Chapter Twenty Four.
Doubt and Pride—Which Wins?
For a week Wareham stayed on at Firleigh, walked with another funeral through the garden and along the church path, and laid old Sir Michael down by the side of his young son and younger wife—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. There was much to arrange, much that a friend—a man—could do to spare poor women. Death, like life, has its routine, which must be gone through, though tears proclaim it heartless; and when the head of a family steps down from his place, another waits to climb into it, all of which needs moving out of the way for some, advancing for others, and filling of vacant space.
Here the heir was a nephew, a young lad of fourteen, hastily sent for from Eton, and present at the funeral with his mother. The boy was a fine fellow, but the mother had that capacity for irritation which is by no means the exclusive property of the ill-tempered. Words, kindnesses even, grated. If it is ourselves that reveal others to us, Wareham found himself reflecting that she presented the world with a likeness of herself, painted blackly, when least she intended it, for she seldom spoke of any one without a depreciatory remark. He resented, too, the airs of ownership she had already assumed, and her benign patronage of Ella. Talking to Mrs Newbold, he let fly his dislike.
“The woman fingers everything as if she were appraising it,” he said. “Her hand crooks involuntarily.”
“I wish poor Ella could have her last days in peace,” sighed Mrs Newbold.
“Do you mean that she intends to stay?” Mrs Newbold nodded emphatically, and sighed again.
“Ella said something, and Amelia jumped at it. She said it would be as well to look round her. Said this to Ella, and not a thank you with it!”
“If I can prophesy at all, this will quicken your own movements. What do you think of doing?”
“Ella will come to me in Monmouthshire for the present. That will give her time to look round, instead of deciding hurriedly.” When things had so far advanced, Wareham felt that he might leave. It annoyed him to see Mrs Forbes already in possession, and hinting at this or that change.
“Ella is young, very young,” she remarked to him one day. “She does her best, but I should never allow the coachman to order what he chose,” and the “I” was imperial. The day before he left, Ella came to Wareham in the library, Venom at her heels.
“You really must go to-morrow, Dick?”
“I must—to avoid war. I can’t be decently civil to your aunt for twenty-four hours longer. You can. That’s the wonder.”
“Worries have shrunk into pin-pricks, I think,” she said simply. “But I am sorry for the servants, who will all leave the place, and who have been here, some of them, as long as I have. Their hope is to return to me some time, but when the dragging up is going on, one feels as though one could never take root again. However, I didn’t come to say all this. I came to thank you, and I can’t.”
“I should be ashamed of you if you could. Look here, Ella, I suppose this plan of yours about going with Mrs Newbold is the best just at present?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“Hum,” said Wareham ruefully. “She’s a kind old soul, but body and mind made up of cotton wool. The finest quality of cotton wool, that I allow, still—”
Ella smiled.
“There’s a time when cotton wool is just what one wants.”
“I’ve never met with it, then.”
She did not go on to tell him that he might. What she said was spoken with hesitation.
“Dick, I’ve been thinking about Miss Dalrymple.”
“Yes?” He drew his breath.
“Shall you see her again?”
He was conscious of the weakness of his answer.
“Perhaps. I hardly know. She spoke of our meeting at Thorpe—Lord Milborough’s—next month. I may or mayn’t be there.” She took no notice of these carefully expressed doubts.
“Please tell her that I should have liked to have seen her. She mustn’t think that I reproach her—I know it made Hugh happy at the last.”
“Yes,” cried Wareham eagerly. “Thank you, Ella. You can be generous.”
“If he had lived, perhaps I shouldn’t have been,” she said quietly. “But he loved her dearly. I believe it would hurt him if we bore a grudge. You don’t, do you?”
He said “No” with fervour, thinking that our own pre-occupations serve as a thick bandage for the eyes, for once or twice he had suspected Ella of reading his secret. It appeared, however, that she was absolutely unsuspecting. She talked on for some time, and he saw that hers was a strong soul, facing the inevitable undauntedly, and without murmurs, strong enough not to refuse tears, but to control them. He said to her once—“You have learned to live,” to which she answered that one hasn’t got to learn that lesson by oneself. It seemed that she feared for the people in the village, who might lose Firleigh advantages, but she meant to talk to Catherine Oakleigh about them.
“And Reggie is a nice boy,” she went on. “I am not afraid of things by and by.”
So, on the next day, Wareham turned his back on Firleigh. For ever, he told himself, though Mrs Forbes had expressed a gracious hope that they might often see him, and was contentedly unconscious that he went away raging at her, and comparing her to a tremolo stop, to the scrapings of slate-pencils, and to many other sources of irritation; calling her, to himself, the trumpet of deterioration, that belittling woman! Relief at escape from her balanced the real grief it cost him to quit a place which had been like a home so long.
