“COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD.”
“Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know;
And where the land she travels from?
Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say,”
A. H. Clough.
ALONE with Mr. Guildford, Colonel Methvyn soon lost the nervousness and hesitation of manner, which were evidently the result of his invalidism and secluded life, but the gentleness of tone and bearing, natural to him, remained. He was a very attractive man, intelligent, accomplished and thoughtful, but hardly of the stuff to do battle with the world or to breast unmoved the storms of life.
“You must be patient with me,” he said to Mr. Guildford. “Since my health has broken down, troubles of all kinds have accumulated, and I fear I have grown fanciful and selfish. Constant suffering tries one’s philosophy sadly.”
“It needs not even to be constant to do that,” said Mr. Guildford. “A very little physical pain goes a long way in its mental effect.”
“I feel the want of a son sorely,” continued Colonel Methvyn. “Till my accident I looked after everything myself. This place is not very large, you know; not large enough to require a regular agent, and I can’t make up my mind to give it all up to hirelings. As far as is possible for a woman, my daughter does her best; she writes my letters, looks over the bailiff’s accounts, and so on, in a very creditable fashion, but I have no great faith in taking women out of their own sphere. For her, of course, it was to some extent necessary, as she stands in the place of a son, and must come after me here.”
He talked with some amount of egotism, and an almost amusing taking for granted that the family arrangements of the Methvyns must be subjects of public interest. But Mr. Guildford did not feel repelled, as he usually did, by the inference of superior importance in his patient’s tone. It was too unconscious to offend, even had it not been softened to the stranger by the natural gratification a young man cannot but experience at quickly winning the confidence of one many years his elder. After a while the conversation fell upon Mr. Guildford’s first visit to Greystone; he repeated in other words the opinion he had expressed to Miss Methvyn.
“I am glad to hear what you tell me,” said Colonel Methvyn. “I felt the little boy’s death very much—very much indeed.”
“Naturally,” said Mr. Guildford sympathisingly, “and you would feel it doubly on your daughter’s account.”
“Yes; she felt it a good deal, poor girl!” said Colonel Methvyn; “but young people, my dear sir, can throw off trouble—ah! yes, they can throw it off. It sinks deeper when one is no longer young.”
“But a mother,” said Mr. Guildford, a little surprised, “young or old, a mother’s feelings must be the same.”
“A mother?” repeated Colonel Methvyn. “Ah! I see. I forgot you did not understand the relationship. No, the little fellow’s mother is not my daughter. Lady Forrester is Mrs. Methvyn’s daughter by a former marriage. By the by,” he went on rather hastily, “what arrangements have you made for this evening? You will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner, of course, but will it suit you best to return to Sothernbay to-night, or to-morrow morning.”
“To-night, thank you,” said Mr. Guildford. “I made no definite arrangements. It is such a lovely evening I should enjoy the walk to the station.”
But he did not decline the invitation to dinner, recalling one of Dr. Farmer’s injunctions. “Don’t be in a hurry when you come over to Greystone,” the old family doctor had said; “half the good you can do the colonel will be lost if you fidget him by running away when he wants you to stay. Come over when you feel you have an evening to spare.”
And though this was the sort of thing that Mr. Guildford had often protested he would have nothing to do with—an objectionable mixing up of the professional and social relations, “dancing attendance on people who looked upon you as belonging to another world,” etc. etc.,—somehow when it came in his way he found it nowise disagreeable. He excused his inconsistency by saying to himself that the circumstances were exceptional, the Methvyn family really to be felt for, and so on, and ended before long in forgetting that he was inconsistent, or that any excuses were necessary.
So he stayed to dinner. Colonel Methvyn felt well enough to be wheeled into the dining-room, and to eat his dinner on a little table drawn to the side of his couch, and to take his share in the conversation that went on, which Cicely did her utmost to make cheerful and interesting. Geneviève did not talk much, but what she did say always sounded soft and pretty from the charm of her grace and beauty and winning, appealing manner. And altogether it was very pleasant. Colonel Methvyn had plenty to say, and could talk well too when he was in sufficiently good spirits to make the effort, and his wife looked happy because he seemed to be so.
