Part 6, Chapter XLVI.
Perplexities.
“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?”
While Violante was in London James Crichton, at some happy juncture, brought his wooing to a crisis, and became the accepted lover of Helen Hayward. His choice was equally surprising and delightful to his mother, who threw herself with the greatest interest into all his preparations for his marriage in the autumn, invited Helen whenever her mother would spare her, and regained all her elastic spirits in this new interest; while James smiled more than ever, and talked about Helen to everyone who would listen. Both his cousin and his brother were naturally strongly affected by this new love-story working itself out beside them. Lengthening days, summer weather, summer flowers, and summer habits, could not but remind both of them of what these young days of last year had been to them. There awoke in Hugh all the old questioning with himself; all the old arguments that he had thought laid at rest for ever; all the old passion, which jealousy and self-reproach had for the time overclouded. He hardly knew how; but his belief in the causes which he had for jealousy had gradually faded, and he no longer believed that Violante was either engaged to the manager or that she was pining for his loss. A little reflection convinced him that all that Arthur had told him of her sadness might have been caused by the memory of himself, and something in the look of her eyes at their two brief meetings confirmed this thought. As Hugh’s mind gradually freed itself from the hard, bitter judgment of himself and of others that had followed the stern self-reproach and self-pity which had for so long occupied it, as his new kindliness towards Arthur warmed and softened him, he came to view things in a more natural light, and ceased to tell himself that his love, like everything else, was turned to bitterness. No, it was sweet and soft and strong as in the May-days of last year; but Hugh had become far more conscious of the difficulties attending it, and Hugh had lost in this year of sorrow and self-distrust the bounding energy by which he had intended to overcome them. Besides, he was no longer quite the authority that he had been at home, and, though Violante was doubtless really more fitted to marry him by her school-life, she had lost a great advantage in having become known first to his mother as a girl whom there was not the slightest likelihood of his fancying. A wonderful Italian unknown beauty was one thing; a little foreign, penniless girl, half-singer, half-school-teacher, was quite another. And though Hugh was, of course, his own master, his relations to his family formed so large a part of his life that he hardly knew how to disturb them, and the Crichtons belonged to exactly the class most easily disturbed by an incongruous marriage. He had given up the notion that he ought to punish himself for the destruction of Arthur’s happiness by destroying his own; but his feelings strongly revolted against any deliberate effort to secure it just at the time then coming, and there was nothing morbid in the belief that he was bound to make Arthur his first consideration; for Arthur’s sake, not for that of his own conscience. And what was to become of Arthur was a problem that grew in difficulty.
The recurrence of these once happy summer days, perhaps spite of himself, Jem’s bright hopes, and the return to the amusement and occupations of which Mysie had been the centre, were more than he could bear, and cost him such heart-sickness as he had never yet known.
It seemed as if his light-hearted youth had been beaten at last in the struggle, and efforts to brave it out only made matters worse; and, though he had, perhaps, never fought so hard with himself, he got none of the credit that had attached to his first home-coming. They did not cease to pity him for his sorrow, but it did become wearisome to sympathise with the indications of it, and it was impossible to order matters only with reference to him. He was out of place among them, and he felt it keenly, yet he could not resolve to go away by himself, he had grown very reserved, and certainly tried as much as possible to avoid notice; and even Hugh, who saw the most of him, found it very difficult to know how to deal with him, and turned over many plans in his mind, none of which appeared to him quite satisfactory.
They were walking home together one afternoon by the field-path from Oxley. The summer heat was beginning to be felt in the air, the summer look was coming over the woods and fields. The summer silence would soon succeed to the perpetual song and twitter of the birds. They were walking on silently, when, tripping down the path came a smartly-dressed girl, with fair hair flying. It was Alice Wood, who had been absent all the year. As she recognised them, she started violently and stopped, a sudden look of agitation in her face as she made a half-curtsey.
Arthur hesitated, then went up rather eagerly, and shook hands with her.
“How d’ye do—you have been away?” he said.
“Yes, sir, at my aunt’s, learning dressmaking. I—I hope you are pretty well, Mr Arthur,” she added, faltering.
Arthur seemed unable to say more; he turned away from her, and she hurried on, crying as she went.
The two young men stood still, each of them overpowered by the sight of her. Then Hugh saw that Arthur shivered, and was very pale. He turned towards a tree-trunk near, and sat there with hidden face, trying to recover himself, while all Hugh’s agony of remorse once more came over him.
“God knows, Arthur, I wish the stroke had fallen on me!” he said. “It is from me you should shrink. How can you bear the sight of me!”
Arthur did not answer, but he looked up after a few minutes, and said simply:
“I am very sorry. I wish I could get over these things.”
“This was not a thing to be got over.”
“No. But, Hugh, the canal—the meadows—it’s like a nightmare—I can’t forget them. I have trial to go there—to conquer it, but I never could. Yet I have dreamt over and over again of it.”
“You never spoke of this?” said Hugh.
“Oh, no. Hugh, have you ever been there?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “often at first. It was better than thinking of it.”
“Will you come with me, and get it done? I think I could—with you.”
“Oh, my dear boy, I don’t think I ought to let you do that.”