When he left Firleigh he had hardly made up his mind where to go. Restlessness was upon him, but travel was impossible, when he was like some tethered creature, bound not to go out of call, of reach, and hobbled, as he told himself. Not much more than a fortnight of this uncertainty remained, yet the time appeared portentous in length. He had a vague inclination to bury himself in London, and write, but experience warned him that, pre-occupied, his brains would not answer to the call. The impulse, however, was strong enough at the station to lead him to take a ticket for London.
Before he had been there two days he was sorry he had come. Writing was not for him; the sentences yawned at him like bald-headed idiots. But here his will stepped in and brought discipline, commanding that so much should be done at any cost, even probable future consignment to the fire. Something might be saved from it, at any rate his self-respect. Wareham ground away at his work, and in the afternoon plunged into street labyrinths, walking, walking, walking, without care where he went, so long as it was where he was not likely to meet his fellows. Oftenest he found himself down by the river, standing by black wharves, watching the river life with unseeing eyes, the river itself moving slowly, like the burdened thing it is. But sometimes he wandered round old city churches, quaintly named, lonely protests against the mammon around them, echoing emptily on Sundays, when the great human tide had flowed away from their walls. He passed up a narrow passage one day, and came full upon a lady sketching in a corner. It was Mrs Ravenhill, and escape was out of the question. Besides, his better nature was ashamed of the impulse. They greeted each other without astonishment, for no one is surprised to meet an acquaintance in great London, and Mrs Ravenhill explained that she was taking advantage of a fine day to finish an old sketch.
He remarked—
“And alone?”
“Yes, I can’t condemn Millie to be my companion here. Have you come from Thorpe?”
“No,” said Wareham, with wonder.
“Lady Fanny certainly said in a letter that you were expected,” said Mrs Ravenhill, a little vexed with herself for a slip which appeared to prove them interested in his movements. She added rashly, “Or perhaps I made a mistake.”
“I have not received any invitation to Thorpe,” returned Wareham, reserving the fact that one had been talked about. “Has Lady Fanny gone back?”
“Yes. There were to be large shooting-parties, and her brother wanted her. You had a sad time after we saw you. It shocked us greatly to hear of Mr Forbes’ death, and now his father.”
Wareham entered into particulars. She listened with interest, saying at last—
“I am glad the poor young fellow had friends. The seeds of illness must have been in him when we saw him, and yet he seemed so full of life!”
He wanted to find out whether Miss Dalrymple was at Thorpe, and could not bring himself to put the question. But the certainty that they would know led him to propose calling, which he would have fled from but for this inducement. He left Mrs Ravenhill to finish her drawing, and went to his club, a couple of hours earlier than usual, to ascertain whether any letter had arrived from Thorpe. The question of accepting or not accepting the invitation, he flattered himself remained in the balance. The fact of its arrival would prove to him that Miss Dalrymple was there.
Nothing came. He read the evening papers, impressed by their dullness; dined, dropped in at a theatre, and was immeasurably bored. What had come to the world that it could do no better?
Another day and no note. Now he wandered into wonder whether his reticence had for ever disgusted Anne, knowing nothing of his pledge. She had given him openings enough, he saw them the more clearly when he looked back at them; her verdict must have been either indifferent or stupid.
The Ravenhills, with that link of Lady Fanny, began to look so attractive that he grew anxious for the time to arrive when he might pay his promised visit, and took many precautions to find them at home. He chose five o’clock, and was rewarded by hearing that both Mrs and Miss Ravenhill were out. The delay added to his determination. He left word that he would try his luck again at the same time, and went through another restless twenty-four hours, scourging himself with contempt that it should be so, and amazed to find his cool control swept away by a surging tide of passion.
This time the Ravenhills were at home. Millie greeted him charmingly. The curves of her face had grown softer, her eyes had gained depth, the alert air, which sometimes annoyed him, was absent. Each time that he saw her he thought her prettier than before, but now no dream of comparing her with Miss Dalrymple crossed his heart. There Anne sat supreme.
The talk of course fell upon those last days at Bergen. They sat near the fire, with the tea-table in a cosy corner and the room cheerfully lighted, while Millie plied him with questions. Both thought, and thought truly, that their interest lay with Hugh, yet with both the figure of Anne stood always in the background; he wanted Millie to speak her name, she was secretly relieved that he had not yet mentioned her. Then another lady came in, to whom Mrs Ravenhill devoted herself, and Wareham and Millie drew off a little.