After dinner they all went into the library, and Cicely played to her father till it was quite dark.
It was evidently her custom to do so, and it was easy to see that the invalid enjoyed it. Mr. Guildford knew too little of music to judge of or criticise her performance, nor was it of a nature to invite criticism. She played quietly and simply, with no thought, it was plain to see, besides that of her father’s gratification, but the music and all seemed in harmony with the peacefulness and refinement, the gentleness and homelike feeling of the evening. Then Colonel Methvyn rang for his servant to wheel him back to his own quarters and Mr. Guildford began to speak of setting off on his walk to the station,
“The carriage is ordered,” said Miss Methvyn, looking up quickly, “you need not leave this till half-past nine, and it is only eight now. You forget how early we dine here.”
“But I think I should like the walk, thank you,” said Mr. Guildford.
“I could not consent to your walking, my dear sir,” said Colonel Methvyn. “I could not, really. I feel already sorry that you should have to come so far out of your way for me, and I assure you I appreciate your kindness. But your walking to the station is not to be thought of for an instant.”
Mr. Guildford judged it wiser, for this time at least, to give in. So Colonel Methvyn, to make the matter all the surer, repeated the order for the carriage, and, having thus satisfied his notions of hospitality, was wheeled away.
Mrs. Methvyn asked Geneviève to play. The girl did so without hesitation, and it seemed to Mr. Guildford that she played well, better than her cousin.
“Do you not sing too?” he inquired, when she stopped. He was standing by the piano, attracted by the music and amused by the pretty way in which her slender fingers ran lightly up and down the keys.
“A little, not much—not well,” she answered. “But to-night, please not. At home we sing all together; maman, the brothers, all.” And again she sighed gently and the lustrous eyes grew dewy.
“You must forgive me. I should not have asked you,” he said kindly, and then he turned away, and Geneviève went on playing.
The blinds were not yet drawn down; glancing round, Mr. Guildford saw Miss Methvyn standing by the window nearest to the piano, looking out into the garden. It was bright moonlight.
“What a lovely evening it is!” said Cicely. “Mr. Guildford, I don’t wonder at your wanting to walk to Greybridge.”
“I really should have enjoyed it,” he answered, “but—”
“But what?” asked Miss Methvyn, looking up inquiringly.
“I fancied my persistence might have annoyed Colonel Methvyn, that was all,” he said lightly.
“That was very good of you,” she said cordially, but some indefinite feeling prompted him to resent her appreciation of his thoughtfulness.
“You forget,” he said coldly, “that thinking of such things is a part of my business.”
Cicely’s face grew graver. When she spoke again, however, there was no change in her tone.
“It looks so tempting out there,” she said, “I cannot stay in doors any longer. Mr. Guildford, will you help me to open this?”
The knob of the glass door was stiff, but it soon yielded. Mrs. Methvyn heard the sound, and looked up.
“What are you doing, Cicely?” she said. “Not going out, surely!”
“Only for a few minutes, mother,” pleaded the girl. “It is so mild, and Geneviève’s music will sound so pretty outside. I have got a shawl. Don’t leave off playing, Geneviève, please.”
Mrs. Methvyn made no further objection, and Cicely stepped out. There was some little difficulty in closing the door again from the outside, Mr. Guildford followed to help her—they stood together on the smooth gravel walk. Before them lay the flower beds, a few hours ago gay with the brightest colours; now, sleeping crocuses and
“tulips made grey by the moonlight”
were hardly to be distinguished from each other, or from the silvery grass of the borders.
“What a strange thing light is,” said Miss Methvyn, as she looked at the flowers. “Light and colour. Not that one should call them things at all, I suppose. I wish I understood about it better. Why should the moonlight actually change, change colour, for instance? It is only faint sunlight really. I could understand its dimming colour, but not altering it.”
Mr. Guildford smiled. “You had better study optics,” he said.
“I wish I could,” she replied, quite simply, “but there are difficulties in the way of studying many things I should like to know about. I get all the books I can, but most scientific books take for granted a certain amount of preliminary, technical knowledge that I am deficient in. I had rather an irregular education too, even for a girl.”
