Phemie Keller

“And I am so sorry, my dear, never to have been able to call upon you before.” It was Mrs. Keller who said this, as she and Phemie sat in the drawing-room that looked out over the sea. “But, of course, as long as poor Miss Keller lived she was so bitter on the subject of her brother’s marriage, that it would have been impossible for us to take any step of the kind without offending her. Had we made any advances towards you, we would always have thought our opposition was the reason of her iniquitous will, and I am certain that would have made you most uncomfortable; so, perhaps, it is all better as it is. Her will, my dear? Is it possible you never heard about it? She had not a living relative except her cousin, my husband, our children, and yourself; and she had an immense fortune from her mother—a fortune that would have enabled us to live without anxiety for ever.

“Well—would you believe it?—she turned Dissenter, and left everything she had in the world to building chapels, and sending out missionaries, and we were never one sixpence the better of her death, except fifty pounds, which she said my husband was to spend in buying a mourning ring. Ring, indeed! it did not pay quarter of the expenses of the mourning. Jacqueline, my youngest daughter, had a horrid set of amethyst ornaments—hideous things—that might have been worn by Queen Philippa; but she bequeathed her diamonds to some society, and they were sent up to London—absolutely sent up and sold by auction for the benefit of some penitentiary, or reformatory, or whatever it was.”

Phemie laughed. The misfortunes of her relations clearly did not affect her as they ought.

“I suppose Miss Keller thought she had a right to do what she liked with her own,” she suggested.

“But she had not a right,” returned Mrs. Keller; “she induced my husband to join General Keller in effecting a mortgage on the property—Roundwood, I mean—and told him she would make it up to him someday; and she never made it up; and to this hour we are paying interest on the mortgage, and unless we live like beggars, we can save nothing, absolutely nothing; and there is not an insurance office in England will take Mr. Keller’s life; so there is a predicament for us; and the property goes after his death.”

“I suppose that is really the most disagreeable part of the business?” Phemie remarked.

“It would be useless to deny it,” answered Mrs. Keller, with charming sincerity; “but as it is to go away from us, I am glad it is to pass to you.”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Stondon, and she leaned a little forward in her chair as she uttered the word.

“Why? because, of course, one would rather have to do with a woman than with a man.”

“Should you?” interrupted Phemie; “notwithstanding your experience of Miss Keller?”

“But then all women are not like her,” answered Mrs. Keller; “indeed, she was as unlike a woman as anything I ever saw in my life—not in the least like you, at any rate: and in the next place, you are married, and would not want to turn us out of Roundwood in a minute if anything did unfortunately happen.”

“Well, what else?” asked Phemie, as Mrs. Keller paused.

“Nothing else. I have said all I meant to say——”

“Though not all you were thinking,” laughed Phemie, once again. “It is something to have for next heir a woman without children, whom your eldest daughter may one day succeed in——”

“My dear Mrs. Stondon, I assure you——”

“My dear Mrs. Keller, I assure you,” interrupted Phemie, “that I know you know a great deal too little of me, and a great deal too much of the world, to be indifferent to such considerations. There is but a life standing between you and Roundwood, and I cannot blame you for seeing that this life is not a good one; still it is only fair for me to assure you that my present illness is the result of accident, not of constitutional delicacy. In a general way I am as strong as my neighbours.” Having concluded which pleasant little speech, Phemie sank back in her chair, and looked straight in Mrs. Keller’s face, with a sweet smile.

“Godfrey,” said Mrs. Keller, on her return to St. Leonards, “that woman frightens me. She knew what I was thinking of; she is worse than her aunt ever was—cooler, more collected, keener. Talk about Captain Stondon having married an innocent, unsophisticated girl! Folly! Depend upon it, she is far more worldly-wise than he, and knew all about his property, and the position he would be enabled to give her. Guileless, indeed! A designing minx, like her mother, doubtless.”

“Her mother had not any great amount of guile about her,” answered Mr. Keller. “I remember seeing her in Paris, just before Mrs. Stondon was born; and a prettier creature I never beheld.”

