OF THE SAME OPINION STILL.
“Then I said, ‘I covet truth,
Beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat—
I leave it behind with the games of youth.’”
R. W. Emerson.
MRS. CRICHTON had left Sothernbay a few days before her brother’s first visit to Colonel Methvyn, so Mr. Guildford was alone again. He missed his sister more than usual; his house looked very dull and uninviting when he returned to it late that Friday evening from Greystone, and, not having many external calls upon his time, for the invalids’ season was now past, he spent the greater part of the next few days in his study.
When the following week was about half over, he began to think of going to Greystone again, and a letter which he received one morning from Dr. Farmer, decided him on choosing that same day for his visit. So—as was arranged between him and Colonel Methvyn—he telegraphed to the Abbey, naming the train by which he would reach Greybridge, and, on arriving there, found the dog-cart in waiting.
The driver this time was not his old friend Dawson, but a much less communicative person, whose observations were confined to “Gently then, old lady,” and “Wo-ho now.” He was evidently not accustomed to driving the “quality,” and his whole attention was given to his steed; so they drove on for a mile or two in silence.
Suddenly a turn in the road made visible a little group of figures in front; they were those of a man and a woman and a horse, walking slowly along side by side. Mr. Guildford observed them with a sort of half idle curiosity, but before the dog-cart was near enough for him to distinguish the features of the man and the girl, they separated, the girl entering a road to the right, the man mounting his horse and riding on quickly; but, before separating, they had stood still for a moment, evidently saying “Good-bye,” thus giving the carriage time to approach them more nearly. Suddenly Mr. Guildford was surprised by a remark from his companion.
“She’s a nice little mare, sir, isn’t she—her as the young squire’s on?”
He pointed with his whip to the gentleman in front, now fast leaving them far behind.
“The young squire?” repeated Mr. Guildford.
“Yes, sir, young Mr. Fawcett.”
“Oh! I did not recognize him,” said Mr. Guildford; “that was Mr. Fawcett in front of us then leading his horse?”
“Yes, sir, him as were walking with the young lady—Maddymuzelle.”
Then he relapsed into silence again.
When they came to where the Abbey road branched off, the figure of Geneviève walking quickly in front was again distinctly visible; but before they overtook her, Mr. Guildford had made a little change in his plans.
“Is there not a short cut to Dr. Farmer’s house somewhere about here?” he inquired of the groom, and finding that it was so, and that ten minutes’ quick walking across the fields would save a long round by road, he left the dog-cart, sending by the servant a message to Colonel Methvyn explaining the delay in his appearance.
Half an hour later Mr. Guildford entered the Abbey grounds, having executed the little commission entrusted to him by Dr. Farmer. He walked slowly up the drive, enjoying the sight of the pleasant, quaint old garden, which as yet he had hardly seen by daylight in its summer dress; it was a garden such as there are few of nowadays,—the paths edged with box, whole beds of lavender and sweet William, sweet peas and clove-pinks, marigold, and snap-dragon; for on this side of the house the good taste of its owners allowed of no “new-fangled” gardening; all—from the moss-grown sun-dial on the lawn, to the curiously cut yew-trees guarding the entrance to the bowling green,—remained as it might have been in many a long, long ago summer, when the ever-young flower faces smiled to old-world Cicelys in hoop and farthingale, just as they did now to the fair-haired girl who came swiftly across the smooth short grass to meet the stranger, the mellow light of the afternoon sun falling full upon her.
The young man started when he first caught sight of her, yet at that very instant she had been in his thoughts.
“I am so very glad you have come today,” she said, as she drew near; “my mother and I have just come back from Haverstock,—and oh! by the bye, I must apologise for that stupid old Hodge having been sent to meet you at Greybridge; he can’t drive a bit, but the coachman was away, and Dawson out with us, when your telegram came,—and we have found my father in a perfect fever of eagerness to go out a little. He has not been out since the day before you were here last, it has been so much colder, you know; do you think he may come out this?”
“I don’t see any reason against it,” said Mr. Guildford; “the air is fresh, but perfectly mild. Shall I go and talk about it to Colonel Methvyn before it gets later?”
“Yes,” said Cicely, “I think he is anxious to see you.”
