AFTER THE BALL.
“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care!
Ye’ll break my heart, ye warbling birds
That wanton through the flow’ry thorn;
Ye mind me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.”
IT was a very dark night. The full moon, whose services had been reckoned upon to light the guests to and from the Lingthurst ball, was not in an obliging humour. She had gone to bed again in the clouds so early, and the curtains behind which she had hidden herself were so thick, that, for all the use she had been of, she might as well not have risen at all. It was so dark that the cautious old Greystone coachman thought it necessary to drive extra slowly; it seemed to Cicely that hours, if not whole days, or nights rather, had passed, when at last they turned in at the Abbey gates.
Not that she cared. She was not eager to be home now—what comfort could meet her there?—anywhere? What was anything in life to her now? What was life itself? A horrible mockery, a delusion, a sham from beginning to end. There was no goodness, no loyalty, no truth. All these things she had once—long ago it seemed already—believed in so firmly, that till now she had never realised how largely such faith had formed a part of her existence, or how frightful could be the results of its destruction. Already she had tasted the bitterest drop of the bitter cup; she had been deceived by her nearest and dearest—by the one of all the world who should have been true to her.
“If even he had trusted me,” she moaned, “if he had come and told me all, I could have borne it. I am not beautiful as she is, I could have forgiven him; I could have believed that this new love had come upon him unawares, and that he had fought against it. If he had trusted me!”
To Geneviève, to her share in the whole, Cicely, in this first chaos of misery and indignation somehow hardly gave a thought. She shrank from her, it is true. She was thankful that Geneviève’s silence prevented the necessity of addressing her, but whatever Geneviève had done, however great her portion of responsibility, she was only Geneviève—a new-comer, a comparative stranger. False-hearted, scheming, unscrupulous she might be—in a sense it did not seem to matter; for her conduct there was at least the possibility of the excuse of ignorance and inexperience,—there was not the aggravation of a broken vow, of life-long affection trampled under foot.
Over and over again during the three quarters of an hour’s drive from Lingthurst these bitter thoughts chased each other round Cicely’s excited brain. The practical results of her discovery, the explanation she must come to with Trevor, what she must say to her parents, how they would look upon Geneviève—all these points she as yet forgot to consider. Extreme misery makes even the best of us selfish for the time. In Cicely’s nature there was no lack of magnanimity, but the first instinct of the victim is not to heap coals of fire upon the head of him whose hand has dealt the cruel blow. Forgiveness, sincere and generous, would come in due time; but not yet. It was no small injury which Cicely Methvyn had received; that it would leave a life-long scar there could be no doubt: would the wound ever heal? was the question at present. Could the faith, once shattered so cruelly, ever again be made whole?
“If I live to be a hundred I can never endure greater suffering than that of this evening,” thought Cicely, as the carriage stopped at last and the cousins got out. That her present suffering could be increased—even, in a sense, overwhelmed by an anguish of a totally different nature—she would have maintained to be all but impossible. At twenty we are apt to be over hasty in declaring that we have already drunk of misery to the very dregs.
The hall-door was opened quickly. The light streaming out into the darkness dazzled Cicely’s eyes for the instant; she did not notice who it was that was standing just inside, evidently awaiting her. She was passing on, followed by Geneviève and the maid, when a slight exclamation from the latter startled her, and almost at the same moment the sound of her own name caused her to stop short.
“Miss Methvyn,” said a voice, which at first in her bewilderment she failed to recognise, “Miss Methvyn, will you wait a moment.”
Cicely turned; there before her stood the man from whom but a few hours before she had parted, as he said, for ever. What was he doing here again? What had brought him to Greystone in the middle of the night? Once, only once before had he been there at so unseasonable an hour. Cicely shuddered as she recalled that once before. He saw the shudder, even then, through the great unselfish pity which was softening his voice and shining out of his grave eyes; he caught the involuntary movement and groaned in his heart.
“It is hard, very hard upon me to have to break it to her,” he said to himself. “I, that am already repulsive to her. What can I say to soothe or comfort? Why did they not send for Mr. Fawcett?”
Cicely stood still. Her pale face had little colour to lose; but what there was faded out of it utterly as she gazed, in but half-conscious terror, at Mr. Guildford. Quick as lightning the thought flashed through her mind, “I had forgotten about papa—I had actually forgotten about papa!” Aloud she only said, in a voice that even to herself sounded unnaturally hard and cold, “What is it, Mr. Guildford? What is it you have to tell me. If it is—any thing wrong, why did you not send for me before?”
“I have not been here very long,” began Mr. Guildford with a sort of apology in his manner very new to him. “It was by Mrs. Methvyn’s wish I waited here to see you when you first came in. We should have sent for you at once, an hour ago that is to say, if—if it had been any use.”
