie.
“They said so, I think.”
“Oh, Hugh!” said his mother, laughing, “what opportunities you throw away. We must ask Jem, Arthur?”
“Ay, I should think Jem would have been enraptured. I thought of him when I saw her in the golden sunshine piling up the grapes, and they gave me coffee because I was tired and thirsty. I can’t believe she could do anything so prosaic as teach.”
The subject in its various branches lasted for some time, and when the ladies went away Arthur continued it:
“I don’t suppose Freddie does know all about her. You know she was engaged to the manager of the opera-house there, and he threw her over when she lost her voice. So the poor little thing was fretting her heart out.”
“How do you know?” said Hugh, with a sense of being suffocated.
“Oh, there was an old cantatrice who had charge of the sisters, and she used to talk to me. And one could see the poor child was unhappy—indeed, she owned as much.”
“She would be quite pleased to see you again.”
“Well, I daresay she would,” said Arthur, carelessly; “but I don’t suppose Miss Venning would allow—” He stopped, as the words suggested a different recollection, and after a moment went on, gravely:
“Hugh, I don’t want to lose any more time. You will let me begin work to-morrow?”
“If you wish it,” said Hugh, without looking at him. “You can do as you wish always.”
“Thanks; you’re very good, Hugh. I’ll do my best. You’ll be patient?”
Poor boy, he was naturally outspoken, and wanted, perhaps, a word of sympathy and support in this painful home-coming; but Hugh only answered, as they left the room: “I could not be otherwise,” and the coldness of the tone neutralised the kindness of the words. He lingered behind as Arthur turned towards the drawing-room, and went into his study. He would not have believed beforehand how little he would have thought about his cousin on that first day of meeting, which he had dreaded so much beforehand. His cold, short answers had come, not from embarrassment, but because he was wholly absorbed in something else. Had he avoided Violante to find her close at his side? Had he really passed her every morning and evening? Ah—and the violets—he had thrown them away! Perhaps this fact gave to the sensible Mr Spencer Crichton the keenest sense of lost opportunity that he had ever experienced. She had not, then, forgotten him. Had she come there knowing of his neighbourhood? Or had she really never cared for him at all? Arthur confirmed her engagement to the manager, and seemed well-informed, much too well-informed as to her sentiments with regard to the breach of it. Hugh was not naturally trustful, and through all his passion he had never trusted Violante, never forgotten that she was a foreigner and of altogether different training from his own. Besides, she had been false to him. He had seen her with the diamonds on her neck—he had been deceived by her confiding softness—hadn’t she been just as ready to tell her troubles to Arthur as to himself? At home Hugh was much more convinced of the unsuitableness of his choice than he had been in Italy; and now, after all that had passed, what right had he to create such a family convulsion as would be caused by any renewal of it? His love remained, but the charm of it seemed to have faded. The bitter hours he had lately passed had half awakened him from his dazzling holiday dream, taking from it the force it might else have had to bend his pride to own what had been passing in his mind all the summer, and to shake the conviction that had a sort of uncomfortable attraction to him—that he had lost the right to choose his own happiness against the pleasure of his family. How could he say to his mother now, “Consent to this—I cannot live without her,”—when, through him, Arthur must live without his love? To do so he must have been careless and selfish—and Hugh was neither, in intention, or he must have been able to sound the depths and rise to the height of a humility of which he could not even conceive. Besides, this unlucky love paid the penalty of all feelings that are unlikely and, as it were, against the nature and the circumstances of those who experience them. It was sweet and enticing, but it was insecure and beset by doubts and misgivings.
