Chapter Twenty Nine.
By the time the morning came, Anthony had not made up his mind what course to take, but he had seized the idea that relief was possible, and this thought gave a buoyancy to his spirit and a new freedom to his step. His mother brightened immediately. She followed him into the garden and made her usual remarks in a happy voice, even consenting, though not without a pang, to the destruction of her favourite flower-bed, because Anthony thought the turf should have a broader sweep, and she said, with tears, that Anthony’s improvements reminded her of the old Vicarage days.
The day had been fair, with a fresh and constantly changing beauty, but as the afternoon wore on, the greyness so often to be seen in late autumn came over sky and land. There was a veil of thin mist hanging about the meadows when Anthony, with Sniff at his heels, walked through the lanes to Underham. Sniff, it must be said, had a particular attraction in Underham. He was a dog with a peculiarly strong sense of humour, and in the little town it unfortunately happened that there lived another dog, the property of an old lady, and the victim of innumerable washings. Mop was a white Spitz, of a depressed and meek turn of mind, probably the result of the many torments to which his white coat condemned him; and, with a profession of gambolling friendship which it would have been impossible for Mop, even if he had possessed the spirit, to resent, it was Sniff’s great delight to choose a muddy spot of road, rush at and tumble him into it. It added much to his enjoyment when, as was every now and then the case, he could see his friend, with drooping tail, caught by the cook and carried ignominiously to the tub; and his appreciation of this little comedy of his own invention was so great, that it was almost impossible to avoid taking him to Underham. Some mute signs there were which instinct enabled him to detect, and, with that walk in view, no coaxing could induce him to venture where a door might be shut upon him; and more than once Anthony, congratulating himself upon having given him the slip, had found the little Skye waiting for him at some corner of the lane, wagging his tail with the most irresistibly deprecating expression of brown eyes.
So favourite a diversion at the end of his journey made Sniff run on more cheerily than his master could follow; for, although Anthony’s old sanguine disposition to some extent asserted itself, a man does not go very happily to such an interview as lay before him. As the colour died out of the sky, everything looked dull, blank, uninviting: sodden grass clothed the hedges, the air was laden with a smell of crushed apples, a few yellow leaves hung on the scraggy moss-grown trees of the orchards, the ricks caught no gleams of sunshine, the farmyards were drearily prosaic. Until now, Anthony had hardly realised how he had grown to hate the road to Underham; even now he tried to believe that the unattractiveness lay in all these outward things. He pictured to himself the Bennetts’ house, Ada coming forward with her pretty smiling face,—would it change?—would she care?—could it be possible that the next day he might be journeying away from Underham, free, unfettered? He went on thinking these thoughts until Underham itself was in sight, a few white cottages, the marshes, a canal, a bridge, and to the left red houses, black wharves, and a little confusion of shipping, all lying in the grey mist. There was another road joining that from Thorpe before it crossed the bridge, and two figures coming along under the trees Anthony glanced at carelessly, until they resolved themselves into Ada and Mr Warren.
Ada looked almost frightened for a moment. She came up quickly, and laid her hand on Anthony’s arm.
“We could not have the carriage to-day, and I always get a headache if I stay at home all the afternoon, so I came for a walk. Isn’t it odd that I should have first met Mr Warren, and then you?”
“Very,” said Anthony shortly.
“He had been for a night to Stanton, and was just coming back.”
“It’s a good day for a walk after the rain,” said Mr Warren, in his turn.
They were awkward little explanations, or might have been, if Anthony had been bent on another errand. As it was, after a momentary wrath at the man’s impudence, his strongest sensation was that of discomfort at Ada’s mark of affection. That they should be walking arm in arm towards her house was not the preamble he would have chosen to that which he had to say. Otherwise, it did not seem to him that he had any right to find fault with her. And he was too generous to admit the thought that he might use her own conduct as a weapon against her in the coming interview. He did not say much, because many things were in his mind, but his silence did not arise, as Ada and Mr Warren imagined, from displeasure with them. Ada quickly recovered herself, and wished Mr Warren a careless good-by. As they passed the rectory they met Mrs Featherly coming towards them, presenting the soles of her feet very visibly as she walked.
“I understood you had a cold, Ada,” she said. “I am surprised to see you out in the damp.”
“Have you a cold?” asked Anthony, when they were alone.
“Yes—no—I had, but the fresh air has cured it, as I thought it would.”
“Then you would not mind staying out a little longer?”
He had thought, suddenly, that it would be easier for him to speak there than in her uncles house. Ada hesitated a little. Each had their own anxieties as to what was coming, and she was divided between dread of the conversation and a wish to keep her lover in a good-humour by yielding.
“It is getting late,” she said slowly.
“But it is not cold. Come to the edge of the canal, and see that Norwegian schooner unloading.”
“Very well,” Ada said, hoping to charm him by her acquiescence.
