“TO MY AIN COUNTREE.”
“How should I be glad,
Henceforth in all the world at anything?”
Enid.
THE sad days that intervened between Colonel Methvyn’s death and his funeral went by slowly. But they wore through at last, and Cicely woke one morning to realise that “all was over,” as runs the common phrase; the worn-out garment of the father she had loved so devotedly laid reverently aside, nothing more to be done for him, no letters to be written, no books to be read, none of the countless little tender daily services which his long ill-health had called for, to be remembered and cheerfully performed!
It was a page torn out of the book of her life, and just now it seemed to her that the wrench had loosened and disfigured all the others.
“I have mother,” she reflected; “but mother will never be more than half in this world now. People say she is bearing it wonderfully. Sir Thomas says he is amazed at her energy and composure; but I know her better. She is only keeping up for me. I cannot count upon her, my only one object in life, for long.”
But though Cicely believed her heart to be almost broken, though the iron had entered deeply into her soul, she yet felt ready for what was before her. Not for one instant had she wavered in the resolution which she had come to on the night of the Lingthurst ball.
“When my father’s funeral is over, I will see Trevor and tell him all I know,” she had determined. And so strong upon her was the impression of the inevitable result of her discovery, that the possible effect upon her relations with Mr. Fawcett of her loss of fortune had never even occurred to her. She was proud, as Sir Thomas had said, but her pride was of a different nature from that of which her kind old friend had suspected the existence.
Not that she was now indifferent to the change in her position. It was beginning to come home to her. Already some faint realisation of what it would be was making itself felt. For her mother’s sake she trembled at the thought of possible poverty and privation. The ignorance and inexperience which at first had rendered her indifferent to this part of the calamity, now that the reaction had set in, exaggerated to her imagination the practical results of it. But to her mother she showed no shadow of misgiving.
“My settlements are secure, you know, my darling,” said poor Mrs. Methvyn. “There will be certainly enough for me to live upon with perfect comfort. And Sir Thomas is so kind; he says nobody need know much about our affairs if, as he wishes, he can arrange to take Greystone off our hands. It will probably still be your home.”
“My home will be where you are, mother dear—for a long time at least,” answered Cicely, forcing herself to the little equivocation, while inwardly shivering at the thought of the bitter blow yet in store for her unselfish mother. “But it is exceedingly kind and good of Sir Thomas to try to arrange so that things need not become public.” She stopped and hesitated. “I wish it could be so,” she went on. “It would be hard to hear remarks made about our loss of money, as if—as if dear papa had been rash or incautious in any way—by people who did not know him, I mean.”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Methvyn, “it would be very hard. But since I have heard Sir Thomas’s plans, I do not feel afraid of anything of the kind. It will be a great comfort to me to think of your being settled here again before long, whatever arrangements I make for myself.”
“But, mother, you could not do without me, you know you couldn’t,” said Cicely. “Why do you talk as if it were possible we could ever be separated; we never can be now, mother?”
Mrs. Methvyn smiled, a faint sad little smile, that went to Cicely’s heart.
“We need not talk about it just yet, any way,” she said soothingly. And at that moment Geneviève came into the room, so no more was said.
During these days of darkened rooms and hushed voices and mysterious anxiety, Geneviève had drooped sadly. Her fit of humility and grateful affection for Cicely had passed by; perhaps Cicely had not encouraged its expression, and there had been times when she had been very cross and unamiable, indeed. The truth was that she was exceedingly unhappy; and it takes a higher nature than poor Geneviève’s to bear the strain of a protracted and uncertain trouble with a calm, if not, smiling face, with no querulous complaints of the never-failing trivial annoyances which at such times seem to have a double sting. Even Parker was forced back into her old position of dislike and suspicion. “If she were that sorry as she made out for my mistress and Miss Cicely, she would be thinking too much of their trouble to care about her dress not fitting; or to be always wishing herself back again where she came from, and where I wish she had stayed,” grumbled the maid to Mrs. Moore, who in her heart agreed with Parker, though more cautious in putting her opinions into words.
But Cicely understood her cousin better, and pitied her exceedingly. The more trying and unreasonable Geneviève’s moods and tempers, the more Cicely compassionated the state of mind which gave rise to them.
“It must be so terrible to feel that one has been false and deceitful,” thought Cicely with a shudder, crediting, as was natural for her to do, remorse with a far larger share in Geneviève’s wretchedness than it really deserved. And she was marvellously patient with the wayward girl; but yet in her very patience, in her quiet kindness, there was a something against which Geneviève instinctively rebelled.