But yet, when he and Arthur rode away together the next morning, Hugh’s sense of being alone with his cousin was lost in the knowledge that he must pass Oxley Manor. He looked up at it, and his heart thrilled; but no face was at the window, no violets, cool and fragrant, touched his hand. Where was she? What was she doing? He was absorbed in the present, full of an excitement which enraged him, but which made life worth having after all. Arthur, by his side, had his own vision, but it was back in the past. Those walls held no imprisoned princess for him. That little green gate could never open again and show her standing under the ivy, with her happy eyes and brisk light tread. During his long absence Arthur had felt continuously that he had lost Mysie; he began now to realise that the world was going on without her. He found the home life hard. He had never expected to be other than sad; but he had not foreseen that one thing would be worse than another, that there would be some paths that he dared not tread, some faces that he could not bear to see. When, as he strolled through the garden after breakfast, he suddenly felt that he could not turn down the path towards the river, when he counted with nervous dread each familiar object yet to be met, he was surprised and vexed with himself. He had thought that everything that recalled his darling must be sweet: what was the meaning of this horror which he tried to forget in taking part in the family talk and life around him; when his natural cheerfulness asserted itself, and Hugh looked at him with wonder? And then, when he fancied that he should rather like some occupation or amusement, why did he suddenly break down in the attempt to share in it, and only long to get away by himself? Even his work at the Bank—which was less trying, since it was entirely new—was sometimes a great burden to him after his long desultoriness; but in this case there was something definite to struggle with, and he could succeed in conquering himself; but at home he could not tell what was the matter with him, and no one helped him to find out—his aunt continuously ignoring his fluctuating spirits, and congratulating herself when he was lively and talkative; while Hugh, seeing that the cheerfulness was spontaneous when it came, marvelled at it, and, while he could not bear to see him dispirited, wondered what his world would think if he showed his moods so plainly. Nevertheless, he was not always even-tempered, and, as Arthur had lost his careless good-humour, Hugh would be shocked to find himself arguing hotly or speaking sharply to one with whom he was bound to have entire patience; and Arthur would wonder why, with such a weight at his heart, things should seem all out of joint—not because Mysie was dead—but because Hugh frowned, or Freddie laughed, or some trifle put him out of his way. He had returned home on a Tuesday, and by the end of the week had grown fairly perplexed with himself. On the Saturday afternoon, however, he walked out early from Oxley by himself, and, taking a roundabout way through some of the woods belonging to Ashenfold, felt soothed and cheered by the pleasant light and air of the early spring. When he was thus alone, and could let quiet thoughts of Mysie have their way unchecked and undisturbed, he lost the sense of discord and trouble; and, as was, perhaps, too much his wont, the sensations of the hour obliterated all others, and he stood leaning over a gate, watching the faint, pinky tints on the woods, and listening to a robin singing close at hand. Suddenly, in the copse beside him, there was a sharp noise—the report of a gun. Arthur started, as if he had been shot himself, his heart beat violently; he caught at the gate, and held it hard; the sound struck his ears like a repetition of that one fatal shot. It was some minutes before he recovered himself sufficiently to be conscious of anything but his own sensations, and when he looked up at last and drew breath he was fairly exhausted. He had thought so little of himself, and so much of his sorrow, that he had had no conception how severe the shock to his nerves had been. He was annoyed with himself and very thankful that no one had been there to see, so that he carefully concealed the incident from everybody; but it set him on the look-out, as it were, for his own feelings; and, while it certainly roused him to attempt to conceal them, he so dreaded a recurrence of the shock, and was so ignorant as to what might cause it, that he shrank from many old associations which he had previously never thought of avoiding. The sound rang in his ears, and he tried vehemently to distract his mind from it by talking and laughing with his aunt’s guests; and when Hugh saw him playing bezique he wondered whether he was to envy him for heroic self-control or for boyish carelessness and reaction.
Part 5, Chapter XXXVII.
Faint-Hearted.
“The grave of all things hath its violet.”
The Redhurst drawing-room was looking uncommonly cheerful on the Saturday week after Arthur’s return; and Jem, recently arrived, was enjoying an unwonted tête-à-tête with his mother. It would be, perhaps, untrue to say that a person with affections so even as Mrs Crichton’s had a favourite son; but there was much in Jem’s ways that suited her, and he had the charm of novelty. He was strolling about the room, criticising the alterations somewhat unfavourably.
“I say, mamma, what did you buy this thing for?” touching the chintz. “I could have chosen you a much better one. Why didn’t you write to me?”