They went to the edge of the wharf, at a little distance from the vessel, where there were men working at cranes, and great planks of deal from northern forests lifted and dropped on shore among the coils of rope, and sailors and boys who were lounging about and looking. Sometimes one comes upon a little scene of bustle like this, which yet lies under a strange hush. For a soft greyness had veiled all colour in the distant moors, a line of cloud as soft and as grey resting at a little height above them. Between cloud and hill the sun was sinking, a mighty ball of fire, throwing out no perceptible rays, but a ruddy glory, which rose behind the greyness, spread over the western heavens, and faded in a clear bright sky, softened by vapoury lines of cloud. The light was repeated in the water of the canal with a grave, gentle solemnity; there were groups of masts, rounded lines of boats, and, slowly moving out of sight, one tawny sail on its way to the river. Nothing could break the hush of departure which rested on the water, the quiet meadows, the hills, the changing sky—Anthony, who was always quickly affected by external influences, now that he had drawn Ada to the water’s brink, found it strangely difficult to enter on the subject which a few hours ago had come shaped to his thoughts in burning words; the soft melancholy of the time made it hard to say anything which should give pain, and yet how was it possible to speak without sharp pain to himself and to her? Ada, meanwhile, who knew more than he did about the meeting between herself and Mr Warren, was for once a little shaken from her self-complacency; the young fellow had said some foolish words about his return, and she had walked along the road by which she knew he might be expected, with a pretence of wonder when she saw him coming; and now she was turning in her mind what she was to say, and feeling sure that this was the reason of Anthony’s abstraction. Her own silence was unusual to her, but she had a perception that, her position would be bettered by his opening the attack, and his first words unconsciously added to her impression, although he only spoke them out of that fencing with ourselves with which we try to postpone a difficult task.
“Had you been out long, Ada, when I met you with Warren?”
“No, O no,” she said eagerly. “Aunt Henrietta thought as I had a headache I had better go out. She wanted some ferns, so I went towards Stanton, but it really is the worst of living near a town that one cannot escape from people. One might expect the Stanton road to be quiet, mightn’t one?”
He took no notice of this appeal. He believed all that she said implicitly, and her secret uneasiness had not in the least touched his consciousness. He was looking at the sinking sun, at the water moving slowly away, at the moments, perhaps, that were passing. She became more uneasy at his silence, but it was so unlike what she had been expecting when he at last spoke, that her breath seemed to fail her.
“Ada,” he said quickly, “I have behaved very ill to you.”
The ring of pain in his voice was too unmistakable to admit of the possibility of a thought that he was not speaking in earnest, which would otherwise have been her first reflection. But it was an instantaneous relief that he should be blaming himself and not her.
“Have you?” she said, with a little laugh, “I dare say you have. Old White, who was my nurse, used to say one should never trust any one. But I don’t know—I have not found her words altogether true as yet.” And she slipped her hand into his arm with a little caressing touch which added tenfold to the difficulty of his task.
“I shall never forget your trust in me. I can never forget that when other friends were ready at once to think evil, your generous belief never wavered,” he went on, speaking nervously, and not looking at her. “It is partly on that account, and because I feel it is impossible to repay that debt, that I must tell you the truth now.”
She was a little startled and uneasy again at his manner. Her imagination was not quick except in matters which concerned herself; but she began to picture the possibility of Anthony having done something much more dreadful than that act of simply leaving a suggestion unnoticed, which had never seemed to her such a mighty matter. Perhaps all his money was to be taken away from him. She drew back her hand and waited. The sun was gone, the sail had passed out of sight, Anthony went on more rapidly when he no longer felt the touch upon his arm.
“I knew that I was grateful; I was conscious of the relief and comfort that Mr Bennett’s house, with its kind atmosphere of welcome, never failed to give,—selfishly conscious, I am afraid. And so I asked you to be my wife.”
He stopped suddenly again, and looked at her for the first time, with a troubled imploring look, as if her mind must have leaped to the understanding of what he was trying to say, and no further words were needed. But except that she was relieved from her first fear, she did not understand in the least.
“Yes, Aunt Henrietta always knows how to make a house pleasant,” she was saying, smiling up at him. “I don’t think that rooms ought to be quite so hot, but, except that, they really are as nice as they can be. I am so glad you like it all, Anthony.”
“You are too good to me, all of you,” he said, reading only in her words a care for him which stung him with new remorse. “Ada, have you never repented?—do you think you can be happy with me?”
“O, why not?”
Perhaps some remembrance of Mr Warren came across her answer, and gave it just a touch of chill. If Anthony had not immediately been aware of the shade, I think he would have failed altogether in the courage which was necessary to pursue the subject; but, although Ada smiled again after her words, he was too sensitive to let it escape him.
“Men and women have made mistakes before now, I imagine,” he said with a little bitterness, “and it would be no honest means of proving my gratitude to bind you to a mistake until it becomes irrevocable. So, for pity’s sake, let us speak openly to each other,—while we can, at any rate.”