“What do you mean?” said Cicely fiercely.
Mr. Guildford glanced round him with a silent appeal. “Will no one help me?” his look seemed to say. Parker had disappeared, but Geneviève was still standing close behind Cicely, and to her his eyes travelled. She understood him, but instead of responding to his unspoken request, she covered her face with her hands, uttered a smothered cry, and rushed away.
“Little fool,” muttered Mr. Guildford, between his teeth.
But Cicely did not seem to have observed her cousin’s defalcation. She stood there, still in the same attitude, before Mr. Guildford, and still there was an approach to fierceness in her tone, as she repeated her inquiry. “What do you mean? Tell me what you mean.”
Then the young man gathered up his courage.
“I mean,” he said slowly, speaking with an effort which he did not attempt to conceal, “I mean that even if you had been sent for the very moment Colonel Methvyn was taken ill, it would have been no use. He was utterly unconscious from the first he never spoke again—from the very commencement of the attack there was nothing whatever to be done; not all the doctors in Europe could have restored him to consciousness, or prolonged his life, for five minutes. And, I think,” he added, speaking still more slowly and reluctantly, “I think it was better so.”
Cicely had kept her eyes fixed upon him while he spoke; they seemed to drag the unwilling words out of him by the intensity of their gaze, something in their expression made him instinctively conscious that any attempt at softening what he had to tell, any common-place expressions of sympathy and regret would have been utterly futile; the girl could not have taken in their meaning. Now, when he left off speaking, the strain seemed to slacken; the terrible stony stare left her eyes; she threw out her hands like a child in terror—as if for protection and support. “You mean,” she said, “oh! I know what you mean—but you mustn’t say it. Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you come sooner? I can’t, indeed I can’t bear it.”
What could he do—what could he say? The relentless summons had gone forth—Cicely Methvyn was fatherless. It was very hard upon him!
“I would have given ten years of my life to save him for you, if he could have been saved. I would have cut off my right hand rather than have been the one to tell you. I cannot bear to see you suffer,” he broke out passionately. Then he turned away from her, in despair, ashamed of his want of self-control, heart-broken that he could say nothing to comfort her.
The sight of his distress awoke the unselfishness that seldom slumbered long in Cicely’s heart.
“Forgive me,” she exclaimed, “forgive me. I didn’t know what I was saying. I will try to bear it, indeed I will. I know nothing could have been done, if you say so. Tell me about it—tell me how it was—but must I not go to mamma?”
Mr. Guildford shook his head. “No, not yet,” he said, “she was very much excited. I was a little alarmed about her, and gave her something to soothe her. I think she has fallen asleep. I promised to wait here to meet you, and that seemed to satisfy her.”
Then he told her all he knew. He had been sent for about ten o’clock, but, by the time he reached Greystone, even Mrs. Methvyn had seen that his coming would be of no avail; the life had all but flickered out already. “It was as I always feared it would be,” said Mr. Guildford, hesitating again. “I always dreaded the effect of any great shock.”
He looked at Cicely inquiringly. Had she anticipated anything of the kind; was she in the least acquainted with the nature of the shock, which for some time must have been impending?
“A great shock,” she repeated, “what great shock? He did not know—”
She stopped short. With lightning-like rapidity her mind flew back to the events of that evening—could her father have come to the knowledge of what she had discovered? But almost before she had time to dismiss the idea as wild and improbable in the last degree, Mr. Guildford’s next words put it altogether to flight.
“It was some news that came in a telegram this evening, that—that brought on this attack,” he said reluctantly, not feeling sure of his ground with Cicely, but judging it wisest to put her in possession at once of all that there was to tell. By the expression of her face, he saw at once that she did not in the least know to what he referred.
“What was the telegram about? Did you see it?” she demanded.
He hesitated again. “You had better tell me,” said Cicely, “that is, unless mamma did not want me to know.”
“Oh! no; Mrs. Methvyn wished me to tell you everything. The telegram was about the failure of some company in which Colonel Methvyn had largely invested. It told him of a great loss of property.”
“And was that all?” said Cicely. “As if that would have mattered! Oh! Mr. Guildford, why should he have taken that to heart so?”
“It was only natural that he should do so,” said Mr. Guildford. There was no necessity at present for telling her how great he suspected the extent of the calamity to be, and indeed just now the loss of a few hundred pounds or of a quarter of a million would have been looked upon by Cicely as matters of equal indifference. “It was only natural he should have felt it as he did,” he repeated. “That is why I think, perhaps, it is best his consciousness never returned. He would only have awakened to distress and anxiety, and at the very best his life could only have been prolonged for a few hours.”
