VERA'S MESSAGE.
Alas! how easily things go wrong,
A word too much, or a sigh too long;
And there comes a mist and a driving rain,
And life is never the same again.
The library at Kynaston was the room which Sir John had used as his only sitting-room since he had come down to stay in his own house. When his wedding with Miss Nevill had been definitely fixed, there had come down from town a whole army of decorators and painters and upholsterers, who had set to work to renovate and adorn the rest of the house for the advent of the bride, who was so soon to be brought home to it.
They had altered things in various ways, they had improved a few, and they had spoiled a good many more; they had, at all events, introduced a wholesome and thorough system of cleansing and cleaning throughout the house, that had been very welcome to the soul of Mrs. Eccles; but into the library they had not penetrated. The old bookshelves remained untouched; the old books, in their musty brown calf bindings, were undesecrated by profaning hands. All sorts of quaint chairs and bureaus, gathered together out of every other room in the house, had congregated here. The space over the mantelpiece was adorned by a splendid portrait by Vandyke, flanked irreverently on either side by a series of old sporting prints, representing the whole beginning, continuation, and end of a steeple-chase course, and which, it is melancholy to state, were far more highly appreciated by Sir John than the beautiful and valuable picture which they surrounded. Below these, and on the mantelpiece itself, were gathered together a heterogeneous collection of pipes, spurs, horse-shoes, bits, and other implements, which the superintending hands of any lady would have straightway relegated to the stables.
In this library Sir John and his brother fed, smoked, wrote and read, and lived, in fact, entirely in full and disorderly enjoyment of their bachelorhood and its privileges. The room, consequently, was in a condition of untidiness and confusion, which was the despair of Mrs. Eccles and the delight of the two men themselves, who had even forbidden the entrance of any housemaid into it upon pain of instant dismissal. Mrs. Eccles submitted herself with resignation to the inevitable, and comforted herself with the reflection that the time of unchecked masculine dominion was well-nigh over, and that the days were very near at hand when "Miss Vera" was coming to alter all this.
"Ah, well, it won't last long, poor gentleman!" the worthy lady said to herself, in allusion to Sir John's uninvaded sanctum; "let him enjoy his pigstye while he can. When his wife comes she will soon have the place swept clean out for him."
So the papers, and the books, and the pipes, and the tobacco-tins were left heaped up all over the tables and chairs, and the fox-terriers sat in high places on the sofa cushions; and the brothers smoked their pipes after their meals, emptied their ashes on to the tables, threw their empty soda-water bottles into a corner of the room, wore their slippers at all hours, and lapsed, in fact, into all those delightful methods of living at ease practised by the vicious nature inherent in man when he is unchecked by female influence; whilst Mrs. Eccles groaned in silence, but possessed her soul in patience by reason of that change which she knew to be coming over the internal economy of Kynaston Hall.
Maurice Kynaston reclines at ease in the most comfortable arm-chair in the room, his feet reposing upon a second chair; his pipe is in his mouth, and his hands in his trouser pockets; he wears a loose, gray shooting-jacket, and Sir John's favourite terrier, Vic, has curled herself into a little round white ball upon his outstretched legs. Maurice has just been reading his morning's correspondence, and a letter from Helen, announcing that her grandfather is ill and confined to his room by bronchitis, is still in his hand. He looks gloomily and abstractedly into the red logs of the wood fire. The door opens.
"Any orders for the stable, Captain?"
"None to-day, Mrs. Eccles."
"You are not going out hunting?"
"No, I am going to take a rest. By the way, Mrs. Eccles, I shall be leaving to-morrow, so you can see about packing my things."
"Dear me! sir, I hope we shall see you again, at the wedding."
"Very unlikely; I don't like weddings, Mrs. Eccles; the only one I ever mean to dance at is yours. When you get married, you let me know."
"Law! sir, how you do go on!" said the old lady, laughing; not ill-pleased at the imputation. "Dear me," she went on, looking round the room uneasily, "did I ever see such a mess in all my born days. Now Sir John is out, sir, I suppose you couldn't let me——"
"Certainly not—if you mean bring in a broom and a dust-pan! Just let me catch you at it, that's all!"