“You are just about the age when your education should be beginning, according to some of the new lights on the subject,” observed Mr. Guildford. “Would you not like to go to college, Miss Methvyn?”
“I don’t know. Yes, perhaps I should if I were not needed at home,” she replied, in the last few words a sadness becoming perceptible in her tone. But looking up, she caught the expression on her companion’s face. “Are you laughing at me?” she said. “I dare say you are. I don’t mind. I am quite accustomed to it. My father laughs at me sometimes, and so does—” she stopped suddenly.
“Indeed, I wasn’t laughing, Miss Methvyn,” said Mr. Guildford. “I should be very sorry to be so impertinent.”
“It would not be impertinent,” said Cicely, seemingly rather incredulous, and she said no more about wishing to understand things.
“Are you not afraid of catching cold?” said Mr. Guildford presently. They were still standing in the same place, the sound of Geneviève’s music coming softly through the moonlight.
“I never catch cold, thank you,” said. Miss Methvyn. Mr. Guildford fancied she spoke stiffly, and was annoyed with himself for the suggestion. “That is not a bit of your business,” he imagined her manner to imply. But her next words reassured him. “Perhaps it is not wise to stand still so long,” she said, and she set off walking round the little garden.
There was an opening at the other side in the shrubs and trees that surrounded the enclosure of flower-beds. Here Miss Methvyn paused. “By daylight there is such a pretty view from here,” she said. “You can see Haverstock village, and the church, and the little river. Even now you can see it gleaming—over there to the right, over there where the railway bridge crosses it.”
“Ah! yes, I see. Do you think that the railway spoils the landscape, Miss Methvyn?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it,” she said. “It has always been there. Charlie used to be so fond of watching for the white feathers of steam coming into sight and disappearing again. He liked the railway, because he had a notion that any day, if he ran to Haverstock, he could get to his mother at once. The fancy cheered him when he first came to live here, and she went away. I have never cared to see the trains go by lately.”
As she spoke a shrill whistle sounded in the distance. Cicely turned and began to retrace her steps.
“Associations must sometimes be terrible things,” said Mr. Guildford gently.
Something in his voice encouraged Cicely to say more. “There is a still more painful feeling that I have never heard described,” she said. “I have often wondered if other people have felt it. The sound of that railway whistle put it into my mind, and the speaking of Charlie’s fancy about it. What I mean is a sort of hatred of everything tangible—material rather. It came over me dreadfully after he died. It seemed to me that even the material things he had loved now separated me from him. Just as he, in his innocence, loved the railway, because he thought it would take him to his mother, so I could not endure to see it, because I felt that it—that nothing material could take me to him or bring him back to me. Everything, except memory, seemed to separate me further from him. I have had this feeling twice; yes, I think, twice in my life,” she repeated. “Did you ever feel it, or is it only a womanish feeling?”
Mr. Guildford had listened to her with some surprise, but still with attention and a wish to follow her meaning.
“I think I understand you,” he said thoughtfully. “It seems to me your feeling must somewhere have affinity with what I—like every student of practical science—realise incessantly; the utter insurmountability of the barrier between matter and spirit. It sounds very commonplace, but it is the puzzle. We are so hedged in, in every direction the old hitting one’s head against the wall. And the only thing to be done is to turn round and work one’s hardest inside the limits.”
“Yes,” said Cicely. “Yes. I understand.” Then she was silent for a minute or two. “I suppose,” she said at last, “I suppose if we could put our feelings into words, we should always find some one who shared them.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “Not that I have ever felt your special kind of revolt against our prison bars, Miss Methvyn. I have never been separated by death from any one that I cared very much about.”
“You have been very happy then,” she said.
“I don’t know. There are two ways of putting it. Perhaps the truth is that I have never had any one to care enough for, for separation to be or seem terrible,” he answered, in a tone not very easy to interpret.
They were close to the window again. Geneviève’s music had ceased, and glancing up, Cicely saw her cousin standing inside the glass door looking out.
