CHAPTER XVI
In June, when the gardens at Yelverton were glorious with roses (and Caroline's one task seemed to be hunting the children out of the strawberry-beds), Cuthbert Baynhurst and his wife returned to town.
They did not do this voluntarily; it was literally to see his mother die that Cuthbert was summoned back to England.
Rupert Haverford himself wrote the message that brought his half-brother home.
He himself was on the eve of sailing for the United States when his mother's condition became so serious.
He had promised Mrs. Brenton to spend one night at Yelverton before leaving for America, but of course all his arrangements were upset.
"It is impossible to describe to you the suffering my poor mother is enduring just now," he wrote. "She is amazingly brave, and her brain is as active as ever. It sounds cruel to say it, but I almost regret this, for she persists in fatiguing herself. Only yesterday she worked for three hours."
Another time he wrote—
"She has been very ill for some time, how ill no one but she herself has known; but undoubtedly she has hastened matters to the present crisis by her unhappiness about Cuthbert's marriage. It was a great shock to her; she craves for him, and seems to torture herself with vain and unreasonable jealousy. I am most unhappy about her.... It is a bitter thing to feel that I have not the gift of ministering to her!"
All these letters passed into Caroline's hands.
Usually she read them out in the garden, and when she was alone.
She was well again, but very restless in these days. After that nervous breakdown Mrs. Brenton endeavoured to treat her as a kind of invalid, but she quickly abandoned this as a hopeless undertaking, and indeed the girl very speedily picked up her colour and her strength. But she was changed; her calm, determined, practical mood was gone altogether.
There were times when Mrs. Brenton was puzzled by her manner, and nothing was more difficult for her to understand than the friendship which appeared to have sprung up between Caroline and Sir Samuel Broxbourne.
Sir Samuel was always turning up at Yelverton at unexpected moments.
As the Brentons had known him since he was a boy he was outside the category of guests; but though Mrs. Brenton was hospitality itself, she really chafed a little at his constant visits, and if she could only have imagined that he was indirectly or directly connected with what she in her plain-spoken way called Camilla's "wickedness," he would have found himself shut out of Yelverton in particularly quick time.
As it was, very little of what went on in Broxbourne's world found its way to Mrs. Brenton's ears, and she was in happy ignorance of the fact that when Camilla had broken her traces in that startling fashion, Broxbourne had been as much an object of curiosity to a certain section of society as Rupert Haverford himself.
Nevertheless she gave him very little encouragement to come so often; but Sir Samuel was, happily for himself, thick-skinned.
"What do you find to talk about, you two?" she asked Caroline on one occasion, almost irritably; and the girl had shrugged her shoulders.
"I listen," she said; and then, with an effort, she had added, "Sir Samuel amuses the children. He is always inventing some marvellous games."
"Yes," said Mrs. Brenton, thoughtfully; "but it is not a bit like Sammy Broxbourne to spend his time inventing games to amuse children."
Caroline's eyes had flashed, and she had laughed for a moment.
"I expect he finds the country air refreshing after town."
"Is it possible," Mrs. Brenton said to her husband after this little conversation, "is it possible that Sammy has fallen in love with Caroline?"
Mr. Brenton closed his book with his finger in it to keep the place.
"It does not seem improbable," he said; and then he added, "Caroline is a very sweet girl."
To which his wife retorted—
"Do you think I don't know that? She is much too sweet for a man like Sammy."
In a vague sort of way this question of Broxbourne seemed to divide Caroline and Mrs. Brenton. The older woman resented, not unnaturally, the fact that the girl should not confide in her.
"Of course if he is in love, and he wants to marry her, it might be foolish to do anything to prevent it. Though he is not very nice himself, he has a very nice position, and his people are the kindest creatures in the world. It would be what the world would call a wonderful marriage for Caroline, I suppose. But does he want to marry her? And would she have him?" Here Mrs. Brenton had to shrug her shoulders hopelessly. "I should have thought he would have been the last man on earth to attract her."
And Caroline was perfectly well aware of what was passing in the other woman's mind. It was one of the many little prickly burdens which she carried in her heart in these days.
