CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE MAN OF THE PERIOD.

There is in human nature an injustice towards those who do wrong, those who are the sinners and agents of woe in this world, which balances a good deal of the success of wickedness. There are plenty of wicked persons who flourish like the green bay tree, and receive to all appearance no recompense for their evil ways. But, on the other hand, when a man fails to conduct himself as he ought to do, from cowardice, from an undue regard to prudential motives—from, as often happens, an overweening regard for the world’s opinion—that world repays him pitilessly with contempt and neglect, and makes no allowance for all the pangs which he suffers, and for all the struggles in his soul. Cosmo Douglas has had hard measure in these pages, where, as we have pretended, his character was understood. But even in understanding it, we have dealt, we are aware and confess, hardly with this nineteenth-century man, who had done nothing more than all the canons of his age declared it his duty to do. He erred, perhaps, in loving Anne, and in telling her so at first; for he ought to have taken it into consideration that he would not be allowed to marry her, notwithstanding the bias towards the romantic side of such questions which the world professes in words. But then he was led astray by another wave of popular opinion, that which declares with much apparent reason that the race of cruel fathers is as extinct as the dodo, and that no girl is ever really prevented, if she chooses to stick to him, from marrying ‘the man of her heart.’ Cosmo had believed this devoutly till he was forced by events to take up a different opinion; and from that moment every impartial observer must allow that he acted up to the highest tenets of the modern creed. As soon as he perceived that it was really likely that Anne would be deprived of her fortune in consequence of her adherence to him, he did everything a man could do, within the limits permitted to a gentleman of the period, to induce her to decide for her own advantage and against himself. He could not say in so many words, ‘You must keep your fortune, and throw me over; I shall not mind it.’ But he as near said it as a person of perfectly good manners could do. It is not for a man to take the initiative in such a case, because women, always more foolish than men, are very likely to be piqued on the side of their generosity, and to hold all the more strenuously to a self-denying lover, the more he does not wish to bind them. In this point his position was very difficult, very delicate, as any one may perceive; and when, in spite of all his remonstrances, and hints, and suggestions, Anne’s sacrifice was accomplished, and she was actually cast off by her angry father, with no fortune, and nothing to recompense her but the attachment of a barrister without occupation, and an empty engagement to him, which it was impossible in present circumstances to carry out, it would be difficult to imagine anything more embarrassing than his position. She had made this sacrifice, which he did not wish, for him; had insisted on making it, notwithstanding all that he could venture to say; and now of course looked to him for gratitude, for requital, and an impassioned sense of all that she had done and relinquished for him, notwithstanding that it was the very last thing in his mind that she should relinquish anything for him. What was he to do?

If the man was exasperated, was there much wonder? He could no more, according to his tenets, throw her over than he could marry her. Both were alike impossible. It was strictly according to the laws of society that a man should decline to marry when he had nothing to marry upon; but it was not consistent with those laws (at least according to the interpretation of them accepted by men of Cosmo’s type) that he should throw the lady over as soon as she had lost her fortune. Here accordingly arose a dilemma out of which it was impossible to come unharmed. Cosmo’s very heart was impaled upon these forks. What could he do? He could not marry upon nothing, and bring his wife down to the position of a household drudge, which was all, so far as he knew, that would be practicable. For Anne’s sake this was out of the question. Neither could he say to her honestly, ‘You are poor and I am poor, and we cannot marry.’ What could he do? He was blamed, blamed brutally, and without consideration, by most of the people round; people like the Ashleys, for instance, who would have plunged into the situation and made something of it one way or another, and never would have found out what its characteristic difficulties were. But to Cosmo those difficulties filled up the whole horizon. What was he to do? How was he to do it? To plunge himself and Anne into all the horrors of a penniless marriage was impossible, simply impossible; and to separate himself from her was equally out of the question. If the reader will contemplate the position on all sides, he will, I am sure, be brought to see that, taking into account the manner of man Cosmo was, and his circumstances, and all about him, the way in which he did behave, perplexedly keeping up his relations with her family, showing himself as useful as possible, but keeping off all too-familiar consultations, all plans and projects for the future, was really the only way open to him. He was not romantic, he was not regardless of consequences; being a man of his time how could he make himself so? and what else could he do?

When he received one day quite suddenly, without any preparation, that letter which Anne had given to Mr. Ashley to read, it came upon him like a thunderbolt. I cannot take upon me to say that after the first shock he was surprised by it or found it unnatural: he did not experience any of these feelings. On the contrary, it was, so far as I know, after, as has been said, the first shock, a relief to his mind. It showed him that Anne, too, had perceived the situation and accepted it. He was startled by her clear-sightedness, but it gained his approbation as the most sensible and seemly step which she could have taken. But, all the same, it hurt him acutely, and made him tingle with injured pride and shame. It does not come within the code of manhood, which is of longer existence than the nineteenth century, that a woman should have it in her power to speak so. It gave him an acute pang. It penetrated him with a sense of shame; it made him feel somehow, to the bottom of his heart, that he was an inferior kind of man, and that Anne knew it. It was all according to the canons of the situation, just as a sensible woman should have behaved; just as his own proceedings were all that a sensible man could do; but it hurt him all the same. The letter, with that calm of tone which he suspected to mean contempt, seemed to him to have been fired into him with some sharp twangling arrow; where it struck it burnt and smarted, making him small in his own esteem, petty and miserable; notwithstanding which he had to reply to it ‘in the same spirit in which it was written’—to use a phrase which was also of his time. He did this, keeping up appearances, pretending to Anne that he did not perceive the sentiments which her letter veiled, but accepted it as the most natural thing in the world. It may be as well to give here the letter which he wrote in reply:—

And this was all quite true. He did love and admire her more than anyone in the world. It was the curse of his training that he knew what was best when he saw it, and desired that; though often men of his kind take up with the worst after, and are contented enough. But Anne was still his type of perfection—she was beautiful to him, and sweet and delightful—but she was not possible. Is not that more than any beauty or delight? And yet, notwithstanding the acute pangs which he suffered, I don’t suppose one individual out of a hundred who reads this history will be sorry for Cosmo. They will be sorry for Anne, who does not want their sorrow half so much.

He had a very melancholy time after the Mountfords went away. He had not accepted any invitations for August, being, indeed, in a very unsettled mind, and not knowing what might be required of him. He stayed in his chambers, alone with many thoughts. They were gone, and Anne had gone out of his life. It was a poor sort of life when he looked at it now, with the light of her gone, yet showing, at the point where she departed, what manner of existence it had been and was: very poor, barren, unsatisfactory—yet the only kind of life that was possible. In the solitude of these early August days he had abundance of time to think it over. He seemed to be able to take it in his hand, to look at it as a spectator might. The quintessence of life in one way, all that was best in the world made tributary to is perfection—and yet how poor a business! And though he was young, it was all he would ever come to. He was not of the stuff, he said to himself, of which great men are made. Sooner or later, no doubt, he would come to a certain success. He would get some appointment; he would have more to live upon; but this would not alter his life. If Anne had kept her fortune, that might have altered it; or if he could in any way become rich, and go after her and bring her back while still there was time. But, short of that, he saw no way to make it different. She was right enough, it was impossible; there was nothing else to be said. Yet while he arrived at this conclusion he felt within himself to the bottom of his heart what a paltry conclusion it was. A man who was worth his salt would have acted otherwise; would have shown himself not the slave but the master of circumstances. Such men were in the backwoods, in the Australian bush, where the primitive qualities were all in all, and the graces of existence were not known. Out of the colonies, however, Cosmo believed that his own was about the best known type of man, and what he did, most men, at least in society, would have done. But he did not feel proud of himself.