“Mr. Guildford,” she said hastily, “will you just come to the end of the walk again for a moment. I have wanted to ask you something all this evening, and I thought you might be annoyed at it. I want to know what you think about my father. I cannot tell you why I ask you—there—there is something that depends upon it. And I know you are very clever. You must not think me very strange. I am so at a loss,” she hurried on with what she had to say, in evident fear of Mr. Guildford interrupting her with some cold expression of disapproval or annoyance; for she could see that he looked grave and perplexed.
“What do you mean exactly, Miss Methvyn?” he said formally. “Do you want to know if I think Colonel Methvyn in a critical state, or what?”
He thought her inquiry uncalled for and hardly delicate. He felt surprised, and a little disappointed. She was her father’s heiress; Colonel Methvyn had told him so. Could it be—surely not—that she was eager to claim her inheritance, making plans contingent on her speedy succession?
“Yes,” she replied, “that is partly what I want to know. I also want to know if any vexation—being thwarted about anything on which he had set his heart, for instance, could do him harm.”
“Most assuredly it would,” he said somewhat sternly, “the very gravest harm. It is very early for me to give an opinion,” he went on, feeling anxious to avoid saying much. “I never saw Colonel Methvyn till to-day, but I have seen similar cases. I should say he may live as he is for many years, provided his mind is kept at ease, and that he is not thwarted or exposed to vexation. The effect of any great shock, of course, I could not predict.”
“Thank you,” she said very gently, almost humbly, “you have told me what I wanted to know.”
Why did she want to know? he asked himself. She stood still for a minute or two, as if thinking of what he had said. The moonlight fell full on her fair face, and as she looked up with her clear honest eyes, his heart smote him for even his passing misgiving that her motives, her reasons, could be but of the purest and best.
“She is not a commonplace girl,” he thought, “and she won’t be a commonplace woman; but she is too self-reliant for one so young.”
It was almost with a feeling of relief, or what he imagined to be such, that he turned to Geneviève, who had opened the glass door and stood waiting for them.
“How charming it is!” she said; “but, my cousin, my aunt fears lest you should take cold.”
“I am coming in now, mother,” Cicely said as they came within hearing, “do come here for a moment and look at the beautiful moonlight.”
Mrs. Methvyn rose from her seat by the table, and joined the little group at the window.
“Yes,” she said, “it is lovely, but it is rather cold.” She shivered as she spoke, and retired to the fire. The others were following her, when suddenly a whistle was heard, not a railway whistle this time. It sounded at some little distance away, down among the shrubberies. Cicely stopped, and seemed to listen.
“What was that? It surely can’t be” The whistle was repeated. “Go in, Geneviève,” she said, “I shall be back directly.”
And almost before her cousin and Mr. Guildford saw what she was doing, she had started off and was lost to sight among the bushes.
Geneviève and Mr. Guildford looked at each other in surprise. Then Geneviève came into the library again and spoke to her aunt.
“My cousin has gone out again, aunt,” she said; “shall we leave the door open till she returns?”
“Cicely gone out again!” exclaimed Mrs. Methvyn. “How very foolish! Do you see her Mr. Guildford?” she asked, for the young man was still standing by the window.
“No, I don’t,” he replied; “Miss Methvyn ran off so quickly. We had better shut the door in the meantime, however.”
He came inside and closed it. Mrs. Methvyn looked annoyed and uneasy.
“I can’t understand what Cicely is thinking of,” she said.
“There was a—what do you call—siffle, siffle—a fistle—wistle?” said Geneviève, “down in the garden, and then Cicely ran.”
“What do you mean, my dear?” said Mrs. Methvyn with slight impatience. “Do you know, Mr. Guildford?”
He was half annoyed and half amused.
“It is just as Miss Casalis says,” he replied. “We heard a whistle at some little distance, and Miss Methvyn ran off at once.”
“Was it a peculiar whistle, like two short notes and then a long one?” inquired Mrs. Methvyn more composedly.
“Yes,” said Mr. Guildford; “I heard it twice; it was just that.”
“Then the Fawcetts must have returned,” exclaimed Cicely’s mother. “How surprised every one will be! They intended to stay abroad till July.”
