CHAPTER XXVII.
"HE COMES TOO NEAR, WHO COMES TO BE DENIED."
Lady Cecil stayed at Pevenshall. Her first thought on hearing that Hector Gordon was to be an inmate of the house had been to go straight back to London, without having so much as seen the man she dreaded. But a woman is very seldom free to follow her first thoughts. If a man wishes to escape from any given place at a moment's notice, he has only to declare himself called away on business, and lo! he is free to spring into the first hansom he encounters and start for the Antipodes, if he so pleases, without let or hindrance. But a woman cannot take an unexplained morning's walk without the dread of question and scandal. A few moments' reflection showed Cecil that escape from Pevenshall was a moral impossibility. What motive could she allege for such a proceeding? How account to the impetuous Flo, who would press her closely for her reasons? How explain her return to London to her husband, whose wonder would be aroused by her caprice? And if once people began to wonder and to question, might they not arrive at the miserable truth? An overwhelming terror seized her on the discovery of her helplessness. She found herself hemmed in on every side, powerless to fly from the pursuer she dreaded, run to earth like some hunted animal; and with no resource but to stand at bay and defy the cruel hunter.
A strong-minded woman would perhaps have made light of the difficulties which surrounded the lawyer's wife. A real heroine would have bidden her hostess a hasty adieu, and left the danger-haunted mansion without explanation or delay. But Cecil was not strong-minded. She had lived all her life in the dread of those little social laws which a woman sometimes finds it more difficult to break than to violate the law of Heaven itself.
She gave up all idea of flight. There was only one course which seemed possible to her, and that was to make an ad-misericordiam appeal to Hector Gordon. A woman always hopes so much from the honour and generosity of a man—until she has made her appeal and discovered how frail a straw manly generosity may prove in the hour of peril.
So Cecil met Major Gordon in the drawing-room where the Pevenshall guests had assembled. The party consisted of the deaf matron, who had an aristocratic nose and a placid imbecility of countenance; the deaf matron's husband, who was a retired half-pay colonel, with a very red face, and that genius for gastronomy which seems the special faculty of the middle-aged warrior who has retired on his laurels; two stylish girls who had been schoolfellows of Flo's; and a brace of curates from the neighbourhood. It was a very small assembly compared to the brilliant gathering of the last winter; and the great drawing-room looked almost tenantless.
Cecil was very pale when she followed Florence into the room. The first glance told her that the man she dreaded was present. He was standing by one of the open windows talking to Colonel Henniker, while the curates entertained the two young ladies with mild local gossip; during the progress of which the deaf matron assumed that amiable air of interest which a man who has forgotten the French he learned at some juvenile academy is apt to wear during the recital of some piquant Parisian anecdote.
Mrs. Lobyer conducted her friend straight to the placid matron. "My dear Mrs. Henniker, how shameful of me to be the last to come down, and on the first day too! But I had no idea it was so late. How kind of you and the dear Colonel to come to me at such a short notice! And how have you left every one in York? I looked for my Yorkshire friends in vain all the year. No one came to town except the Spaldings and the Apperleys. Let me introduce my friend Lady Cecil O'Boyneville. You were not with us last winter when she was here. And now I must go and welcome the Colonel and Major Gordon. Take care, Lucy, Mr. Summerton is dreadfully High-Church.—How do you do, Laura? I'll come and talk to you presently," said the young matron to her sometime schoolfellows, as she tripped away.
Cecil plunged at once into a laborious conversation with Mrs. Henniker. How delightful the country was at this time of year! And how especially beautiful the scenery about Pevenshall! and so on. It was weary work, that stereotyped talk, while the sense of Hector Gordon's vicinity exercised a bewildering influence on her thoughts, and rendered the most commonplace conversation difficult. She was safe under shelter of the matron's wing, when Hector came presently to greet her. She would not see his outstretched hand, and received his greeting with freezing coldness. A desperate kind of courage possessed her in this extremity, and she determined all at once that she would humiliate herself by no ad-misericordiam appeal. She would compel him to leave Pevenshall. She would awaken him to the sense of his own dishonour. Brave and defiant for the moment, she looked up at him with a proud steady glance, and silently challenged him with his baseness. He felt all the significance of that cold gaze, and his eyelids fell beneath it.