The Mountfords had not been away a week when he received another letter which made his heart jump, though that organ was under very good control, and did not give him the same trouble that hearts less experienced so often give to their possessors. The post-mark, Hunston, was in itself exciting, and there was in Rose’s feeble handwriting that general resemblance to her sister’s which so often exists in a family. He held it in his hand and looked at it with a bewildered sense that perhaps his chances might be coming back to him, and the chapter of other life reopening. Had she relented? Was there to be a place of repentance allowed him? He held the letter in his hand, not opening it for the moment, and asking himself if it were so, whether he would be happy, or—the reverse. It had been humiliating to come to an end of the dream of brighter things, but—would it not be rather inconvenient that it should be resumed again? These were his reflections, his self-questionings, before he opened the letter. But when he did open it, and found that the letter was not from Anne but Rose Mountford, the anticlimax was such that he laughed aloud. Little Rose! he had paid her a great deal of attention, and made himself something of a slave to her little caprices, not for any particular reason, though, perhaps, with a sense that an heiress was always a person to please, whoever she might be. What could little Rose want with him? to give him a commission—something to buy for her, or to match, or one of the nothings with which some girls have a faculty for keeping their friends employed. He began to read her letter with a smile, yet a pang all the same in the recollection that this was now the only kind of communication he was likely to have from the family. Not Anne: not those letters which had half vexed, half charmed him with their impracticable views, yet pleased his refined taste and perception of beauty. This gave him a sharp prick, even though it was with a smile that he unfolded the letter of Rose.

But when he read it he was brought to himself with a curious shock. What did it mean? Rose’s letter was not occupied with any commissions, but was of the most startling character, as follows:—

This letter filled Cosmo with consternation, with derision, with sharp irritation, yet such a sense of the absurdity, as made him laugh in the midst of all his other sentiments. For a moment the thought, the question, glanced across his mind, Could it be, however distantly, however unconsciously, inspired by Anne? But that was not to be believed: or could Mrs. Mountford, wanting perhaps to get rid of her stepdaughter’s supervision, have put this idea of intermeddling into Rose’s head? But her anxiety that her secret should be kept seemed to clear the mother; and as for Anne! That much he knew, however he might be deceived in any other way. He read it over again, with a sense of humiliation and anger which mastered his sense of the absurdity. This little frivolous plaything of a girl to interfere in his affairs! It is true, indeed, that if this assurance had been conveyed to him in a serious way, becoming its importance, say by Mr. Loseby himself, and while there was yet time to make everything comfortable, it would have been by no means an unpleasant interference to Cosmo. He could not but think what a difference it might have made if only a month back, only a fortnight back, this information had been conveyed to him. But now that it was perfectly useless, now that Anne’s letter and his own reply had entirely closed the matter between them, to have this child push in with her little impertinent offer—her charity to her sister! Rose bestowing a quarter of her fortune upon Anne—the younger graciously affording a provision to the elder! By Jove! Cosmo said to himself, with an outburst of fury. Rose, a creature like Rose, to have it in her power thus to insult Anne! He was himself detached from Anne, and never more would there be any contact between them. Still it was in his power to avenge her for once in a way. Cosmo did not pause, for once in his life, to think what was prudent, but stretched out his hand for paper and ink, and immediately indited his reply:—

This was the revenge he took upon Rose for her impertinence: it was mere impertinence, he supposed. Once, and once only, it crossed his mind that she might have had a motive for her anxiety that he should marry her sister. But how could that be? It was an impossibility. And notwithstanding the miserable way in which you will say he had himself behaved, his furious indignation at this patronage of Anne by Rose shows how real was still the love and better worship for Anne that was in his heart.

And when he had satisfied his temper by this letter, he sat and thought of Anne. Would it have been well with this support behind to have ventured, perhaps, and been bold, and knit their lives together? Rose’s guarantee, though the offer irritated him so much, would have made that possible which at present was impossible. Would the game have been worth the candle? He sat and thought over it for a long time in the darkening evening and sighed. On the whole, perhaps, as things stood—— And then he went out to his club to dine. Not proud of himself—far from proud of himself—feeling on the whole a poor creature—and yet—— Perhaps, as things stood, it was just as well.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE HEIRESS’S TRIAL.

Rose’s letter to Cosmo had been conceived in a sudden commotion of feeling, in which her instincts and sensations had come uppermost, and got almost out of her own control. That savage sense of property which exists in unreasoning childhood had risen to flame and fire within her, mingled with and made still more furious by the terror and panic of possible loss. Beneath all her gentleness and smoothness, and the many glosses of civilisation that clothed her being, Rose had an entirely primitive nature, tenacious of every personal belonging, full of natural acquisitiveness and a love of having, which children and savages share with many highly cultivated persons. She was one of those who, without any conscious evil meaning, are rendered desperate by the idea of personal loss. Her first impulse, when she knew that her ‘rights’ were in danger, was to fight for them wildly, to turn upon all assailants with impassioned fury. She did not want to hurt anyone, but what she had got she meant to keep. The idea of losing the position to which she had been elevated, and the fortune which had made her for the last year so much more important a person than before, filled her with a kind of cruel panic or fierce terror which was ready to seize at any instrument by which its enemies could be confounded. This fierce passion of fear is apt to do more mischief than deliberate cruelty. It will launch any thunderbolt that comes to hand, arrest the very motion of the earth, if possible, and upset the whole course of mortal living. It is more unscrupulous than any tyrant. Rose was altogether possessed by this ferocious terror. When she saw her property and importance threatened, she looked about her wildly to see what machinery she could set in motion for the confusion of her enemies and her own defence. The character of it, and the result of it to others, seemed entirely unimportant to her if only it could stop the danger, forestall the approaching crisis. In the letter which she had surreptitiously read it was stipulated that in a certain case her inheritance was to be absolutely secure, and it had immediately become all-important to Rose to bring about the forbidden thing against which her father had made so violent a stand. She took her measures instantly, with the cunning of ignorance and simplicity and the cruel directness of a childish mind. That there was some difficulty between her sister and Cosmo her quick observation had early divined. Perhaps her vanity had whispered that it was because he liked her best: but, on the other hand, Rose understood the power of pecuniary obstacles, and could feel the want of money in a much more reasonable way than her sister, though so much her superior, ever had done. And in either case her appeal to Cosmo would be sovereign, she thought, in the first heat of her panic. If he had liked her best, he would perceive that it was hopeless. If he had been afraid, because of the want of fortune, her letter would reassure him. And if she could but bring it about—make Anne unpardonable—secure her own ‘rights’!—with a passion of hostility against everybody who could injure her, this was what Rose thought.

