Part 6, Chapter XLIII.
Another Chance.
“Only the sound of a voice,
Tender and sweet and low—
That made my heart rejoice
A year ago!”
James Crichton was spending a few days at home, with a view to the proposed oratorio at H—, which was to take place the week after Easter. He was, however, obliged to go up to town on most days, and was rather fond of calling in at the Bank on his way from the station and walking or driving back with his brother and Arthur. Perhaps, this practice had partly induced Hugh’s visit to Ashenfold on the day of the primrose picnic. For Hugh was not fond of walking down Oxley High-street with Jem. It was all very well, he thought, to know every man, woman, and child in Redhurst, and even to be on civil terms with the inhabitants of Oxley; but Jem carried things too far.
When they passed the greengrocer’s—“Well, Mr Coleman, how d’ye do? How’s your little girl? Gone to boarding-school?—hope she’ll get on with her French. Why, Hugh, there’s Kitty Morris—how dark her hair’s grown! She’s not as pretty as she used to be.”
“I never saw her before, to my knowledge,” Hugh would probably reply.
“Never saw Kitty—oh, she belongs to that little print-shop. She’s always standing at the door. I declare, there’s old Tomkins! I must just cross over and speak to him.”
A delay of two or three minutes listening to old Tomkins; and then, still worse, an elaborate bow to two Miss Harrisons—and, though Hugh knew that neither the popularity nor the familiarity of the “Oh, Mr Crichton, ’ow pleased ma will be to see you!” could be intended for him, he would grow desperate, and march on, while Jem would finish up by saying:
“Ah, when you want to represent the borough send me to canvass—that’s all!” Jem had not been at home long before he proposed that Arthur should come back to London with him for the sake of a little change and variety. It was evident, he said, that a change was wanted, and the proposal was eagerly taken up by his mother, who pressed it upon Arthur in a way that hardly left him a choice.
“You see, my dear boy, you don’t look well, and are sadly out of spirits,” she said, in her outspoken way; “and this will be the very thing to do you good.”
“Jem is very kind; but it would not do me any good,” said Arthur.
“Oh, yes, my dear, it will. Change is always good for people, and you haven’t been much in London. You know we must all make efforts.”
“There is nothing the matter with me,” said Arthur, escaping from the room; while his aunt went on: “Poor boy, it’s time he should be a little cheerful, and he is not half so bright as he was at first.”
“No; that’s just what I say,” returned Jem; “everything here reminds him of her, and London will be all fresh.”
Even Flossy Venning was moved to give the same counsel, which she did with rather suspicious eagerness, half-afraid to seem unwilling to part with him. Arthur had no counter-arguments to urge but his own unwillingness, and this seemed only to prove the necessity of the measure; but he did not yield readily, though he half-believed they were right, and had not the energy to put an end to the discussion by a more emphatic refusal. Hugh would not interfere, save by the brief remark:
“Yes, things are wrong; but it will take more than that to set them right;” but at last he said:
“You do not wish to go, Arthur?”
“Oh, no,” said Arthur, in a sort of matter-of-course tone.
“Is there anything you would like better to do?” said Hugh, with the elaborate gentleness with which he often addressed his cousin.
“Oh, no,” said Arthur again. “I am sorry to make such a bad business of it. Perhaps, I ought to get away somewhere, and not make you all miserable.”
“It is not that,” said Hugh; “but Jem is always cheerful; you and he have tastes in common, and sometimes you do seem brighter for a little amusement.”
“That’s only because I’m such a fool, Hugh, you are so wonderfully good to me. Don’t you think I know how I put you out? I take up with things—sometimes I forget how I’ve changed—then I get deadly sick of it all and tired out. Or else a word—a look! Oh, I know well enough what I ought to do; but it’s making bricks without straw—I’ve no pluck left.”
Perhaps because he had, with whatever shortcomings, tried very hard to be “good” to Arthur, perhaps because the confidence was made to himself, Hugh was able to conceal the personal pain which these passionate words caused him; and it was with real tenderness that he answered:
“I think you have shown no want of pluck; but when you first talked of coming back I was afraid you would not be able to bear it; this place is full of sword-pricks for you. Aren’t you straining your nerves too far by staying here?”
Arthur did not answer, and Hugh, watching him as he stood leaning against the shutter and staring fixedly out into the sunshine, said, with more hesitation:
“Or is it that the want of an aim, of an object is worse than anything else, and that you feel less at sea when you are obliged to do something?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, quickly. “Yes. Ah, you understand! I want something to hold by.”
“But then,” said Hugh, “you mustn’t be too hard on yourself. You look ill, and sometimes you feel so; you don’t sleep, and then you are not fit for these efforts.”
“You seem to know all about me,” said Arthur; but not as if the comprehension hurt him.
“Yes, I believe I do,” said Hugh, looking away from him; but with a curious sense of a fresh spring in his heart. Was all that bitter involuntary watching, that keen, morbid analysis of Arthur’s feelings, which had cost him so much pain, to bear fruit at last? Had the sympathetic suffering which he had looked on as expiation been no fruitless penance, but a training that might enable him to make some poor amends? Was it possible that he, who had caused and shared the sorrow, could be the one to comfort and help?
“I think I do understand,” he said. “It will be best for you to stay here quietly, and join when you can in what goes on, or pass it by without any comment being made. Only, you must promise to tell me if you feel that it is getting too much for you—that is, if you will,” he added, with a little return to his self-distrust.