She turned and walked back again with him across the lawn in the direction of the house.
“I should have been here earlier,” said Mr. Guildford, “but I came round by Dr. Farmer’s; he wrote to ask me to look out some books and papers that he wants forwarded, and that his servants could not have found.”
“Did he say how he was?” asked Cicely.
“Yes, he says he is better,” replied Mr. Guildford; “but I thought the tone of his letter seemed dull, and he says he finds it rather lonely work travelling about all by himself.”
“Yes, poor old man,” said Miss Methvyn thoughtfully; “I think it is very sad to see any one grow old with no one belonging to them. Dr. Farmer has nobody at all.”
“Was he never married?” asked Mr. Guildford.
“No,” said Cicely, “but he was going to be married once. There was some story about it, my father knows it I think—Dr. Farmer belongs to this neighbourhood—the girl died I believe. Fancy! it must be nearly fifty years ago, and I speak of her as a girl; but she will always have seemed a girl to him.”
“Yes,” replied the young man, “to him she will always have been sweet-and-twenty. And if she had lived to be Mrs. Farmer, she would probably have grown stout and buxom, and not impossibly the cares of life would have developed a temper.”
Miss Methvyn glanced at her companion with some curiosity. Then she said quietly, “You are not really the least cynical, Mr. Guildford, why do you talk as if you were?”
He smiled, “Do you dislike it?”
“I think I do,” she said. “Don’t think me rude for saying that that tone of talk is so commonplace nowadays, that—”
She stopped short. He smiled again, but with a slight change of expression, “You mean that the affectation of it is commonplace, I think,” he said. “It is very easily affected, but I was in earnest. I think it is well to look on both sides of a possible picture, and a disappointed bachelor should surely be allowed the consolation of thinking that, after all, the fairest flowers do fade, or at least lose their beauty.”
“But youth and beauty are not everything,” remonstrated Cicely with a very unusual colour in her cheeks.
“They are a good deal,” said Mr. Guildford drily.
A slight look of disappointment over-clouded the girl’s fair face, but she said nothing. A curious feeling came over her that the man beside her was not expressing his true sentiments, and this instinct made her averse to say more. But Mr. Guildford understood her better than she thought.
“You are disgusted with me, Miss Methvyn,” he said. “You think I am worse than commonplace, that I don’t believe in there being women whose grandeur and real beauty have little to say to ‘the beauty that must die.’ But you are mistaken.”
Cicely’s face cleared; but she still looked puzzled.
“Then I must confess I don’t understand you,” she said.
“You can’t reconcile my having a high ideal of woman, with my talking in a commonplace matter-of-fact way of marriage? But do not facts strengthen my position? Don’t think I mean to compare myself with such people; but isn’t it true that the giants among men have not looked for, or wished for anything out of the way in their wives? And when a man is by no means a giant, but still feels he has it in him to do something, surely his best strength lies in keeping his powers concentrated, in deprecating any overwhelming outside influence?”
He spoke almost as if he were trying to argue his theory out to himself, to prove its soundness for his own satisfaction rather than for that of his hearer. And his hearer was not to be so readily convinced.
“But, appealing to facts, as you say,” she objected, “you cannot maintain that women’s influence has not in innumerable instances, been an elevating and ennobling one, as well as a softening and purifying one? Of course whatever softens and purifies ennobles, in a sense, but I mean ennobling in the sense of strengthening and widening.”
“Women’s influence has certainly done all you say,” he replied; “but it has seldom been the influence of wives. The grandest women make splendid friends; but I still appeal to past experience to support the side of my position which I see you dislike.”
“Do I dislike it?” said Cicely. “I don’t know. Is it true, I wonder? I am not clever enough to prove that it is not; but still a strong instinct tells me it should not be true.”
An earnest questioning stole into her blue eyes, and, as she spoke she looked up into her companion’s face without a shadow of embarrassment. They had reached the front of the house by now, and were standing just within the old grey porch. The dark leaves of the thick-growing ivy creeping round its entrance seemed to make a frame for the girl’s fair quiet face, and to throw out in relief the delicate features and pure complexion. For a moment Mr. Guildford forgot, in looking at her, what they had been talking about. But recovering his wits he repeated quietly, “I am afraid it is true. Sometimes I have wished it were not, but then again I see that it is better as it is. But I am sorry to destroy your faith in beautiful impossibilities.”