But when the letter was fairly gone, and the machinery set in motion, a little chill crept over that first energy of passionate self-defence. Other thoughts began to steal in. The strength of the savage and of the child lies in their singleness of vision. As long as you can perceive only what you want and how it is to be had, or tried for, everything is possible; but when a cold breath steals upon you from here and there, suggesting perhaps the hurt of another whom you have really no desire to hurt, perhaps the actual wickedness which you have no desire to perpetrate, what chills come upon the heat of action, what creeping doubts even of the first headlong step already taken! Rose had three days to reflect upon what she had done, and those three days were not happy. She disguised her discomposure as much as she could, avoiding the society of her mother and sister. Anne, though she was absorbed in occupations much more important than anything that was likely to be involved in the varying looks of Rose, perceived her little sister’s flightiness and petulance with a grieved consciousness that her position as heiress and principal personage of the family group was, now that they were in their own country and better able to realise what it meant, doing Rose harm; while Mrs. Mountford set it down to the girl’s unreasonable fancy for little Keziah, whose company she seemed to seek on all occasions, and whose confidences and preparations were not the kind of things for a young girl to share.

‘No good ever comes of making intimates of your servants,’ her mother said, disturbed by Rose’s uncertain spirits, her excitedness and agitation. What was there to be agitated about? Once or twice the girl, so wildly stirred in her own limited being, so full of ignorant desperation, boldness, and terror, and at the same time cold creepings of doubt and self-disapproval, came pressing close to her mother’s side, with a kind of dumb overture of confidence. But Mrs. Mountford could not understand that there was anything to tell. If there had been a lover at hand, if Heathcote had shown his former admiration (as she understood it) for Rose, or even if he had been coming daily to visit them, she might have been curious, interested, roused to the possibility that there was a secret to tell. But what could Rose find of a nature to be confidential about in Hunston? The thing was incredible. So Mrs. Mountford had said with a little impatience, ‘Can’t you find a seat, my dear? I want my footstool to myself,’ when the child came to her feet as girls are in the habit of doing. Rose felt herself rejected and pushed aside: and Anne’s serious countenance repulsed her still more completely. It frightened her to think that she had been venturing to interfere in her sister’s affairs. What would Anne say? Her panic when she thought of this was inconceivable. It was not a passion of fright like that with which her own possible loss had filled her, but it was a terror that put wings to her feet, that gave her that impulse of instant flight and self-concealment which is the first thought of terror. Thus the poor little undeveloped nature became the plaything of desperate emotions, while yet all incapable of bearing them, and not understanding what they were. She was capable of doing deadly harm to others on one side, and almost of doing deadly harm to herself on the other, out of her extremity of fear.

Cosmo’s letter, however, was as a dash of cold water in Rose’s face. Its momentary effect was one of relief. He would not do what she wanted, therefore he never, never was likely to betray to Anne that she had interfered, and at the same time his refusal eased her sense of wrong-doing: but after the first momentary relief other sensations much less agreeable came into her mind. Her property! her property! Thus she stood, a prey to all the uncertainties—nay, more than this, almost sure that there was no uncertainty, that danger was over for Anne, that she herself was the victim, the deceived one, cruelly betrayed and deserted by her father, who had raised her so high only to abase her the lower—and even by Anne, who had—what had Anne done? Was it certain, Rose asked herself, that Anne had not herself privately read that fatal letter, and acted upon it, though she had pretended to be so much shocked when Rose touched it? That must have been at the bottom of it all. Yes, no doubt that was how it was; most likely it was all a plot—a conspiracy! Anne knew; and had put Cosmo aside—ordered him, perhaps, to pretend to like Rose best!—bound him to wait till the three years were over, and Rose despoiled, and all secure, when the whole thing would come on again, and they would marry, and cheat poor papa in his grave, and rob Rose of her fortune! She became wild with passion as this gradually rose upon her as the thing most likely—nay, more than likely, certain! Only this could have warranted the tone in which Cosmo wrote. His letter was dreadful: it was unkind, it was mocking, it was insolent. Yes! that was the word—insolent! insulting! was what it was. Why, he pretended to propose to her!—to her! Rose! after being engaged to her sister! When Rose read it over again and perceived what even her somewhat obtuse faculties could not miss—the contemptuous mockery of Cosmo’s letter, she stamped her feet with rage and despite. Her passion was too much for her. She clenched her hands tight, and cried for anger, her cheeks flaming, her little feet stamping in fury. And this was the sight which Keziah saw when she came into the room—a sight very alarming to that poor little woman; and, indeed, dangerous in the state of health in which she was.

‘Oh! Miss Rose! Miss Rose!’ she said, with a violent start (which was so bad for her); ‘what is it? what is the matter?’

Rose was in some degree brought to herself by the appearance of a spectator; and, at the same time, it was a comfort to relieve her burdened soul by speaking to someone.

‘Keziah,’ she said, in a great flush of agitation and resentment, ‘it is—it is a gentleman that has been uncivil to me!’

‘Oh, Miss Rose!’ old Saymore’s wife cried out with excitement, attaching a much more practical meaning to the words than Rose had any insight into. ‘Oh, Miss Rose! in our house! Who is it? who is it? Only tell me, and Mr. Saymore will turn him out of doors if it was the best customer we have!’

This rapid acceptance of her complaint, and swift determination to avenge it, brought Rose still more thoroughly to herself.

‘Oh, it is not anyone here. It is a gentleman on—a letter,’ Rose said; and this subdued her. ‘It is not anything Saymore can help me about, nor you, nor anyone.’

‘We are only poor folks, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah, ‘but for a real interest, and wishing you well, there’s none, if it was the Queen herself——’

The ludicrousness of the comparison struck Rose, but struck her not mirthfully—dolefully.

‘It is not much that the Queen can care,’ she said. ‘Anne was presented, but I was never presented. Nobody cares! What was I when Anne was there? Always the little one—the one that was nobody!’

‘But, Miss Rose! Miss Rose!’

Keziah did not know how to put the consolation she wished to give, for indeed she, like everybody else, had mourned the injustice to Anne, which she must condone and accept if she adopted the first suggestion of her sympathy.

‘You know,’ she said, with a little gasp over the renegade nature of the speech—‘you know that Miss Anne is nobody now, and you are the one that everybody thinks of——’

Keziah drew her breath hard after this, and stopped short, more ashamed of her own turncoat utterance than could have been supposed: for indeed, she said to herself, with very conciliatory speciousness of reasoning, though Miss Anne was the one that everybody thought of, she herself had always thought most of Miss Rose, who was not a bit proud, but always ready to talk and tell you anything, and had liked her best.

‘Ah!’ cried Rose, shaking her head, ‘if that were always to last!’ and then she stopped herself suddenly, and looked at Keziah as if there was something to tell, as if considering whether she should tell something. But Rose was not without prudence, and she was able to restrain herself.

‘It does not matter—it does not matter, Keziah,’ she cried, with that air of injured superiority which is always so congenial to youth. ‘There are some people who never get justice, whatever they may do.’