“There you are, man—man—man all over,” retorted Mrs. Keller; “a pretty face and a soft manner deceive the wisest of you. It has evidently taken in Captain Stondon, who is certainly one of the very nicest old gentlemen I ever met—such frank, kindly manners: so courteous, so considerate. He came in from Battle while I was there; and to see him speaking to her was really as good as any comedy. Had she been a queen he could not have treated her more reverentially. How was she? and had she felt lonely until I came in? and did she feel inclined to take a drive or a walk? and had she eaten any lunch, and was she certain she had taken her wine? and had the doctor called? and did she think she was really better, really, really? Those are the kind of things that annoy me in this world,” finished Mrs. Keller; “the perfect idiots men make of themselves about women, as if they belonged to some superior order of being.”

“Well, don’t you think that you do, Honoria?” asked Mr. Keller; “it has often occurred to me that you must entertain some idea of the kind.”

“I entertain no idea of the kind, Godfrey, so don’t be ridiculous. I hate to see men humbling themselves before women, more especially before such a piece of languid superiority as Mrs. Stondon. And she is just the same to everybody; she orders that young Stondon—what is his name? Basil Stondon—about as though he were not next heir to Marshlands; and he comes and goes at her beck and call just as a dog fetches and carries; he does, indeed.”

“It is very sad, is it not?” answered Mr. Keller; “but perhaps, my love, if you were as young and handsome as Mrs. Stondon, people might fetch and carry for you, too.”

“Now that is precisely what I meant about Captain Stondon. He would never have made a speech like that even to his own wife; he would never be rude, unmanly, brutal. And as for Mrs. Stondon,” burst out Mrs. Keller in an accession of indignation, “some people might call her handsome, but I don’t. She has not an atom of colour in her face, nor a bit of flesh on her bones. I wonder she does not rouge. It would make her look a little less like a ghost.”

“Did she express any wish to see the girls?” asked Mr. Keller, who, as was natural, felt some paternal anxiety on the subject.

“Could you imagine the Queen expressing a wish to see them?” asked Mrs. Keller, facing suddenly round. “When you meet Mrs. Stondon you will have some idea of the woman she is, but not till then. I asked her to come to Roundwood, but she declined. ‘My mother was not received there,’ she said, ‘and I shall certainly not visit at a house, the doors of which were shut in her face.’

“‘But they were not shut by us, my dear,’ said I.

“‘No,’ she admitted, ‘but that could not make any difference. Her relations had not taken any notice of her (Mrs. Stondon) either, and would probably not have taken any notice to the end of the chapter, but that she chanced to be the next heir. As for children,’ she added, ‘she could not bear them; girls, more particularly, she disliked. Some day, perhaps, she would be able to see my girls, but not till she grew stronger.’ And there she sat in the arm-chair all the time,” went on Mrs. Keller, “as though she were an empress, and I a subject paying her homage.”

“Then on the whole your visit was not a productive one?” suggested Mr. Keller.

“It was, so far as Captain Stondon could make it so,” answered his wife. “He is going to call upon you, and he hoped he should see us at Marshlands; which I intend he shall. And upon the whole I don’t think she disliked me; but then she seems to care for nothing. I cannot make her out at all.”

“And neither can I,” declared Miss Georgina Hurlford, to whom Mrs. Keller confided this opinion a few days subsequently. “When first I went to Marshlands, I thought Mrs. Stondon the most beautiful and charming woman I ever beheld, but she is quite changed lately. It is not the effect of that terrible accident, for she was changed before it happened. Now do, Mrs. Keller, use your penetration, and see if you can discover for what she wishes, or whether she wishes for anything; of whom she is fond, or whether she is fond of any one. I am dying to understand Mrs. Stondon. Sometimes I think she is too happily married, for such a husband I never saw. I am sure if I could meet with any one like him, I should not mind having to beg my bread for his sake.”

And Miss Hurlford fell into a little fit of rapture over Captain Stondon’s perfections, while Mrs. Keller, who had sense enough to see Miss Georgina did not look much like a young lady who would relish begging her bread, even in company with a model husband, ventured to suggest that Mr. Basil Stondon, who was eligible, would probably make a wife quite as happy as his relative.