The housekeeper shook her head with a resigned sigh.
"Ah, well! it can't last long; when Miss Vera comes she'll turn the whole place inside-out, and all them nasty pipes, and dogs and things will be cleared away."
"Do you think so?" suddenly sitting upright in his chair. "Wait a bit, Mrs. Eccles; don't go yet. Do you think Miss Vera will have things her own way with my brother?"
"Oh! sir, what do you ask me for?" she answered, with discreet evasiveness. "Surely you must know more about Miss Vera than I can tell you."
Mrs. Eccles went away, and Maurice got up and leant against the mantelpiece looking down gloomingly, into the fire. Vic, dislodged from his knee, sat up beside him, resting her little white paws on the edge of the fender, warming her nose.
"What a fool I am!" said Maurice, aloud to himself. "I can't even hear her name mentioned by a servant without wanting to talk about her. Yes, it's clear he loves her—but does she love him? Will she be happy? Yes, of course, she will get her own way. Will that be enough for her? Ah!" turning suddenly round and taking half-a-dozen steps across the room. "It is high time I went. I am a coward and a traitor to linger on here; I will go. Why did I say to-morrow—why have I not settled to go this very day? If I were not so weak and so irresolute, I should be gone by this time. I ought never, knowing what I do know of myself—I ought never to have come back at all." He went back to the fire and sat down again, lifting the little dog back on to his knee. "I shall get over it, I suppose," he murmured. "Men don't die of this sort of thing; she will marry, and she will think me unkind because I shall never come near her; but even if she knew the truth, it would never make any difference to her; and by-and-by I too, I suppose, shall marry." The soliloquy died away into silence. Maurice stroked the dog and looked at the fire dreamily and somewhat drearily.
Some one tapped at the door.
"Come in! What is it, Mrs. Eccles?" he cried, rousing himself.
The door softly opened and there entered, not Mrs. Eccles, but Vera Nevill.
Captain Kynaston sprang hastily to his feet. "Oh, Vera! I beg your pardon—how do you do? I suppose you have come for John? You must have missed him; he started for the vicarage half-an-hour ago."
"No, I have seen him. I have come to see you, Maurice, if you don't mind." She spoke rather timidly, not looking at him.
"I am delighted, of course," he answered, a little constrainedly.
Vera stood up on the hearth divesting herself of her long fur cloak; she flung it over the back of a chair, and then took off her hat and gloves. Maurice was strangely unlike himself this morning, for he never offered to help her in these operations, he only stood leaning against the corner of the mantelpiece opposite her, looking at her.
Vera stooped down and stroked the little fox-terrier; when she had done so, she raised her head and met his eyes.
Did she see, ere he hastily averted them, all the hunger and all the longing that filled them as he watched her? He, in his turn, stooped and replenished the fire.
"John sent me to talk to you, Maurice," began Vera, hurriedly, like one repeating a lesson; "he tells me you will not be with us on the 27th; is that so?"
"I am sorry, but I am obliged to go away," he answered.
"John is dreadfully hurt, Maurice. I hope you will alter your mind."
"Is it John for whom you are speaking, or for yourself?" he asked, looking at her.
"For both of us. Of course it will be a great disappointment if you are not there. You are his only brother, and he will feel it deeply."
"And you; will you feel it?" he persisted. She coloured a little.
"Yes, I shall be very sorry," she answered, nervously. "I should not like John to be vexed on his wedding-day; he has been a kind brother to you, Maurice, and it seems hard that you cannot do this little thing to show your sense of it."
"Believe me, I show my gratitude to my brother just as well in staying away as in remaining," he answered, earnestly. "Do not urge me any further, Vera; I would do anything in the world to please John, but I cannot be present at your wedding."
There was a moment's silence; the fire flickered up merrily between them; a red-hot cinder fell out noisily from the grate; the clock ticked steadily on the chimney-piece; the little terrier sniffed at the edge of Vera's dress.