She said—
“Directly we heard that sad news, we thought what a shock it would have been to you, but we did not know you had been there until Fanny told us.”
He pricked his ears, and asked mendaciously—
“The Lady Fanny I met here?”
“Yes. You know she is Lord Milborough’s sister. Do you remember the clergyman, Mr Elliot, who was also here?”
“Yes. I thought—perhaps—?”
Millie laughed.
“It is wonderful, but true. He is the last man I should have suspected Fanny would have chosen. But do not speak of it, for nothing is settled yet, and Lord Milborough will not say anything definitely.”
“He can stop it?”
“Only for a year, but Fanny would hate to go against him.”
He was willing enough to talk about Lord Milborough and Thorpe.
“So that, after all, it may come to nothing. Poor Mr Elliot!”
“No, no, there is no fear of that. Fanny will not change. She will be quite independent when she is twenty-one. Indeed, she is in terror lest Mr Elliot should find out how large her fortune will be.”
“Is Lord Milborough like his sister in character?” asked Wareham carelessly.
She repudiated the notion. “You saw him at Bergen?”
“I saw the surface. He was described to me as indifferent to most things.”
Millie hesitated. “I think he will take trouble to get what he wants. I don’t know whether you will put that down to his credit or not? But I do believe that in his own way he is fond of Fanny, and perhaps—”
She stopped. Wareham would have given a good deal to know whether the “perhaps” had remote connection with Miss Dalrymple. He had time to reflect, for Millie was called upon to provide another cup of tea for the visitor. When she came back he put a leading question.
“Do you often go to Thorpe?”
“Very very seldom. The house is generally full at this season, and just now there is a big party.” She hesitated again, reproached herself, and added, “The Martyns and Lady and Miss Dalrymple are there.”
He looked up quickly, and his eye met hers. Something in it told his secret, and Millie turned pale. The thought was not strange to her, perhaps, although latterly it had withdrawn; it was always standing at hand, ready to step in; but withdrawn it had, and to see it again, and to have it advancing so determinedly that she could never any more treat it as a figment of her imagination, gave her a sharp stab. He, all unconscious of his self-betrayal, thought his remark, “A drifting together of Norwegian travellers!” diplomatic; and he ventured to add, “I have heard that Lady and Miss Dalrymple are not sympathetic.”
“Fanny does not say. I believe they had only just arrived,” murmured Millie.
The visitor was departing, and she was glad of the interruption. When it was over Mrs Ravenhill drew her chair near the others.
“Millie,” she said, “I fancy Mr Wareham gives me credit for romancing, but surely Fanny in her last letter mentioned his name as among the people they were expecting?”
“I think she said he was invited, or was going to be invited.”
“Ah, then, that was it.”
“And perhaps they have thought better of it,” returned Wareham, a little awkwardly.
To this there could be no answer, and Mrs Ravenhill turned the subject. Wareham lingered as long as he thought decency required, and rose to take his leave. Mrs Ravenhill reverted with a smile to her supposition.
“If you had been going to Thorpe, I should have asked you to put Lady Fanny’s gold thimble, which I only discovered this morning, in your pocket. But now I will send it by post.”
“A safer plan,” Wareham agreed. “Even if I had received this visionary invitation, it is improbable that I could have accepted it.” The fiction served as indemnification for pricks which judgment administered when his mind flew to Thorpe, and beheld himself with Anne, rashly venturing within reach of temptation, while his promise still held him dumb. Walking away in the darkness through Sussex Place, he flung not a thought behind at poor Millie, all his dreams fluttering round Anne. He had succeeded in the object of his visit, and had discovered where she was, a knowledge which he would have been happier without, as the vague uneasiness which Lord Milborough’s name aroused became more insistent when he learnt that he and she were actually again together. It was in vain that he told himself it was, no doubt, the fulfilment of some promise made in Norway, that the same party which had foregathered in the yacht should meet again at Thorpe. Suspicion, thoroughly awakened, assured him that more lay in it. And why was he to be asked? This, he knew, must be Anne’s doing. Lord Milborough and he had scarcely met, certainly had shown no inclination for each other’s society, and although he was not unaccustomed to being sought as a literary lion, that would not be the explanation now. Perhaps Anne desired him to see her.
An impulse led him to strike upwards to the Park, for the jangle and the fret of the streets became insupportable, and, more than this, it appeared that he had a companion at his elbow whom he loved, yet longed to dismiss. If not, why were Hugh’s words sounding—reverberating—in his ears? Above wheels, and underground hiss of train, louder, far, than when the dying man spoke them—“You promise? Not a word for two months.” And then again, again, the same words, the same voice.
