Chapter Thirty Five.
That winter dragged heavily to more than one of those whose stories I have been telling in a broken one-sided fashion enough. Anthony, one of whose failings, perhaps, was the procrastination which is often joined to a certain eager impetuosity, was going on from day to day without taking a decided step as to his marriage. The spring had been the time originally proposed; and though at one time he had been disposed to hasten matters, his wish had received a check which he had not forgotten. Ada, indeed, did not encourage him to press it. She had lost her old brightness, and the constant smiles were exchanged for a kind of listless irritability, which sometimes broke out into querulous complaint. Nothing had been heard of Mr Warren since he had left them; it seemed as if the young man were trying to forget Underham, or were ashamed of his feelings. At Hardlands life was very quiet. Mrs Orde was doing her best to act as a mother to the two girls; people said how fortunate it was that she was able to live with them, which was true enough; and yet poor Winifred sometimes wondered how many little jars and frets had grown into her life. Frank Orde, who was there again soon after Easter, sometimes wondered sadly, too. His step-mother was a true-hearted woman, full of practical common-sense, but there was a want of sympathy between her and Winifred which could not be explained. The girl was always admiring her and blaming herself for it, but it is probable that it was one of those contrarieties which could hardly have been otherwise. There are people who, quite unconsciously, seem to place us at a disadvantage. We may like them, even love them, but it is from some force of circumstances: they destroy our ease, banish our ideas, and reduce us in some strange fashion to nonentities. Winifred used to puzzle herself by trying to think how this could be. She had a strong sweet nature, to which people turned instinctively for help, but she would shrink at some little speech of her aunt’s which yet was quite free from any sting of unkindness. The fear of bringing it down upon herself would often hamper her, even prevent her from doing what she longed to do. One is struck sometimes by the boundaries with which certain lives are hedged in. They seem so small, a word, an allusion,—perhaps no more than a thread, and yet the thread is as impassable as any fence. Frank Orde, who loved Winifred with all his heart, used to wonder sadly, as I have said, at the want of harmony between the two women who were to him the best and dearest in the world. Perhaps, if he had but known it, here was a little unfolding of the riddle, a touch of jealousy making the mother cold and sarcastic. It was not much, but it caused Winifred’s life to be a little harder than it need have been, at a time when it was hard enough, poor child!
She and Anthony met but seldom through the winter, for after that one interview, which Winifred blamed herself for holding in tender remembrance, they knew that it was better not to see each other more than was necessary. But when the spring came, the time when all beautiful things seem possible, the burden weighed more heavily, and she longed feverishly to hear that the marriage day was fixed.
Anthony, too, felt that the delay must not last much longer. Ada could not accuse him of having given her no time in which to make her resolution, and these months of waiting seemed to be eating the heart out of more lives than one. Without coming to a determination beforehand, he one morning obeyed a sudden impulse and started for Underham to see Mr Bennett and let matters be set in train.
His mother went to the gate with him, where Nat Wills was at work, putting in some plants which Mr Robert had sent over. Anthony turned round more than once to see her nodding at him, and smiling with happy content. As he passed through the village the little gardens were bright with clumps of blue gentianellas, out of the midst of which scarlet anemones blazed. Inside the school the children were singing and marching, and stamping merrily as they marched; the rooks were hard at work, the air was full of sound: here was Anthony setting off to fix his wedding-day. They are sad hearts sometimes that go on what should be the happiest errands.
He had scarcely got out of the village, however, when, to his surprise, he saw Mr Bennett himself driving towards him. He did not notice Anthony until he was close upon him, and then pulled up suddenly.
“I was coming to Thorpe to see you, Miles,” he said in an oddly constrained voice. “I suppose you are on the road to our house?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, would you mind driving a mile towards Appleton with me instead? I’ve some things I must talk over with you quietly, and should be glad to feel secure from interruptions.”
At any other time Anthony might have been struck with the contradiction that after he had jumped into the dog-cart, Mr Bennett, instead of plunging at once into his subject in his usual good-tempered, pompous fashion, remained silent, and seemed to have a difficulty in beginning the conversation. But Anthony was too much absorbed in his own difficulties to notice those of another, and the silence was too great a relief for him to think it strange.
It troubled his companion, however, for he did not know how to break it, and being a straightforward man, any roundabout course was very unwelcome. He looked over the hedge-rows on either side, at the fields which, owing to a wann wet winter, had lost no vividness of green, at the apple orchards nestling round the old thatched and weather-beaten farms, at the less frequent patches where the blue green of the young wheat contrasted with the red earth from which it sprang; but nothing that he saw helped him to his purpose.