It flashed rapidly upon Ada that she had at last found the solution of the riddle, and that Anthony’s unaccountable words sprang, as she at first supposed, from the meeting that afternoon, although it was not anger which moved him, but fear lest she should be repenting of her choice. It was not the case. That little shade which had made itself felt in her answer to his question went no deeper than a little surface regret. She had no desire to marry Mr Warren rather than him, unless some change could alter the relative position of the two men; and it was quite necessary that Anthony should clearly understand this fact, although the idea of exciting a little jealousy was not undelightful to her vanity. She lifted her face, and said reproachfully,—
“I have always made a point of speaking openly. I do not know why you talk about mistakes, unless, indeed, you feel that you have made one yourself.”
This undesigned home-thrust staggered Anthony for a moment, and then helped him to his purpose.
“In one sense I have,” he said in a deep voice. “It need make no change in our mutual position, but in your eyes it may do so, and at least I should put it before you. It is a poor return for all your goodness to me to say that I believed I had a whole heart to offer you, and that I was a fool, for a part of myself belongs to another, always has, and, I suppose, always will; but, Ada, would it not have been worse to have hidden it from you? I could not have done so, it must have blistered my tongue when I spoke; I could do nothing but tell you, and put my fate into your hands. Will you still marry me?—will you believe that I will do all I can to make you happy?—will you forgive me?”
As he used the words, he was not looking at her. He had a vague perception in the midst of them that he was trying to thrust his emotions away from both her and himself, and to bury them out of sight. He hated himself for speaking the words at all. They were part of that wretched mistake of his life, which he began to feel would hold him tightly in spite of his efforts. He hated himself for doing her this wrong. He could not look at her. He felt that burden of humiliation and vexed anger which will make even a generous man indignant with the woman who has caused it, although innocently. There was a blank silence which lasted some minutes, while he was even more taken up with what he had said than with what it was possible she might say, and yet when her answer came at last, it startled him.
“Are you engaged to Miss Chester?” she said coldly.
“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, stung to the quick, and facing her angrily. “Am I engaged? Do you know what you are saying?—do you suppose that I have been acting a lie all this time?—”
The hot words died suddenly on his tongue. Had he not been acting a lie to her and to himself together? The blood rushed into his face, but his words all came to an end. Ada, however, who had been impressed with the passion in his voice, began to recover from the anger which had been the first weapon her wounded vanity had caught up in self-defence. It was so impossible for the serene self-satisfaction of her nature to conceive a preference on his part for another woman, that her mind immediately began to cast about for some ether reasons for his words. Mr Bennett had often said that Anthony was morbid. She had not troubled her head about it, but the expression came to her now with relief. He had walked away a few steps, and stood moodily looking into a boat, with his shoulders a little raised, and his hands thrust into his pockets. Ada followed him and touched his arm.
“Dear Anthony,” she said softly, “why should you be angry with me? After what you said, I thought you really must have some object in saying it. Had you? Do you wish not to marry me?”
“I wish you not to marry me without knowing the truth,” he said, feeling as if circumstances were against him, and as if common humanity demanded some touch of tenderness on his part towards her. “I told you that I was conscious of having behaved very ill, but you know all now, Ada.”
“Then all that I know is that you are very fanciful and very foolish,” she said, speaking lightly. “If you tell me that you wish our engagement to be at an end, I should wish it too; I should only think of your happiness—” and as she said these words, she allowed her voice to change and falter slightly, so that Anthony, smitten with fresh remorse, turned and caught her hand in his,—“but if you are only speaking from some scrupulous—crotchet, shall I call it?” she went on, looking up at him, and smiling, “and fancying that I am not content, don’t make yourself miserable about what is really nonsense. Most people have little likings before they marry and settle down. Aunt Henrietta always says I am not like the foolish girls in novels. I am quite sure we shall be very happy.”
“If only I can make you so!” said poor Anthony, touched and overcome by the manner in which she had borne what he had to say. He forced back the sinking numbness which was creeping over his heart, and made his resolve tenderly. While those two had been standing there, the glow and ruddy lights had faded away, the grey deepened into gloom, the idlers had lounged home, a little red fire burned on board the unladen vessel, and made odd shadows, at which Sniff was barking in puzzled wrath. Anthony and Ada were standing in the darkness when he stooped slowly down and kissed her.
“So you are satisfied?” she said triumphantly.
“I am glad you know,” he said, in a deep voice which he used when he was moved.
Two or three men on board the Norwegian vessel, who were sitting in a dark group by the fire, began suddenly to sing one of their folk songs. It was a pathetic simple little air, without much variation in the refrain which came again and again. “Forloren, forloren,” it repeated, as if the lover could find no other words for his sadness. Was it an answer to her question? Was it his own heart crying out in the darkness? As they went slowly away, the sound followed them, growing sweeter when the distance softened it, as distance and time soften all sadness.