Suddenly there came into her heart a wild desire to know, to eat for once of that forbidden fruit of the tree of Eden, whence the flaming swords in vain beckoned her back; to eat, and afterwards, perchance, to perish of the poisonous food.
A wild conflict of thought thronged into her soul. Prudence, wisdom, her very heart itself counselled her to be still and to go. But something stronger than all else was within her too; and something that was new and strange, and perilously sweet to her; a something that won the day.
She turned to him, stretching out her hands; the warm glow of the fire lit up her lovely face and her eloquent pleading eyes, and flickered over the graceful and beautiful figure, whose perfect outlines haunted his fancy for ever.
"Stay, for my sake, because I ask you!" she cried, with a sudden passion; "or else tell me why you must go."
There came no answering flash into his eyes, only he lowered them beneath hers; he sat down suddenly, as though he was weary, on the chair whence he had risen at her entrance, so that she stood before him, looking down at him.
There was a certain repression in his face which made him look stern and cold, as one who struggles with a mortal temptation. He stooped over the little dog, and became seemingly engrossed in stroking it.
"I cannot stop," he said, in a cold, measured voice; "it is an impossibility. But, since you ask me, I will tell you why. It can make no possible difference to you to know; it may, indeed, excite your interest or your pity for a few moments whilst you listen to me; but when it is over and you go away you will forget it again. I do not ask you to remember it or me; it is, in fact, all I ask, that you should forget. This is what it is. Your wedding-day is very near; it is bringing you happiness and love. I can rejoice in your happiness. I am not so selfish as to lament it; but you will not wish me to be there to see it when I tell you that I have been fool enough to dare to love you myself. It is the folly of a madman, is it not? since I have never had the slightest hope or entertained the faintest wish to alter the conditions of your life; nor have I even asked myself what effect such a confession as this that you have wrung from me can have upon you. Whether it excites your pity or your contempt, or even your amusement, it cannot in any case make any difference to me. My folly, at all events, cannot hurt you or my brother; it can hurt no one but myself: it cannot even signify to you. It is only for my own sake that I am going, because one cannot bear more than a certain amount, can one? I thought I might have been strong enough, but I find that it would be too much; that is all. You will not ask me to stay any more, will you?"
Not once had he looked at her; not by a single sign or token had he betrayed the slightest emotion or agitation. His voice had been steady and unbroken; he spoke in a low and somewhat monotonous manner; it was as though he had been relating something that in no way concerned himself—some story that was of some other, and that other of no great interest either to him who told it or to her who listened to the tale. Any one suddenly coming into the room would have guessed him to be entirely engrossed in the contemplation of the little dog between his hands; that he was relating the story of his own heart would not have been imagined for an instant.
When he had done speaking there was an absolute silence in the room. What he had spoken seemed to admit of no answer of any sort or kind from his listener. He had asked for nothing; he had pleaded neither for her sympathy nor her forgiveness, far less for any definite expression of the effect of his words upon her. He had not, seemingly, cared to know how they affected her. He had simply told his own story—that was all; it concerned no one but himself. She might pity him, she might even be amused at him, as he had said: anyhow, it made no difference to him; he had chosen to present a picture of his inner life to her as a doctor might have described some complicated disease to a chance acquaintance—it was a physiological study, if she cared to look upon it as such; if not, it did not matter. There was no possible answer that she could make to him; no form of words by which she could even acknowledge that she had heard him speak.
She stood perfectly silent for the space of some two or three seconds; she scarcely breathed, her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat; it was as if she had been turned to stone. She knew not what she felt; it was neither pain, nor joy, nor regret; it was only a sort of dull apathy that oppressed her very being.
Presently she put forth her hands, almost mechanically, and reached her cloak and hat from the chair behind her.
The soft rustle of her dress upon the carpet struck his ear; he looked up with a start, like one waking out of a painful dream.
"You are going!" he said, in his usual voice.
"Yes; I am going."
He stood up, facing her.
"There is nothing more to be said, is there?" He said it not as though he asked her a question, but as one asserting a fact.