"I have followed you, you see, Lady Cecil," he said in a very low voice. She did not answer him, but turned to Mrs. Henniker and took up the thread of her vapid talk.
"No, I never was in York; and I am really most anxious to see the Minster. Papa used to say he thought it finer than Rouen Cathedral. But I cannot fancy any thing—" and so on, and so on.
Hector Gordon placed himself opposite the two ladies; and sat looking steadily at Cecil. She was conscious of that determined contemplation, but did not flinch beneath it. And she went on perseveringly with her disquisition upon the show-places and rural beauties of Yorkshire. Major Gordon was obliged to offer his arm to Mrs. Henniker presently, when dinner was announced; while the portly Colonel conducted his hostess, and Cecil was relegated to the care of the High-Church curate.
All that evening and all the next day, and for many days and evenings to come, Cecil preserved the same frigid demeanour towards Hector Gordon; and yet he did not leave Pevenshall. Again and again he tried to obtain a few moments' confidential conversation, but on every occasion he found himself baffled and repulsed; and yet he did not leave Pevenshall. A silent duel was always going on between these two. The poor hunted victim was always on the defensive; the hunter was merciless. By every possible stratagem Cecil avoided the explanation she feared; but still the Major held his post obstinately, waiting for the chance which must come sooner or later.
It came at last, when Cecil had been some weeks at Pevenshall, and when the house was beginning to fill. The York Summer Meeting was close at hand. Mr. Lobyer had returned from Rouen triumphant, and was happy in the society of some of the choicer spirits of Manchester, renowned for their achievements on the turf, and all full of their York engagements.
The Major's opportunity came at last. The nights were oppressively warm; and all visitors at Pevenshall under forty years of age were in the habit of abandoning the drawing-room soon after dinner for the broad terrace in front of the open windows. Here, in the delicious moonlight, the party broke up into pleasant groups to saunter up and down the broad walk, or to gather in a knot at some angle of the stone balustrade; and hence more adventurous spirits wandered away in twos and threes and fours to circulate among the winding pathways of the gardens, where the rarest specimens of the pine tribe imparted a spicy odour to the night air.
The windows of the billiard-room, as well as those of the drawing-room, opened on this delightful terrace: and a cluster of iron chairs in the neighbourhood of these windows marked the spot where Mr. Lobyer and his particular friends were wont to congregate, making a little constellation with the luminous ends of their cigars. These summer evenings in the open air were very agreeable to the guests at Pevenshall, and the great clock in the quadrangle had generally struck twelve before the last of the strollers left the terrace. It was the place of places for flirtation; the place of places for that intimate converse which the French call causerie, and which is the next thing to flirtation. The eligible young men who had come down for the York Summer and the marriageable young ladies found a good deal to say to one another on these balmy moonlight nights; and appropriate couplets from Tennyson, Owen Meredith, and Alfred de Musset were at a premium. Byron and Moore are rococo nowadays; and the most sentimental of damsels would stare in amazement at an admirer who should quote the Corsair or Lalla Rookh for her entertainment.
Sir Nugent Evershed was still yachting; but Florence seemed very little affected by the absence of the chief of her worshippers. Other adorers flocked round her shrine, and she was content to receive their homage. To be admired was the only art she knew; and a life spent in the perpetual excitement derivable from new millinery left little time for serious thought.
"I really believe I am the happiest creature in the world, Cecil," she said to the one friend whom she trusted with her secret thoughts; "for I am only unhappy when I think; and as I may almost say that I never think, it must follow that I am never unhappy."
It was while sauntering on the terrace with Cecil on one of the warmest of the July nights that Florence thus addressed her friend. They had wandered away from the rest of the party, who gathered chiefly about the lighted windows of the drawing-room, whence an extra chair, or a forgotten shawl, or a cup of tea, or a glass of water, or any one of the trifles that womankind is always demanding from attendant man, could be fetched at a moment's notice; and where some one was always found willing to sing or play for the edification of the loungers outside the windows.
Cecil and Florence had been walking up and down the deserted end of the terrace for some time, when the voice of Mr. Lobyer, bawling "Flo, Flo! come here; I want to speak to you," was heard from the distance; and Cecil's companion hurried away to attend the bidding of her lord and master.