Little Mrs. Saymore was more bewildered than words could say. If there was a fortunate person in the world, was it not Miss Rose? So suddenly enriched, chosen, instead of Miss Anne, to have Miss Anne’s fortune, and all the world at her feet! Keziah did not know what to make of it. But Rose, who had no foolish consideration for other people’s feelings, left her little time for consideration.

‘You may go now,’ she said, with a little wave of her hand; ‘I don’t want anything. I want only to be left alone.’

‘I am sure, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah, offended, ‘I didn’t mean to intrude upon you. I wanted to say as all the things has come home, and if you would like to look at them, I’ve laid them all out in the best room, and they do look sweet,’ said the little, expectant mother.

Rose had taken a great deal of interest in the things, and even had aided in various small pieces of needlework—a condescension which Mrs. Mountford did not approve. But to-day she was in no mood for this inspection. She shook her head and waved her hand with a mixture of majesty and despondency.

‘Not to-day. I have other things to think of, Keziah. I couldn’t look at them to-day.’

This made Keziah take an abrupt leave, with offence which swallowed up her sympathy. Afterwards sympathy had the better of her resentment. She went and reviewed her little show by herself, and felt sorry for Miss Rose. It must be a trouble indeed which could not be consoled by a sight of the things, with all their little frills goffered, and little laces so neatly ironed, laid out in sets upon the best bed.

When, however, Keziah had withdrawn, the want of anyone to speak to became intolerable to Rose. She was not used to be shut up within the limits of her own small being; and though she could keep her little secrets as well as anyone, yet the possession of this big secret, now that there was no longer anything to do—now that her initiative had failed, and produced her nothing but Cosmo’s insolent letter, with its mock proposal—was more than she could contain. She dared not speak to Anne, and her mother had unwittingly repulsed her confidence. A tingling impatience took possession of her. If Keziah had been present—little as Keziah would have understood it, and unsuitable as she would have been for a confidante—Rose felt that she must have told her all. But even Keziah was not within her reach. She tried to settle to something, to read, to do some of her fancy-work. For a moment she thought that to ‘practise’—a duty which in her emancipation she had much neglected—might soothe her; but she could only practise by going to the sitting-room where the piano was, where her mother usually sat, and where Anne most likely would be at that hour. Her book was a novel, but she could not read it. Even novels, though they are a wonderful resource in the vigils of life, lose their interest at the moments when the reader’s own story is at, or approaching, a crisis. When she sat down to read, one of the phrases in Cosmo’s letter would suddenly dart upon her mind like a winged insect and give her a sting: or the more serious words of the other letter—the secret of the dead which she had violated—would flit across her, till her brain could stand it no longer. She rose up with a start and fling, in a kind of childish desperation. She could not, would not bear it! all alone in that little dark cell of herself, with no rays of light penetrating it except the most unconsolatory rays, which were not light at all, but spurts as of evil gases, and bad little savage suggestions, such as to make another raid upon Anne’s despatch-box, and get the letter again and burn it, and make an end of it coming into her mind against her will. But then, even if she were so wicked as to do that, how did she know there was not another? indeed, Rose was almost sure that Anne had told her there was another—the result of which would be that she would only have the excitement of doing something very wrong without getting any good from it. She sat with her book in her hand, and went over a page or two without understanding a word. And then she jumped up and stamped her little feet and clenched her hands, and made faces in the glass at Cosmo and fate. Then, in utter impatience, feeling herself like a hunted creature, pursued by something, she knew not what, Rose seized her hat and went out, stealing softly down the stairs that nobody might see her. She said to herself that there was a bit of ribbon to buy. There are always bits of ribbon to buy for a young lady’s toilette. She would save the maid the trouble and get it for herself.

The tranquil little old-fashioned High Street of a country town on an August morning is as tranquillising a place as it is possible to imagine. It was more quiet, more retired, and what Rose called dull, than the open fields. All the irregular roofs—here a high-peaked gable, there an overhanging upper story, the red pediment of the Queen Anne house which was Mr. Loseby’s office and dwelling, the clustered chimneys of the almshouses—how they stood out upon the serene blueness of the sky and brilliancy of the sunshine! And underneath how shady it was! how cool on the shady side! in what a depth of soft shelter, contrasting with the blaze on the opposite pavement, was the deep cavernous doorway of the ‘Black Bull,’ and the show in the shop windows, where one mild wayfarer in muslin was gazing in, making the quiet more apparent! A boy in blue, with a butcher’s tray upon his head, was crossing the street; two little children in sunbonnets were going along with a basket between them; and in the extreme distance was a costermonger’s cart with fruit and vegetables, which had drawn some women to their doors. Of itself the cry of the man who was selling these provisions was not melodious, but it was so softened by the delight of the still, sweet, morning air, in which there was still a whiff of dew, that it toned down into the general harmony, adding a not unpleasant sense of common affairs, the leisurely bargain, the innocent acquisition, the daily necessary traffic which keeps homes and tables supplied. The buying and selling of the rosy-cheeked apples and green cabbages belonged to the quiet ease of living in such a softened, silent place. Rose did not enter into the sentiment of the scene; she was herself a discord in it. In noisy London she would have been more at home; and yet the quiet soothed her, though she interrupted and broke it up with the sharp pat of her high-heeled boot and the crackle of her French muslin. She was not disposed towards the limp untidy draperies that are ‘the fashion.’ Her dress neither swept the pavement nor was huddled up about her knees like the curtains of a shabby room, but billowed about her in crisp puffs, with enough of starch; and her footstep, which was never languid, struck the pavement more sharply than ever in the energy of her discomposure. The butcher in the vacant open shop, from which fortunately most of its contents had been removed, came out to the door bewildered to see who it could be; and one of Mr. Loseby’s clerks poked out of a window in his shirt-sleeves, but drew back again much confused and abashed when he caught the young lady’s eye. The clerks in Mr. Loseby’s office were not, it may be supposed, of an order to hope from any notice from a Miss Mountford of Mount; yet in the twenties both boys and girls have their delusions on that point. Rose, however, noticed the young clerk no more than if he had been a costermonger, or one of the cabbages that worthy was selling; yet the sight of him gave her a new idea. Mr. Loseby! any Mountford of Mount had a right to speak to Mr. Loseby, whatever trouble he or she might be in. And Rose knew the way into his private room as well as if she had been a child of the house. She obeyed her sudden impulse, with a great many calculations equally sudden springing up spontaneously in her bosom. It would be well to see what Mr. Loseby knew; and then he might be able to think of some way of punishing Cosmo: and then—in any case it would be a relief to her mind. The young clerk in his shirt-sleeves, yawning over his desk, heard the pat of her high heels coming up the steps at the door, and could not believe his ears. He addressed himself to his work with an earnestness which was almost solemn. Was she coming to complain of his stare at her from the window? or was it to ask Mr. Loseby, perhaps, who was that nice-looking young man in the little room close to the door?