“It would be over. But I don’t know— In the morning, when it looks different.”
“Yes, not now,” said Hugh, firmly. “See here, Arthur. I have guessed at these feelings of yours. I know too well how natural and inevitable they are. But Redhurst is no fit place for you just now, and I have a plan. Should you like to come back to the Bank House and stay there with me? I think it’s comfortable, and you could rest, and there would be no discussions about society, and no worries. If you could like to be alone with me?”
“I should like it very much,” said Arthur, decidedly. “I know I’m no good at home, but I cannot bear the thought of wandering about.”
“Well, then, shall we come back now? You are tired and shaken, and I will go and explain things at home.”
“Yes. Hugh, we shan’t rake up all these matters again; but I want to tell you, once for all, that you mistook my feeling about yourself. I need not say I never blamed you—how could I? But all this nervous folly can only belong to—to indifferent objects. You suffered too, only at first I could not think of that. But you do help me—you always know the right thing for me.”
“I would lay down my life for you,” said Hugh, passionately.
“No. But you will help me to recover myself. I’m glad I have told you. And as for what must remain, when—when I have ‘got over it,’ as they say—life without her—though you wouldn’t think it after this, I believe I am learning to look forward to it a little better, and I shall have you to help me.”
“I have been very miserable about it,” said Hugh, moved to equal simplicity by Arthur’s straightforwardness. “It was my first comfort when you said I helped you. Nothing shall ever come between us: you shall be my first thought, for ever.”
Hugh’s voice swelled and quivered; he did nothing but hold Arthur’s hand for a moment, but no sign or gesture of passionate emotion would have seemed exaggerated to his feeling then. “I can make atonement,” he thought.
Arthur, who, after all, cared far less about the relations between them, though his affectionate expressions had been perfectly genuine, said more lightly:
“Then are we to turn back to Oxley?”
“Yes; then you will not have to talk it all over at home; I’ll settle it.”
So they retraced their steps; and Hugh took Arthur into the Bank House and upstairs, where he had never been for years. It was rather a large house, in the time of their grandfather the largest in Oxley, and was well-furnished and handsome. The drawing-room had never been used by Hugh; but he had established himself in the library, a stiff, old-fashioned room, with two long, narrow windows, with high window-seats in them. His writing-table, with its untidy masculine papers, had intruded on the orderly arrangements in which his grandmother, who had long survived her husband, had delighted. Arthur sat down in one of the window-seats while Hugh gave the orders rendered necessary by this unexpected decision.
“Do you remember how we used to come here to see grandmamma?” he said.
“Yes, but I should have thought you were too small to recollect it.”
“I remember it, perfectly. You used to be desired to keep Jem and me from walking on the grass; and you obeyed implicitly!”
“You may walk on the grass now, if you like,” said Hugh.
“It was a nice old garden. And, I declare, Hugh, there are the cats!”
“Cats? I haven’t got a cat.”
“The velvet cats on the mantelpiece—the first works of art I ever appreciated.”
And he pointed out two cats cut out in black velvet, and painted into tortoiseshell, with fierce eyes and long whiskers, objects of delight to the infant mind of any generation.
“I declare I never noticed them. You had better find out some more old friends, while I go over to Redhurst.”
The experiment proved very successful on both sides. It gave Arthur the rest he needed; the absence of association without the strain of novelty. His cheerfulness revived; and, perhaps, Hugh had rarely found life more pleasant: for, though he was tenderly desirous of making his cousin comfortable, of saving him fatigue, and amusing without oppressing him, it was really Arthur who twisted the things about till the room looked homelike and cheerful; found out how cool and shady the garden was, and how pretty a few changes might make it, and started agreeable subjects of conversation. Though not so amusing and argumentative as Jem, he was a wonderfully pleasant person to live with, even when languid and only half himself; and Hugh, delighted to find that the companionship suited Arthur, grew quite lively himself under its influence. They saw James whenever he came to Oxley, and frequently Mrs Crichton; and Hugh dutifully went over, at short intervals, to Redhurst, and, though he avoided without regret many summer gaieties, was obliged to share in a few, and, among others, went to a large musical party given by Mrs Dysart.
There had been some croquet and archery in the afternoon; but Hugh did not make his appearance till just as the music was going to begin.
“How late you are, Hugh!” said his mother, as he came up and joined her. “And no Arthur?”
“No; he was tired with the heat. I never meant to let him come. I am sure I’m early enough. They’re just going to begin.”
And Hugh sat down by his mother, and listened decorously to an instrumental piece. It was still early, some of the company were still wandering in the gardens, and the windows were open, letting in the soft evening air. But some wax candles were lighted at one end of the drawing-room, where the performers were gathered, and as Hugh, after listening to one or two songs and to a violin solo, was politely suppressing a yawn, a young lady stepped into the light. It was Violante—Violante, the same as when she had stood in the hot Italian sunlight, and sung to her father’s pupils. The same, and yet different. It seemed to Hugh’s confused eyes that she had turned into a fashionable lady, in her trailing white muslin, with its puffs and flounces, with her soft, curling hair, done up in an attempt at the prevailing fashion. She looked taller, older somehow—more unmistakably a beauty; but not, he thought, at first—his own Violante. She held her head up too, and if she was frightened managed to conceal it. Hugh made a snatch at his mother’s programme.