“Really, my dear, I didn’t think of asking you to choose my drawing-room furniture. Why don’t you like it?”
“Why don’t I like it? Why, it’s altogether incorrect. Those autumn leaves are false art.”
“Dear me, don’t you like my leaves? They’re so natural you might sweep them up.”
“Exactly. You might as well be out in the garden. Now, there’s a thing up in one of the spare bed-rooms. It’s yellow, with a faint brown pattern.”
“That, Jem! Why, it belonged to your grandmother Spencer, and was moved here when she came and spent her last year with us. It’s hideous. I was going to have it taken down.”
“It’s about the best thing in the house,” said Jem, critically. “You should have it made up for this room.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, I hope your wife will have some taste of her own.”
“I hope she’ll leave it to me. I shall stipulate she does when I marry and settle.”
“I am afraid, my dear, life in London doesn’t lead young men to marry and settle.”
“Well, mamma, I’m sure I don’t know about that,” said Jem, sitting down on the obnoxious chintz and stroking his beard. “Girls look out for so much now-a-days.”
“I hope, my dear, you haven’t been falling in with any girl,” said Mrs Crichton, composedly—for she was not excitable—but a little struck by Jem’s manner. “You make so many acquaintances. When you were abroad I was quite anxious.”
“I assure you, mamma, I was a miracle of discretion when I was abroad—couldn’t have been better with you at my elbow,” said Jem, unable to resist a little emphasis.
“Well, I am sure, I wonder you did not make a heroine of that little Italian girl, Arthur’s acquaintance. Hugh said you met her.”
“Hugh said I met her!” ejaculated Jem, “Well, if that isn’t cool!”
“Why, something was said of seeing her act, and, of course, my dear boy, I didn’t suppose Hugh had been the one to discover her merits.”
“I assure you, mother, I was quite as discreet as Arthur or Hugh either. But what made Mademoiselle Mattei a subject of conversation?”
“Why, she is at Miss Venning’s at school.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Jem, utterly off his guard; then, catching himself up: “At school! Extraordinary!”
“Yes, but I believe there’s nothing extraordinary about her. So pray, my dear, don’t go and do anything foolish.”
“Why am I always to be the black sheep?” said Jem, in an injured tone, but with inward laughter. “Hugh and Arthur saw quite as much of her as I did.”
“Well, we may put poor Arthur out of the question, and as for Hugh, do you think I’ve any reason to be anxious in that way about him?”
“So you wouldn’t like an Italian daughter-in-law?”
“My dear, don’t be absurd,” said Mrs Crichton, contemplating her wool-work. “How can you talk of such a thing? I should like to see both you and Hugh married, but I dread your doing something foolish when I think of the number of times you have been on the verge of it—and as for Hugh—”
“Well, as for Hugh?”
“I really despair of his ever turning his thoughts in that direction.”
“How are you all getting along together?” said Jem, rather glad to change the conversation.
“Oh, pretty well,” said Mrs Crichton, sighing. “Of course, Arthur, poor dear boy, has ups and downs; but he is very cheerful, in and out, and I make a point of going on as usual.”
“And he and Hugh get on comfortably?”
“Yes. I tell Hugh it is absurd to expect that he should not flag sometimes. Now, Sunday was a trial. He went to church in the morning, but he was more knocked up afterwards than I have seen him at all; but the next day he was quite ready to be interested in these pleasant Dysarts who have come to Ashenfold. Hugh was quite angry with me for making him come in to see them; but we can’t shut ourselves up, and I must ask them to dinner in a quiet way. It is much better for Arthur. Then, there was another thing. I wanted him to come to the Rectory with me—to get it over, you know—but Hugh interfered, and said no-one should urge him to make such an effort, in such a peremptory way I had to give it up.”
“I should avoid discussions,” said James.
“It’s hard work for them both. By the way, mamma,” he added, having conducted the conversation well away from its former matrimonial channel, “do you know that there is going to be a great choir festival at H—, in the cathedral in Easter week—shall you go?”