Mr. Loseby’s room was apt to look dusty in the summer, though it was in fact kept in admirable order. But the Turkey carpet was very old, and penetrated by the sweeping of generations, and the fireplace always had a tinge of ashes about it. To-day the windows were open, the Venetian blinds down, and there was a sort of green dimness in the room, in which Rose, dazzled by the sunshine out of doors, could for the moment distinguish nothing. She was startled by Mr. Loseby’s exclamation of her name. She thought for the moment that he had found her out internally as well as externally, and surprised her secret as well as herself. ‘Why, little Rose!’ he said. He was sitting in a coat made of yellow Indian grass-silk which did not accord so well as his usual shining blackness with the glistening of his little round bald head, and his eyes and spectacles. His table was covered with papers done up in bundles with all kinds of red tape and bands. ‘This is a sight for sore eyes,’ he said. ‘You are like summer itself stepping into an old man’s dusty den; come and sit near me and let me look at you, my summer Rose! I don’t know which is the freshest and the prettiest!’ said the old lawyer, waving his hand towards a beautiful luxurious blossom of ‘La France’ which was on his table in a Venetian glass. He had a fancy for pretty things.

‘Oh, I was passing, and I thought I would come in—and see you,’ Rose said.

Mr. Loseby had taken her appearance very quietly, as a matter of course; but when she began to explain he was startled. He pushed his spectacles up upon his forehead and looked at her curiously. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘that was kind of you—to come with no other object than to see an old man.’

‘Oh!’ cried Rose, confused, ‘I did not say I had no other object, Mr. Loseby. I want you to tell me—is—is—Anne likely to settle upon the Dower-house? I do so want to know.’

‘My dear child, your mother has as much to do with it as Anne has. You will hear from her better than from me.’

‘To be sure, that is true,’ said Rose; and then, after a pause, ‘Oh, Mr. Loseby, is it really, really true that Cosmo Douglas is not going to marry Anne? isn’t it shameful? to bring her into such trouble and then to forsake her. Couldn’t he be made to marry her? I think it is a horrid shame that a man should behave like that and get no punishment at all.’

Mr. Loseby pushed his spectacles higher and higher; he peered at her through the partial light with a very close scrutiny. Then he rose and half drew up one of the blinds. But even this did not satisfy him. ‘Do you think then,’ he said at last, ‘that it would be a punishment to a man to marry Anne?’

‘It would depend upon what his feelings were,’ said Rose with much force of reason; ‘if he wanted, for example, to marry—somebody else.’

‘Say Rose—instead of Anne,’ said the acute old lawyer, with a grin which was very much like a grimace.

‘I am sure I never said that!’ cried Rose. ‘I never, never said it, nor so much as hinted at it. He may say what he pleases, but I never, never said it! you always thought the worst of me, Mr. Loseby, Anne was always your favourite; but you need not be unjust. Haven’t I come here expressly to ask you? Couldn’t he be made to marry her? Why, they were engaged! everybody has talked of them as engaged. And if it is broken off, think how awkward for Anne.’

Mr. Loseby took off his spectacles, which had been twinkling and glittering upon his forehead like a second pair of eyes—this was a very strong step, denoting unusual excitement—and wiped them deliberately while he looked at Rose. He had the idea, which was not a just idea, that either Rose had been exercising her fascinations upon her sister’s lover, or that she had been in her turn fascinated by him. ‘You saw a good deal of Mr. Douglas in town?’ he said, looking at her keenly, always polishing his spectacles; but Rose sustained the gaze without shrinking.

‘Oh, a great deal,’ she said; ‘he went everywhere with us. He was very nice to mamma and me. Still I do not care a bit about him if he behaves badly to Anne; but he ought not to be let off—he ought to be made to marry her. I told him—what I was quite ready to do——’

‘And what are you quite ready to do, if one might know?’ Mr. Loseby was savage. His grin at her was full of malice and all uncharitableness.

‘Oh, you know very well!’ cried Rose, ‘it was you first who said—— Will you tell me one thing, Mr. Loseby,’ she ran on, her countenance changing; ‘what does it mean by the will of 1868?’

‘What does what mean?’ The old lawyer was roused instantly. It was not that he divined anything, but his quick instinct forestalled suspicion, and there suddenly gleamed over him a consciousness that there was something to divine.

‘Oh!—I mean,’ said Rose, correcting herself quickly, ‘what is meant by the will of 1868? I think I ought to know.’

Mr. Loseby eyed her more and more closely. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘how you know that there was a will of 1868?’

But there was nothing in his aspect to put Rose on her guard. ‘I think I ought to know,’ she said, ‘but I am always treated like a child. And if things were to turn round again, and everything to go back, and me never to have any good of it, I wonder what would be the use at all of having made any change?’

Mr. Loseby put on his spectacles again. He wore a still more familiar aspect when he had his two spare eyes pushed up from his forehead, ready for use at a moment’s notice. He was on the verge of a discovery, but he did not know as yet what that discovery would be.

‘That is very true,’ he said; ‘and it shows a great deal of sense on your part: for if everything were to turn round it would certainly be no use at all to have made any change. The will of 1868 is the will that was made directly after your father married for the second time; it was made to secure her mother’s fortune to your sister Anne.’

‘Without even the least thought of me!’ cried Rose, indignant.

‘It was before you were born,’ said Mr. Loseby, with a laugh that exasperated her.

‘Oh!’ she cried, with an access of that fury which had frightened Keziah, ‘how horrible people are! how unkind things are! how odious it is to be set up and set down and never know what you are, or what is going to happen! Did I do anything to Cosmo Douglas to make him break off with Anne? is it my fault that he is not going to marry her after all? and yet it will be me that will suffer, and nobody else at all. Mr. Loseby, can’t it be put a stop to? I know you like Anne best, but why should not I have justice, though I am not Anne? Oh, it is too bad! it is cruel—it is wicked! Only just because papa was cross and out of temper, and another man is changeable, why should I be the one to suffer? Mr. Loseby, I am sure if you were to try you could change it; you could stop us from going back to this will of 1868 that was made before I was born. If it was only to burn that bit of paper, that horrid letter, that thing! I had nearly put it into the fire myself. Oh!’ Rose wound up with a little cry: she came suddenly to herself out of her passion and indignation, and shrank away, as it were, into a corner, and confronted the old lawyer with a pale and troubled countenance like a child found out. What had she done? She had betrayed herself. She looked at him alarmed, abashed, in a sudden panic which was cold, not hot with passion, like her previous one. What could he cause to be done to her? What commotion and exposure might he make? She scarcely dared to lift her eyes to his face; but yet would not lose sight of him lest something might escape her which he should do.

‘Rose,’ he said, with a tone of great severity, yet a sort of chuckle behind it which gave her consolation, ‘you have got hold of your father’s letter to Anne.’

‘Well,’ she said, trembling but defiant, ‘it had to be read some time, Mr. Loseby. It was only about us two; why should we wait so many years to know what was in it? A letter from papa! Of course we wanted to know what it said.’

‘We! Does Anne know too?’ he cried, horrified. And it gleamed across Rose’s mind for one moment that to join Anne with herself would be to diminish her own criminality. But after a moment she relinquished this idea, which was not tenable. ‘Oh, please!’ she cried, ‘don’t let Anne know! She would not let me touch it. But why shouldn’t we touch it? It was not a stranger that wrote it—it was our own father. Of course I wanted to know what he said.’

