CHAPTER XXVI.
A MODERN LOVE-CHASE.
Mr. O'Boyneville was to leave London for his circuit-work a week after the departure of the 11th Plungers; and again there was a discussion as to the disposal of Cecil's life during his absence. This time she placed herself entirely in her husband's hands.
"Perhaps you are right," she said; "and it is better for me not to stay in town while you are away."
"Will you go to the Mountjoys'? you know how often Mrs. Mountjoy has asked you, I'm sure she'd be pleased if you went."
"I think I would rather go to some little watering-place, where I could have quiet and rest."
"Rest! Ah, to be sure. I dare say you want rest. You have been going about a good deal this year, and I suppose that sort of thing tires even a woman in the long-run. For my own part, I have always found one evening-party worse than a week's work; but I'm not a party-going man. You shall go to Scarborough, if you like; and I'll try to spend an occasional Sunday with you. I can get across from Manchester and Liverpool."
"I should like that very much."
"Then it shall be so."
But it was not so; for a little note came from Mrs. Lobyer in the course of the morning to say that that lady was coming to dine in the evening, unless her heartless Cecil told her she was not to come.
"I know you are at home," wrote the lively Florence; "and I know your nervous headache is only an excuse for shutting your doors upon me. So I shall make a desperate attempt to force the citadel."
Cecil had no motive for excluding her friend. There was only one person whom she had wished to avoid, and that person had now left England.
"Come to us by all means, dearest Flo," she wrote, "if you don't mind a dull evening."
So at half-past six Florence's unapproachable chestnuts pawed the macadam of Bloomsbury, and the barrister's dinner was enlivened by that young lady's vivacious chatter.
"I have come to make a petition," she said; "and it is to you I shall address myself, Mr. O'Boyneville. I have grown heartily tired of London within this last week or two. I think the Ascot week is the season's apogee, and after that every thing begins to fade. There are to be cheap nights at the opera next week, and how can any decent person stay in town when there are cheap nights at the opera? So I am going to rush off to Pevenshall the day after to-morrow, and I want Cecil to go with me. I know your circuit-work begins next week, Mr. O'Boyneville; and I don't intend to accept a refusal. You can come to us from some of your Northern towns whenever you please; and we shall always be glad to have a flying visit."
It was in vain that Cecil told her friend of the plan that had already been made for Scarborough. Mrs. Lobyer pooh-poohed Scarborough. Cecil urged her desire for perfect rest and quiet; but Mrs. Lobyer declared that Pevenshall would be a perfect hermitage during the month of July.
"None of my people are coming till the twelfth of August," she said. "It is impossible to beguile a decent man into the country till there is something for him to shoot. Sir Nugent is yachting in some uncivilised Northern region, and Grace Evershed is going to Switzerland with her father. Mr. Wilmot—that young clubbish man, you know, who played so well in our comedy—is going on a walking expedition in Brittany; and in fact every body worth having is engaged between this and September. So, if you want quiet, Cecil, you shall have plenty of it at Pevenshall. I have secured the dearest and deafest of matrons to play propriety—a delightful old creature who dozes in a snug corner half the day, and deludes herself with the belief that she is doing Berlin-wool work—so we can live our own lives, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. I am going to try and do something for the good of my fellow-creatures this year; and I shall want your advice about some schools I wish to establish, and some cottages I mean to build near Pevenshall."
Mrs. Lobyer was in the habit of pleading as earnestly as a spoiled child for the gratification of her wishes, and on this occasion, as on almost every other, she contrived to have her own way. It was arranged that Cecil should go to Pevenshall, and that she and Flo should travel together.
Cecil was busy with her packing next day, when a card was put into her hand, and she was told that a gentleman was waiting for her in the drawing-room.
"A gentleman for me?" she said, without looking at the card.
"Yes, my lady. The same gentleman who called twice before, Pupkin says."
Cecil looked at the card, and saw that it was Hector Gordon's; but over the inscription in the corner—11th Plungers—the words "late of" were written in pencil.
"I cannot see Major Gordon," said Cecil. "Tell Pupkin to say that I am particularly engaged."
The servant stared, but obeyed. When the door had closed upon her, Cecil sat with the card in her hand, staring blankly at that half-written, half-printed sentence, "late of the 11th Plungers."
"He has not gone," she said to herself; "and he has left his regiment. What does it all mean?"
Something like actual fear took possession of her as she thought that Hector Gordon was in England—near her—ready at any moment to intrude his presence upon her.
"He has betrayed me," she said; "he made me believe that he was going away, on purpose to extort my secret from me. And now he will come, and come, and come, until at last he forces me to see him; and then——! Nothing but misery can come of our meeting; nothing but wretchedness and remorse."
And then her mind went back to that subject of which she had thought as she drove home from the opera. The images of women whom she knew and had known arose before her; the women who hovered on the border-land between the Eden of respectability and the region of outer darkness far away. She began to understand the stories of many of these women; the stories which had been such dark enigmas for her until to-day.
"They have been like me, perhaps," she thought; "they have believed in their own strength of mind, their own honour; and all at once they have sunk into a degradation as deep as mine. And my husband leaves me to my fate; to take my own course, without help or care from him. I doubt if he remembers my existence, except when I am with him; and I know he is often unconscious of my presence even when I am sitting by his side."
For the first time in her life, Cecil felt a sense of resentment as she thought of her husband's indifference. He was kind, he was generous. She tried to remember this, and to be grateful; but to-day she could remember only his indifference. She had long ago reconciled herself to the idea that he loved his profession better than he loved his wife; but to-day she was angry with him for the unflattering preference, and argued that he must love his wife very little if the dry-as-dust work of the law-courts could be dearer to him than she was. To-day for the first time she was angry with him for not loving her better; for to-day she felt herself in supreme need of his love.