“Basil!” repeated Miss Georgina, with a curl of her lip, “Basil thinks far too much of himself ever to be like his uncle. Besides which, he is engaged. Did you not know it? Ah! really, now, you are jesting. I thought every one knew that, although they keep it so quiet—Miss Derno and he have been engaged for years, at least so I am told; but Mrs. Stondon cannot, it is said, bear the match, and wishes it broken off.”

“Why, what possible business can it be of hers?” asked Mrs. Keller, in astonishment.

“That is what we all want to know,” returned Miss Hurlford. “Some people say she hates the notion of Basil having Marshlands at all; others that she wants him to marry some relative of her own—a pretty girl, Helen Aggland, have you ever seen her? (her father is the funniest old man possible); in fact, no one seems to be able to tell what to think——”

“But surely Miss Derno must be much older than Mr. Basil Stondon?”

“A few years. She is the kind of wife, though, he ought to have—at least so everybody says—clever and experienced, and able to take the lead, and keep him in order,” rattled off Miss Hurlford.

“Has he not been offered an appointment in India?” asked Mrs. Keller.

“In Ceylon, I think it is. No person thinks it can be good for him living in idleness at Marshlands, and so when papa heard of this vacant post, he said, ‘Now that is just the thing for young Stondon;’ but Captain Stondon won’t hear of it. Miss Derno, of course, wants him to accept papa’s offer, because it would enable them to marry; and now her aunt is dead, she may go abroad if she likes any day. I am sure I cannot tell how it will be,” finished Miss Georgina thoughtfully, while Mrs. Keller returned to the bosom of her family, thinking—

“She seems a frank enough kind of girl, but for all her frankness I have an idea she wants Basil Stondon for herself.”

Wherein Mrs. Keller chanced to be right, only matters were not progressing at all to Miss Hurlford’s satisfaction. Boating, riding, driving, walking, listening to the music on the Parade, wandering over the East Cliff, climbing up the Castle Hill, she was not an inch nearer her object than ever.

Phemie had him heart and soul. She was the love of his life, and since the accident he had loved her more despairingly than ever. From all other women he turned to her. He would have asked nothing better than to sit at her side, to walk with her along the shore, to drive her through the pleasant lanes, to look in her pale face, and to feel her soft hand lying still and warm and quiet in his. The man’s very nature seemed changed; he was fickle no more, he was importunate no more; he loved her entirely, and he knew she loved him, and he was content to wait—that was what he said to himself—till she was a widow, when they would marry and be happy.

He ate Captain Stondon’s bread, and yet still thought this; he addressed his relative respectfully, and spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration and affection, and yet all the time he would have taken his ewe lamb from him—all the time he was thinking, “Captain Stondon is getting old, Captain Stondon’s health is failing, Captain Stondon’s spirits are beginning to flag,” which observation chanced to be quite correct. Phemie’s husband was altering every day. He was growing less cheerful, he was getting sadder, and not all his wife’s tenderness, not all her remonstrances, could clear away a gloom that seemed to be settling down upon him.

From the time General Hurlford mentioned the Ceylon appointment to him, a change seemed to come over Captain Stondon. At first it was but a shade, but the merest cloud; but as time wore on the cloud grew blacker, and people began to think that the idea of Basil deserting Marshlands had seriously hurt and grieved him.

“I will give you an answer, so far as I am concerned, when we return to Norfolk,” he said to Sir Samuel; “though, after all, it is a question for Basil to decide.”

“But Basil says he will do whatever you think best,” answered the General.

“I cannot expect any man to build his house on my plan,” replied Captain Stondon; “it would not be right for me to do so, and perhaps I have already been selfish in keeping Basil so much at Marshlands. I will think the matter out there, and talk it over with him.”

“He ought soon to make his mind up on the matter,” said General Sir Samuel, a little pompously, for he thought—naturally perhaps—that his offer had not been accepted so promptly as it ought, and that the amount of gratitude felt by both Captain Stondon and Basil fell infinitely short of that which he considered his due.