“But he would have known us, he could have said good-bye; we could have told him how little we cared about the loss of the money,” cried Cicely. “Oh! I cannot think it is better never to have seen him again—I cannot.”
For the first time the tears came into her eyes. She sat down and cried unrestrainedly, refusing to be comforted.
Mr. Guildford left her. He was anxious to know if Mrs. Methvyn was asleep. On the staircase he met the housekeeper.
“Miss Cicely is in the hall—alone,” he said. “She knows. I have told her. Do you think you can get her to go to bed?”
Poor Mrs. Moore’s eyes were streaming. She could not speak, but she nodded her head and set off in the direction of the hall, so Mr. Guildford felt that his task was accomplished.
Cicely went to bed, and, strange as it may seem, to sleep. She was only twenty; she had never been really ill in her life, and sorrow was unfamiliar to her; there were vigour and vitality enough in her to stand a much more prolonged attack from adversity, though, as she laid her head on her pillow, she said to herself that but for her mother she would pray never to wake again.
“It could not be wrong,” she thought. “Except mother nobody wants me. Amiel has her husband, but poor mamma has only me now.” And the thought seemed a something to cling to; it made the idea of living on, notwithstanding the wreck of her future, endurable, if nothing more. So Cicely slept.
Who does not know the awful agony of the first waking after some overwhelming sorrow has befallen us? The shuddering glimmer of recollection that something has happened, the frantic clutch at the blessed unconsciousness of the sleep that is leaving us, the wild refusal to recall the truth! And, oh! the unutterable loathing at life, at existence even when at last we realize the whole and find that another day has dawned, that the heartless sunshine is over the world again, that we ourselves must eat and drink and clothe ourselves, and live! If we could see that our individual misery made its mark, if the birds would only leave off singing, if the flowers would all wither, if a veil could be drawn over the sun, would it seem quite so bad?
“No,” thought Cicely, “if the trees and the flowers and all the living things seemed to care, I think I could endure it. But they don’t—they don’t! The world is brighter than ever this morning, though the brightness has died out of my life for ever.”
She was standing by the open window in her room. She had forgotten that the blinds should be drawn down, and was gazing with reproachful appreciation at the beauty of the autumn morning. Yesterday it would have filled her with delight, to-day its very perfection repelled and wounded her. Even Nature, with whose varying moods she had been ever so ready to sympathize, whose face she had learnt to know so well, had played her false. “Why is it so fine to-day?” she said to herself; “why is it not cloudy and raining? Why should it ever be anything else, there must always have been, there always must be, thousands of people to whom the sunshine is as dreadful as it is to-day to me.”
She turned wearily away, and began to think what she had to do. She had been with her mother already this morning, and poor Mrs. Methvyn had clung to her in a way that was pitiful to see.
“You won’t leave me just yet, my darling,” her mother had whispered, and Cicely felt thankful that she could give her the assurance she asked for, without at present adding to her sorrows by explaining the real state of the case. And this reflection led to another. Her father had at least been spared the knowledge of Trevor’s faithlessness.
“Yes,” thought Cicely, “I can be thankful for that.”
Then suddenly she recollected what Mr. Guildford had told her of the news contained in the fatal telegram. Her mother had not alluded to it. “We will talk about everything afterwards. Not yet,” she had said to Cicely. What could “everything” mean? Could it be that the loss of property, the tidings of which had, she reflected with a shudder, actually killed her father; could it be that this loss was something very great? For herself she did not care; but when she thought of her delicate mother, a vague apprehension for the first time made itself felt. She wished that she had asked Mr. Guildford to tell her more; from his manner she fancied he was in possession of fuller details than he had mentioned to her; but for this it was now too late. Mr. Guildford had gone back to Sothernbay; the chances were that she would not see him again, as in all probability he would now hasten his departure from the neighbourhood.
“He need not have asked me to release him from his promise,” she said to herself with a sort of sorrowful bitterness.
There came a knock at the door. It was Parker.
“If you please, Miss Cicely,” she began timidly, “Miss Casalis has been asking how you are. She would be so pleased if you would let her come and sit with you, or do anythink; anythink she says she would be so pleased to do.”
“Tell her there is nothing whatever she can do to help me, or my mother. And for to-day, at least, Parker, I wish to be left quite alone.”
The cold tone was discouraging, but the pale wan face and poor swollen eyes, moved Parker to another effort.
“Miss Casalis do seem very miserable,” she said insinuatingly. “I should not have thought she was a young lady as would have taken it to heart so. I don’t think she closed a eye last night. I do wish, Miss Cicely, my dear, you would let her come and sit with you. She’s wandering about like a ghost. She seems as if she could settle to nothing.”
