CHAPTER XXVI. A SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.
A beautiful peace had descended upon Wyngham House on the departure of the Graham-Shutes. There were no more scurryings up and down stairs on unimportant errands; no more conversations carried on at opposite ends of the house. Mrs. Abercarne rejoiced articulately in the change; but to Chris the satisfaction brought by the change was tempered by many things.
For one thing, the girl was troubled by the consciousness that she was not acting quite openly, and by a fear of what the consequences would be if she were to do so. Her first meetings with Mr. Richard she had concealed from her mother for a perfectly good and honest reason, the fear of giving Mrs. Abercarne unnecessary alarm. Later, when she had begun to feel sure that Mr. Richard was not so mad as was supposed, Chris had thought it a pity to worry her mother with her story while Mrs. Abercarne spent her days in a tempest of irritation against her declared enemy, Mrs. Graham-Shute.
But now these excuses for reticence had disappeared, and still she hesitated to confide in her mother. For her confidence, if it was to be in any way genuine or whole-hearted, must now be in the nature of a confession. She did not now try to cheat herself into the belief that she had no deeply personal interest in the occupant of the east wing; indeed, all her thoughts were occupied in wondering why he was kept there, and in devising schemes for releasing him from his unhappy position. Certain words he had used in his letter had struck her to the heart. He had mentioned the infirmity she must have noticed; so that Chris, even in spite of herself, was obliged to admit that her lover, although not insane, for that she refused to believe, suffered from sudden lapses of memory, or fits of unconsciousness, which would certainly make him, in her mother’s eyes, a “most ineligible person,” while his eccentric habit of silence would increase this impression. For Mrs. Abercarne would not be ready, as Chris was, to explain these things tenderly away, and account for them by his long and enforced seclusion.
So that Chris seemed rather depressed than exhilarated by the departure of the noisy relations, whose presence had made it easier for her to hide her secret troubles from her mother.
Mr. Bradfield also suffered from the departure of his guests; at least, that was the inference Mrs. Abercarne drew, with some asperity, from his gloomy looks. But, in truth, although the sudden change from excessive noise to excessive tranquillity proved trying to his nerves, the causes of Mr. Bradfield’s uneasiness had a much deeper root than this.
He was brooding over the consciousness of a crime which would not have troubled him in the least, but for the fear he now entertained that he would be found out.
Now John Bradfield’s roughness and abruptness of manner were not accompanied by as much energy of character as might have been supposed. Nor was he a man possessed of much fertility of invention or resource. Therefore, although conscious that the cunning Stelfox was in possession of certain knowledge which he had concealed from his master, John Bradfield vacillated between two courses; the one was to come to an understanding with the servant, the other was to let things go on for a while and await fresh developments before embarking on a hazardous course of action.
He decided on the latter course.
In the meantime, Chris had felt bound to answer Mr. Richard’s letter. She had not dared to confide even in Stelfox, partly because he was too reticent, and partly from a delicacy in letting the man know of her secret correspondence with his charge. It was with a fast-beating heart that she, after watching for her opportunity, slipped under the locked door of the east wing the following answer to Mr. Richard’s letter:
“I received your letter. I must tell you first that I have never before received a letter without showing it to my mother, at least since I was a little girl, when I had lots of letters, with toffee and flowers, from my boy-sweethearts, which I did not show, because my mother would have made me give up the toffee. I do not like writing now without telling her about it, and yet, on the other hand, I cannot bear to leave your note unanswered. So please do not write to me again, not, at least, unless you have something very, very particular to say about anything, for instance, in which I can help you. I am very much troubled by what you say about the person you mentioned. I cannot believe that person guilty of the deliberate cruelty and wickedness you suggest. Won’t you let me speak? It would be better, believe me. I know that I am not a proper person to give advice to anybody; I am supposed to be too silly to be capable of such a thing. But if I were a person of more authority, who would be listened to, I would say: Go to that person and ask that person to tell you about yourself, and insist upon knowing. Then I believe that person will have to give way.
“And now please remember that you are not to write to me, because it puts me in a great difficulty when you do. For, on the one hand, I cannot bear not to answer, when you are so lonely; and, on the other hand, I can’t bear to do anything underhand, that I can’t tell my mother about. It makes me feel quite wicked. And yet, if I did tell her, I know she would tell a certain person, or else she would insist upon our going away, and there would be dreadful scenes.
“I know this is a dreadfully stupid letter, and I am almost ashamed to send it; if I do, I shall post it under the door. But please, please believe that I am very, very sorry about it all, and that I do hope you will take the advice I should like to give you if I dared.
“Yours—” (she debated within herself for a long time how she should end, without being too forward, too formal, too affectionate or too cold)—“sincerely,
“Chris Abercarne.”
“I can’t put ‘Christina,’ it’s simply too horrid,” she said to herself, as she looked sideways at the letter; “it’s a dreadfully bad letter, just such a letter as Miss Smithson used to say a lady ought not to write; full of ‘that person,’ and ‘can’t,’ instead of ‘cannot.’ And it gets worse, instead of better, as it goes on. However, I don’t think there are any sentences without heads or tails, and if there are, why, he shouldn’t write to a girl if he expects grammar. I think,” she went on, a little blush rising to her face as the thought came into her mind, “that I may give it just one, to help it on its way.”
And, laughing to herself, she pressed the letter to her pretty red lips.
Now if Chris had been a really conscientious and strong-minded girl, instead of the perfect fool her kind friends declared her to be, she would have been quite satisfied with having put an end to her correspondence with Mr. Richard, and would have been shocked at the idea of his wishing to carry it on. It is sad, therefore, to be obliged to relate that every morning, while taking her walk in the enclosed garden, as he had begged her to do (for Johnson proved delightfully corruptible), she cast an inquiring glance towards the spot where she had found Mr. Richard’s first letter.
And, all things considered, it is not surprising that before long she found a second.
She had given him fresh hope, fresh courage, he said. But again he begged her to say nothing on his behalf to anybody, assuring her that before very long he hoped to be able to act upon her advice, for which he thanked her most gratefully.
And then, after a day or two, during which she contented herself with glancing shyly up at his window, at one of which he was always to be seen watching her with very eloquent eyes, it began to seem rather cruel not to let him have just a few lines to assure him that she had received his letter. So that another kind little missive got posted under the door of the east wing; and though she begged again that he would not write to her, there was something about the injunction which made it read to the young man like an invitation. And so, with many qualms of conscience on the one side, at least, an intermittent correspondence went on, which became the happiness and the misery of the girl’s life.
In the meantime, John Bradfield laid siege to her affections with a good deal of tact, inflicting upon her very little of his society, but anticipating her wishes in every possible way, until she found that he had gradually become the fountain-head of a great many pleasures which she would never have known but for him. She could not mention a book that she would like to read, a flower she was fond of, or a composer whose works she would like to study, without finding, in the course of the next few days, book, plant or music lying about as if it had found its way into her presence by magic. These attentions made Chris uncomfortable, and Mrs. Abercarne very happy. The latter thought it wiser to say nothing, and was deceived by her daughter’s manner. For Chris, grateful on the one hand for Mr. Bradfield’s kindness to herself, and anxious on the other to pave the way for coaxing him to do justice to his ward, acquired towards the master of the house a manner full of a sort of pleading diffidence, so that both her mother and Mr. Bradfield believed that the charm was beginning to work.