There was a ludicrous struggle on Mr. Loseby’s face. He wanted to be severe, and he wanted to laugh. He was disgusted with Rose, yet very lenient to the little pretty child he had known all his life, and his heart was dancing with satisfaction at the good news thus betrayed to him. ‘I have got a duplicate of it in my drawer, and it may not be of much use when all is said. Since you have broken your father’s confidence, and violated his last wishes, and laid yourself open to all sorts of penalties, you—may as well tell me all about it,’ he said.

When Rose emerged into the street after this interview, she came down the steps straight upon Willie Ashley, who was mooning by, not looking whither he was going, and in a somewhat disconsolate mood. He had been calling upon Mrs. Mountford, but Rose had not been visible. Willie knew it was ‘no use’ making a fool of himself, as he said, about Rose; but yet when he was within reach he could not keep his feet from wandering where she was. When he thus came in her way accidentally, his glum countenance lighted up into a blaze of pleasure. ‘Oh, here you are!’ he cried in a delighted voice. ‘I’ve been to Saymore’s and seen your mother, but you were not in.’ This narrative of so self-evident a fact made Rose laugh, though there were tears of agitation and trouble on her face, which made Willie conclude that old Loseby (confound him!) had been scolding her for something. But when Rose laughed all was well.

‘Of course I was not in. It is so tiresome there—nothing to do, nowhere to go. I can’t think why Anne wishes to keep us here of all places in the world.’

‘But you are coming to the Dower-house at Lilford? Oh! say you are coming, Rose. I know some people that would dance for joy.’

‘What people? I don’t believe anybody cares where we live,’ said Rose with demure consciousness, walking along by his side with her eyes cast down, but a smile hovering about the corners of her mouth. Confession had been of use to her, and had relieved her soul, even though Mr. Loseby had no power to confer absolution.

‘Don’t we? Well, there’s Charley for one; he has never had a word to throw to a dog since you went away. Though a fellow may know it is no good, it’s always something to know that you’re there.’

‘What is no good?’ said Rose, with extreme innocence. And thus the two went back talking—of matters very important and amusing—through the coolness and sweetness and leisure of the little country street. Anne, who was seated in the bow-window of the sitting-room with her books and her papers, could not help breathing forth a little sigh as she looked out and saw them approaching, so young and so like each other. ‘What a pity!’ she said to herself. So far as she herself was concerned, it was far more than a pity; but even for Rose——.

‘What is a pity?’ said Mrs. Mountford: and she came and looked out over Anne’s shoulder, being a little concerned about her child’s absence. When she saw the pair advancing she flushed all over with annoyance and impatience. ‘Pity! it must be put a stop to,’ she cried; ‘Willie Ashley was always out of the question; a boy with next to nothing. But now it is not to be thought of for a moment. I rely upon you, if you have any regard for your sister, to put a stop to it, Anne!’

CHAPTER XXXV.

A SIMPLE WOMAN.

The Dower-house at Lilford was fixed upon shortly after by general consent. It was an old house, but showed its original fabric chiefly in the tall stacks of chimneys which guaranteed its hospitable hearths from smoke, and gave an architectural distinction to the pile of building, the walls of which were all matted in honeysuckles, roses, and every climbing plant that can be imagined, embroidering themselves upon the background of the ivy, which filled every crevice. And the pleasure of furnishing, upon which Mr. Loseby had been cunning enough to enlarge, as an inducement to the ladies to take possession of this old dwelling-place, proved as great and as delightful as he had represented it to be. It was a pleasure which none of the three had ever as yet experienced. Even Mrs. Mountford had never known the satisfaction, almost greater than that of dressing one’s self—the delight and amusement of dressing one’s house and making it beautiful. She had been taken as a bride to the same furniture which had answered for her predecessor; and though in the course of the last twenty years something had no doubt been renewed, there is no such gratification in a new carpet or curtains, which must be chosen either to suit the previous furniture, or of those homely tints which, according to the usual formula of the shops, ‘would look well with anything,’ as in the blessed task of renovating a whole room at once. They had everything to do here, new papers (bliss! for you may be sure Mrs. Mountford was too fashionable to consult anybody but Mr. Morris on this important subject), and a whole array of new old furniture. They did not transfer the things that had been left at Mount, which would have been, Mrs. Mountford felt, the right thing to do, but merely selected a few articles from the mass which nobody cared for. The result, they all flattered themselves, was fine. Not a trace of newness appeared in all the carefully decorated rooms. A simulated suspicion of dirt, a ghost of possible dust, was conjured up by the painter’s skill to make everything perfect—not in the way of a vulgar copy of that precious element which softens down the too perfect freshness, but, by a skilful touch of art, reversing the old principle of economy, and making ‘the new things look as weel’s the auld.’ This process, with all its delicate difficulties, did the Mountford family good in every way. To Anne it was the must salutary and health-giving discipline. It gave her scope for the exercise of all those secondary tastes and fancies, which keep the bigger and more primitive sentiments in balance. To be anxious about the harmony of the new curtains, or concerned about the carpet, is sometimes salvation in its way; and there were so many questions to decide—things for beauty and things for use—the character of every room, and the meaning of it, which are things that have to be studied nowadays before we come so far down as to consider the conveniences of it, what you are to sit upon, or lie upon, though these two are questions almost of life and death. Anne was plunged into the midst of all these questions. Besides her serious business in the management of the estate which Mr. Loseby had taken care should occupy her more and more, there were a hundred trivial play-anxieties always waiting for her, ready to fill up every crevice of thought. She had, indeed, no time to think. The heart which had been so deeply wounded, which had been compelled to give up its ideal and drop one by one the illusions it had cherished, seemed pushed into a corner by this flood of occupation. Anne’s mind, indeed, was in a condition of exhaustion, something similar to that which sometimes deadens the sensations of mourners after a death which in anticipation has seemed to involve the loss of all things. When all is over, and the tortures of imagination are no longer added to those of reality, a kind of calm steals over the wounded soul. The worst has happened; the blow has fallen. In this fact there is quiet at least involved, and now the sufferer has nothing to think of but how to bear his pain. The wild rallying of all his forces to meet a catastrophe to come is no longer necessary. It is over; and though the calm may be but ‘a calm despair,’ yet it is different from the anguish of looking forward. And in Anne’s case there was an additional relief. For a long time past she had been forcing upon herself a fictitious satisfaction. The first delight of her love, which she had described to Rose as the power of saying everything to her lover, pouring out her whole heart in the fullest confidence that everything would interest him and all be understood, had long ago begun to ebb away from her. As time went on, she had fallen upon the pitiful expedient of writing to Cosmo without sending her letters, thus beguiling herself by the separation of an ideal Cosmo, always the same, always true and tender, from the actual Cosmo whose attention often flagged, and who sometimes thought the things that occupied her trivial, and her way of regarding them foolish or high-flown. Yes, Cosmo too had come to think her high-flown: he had been impatient even of her fidelity to himself; and gradually it had come about that Anne’s communications with him were but carefully prepared abridgments of the genuine letters which were addressed to—someone whom she had lost, someone, she could not tell who, on whom her heart could repose, but who was not, so far as she knew, upon this unresponsive earth. All this strain, this dual life, was over now. No attempt to reconcile the one with the other was necessary. It was all over; the worst had happened; there was no painful scene to look forward to, no gradual loosening of a tie once so dear; but whatever was to happen had happened. How she might have felt the blank, had no such crowd of occupations come in to fill up her time and thoughts, is another question. But, as it was, Anne had no time to think of the blank. In the exhaustion of the revolution accomplished she was seized hold upon by all these crowding occupations, her thoughts forced into new channels, her every moment busy. No soul comes through such a crisis without much anguish and many struggles, but Anne had little time to indulge herself. She had to stand to her arms, as it were, night and day. She explained her position to Mr. Loseby, as has been said, and she informed her stepmother briefly of the change; but to no one else did she say a word.

