Chapter Sixteen.
“A very pitiful lady, very young,
Exceeding rich in human sympathies.”
Rosetti’s Dante.
The Squire was more utterly cast down by Mr Pitt’s communication than those would have thought possible who knew that Anthony Miles had never been a favourite of his. Perhaps a little touch of jealousy had given the first warp when he looked at the Vicar’s son and his own daughters, and had made him always hard upon the young fellow; but it was not a jealousy which could take pleasure in such a discovery as this. He was so cross and miserable throughout the day that Winifred felt sure something was the matter. Mr Pitt had left them; the evening was cold and stormy, a southwest gale was blowing, and the wind tore at the windows and howled drearily round the house. Winifred only waited until Bessie had gone to bed—a concession to years of half an hour against which that young lady nightly rebelled—before she asked her father what had happened, and whether Mr Pitt had brought any bad news.
“Yes, he has,” said the Squire doggedly; “very bad news. It’s well the poor old Vicar should be dead and gone.”
And then he told her.
As he went bluntly through Mr Pitt’s account he once or twice looked curiously at her, for, in spite of his disclaimer, he could not help remembering that other hint which the lawyer had let drop, that Winifred was dear to Anthony. “If it is so, she’ll have hysterics or something; that’s how girls always show it.”
To his relief, however, Winifred did not so much as utter an exclamation. If he had been quick to notice, he might have observed a little proud up-drawing of her head, and a sudden light in her eyes; but we are all apt to read only those signs for which we are on the lookout, and the Squire drew a long breath of relief.
“What do you think of this?” he said, when he had finished.
“Did Mr Pitt really tell you such an absurd story?” said Winifred, smiling.
Her treating the matter lightly was unfortunate, for her father had been made so wretched all day that it irritated him to have it supposed that he was throwing away his sympathies; and his love of contradiction was such that every instinct of his nature arrayed him on the side that was assailed, so that he began at once to adopt Mr Pitt’s opinion as his own, to hasten to its defence, to run his thoughts more keenly over its possibilities. He flustered a little directly.
“It’s very well for you to laugh, since you don’t understand anything at all about it. Is Pitt a likely man to concoct a bundle of lies?”
“I don’t know, I am sure,” she said, looking at him with astonishment. “But you do not mean that anything he could say would make you believe such a story of Anthony?”
“Well, explain it, explain it,” said the Squire grimly, “that’s all.”
Winifred sat forward, and began to speak with more impetuosity.
“That Anthony should—” she began, and then suddenly broke off and laughed outright. “It is so very ridiculous!” she said.
“I don’t see the absurdity,” growled Mr Chester. “I don’t see how Pitt can be mistaken, or how Anthony can get over the thing. You women run away with your own opinions, without ever stopping to hear reason; but other people will put two and two together. It is a very bad business.”
“It is exceedingly wrong of Mr Pitt to have dared to say such a thing,” said Winifred, standing up quickly, and looking very tall and stately; “but it can hurt Anthony no more than—than it could hurt you. He could explain it, of course, but I hope he will never hear that anything so cruel and untrue has been suggested. Good-night, papa. I am glad there is nothing really the matter.”
She walked out of the room with the smile still on her lips and the backward curve of her slender throat a little more apparent. But those few words of opposition had done Anthony’s cause no good with the Squire. He repeated to himself that women were so obstinate there was no dealing with them, and while he fancied himself as grieved as ever, in his heart, I think there lurked a secret hope that Winifred might be forced to acknowledge herself in the wrong. He was not in the least aware of the petty obstacle which had turned the current, nor indeed would he have acknowledged that the current had been turned at all, but, no doubt, as he went over the array of presumptive evidence against Anthony, he weighted it in a manner which he had not done until this moment.
As for Winifred, the smile died out of her face before she reached her own room. A bright fire was burning; she went to the window, threw back the shutter, and stood looking out into the wild darkness. There were furious gusts, strange depths of blackness, lights gleaming and vanishing in the direction of Underham, a sawing of branches one against the other, now and then distant and mysterious sounds, as if the rush and roar of the great sea itself were swelling the tumult. Nothing but fancy could have brought such a sound, but Winifred caught at it, and would not let it go. The swoop of the wind upon the water, the jagged tossed waves hurling themselves against the sandy bar, the wild shrieks of the night, the blackness, the confusion, here and there, perhaps, a concentration of the horror, lives going out in a last cry... she pressed her face against the panes, shuddering and praying for the poor souls. All this while there was something nearer to her which she was shutting out and trying to overwhelm by a more terrible distress. It was the strongest of the two, after all. She softly closed the shutters, turning away from the window with pitiful compunction in her heart, as if she were leaving poor drowning men out in the cold, and came and sat before the fire to think of Anthony. For, though she might smile at her father’s story, and a little smile again stole over the sweet grave face as she thought of the accusation, she knew Anthony well enough to dread the idea of its reaching his ears. There was no room now in her heart for pride, or for anything except a kind tenderness. That he did not care for her any longer, if indeed he had ever cared, she felt assured, and at this moment it seemed to her that she would not have had him care in such a sense, so long as they might be friends. Perhaps the very storm and darkness had something to do with this persuasion. When skies were soft, and the sun shining, and things bright about her, she too might have cried out for some share in the brightness and softness; but the grim earnestness of the night, a night for wrecks and disasters, and big with struggle and suffering, utterly shut out such joy of fair visions.
She could not but reflect what such a report would cost Anthony if it should reach him, and how he, of all men, would suffer and writhe under it. Kindliness, love, and praise seemed so completely his natural food, that if they were withdrawn it was certain that he would droop and flag. With the thought, her first impression came strongly back that the accusation should at any cost be kept from his knowledge, but her own nature was too brave and high-minded for such an impression to linger. Better the open wound than the secret calamity; better that he should taste the sharpness even of disappointment than be dogged by a suspicion to which he could give no tangible shape; better, a hundred times better, know, and meet, and repel.
But who should tell him?
As she put the question to herself, she trembled a little with a perception that the answer was fall of personal pain. Names floated before her,—her father, the Mannerings, Mrs Miles,—but each suggestion carried a negative with it, although she paused longest at the thought of Mr Robert. He was kind-heartedness itself; at the same time, she felt as if such a telling required more delicate care than he would give—who would give it?—who would give it except herself? Winifred shrank and flushed Pride put out its prickles; but, after all, there was something so much stronger than pride in her heart, that it failed to conquer. The little impalpable bar that had sprung up between them was the harder to pass for its very impalpability, yet—if she could help him, only as his friend, with no touch of love to mar it, as she thought, unconscious that it was the highest and most divine love which she was offering, then pain of her own should not withhold her, nor even the added estrangement which her words might cause.
The next morning she awoke with her determination unweakened. She would seek an opportunity, and tell him what slander he had to kill.