Wareham paced impatiently. Why this repetition, which seemed like doubt? Honour fretted under the imputation. But ten days remained of the trial time, then came free speech, at least the power to ask for what he wanted. If, as Love whispered deliciously, Anne loved him, she would not so quickly sell herself to another man. His heart plucked courage from the “No” which he shouted at it. And, during that time, it was better that they should not meet, for it was intolerable bondage to be tied hand and foot, yet be by her side. Count days and hours, but count them out of sight of her. He resolved to decline, and slept more peacefully that night than he had of late.
The next morning he was half ashamed of the past evenings disturbance, and would have been amazed if any one had informed him that cool reflection is sometimes as much to be watched in love as a sudden drop of temperature in a fever. Among his letters were two which he looked at without a throb, although by the post-marks he knew that they must be from Thorpe. The first he opened was a brief invitation from Lord Milborough, asking him from Monday to Thursday. As he read, Wareham framed an answer of refusal in his mind. The other was from Anne, as short, but different. She underlined a hope that he would come.
And now cool reflection stepped briskly forth. Go or not, let him choose which he deliberately preferred, only avoiding the cowardly fear that he might not be master of himself. Pledged he was, and pledged he must remain, since no thought of evasion could be honourably entertained for a moment; but he was not therefore bound to give false impressions, or to allow Anne to suppose that he by choice avoided her. His refusal would make her think so? Then let him go.
Wareham wrote and accepted. As a compromise, he left Anne’s letter unanswered.
Civility, he thought, required that he should go and ask for Lady Fanny’s thimble. He went on Sunday afternoon.
“So I was right, after all,” Mrs Ravenhill said, with a laugh. “I hope you will get good shooting.”
Millie chiefly talked to a boy about postage stamps. She and Wareham scarcely exchanged words until he rose to leave. Then he said—
“Have you any message?”
“For Fanny?” She looked surprised. “My love, please.”
“I meant for Miss Dalrymple.”
Her “Oh!” was abrupt. She added, immediately, “No, I shouldn’t venture. Miss Dalrymple has probably forgotten that we ever met.”
In his hansom Wareham reflected that women were difficult to understand in their dealings with each other. Anne had always been charming, why should Millie turn a sharp edge towards her? It was the more astonishing because Millie had nothing of the angular about her. As little would he have imagined that she had the heroic soul. Yet one may call it so when a woman bears the quenching of her hopes without complaint or bitterness. Millie went cheerfully about her daily occupations. Her mother imagined her a little pale, no more. She preferred silence, but talked as usual when it was necessary. Altogether there was nothing to call for remark. Yet in that look she had read Wareham’s heart, the more quickly, perhaps, for the quickening in her own, and before it all the budding hopes which were gently unfolding themselves shrivelled and died. To believe that Miss Dalrymple might reject him would have brought her no comfort, for there still exist women to whom love is so delicate and wonderful a thing that they can only look upon it as eternal, and she was ready to stake her faith upon Wareham’s constancy. One night Mrs Ravenhill unconsciously fell into the channel of her thoughts.
“Fanny has not written?”
“Not a word; so I suppose she waits until she can tell us that something definite has been said or settled.”
“It is too bad of Lord Milborough. I am afraid he is going to object strongly, and yet wishes to avoid upsetting Fanny while he has this large house-party. Or is he really taken up with thoughts and wishes of his own?”
“I wonder,” said Millie.
“If there was ever any truth in that fancy of yours about Mr Wareham, he will add another complication! But I don’t believe it. I think you were determined to create a romance.”
The girl laughed, with successful hiding of the effort.
“Well, we shall hear what Fanny thinks.”
“Poor little Fanny!”
“She will have to fight her own battles and his too.”
“Oh, I am not so sure. He has fighting blood in him.”
“Is it the glow of the Berserker?” asked Millie wickedly.
Doubt had not left Wareham. It laid a hand, healthfully cold, as he had to own, upon the visions of Anne which crowded before him. It suggested a telegraphed excuse as a means of escaping the ordeal. But it found itself confronted determinedly by a strong man’s pride. Now that he had agreed to go, pride assured him that to shrink was disgraceful, and before pride, stepping robustly forward, doubt looked a poor shadowy thing. Wareham ordered it out of the way, and Monday saw him in the train which would take him to Thorpe in time for dinner. He had a drive of some miles from the station, and from the length of road which lay between the lodge and the house, perceived that the park was very large. A slight descent led to twinkling lights. Here stood the great house, planted solidly as a castle, of which, indeed, it only wanted the name.
And here was Anne.