"Nothing, I suppose," she answered, rather wearily, not looking at him as she spoke.
"I shall not see you again, as I leave to-morrow morning by the early train. You will, at least, wish me good-bye?"
"Good-bye, Maurice."
"Good-bye, Vera; God bless you."
She opened the door softly and went out. She went slowly away down the avenue, wrapping her cloak closely around her; the wind blew cold and chill, and she shivered a little as she walked. Presently she struck aside along a narrow pathway through the grass that led her homewards by a shorter cut. She had forgotten that Sir John was to wait for her at the lodge-gates.
She had forgotten his very existence. For she knew. She had eaten of the tree of knowledge, and the scales had fallen for ever from her eyes.
She knew that Maurice loved her—and, alas! for her—she knew also that she loved him. And between them a great gulf was fixed; deep, and wide, and impassable as the waters of Lethe.
Out of the calm, unconscious lethargy of her maidenhood's untroubled dreams the soul of Vera had awakened at length to the realization of the strong, passionate woman's heart that was within her.
She loved! It had come to her at last; this thing that she had scorned and disbelieved in, and yet that, possibly, she had secretly longed for. She had deemed herself too cold, too wise, too much set upon the good things of earth, to be touched by that scorching fire; but now she was no colder than any other love-sick maiden, no wiser than every other foolish woman who had been ready to wreck her life for love in the world's history.
Surely no girl ever learnt the secret of her own heart with such dire dismay as did Vera Nevill. There was neither joy nor gladness within her, only a great anger against herself and her fate, and even against him who, as he had said, had dared to love her. She had courted the avowal from his lips, and yet she resented the words she had wrung from him. But, more than all, she resented the treachery of the heart that was within her.
"Why did I ever see him?" she cried aloud in her bitterness, striking her hands wildly against each other. "What evil fate brought us together? What fool's madness induced me to go near him to-day? I was happy enough; I had all I wanted; I was content with my fate—and now—now!" Her passionate words died away into a wail. In her haste and her abstraction her foot caught against a long, withered bramble trail that lay across her path; she half stumbled. It was sufficient to arrest her steps. She stood still, and leant against the smooth, whitened trunk of a beech tree. Her hands locked themselves tightly together; her face, white and miserable, lifted itself despairingly towards the pitiless winter sky above her.
"How am I to live out my life?" she asked herself, in her anguish.
It had not entered into her head that she could alter it. It did not occur to her to imagine that she could give up anything to which she now stood pledged. To be John Kynaston's wife, and to love his brother, that was what struck upon her with horror; no other possible contingency had as yet suggested itself to her.
Presently, as she moved slowly onwards, still absorbed in her new-found misfortune, a fresh train of thought came into her mind. She thought no longer about herself, but about him.
"How cruel I was to leave him like that," she said to herself, reproachfully; "without a word, or so much as a look, of consolation—for, if I suffer, has not he suffered too!"
She forgot that he had asked her for nothing; she only knew that, little enough as she had to give him, she had withheld that little from him.
"What must he think of me?" she repeated to herself, in dismay. "How heartless and how cold I must be in his eyes to have parted from him thus without one single kind word. I might, at least, have told him that I was grateful for the love I cannot take. I wonder," she continued, half aloud to herself, "I wonder what it is like to be loved by Maurice——" She paused again, this time leaning against the wicket-gate that led out of the park into the high road.
A little smile played for one instant about her lips, a soft, far-away look lingered in her dreaming eyes for just a moment—just the space of time it might take you to count twenty; she let her fancy carry her away—where?
Ah, sweet and perilous reverie! too dear and too dangerous to be safely indulged in. Vera roused herself with a start, passing her hand across her brow as though to brush away the thoughts that would fain have lingered there.
"Impossible!" she said aloud to herself, moving on again rapidly. "I must be a fool to stand here dreaming—I, whose fate is irrevocably fixed; and I would sooner die than alter it. The best match in the county, it is called. Well, so it is; and nothing less would satisfy me. But—but—I think I will see him once again, and wish him good-bye more kindly."