If it could have been possible to have shared this trouble with Agnes Brenton, she would have done it gladly; but she knew that Camilla's disloyalty had worked far deeper into the heart of this woman, who had loved her with the anxious love of a mother for so many years, than even Agnes Brenton herself realized.
Mrs. Brenton had never set Camilla on a pedestal; she had never proclaimed her faultless, but she had never ceased to find reasonable excuses for all the mistakes that the younger woman had made.
Her love had always been tempered by her judgment. She had forgiven more in Camilla than she would have been able to forgive in other people; but she could not easily pardon that act of betrayal, that deliberate renunciation of right, of honour, and of duty.
Caroline was by no means sure that if she were to have lain before Mrs. Brenton the facts which Sir Samuel had disclosed to her that sad and strange morning, she would have received any suggestion of help. On the contrary, it seemed to her that Camilla's old friend might have been more definitely estranged, as assuredly she would have been made more miserable were she to have listened to that story of temptation and weakness and dishonour.
Caroline herself, though she pitied, also condemned.
Undoubtedly the woman had been sorely tried; she must have endured a veritable torture at Broxbourne's hands, but surely (Caroline argued now), surely she owed the man who had loved her so wonderfully, too big a debt of gratitude to have exposed him so needlessly to the heart suffering and humiliation she had brought upon him?
"What she ought to have done," Caroline said over and over again to herself, "was, firstly, to have broken her engagement, then if he had pressed her for an explanation, she could have told him the truth. I know this must have seemed too hard for her to do, but I know, too, that such love as he had for her can work miracles. If she had only thrown herself on his hands for protection, I am convinced he would have stood by her. As it is, she has lost him, she has lost Agnes Brenton, and she has sold herself into a worse bondage than any she ever had in the past!"
And still though she judged, and even condemned, Caroline could not detach herself from this woman. In her turn she owed a heavy debt to Camilla, a debt that was sweet to pay, that claimed from her the best she had to give.
The same spirit that had sent her out into the night, eagerly defiant of fatigue, loneliness, or any possible danger, merely to stand beside this helpless, lovable woman, animated her still. She could not shut out of her remembrance the pleading patheticness of Camilla's look the last time they had met, and though they were now parted by an irrevocable barrier, she remained still acutely sensitive to the spell exercised by that creature of wayward moods and tenderest influences.
*****
When Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst reached London, she at once wired to Yelverton, announcing her arrival, and desired that the children might be taken to town the following day to meet her.
To Caroline she sent a little pleading note, in which she asked the girl to bring the children herself.
"She has at least the grace not to suggest coming here," said Mrs. Brenton, with a laugh that had the sound of tears in it.
Then she looked at Caroline.
"You will go?" she said in a low voice; and Caroline said—
"Yes."
The Cuthbert Baynhursts were installed naturally in one of the best suites of one of the largest and most sumptuous hotels.
It was so strange, so natural, and yet so unreal to see Camilla again!
She looked marvellously well; that fretted, excited, nervous air had gone entirely.
As Betty phrased it—
"You look so pretty, mummy darling, just like a new, young girl."
The presence of the children relieved the situation to a great extent, yet both Caroline and Cuthbert Baynhurst's wife felt the strain of this meeting sharply.
"You're going to stay with me a day or two?" said Camilla, entreatingly. "It will be sweet to have you." Then with a flash of her old merriment, "remember we are cousins now."
Caroline shook her head.
"I am afraid I must go back this evening; but the children will be all right with Dennis."
And Camilla bit her lip.
"Of course, if you must go, you must go." Then she added, restlessly, "I hope we shall not stay here more than a few days ourselves. It was horrible coming at all. And then I am so afraid this illness will upset Cuthbert. He is so sensitive. I have entreated him not to stay longer than a few minutes in his mother's room. I wish he need not go in at all. Cancer is such an awful thing."
Then she shuddered.
Caroline said nothing. She had no reason to care one way or another about Mrs. Baynhurst, but it was impossible for her to withhold her pity in such an hour as this; because she knew, none better, the hopelessness of the mother's passionate love for her second child, and because it had been a creed with Octavia Baynhurst to sneer at womanly weakness, and suffering; to deny almost scornfully the terrors of death.
And now death had come upon her—and what a death!
There was a tragedy to Caroline in the thought of that fine intellect, that strong nature, surrendering itself to the ravages of the most appalling disease the human frame can know.
