A SOUTHERN WINTER.
“Listen how the linnets sing, Cicely dear;
Watch you where the lilies spring, Cicely sweet.”
* * * * * *
“The lilies shall be for thy brow to wear,
The linnets shall sing of the love I bear.”
Ballad.
NO sooner had the door closed on Cicely and her little cousin than Mrs. Crichton’s pent-up curiosity broke forth. She overwhelmed her brother with questions and cross-questions as to the how, where, and when of his former acquaintance with Miss Methvyn, till Mr. Guildford was fairly driven into a corner. He defended himself valiantly for some time; he tried short answers, but even monosyllables failed in their usually chilling effect on the irrepressible Bessie. She was not to be snubbed; she only grew increasingly pertinacious and finally cross.
“It is too bad of you to be so absurdly reserved with me, Edmond,” she said at last. “You are not a doctor now; I am not asking you to gossip about your patients. You will make me suspect something mysterious if you don’t take care.”
Then Edmond saw that his best policy would be to volunteer as much information as it suited him that his sister should be in possession of, knowing by experience that to baffle temporarily her curiosity was surely to increase it in the end. Hydra-like, it but sprouted afresh in a hundred new directions, if extinguished in one; and that she should even suspect the existence of anything he wished to conceal, with regard to Cicely, was disagreeable and undesirable in the extreme. So he smiled at her petulant speech, and answered good-humouredly. “I know what you always mean by something mysterious, Bessie. You are constantly fancying you have got on the scent of a love-story. I have no love-story to confide to you about Miss Methvyn—at least—” he stopped and hesitated.
“At least what?” exclaimed Mrs. Crichton.
“I was thinking,” he said, “of what you said about my not being a doctor any longer. That does not make me free to gossip about what I became acquainted with when I was one, does it?”
“No, I suppose not,” said Bessie. “But I shall never tell over anything about Miss Methvyn. I want to know about her, I have taken a fancy to her. Do go on after ‘at least.’ ”
“I was merely going to say that the only love-story I can tell you about her, is painful and must not be alluded to. But under the circumstances, perhaps, it is best you should know it. When I last saw Miss Methvyn, she was on the point of marriage with her cousin, a Mr. Fawcett—the marriage was broken off, and within a very short time he married another girl—her cousin, but not his, a French girl, the daughter of these people here, the pasteur and his wife.”
“What a shame!” ejaculated Bessie. “I thought they seemed such nice people.”
“So they are, I have no doubt. If not, she—Miss Methvyn—would not be staying with them.”
“But the girl—their daughter—must have been very designing.” Mr. Guildford did not answer. “How dreadful for Miss Methvyn!” continued Bessie. “I wonder it did not break her heart.”
“How do you know it didn’t?” asked her brother quickly.
“She doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs. Crichton. “She looks grave and rather sad, but she smiles brightly; there is nothing bitter or sour about her.”
“She has had troubles enough of other kinds to make her grave and sad. Though, indeed, her face always had that look when in repose,” he said thoughtfully. “Bessie,” he went on, with a sudden impulse of communicativeness, born of a yearning for sympathy, “do you remember one night, nearly two years ago, when I had to go out into the country beyond Haverstock—a very cold night?”
“Yes,” said Bessie, “I remember it—a little child was very ill. It died, I think.”
“That night was the first time I saw Miss Methvyn.”—“Standing with that crimson dress on,” he murmured to himself softly. “Yes,” he went on aloud, “the child died. He was her nephew. And since then she has lost father and mother and her home too.”
“Poor girl!” said Mrs. Crichton, with the ready tears in her eyes. “By the bye,” she added in a brisker tone, “was she Miss Methvyn of Something Abbey? I never can remember names.”
“Greystone?” suggested her brother.
“Yes, to be sure. I knew it was a colour, black or white or something. Oh! then, I know about them a little. Some friends of the Lubecks bought Blackstone, and are living there now. It was sold because when the father died, they found he had lost a lot of money—in horse-racing, wasn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” said Mr. Guildford, smiling. “The poor man had been paralysed for some years. But he did lose money by speculation—that was true enough. What else did you hear?”