“Is there? Oh, no, I hadn’t thought of it.”
“I expect it will be rather fine. I shall run down, and if you did care about taking Freddie I daresay the Haywards would get you good places.”
“The Haywards?”
“The Archdeacon, you know. He is a Canon of H—. Young Hayward’s in the War Office. I know him. There are some daughters.”
“Oh, I know Mrs Hayward very well. She was at the only ball to which I ever took dear Mysie at H—, with her daughters; tall, fine girls, rather insipid.”
“They’re very superior,” said Jem, in an odd, meek voice; but, as he was not much in the habit of admiring superior young ladies, his mother only said:
“Are they? Their mother is a very ladylike woman. Well, I should not mind going over if Freddie wished it. I daresay Flossy Venning might like to go with us.”
“Oh, thank you,” began Jem. “I mean the organist is a friend of mine. Oh, there’s Hugh. How d’ye do?”
“I didn’t know you were here, Jem,” said Hugh, as he came into the room.
“I came by the early train. Where’s Arthur?”
“He preferred walking. How long shall you be here, Jem?”
“Till Tuesday.”
“Oh, then,” said Mrs Crichton, “Hugh, I think I shall ask the Dysarts to excuse a short notice and come here quite quietly on Monday night. As it is Lent, that is a reason for having no party.”
“There can be no reason wanted for that,” interrupted Hugh. “Mother, how can you think of such a thing? It is not suitable, and must be intolerable to Arthur.”
“Really, Hugh,” said his mother, for once offended, “I am the best judge of what is suitable. You talk as if I wished to give a ball; and Arthur does not dislike a little society.”
“If he does not,” said Hugh, and then broke off, “Perhaps he does not.”
“Why don’t you ask him?” suggested James.
“Because he has never shown any of this foolish reluctance,” said Mrs Crichton; “and, indeed, my dear, I can’t give into you about it.”
She rose and went away as she spoke, and James said:
“How’s this, Hugh? Things going all crooked?”
“Of course they are,” said Hugh, bitterly. “How could they go right? As for Arthur, I don’t profess to understand him. I daresay he does like amusement, but he can’t bear this place. How they can say he is less altered than they expected! I can feel the chance allusions stab him!”
“Then do you think he is putting a great force on himself?”
“No, no,” said Hugh, in an odd, restless tone. “It’s just as it comes, I believe. But they say he bears it beautifully, because his spirits come back in and out. He is boyish enough still. I daresay in a year’s time it will all be pretty well over.”
“It strikes me, Hugh, you are more out of sorts than Arthur.”
“I?” said Hugh. “If Arthur feels one half—No, he could not choose to be always with me.”
Hugh knitted his brows and walked over to the window. His was the perplexity of an erring, earnest nature watching another live over a difficult piece of life, by means of a more gracious temperament, succeeding, as he felt, without the struggles that went towards his own failures. Arthur behaved much better to him than he did to Arthur, but he did not take half so much pains about it. This is always an unsatisfactory consciousness, and in Hugh’s case it was intensified by the morbid interest that he was forced to take in his cousin.
“Mother’s been telling me all the news,” said James, to change the subject.
Hugh understood his marked tone at once.
“Remember, Jem, that is closed for ever,” he said. “If you breathe one word of the past, in joke or earnest, to my mother or Arthur, it will be past forgiveness.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to stir it up,” said Jem; “but it is a strange turn of fate.”
“It will make no difference,” said Hugh, in a tone that meant “it shall not.”
James was silent. Hugh’s resolve was exactly what he had always counselled him to make, yet he could not help thinking of Violante’s look of joy at seeing him, and wondering whether that light was quenched in her soft eyes for ever.