Parker’s conscience was pricked by the sight of Geneviève’s distress. She felt that she had done her injustice. Only the evening before, she had been far from amiably disposed to the girl, whose fresh loveliness had won the universal admiration which, according to the old servant’s way of thinking, belonged of right to “her own young lady,” and any appearance of indifference or carelessness would have confirmed her prejudice. But that Geneviève was in real distress, no one could doubt. “She must have a tender heart, for all her flighty, foreign ways,” thought Parker, and she waited with some anxiety for the result of her second appeal.
“I am sorry for her,” said Cicely slowly. The thought of the miserable little figure wandering about alone in the desolate rooms downstairs, the remembrance of Geneviève’s great brown, velvety eyes with the tears in them, moved her in spite of herself. “I am very sorry for her,” she repeated with a quiver in her voice. “I dare say she is very unhappy, but, Parker, I really cannot see her. I don’t want to see any one—not even, remember, Parker, not even Mr. Fawcett if he calls to-day.”
Parker gazed at her young lady in astonishment. “Not Mr. Trevor!” she exclaimed under her breath.
“No; I wish to seeno one,” repeated Cicely.
“There is never any telling how trouble will change people,” thought the old servant philosophically. “Poor Miss Cicely doesn’t hardly know how she feels yet; we must let her have her own way for awhile.”
She was leaving the room when Cicely called her back. “On second thoughts,” she said, speaking with an effort, “you may tell Miss Casalis that if she likes to come up here in half an hour or so, I will ask her to write some letters for me.”
Parker departed in triumph. Half an hour later Geneviève, pale, worn-looking, with great black circles under her eyes, and dressed in the plain black gown in which she had travelled from Hivèritz, crept into the room; Cicely looked at her and her heart melted.
“Will you write these letters for me, Geneviève?” she said, pointing to a slip of paper on which she had written down some addresses. “I can easily tell you what to say. Mother asked me to see about her mourning—and I think you had better write home to-day to tell your mother what has happened.”
Her lips quivered, she turned her head away. Geneviève threw her arms round her.
“Oh! Cicely, dear Cicely, I do love you. I do. I am so sorry, oh! I am so sorry. Oh, Cicely, I wish I had never come here!”
Cicely disengaged herself gently, very gently, from her cousin’s embrace.
“I am glad you are sorry for our sorrow, Geneviève,” she said quietly, “even though it is impossible you should understand all we—I—am feeling.”
Geneviève looked up at her with a puzzled air. “I thought you were colder than you are,” she said. “Perhaps I have mistaken you altogether. I—I don’t know what to do. Shall I go home—to Hivèritz to-day, this afternoon? You would never hear of me again. Would you like me to go?”
“What do you mean, Geneviève?” asked Cicely sternly. “Why should I wish you to go? Do you know any reason why I should?”
Geneviève grew scarlet. In her excitement and confusion of thought, she had almost persuaded herself that Cicely must suspect her secret, or that, if this were not so, that she must confess it. But now that the opportunity offered, her natural cowardice returned and tied her tongue. “I do not know what I mean,” she said. “I thought, perhaps, now that you are sad, I should be a trouble to you.”
Cicely looked at her. “You have no reason to think so,” she said coldly. But she did not press Geneviève to explain herself further. “I shall say what I have to say to Trevor, and to him alone,” she resolved.
Geneviève had begun to cry again. “I am so unhappy, so very unhappy,” she said miserably.
“I am sorry for you,” said Cicely kindly.
“You would not be if you knew the whole, why I am so unhappy,” sobbed Geneviève.
“Yes, I should be. If I thought even that your unhappiness was of your own causing, that you deserved it,” said Cicely impressively, “still I should be sorry for you—more sorry, perhaps.”
“You are very good. I will never again say you are not,” exclaimed Geneviève impulsively. “You deserve to be happy, Cicely, and I am very sorry for your troubles. I am very sorry you have lost a father so kind, so indulgent. And, oh! Cicely,” she continued impetuously, “can it be that it is also true that you have lost all your riches?”
At any other time the indescribable tragedy of Geneviève’s manner as she reached this climax in her recital of her cousin’s misfortunes would have provoked Cicely to smile. As it was, she turned from her with some impatience. “What would it matter if it were true?” she said wearily. “How can you think of such things just now? You should not listen to servants’ gossip.”
“I did not mean to listen. I could not help hearing,” replied Geneviève timidly. “Cicely says it would not matter to her if she had lost all,” she said to herself. “She must then be sure he will marry her. And I!—he will be sorry for her now; he will think no more of me.”
And the letters Geneviève wrote that morning were plentifully bedewed with tears.