“Why does she look at me so? I have done no wrong; it is not my fault that Mr. Fawcett likes me best,” she would say to herself with a species of childish defiance that was one of her characteristics when roused to anger. “It was all that she was rich; but now that she is no longer rich, how will it be now?” and a gleam of hope would shoot across her for an instant, to be as quickly succeeded by misgiving and despair. “He said, he promised, he would tell her he could no longer marry her,” she repeated to herself a dozen times a day. “Why has he not done so? Two, three days are past since her father’s funeral, and he has not yet come; he has never come since the day she would not see him. And Cicely does not seem surprised. What can it be? Perhaps he has gone away!”
At last one morning, Geneviève in a fit of restless dreariness, set off for a walk by herself. It was the same morning on which Mrs. Methvyn and Cicely were talking together in the library, and it was on her return from her walk that Geneviève, entering the room, interrupted their conversation.
“So you have been out, my dear?” said Mrs. Methvyn kindly. “Have you had a nice walk?”
“It is very cold,” replied the girl, shivering a little, and going nearer to the fire.
She still had her hat and cloak on, and the light in the room was not very bright. But now, something in her voice struck both Cicely and her mother as unusual. It sounded faint and toneless.
“You have not caught cold, I hope?” said Mrs. Methvyn anxiously. She was conscious that she had not given much attention to her cousin’s daughter of late, and a touch of self-reproach made itself felt.
“No, thank you; I have not caught cold,” said Geneviève. Then she came a step or two nearer to where her aunt and cousin were sitting, and they, looking at her, saw that she was very pale, and that her eyes were red and swollen with crying.
“Aunt,” she said suddenly, and with a something of dignity in her manner, new to her. “Aunt, you have been very good for me. I thank you much, very much, for your kindness. I shall always thank you. But I want you to let me go home now, home to Hivèritz, to my mother. Please let me go; I can make the voyage by myself alone, perfectly well. Please let me go. To-morrow, or in two or three days at the latest.”
Mrs. Methvyn looked at her in astonishment.
“Geneviève, what is the matter?” she exclaimed. “What has happened to put such an extraordinary idea into your head? Go home alone! Nonsense, you know such a thing is impossible. You must be reasonable, my dear, and tell me what has made you unhappy. I can see you have been crying.”
“Nothing has happened,” replied Geneviève. “It is only quite simply that I want to go home.”
“But you cannot go home all of a sudden in that way,” persisted Mrs. Methvyn. “If there were no other reason against it, the appearance of it at such a time would be an objection. You should consider that, my dear. I have a great many troubles just now, Geneviève. I think you should try not to add to them. And it is plain that something has put you out this morning.”
Geneviève felt that Cicely’s eyes were fixed upon her with what she imagined to be reproach, and she hardened her heart.
“Nothing has put me out,” she repeated. “I am not happy, that is all. I do not love England; I want to go home.”
“But I cannot allow you to go home unless I am shown a good reason for it,” said Mrs. Methvyn firmly. “When I brought you away from your mother, Geneviève, it was with the wish and intention of making you happy with us. If I have not succeeded, I regret it very much; but still that does not free me from the responsibility I undertook. I cannot possibly let you go home as you propose. You do not really mean what you are saying—you are put out about something, and afterwards you will be sorry.”
Mrs. Methvyn leant back wearily in her chair. Geneviève stood before her, her eyes fixed on the ground.
“No,” she said, after a little pause, “no; I shall not be sorry afterwards. I am sorry now,” she glanced up for a moment, “I am sorry to trouble you. But I shall not be sorry for asking to go home. I must go home. If I write and ask my mother, and if she consents, you will let me go then?”
“I cannot prevent your writing home what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn, as if tired of the discussion, “but, of course, it is very painful to me that my plans for your welfare should end so, and I know it will disappoint your mother.” She was silent for a moment, then she suddenly looked at her niece with a new suspicion. “Geneviève,” she said, speaking with an effort, “can it be that the reason you want to leave us is, that you have heard any talk about our not being as rich as we were?”
The blood rushed to Geneviève’s white face.
“No; oh, no!” she cried. “Indeed, it is not that. I am not so—so—what do you call it?—so mean. No, it is not that.”
“But you might have some mistaken idea about it without being mean,” replied Mrs. Methvyn, speaking more kindly. “You might have some notion that it would be difficult now for me to do what before was quite easy—that you would be an additional burden upon me. But things are not as bad as all that, my dear. I shall be very glad to have you with me, and I shall be quite able to manage comfortably. If I saw you happy, I should be more pleased even than before to have you with me, when—when I am quite alone—when Cicely has to leave us.”
Her voice faltered a little as she glanced at her daughter, who all this time had sat perfectly silent, neither by word nor look taking part in the discussion. Once or twice during the conversation Cicely had been tempted to interfere, but on reflection she refrained from doing so. “It is better that mother should be prepared for something,” she thought, “even this ill-timed request of Genevieve’s may pave the way for what I must tell her.”