“It is not with my good-will that he has hesitated for so long,” answered Captain Stondon. “I wished him to refuse your kind proposal at once—for reasons which I have explained more than once.”

“But consider the opening, my dear sir.”

“Consider the distance—consider the climate. It is an excellent opening for men in the position we occupied at one time, but certainly not for Basil. We had our way to make, his is made for him. There is no reason that I can see, why he should risk his life out there, when he might just as well stay at home. In fact,” went on Captain Stondon, “I confess there is something I cannot understand in the persistency with which all Basil’s friends urge him to do something for himself. One would think that a man could desire no better home than a place like Marshlands, which will be his own in the ordinary course of nature. Do you all think I am going to turn him out some day? Can it be that you fancy I shall not deal fairly by him so long as I live? Tell me frankly why his friends are making themselves so busy in his affairs. Tell me, for instance, why you think Basil should go to India.”

“Well, in the way you put it—I really can see no reason why he should go at all; but still, as you say, all his friends seem to think he ought not to be dependent on your bounty, or charity, indeed, as Miss Derno puts it. The moment the appointment was vacant everybody cried out—“Why, that is the very thing for Basil Stondon;” and so, of course, I offered it to him; and as they still keep saying he is mad to refuse, I keep offering it to him still. That is all I have got to say about the matter—it is, upon my word and honour.”

And Sir Samuel who had uttered all this in the teeth of a north-east wind, blew his nose violently, and buttoned up his brown top-coat with a tremendous show of dignity.

“It is very singular,” remarked Captain Stondon.

“It is indeed—as you observe, it is very singular.”

But at this point Sir Samuel, who was descending the steps that led down from the West Cliff to the old town of Hastings, past St. Clement’s Church, stopped as if he had been shot.

“An idea has just occurred to me,” he said. “I remember a remark Mr. Hurlford once made, that may serve to throw a little light on the matter. It was to the effect that Basil could not marry without your approval; for although you kept him you might not feel inclined to keep his wife and children also. Do you think we have solved the enigma at last?” inquired the General, whose nose was blue and whose cheeks were black from the cold cutting breeze that seemed to be trying to cut him through and through.

“Thank you, I think you have,” answered Captain Stondon, simply; and he took Sir Samuel’s hand and shook it heartily—gratefully. “If that is all, I believe we can get over the difficulty; but does Basil want to marry any one? Is there anybody to whom he is attached?”

“Such things are not much in my way,” answered Sir Samuel; “but you know people do talk about him and Miss Derno.”

“Miss Derno! you amaze me. If I had thought at all on the subject I should have guessed very differently; but I will talk to my wife about it. Women, you know, generally are sharper in affairs of this kind than we are.”

“May I inquire,” asked the General, on whose comprehension a faint glimmering of light was just dawning, “where your guess would have fallen? I do not ask from idle curiosity, believe me.”

“It was only a passing idea,” answered Captain Stondon. “I thought for a moment of my wife’s cousin, Helen Aggland.”

“Certainly—yes, to be sure.” And the light that had been struggling into General Sir Samuel’s brain was suddenly extinguished.

That very evening Captain Stondon talked to Phemie about Basil. He told her what he had heard, he asked her what she thought. He opened the subject so unexpectedly that Phemie blessed the twilight in which they sat for hiding her face while she listened. She felt it flush—that poor face usually so pale and white—and she grew faint and sick, as her husband inquired whether it had ever occurred to her that Basil was attached to Miss Derno.

“I have thought so for a long time,” she answered. “I once heard they were positively engaged, and I remember teasing Basil about it.”

Teasing!—it was an easy, simple word, far enough removed from any feeling she had ever experienced in the matter. Had she said tortured herself—had she said tormented her spirit—lacerated her heart—she would have been much nearer the mark; but as it was, she merely declared that she had teased him, and Captain Stondon asked—

“What did he say?”

“Oh! he denied it, of course; and then I tried Miss Derno, and she denied it also.”