She turned upon him with a merry laugh.
“Don’t distress yourself about that,” she exclaimed. “I am much more obstinate than you think. I am by no means an optimist in the sense of not thinking that what is might not be made a good deal better. And even your giants may have been short-sighted, and one-sided in some directions, may they not? Are you shocked at my irreverence? As for disliking your theory, I am by no means sure that I do dislike it. If I were an ideal woman—that sounds silly, but you know what I mean—hif I were worthy of such a thing, I mean, I should feel infinitely more honoured by being the chosen friend of a clever man than of being—” she stopped abruptly and blushed a little. Then seemingly ashamed of her confusion, she went on bravely, “than by his just falling in love with me,” she added, with a slight tinge of contempt in her tone.
“Then you do agree with me,” said Mr. Guildford triumphantly.
And judging it wise to retire while master of the field, he went into the house and ran upstairs to Colonel Methvyn’s room.
Cicely stood in the porch, thinking. Then she went away to see if the cushions of her father’s Bath chair were properly aired, and was standing ready beside it at the door when the invalid was brought down for his little airing.
Poor Colonel Methvyn enjoyed the sun shine and the flowers and the soft fresh air very much. His expressions of pleasure and Cicely’s satisfaction in his enjoyment touched Mr. Guildford infinitely more than the weary complaints, but too often well founded, which so many of his Sothernbay patients seemed to think necessary to enlist his sympathy.
“It is a nice old place of its kind; is it not, Guildford?” said Cicely’s father, when the chair was brought to anchor in a sheltered corner, whence the principal beauties of the garden—the rose fence enclosing “the lady’s walk,” the yew “peacocks,” the ancient sun-dial—were all visible. “It is a home a man may be forgiven for feeling reluctant to leave, surely? It has always been my home; it would break my heart to think of its ever going away to strangers.”
“I can understand the feeling,” said the young doctor quietly. Thanks to Colonel Methvyn’s gentleness, his egotism did not go the length of repelling sympathy; but yet the sympathy Mr. Guildford felt for him was tinged with fully as much pity as respect. “It must be very natural where one’s associations have been so concentrated. But,” he hesitated a little, “I see no reason why it should not be your home for many years to come.”
“You give me a chance of seeing my grand-children playing about the old garden, do you, eh, Guildford?” asked the invalid, with an affectation of cheerfulness which did not conceal his real anxiety.
Miss Methvyn was standing at some little distance, too far off to overhear what was said, still Mr. Guildford lowered his voice as he replied,
“Certainly, I do, my dear sir.”
Colonel Methvyn closed his eyes and leaned back. “I think I could die happily if I could see it so,” he murmured. Then as if afraid of having betrayed too much feeling, he went on speaking. “It is a curious thing how few sons there have been in our branch of the family. I was an only son, and so was my father; this place came to him from his mother, and now there is only my little girl there for it to go to.”
“But, happily, that prevents any fear of its going to strangers,” said Mr. Guildford, more for the sake of showing interest in his companion’s train of thought, than from any special remembrance of his remarks.
“Of course, of course,” replied Colonel Methvyn, “of course that could never be. It was a foolish idea that crossed my imagination. I grow morbid, quite ridiculously morbid sometimes.”
He spoke with a nervous eagerness that made Mr. Guildford regret the observation he had made, and he was glad that just at this moment Cicely rejoined them.
“Here is mother coming,” she exclaimed. “Mr. Guildford, will you help me to move papa a yard or two this way, and then she can see him all the way from the house? You have sent Barry in? Ah, that’s right! it is so much more comfortable without him. Mr. Guildford and I can push you beautifully, can’t we papa?”
Her father laughed.
“Is there anything you don’t think you can do for me better than any one else, my darling?” he said fondly, stroking the fair head, as Cicely knelt on the grass beside him, looking up in his face with bright tenderness in her blue eyes.
Mrs. Methvyn was not alone when she joined them. Geneviève had seen her leave the house and ran after her, so the two came across the lawn together.