“Oh, yes, I’ll tell you, if you don’t find out,” said Arthur, with some of his natural liveliness; then added, earnestly and affectionately: “You have done me a great deal of good.”
Hugh had never felt so nearly happy since he had come back to England as at those words. If Arthur could feel so he should never want for comfort again. The first effort at really helping him for his own sake had broken through his self-conscious shrinking; and Hugh felt that, with so ready a response, he could comfort Arthur and find his own consolation in doing it.
There was no doubt of the response. Arthur never theorised about what he could or could not do and feel, and he turned instantly to Hugh’s offered comprehension and sympathy. Indeed, he was so easily cheered for the moment, and almost always so bright in manner, that it was difficult to believe how completely he had been thrown off his balance, and how much the strain was telling upon him. It was by his irresolution and changeableness and excitable vehemence, ending in utter indifference, rather than by absolute low spirits that his grief told. Sometimes he could not decide on the merest trifle, such as a walk versus a ride; and, again, he would involve himself in some undertaking, just because he was asked to do so, and then a voice, a look, the name of a place or a person—anything that jarred his nerves with a sudden recollection—would make the act impossible to him. In the same way, though he rarely had even a headache to complain of, he was often utterly unequal to an exertion which another day would be easy to him.
It was just the state for which change of scene seemed most desirable; but to which by itself it would do little good; and it was well, indeed, for Arthur that fate, or his own judgment, had placed him where all this irresolution and want of ballast was likely to result in nothing worse than idleness and uselessness. Had he been thrown in the way of temptation at this critical period neither his own principles nor the memory of Mysie might have supplied an adequate resisting force, while he would probably have broken down under solitude altogether.
That conversation was like the lifting of a veil. Hugh had always known where Arthur’s shoe pinched him; he only needed to act on his knowledge to be the very help that was wanted, and he had not won Arthur’s glance of thanks and relief twice before he began to look for it as his own greatest pleasure. Like many severe people when once softened, he was almost over-tender, and could not bear to see his cousin struggle with himself. He would not, therefore, allow the expedition to H— to be urged upon him; so Jem, Mrs Crichton, Frederica, and Flossy set off on the day appointed.
Hugh found time, in spite of this new interest, to display what the Vicar of Oxley called “a very proper feeling on the part of one of the chief laymen of the parish,” by attending the Confirmation. He had meditated much on the scene of the olive-leaves; but, in the new light thrown on Arthur’s mind, it had lost much of its sting. Not so with Flossy. She had never dreamt that her unselfish love could be marred by such foolish, miserable jealousy. Did silent devotion mean that she was to be wretched whenever he spoke to another woman? Her thoughts wandered, her mind was disturbed, she wondered as to Violante’s past history, it was an effort to think of the scene before her.
Hugh watched Violante from a distance, and perceived that she was not aware of his presence. The impressionable Italian nature was lifted into enthusiasm by the first religious ceremony in which she had ever taken part. Her eyes were bright and tearful, her cheeks flushed. This epoch in her life did not present itself to her as a moral crisis, as a new resolve to fulfil difficult duties, a strain after a recollectedness and gravity respected but hardly attained to. It came to her as a new happiness, a new love and a new sense of protection. She was not conscious that she felt differently from her companions; and Flossy watched this beautiful fervour with a sort of awe, even while she half-distrusted it as a lasting motive of action.
Before they left the church a hymn was sung and as Violante’s heart swelled with the words and the music, unconsciously she raised her voice too, and its long silent notes smote on her ear, clear and full, as when she had sung last in the opera-house of Civita Bella. She dropped down on her knees and hid her face. Had it come back to her—this invaluable gift, this terrible, beautiful possession? Was her new ease of living to slip away from her, and must she return to the “pains austere” of the talent which belonged to her and to no other? She had heard a great deal lately about her duty, and for her “her duty” had always meant singing in public. And her father was coming; and he had not been successful. But no one had heard her—no one would know! Hitherto she had but helplessly yielded to the will of others—this was the first moral struggle she had ever known. She saw and heard no more of what was passing till they reached home, when she escaped from the others and ran away by herself down to the farther end of the garden. She stood still in the shrubbery under its budding green, and listened. All was silent, but the twitter of the birds; and softly, timidly, she began again to sing the hymn that she had just heard:
“Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire!” and as she went on the notes rose fuller and clearer, and she could not but rejoice in their sweetness. Then she paused, and, with a sense of desperation, began to sing the melody so fraught with memories of every sort, the never-to-be-forgotten “Batti, batti.” And, as she sang, Rosa came down the garden path, and beheld her standing under the trees, in her white confirmation dress, and singing the passionate operatic love-song with a curious look of resolution on her face. She broke off suddenly, and threw herself into her sister’s arms: “Rosa, Rosa! I will be good. I meant to tell you. My voice, my voice! Oh, father, father!”
The voice was choked in an agony of sobs and tears, and Rosa, hardly less agitated, held her in her arms and tried to soothe her.
As soon as she could speak she sobbed out: “It has come back, and—and I will sing for father—but, oh! I thought I should stay hero always and teach the little ones.”
“Indeed, my darling, you shall not come away from here yet.”
“No, and I could not act.”
“No, that you never shall; but, darling, to hear your voice again!”
There was a little pause; then Violante said:
“I may stay here and learn things a little longer—and afterwards I will sing at concerts—if—if—”
She faced her probable future; but there was still an “if” in her life.