“And what is your opinion, Phemie?”

There was a great silence in the room; outside on the shore the waves came rolling up against the Parade; over the sea the grey twilight was settling down into darkness; there was a wild night at hand; and all these things together seemed to speak to Phemie of a time when the waves would be talking to her with a different voice—of an evening when the twilight would be merging into a deeper darkness—of a night, wilder, colder, more dreary, that would come to her if she were not wise in due season, if she did not confess and repent, and turn back, ere the tempest was unloosed, ere the rain beat and the wind blew upon her.

“Tell him now,” was the murmur that filled her ears; “tell him now,” said the holy voices of the night; “tell him frankly and truthfully that you believe Miss Derno cares for him, but that you know he cares for you. Tell him the truth—now in the silence—now in the gathering darkness, with the evening shadows hiding your shame from him, with the night concealing his anguish from you—take courage and begin—be honest and be true.”

And there arose in the poor wife’s heart a terrible longing to burst out and tell him what I have written. She would have given her life then to be able to speak the first word—to take the first step back to loyalty and peace. If she could but have been sure he would not ask her how it was all the time with her, she might have spoken; and even as it was, she hesitated—hesitated too long.

“I asked you what was your opinion, love,” Captain Stondon gently repeated; and the opportunity was lost; the wave had receded, the precious moment had slipped back among its fellows.

“I have always thought she cared for him.”

“And he, Phemie?”

“I cannot tell. I fancy he must be fond of her still.”

“And you imagine she wishes him to accept this appointment, so that they may get married?”

“It is very likely.”

“Then he must not accept the appointment; we can do better for them here.”

Her punishment was beginning; she put her hand to her heart, while a pain, sharp and terrible as the thrust of a sword, seemed to pass through her breast. Could she see them married, and live? Could she go through the years of the existence his love had made wretched, bearing and making no sign? She thought of the lonely hours, and days, and weeks, and months; and as she leaned back in her chair tears, hot and scalding, rolled down her cheeks slowly and silently.

Deep wounds do not bleed much—the worst of all bleed internally; and so in like manner deep grief weeps little, and the bitterest tears are those that never wet the eyeballs.

Could she live if he left her? Could she live if he deserted her? And the pain grew sharper, and the agony greater.

This was love—this was that which she had walked on through the years to meet—unholy, jealous, passionate love, that was draining away her heart’s blood drop by drop. It was killing her. She had mocked at love, and behold love had taken her unawares—taken her captive.

Only to die—only to be sure of dying; and she turned her tired eyes towards the window, from which she could just discern the sea tossing and moaning.

“I wish I were out there,” she said, aloud. “It would be free and pleasant.”

In a moment her husband’s arm was about her waist. “Out where, my darling?” he asked. “I am afraid it is too cold a night for you to venture on the Parade.”

“I did not mean that,” she answered. “I meant out on the sea. I never seem to want to be on it except when the night is coming on, and the waves are rough and crested with white foam. Then I think I should like to be out on them without a boat, going away and away to the ocean.”

“My love, I am afraid you are not so well to-night,” he said anxiously.

“Yes, I am,” she answered; “only when I sit in the twilight I begin thinking—and when I begin thinking, I want to be away—away in the body, or out of the flesh, I suppose. Shall we soon be going home?” she asked. “I believe I want to return to Marshlands.”

“We can return whenever you please,” he replied, and then she nestled her head down on his shoulder, and thanked him; and so it was settled that they should go back to Norfolk immediately, and Captain Stondon begged his wife to ask Miss Derno, and Miss Georgina Hurlford, and General Sir Samuel, and Mr. and Mrs. Hurlford to return there with them.

“I want to see Basil and Miss Derno together,” said Captain Stondon, who considered that his penetration had been sadly at fault; and accordingly, when the October woods were arrayed in their most brilliant colours of brown and yellow, and red and russet green, guests again assembled in the old Norfolk house, and Phemie played the hostess there—for the last time but one.