“I have finished my letters at last, I am glad to say,” said Cicely’s mother, after she had shaken hands with Mr. Guildford, “so now I have nothing to do till dinner-time, and we can all stay out till the last moment—till Mr. Guildford orders you in, I mean, Philip. What a delicious afternoon it is!”
“Yes, here it is perfect,” said Cicely; “the sun was just a little too hot driving to Haverstock, though the road is pretty shady. Did you not find it disagreeable coming from Greybridge, Mr. Guildford—that road is so unsheltered?”
“It was rather hot, but it is not a long drive,” he replied. “You must have found it rather a tiring walk, did you not, Miss Casalis?” he added, thoughtlessly, turning to Geneviève.
The girl looked at him with a curious half-terrified, half-appealing expression. Her lips parted as if she were going to speak, but before she had time to say anything, Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely interrupted her.
“Geneviève has not been at Greybridge, Mr. Guildford,” they exclaimed; “you must have been mistaken.”
“I did not mean to say I saw Miss Casalis at Greybridge,” he replied quietly. “It was on my way here I thought I saw you in the distance,” he went on, turning to Geneviève.
“Oh! that may be,” said Mrs. Methvyn. “You did go for a little walk you told me, I think, my dear, but of course you would not dream of going so far as Greybridge alone—that would never do.”
“I did not see Mr. Guildford when I was out,” said Geneviève. “Was it at the distance you thought you saw me?”
The words sounded simple in the extreme, and her tone of voice was quiet and collected, but as the young man turned to reply, he saw in her eyes the same expression of mute appeal. A slight chill seemed to run through him; so young, yet so disingenuous! Yet surely, surely, more to be pitied than blamed; and with this reflection there set in a strong feeling of contemptuous indignation against Mr. Fawcett, the man who could in the least take advantage of a young girl’s ignorance and inexperience. Not that Mr. Guildford was a man of the world in the sense of being ready to give the worst explanation to even the faintest appearances of evil, or of crediting his fellow-beings in advance with wrong-doing; he would not have given a second thought to what he had seen but for Geneviève’s unmistakable terror of its being known to her aunt. That she had really been at Greybridge, unknown to her friends, and that this, and not the meeting with Mr. Fawcett, was the terrible secret, naturally, never occurred to him. Had he known it, he would have been saved some present regret and future embarrassment. He looked at Geneviève gravely, as he answered her question.
“Yes, Miss Casalis, when I thought I saw you it was at some distance.”
Something in his tone inclined Cicely to start up in her cousin’s defence—defence from what, she knew not, but she fancied there was a coldness and constraint in his manner to Geneviève, which annoyed her. “Poor little Geneviève is looking quite frightened again,” she thought to herself. “Mr. Guildford may be very clever and estimable—I have no doubt he is, but he would be much pleasanter if he were less abrupt.”
But aloud she only said, “If it was at a distance you thought you saw her, I dare say it was not Geneviève at all. One requires to know a person very well indeed—their appearance, I mean—to recognise them at a distance.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Guildford.
Then he turned to Colonel Methvyn, and began talking of some different subject, but somehow the brightness and harmony of the pleasant afternoon seemed to have fled.
But Cicely had no idea of allowing such desirable guests to take their departure without making an effort to detain them.
“Papa,” she said, suddenly, “do you know what this day week will be?”.
“This day week, my dear?” repeated her father, “this day week?—no, I don’t remember. Oh! yes, to be sure, it will be—”
“My birthday,” she interrupted. “What shall we do to celebrate it? Geneviève, help us to an idea.”
“Let us have a picnic,” exclaimed Geneviève, clapping her hands, her eyes dancing with excitement and glee in a manner that altogether nonplussed Mr. Guildford’s new opinion of her. He looked at her in amazement.
“How can she be so childishly light hearted, and yet so deceitful?” he thought.
Then he wondered if this could be “acting,” but a glance at her pretty flushed face, at her dark eyes raised to Cicely’s in sweet eagerness as they discussed the possibilities of the scheme, altogether put to flight so terrible a suspicion, and the young man was fain to take refuge in the old commonplace axiom of the incomprehensible nature of even the most apparently transparent of women. But, once or twice in the course of the afternoon, a certain something in Geneviève’s manner to him touched his gentler feelings; she seemed to be tacitly appealing to his forbearance and pity. “Don’t judge me till I can explain it all,” she seemed to say, and though he made no effort to reassure her, he grew unconsciously softened by her trust in him. She certainly succeeded in making him think a good deal more about her than would have been the case but for the confidence thus forced upon him, and which he was the last man in the world to welcome.
