"IT IS TOO LATE."
But as the days passed the happiness which Pamela had expected did not come. Perhaps at first the atmosphere of approval in which she lived made a species of false happiness; but in a very short space of time things became workaday, and the future, with a husband old enough to be her father, showed itself naked of glamour.
Her soul was loyal to her betrothed, though her heart betrayed her. She kept perpetually within her sight his unselfishness, his patience, his simple-mindedness, his devotion. And yet, if her bridegroom were to be no paladin at all, but a certain ordinary young gentleman of ordinary good looks and good qualities, instead of Lord Glengall, how wildly happy she could have been! It was something she dared not think upon—what might have been, instead of what was going to be.
It was another hot summer, and Pamela's step grew languid, and her eyes had heavy rings about them. Her white cheeks, that were so firm and full of health, lost something of their glow.
She spurred herself up to be brisk and cheerful, and apologised for her flagging energy with accusations against the weather. And all the time Lord Glengall watched her with the anxiety of a loving dog in his eyes.
They were to be married at the beginning of September, to have a month's honeymoon at Killarney, and then to take Mr. Graydon abroad, that so he might escape the damp of the Irish winter.
In August, Pamela was to go to Dublin to see about her frocks. They were not to be very many nor very magnificent. Afterwards, said her bridegroom, there would be a visit to Paris, and plenty of shopping.
Pamela loved pretty things as well as any girl, and none the less because they had never been within her reach. But now her interest in such matters seemed feeble. The times when she derived a certain quiet happiness from her engagement were when she talked with Lord Glengall about what was to be done for the others.
"Is there nothing for yourself, Pam?" he asked once; "you never ask for anything for yourself."
And then he stroked the soft pale cheek with a loving finger, and the concern in his eyes grew deeper.
Once he said to Pamela that he wished it were all done, and that he was free to take care of her; but as he said it, putting a protecting arm about her, he felt a quick shudder run through her.
"What is it, Pam?" he asked anxiously.
"Someone walking on my grave," said Pamela lightly.
"Don't talk about such things, child," he implored. "You have all your life, the life that I am going to endeavour to make so happy, before you. What have you to do with graves?"
And yet another time he said to her that he could almost wish that he might give her his love and his care and his fortune without marriage.
"I suppose I couldn't adopt you, Pam?" he said lightly, yet his mood was a serious one.
"Ah! don't talk about such things," said Pam, in her turn, and her heart was sore lest she had grieved him. "No girl could have a happier fate than to be your wife."
And since she felt what she said for the moment she contrived to set his fears at rest.
It was the most humdrum betrothal from the point of view of young and romantic persons. Lord Glengall was no ardent wooer. His manner was more the manner of a father than of a lover, and his moments of greatest contentment were only marked by a deeper quiet. While Pam and he were much together, their talk, unlike the talk of young lovers, was of everything but themselves. Lord Glengall had plans for the disposal of the great wealth he had brought from the gold-fields; but they were plans in which personal ambition had no share.
Mr. Graydon was still languid after his illness, and during those summer days a great quietness seemed to have descended upon Carrickmoyle.
"Sorra's in it!" said Bridget, complaining. "'Tis as if there wasn't a bit of young life about the place. 'Tis more like as if there was goin' to be a funeral thin a weddin'."
"I'll tell you what, Miss Sylvia," she protested to her prime favourite; "there's one-legged Grady the gardener, above at his Lordship's, an' his mouth is dry axin' me. I declare I'll take him, if only to make a bit av a stir. They say he used to bate the first wife wid the wooden leg, but he'll not look crooked at me, never fear."
Sylvia, too, shared in the depressing quiet, and even the dogs lay and blinked all day in the hot sun, and were too lazy to go out on the bog for a dip in the icy-cold water.
Sylvia had her troubles. Her friend Miss Spencer, to whom she was oddly attached, was failing. No illness of a violent kind, but simply a wasting away and decline had seized upon the poor little spinster; and it was a case in which doctor's prescriptions were of no use. Miss Spencer's time had come.
Sylvia visited her friend indefatigably, sitting with her long hours daily, within doors if the weather were bad, by her wheeled sofa on the lawn during the fine hot days. She took her grief with a certain bitterness of wrath against that man of long ago who had wronged the poor little lady so irreparably. It made her curt of speech, and little disposed to notice what was happening where other folk were concerned, and her engrossment made Pamela's lot more lonely.
Sylvia's court had in no way diminished its loyalty or its numbers, but just for the present the young men were put on one side, and accepted their position. They were able to sympathise with one another, for their lady had never bestowed a mark of preference on any one over the others, that jealousy could be excited. But their absence from Carrickmoyle, while it sensibly brightened other houses, made that more lonesome.
Pamela had not seen Miss Spencer for some time, when one day Sylvia announced to her that the old lady wished to see her.
"You must go, of course," she said, with the brusqueness of grief. "I shall come afterwards and relieve you, so that you will be at home in time for Glengall."
Pamela went over after lunch, and found Miss Spencer on the sofa on the open lawn of Dovercourt, with its delightful views of the distant hills.
"It is a fine world to be leaving," said the old lady, nodding at the distances, when she had made Pamela take the low chair beside her.
Pamela had noticed at once an indefinable change in Miss Spencer. The old, half-crazy, brooding look had disappeared, and though the face seemed vanishing and melting away in its wasting and fragility, the eyes were clear, as if a film had rolled off from them.
Pamela said nothing. The change in Miss Spencer, even since she had last seen her, shocked her.
