CHAPTER XVII
It was of course impossible for Haverford to leave London immediately after his mother's funeral. He had to charge himself with the arrangements of her affairs, a matter in which his half-brother should have taken his share. But Cuthbert Baynhurst had hastened away as quickly as he could go.
He seemed to be haunted by the dread of infection if he set foot again in the house where his mother had suffered and died. More than this, he had put into his mind the morbid fear that he had in him already the seeds of this complaint which his mother had endured in silence for so long. He was not even present at the funeral.
At the time the coffin was being lowered into the ground Camilla and he were travelling in hot haste away from London, from England, from the mere possibility of breathing the air the poor dead woman had breathed.
"This will be the beginning of the end," Caroline said to herself. "Her eyes may be blinded for a little while, and he may attempt to tyrannize through this power he has over her now, but Camilla is not his mother. She will tire so soon, and his selfishness has no limits."
She was sitting out in the garden alone. There was a moon, and the world was wrapped about in the hush of the summer night.
The children were asleep. They had been in a great excitement all day because it had suddenly been decided that there was to be a departure from the country to the sea.
Mrs. Brenton had expected to have relinquished her little charges to the care of their mother, but this was now postponed indefinitely.
The note Camilla had scribbled just before leaving London had touched Agnes Brenton almost in the old way.
She wrote so lovingly. One could see that her heart yearned for her children, and yet that she could not separate herself from this new tie.
She burdened both Mrs. Brenton and Caroline with all sorts of charges for her two little ones; above all, she entreated them pathetically to keep her always vividly in front of her children's eyes.
"If I did not know that they were so safe with you, that they were put completely out of the reach of Ned's people, I should never be able to leave them."
At once Mrs. Brenton decided that they would go away from Yelverton.
"A change will be good for all of us," she declared, with something of her old briskness. "You have never been to Normandy, have you, Caroline? Well, prepare yourself for a delightful experience!"
On the morrow the packing would commence, and Caroline smiled half faintly to herself as she conjured up the importance of this occasion to Betty and Baby. How busy they would be, and what a muddle they would make!
Caroline leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.
It was deliciously cool and quiet. This was the moment that she loved to be alone, when the gardens had greater beauty for her and the healing tranquillity of the country spoke to her eloquently.
She was glad to go away, and yet it would be a wrench to leave this place, which now seemed sown with the most precious of her thoughts, watered with her heart's tears, and warmed with that joy which, though it had come in secret, had remained to illumine her whole life.
She had written him a few words of sympathy. They were not framed in the usual conventional formula; she wrote from her heart. She seemed to know that his mother's death would have a far greater significance to him now than at any other time; that, as he had stood and looked on his mother, dead, there must have come a new and a deeper rush of bitterness.
The grave Camilla had dug had been the burial-ground of all those sweet hopes and dreams which had clustered about him like children of late. His heart must have been barren as he had stood by his mother's grave.
She had not seen him since that most memorable evening; it did not seem likely or probable that they should see him again before they went away.
Betty had been writing him a number of epistles. It appeared that she required a great many things to go abroad with, and she had already learned to turn to Rupert for the fulfilment of all her wishes. Nothing touched Caroline so much as his attitude to the children; he was, if possible, more tender than before. He adopted a little more serious air, and in every sort of way made it known to all that he was their guardian.
"I was afraid," Mrs. Brenton had said once to the girl—"I was afraid that he might have changed in this, but I ought to have known him better!" Another time she said, "Did I tell you he had refused to take back a single thing he had given her? She told me all this in the first letter she wrote from Italy, and yet even now," Mrs. Brenton added, in a low tone, "I don't believe she grasps the full meaning of his generosity. After telling me all this, she added that, of course, if it had been any other man than Cuthbert she could not have kept the jewels; but that, as Cuthbert was his brother, he had a right to share in so much wealth."
"That was not her own suggestion," Caroline had said quickly.
Her thoughts hovered pityingly about Camilla this night, and about the memory of the woman who was just dead.
That year in his mother's house had taught her to know Cuthbert Baynhurst through and through.
His desertion now of his duty, his cowardice and exacting selfishness were made doubly contemptible, when she remembered his mother's clinging love, her heart-whole devotion, her pride in him.
"He is not worthy to be walked on by Rupert," Caroline determined hotly. And at that very moment some one spoke her name, and, starting violently, she turned to find Rupert himself standing just behind her chair.
"Do forgive me," he said quickly, realizing how much he had startled her. "Mrs. Brenton sent me to find you. She told me you are always out here at this time."
"I fancied I was quite alone," said Caroline nervously; then she added, "Have you been here long? Did you motor down?"
He said "Yes."
Their hands had clasped and unclasped.
"I felt I must come down and see you all before you fly away. In particular, I want to speak to you."
"Yes," said Caroline.
"Are you tired?" Haverford asked rather abruptly. "Shall we walk?"
She got up at once.
"It is so delightful out here at this time. I will take you to Betty's garden. There is a rose waiting for you, Mr. Haverford. It was going to be sent by post in a box to-morrow. I don't know that I dare pick it, but you may look at it."