“There’s been too much rain for the crops,” he said at last, with a sudden vigour as if this were the thought he had been maturing all the while. “At this rate everything will be washed up again. I saw Fisher at the turnpike,—you know Fisher?—and he detained me for at least fifteen minutes talking over his grievances. Otherwise I should have met you nearer home.”
“Fisher talks for a dozen people besides himself. Mr Mannering is his landlord, is he not?”
“Ah, yes, yes. Mr Robert is a thoroughly upright man,” said Mr Bennett, vaguely. “Never in my life saw any one so pleased as he was when I took him out news of what that poor Stephens had said,—never. Well, I was always certain something would set that matter straight.”
“You at least acted as if it had never been crooked,” Anthony said warmly, at once.
“Don’t say anything about it,” said Mr Bennett, getting red and uncomfortable. “There’s another thing I’m afraid is crooked, which—which I’m ashamed to talk to you about, that’s the long and short of it. I never thought I could be driven to fence and shuffle over any business as I’ve been shuffling now. I’d sooner bite my tongue out than tell it. But there’s the thing,—past my altering, and I’ve the shame of it, if that’s any comfort to you.”
The man was speaking in short sharp sentences, as unlike as possible to his usual genial rather over-familiar manner. Some presentiment seemed to seize Anthony, and his face grew hard.
“Well, what is it?” he said in the deep tone he sometimes used.
“I wouldn’t have had this to tell you for half a years income.”
“If it has to be told I can’t see that any good can be caused by delay.”
Certainly Anthony’s manner was not encouraging. “I only hope you will exonerate me and her aunt,” said Mr Bennett, nervously.
“Then it’s about Ada?” said Anthony, after a moment’s pause.
“I’m ashamed to say it is.”
“Well?”
“It’s anything but well. Though I am her uncle, I do say she has behaved disgracefully. She says she did not know her own mind when she accepted you, and that she has discovered she always cared for Adolphus Warren. His going away, she declares, opened her eyes—”
“You should give effects their right causes,” said Anthony, in a low bitter voice. “Say the change in his position.”
“I’m half afraid of it,” said Mr Bennett, whipping the old grey in his perturbation. “What can I say? Nothing can be worse. It has cut us both to the heart. I utterly declined at first to tell you, I was so ashamed; but she’s had one fit of hysterics after another, until her aunt is quite worn out; and, unpleasant as it was, I felt you ought to be kept in ignorance no longer. I’ve always thought she was so amenable to what was right, but I’m really afraid nothing will move her.”
“You need not fear my making the attempt,” said Anthony, still in the same tone.
“You’ve a right to hold her to her promise,” said Mr Bennett, unheeding. “Of course you’ve a right, and so I told her. But women are such irrational beings, that I really believe sometimes their minds can’t grasp the obligation of a right. You might bring an action against her, for the matter of that. I should not oppose it. Any possible reparation—”
“Do you suppose that would console me?” said Anthony, grimly. “But I’ll tell you the whole truth, for you have behaved just as every one in the neighbourhood would have expected from you. It isn’t pleasant for a man to be kicked over at any time, but I had begun to think, from one or two reasons with which I need not trouble you, that we had made a mutual mistake. I went so far one day as to tell Miss Lovell something of the sort—”
“You did!” said Mr Bennett, facing round in wonder.
“And if she had known her own mind,—it was not so long ago as to make that impossible,—it would have saved some unpleasantness.”
“You don’t feel it so much, then?” said Mr Bennett, not quite sure whether he liked this or not.
“I imagine you would hardly begrudge me that alleviation?”
“O, certainly not, certainly not! I’m exceedingly relieved to find the blow not so heavy as we feared it might be. Then I presume the unfortunate affair may be allowed to drop as quietly as we can arrange between us?”
“I shall not call out Warren, nor begin a lawsuit, if that is what you mean. As to the quietness, I have no doubt that by this time all Underham knows that Miss Lovell has thrown me over.”
“Confound Mrs Featherly!” muttered Mr Bennett, under his breath.
“Don’t be uneasy. In these cases it is always the rejected who is the object of scorn. Besides, is not Warren the heir to a baronetcy?”
“I don’t know what you mean. It was none of my seeking,” said Mr Bennett, hotly.