Cecil was not sorry to find herself alone. Her life at Pevenshall since the hour of her arrival had been one perpetual excitement. The silent battle for ever being fought against the man who loved her, and whose love had shown itself more pitiless than another man's hate, was not without its agony. The helpless wild creature brought to bay, and facing its hunter in the desperation of bitter despair, must suffer anguish something akin to that which Cecil had endured in the daily companionship of the lover she feared.
She feared him. In vain she called upon her womanly pride to help her; in vain she supplicated better and surer help from that Heaven her sin offended, even while she prayed. Day by day she fought her battle bravely; but a dim consciousness of coming danger perpetually oppressed her. The old simile of the precipice is the only comparison which fits the state of her mind. She felt like a creature walking in outer darkness near the verge of an abyss. She felt herself near the horrible danger. It was not inevitable that she should fall over the precipice, but the precipice was always there—always hidden by the thick darkness, and at any moment her ignorant footsteps might stray too near the fatal boundary. Thinking of that day of temptation and trial at Fortinbras, and all that had occurred since then,—the young wife's untimely death, the return of Hector's regiment, the chance that had brought him to Pevenshall,—Cecil was inclined to yield to the weakest theory ever propounded by an invisible Satan for the corruption of womankind. The old classic machinery, the work of the Eumenides, seemed to have had part in all this story of unhappy love. Hector Gordon's return to England was Agamemnon's return over again,—only this time the hero returned to destroy rather than to be destroyed; and it was the heroine for whom the fatal net was spread. Surely, when beguiling Eve to her ruin, the Miltonic Satan must amongst other arguments have urged that the Fates had ordained her disobedience, and that she was pro-destined to taste the forbidden fruit. A weak-minded woman is always ready to mistake the action of a man's selfish obstinacy for the handiwork of the Fates.
To-night Cecil fancied herself abandoned to the Eumenides; for, a few minutes after Mrs. Lobyer had quitted her, a dark figure came between her and the moonlight; and looking up, she recognised Hector Gordon.
"At last, Cecil!" he said.
She had been walking away from the animated assembly outside the drawing-room windows, but at sight of her persecutor she turned abruptly. He laid his hand upon her arm to stop her.
"I must speak to you, Cecil," he said. "You have avoided me as if I were a pestilence ever since I came to this house; but do you think I am likely to submit to be avoided after the sacrifice I have made in order to come here?"
"The sacrifice! what sacrifice?" cried Cecil.
The barrier fell and the foe rushed to his triumph. Cecil's only chance of defending the citadel had lain in a steady refusal to hold parley with the enemy. Entrapped into a conference, her best strength abandoned her.
"Is it possible that you do not know how much I have sacrificed in order to be here by your side to-night? Oh Cecil, there is a meanness in this affectation of ignorance. I have sacrificed my career—my position as a soldier—for your sake. Do you know what it is for a man to sell out of his regiment on the eve of a perilous service? If it were not for what I have done in India, I might be branded as a coward. As it is, in spite of what I did out there, there are men who will hint the possibility of my cowardice. You don't know, perhaps, how dear a soldier's career is to him. And yet, by the way men court dangerous service, you must know how much dearer reputation is to them than life."
"Why were you so foolish—so mad, as to remain in England?"
"Because I love you."
"You had no right to remain. Do you remember what you said to me that night? You were going away: we might never see each other again. After that you were bound in honour to go."
"I know that. But I could not go—after——"
He paused for a moment, and then said in a lower voice, "After what I heard that night."
"I wish I had died before that night!" cried Cecil passionately. She felt the darkness growing thicker round her, her feet wandering nearer to the precipice—and she was powerless; as powerless as a dreamer fighting with shadows.
"It is my fate to be wicked and miserable," she thought.
"I wish I had died before that night," repeated Hector Gordon. "I wish I had died in India, or at Fortinbras. Oh Cecil, you claim a right to blame me! It is I who have a right to reproach you for your coldness that day. One word and we should have been so happy: not for a moment only—and there are some moments of happiness worth a commonplace lifetime—but for all our lives,—innocently, serenely happy. It wanted only one word from you, Cecil—only one little word."
"I tried to do my duty. And yet—I loved you so dearly!"
The words were spoken unconsciously. She was thinking of that painful struggle between love and duty, and of the useless victory which she had gained. Utterly useless since the battle had to be fought over again.