As they passed under the interlacing branches of the trees, he said—
"I thought you would like to know that my mother spoke of you several times. She has bequeathed to you some odds and ends of jewellery which I fancy must have belonged to your mother. I cannot say that she spoke kindly," he said, with half a sigh; "but at least she remembered."
"It grieved me," said Caroline, in a low voice, "to know that she suffered so much."
He sighed.
"At times it was terrible. What stuff some of you women are made of! She had her faults, my poor mother, but she had marvellous qualities. In some ways you remind me of her, only you are not in the least masculine."
When they reached Betty's garden he knelt down and put his lips to the rose.
"Tell her I have been here, that I have left a kiss for her. I won't pick it. Dear little creature, let her send it on, if she wants to."
"But are you going back to-night?" Caroline asked.
In her white muslin gown she looked wraith-like, part of the mist which hovered like a white veil over the ground.
"I think so. I have a sort of fever in my bones.... I want to be moving all the time." Then quite abruptly he turned, and put his hand on her shoulder. "There is something else I want to say to you."
She trembled and drew back, and he at once removed his hand.
"Yes?"
"I am told that Sir Samuel Broxbourne has been coming here very often of late, coming apparently for the purpose of seeing you."
"Who has told you this?" Caroline asked very coldly.
"It has been told me by a friend, and from the very best of reasons."
"I know Mrs. Brenton is everything that is kind and good," said the girl, in a hard and cold tone; "yet I fail to see why she should approach you on such a matter as this."
"Do you?" said Haverford. "She does it because she knows that I have the right to know what is passing with you, the right to enter into all that is important in your life. You are in my charge, subject to my command for the next two years."
Caroline laughed half bitterly and half weakly.
"Oh, don't let us talk such nonsense!" she exclaimed, and she moved away, but he followed her.
"It is not nonsense," he spoke irritably. "I have established myself as your guardian, and by my mother's will you are bequeathed to my care, therefore I have a right to put questions to you which might seem impertinent if asked by anybody else."
"I think Mrs. Brenton makes a mistake," said Caroline, still walking on.
"In what way?"
"Sir Samuel is an old friend of the house, he has been in the habit of coming here freely, I understand; why, therefore, should it be supposed that he comes now only because of me?"
"I don't know why, but I hope to God he does not come for that reason!" His voice grew harder. "You know what I think of this man; I have spoken to you freely about him, and, better than that, your own instinct, which has carried you to such rare judgments, must tell you that he is no fit associate for a girl. I was going to say for any decent woman."
Caroline was silent for a long time. Suddenly she said—
"All women are unreasonable, you know; that is a tradition, and sometimes they see things in a light that is hidden to you men. I don't suppose Sir Samuel is a paragon of perfection, but, at the same time, I don't think he is half so bad as he has been painted. At least he is very harmless, and rather amusing."
Rupert Haverford looked at her, and a great amazement which bordered on pain took possession of him.
"You like him?" he said, going to the point in his peculiarly direct way.
Caroline shrugged her shoulders.
"I really think I do, but I am not sure; at any rate, I don't bother myself about it very much." Her tone was flippant. "How you do love catechising!" she said. It might have been Camilla speaking.
They passed up the garden again in silence; beyond the wide expanse of lawn the house stood hospitably open. Lights gleamed everywhere, Mr. Brenton's tall figure with stooping shoulders was coming slowly towards them.
"Well," Haverford said, in a cold, dry way, "if you regard him in this uncertain way it is easier for me to act."
Caroline looked round sharply. There was indignation in her tone.
"How do you mean ... act?"
"I mean I shall take steps to prevent this acquaintance from becoming an intimate one. However much it may annoy you, the fact remains that I am your guardian, and that until you are twenty-one you are not free to do anything of which I do not approve, and I assuredly do not approve of your friendship with this man."
Caroline paused and caught her breath.
"This surveillance," she said coldly, "is not only very ridiculous, it is very objectionable. You may arrogate to yourself a certain authority where my money is concerned, but in the matter of choosing my friends I demand absolute liberty. Please understand I can recognize no law you may make in this." She stood a few seconds, then she said "Good night" abruptly, and she walked away from him quickly. Indeed, halfway across the lawn she broke into a run, and had gained the house almost before he realized she was gone.
Mr. Brenton called out something to her as she passed him so fleetly, but she made no answer.
"What's wrong with Caroline?" he asked as he reached Rupert Haverford.
The young man sat down, and did not reply for a moment; then he said shortly—
"I have been speaking to her about Broxbourne."
"Oh!" said Mr. Brenton. He stretched himself comfortably in another chair. "That's what my wife has been putting you up to, I suppose? Aggie has worked herself into a rare state over this business of Sammy. You know, my dear fellow," Dick Brenton said, in his pleasant, tranquil voice, "I don't quite go with you both. I know Sammy is a bit wild, his father was before him, but he will settle down. He's got the nicest old mother in the world. Seems to me he is in earnest."
"The thing is preposterous," said Rupert Haverford, in his decisive way. "I am not speaking of his position, his title, or his family; it is the man himself I abhor. I should be sorry to see any woman I care about married to him."