“Who—what—how?”
“Don’t you know?” said Clarissa Venning, who was near them. “Miss Mattei’s voice has come back. I suppose she will sing again in public; but this you know is quite in a private capacity. She was asked to come with Florence.”
Hugh looked at the programme:—“Song.—Miss Violante Mattei.”
He was just about to commit himself to a vehement exclamation of astonishment that no one had thought of telling him she was going to sing—how could they overlook such a fact?—when the old, sweet notes fell again on his ear, as lovely as ever he thought, and he listened, breathless, till they ceased amid loud applause and exclamations of admiration.
Violante smiled and curtseyed her thanks, with elaborate grace, and as no young lady amateur would have thought of doing.
“She has such pretty foreign manners,” cried a lady; and one of the young men of the house, laughing, tossed her a little bunch of flowers, and she picked it up and curtseyed again, just as she had been taught to do by old Madame Cellini, long ago in Civita Bella.
She was to sing once again, and Hugh waited in breathless expectation; but though the applause was as ardent as ever, she only acknowledged it this time by a dignified little bow, and retreated.
“Oh,” said one of the Dysarts, “someone has been telling her her pretty curtsey was not selon les règles. What a shame!”
“She is a very beautiful girl,” said Mrs Crichton, who, now that there was no need to fear Jem’s foolishness, was ready to be interested in Violante.
“Yes,” said Clarissa. “She is too fine a bird for us, which is a pity, as she is a nice little thing; and never so happy as when she is playing with the little ones. Ah, here she comes!”
Violante came up to Clarissa, without immediately perceiving her companions.
“Miss Clarissa, Miss Florence says they are going to dance. May we stay a little longer?”
“No one could think of carrying you away, Miss Mattei,” said Mr Dysart. “Pray, let me thank you for your songs. And, of course, Miss Venning, you are not thinking of stirring yet? Let me find you a partner.”
“Thank you, I am acting chaperone. You may stay if Florence likes, Violante. I think you have not seen Mrs Crichton?”
“Let me thank you for your sweet music, my dear,” said Mrs Crichton, in her kind way. “I think it was my other son you knew in Italy?”
“Mother, you mistake. It was I. I knew Mademoiselle Mattei once.” And Hugh started forward and held out his hand, imploringly. Violante put hers into it; but she stood passive and still.
“You were not so gracious, Miss Mattei, when we applauded you the second time,” said young Mr Dysart.
“I saw that the young ladies did not curtsey, signor,” said Violante, simply; “but I thank you for listening to me.”
As she spoke the lights flashed up and revealed her standing, facing Hugh, with a sort of desperate self-possession, as the first notes of the dance-music sounded.
“Mr Crichton, I think you don’t dance. Miss Mattei, will you give me this waltz?” said another Dysart, approaching.
Violante was no coquette, but she was a woman, and her pride had been hurt by Hugh’s neglect. So she smiled graciously, and moved away as Florence joined them, before Hugh could get out a somewhat undignified and hurried declaration that he did dance—sometimes.
“We must only stay for three dances, Flossy,” said Clarissa.
But Violante had promised the three dances before she had left their side five minutes; and Hugh returned home, with the discovery that he was not the only man of taste in the world, and the firm conviction that Violante was wholly indifferent to him. It is also remarkable that at the same time he forgot entirely all the excellent arguments by which he had endeavoured to render himself indifferent to her.
Part 6, Chapter XLVII.
Thunder-Showers.
“But whither would my fancy go?
How out of place she makes
The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks!”
After Mrs Dysart’s party there ensued a fortnight of intensely hot weather; so close and sultry that it wore a shade or two of pink even off Flossy’s rosy cheeks and accounted partly for Violante’s demeanour being unusually languid and distraite.
Mrs Crichton had gone to London to superintend some of James’ preparations and Frederica had been left at Oxley Manor, so nothing, of course, was heard there of the young men at the Bank House. It seemed to poor Flossy as if, with the discovery of her new feelings for Arthur their old intercourse had vanished away, for on his removal to Redhurst, she ceased to see him, and she could not feel that she counted for anything in his life. Thus separated from him, she felt with and for him every pang of memory and association more keenly than he always felt them for himself.
Poor Flossy! To have given her affection not only without thought of return, but to one lying under such a heavy cloud of trouble, was enough to tame her exuberant brightness; and her lessons lost their liveliness, her own occupations their interest. Miss Venning might have seen that something was amiss; but she was greatly occupied in receiving the two little sons of the brother just older than Clarissa, who had been settled in India for some time; and, if she thought Flossy looking pale, merely suggested a holiday visit to the eldest brother, who was a Lancashire clergyman, or observed that the care of the little boys would make a nice change for her. Flossy was too young to have had much home intercourse with any of her brothers, and not just then in the humour to take up with anything new.
But Clarissa had never been so fond of anyone as of the brother Walter, whose youthful scrapes and youthful interests had all been confided to her ear, and whose departure for India had been the great grief of her girlhood.