Bessie’s brain was not the best arranged repository of facts in the world, but by dint of diving into odd corners, and bringing to light a vast mass of totally irrelevant matter, she managed to give her brother a pretty clear idea of what she had learnt about the Methvyns’ affairs. And joining this to what he already knew, Mr. Guildford arrived at a fair enough understanding of the actual state of the case. “I don’t believe it was her loss of fortune that separated them,” he said to himself; “she is not the sort of girl to have allowed that to influence her. And he—if it had been that—would not have married a completely penniless girl immediately after. No, it could not have been that. He must have deceived her—how she must have suffered! Yet, as Bessie says, I don’t think she does look broken-hearted.”
He fell to thinking of how she did look. He was silent and abstracted, but Bessie asked no more questions. Her curiosity was so far set at rest, but it is to be doubted if her brother’s carefully considered communicativeness had satisfied her of the non existence of her “something mysterious.” But she was loyal and womanly, despite her inquisitiveness; her brother’s secret, if he had one, was safe.
During the rest of the day, Mr. Guildford was restless and ill at ease. . He was constantly acting over again the morning’s interview with Cicely, and wishing that he had said or done differently. Sometimes it seemed to him that his manner must have appeared almost rudely repellent and ungracious; at others, he reproached himself with having behaved with unwarrantable freedom.
“I did not even shake hands with her,” he remembered. “Rude boor that I am. As if I had any business to annoy her by my absurd self-consciousness, when she was so sweet and gracious and unaffected—so evidently anxious to be just as friendly to me as if I had never made a fool of myself. Of course, it is easy for her to be unconstrained and at ease with me—there is no reason why she should not be so—the question is whether I shall ever attain to it with her.”
Then he grew hot at the thought of having allowed her to copy his papers—actually to work for him—and ended by saying to himself that he devoutly wished he had not come into the room, or that, better still, Bessie had held her silly little tongue about his occupation. Yet all the time he was looking forward with unacknowledged eagerness to the next day, cherishing a foolish hope that Cicely might herself bring back her completed work, or that possibly she might find it necessary to apply to him for information or instruction upon some difficult part of the manuscript. And when the next day came, and the papers, beautifully written, and perfectly correct, were brought to the Rue St. Louis by old Mathurine, with a little note from Cicely, hoping that Mr. Guildford would not hesitate to return them if in any way faulty, he felt a pang of disappointment which startled him into acute realisation of the fact that he was as ready as ever, nay, ten times more so, to “make a fool of himself” for this woman, whom he thought he had grown indifferent to. “It is as if some one that one had thought dead had come to life again. It is very hard upon me. For more than a year I have thought of her as Fawcett’s wife, as more than dead to me, and now the old struggle must begin again.”
But after a time he grew calmer. The events of the last two years had altered—some superficial observers might have said, weakened—this man, once so strong a believer in his own opinion, so confident in his own power of acting up to it. But if he were weakened, the weakness was that arising from a greater knowledge of himself, a juster estimate of human nature, a nobler, because truer ideal—it was a weakness promising strength. He was less given to make theories, less loftily determined to live the life he sketched out for himself. “I am well punished for my presumption in thinking I was stronger than other men, or that in such strength there was nobility. Here am I at thirty with powers already curtailed, thankful now not to be threatened with a future of utter dependence. Here am I who despised and depreciated woman’s influence—feeling that without the love of a woman who will never love me, life, in no one direction, can be other than stunted and imperfect. Yes, I am well punished!”
And it was through this last reflection that he attained to a more philosophic state of mind. If the disappointment which this love of his had brought upon him, were a recompense merited by his self-confidence and self-deception, what could he do but accept it? what more futile than to waste his strength of mind in going back upon a past of mistakes and might-have-beens? Why not exert the self-control he possessed in making the best of what remained, in enjoying the friendship which Cicely was evidently ready to bestow upon him, with which, in her altered circumstances, there was little prospect of any closer tie coming into collision?