“The Fawcetts!” repeated Geneviève impulsively.
“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “the Fawcetts—our nearest neighbours Colonel Methvyn’s cousins. Mr. Fawcett has been in the habit of coming here at all hours since he was a boy, and there is a short cut through the fields that saves a couple of miles,” she went on, in a sort of generally explanatory way; “it comes out at the little gate in the laurel-walk. By the bye, I wonder if Cicely has the key. We generally keep it locked, for a good many tramps come round by the Ash Lane, and Trev—Mr. Fawcett, always whistles, on the chance of our hearing him, before coming round the other way by the lodge.”
“Cicely had a key to-day,” said Geneviève. “We went through the little gate when we were out, and my cousin unlocked it.”
“Ah! that is all right, then; she often carries it in her pocket,” replied Mrs. Methvyn.
She went to the glass door, and opening it, stood listening as if for approaching voices. Geneviève sat down by the table and began idly turning over some photographs. Mr. Guildford stood at a little distance, wishing the carriage would come round that he might go. From time to time, however, he could not help glancing at the face bent over the photograph book. In profile it was hardly so perfect as when in full view; still it was very lovely—every feature so clear, and yet rounded, the long black eyelashes sweeping the delicately tinted cheek, the expression so innocently wistful.
“I doubt if that little southern flower will take kindly to this soil,” thought Mr. Guildford.
Just then Geneviève happened to look up, and catching sight of the young man’s eyes fixed upon her, blushed vividly. Pitying her discomfort, and annoyed with himself for being the cause of it, he hastily made some remark about the pictures she was looking at, thinking to himself as he did so of the shallowness of the popular notion that French girls were more artificial, less unsophisticated and retiring, than English maidens. Geneviève was on the point of replying to his observation, when the door opened.
“The carriage for Mr. Guildford,” said the footman.
Mr. Guildford turned to Mrs. Methvyn, and was beginning to say good-bye, when voices were heard outside—cheerful voices they sounded as they came nearer—Miss Methvyn’s and another, a deeper, fuller toned voice, and in a moment their owners appeared at the glass door.
“Mother,” said Cicely, and to Mr. Guildford her tone sounded bright and eager, “mother, here is Trevor, are you not astonished? Did you think me insane when I ran off in such a hurry?” she went on laughingly.
“We only arrived this afternoon,” said the gentleman, “two months before we were expected. You can fancy what a comfortable reception we had at Lingthurst. My mother and Miss Winter ended by discovering they had lost all their luggage, that is to say, only twenty-nine boxes turned up, and there was such a to-do that I came off.”
“It was very good of you, dear Trevor,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “It is so nice to see you again. But why have you come home so soon? Nothing wrong, I hope?
“Everything wrong,” said the young man laughing. But as he came into the room he caught sight of Mr. Guildford, and, further off, Geneviève seated by the table, but with her face turned away from the others. “You are not alone,” he said hastily, his tone changing a little. The change of tone, slight as it was, was enough to make Mr. Guildford wish that his goodbyes had been completed before the appearance of the new-comers, but almost ere he could realise the wish Miss Methvyn had come forward.
“It was very rude of me to run away in such a hurry, Mr. Guildford,” she said gently, “but I did not like to keep my cousin Mr. Fawcett waiting. I was afraid he would think we had not heard him.”
“I was just about going round by the lodge when I heard your tardy footsteps, Miss Cicely,” said Mr. Fawcett. “I had whistled till I was tired and was thinking of trying a verse or two of Come into the garden, Maud, for I am very tired indeed of being here at the gate alone.”
“It would not have been at all appropriate,” said Cicely, a very slight shadow of annoyance creeping over her face. Then there came a little pause, which Mr. Guildford took advantage of to finish his good-nights this time without interruption. He carried away with him no very distinct impression of the new-comer, only that he was tall and fair and good-looking, and that his voice was soft and pleasant.
“She said he was her cousin,” Mr. Guildford repeated to himself. “Ah! well, I am not likely ever to know more of her, but I almost think she is the sort of woman one might come to make a friend of.”