“What a blessing they’re not girls!” was her comment on the letter announcing their arrival.
“Indeed!” said Miss Venning. “It would be easier to do for them here if they were.”
“Oh, I daresay they’ll fit in,” said Clarissa. “We want a little change.”
And she went herself to Southampton to fetch them, and took them silently under her special protection, making exquisite and ever-varying grimaces for their amusement and jealous of the character of their favourite aunt. Miss Venning was glad that the children were so well provided for, and Flossy perceived that Clarissa had at last found an interest in life.
One sultry afternoon early in July Flossy, with Violante and two or three elder girls, had been to a lecture which had been held in Oxley by some celebrated personage. Miss Venning had taken the opportunity of paying a visit and had desired them to meet her at a certain shop in the town. As they crossed the marketplace ominous sounds were heard and heavy drops began to fall.
“We’re going to have a thunderstorm,” said Flossy, looking up at the bank of heavy clouds that was rolling up.
“Oh, Miss Florence, what shall we do?” said Violante, rather timidly.
“My new hat!” exclaimed one girl.
“It’s going to pour,” said another.
“We must run across to the station,” said Flossy, “or down to Cooper’s, as my sister said.”
As they stood for a moment hesitating which way to turn, they were suddenly accosted.
“Flossy! There’s going to be a great storm. Come in with me. You will all be wet through,” and Arthur hurried up to them.
“The station—Mary,” murmured Flossy.
“The station? Nonsense! you’ll all be drenched. I’ll send after Miss Venning. Come, Flossy, don’t drown your flock from a sense of propriety. I’m sure Mademoiselle Mattei doesn’t like thunder.”
The gay voice, the familiar address, chased away half Flossy’s fears and sentiments. She laughed and yielded, and they hurried through the plashing rain-drops across the road and into the Bank House—unknown ground to them all.
“Come upstairs,” said Arthur, and he led the way into his grandmother’s drawing-room, into which for the sake of coolness he had lately penetrated.
The delighted school-girls gathered into a knot, smiling and whispering. Violante glanced round, as in sacred precincts, and Arthur, pointing to the lashing rain, laughed boyishly.
“Here you are, fairly caught in the ogre’s castle. What shall I do—shall I have up Mrs Stedman?”
“Don’t be so absurd,” said Flossy, aside. “What will the girls think of you?”
“No? Then I’ll try to be polite. Isn’t this a quaint room, Miss Mattei?”
It was a long room with three high windows, looking over the garden, against which the rain was beating violently. Everything was slender, prim, and pale-coloured. Old-fashioned prints hung on the walls, on the paper of which long-tailed birds drank out of wonderful vases. Old china was varied by wax flowers and queer little bits of fancy work. Elaborate wool-work chairs were preserved with tight-fitting muslin covers. Arthur made Violante sit down in a tall straight-backed one; he opened a cabinet of curiosities for the amusement of the girls, and was just beginning: “I don’t know when I’ve seen you, Flossy,” when the door opened and Hugh walked in, to find the stiff grandmotherly chamber full of laughing, summer-clothed girls, and in the centre, soft and smiling, Violante herself.
“Hugh looks like a man who has ridden into a fairy ring,” said Arthur, as his cousin paused in utter surprise.
Hugh made a few polite speeches, Flossy some rather hurried explanations, and then their host fell silent, till, after a minute or two, he said, gravely:
“Arthur, don’t you think we could give these young ladies some tea?”
“To be sure. I’ll go and see what can be produced.”
“Arthur has made the house quite habitable,” said Hugh to Flossy.
“He looks much better than when I saw him last.”
“Yes, I think he is better; but he has felt the hot weather, and he always turns the brightest side up, you know.”
Hugh’s affectionate tone turned up quite a new side of himself to Flossy; but Violante recognised the familiar accents which she had missed so sorely at first. He did not speak a word to her; but her heart was beating, she felt intensely happy.
Arthur presently reappeared, followed by Mrs Stedman, with preparations for tea and such a plentiful supply of cakes of all descriptions as Flossy suspected had cost the office-boy a wetting to obtain from the neighbouring pastry-cook’s. The girls were in a state of blissful delight. Was there ever such a fortunate thunder-shower? and, perhaps, their young teachers were not far from the same opinion.
“I’m afraid it’s going to clear up,” whispered one of the younger ones.
“There’s not a chance of it,” said Arthur, gravely. “It’s going to pour for an hour yet.” But struggling sunbeams began to force their way through the clouds and to dance on the rain-drops. Arthur flung up the window and a great rainbow was arching over the sky, while trees, grass, and flowers were brilliant with reflected light.
It had cleared up, and Miss Venning made her appearance in her friend’s waterproof cloak, with—
“Well, young ladies, I need not have been anxious about your getting wet!”
“You’re just in time to have some tea, Miss Venning,” said Arthur. “They were just getting wet through when I met them.”
Miss Venning drank her tea, and carried off her flock; but, though no one had exchanged a word in private, somehow that tea-drinking had left three people much happier than it found them.