“I dare say she will never marry,” he said to himself with unconsciously selfish satisfaction. “She is not the sort of woman to ‘get over’ such an experience as she has had, in a hurry. I doubt if she will ever do so. Her very serenity looks as if she had gauged her own powers of suffering pretty thoroughly, and had now reached a tableland of calm—I feel sure she will never marry. I should like to show her that I am able to value her friendship, and that she need have no fear of my ever dreaming of anything more. I should like her to respect me.”
So, considerably to Bessie’s surprise, a day or two after the papers had been despatched, her brother proposed that they should return Monsieur and Madame Casalis’s call.
“I should like to thank Miss Methryn personally,” he said calmly. “And I am sure her relations are kind, good sort of people from what you tell me. It was very civil of them to call. I should not like them to think me a surly hypochondriac.”
“But are you fit for it?” said Mrs. Crichton, hardly able to believe her ears.
“Fit to make a call?” he exclaimed, laughing. “Of course I am; there’s nothing wrong with me now except my eyes, and they are much better. They never pain me now unless I read or write. I don’t want to drive there, Bessie,” he went on, “we can walk. It is only two or three streets off.”
“Very well,” said Bessie, in her heart nothing loth to see something more of their only acquaintances at Hivèritz. She looked up at her brother curiously. “I wonder if Edmond has anything in his head that he hasn’t told me,” she thought. But Edmond met her glance with perfect self-possession. He felt that he had no motive of the kind that she evidently suspected; he only wished to return to his old friendly relations with Cicely Methvyn; there was no fear of further self-deception. He was satisfied that, having now recovered from the first surprise of meeting her again, he was in a fair way of attaining to a composed and comfortable state of mind with regard to this girl, whose path and his had once more so unexpectedly crossed each other.
So Bessie was fain to suppose that her discrimination had actually been at fault, and that her brother was uninfluenced by any other motives than those he averred. And for some time to come, there was nothing to disturb her in this opinion. They called on Madame Casalis, and found both her and Miss Methvyn at home, and the half-hour spent in the modest little drawing-room in the Rue de la Croix blanche, was a very pleasant one, and Mr. Guildford returned home well contented with himself, and satisfied that Cicely tacitly appreciated his resolution.
“She has great tact,” he thought; “her manner is so simple and unconstrained that it makes it infinitely easier for me.”
And for her part, Cicely was saying to herself that things were turning out just as she had hoped—Mr. Guildford had evidently quite forgotten all about that passing fancy of his; he wished—by his manner she could see that he wished—to be thoroughly friendly and kind; he was a man whose friendship any woman might be proud of possessing. And as she thought thus, there flitted across her mind a vague recollection of something she had once said to him on this subject of friendship—it was one summer’s day in the garden at Greystone—and Mr. Guildford had been expounding for her benefit some of the wonderful theories which he then believed in so firmly. She remembered all he had said quite well (how little she suspected what bombastic nonsense it now appeared to him!), and she remembered, too, that what she had replied had made him declare he had converted her. It was something about feeling more honoured by the friendship than by the love of a man capable of friendship of the highest kind.
“I did not say it so plainly,” thought Cicely, “but that was the sense of it. I know I was rather proud of the sentiment. I wonder if Mr. Guildford remembers it. I do think him a man whose friendship is an honour; and it is much better that I should henceforth keep clear of anything else. I have had storms and troubles enough. Only—only—sometimes life looks very lonely now.”