In the meantime, Arthur had not taken his solitary walk without a purpose. However far Hugh might be right in supposing that he allowed his feelings to drift as they would, he was becoming conscious that there was some cowardice in shrinking from anything that could excite them. He must stand by Mysie’s grave—and he must stand there alone; for on Sunday he had not dared to lift his eyes as he walked down the path. She was buried in a corner of the churchyard where it was especially green and still close by the wall of the Rectory garden, over which a bright pink almond-tree was visible. Snowdrops and violets were thrusting their heads through the short turf between the graves, and were blooming in sweet abundance round the white cross that marked where she lay, while several half-faded wreaths were placed above them. There was nothing here to make Arthur nervous,—he wondered why he had stayed away so long. He was full of grief, yet something of the peaceful spirit of the past came shining back into his heart as he knelt there in the spring sunshine, and kissed the letters of Mysie’s name. It was better, he thought, than being far away. He had risen to his feet, and was still dreamily gazing, when he heard a startled step at his side, and, turning, saw Florence Venning, bright, tall, and blooming, with a basket of flowers in her hand.
“Flossy!”
“Oh, I did not see you—I—I’ll go!” said Flossy, crimson with the sense of intrusion.
“No, don’t go. I am very glad to see you,” he said, as he took her hand and held it, while they looked down at the grave together.
“Did you put these?” he said, touching the wreaths.
“Only this cross. The school-girls bring them on Sunday,” faltered Flossy, as she bent down and showed how the frame of the cross was made to hold water, which she now replenished from a little jug she had brought with her. Arthur, with a look of entreaty, and with trembling inapt fingers took the flowers and began to place them in the cross. Poor fellow, he did it very badly; but she refrained from helping him, and let him put the last snowdrop in himself.
“Flossy,” he said, suddenly, “if I were lying there, and she were left, do you think she could have—have endured to live?”
“Yes, Arthur,” Flossy said, in her full tones, which vibrated with intense feeling, “I think she could. I think she would have found a good life somehow; like—like a robin in the snow,” as one fluttered down beside them. “She was so clear and real—I think she would.”
Arthur had sat down on a broad, flat stone near, still gazing at the flowers.
“She was not so weak,” he murmured.
“Oh, Arthur, you have not been weak. Everyone says—”
“No one knows,” he answered. “All that should help me has no reality apart from her.”
“But it is not apart from her, Arthur,” said Flossy, earnestly. “I—”
“Yes?” said Arthur, looking up.
“Even I,” said Flossy, humbly, “I think of her at church, and doing my work, or on beautiful days like this.”
“Yes, dear Flossy, I’m sure you do,” said Arthur, gratified; but not as if he took the words home.
“And I hope,” said Flossy, “that it will make me a better girl, and more like her.”
“You are right, Flossy,” said Arthur, after a pause, with more spirit. “I don’t want to give up, and everyone is so kind to me; they all think of what I like. But,” he added, in a passionate undertone, “she was my angel; and all prayers, Sundays, all the things that comfort a good girl like you, are filled with longing for her!”
“But they won’t be less dear for that?” whispered Flossy.
“No,” he said, “No, I’ll hold on!”
And he felt then that through such holy associations his lost love might still be a star in his path, and lead him, not back to his old self, but on to something better, and even brighter. But, then, how could he tune his life to such a solemn melody as this? He longed for the joy-bells, and even the jingling tunes of his old, easy boyhood. He was so weary of his heavy heart. He knew, as Flossy could not know, why men plunged into folly, and even sin, to drown grief. He would, not do that; but he thought how incredible it would have been to Flossy that there were times when he wanted to forget Mysie—times that came oftener as the months went by. He would have walked so contentedly on the easy, unheroic meadows of every-day life, and fate, or the hand of God, had forced him on to the rocky paths of sorrow. Just at that moment he caught a glimpse of the golden gate above them.
“How many birds there are here!” he said, after a silence.
“Do you know why?” said Flossy. “Mrs Harcourt comes and feeds them here every morning and evening, because she was so fond of birds.”
“And I have never been to see her. I’ll go now,” said Arthur, rising with sudden energy.
“I came from there,” said Flossy. “This is Mrs Harcourt’s jug.”
“Well, then, let us come,” he said, without giving himself time to hesitate, and Florence took up her basket and followed him into the garden.