“Well, well, you should allow for a man’s grimacing a little when he finds himself in such an unexpected position. Now, as the news has been broken to me, and we are not on the way for anywhere so far as I am concerned, I will jump out, and wish you good by.”
Mr Bennett reined up the old grey so suddenly that he almost threw her on her haunches.
“Good heavens, what am I about!” he said apologetically. “This business has quite upset me. And I honestly tell you, Miles, I don’t understand your way of taking it. In my days, if my wife had treated me so, I—I should have cut my throat—though I’m sure I don’t want you to do anything so rash. Still—”
Anthony had sprung into the road, and now was leaning over the wheel with his arm against the dog-cart. He said in a changed voice, “I can’t wonder that it should puzzle you. I have been a puzzle to myself for a long time past. I doubt whether ever any one has managed to make so many mistakes as I. Don’t blame Ada too much, I have been at least as much in fault as she, and yet I want both you and Mrs Bennett to think as kindly of me as you can. Nothing can ever touch the remembrance of your goodness.”
He spoke with a strong feeling which brought Mr Bennett back to his side in a moment. He caught Anthony’s hand, and began shaking it vehemently.
“My dear fellow, you’ve behaved—I can’t tell you how I think you’ve behaved,” he said, stopping only to begin again. It was the greatest possible relief to him that he might go home and tell his wife that matters were all comfortably settled, and that they need not be angry with Ada any more.
“Do you think so?” said Anthony, oddly. He shook hands again to satisfy Mr Bennett, and then drew back from the dog-cart. The old grey, a little affronted at her unaccustomed treatment, started off with a snort. Mr Bennett was looking back, and waving farewells so long as the road kept Anthony in sight. Overhead the clouds were parting, a yellow sun shone out and struck the young glistening leaves, a blackbird was whistling with clear beautiful notes; a great heap of weeds was burning in a field close by where some boys were shouting. Anthony found himself noting everything, wondering idly, and shutting his mind’s door by that sort of compulsion which we have all of us in some measure in our power. When he could no longer do this, he set off, and walked for half a mile as quickly as if he were walking a match.
That Ada should have treated him in this manner was the utmost humiliation his pride could have endured, the more so because she had bestowed upon him so many gentle flatteries, had been so soft and yielding, so free from even the small reproaches for which he acknowledged she might at times have had an excuse. And the humiliation became greater as he began to recollect past trifles which had been forgotten, but which floated up to his remembrance now, as the flood which sweeps away boundaries will bring to the surface little in significant straws. He recalled words and actions of Ada’s throughout their engagement; the manner in which she had quoted Mr Warren, who had been too small a figure to make an impression on Anthony; the readiness with which she accepted his society; he recollected that evening when he had made his appeal to Ada, and had seen two dim figures coming towards him under the trees, and her quick excuses. He turned from himself with a sick disgust as he realised how completely he had taken the false for the true, the true for the false. There was a terrible satire in his life, or so it seemed to him when he thought of his old self-reliance, and the end of it all.
Yet it must be allowed that, although this sting of humiliation was the first dominant feeling in his mind, it quickly began to yield before the relief with which he felt as if a long strain had suddenly relaxed. He stood still and stretched himself, flinging back his arms with a longing to express this joy of freedom by some bodily action. There was a gate close by him which had fallen off its hinges; he set to work to put it up again, labouring with a fire and vigour which was like an old inheritance renewed, and afterwards leaning over it and looking from the high ground on which he stood to the wooded fields below. Where the hedge dipped he could see the Thorpe cottages lying in rich brown patches, the Hardlands’ firs, white smote curling up from the house. Ada and Mr Warren began to fade out of his mind like some blurred unpleasant dream; Winifred grew into life, brown-haired Winifred looking into his face with kind fearless eyes. He stood irresolute, an impulse which was as strong as it was sudden urging him. How could he so dishonour Winifred as to go to her at once, when but an hour ago he was the accepted, lover of another woman!—and yet, how could he not go? Even now he might be too late. Something had been said of Frank Orde in his hearing, against which his heart had leaped up with mute rage, but now it was a whirl of fear which shook him. It seemed as if all the emotions he had been holding in check were ready instantaneously to assert themselves, as if he could not endure another of those moments which up to this hour had stretched themselves out before him in long dull succession. His looks went yearningly down to that spot from which the smoke was curling easily upwards, and at last he jumped over the gate, and went with long strides down the field towards Hardlands.