But during the remainder of this so-called winter, life passed on the whole pleasantly enough. The acquaintance between the two families progressed to friendliness; then to intimacy, till there were few days when some of their members did not meet. Cicely owned to herself that the society of the brother and sister added much to the interest of her otherwise somewhat monotonous life; and Mr. Guildford, having thoroughly shaken himself free from any possibility of further self-deception, allowed himself to enjoy Miss Methvyn’s friendship without misgiving, and day by day congratulated himself more heartily on the strength of mind with which he had recognised his position and bravely made the best of it. Only Bessie, commonplace, womanly, silly little Bessie, sometimes looked on with vague uneasiness, now and then trembled a little at the thought that perchance this pleasant present might contain the elements of future suffering.
“Edmond doesn’t think he is in love with her,” she said to herself, “and he certainly gives her no reason to think he is. But he has it all his own way just now; how would it be if some rival turned up all of a sudden, would not that open his eyes? And though she has been unlucky once, it is unlikely she will never marry. I could not bear Edmond to be made miserable. If she were less high-principled and thought more of herself, I would fear less for him.”
Once or twice there occurred little incidents which increased the sister’s anxiety, and of one of these she was herself in part the cause. Little Mrs. Crichton, “stupid” as she called herself, had one gift. She possessed an unusually beautiful voice. It was powerful and of wide compass, but above all clear and sweet and true, and with a ring of youth about it which little suggested her eight-and-thirty years. She sang as if she liked to hear herself; there was no shadow of effort or study of effect discernible in the bright, blithe notes, which yet at times could be as exquisitely plaintive. Cicely, who loved music more, probably, than she understood it, soon discovered this gift of her new friend’s, and profited thereby, thanks to Bessie’s unfailing good-nature, greatly. She was never tired of Mrs. Crichton’s singing.
“I am glad you like my sister’s voice,” said Mr. Guildford one day, when Bessie had been singing away for a long time. “I like it better than any I ever heard, but then I am no judge of music.”
“Nor am I. But in singing one knows quickly what one likes,” said Cicely. “I have heard a great many voices—some wonderfully beautiful no doubt, but I never heard one I liked quite as much, or in the same way, as Mrs. Crichton’s.”
Mr. Guildford looked pleased. “Don’t leave off, Bessie,” he said, “not, at least, unless you are tired.”
“What shall I sing?” said Bessie, turning over the loose music lying before her. “Ah! here is one of your favourites, Edmond, though I don’t think it very pretty. You must judge of it, Miss Methvyn. I have not sung it lately. Edmond has got tired of it, I suppose. At one time he was so fond of it, he used to make me sing it half-a-dozen times a day.”
She placed the song on the desk, and began to sing it before her brother noticed what she was doing. When he heard the first few bars, he got up from his seat and strolled to the window, where he stood impatiently waiting for a pause. Bessie had hardly reached the end of the first verse before he interrupted her. “I am sure Miss Methvyn will not care for that song, Bessie,” he exclaimed. “Do sing something else.”
He crossed the room to the piano, beside which Cicely was standing, and opened a book of songs which lay on the top. Mrs. Crichton left off singing, but turned towards her brother with some impatience. “You are very rude, Edmond,” she exclaimed with half playful petulance. “You should not interrupt me in the middle of a song. And you are very changeable—a very few months ago you thought this song perfectly lovely. Do you like it, Miss Methvyn?” she inquired, turning to Cicely. “The words are pretty.”
“Are they?” said Cicely, “I don’t think I caught them all. Yes, I think the song is rather pretty—not exceedingly so.”
“The other verses all end in the same way,” said Bessie, humming a note or two of the air; “that is the prettiest part, ‘Cicely, Cicely sweet.’”
Cicely gave an involuntary little start, but she did not speak. Mr. Guildford turned over the leaves of the book with increasing energy. “Here, Bessie, do sing this,” he exclaimed, placing another song in front of the tabooed one on the desk.
“No, I won’t,” said Bessie obstinately, “not till I have finished Cicely. I can’t understand your being so changeable—it was such a favourite of yours.”
“One outgrows fancies of the kind,” observed Cicely quietly. “Our tastes change. I dare say it is a good thing they do.”