As the children danced off to another room to find Dennis, and they were alone, Camilla turned and stretched out both her hands to the girl.
"Have I lost you, Caroline?" she said; "you look at me so strangely, your eyes hurt me. I have always clung to the hope that you would never change, that you would always love me."
Caroline paused a moment, and then took the hands for an instant.
"Are you happy?" she asked in a low voice.
The look that flashed into the other woman's face was a revelation to her.
"So happy," she said. "Oh, Caroline, it is all the beginning over again, only better, truer, and, please God, more lasting! Caroline, I love him. He is so young, so beautiful, so full of poetry, he makes life quite different! Oh, I love him, and I never thought I should love any one again after Ned."
Caroline turned away; her lips quivered.
"Then we who care for you must be content," she said. There was a bitter and yet a sad note in her voice.
Cuthbert Baynhurst's wife stood and looked at her.
"Of course," she said a little hardly, "I know you think I did a dreadful thing, and I will tell you one thing, Caroline, that I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could have come by this happiness in a different way. I don't want to excuse myself, for I have no excuse, but equally I don't want you or anybody else to make up things that don't exist. Don't for instance, run away with the idea that Rupert is breaking his heart about me. He is much too prosaic, too stolid, too commonplace. You saw for yourself how calmly he took the whole thing. If he had been another sort of man, well!" she laughed, "there might have been four inches of steel for Cuthbert, and perhaps a bullet through my brain."
Caroline turned and looked at her coldly.
"How can you speak so foolishly. What do you know of his heart? You have never understood him; even when you had the life of his life in your hands you sneered at him as poor and paltry. Make a mockery of him to others if you will, but not to those who know what sort of man he is. It is pitiful; it makes your wrong so much, much worse."
Camilla looked almost frightened. Her lip quivered, and tears gathered in her eyes.
"Oh, don't speak to me like that," she said brokenly. "Do you think I don't know how good he is—how more than good; his generosity won't bear talking about; but you don't know all, Caroline. If you did, perhaps you would judge me more mercifully."
There was a little pause.
Caroline made no answer; she turned aside sharply, and walked to one of the long windows. Though she had spoken so quietly, so coldly, a wild sort of passion swirled about her; her heart beat so violently she felt almost suffocated.
Camilla moved across to her.
"Caroline, darling," she said pleadingly. She put her hand on Caroline's shoulder, and as the girl still said nothing she gave a quick sigh.
"Well," she said, letting her hand slip down, "whatever any one else may think, Rupert himself ought not to reproach me. For I was absolutely honest with him. I always told him I was not half good enough for him. There was no deception, my dear Caroline, and he chose to do what he did with his eyes open. I don't mind betting you anything you like that he is ever so much happier now that I am off his hands," Camilla declared. "Our marriage would have been the most awful failure of modern times."
She came back to the girl by the window, and gave her a little shake.
"You know you love me, and you shan't be angry with me, Caroline."
There was a mist in Caroline's eyes. She turned, and would have spoken, but at that moment Dennis looked in at the door and called to her mistress.
"If you please, ma'am, I think you'd better come to Mr. Baynhurst. He's in the other room. I'm afraid something bad has happened."
Camilla stumbled in her haste to get out of the room, and almost immediately she was back again.
"I'm sorry," she said indistinctly, nervously; "but I think the children had better not stop. Cuthbert's mother is dead. She died an hour ago. Try not to let them be disappointed, Caroline. Tell them they shall see me very soon, perhaps to-morrow. It seems awfully unkind to send them away, poor little souls, but he is in a terrible state. I must be with him. It would be so miserable for the children here."
Indeed the children seemed glad to go. They kissed their mother, who held them to her in a passionate, nervous kind of way, and then let Dennis put on their hats, and went away with Caroline, dancing as they went.
Outside in the hot sunshine they clamoured for food.
"I can smell beef," said Betty, wrinkling up her pretty nose. "I thought we was going to have a lovely dinner, and we didn't have none. Oh, Caroline, I am so hungry."
And Baby chimed in with the same remark.
Caroline hoisted them both into a cab, and they drove to the station. There she regaled them with lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon they were back at Yelverton.