On the whole it was not a successful attempt at gaiety. Phemie proved a less charming entertainer than formerly; the whole party seemed somehow at sixes and sevens. Everybody was continually taking somebody else into inner chambers, into remote parts of the grounds, into dark walks, into shrubberies where the leaves were lying ancle-deep, into woods that were fast getting bare and cheerless, and talking confidentially to him or her for half an hour or so at a time. In the evenings nobody would sing or play: the gentlemen sat long over their wine, the ladies yawned a great deal, and talked about fancy work and the new clergyman. There were too many guests for anyone to be able to do as he liked; there were too few for any entertainment to be got out of them. Altogether, it was, as Miss Derno remarked, a little slow—a little like a Quaker-meeting, in which every member of the assembled company was waiting for some one else to make a diversion in the proceedings.

As for Basil, he wished the Hurlfords and Miss Derno at New Zealand; he wished India still further; and he seized on the chance Captain Stondon gave him of escape with avidity.

“He did not want to go to India,” he said; “he had no desire to leave Marshlands; but if his friends thought he ought to do so, why, he would be guided entirely by their advice. He felt he must be sometimes in the way; he knew he owed everything he possessed to Captain Stondon’s goodness and kindness; and goodness and kindness were not things to be unduly encroached on. Did Captain Stondon really wish him to remain? then he would remain, only too gladly; should he tell General Sir Samuel the matter might be considered settled, and his offer gratefully refused?”

“There is one thing more I want to speak to you about, Basil,” said Captain Stondon, when they had definitively settled this point. “It has been suggested to me that your position here prevents your marrying. Now, should such be the case, I wish to say that in all respects I desire to treat you as though you were my own son. If you desire to marry, I will——” but at this point Basil interrupted his relation.

“I have not the slightest wish to marry,” he said; “I am too happy as I am.”

“Have you no attachment——” Captain Stondon felt he was putting the question awkwardly; and so perhaps did Basil, for he changed colour, and bent his eyes on the ground.

“I want to be plain with you, Basil,” went on Captain Stondon, “so forgive me if I am abrupt. Is it Miss Derno?”

“Certainly not;” and Basil lifted his eyes, and laughed with a secret sense of relief.

“Have you never given her any reason to think—?” suggested his relative.

“I have given her every reason to think,” was the bold reply. “I proposed to Miss Derno years ago, and she refused me. I have no intention of proposing to her again; you may be quite satisfied about that.”

“But do you suppose she—that is, are you quite certain there was no misunderstanding—that she was not influenced by her comparatively dependent position?”

“I conclude you mean, would she marry me now if I wished her? No, she would not; and if you doubt the fact, you can ascertain the truth from Miss Derno herself. She never cared for me. Even when I had a fancy for her, she had none for me; and for the rest,” added Basil, with a sudden appearance of frankness, “if I do care for anyone, it is a hopeless love—one that may be buried with me in my coffin; for nothing can ever come of it in this world.”

“Are you serious, Basil? could money not help you—could my assistance be of no avail?”

Then for a moment Basil Stondon stood conscience-stricken, looking straight into the face of the man he had wronged.

“Had I all the gold in the vaults of the Bank of England,” he said slowly, “it would not mend my case. That is the only thing that would take me to India; but it is as easy to bury a love here as in the East.”

“And easier, perhaps, to get a new one,” said Captain Stondon, with an attempt at badinage; but Basil shook his head.

“My fate met me one day,” he answered, “and my fate was too much for me;” and as if in mockery while he spoke, a gust of wind came through the wood, stripping the leaves off the trees, and casting them at his feet. “I will try to repay you hereafter for all your goodness to me,” he added, and he meant what he said—meant it fully and faithfully, every word. Captain Stondon’s generosity and unsuspiciousness had touched his heart.

“I will try,” he repeated to his own soul; and he swore to himself with a great oath that he would strive to conquer his passion, and—meeting Phemie every day, make-believe that he had ceased to love her.

Staying on at Marshlands, he was bound to make this vow to himself; but it is one thing to make a vow, and another to keep it; and so Mr. Basil Stondon discovered.