“Do you think so?” said Mr. Guildford quickly. “I don’t quite agree with you. My tastes do not change, and I do not wish them to do so.”
He looked at her as he spoke. Cicely felt her cheeks flush, and she turned away. Bessie went on singing. By the time the song was over, Cicely, glancing up again, saw that Mr. Guildford had quietly left the room.
“How cross Edmond is!” said Bessie, getting up from the piano pettishly. Suddenly a thought struck her. “Miss Methvyn,” she exclaimed abruptly, “your name isn’t ‘Cicely,’ is it?”
“Cicely did not immediately answer. “I never thought of it before,” Mrs. Crichton continued; “it just struck me all at once that I had heard Madame Casalis call you by some name like it, but she pronounced it funnily.”
“She very often calls me Cécile,” replied Miss Methvyn quietly. “But my name is Cicely.”
Bessie was silent. Then suddenly she turned to Cicely and laid both hands on her arm entreatingly. “Miss Methvyn,” she said, “Edmond is like a son to me. I could not bear him to be miserable. He is not a man to go through anything of that kind lightly. Forgive me for saying this.”
“There is nothing to forgive,” replied Cicely. “But I think you are mistaken. Mr. Guildford is not a boy, he is wiser than either you or I.”
Bessie hardly understood these rather enigmatical words, but she dared say no more. After that day, however, she could never find her brother’s favourite ballad again; it disappeared mysteriously.
And things went on as quietly as before. Mr. Guildford’s health seemed perfectly reestablished, and even his eyesight failed to trouble him. He gave himself a holiday for the remainder of his stay at Hivèritz, and the days passed only too pleasantly. There were all manner of simple festivities arranged to amuse their visitor, by the Casalis family in those days, and in these, Madame Gentille and her brother were invariably invited to join. There were gipsy parties to the woods, drives or rides to some of the queer picturesque out-of the-world villages, which few of the ordinary visitors to Hivèritz cared to explore; one delightful day spent up in the mountains at Monsieur Casalis’s little farm. And despite the sorrows, whose traces could never be effaced, Cicely found life a happy thing at these times and felt glad that youth had not yet deserted her. She spoke often of her mother to Mr. Guildford, and in so doing lost gradually the sense of loneliness which had so sadly preyed upon her. And she listened with all her old interest to his account of his own hopes and ambitions, of the studies and research in which he had been engaged. But whenever he was speaking of himself or his own work, a slight hesitation, a somewhat doubtful tone struck her which she could not explain. One day she learnt the reason of it.
They had gone for a long ramble in the woods—Cicely, Eudoxie, and two of the Casalis boys, and on their way through the town they fell in with Mrs. Crichton and her brother, who forthwith volunteered to accompany them. It was March by now, and quite as hot as was pleasant for walking.
“It is like English midsummer,” said Cicely, looking up half longingly into the depth of brilliant blue sky overhead, “only I don’t think the skies at home are ever quite so blue or the trees and grass quite so green. The most beautiful English summer day is like to-day with a veil over it. But I like home best.”
‘Oh! to be in England—’”
“‘Now that April’s there?’”
said Mr. Guildford.
“Yes,” said Cicely.
“Even
‘though the fields look rough with hoary dew?’”
“Yes, I am dreadfully English. I shall never be anything else.”
“I don’t think I care particularly where I am,” said Mr. Guildford, “if I have plenty to do.”
“And you always will have that,” said Cicely.
“I don’t know,” replied he. They had walked on a little in front of the others; there was no one to overhear what was said. “There will always be plenty for me to do, certainly, but whether I shall be able to do it is a different matter.”
His tone was desponding.
“How do you mean?” said Cicely quickly. “Are you afraid about your eyes?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can’t bear to say it, but I don’t think I mind your knowing. I am afraid I shall never have very much use of my eyes. With care I may keep my sight, but I shall never be able to do half I should otherwise have done.”