"No, no, Cecil! I cannot believe that you loved me," cried the soldier, seizing the slender hand which struggled in vain to free itself; "you could not have been so cruel if you had loved me."
They had walked away from the lights and the crowd, and were standing at the end of the terrace, where there were vases full of flowers on the broad balustrade, and a life-size marble figure of Pomona, which cast its shadow over them as they stood looking down at the sloping landscape, sublimely beautiful in the moonlight.
The sense of her own dishonour, and of the dishonour of the man who loved her, was paramount in Cecil's mind; and yet she let him talk to her. That feeling of perfect helplessness which holds the dreamer in its spell possessed her as she stood by her lover's side in the dreamlike light and shadow of the summer night.
"I have not been altogether base," pleaded Hector. "I spoke the truth that night at the opera when I told you that I was going to leave England. It was not till some days after that I resolved to sell out. I should have held to my purpose—I firmly believe I should have left England—if you had not so obstinately refused to see me when I called in Brunswick Square. I think an interview with you would have given me strength, Cecil; and I should have gone out yonder resigned to the misery of our separation."
"You had no right to try to see me after that night. You call me cruel;—what could be more cruel or dishonourable than your conduct to me? You persecute me in my own house; you follow me here where I am powerless to escape from you. Is this the conduct of a gentleman, Major Gordon?"
"It is the conduct of a man who is ready to trample reputation, honour, every thing under his feet in order to be near the woman he loves. But how can I expect you to understand all this? You have never loved me. If you had loved me, you would not have married O'Boyneville."
"I have married a man who is more than worthy of my affection and gratitude."
"Yes; and who is about as capable of appreciating you as Mr. Lobyer is capable of understanding that Leonardo da Vinci which he brought from Rome."
"Major Gordon, I will not allow you to speak so of my husband. If you cannot respect him as I respect him, it is better that his name should never be mentioned between us."
"Much better; for I cannot speak of him with patience. Can you imagine what I felt, Cecil, when I received my aunt's letter announcing your marriage? I had married another woman—loving you, and you only, all the time—because you had decided that I was bound to keep my promise. I kept my word to my poor true-hearted girl at the cost of my happiness. But you, Cecil, you were bound by no old contract; and yet within so short a time of our parting, all memory of my love was blotted from your mind, and you were ready to marry this O'Boyneville!"
"All memory of the past was not blotted from my mind. I had tried to forget, honestly and truly, but I know now to my cost that I never really forgot that time at Fortinbras. Oh, Major Gordon, why do you force me to say these things? I hate myself for listening to you; I hate myself for talking to you. You could never understand why I married Mr. O'Boyneville. You could never have imagined the weariness of my life and my bitter need of some friend and protector. My chief unhappiness arises from the fact that my husband's profession will not allow him to be the friend I hoped he would be; and you know this. You know how lonely I am, and you take advantage of my defencelessness. It is cruel and unmanly, Major Gordon."
She lost all self-command as she said this, and burst into tears; whereupon Hector humiliated himself to the very dust, imploring her forgiveness, and declaring that he would leave Pevenshall—he would tear himself from her for ever and ever, rather than he would inflict pain upon the woman he loved so dearly. And then came those perilous promises which a man is apt to make on such occasions. He implored her to trust him. What was there in all the world so precious to him as her happiness? He confessed his own guilt. He had been reckless, heedless of every thing, in his passionate desire to see her once more, to speak to her once again; and now that he had spoken, he would be content. He would go away resigned to the idea of their eternal separation.
Cecil dried her tears during these protestations.
"I wish to believe in your sincerity," she said; "but there is no occasion for you to leave Pevenshall; I shall go back to town to-morrow morning. Good-night!"
"You are going in at once?"
"Yes: I am very tired."
"Let me take you back to the house, at least."
"No, thanks; I would rather go by myself."
She walked away, leaving him leaning against the balustrade under the shadow of the marble Pomona. This time she believed the battle had been won; but there was a keen sense of shame mingled with the triumph of victory. She contrived to reach her own rooms without encountering any one, and packed every thing ready for her departure before going to bed. She announced her intention to Mrs. Lobyer before breakfast the next morning, and encountered the opposition which she had expected from that lady.