It seemed to have restored to Flossy a natural intercourse with Arthur, and to have brought his real self before her again; while to Violante it had restored the gentle, smiling Signor Hugo of last year. The effect on Hugh was less definite, but it was long since he had laughed so much as at Arthur’s account of his finding the girls hesitating and wondering in the fast-coming rain.
He was engaged the next morning for some time by a meeting at which the plans for the gas-works, which had been invested with so incongruous an interest, and the plans for the new railway were brought forward and discussed, and it was with a very grave face that he came back to Arthur with some papers in his hand.
“Look, Arthur,” he said. “I must show you what has been proposed about this railroad. You know they want to connect Fordham and Oxley, and the line proposed would cut right through the Ashenfold woods and along the bed of the canal (which would not be worth keeping up if there was a railroad), and keep by the bank of the river up to the ‘Pot of Lilies’ and then strike across the heath to Fordham. Redhurst would have a station somewhere down by the lock. This is much the most direct line; but it is possible that they might take one round at the back of the woods, and as the property nearly all belongs to my mother we might, perhaps, get it adopted. I want to know how it strikes you.”
Hugh made this long, business-like explanation without pausing, and now he drew the plan forward and pointed out the proposed route.
“It shall not be done if you mind it very much,” he said, vehemently, as there was no answer.
“Does Aunt Lily know?” said Arthur.
“Yes. She is not unwilling. I would not have it talked of till it was necessary to tell you about it.”
“I remember it was talked of once before. We thought it dreadful destruction; but you said then that a good many local interests were involved in it, that it would be a good thing for the place, and that it would be a very unpopular act to oppose it.”
“I don’t care a straw about the unpopularity,” said Hugh.
“What, when you know you’re the Member of the future? No, Hugh; what reason could you give for opposing it? Don’t vex yourself about me. Why should one cling to the mere empty shell of things? To oppose a real public advantage for—for our feelings. It would just be ridiculous, and can’t be done. You would be the first to say so.”
This was perfectly true; yet Hugh could as little bear to hear the effort in Arthur’s voice as if he had not been a sensible, clearheaded man of business, who scorned the notion of acting on sentimental motives. For his own part the removal of all these haunted places was a positive relief; but he knew that to Arthur it was like rifling a grave.
“When is this likely to be carried out?” said Arthur, presently.
“Why, very soon—if they get it through Parliament before the end of the session. To-day is the fifteenth of July—”
Arthur started up and walked away to the window. Was the fate of the poor old “Pot of Lilies” to be sealed on the very day of the year when, with such mirth and merry-making, they had agreed to revisit it and renew their innocent little celebration; to live over once more the hours that had been so cloudless and so gay? Ah, never, never again!
There came over Arthur one of those agonies of regret that were worse to bear than any nervous horror, even than the daily loneliness to which he was trying to grow accustomed. He seemed to feel again Mysie’s little hand in his; to see her sweet round eyes looking into his own. The air was sweet again with summer fragrance; the sun shone hot and clear in as blue a sky; but that hand—those eyes— He hurried away, and Hugh dared not follow him, and, having no mental picture of the daily events of the past summer till it had broken up into storm and misery, could not tell what had affected him so strongly.
He could only try to be doubly tender and considerate, and, as soon as he thought Arthur could bear any discussion about himself, suggested that they should go together for a little trip to North Wales. He had not been away himself for more than a year, and could easily contrive to take the holiday. His mother, he knew, meant to go to the sea almost immediately; so Redhurst would be shut up, and Oxley was too hot and dusty in August to be endurable. Arthur acquiesced, rather languidly, but as if he knew it was right.
“Jem asked me if I would like to take a last bachelor trip with him; but I should have known all the time that his heart was elsewhere,” he said.
“You will not think I want to be anywhere else,” said Hugh, and, perhaps, just at that time he hardly did.
The trip prospered. Arthur was fond of travelling and clever in contriving plans for it. He was grave and quiet as Hugh had never known him, with fewer ups and downs of spirits, and seemed to be losing the boyishness that had clung to him so obstinately; and so the dreaded days drew near, with nothing whatever to mark their coming, and the first Sunday in August dawned damp and grey over heathery hills and mossy valleys. They were at a place where there was no English service. Arthur went to hear the Welsh one, and Hugh wandered about, anxious and wretched, and yet with his mind perversely filled with hopeful visions of Violante. He would have liked to make this a day of penance, but whenever he let his mind loose, as it were, it sprang back like an elastic band to the image that daily filled it more and more.
“It has not been at all a bad day, Hugh,” said Arthur, gently, as they parted for the night. “I am glad we came here. To-morrow, if you will, we’ll go for a long walk somewhere.”
And so they spent that Monday, so full of memories—though, of course, the Tuesday was the real anniversary of Mysie’s death—beneath cool, dull skies, over hill-sides half shrouded in mountain mists, heather and furze for roses and carnations, cloud for sunshine, wild lonely solitudes for homely quiet. They did not talk very much; but the day had none of the terror that Hugh had anticipated from it. Rather it had a kind of sorrowful peace.