"There, there, child!" said the little woman, patting her hand. "Why talk about gloomy things on such a day as this, and with your great day approaching? But what is the matter?"—scrutinising her closely—"you don't look very bride-like."
"It is the heat," said Pamela languidly; "I haven't felt very lively since it set in so hot."
"I remember the time I would have danced at my wedding in the crater of Vesuvius. Things are not the same nowadays. There, child," she went on kindly, "you will have some tea? I shall have more made for Minx, when she comes. She told you I wanted to see you?"
"Yes," said Pamela, "and I shall like the tea, Miss Spencer. It was hot crossing the bog. I shall go home through the woods."
The tea was brought, and when Pamela had had hers, Miss Spencer, who had been watching her with kind intentness all the time, said suddenly—
"I made my will yesterday, Pam."
Pamela looked up in surprise.
"I have provided for Minx. I have left her this place, and a good deal of money. She will look after my poor for me."
Pamela nodded her head.
"I've left you nothing, Pam. But I've given Mary what will start her in housekeeping. You are going to marry a rich man."
"You are good to think of Mary."
"It is easier to do now than if I had lived longer. Between my legacy and what Glengall will do she need not want."
"She deserves to be happy."
"But what is the matter with you, Pam? Why aren't you happy?"
"I am happy."
"With that face, child! There was a woman once—perhaps you know her—whose lover went away and never came back. Perhaps he was dead; perhaps he had forgotten. You look as if your lover had never come back."
Pamela covered her face with her hands.
"There, child! I don't want to distress you, but I am in trouble about you. What if he came back, after all?"
"He never will."
"He looked as if he would. Anyhow, if he never did, it would be better to be like that woman—a little cracked, perhaps, and always expecting her lover, till she woke up one day dying, and in her right mind—it would be better to be like her than to marry without love."
Pamela trembled, but her face was hidden.
"Tell me, Pam. You won't mind confiding in an old woman who has only a few days more to live. What did you do it for? It wasn't the money, and all it could bring, attracted you?"
"Tell me, Pam. You won't mind confiding in an old woman."
"No, oh, no!"
"I thought not. What was it?"
"You don't know how good he is."
"That's not enough, Pam, though it might serve if your heart were free. What is that to make you give up your life, your freedom to think, to hope, to pray? It will be one long struggle, Pamela. You will be like a creature in prison, for whom the free world were paradise enough."
"I know Glengall is good," she went on. "Another girl might come to love him, in spite of his grey hairs, but not you, Pam. One sees clearer when one is going to leave all this. Why did you do it, Pam?"
"It is too late to ask."
"Why, Pam?"
"Partly because my father must winter abroad and we had no money. Partly, too, because I was angry with—with someone I loved, and I thought I would get rid of the anger and the thought of him if I were married."
"Minx would have taken care of your father. It was a useless sacrifice, Pamela."
She looked at her a minute hesitatingly.
"My people, those of them who survive, are rich. I could take care of you, too, Pam."
"It is too late to make any difference."
"It is not too late while you are yet free."
"You don't know how good he is. And he has ordered his future life so that I shall always be the centre of it. I can't break his heart."
"If Lord Glengall knew, he would be the first to set you free."
"He would, because he is all unselfishness. But he will never know."
"How will you keep it from him?"
"I shall learn to love him."
"My poor Pam!"
"Ah!" cried Pamela sobbing. "Don't try to turn me back. Because I am unhappy, and a burden to myself, would you forbid me making another person happy, and he one worthy of all happiness?"
"It is not too late, Pam."
"It is too late. And here is Sylvia. See how punctual she is. She grudges me this half-hour alone with you."
Sylvia looked curiously at her sister's haggard and tear-stained eyes, but made no comment. She had little sympathy with Pamela's languid looks this summer. She was one who had never felt a wound, and so had scant comprehension of the troubles of her sister, whose lot, indeed, she considered a highly desirable one.
After a few minutes Pamela stood up and took her leave.
She went by the shady paths through the woods, and Pat, who had accompanied her, scurried hither and thither in pursuit of many a pair of bright eyes and many a white scut. She was in no hurry to get home. After the disturbance of her conversation with Miss Spencer, she dreaded the meeting with her fiancé.
It had been a shock to her to learn that, if she had not been so precipitate, her father would still have been safe; for Miss Spencer's life was to be counted by weeks, and Sylvia's tenderness for him could be trusted.
The green glades of the wood were exquisite. She looked about her—at the roof of branches against the blue-and-white sky, at the green moss, dotted with harebells, and flecked by broad patches of sunlight on its velvety shade. The birds were singing their last love-songs, and the wood was full of the music of many waters.
Ah! With an overwhelming revulsion of feeling it came upon the girl that if she were only free, with her life in her hands, the beauty of the free world were, as Miss Spencer had said, paradise enough. If she were but free, if she were but free!
She had come to the Wishing Well in the wood. She put up her hand to her throat. Round it was a slender little chain of jewels and gold which Lord Glengall had given her. It was choking her.
She took it off stealthily, and laid it on the moss at her feet. Then she took a bracelet—his gift also—from her arm. Then she drew off her engagement ring of diamonds and emeralds, and added it to the glittering heap. If only she could remove those other bonds as easily! And all the time she hated herself for the wish.
Mechanically she stooped down, and, taking the water in her hand, drank of it. She wished she might forget what had happened here, and the poisoned sweetness of glances and words during those months of last winter.
"I must forget—I must forget," she wailed, half aloud. "It lasted such a little while. There was no time for it to take hold upon my life."
And then her hands fell to her side, for there was a quick step beside her, and, turning, she saw Anthony Trevithick.