She went on with her packing, mechanically enough; but still the work was done. The housemaid, who assisted in the process, thought her mistress just a little paler and a little quieter than usual: and was rather inclined to wonder about that military gentleman who had called three times, and had been refused admittance every time; and who, according to Pupkin, was such a splendid and gracious creature.
"He's never been here except those three times," thought the housemaid. "Perhaps she knew him before she was married to master, pore thing!"
When the packing was finished, Cecil ordered her brougham, and drove to Dorset Square. She was feverishly anxious to know the meaning of those two words—"late of"—on Hector Gordon's card. She found her aunt at home, but that lady could throw no light upon the mystery.
"I fully thought he had sailed for Japan in the Satrap," said the dowager. "He came to bid me good-bye a week ago; and he didn't say a word then about the probability of his exchanging or selling out. I don't read the Military Gazette. He might have called upon me, I think, to tell me the change in his plans; but he has been very mysterious in his manners of late. Perhaps he has seen some one who is to be the second Mrs. Gordon. Those young men with too much money and nothing to do are always falling in love."
Cecil could obtain no more than this from the dowager. She bade her aunt good-bye, and went back to Brunswick Square, where she received a little note from Mr. O'Boyneville, announcing that he found himself suddenly compelled to dine at Blackwall with Sleghammer and two or three others. So she was left alone all the evening, too preoccupied to read, and with nothing to do but to sit in the summer twilight listening to the fifes and drums in the quadrangle of the Foundling, and the ebb and flow of hansom cabs.
The train by which Mrs. Lobyer was to travel left the Euston Station at ten o'clock. There had been some talk of Mr. Lobyer accompanying his wife; but on the eve of the journey that gentleman announced the necessity of his immediate departure for Rouen to complete some great cotton transaction, involving considerable strategy, and the mystification of the calico trade in general, for the enrichment of Lobyer and Co. in particular.
"It's a fluke," said the ardent young speculator; "and it's just one of those affairs in which half-an-hour on the right or the wrong side may make a difference of two or three thousand pounds. You can send what servants you like to Pevenshall; and if I am obliged to stop in town when I come back, I can use my club."
Cecil found Flo in the waiting-room with her maid in attendance, while one of the matched footmen stood on guard at the door, holding a box of books by a strap, and evidently suffering from an acute sense of ill-usage. This dignified person was employed to secure a carriage for the two ladies; and after ushering them to their seats, retired to a second-class compartment with the maid.
Of course it was the fastest of express trains. Such people as Mrs. Lobyer rarely consent to travel at less than sixty miles an hour.
Whirling northwards across the bright green country with the lively Flo for her companion, Cecil felt as if she had been escaping from danger and unhappiness. Major Gordon might call again in Brunswick Square; but he would find her gone; and would abandon his persecution of her.
"It is persecution," she thought, "after the circumstances of that night at the opera. He entrapped me into a confession, and he will be worse than a traitor if he uses my guilty weakness against me."
She tried to despise him for the dishonour; but even the dishonour was a sacrifice which he made to his love.
"My husband will not waste an hour from his profession for my sake," she thought; "and this man, who was once so true and honourable, is ready to sacrifice truth and honour for love of me."
She thought this—not in set phrases, as it is written here. But some such thought floated vaguely in her brain, as the express carried her towards Pevenshall.
The rooms Cecil had occupied in the winter had been made ready for her now, bright and gay with birds and flowers to-day, as they had been bright with lights and fire of old. Flo sent a useful young person, who did plain needlework and waited upon maidless visitors, to assist in her friend's unpacking; and aided by this young person, Cecil dressed for dinner, and found leisure to sit by the open window of her little sitting-room, looking out at the broad expanse of hill and valley that stretched beyond the gardens.
She was roused from her reverie by Mrs. Lobyer, who came tripping into the room with more than customary animation.
"I have come to tell you some good news," she said, perching herself upon the arm of Cecil's chair, like something frivolous and fashionable in the way of birds;—"that mauve-and-white grenadine becomes you admirably; and I like the sash worn across the shoulder that way—like the Queen's blue ribbon. What darling cameo earrings! If there is any thing in the world I adore, it is cameos."
"Is that your news, Flo?"
"Oh no; my news is something better than that. I was dying to tell you all the time we were travelling; but I was determined to reserve it for a bonne bouche. And now, shall I give it you in ten, shall I give it you in twenty, shall I give it you in one of Mr. Lobyer's billions? I have secured an eligible male visitor!"
Cecil shrugged her shoulders.
"I thought we were going to seclude ourselves from the world, in order to carry out some philanthropic schemes, Flo."
"Oh, the philanthropic schemes shall go on all the same; ça ira! But Pevenshall entirely given over to the curates of the neighbourhood, and two or three narrow-minded county squires, would have been insufferably dull. And then this gentleman is a friend of yours!"
"What gentleman?"
"Major Gordon. He has been wise enough to sell out just as his regiment was going to sail for Japan. He called on me yesterday, and I told him you were coming with me; and I made Mr. Lobyer ask him to come to us. He accepted the invitation immediately; and it was all arranged on the spot. This was before Mr. Lobyer knew that he would be obliged to go to Rouen; but if he had known that, I don't suppose it would have made much difference. I am blessed with the least jealous of husbands."
"Flo!"
"Is it wicked to say that? Mustn't I thank Providence for my blessings?"
"And Major Gordon is really coming!"
"Really and truly. He is here by this time, I dare say. There is a fast train that leaves London at half-past twelve.—And now come and let me introduce you to my deaf darling, Mrs. Henniker. Why, child, you stand there with your eyes fixed as if you were in a trance!—and the second dinner-bell has rung. Filons!"