Geneviève’s eyes followed her aunt’s, but again something in Cicely’s expression roused her latent obstinacy and defiance.
“I am sorry,” she said slowly. “I am sorry, but it must be. I cannot stay here. Give me leave then, my aunt, to write to my mother about my return home.”
“I told you before, you must write what you choose,” said Mrs. Methvyn coldly.
And Geneviève left the room without saying more.
“Do you understand her, Cicely?” said Mrs. Methvyn when she was again alone with her daughter. “Do you in the least understand what has put this into her head? She is evidently very unhappy. Surely,” she went on as a new idea struck her, “surely it cannot have anything to do with Mr. Guildford?”
“No,” replied Cicely, almost, in spite of herself, amused at her mother’s recurrence to her favourite scheme; “no. I am perfectly certain it has nothing whatever to do with him.”
“Then, what can it have to do with?”
“She is certainly not happy,” answered Cicely, evasively. “I am sorry for her.”
“Do you think you could find out more, if you saw her alone?” said Mrs. Methvyn uneasily.
“I will go up and speak to her if you like,” said Cicely.
She rose from her chair as she spoke. As she passed her mother, she stooped and kissed Mrs. Methvyn’s soft pale face—the lines had grown much deeper and more numerous on it of late—the roundness and comeliness were fast disappearing.
“Don’t worry yourself about Geneviève, dear mother,” she said. “Even if she leaves you, you have me, haven’t you?”
“Yes, dear,” answered her mother. “I should not want her if I could always have you! But, of course, it is not a question of wanting her. It is so vexing to think of poor Caroline’s disappointment; it is so utterly unexpected. I do not understand the child at all; she is not the least like her mother.”
Cicely made her way up to her cousin’s room. Geneviève was already seated at her little writing-table—pens, paper, and ink, spread out before her.
“Geneviève,” said Cicely. “You have made my mother very uneasy. She is most sorry on your mother’s account. The letter you are going to write will distress Madame Casalis very much. I want you not to send it—at least not to-day.”
“But I will send it,” said Geneviève angrily. “Why should you prevent it? It is best for me to go, I tell you,” her voice softened a little. “You don’t know—” she went on, “and if you did, you, so cold, so réglée, how could you understand?”
Cicely looked at her with a strange mixture of pity and contempt. “No,” she said, “perhaps I could not. But still Geneviève, for my mother’s sake—I am determined to spare her all the annoyance I can—I ask you not to write that hasty letter about going home, to your mother to-day.”
“Why should I not?” said Geneviève.
“Because I tell you it is better not,” replied Cicely. “And you know I always have spoken the truth to you, Geneviève.”
Geneviève looked cowed and frightened.
“Very well,” she said, “I will not write it. Not to-day.”
Cicely saw that she had gained her point. She left the room without saying any more. And no letter was written by Geneviève that afternoon. She sat in her room crying till it grew dark, and by dinner-time had succeeded in making herself as miserable looking a little object as could well be imagined, so that poor Mrs. Methvyn said in her heart, that if it were not for the disappointment to Caroline, her daughter’s absence would hardly be a matter of regret.
Cicely had no time to spare for crying; and tears, she was beginning to find, are, for the less “med’cinable griefs,” a balm by no means so easy of attainment as for slighter wounds.
“I think my tears are all frozen,” she said to herself with a sigh, as she folded and sealed the last of her letters. She sat for a moment or two gazing at the address before she closed the envelope, as if the familiar words had a sort of fascination for her.
“I wonder if it is the last time I shall ever write to him,” she said to herself. “When—when he is Geneviève’s husband, there can surely never be any necessity for our coming in contact with each other. Yet people grow accustomed to such things I have heard, and my suffering cannot be unprecedented. Ah, what a sad thing life becomes when one’s trust is broken! Far, far sadder than death!” And after all, two or three large tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and dropped upon the white paper.
This was the letter.
“Greystone,
“October 25th.
“My dear Trevor,—I should like to see you alone to-morrow. Will you call here between two and three in the afternoon? I have deferred asking you to come till now, because I thought it best that you should thoroughly understand that I, in what I have determined to do, am not acting hastily or impulsively.
“Your affectionate cousin,
“CICELY MAUD METHVYN.”
“It will prepare him to some extent,” she said to herself. The note, simple as it was, had a certain formality about it, very different from the girlishly off-hand letters she had been accustomed to send him. “Will he feel it all relief?” she said to herself, as she thought how best and most clearly she must put into words the resolution she had come to. “Or will it be pain too? However he loves her, he did love me, and he cannot have changed so entirely as to give no thought to me.”
And again some tears blistered the smooth surface of the black-bordered envelope in her hand.