In the afternoon the mist thickened into heavy rain; and, as they approached a small wayside public-house, Hugh suggested that they should take shelter; find out exactly where they were, and if there was any chance of a conveyance to Beddgelert, where they had ordered their luggage to meet them. They had been walking all day, and if their object had been to look at the scenery, instead of to find some monotonous occupation, would have been much disappointed.
Accordingly they turned into the little inn, and while Hugh went to enquire of an English-speaking host as to the possibility of reaching Beddgelert, Arthur, who had picked up a few words of Welsh, and generally contrived to make himself understood, was engaged in a lively pantomime with the tall, dark-eyed girl who waited on them, making her laugh and talk volubly and incomprehensibly, as he tried to indicate that he wanted something; hot to drink, and something substantial to eat. There was no guest-room but the low, spacious kitchen into which they had first entered, and he was standing before the smouldering peat fire and pointing with animated gestures first to the bottle and then to his flask when the house door was burst open, and a whole party of tourists, struggling with wind, water-proofs and umbrellas, ran hastily in. There were three ladies and two gentlemen, and they were too much occupied in shaking themselves free from their wraps to perceive Arthur, till Hugh came back, saying: “There’s nothing to be got here, Arthur,” when a young lady, letting her waterproof drop on the floor, sprang forward. “Why, it’s Mr Spencer Crichton! How d’ye do?—oh, how funny! Charlie, Charlie, here’s Mr Crichton!”
“Miss Tollemache!” exclaimed Hugh, in equal surprise, as Emily Tollemache, bright-haired, frank-faced, and smiling, stood confused, while her brother came forward with—
“Why, Crichton, who in the world would have thought of meeting you here?”
One or two letters had passed between Hugh and Mr Tollemache since their parting; but with no reference to the past, the restraint of which had caused each to be less inclined to seek out the other, and Arthur, as Hugh made a sort of introduction of his friends, could not fail to be struck by his look of embarrassment. Emily, however, was equal to the occasion.
“So, you see, Mr Crichton, we have come to England, and I do like it so much, quite as much as I expected. Mamma is in London, and we are travelling with my cousins, only it has rained every day since we came here.”
“Our climate certainly is variable,” said Hugh.
“I am afraid you must regret Italian sunshine, Miss Tollemache,” put in Arthur, as he tried to kick the peats into a blaze.
“Oh, no! not yet. But it seems quite natural to see Mr Crichton. And you know we went away and I have never seen Rosa or my dear Violante. I wonder what has become of them!”
“I can tell you that,” said Hugh, and Arthur saw Mr Tollemache turn and look at him with an involuntary start; while Hugh grew crimson, as he continued: “They came to England, and she went, by chance, to school at Oxley.”
“How strange! Do you ever see her? Oh, what a lovely, dear creature she was when we all went to the classes together! Did you ever see her?” to Arthur—“Couldn’t I find her out?”
Arthur answered with a few words of explanation as to Violante’s present circumstances, but he felt as if he were finding the explanation of all sorts of trifles which he had thought strange, but had been too much preoccupied to reason about.
“Mamma wants me to go to school,” said Emily, “and, though I consider myself much too old, I should like to go to school with Violante.”
Here Mr Tollemache changed the conversation decidedly, and Hugh said aside to Arthur:
“This is very unlucky! That we should have encountered all these people! Cannot we get away?”
Arthur glanced expressively at the window, against which the mountain-rain was beating almost in sheets of water.
“It cannot be helped,” he said, “and I do not mind it.”
He had only meant to reassure Hugh’s anxiety for him; but he was surprised at the colour and hurry with which Hugh disclaimed minding it on his own account. So they were obliged to stay and eat fried ham and eggs together; and Arthur, by cultivating Miss Tollemache’s acquaintance discovered a good deal that was new about Hugh’s visit to Civita Bella, and by the time their meal was over the clouds had lifted, and the Tollemaches’ carriage, which they had left some two or three miles behind them for the sake of the mountain walk, came in search of them. Hugh and Arthur found that they were only five or six miles from Beddgelert; and after Hugh had extorted from himself an invitation to the Tollemaches to come to Redhurst, which he was sure that his mother would follow up, and had parted cordially with his friends, they set forth on their walk once more alone together.
Part 6, Chapter XLVIII.
The Meeting of the Waters.
“And the brooklet has found the billow,
Though they flowed so far apart,
And has filled with its passionate sweetness
That turbulent, bitter heart.”
The heavy walls of mist slowly lifted themselves, and the purple mountain-sides showed dark and close at hand. The passionate rush of the mountain torrents sounded full and free after the violent rain, and their foam showed white against the grass and heather, ready to dance in the first rays of returning sunshine. Arthur and Hugh walked on for some distance in silence—a silence that confirmed Arthur’s suspicions. It was so strange a revelation, so much in contrast with his life-long surface knowledge of Hugh’s character, that he hesitated to believe it. Yet all Violante’s looks and sayings, which he had understood as referring to Vasari, were now, he perceived, capable of another interpretation. He now recollected his impression that there had been something amiss with Hugh on his first return from Italy, the passing thought that had flashed across him when he had seen them together at the primrose-picking; Violante’s wish to go to England, and her content when she found herself there; and, more than all, Hugh’s flushed, agitated look as he walked on now beside him.