They all went on talking over Geneviève’s suggestion, but Mr. Guildford hardly noticed what they were saying till he found himself suddenly appealed to.
“Yes, the Lingthurst Copse would be the nicest after all,” Cicely was saying. “If we could get you to the Witch’s Ladder, papa, wouldn’t it be delightful? Think how many times we have had birthday treats there when Amy and Trevor and I were children! Would you not like to see the copse again dreadfully, papa?”
Colonel Methvyn laughed, half sadly. “You want to coax me into fancying myself well again, Cicely,” he said. “But you forget, dear, it is four years since I have been outside the gates except for those weary journeys to town. No, you must go without me.”
“But we won’t; if you can’t come we shall give it up,” persisted Cicely. Then she turned to Mr. Guildford, and unfolded her scheme in full to him. Her father was to be driven in her low pony-carriage to the Copse Farm, and there to be met by Barry and the Bath chair. “It can be sent in a cart to the farm the day before,” she said, “and Barry can go in it if it’s too far to walk, lazy creature that he is! And the paths through the copse are quite wide enough for the chair. It is so pretty there, Geneviève,” she exclaimed to her cousin, “prettier even than in the woods we go to church by. And don’t you think it would do my father good, Mr. Guildford? It is only a three miles’ drive.”
Mr. Guildford was able honestly to agree with her, for he had seen enough of Colonel Methvyn to judge more favourably of his case than at first sight, and to be of opinion that his general health would be improved by less vigorous adherence to invalid rules. So it was settled that Geneviève’s idea should be actually carried out, and that Mr. Guildford’s next visit should be timed so that he should make one of the party.
“Is it not inconvenient for you to promise to come on any particular day?” said Cicely, as she was bidding him good-bye, after her father had been wheeled back to the house again.
“Not now,” he said, “I have not much to do except what I give myself; and before another busy season comes round, I shall probably have left Sothernbay, so I don’t care much about extending my acquaintance—my “business”—there,” he said lightly.
“Are you going to leave Sothernbay? Oh! I am so sorry,” exclaimed Cicely in sudden alarm, “my father will miss you so!”
“I am not thinking of leaving at present,” he replied quickly. “I should certainly not leave till I have done what I undertook to do; that is to say, till I can resign my charge of Colonel Methvyn to Dr. Farmer again.”
“Oh! thank you. I am so glad to be assured of it,” said Cicely gently, but in a tone of great relief.
“Eventually,” continued Mr. Guildford, “I have quite made up my mind that it will be best to leave. I think I see my way to doing more good elsewhere and in a different way.”
But though Miss Methvyn listened courteously she made no reply which could have led him to say more.
“She thinks of me only as her father’s doctor,” reflected Mr. Guildford with a little bitterness when he had said good-bye and was on his way home. It was disappointing. He had rather looked forward to telling her of his change of plan, of his rapidly maturing belief that by increased study and research, he might fit himself for a position which he had long aspired to, and had considerable chance of attaining—a position which would put him in the way of fulfilling his darling ambition, that of doing something worth the doing for the science of medicine. He had fancied she was the sort of woman to have entered into his hopes and sympathised with his aspirations—he had, in his own mind, begun to think of her, young as she was, as belonging to the rare class of women of whom a man might make friends. He had all but said so to her this very afternoon, and she had then seemed thoroughly to enter into his feelings and opinions. But this evening he felt unreasonably chilled and disappointed.
“After all,” he reflected, “I suspect it is safest to restrict one’s relations with women in every direction. There are plenty of good staunch men in the world to make friends of, fortunately—and a gentle, clinging creature like poor little Geneviève even, would be more satisfactory in the end. What can that fellow Fawcett be thinking of to involve her in any underhand flirtation—I can’t make it out.”
His brow darkened as he meditated upon what he had seen. He determined to watch for an opportunity of giving Geneviève a word of advice.
END OF VOL. I.
VOLUME II.