"Well, my experience teaches me," said Mr. Brenton, after a little silence, "that these things right themselves. I don't suppose Caroline gives Sammy two thoughts, but, on the other hand, she may. I am rather sorry you spoke."
"I am not," said Haverford shortly. A moment later he said, "I thought she was unusually sensible, and able to take care of herself; but I see now I have made a mistake."
He was extraordinarily disturbed. If he had not questioned her himself he would not have believed this thing. There had been something so fresh and clear to him about Caroline, she had matched himself in straightforwardness; her word had been charged with truth, and over and again she had given evidence of such unusual qualities that he had unconsciously endowed her with wisdom beyond her years, and regarded her mental outlook as peculiarly well balanced. Not even the great overthrow of his life's sweetest task had moved him more sharply than he was moved now. Indeed, then he had been partially prepared. As he had put it himself to Caroline, he had felt that the creature he loved was slipping gradually but surely out of his grasp; he had been conscious that the butterfly he had caught and chained was fluttering restlessly (albeit the chain was a glittering one), and he had nerved himself for the pronouncement that his love was wearying, his devotion exacting. And when all this had come, he had met it quietly, as something that was inevitable. But he had suffered none the less.
All things he had expected from Camilla except the thing she had done. And the astounding conviction of her disloyalty had been hardly more startling than this curious phase of her nature which Caroline had revealed this night.
He had, like Agnes Brenton, found it possible to pardon in Camilla many, many things that would have been unforgivable in others, because he took her mental construction into consideration first of all; because he regarded her as a child, a headstrong, foolish, sweet, irresponsible child, with all the innocence that belongs to extreme youth, and because he knew she had been from the beginning surrounded by the most disastrous influences. And Camilla had shown him how mistaken he had been to treat her with such tender thought.
So now with Caroline. He had placed her apart; he realized now that he had thought of her as something fragrant and beautifying, and with her own lips she had confessed herself capable of a sympathy for a man who was brutal, vulgar, coarse in heart and mind.
Were all women so framed? Or was it merely his destiny to be denied knowledge of woman in her true personification? The woman of sweetest compassion and bravest comradeship; that figure of nobility and modesty of whom poets had sung from ages uncounted and for whose purity and honour men had died in centuries gone. His mother had shown him one side of the picture, Camilla the reverse; now Caroline added her touch.
He sat a long time after Mr. Brenton had smoked his cigar and gone indoors. He was both angry and miserable. His feeling, as he had approached Yelverton that evening, had been one nearly akin to pleasure. He was glad to meet Agnes Brenton, glad to see Caroline again; and after the first greeting Mrs. Brenton had swept him into a fresh element for trouble and regret. "The fault is in myself," he mused, "it must be so. I am in my wrong groove; that's what is at the bottom of it all."
He delivered himself up wholly in this moment to that old yearning to shake off the trammels of his present existence, to be stripped of all that made the world envy him.
For a brief while he had sunned himself in the glory of a false paradise, and for that brief while the clamour of his old ambitions had been silenced, the weighty responsibility of his money had been changed into satisfaction. But once that glory had been darkened his spirit had gone back with a rush to the old habits, the old desires.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that he should turn against this environment of wealth and luxury, of soft raiment and cultivated beauty, since he had been taught the hollowness of this social life, since trickery and selfishness, lies and banalities, had swept so destructively across his path. Not that he condemned wholesale; he made distinctions. There was good everywhere. These very people whose guest he was this night were in themselves the surest testimony to that. Brought in contact now with all sorts and conditions of people, he was quick to recognize that there were hearts as honest and as simple in the ranks of the moneyed class as in any other walk of life. Nevertheless, Haverford's real sympathies were with those who worked; it seemed to him there must always be more possibility for finding gold in the natures of those who toiled and suffered and even died together in their grind to put bread into the mouths of their children, than could be possible to the idlers and the well-cared-for.
Back in the old days he had seen many an evidence of this golden nature packed away in a rough frame, an uncouth personality.
And the women of those old days, was not their history such as to place them apart for honour and admiration? Why, he could bring back memories now of fidelity, and courage, and dogged endurance among those working women that made his eyes wet and his heart thrill as he recalled them.
And he remembered, too, that till this night there had always been something about Caroline Graniger to remind him of those people who had been once so dear to him, to whom his heart still turned, despite their recent churlish treatment of him; who made such a close bond between his boyhood and his present self.
Yes, Caroline had surely possessed something of the simplicity, that quiet, reticent strength of those North Country people. He was conscious now of how much he had relied on her. He got up with a sigh at last, and before he went indoors he made his way to Betty's little garden again. He stooped and touched the rose once more with his lips, but it seemed as if the fragrance had gone from the flower, as if the soft beauty of the garden had lost something. Certain it was that as he slowly moved under the trees he had a sense of loss heavily upon him, as if in the flitting away of that girl's white-robed figure, not merely the little world about him was robbed of a potent charm, but that there had gone with her a sympathy, an influence that all unconsciously had suggested to him consolation.