“Hugh,” said Arthur, with sudden courage, “I think I have found the clue to a great deal that has puzzled me. I thought it was the manager-lover for whom Violante was fretting at Caletto. I think now—”
“What do you mean? Fretting? You told me it was Vasari—you confirmed all my suspicions. Tell me the real truth, what was it?” cried Hugh, stopping suddenly, and facing round upon him.
“I made mischief, I am afraid,” said Arthur, “but I had a preconceived idea. I see now that her hints and her little sorrowful ways were on your account only. How could I guess you had anything to do with her?”
“Don’t laugh at me!” cried Hugh, fiercely.
“I don’t want to laugh. I want you to tell me the whole story.”
“Tell you—now?” said Hugh, recollecting himself. “No, no, impossible.”
“You can’t leave me in such a state of conjecture. Here, it’s quite fine and sunny now. Let us stop by this stile, and tell me all about it.”
As he spoke Arthur perched himself on the stone step of the stile, while Hugh leaned against the wall beside him. The white masses of cloud torn in every direction rolled rapidly away, showing great wells of blue between them. Every stone and puddle shone and sparkled in the sunshine; sharp peaks, and large, round masses of rock came one by one into view.
In this unfamiliar scene, to the last person and at the last moment that he could possibly have anticipated, Hugh began to tell his story. Arthur listened with a few well-timed questions, till Hugh spoke of “trying to convince Jem,” when he could not repress a laugh.
“Jem in the seat of judgment!”
Hugh laughed too, and went on, more comfortably:
“He said nothing I did not know before. I meant to carry it through. I could have done so.”
“Then you did not come to an explanation with her?”
“Yes, I did. I thought then I had found out the secret of life,” said Hugh, with an intensity of feeling, which Arthur could well sympathise with.
“But what on earth upset it all?”
“Didn’t I see her with the diamonds, taking them from him?—ah!” Hugh broke off, and drove his heel into the ground, unable to recall the scene without passion that was almost uncontrollable, and turning white with the effort to restrain language and gesture to the dry composure which he had adopted.
“Her father said she was already engaged to him,” he said, after a pause; then hurried on with his story, and demanded:
“Now, what do you say to that?”
“That I would not have believed you could be such a fool,” would have been Arthur’s natural answer, but he modified it into, “Well, I think you were very hasty, and rather hard on the poor child—”
“Hard? Do you think I was hard—don’t you think I was justified in what I did?”
“I don’t think you allowed enough for her father’s authority and her own timidity—certainly.”
“Sometimes I think I acted like a brute,” said Hugh.
“Well, but you see the worse you acted the less you were deceived in her,” said Arthur, plainly. “Well, then you came home and thought it was all over?”
“Yes. Perhaps you can understand now what caused the temper and the conduct which led to—to—. Could I have had any conscience, any feeling, and have renewed my happiness after last year?”
“But how was it?” said Arthur, hardly comprehending a view so unlike his own instincts.
“Well, you know recent circumstances as well as I do. I have become aware that, however it may have been once—I think now she is not indifferent to me, but I saw all the difficulties more plainly—that was not it, she is more than all the world to me—but how could I do it?”
“But, Hugh,” said Arthur, gently, “what good could it possibly do me for you to make yourself miserable?”
“No good,” said Hugh. “I know that now. But I could bear better to see you. I should have hated my own happiness.” Arthur did not answer for a moment, he was thinking how little they had any of them known of Hugh.
“But you make me out rather a dog in the manger,” he said, with a half-smile.
“No, no! You are all that is unselfish. But I was not thinking of you. I know I was mistaken, but lately I have seen things differently.”
“It has been a great comfort to me to have you to look after me lately,” said Arthur, with tact to say the most soothing thing; “and, no doubt, last year you did not know what you felt. But I should not have thought you heartless. There is one person whose feelings I think you have forgotten—Violante herself.”
“When I believed she loved me it seemed too good a thing for me to put out my hand to take,” said Hugh, in a low voice.
“Oh, Hugh,” said Arthur, sadly and earnestly, “don’t throw away a great love. Neither she nor you will ever most likely feel the like again. It is much too good to lose. It’s the best thing in the world, you know.”
“And I must have it. I, while you...” said Hugh, with much agitation.
“You have it. She loves you, and you only can make her happy.”
“You don’t imagine,” said Hugh, passionately, “that I don’t know how precious, how utterly good it is! You don’t think I don’t love her?”
“No, no, I don’t think that.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Hugh said, more lightly:
“And how about my mother, and all that part of the business?”
“As to that, Jem was right, of course, at an early stage of the proceedings; but it is not such an extreme case but what I think it may all be managed. Violante is differently placed now, and is herself all anyone could wish. And you wouldn’t be worth much without her, Hugh.”
“Just nothing,” said Hugh.
“Well, then,” said Arthur, boldly, “why don’t you go home to-morrow morning and see her?”