‘There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.’ Could any word express more impressively the pause of fate, the quiet of patience and deliberation over the great and terrible things to come. There was silence in the heaven of Anne’s being. She forbore to think, forbore to speak, even to herself. All was still within her. The firmament had closed in around her. Her world was lessened, so much cut off on every side, a small world now with no far-shining distances, no long gleams of celestial light, nothing but the little round about her, the circle of family details, the work of every day. Instead of the wide sky and the infinite air, to have your soul concentrated within a circle of Mr. Morris’s papers, however admirable they may be, makes a great difference in life. Sometimes she even triumphed over circumstances so far as to see the humorous side of her own fate, and to calculate with a smile half pathetic, all that her unreasonable fidelity had cost her. It had cost her her father’s approbation, her fortune, her place in life, and oh! strange turning of the tables! it had cost her at the same time the lover whom she had chosen, in high youthful absolutism and idealism, at the sacrifice of everything else. Was there ever a stranger contradiction, completion, of a transaction? He for whom she had given up all else, was lost to her because she had given everything for him. A woman might weep her heart out over such a fate, or she might smile as Anne smiled, pale, with a woful merriment, a tremulous pathetic scorn, an indignation half lost in that sentiment which made Othello cry out, ‘The pity of it! The pity of it!’ Oh, the pity of it! that such things should be; that a woman should give so much for so little—and a man return so little for so much. Sometimes, when she was by herself, this smile would come up unawares, a scarcely perceptible gleam upon her pale countenance. ‘What are you smiling at, Anne?’ her stepmother or Rose would ask her as she sat at work. ‘Was I smiling? I did not know—at nobody—I myself,’ she would say, quoting Desdemona this time. Or she would remind herself of a less dignified simile—of poor Dick Swiveller, shutting up one street after another, in which he had made purchases which he could not pay for. She had shut up a great many pleasant paths for herself. Her heart got sick of the usual innocent romance in which the hero is all nobleness and generosity, and the heroine all sweet dependence and faith. She grew sick of poetry and all her youthful fancies. Even places became hateful to her, became as paths shut up. To see the Beeches even from the road gave her a pang. Mount, where she had written volumes all full of her heart and inmost thoughts to Cosmo, pained her to go back to, though she had to do it occasionally. And she could not think of big London itself without a sinking of the heart. He was there. It was the scene of her disenchantment, her disappointment. All these were as so many slices cut off from her life. Rose’s estate, and the leases, and the tenants, and the patronage of Lilford parish, which belonged to it, and all its responsibilities, and the old women, with their tea and flannels, and the Dower-house with Mr. Morris’s papers—these circumvented and bound in her life.

But there was one person at least whose affectionate care of her gave Anne an amusement which now and then found expression in a flood of tears: though tears were a luxury which she did not permit herself. This was the Rector, who was always coming and going, and who would walk round Anne at the writing-table, where she spent so much of her time, with anxious looks and many little signs of perturbation. He did not say a great deal to her, but watched her through all the other conversations that would arise, making now and then a vague little remark, which was specially intended for her, as she was aware, and which would strike into her like an arrow, yet make her smile all the same. When there was talk of the second marriage of Lord Meadowlands’ brother, the clergyman, Mr. Ashley was strong in his defence. ‘No one can be more opposed than I am to inconstancies of all kinds; but when you have made a mistake the first time it is a wise thing and a right thing,’ said the good Rector, with a glance at Anne, ‘to take advantage of the release given you by Providence. Charles Meadows had made a great mistake at first—like many others.’ And then, when the conversation changed, and the Woodheads became the subject of discussion, even in the fulness of his approbation of ‘that excellent girl Fanny,’ Mr. Ashley found means to insinuate his constant burden of prophecy. ‘What I fear is that she will get a little narrow as the years go on. How can a woman help that who has no opening out in her life, who is always at the first chapter?’

‘Dear me, Rector,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘I did not know you were such an advocate of marriage.’

‘Yes, I am a great advocate of marriage: without it we all get narrow. We want new interests to carry on our life; we want to expand in our children, and widen out instead of closing in.’

‘But Fanny has not closed in,’ said Anne, with a half malicious smile, which had a quiver of pain in it: for she knew his meaning almost better than he himself did.

‘No, no, Fanny is an excellent girl. She is everything that can be desired. But you must marry, Anne, you must marry,’ he said, in a lower tone, coming round to the back of her chair. There was doubt and alarm in his eyes. He saw in her that terror of single-minded men, an old maid. Women have greatly got over the fear of that term of reproach. But men who presumably know their own value best; and take more deeply to heart the loss to every woman of their own sweet society, have a great horror of it. And Anne seemed just the sort of person who would not marry, having been once disgusted and disappointed, Mr. Ashley concluded within himself, with much alarm. He was even so far carried away by his feelings as to burst forth upon his excellent son and Curate, one evening in the late autumn, when they were returning together from the Dower-house. They had been walking along for some time in silence upon the dusty, silent road, faintly lighted by some prevision of a coming moon, though she was not visible. Perhaps the same thoughts were in both their minds, and this mutual sympathy warmed the elder to an overflow of the pent-up feeling. ‘Man alive!’ he cried out suddenly, turning upon Charley with a kind of ferocity, which startled the Curate as much as if a pistol had been presented at him. ‘Man alive! can’t you go in for her? you’re better than nothing if you’re not very much. What is the good of you, if you can’t try, at least try, to please her? She’s sick of us all, and not much wonder; but, bless my soul, you’re young, and why can’t you make an effort? why can’t you try? that’s what I would like to know,’ the Rector cried.

Charley was taken entirely by surprise. He gasped in his agitation, ‘I—try? But she would not look at me. What have I to offer her?’ he said, with a groan.

Upon which the Rector repeated that ungracious formula. ‘You may not be very much, but you’re better than nothing. No,’ the father said, shaking his head regretfully, ‘we are none of us very much to look at; but, Lord bless my soul, think of Anne, Anne, settling down as a single woman: an old maid!’ he cried, with almost a shriek of dismay. The two men were both quite subdued, broken down by the thought. They could not help feeling in their hearts that to be anybody’s wife would be better than that.