Cicely was silent for a few moments. Then, “I am so sorry,” she said simply. But that was all, for Eudoxie came running up, begging them not to walk so fast, as Mrs. Crichton was tired.
Before April was at an end nearly all the visitors had left Hivèritz. Mr. Guildford and his sister began to talk of returning home, and the Casalis household of moving to the mountains for the summer. And one morning’s post brought letters which helped to decide the plans of the three English people. That same afternoon Mr. Guildford called at the Rue de la Croix blanche. Madame Casalis was out, but “Mademoiselle,” which had come to be Cicely’s special title in the family, was in the salon, said old Mathurine. So into the salon the visitor made his way. Cicely was writing. She looked up with a smile of welcome when she saw who it was.
“I have come to say good-bye—at least, almost good-bye,” he exclaimed. “I have letters this morning which have decided us to go home the end of this week. I shall lose a chance I have been waiting for a long time if I don’t go. And it is getting too hot here.”
“Yes,” Cicely answered. “The Casalises are going to the farm next week.”
“And are you going with them?”
“I think so. Indeed, I have decided to do so now. I too had letters this morning. My sister hopes to be in England some time late in the autumn. I think I shall stay here till then, and meet the Forresters at Marseilles. Then I shall be with them for some months; they will not be quite a year in England.”
Mr. Guildford listened with interest. “I wish we could spend the summer up in the mountains too,” he said. “I am not as English as you, Miss Methvyn—at least, I am very sorry to go away.”
“The winter has passed pleasantly,” said Cicely. “I am glad I came here. I am very glad to be able to look forward a little. I began to fear something might prevent Amiel’s coming.”
“They will be in town next winter, I suppose?” said Mr. Guildford.
“Yes. My brother-in-law must be in town,” Cicely answered.
“May I come to see you there sometimes?” asked Mr. Guildford with a little hesitation.
“Of course,” replied Cicely cordially. “My sister will be very glad to see you too. You know,” she added, “little Charlie was her child, and she has no other children.”
“You don’t know what your address will be, of course,” said Mr. Guildford after a little pause.
“No,” said Cicely. “Amiel only says,” she went on, drawing Lady Forrester’s letter out of her pocket and reading from it,—“‘We shall take a furnished house in some good neighbourhood; but at first we can go to a hotel. Of course you will be with us, and if you can meet us at Marseilles so much the better.’” She had taken another letter out without noticing it; now her glance fell upon it. “Oh! by the bye,” she exclaimed, “you can hear of our whereabouts from Mr. Hayle. He will be sure to know my address.”
“From Mr. Hayle!” exclaimed Mr. Guildford, eyeing the English letter on her lap with suspicion.
“Yes,” said Cicely. “He writes to me often. He is settled now, you know; he has a large parish, and seems quite in his element. I told you, I think, how very, very good and kind he was when mamma was so ill.”
She spoke without hesitation, looking Mr. Guildford straight in the face as she did so. But to her extreme annoyance she felt her face colour. Something in the expression of the dark eyes observing her destroyed her composure, and the more she endeavoured to recover it, the more uncomfortable she grew. “Why does he look at me so suspiciously?” she said to herself. “But how foolish of me to mind it!” “Don’t you remember my telling you about our meeting Mr. Hayle again at Leobury?” she repeated, confusedly.
“Yes. I think I remember some little mention of it,” he replied coldly. And soon after he got up to say good-bye.
It was virtually their real good-bye; for though Mrs. Crichton ran in and out half-a-dozen times during the few remaining days of their stay at Hivèritz, she was never accompanied by her brother. He called the last evening, but most of the half-hour of his visit he spent in the pasteur’s study, only looking into the salon for five minutes on his way out, to bid a hasty farewell to madame, and to thank her for her kindness and hospitality. And he said no more to Cicely about seeing her when she returned to England.
So their paths separated again. Edmond Guildford went back to his work in crowded, busy London—Cicely went up to spend the long sweet summer days among the beautiful Pyrenees. But both often wished the winter back again.