"You must stay for the York Summer," Flo said decisively; "Sir Nugent Evershed's horses are to run, and he and all his set will be there in full force. Grace is coming home from Switzerland, and is to give me a week immediately; and you know you like Grace."
"I like her very much, and I am very sorry to leave you, Flo; but I must go."
"Why must? give me an adequate reason, and you shall be worried no more; but I must have a reason."
"Mr. O'Boyneville wishes me to return."
"Has he written to tell you so?"
"Yes."
It was the first deliberate falsehood Cecil had ever told, and she blushed as she uttered it.
"But I thought he was on circuit?"
"His circuit work is just over."
"Oh, very well, Cecil; if your duty as a wife compels you to depart, I suppose I must submit. But I am so sorry to lose you."
"And I am sorry to leave you, dear. There is a train leaves Chiverley at three; I thought of going by that."
"Then we will take an early luncheon, and I will drive you to the station.—Good-morning, Major Gordon," cried Mrs. Lobyer, as that gentleman entered the room; "here is Lady Cecil going to run away from us just as our party is beginning to be pleasant. Don't you think she is very unkind?"
"I think there can scarcely be any real reason for Lady Cecil's departure," answered the Major; "a lady is always mistress of her time. It is another matter with us. I find by my letters of this morning that I shall be obliged to leave Pevenshall in a day or two. I need scarcely say how much I shall regret going away."
"There now!" cried Flo; "that is always my fate. If one nice person goes away, other nice people begin to take fright directly. You army men find that desertion is infectious, I believe, Major Gordon."
Cecil spent the morning in her own rooms under pretence of making preparations for departure that had been made overnight. She was feverishly anxious to be away from Pevenshall; and she went down to luncheon in her travelling dress.
"The ponies are to be ready at half-past one," said Flo; "and one of the men has taken your luggage already in a cart. You see I am heroic enough to speed the parting guest when I am told departure is inevitable. Major Gordon, will you give Lady Cecil one of those cutlets?"
Cecil declined any thing so substantial as a cutlet; but took two or three sips from a glass of pale sherry, for the satisfaction of her hostess. In her eagerness to escape from the house that sheltered Hector Gordon she felt an unreasoning dread of some hindrance to her departure. Her eyes wandered to the clock on the chimney-piece every now and then, while Flo was absent preparing for the drive: and it was with difficulty that she went through the ordeal of bidding adieu to Mrs. Lobyer's guests, who were all "so sorry" to find she was really going, and "so anxious" to meet her again before long. "Though I am sure we can never meet in such a pleasant house as this," said a genial widow, who appreciated the liberty and luxury of Mr. Lobyer's mansion.
Flo came back to the dining-room at last, equipped for the drive; and every body left the table to bid a last good-bye to Lady Cecil. The two ladies went out together with a posse of people following them; and in the hall they encountered a stalwart gentleman who had just alighted from a lumbering fly, and who pounced upon Cecil and kissed her before the assembled multitude.
"I have not forgotten your hearty invitation, you see, Mrs. Lobyer," said the stalwart gentleman, who was no other than the great O'Boyneville. "My circuit work has been rather lighter than usual this year, and I have come over from Carlisle to spend a few days at Pevenshall."
"I am so glad," cried Flo. "And that letter!"
"What letter?"
"The letter asking Cecil to go back to town."
"I wrote no letter asking Cecil to go back to town."
"Oh Cecil!" said Mrs. Lobyer, "I am sorry you were so tired of us all."
Cecil blushed crimson, and cast an imploring look at her friend, who stared at her in supreme mystification.
"I suppose I may send away the pony-carriage," said Flo. "You will not think any more of leaving us."
"Not till Mr. O'Boyneville goes."
"And that will not be till after the races, I hope."
"I will stay for the races—I will stay for any diversion you please to offer me, Mrs. Lobyer," cried the barrister cheerily. "I am my own man for the next six weeks, and your devoted slave. What a delightful place this is in summer; and what scenery!—Ah, Gordon, how do you do? I thought you were off to Japan."
He seemed bigger and more boisterous than usual, Cecil thought, as she went back with him to the dining-room, where the interrupted luncheon began again, and where Mr. O'Boyneville entertained the company with some delightful anecdotes of the provincial law-courts. So Lady Cecil stayed at Pevenshall, trusting that Hector Gordon would keep his promise and depart immediately.