But when they had gone on for about half an hour, and the moon had risen silvery over the roofs of the cottages, showing against the sky the familiar and beloved spire of their own village church, Charley, who had said nothing all the time, suddenly found a voice. He said, in his deep and troubled bass, as if his father had spoken one minute ago instead of half an hour, ‘Heathcote Mountford is far more likely to do something with her than I.’

‘Do you think so?’ cried the Rector, who had not been, any more than his son, distracted from the subject, and was as unconscious as Charley was of the long pause. ‘She does not know him as she knows you.’

‘That is just the thing,’ said the Curate, with a sigh. ‘She has known me all her life, and why should she think any more about me? I am just Charley, that is all, a kind of a brother; but Mountford is a stranger. He is a clever fellow, cleverer than I am; and, even if he were not,’ said poor Charley, with a tinge of bitterness, ‘he is new, and what he says sounds better, for they have not heard it so often before. And then he is older, and has been all about the world; and besides—well,’ the Curate broke off with a harsh little laugh, ‘that is about all, sir. He is he, and I am me—that’s all.’

‘If that is what you think,’ said the Rector, who had listened to all this with very attentive ears, pausing, as he took hold of the upper bar of his own gate, and raising a very serious countenance to his son, ‘if this is really what you think, Charley—you may have better means of judging—we must push Mountford. Anything would be better,’ he said, solemnly, ‘than to see Anne an old maid. And she’s capable of doing that,’ he added, laying his hand upon his son’s in the seriousness of the moment. ‘She is capable of doing it, if we don’t mind.’

Charley felt the old hand chill him like something icy and cold. And he did not go in with his father, but took a pensive turn round the garden in the moonlight. No, she would never walk with him there. It was too presumptuous a thought. Never would Anne be the mistress within, never would it be permitted to Charley to call her forth into the moonlight in the sweet domestic sanctity of home. His heart stirred within him for a moment, then sank, acknowledging the impossibility. He breathed forth a vast sigh as he lit the evening cigar, which his father did not like him to smoke in his presence, disliking the smell, like the old-fashioned person he was. The Curate walked round and round the grass-plats, sadly enjoying this gentle indulgence. When he tossed the end away, after nearly an hour of silent musing, he said to himself, ‘Mountford might do it,’ with another sigh. It was hard upon Charley. A stranger had a better chance than himself, a man that was nothing to her, whom she had known for a few months only. But so it was: and it was noble of him that he wished Mountford no manner of harm.

This was the state of affairs between the Rectory and the Dower-house, which, fortunately, was on the very edge of Lilford parish, and therefore could, without any searchings of heart on the part of the new Vicar there, permit the attendance of the ladies at the church which they loved. When Willie was home at Christmas his feet wore a distinct line on the road. He was always there, which his brother thought foolish and weak, since nothing could ever come of it. Indeed, if anything did exasperate the Curate, it was the inordinate presumption and foolishness of Willie, who seemed really to believe that Rose would have something to say to him. Rose! who was the rich one of the house, and whose eyes were not magnanimous to observe humble merit like those of her sister. It was setting that little thing up, Charley felt, with hot indignation, as if she were superior to Anne. But then Willie was always more complacent, and thought better of himself than did his humble-minded brother. As for Mr. Ashley himself, he never intermitted his anxious watch upon Anne. She was capable of it. No doubt she was just the very person to do it. The Rector could not deny that she had provocation. If a woman had behaved to him like that, he himself, he felt, might have turned his back upon the sex, and refused to permit himself to become the father of Charley and Willie. That was putting the case in a practical point of view. The Rector felt a cold dew burst out upon his forehead, when it gleamed across him with all the force of a revelation, that in such a case Charley and Willie might never have been. He set out on the spot to bring this tremendous thought before Anne, but stopped short and came back after a moment depressed and toned down. How could he point out to Anne the horrible chance that perhaps two such paragons yet unborn might owe their non-existence (it was difficult to put it into words even) to her? He could not say it; and thus lost out of shyness or inaptness, he felt (for why should there have been any difficulty in stating it?), by far the best argument that had yet occurred to him. But though he relinquished his argument he did not get over his anxiety. Anne an old maid! it was a thought to move heaven and earth.

In the meantime Heathcote Mountford felt as warmly as anyone could have desired the wonderful brightening of the local horizon which followed upon the ladies’ return. The Dower-house was for him also within the limits of a walk, and the decoration and furnishing which went on to a great extent after they had taken possession, the family bivouacking pleasantly in the meantime, accepting inconveniences with a composure which only ladies are capable of under such circumstances, gave opportunity for many a consultation and discussion. It was no obsequious purpose of pleasing her which made Heathcote almost invariably agree with Anne when questions arose. They were of a similar mould, born under the same star, to speak poetically, with a natural direction of their thoughts and fancies in the same channel, and an agreement of tastes perhaps slightly owing to the mysterious affinities of the powerful and wide-spreading family character which they both shared. By-and-by it came to be recognised that Anne and Heathcote were each other’s natural allies. One of them even, no one could remember which, playfully identified a certain line of ideas as ‘our side.’ When the winter came on and country pleasures shrank as they are apt to do, to women, within much restricted limits, the friendship between these two elder members of the family grew. That they were naturally on the same level, and indeed about the same age, nobody entertained any doubt, aided by that curious foregone conclusion in the general mind (which is either a mighty compliment or a contemptuous insult to a woman) that a girl of twenty-one is in reality quite the equal and contemporary, so to speak, of a man of thirty-five. Perhaps the assumption was more legitimate than usual in the case of these two; for Anne, always a girl of eager intelligence and indiscriminate intellectual appetite, had lived much of her life among books, and was used to unbounded intercourse with the matured minds of great writers, besides having had the ripening touch of practical work, and of that strange bewildering conflict with difficulties unforeseen which is called disenchantment by some, disappointment by others, but which is perhaps to a noble mind the most certain and unfailing of all maturing influences. Heathcote Mountford had not lived so much longer in the world without having known what that experience was, and in her gropings darkly after the lost ideal, the lost paradise which had seemed so certain and evident at her first onset, Anne began to feel that now and then she encountered her kinsman’s hand in the darkness with a reassuring grasp. This consciousness came to her slowly, she could scarcely tell how; and whether he himself was conscious of it at all she did not know. But let nobody think this was in the way of love-making or overtures to a new union. When a girl like Anne, a young woman full of fresh hope and confidence and all belief in the good and true, meets on her outset into life with such a ‘disappointment’ as people call it, it is not alone the loss of her lover that moves her. She has lost her world as well. Her feet stumble upon the dark mountains; the steadfast sky swims round her in a confusion of bewildering vapours and sickening giddy lights. She stands astonished in the midst of a universe going to pieces, like Hamlet in those times which were out of joint. All that was so clear to her has become dim. If she has a great courage, she fights her way through the blinding mists, not knowing where she is going, feeling only a dull necessity to keep upright, to hold fast to something. And if by times a hand reaches hers thrust out into the darkness, guiding to this side or that, her fingers close upon it with an instinct of self-preservation. This, I suppose, is what used to be called catching a heart in the rebound. Heathcote himself was not thinking of catching this heart in its rebound. He was not himself aware when he helped her; but he was dimly conscious of the pilgrimage she was making out of the gloom back into the light.