Hugh leant over the wall in silence, enduring a conflict of feeling that only such natures ever know. He desired this thing with passionate intensity; he knew, from bitter experience, that he could not bear its loss. He was not one whose feet went creditably along the paths of self-denial, or from whom voluntary self-sacrifice came with any grace. And yet he felt how little he deserved this blessing, how utterly beyond his merits it would be, with such humiliation that he could hardly bear to put out his hand to take it. To feel himself crowned with such undeserved joy, to take it almost from Arthur’s hand—to find that there was left for him no expiation, no penance even for the wrong he had done—to know “that no man may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him,” was a pang unknown to humbler, simpler souls, but bitter as death to him.
It was almost inconceivable to Arthur, with his unconquerable instinct for making the best of things, and his readiness to accept consolation from any quarter. He had no particular insight into character, nor any inclination to sit in judgment on his neighbours; but he did perceive that Hugh was distressed by the contrast between their fortunes, and that he was suffering under an access of self-reproach, so he said:
“You can’t tell how much good you have done me lately. It has been the greatest rest to be with you; but this will only be pleasure to me. I know you would put it all off to save me any pain, but I shall be happier for it—I shall indeed—don’t have a single scruple.”
Hugh hung down his head; he knew that to seek his own happiness was the only right thing left.
“Utterly undeserved,” he murmured.
“As to that,” said Arthur, with much feeling, “who could deserve love like—like theirs? I felt that, thoughtless fellow as I was, always. I had done nothing. I was nothing much, you know. I said so once to Mysie, and she thought it over, and that last Sunday afternoon I remember she said as we walked back together, that she had been considering what I said—I’m afraid I had never thought of it again—and that she did not think anyone need trouble about not deserving the love that was given them; for did not undeserved love lie at the very foundation of the Christian religion, yet the love of God made people happy, and we made each other happy by our love? Wasn’t it a wonderful, wise thing for a girl to say? And it’s true; when I think of her love, I can better bear the want of herself.”
How well Hugh recognised the sweet, well-expressed wisdom of Mysie’s little sayings! It struck home with an application far deeper than Arthur guessed. Had not his whole history during the past year been one long attempt to expiate his own sin, to atone himself for his errors, to absolve his own conscience from its remorse?
He looked up, with his eyes swimming in tears, at Arthur.
“I shall go, then,” was all he said.
“That’s right; let’s get on, then, and you can have a look at Bradshaw.”
Hugh laughed at this practical suggestion, and presently remembered that, as Miss Venning’s holidays had begun, Violante would not be in Oxley.
“Well, you could find out her uncle’s address—Jem knows it.”
“Oh, I know where he lives,” said Hugh, declining to encounter Jem. “Come what may, I shall come back to you at once,” he said.
“Well—send me a telegram, and I could come and meet you. You know we should have gone home in a week or so, anyhow.” Violante was alone at Signor Mattei’s lodgings. Rosa’s wedding was to take place in about a fortnight, and the little drawing-room was full of preparations for it. Rosa’s modest trousseau, her uncle’s gift, looked magnificent lying on the chairs and sofa, where her cousins had been inspecting it before taking her out to make further purchases. It was a hot, sunny afternoon, and Violante, as she stood in the window, thought how dusty the trees looked in the little garden, how brown the grass, and how shabby altogether was the aspect of London in August. For almost the first time she thought, with a faint sense of regret, of Civita Bella, with its harmonious colours, its fretted spires, the deep blue of the skies, the flowers. She glanced at Rosa’s white bridal wreath, just sent home, and took it up in her hand—orange flowers, myrtle, and stephanotis, but these were dry and false; those other blossoms— Violante heard a little noise, she turned her head, and there stood Hugh Crichton, tall and stately, just as he had come towards her over the old palace floor more than a year ago. She was so utterly surprised, and yet his presence fitted in so justly with her thoughts that she stood waiting, with her eyes on his face, without one conventional word of greeting. Hugh had rehearsed a thousand greetings; what he uttered was a new one—
“Violante—Violante! will you forgive me?—can you love me still?”
He held out both hands imploringly. Violante looked up in his face; she dropped the wreath, and in a moment, neither knew how, he held her in his arms, and the long year of parting was a year that was past. He had come back; what had she to do with mistrust or pride?
“My darling—oh, my darling! I have not been so faithless as I seemed,” he said.
“I was misled, and then—”
“I never broke my promise,” sobbed Violante; “before you were gone I threw the diamonds away. I was never engaged to him—never.”
“It was all my own wrong-headed folly and suspicion. And then, you know our terrible story?”
“I know many things now,” said Violante, withdrawing a little. “Mr Crichton, I have seen your home, and I know the difference between us. I have not wondered lately that you did not come back.”
“Never think of that,” cried Hugh, “for my life is worth nothing without you. I have been so miserable that I could lead no life at all. Oh, my darling, give yourself back to me, and I will—I will be good to you! I will make you happy. I have loved you every moment of this bitter year. Oh, make the rest of my life better!”
So Hugh pleaded, with all that past bitterness giving force to his words. And she, who needed no urging, whose love had been his without an hour’s wavering, felt all her troubles floating away, till the dusty suburban drawing-room was filled with a sunlight as glorious as the Italian palace, and there needed no scent of southern flowers to bring back the charm of their one half-hour of happiness. It had come back to them, and by the long want of it they knew far better what it was worth.