When I joined Mrs. Ellmer and her daughter that evening, I found that the former lady was oppressed by the conviction that 'something had happened,' something interesting of which there was an evil design abroad to keep her in ignorance. She had been questioning Babiole I felt sure, and getting no satisfactory replies; for while there was a suspicious halo of pale rose-colour—which in my sight did not detract from her beauty—about the younger lady's eyes, her mother made various touching references to the cruelty of want of confidence, and at last, after several tentative efforts, got on the right track by observing that my 'young lady' was not very exacting, since I had not been near her that day. This remark set both her daughter and me blushing furiously, and Mrs. Ellmer, figuratively speaking, gave the 'view halloo.' After a very short run I was brought to earth, and confessed that—er—Miss Farington and I—er—had had a—in fact a disagreement—a mere lover's quarrel. It would soon blow over—but just at present—that is for a day or two, why——
Mrs. Ellmer interrupted my laboured explanation with a delighted and shrill little giggle.
'And so you've had a quarrel! Well, really, Mr. Maude, as an old friend, you must allow me to take this opportunity—before you make it up again, you know—to tell you that really I think you are throwing yourself away.'
The truth was that the poor little woman had been smarting, ever since Miss Farington's visit, from the supercilious scorn with which that well-informed young lady had treated her. I protested, but very mildly; for, indeed, to hear a little gentle disapprobation of my late too matter-of-fact love gave me no acute pain.
'I wouldn't for the world have said anything before, you know, for if, of course, a person's love affairs are not his own business, whose are they? But having known you so long, I really must say, now that I can open my lips without indiscretion, that the moment I saw that stuck-up piece of affectation I said to myself: "She must have asked him!"'
I assured Mrs. Ellmer that was not the case, but she paid little heed to my contradiction. She had relieved her feelings, that was the great thing, and it was with recovered calmness that she inquired after the friends who had made my yearly shooting party in the old times. I knew little more of them than she did; for that last gathering, when Fabian won my pretty witch's heart, had indeed been the farewell meeting predicted by Maurice Brown. That young author having shocked the public with one exceedingly nasty novel, had followed it up by another which would have shocked them still more if they had read it; this, however, they refrained from doing with a unanimity which might have proved disastrous to his reputation if a well-known evening paper had not offered him a good berth as a sort of inspector of moral nuisances, a post which the clever young Irishman filled with all the requisite zeal and indiscretion. As for Mr. Fussell, he had done well for himself in the city, and now leased a shooting-box of his own. While Edgar, my dear old friend and chum, had fallen back into the prosperous ranks of the happily married, and was now less troubled by political ambition than by a tendency to grow fat.
The ten days which followed the rupture of my engagement to Miss Farington passed in a great calm, troubled only by a growing sense of dread, both to Babiole and me, of what was to come after. She got well rapidly, quite well, as nervous emotional creatures do when once the moral atmosphere about them is right. For it was the loving sympathy of every living being round her, from her mother down—or up to Ta-ta, which worked the better part of her cure, though I admit that the hills and the fir-trees and the fresh sweet air had their share in it. She went out every day, sometimes with her mother and me, oftener with me and Ta-ta, as Mrs. Ellmer's strong dislike to walking exercise did not decrease as the years rolled on. As for Babiole, I thank God that the pleasure of those walks in the crisp air up the hills and through the glens was unallayed for her. The tarnish which want of warmth and sympathy had breathed on her childlike and trusting nature was wearing off; and her old faith in the companion to whom she had graciously given a place in her heart as the incarnation of kindness had only grown the stronger for the glimpses she had lately had of something deeper underneath. I even think that in the languid and irresponsible convalescence of her heart and mind from the wounds her unlucky marriage had dealt to both, she cherished a superstitious feeling that now I had returned from my travels it would come all right, and that I should be able to mend the defects of the marriage by another exercise of the magical skill which had brought it about. So she chattered or sang or was silent at her pleasure, as we walked between the now bare hedges beside the swollen Dee, or climbed on a thick carpet of rustling brown oak leaves up Craigendarroch, and noticed how day by day the mantle of snow on Lochnagar grew wider and ampler, and how the soft wail of the wind among the fir-trees in summer-time had grown into an angry and threatening roar, as if already hungering for those days and nights of loud March when the tempest would tear up the young saplings from the mountain-sides like reeds and hurl them down pell-mell over the decaying trunks which already choked up the hill-paths, and told of the storms of past years. She would look into my face from time to time to see if I was happy, for she had got the trick of reading through that ugly mask; if the look satisfied her, she either talked or was silent as she pleased, but if she fancied she detected the least sign of a cloud, she never rested until, by sweet words and winning looks, she had driven it away.
I, poor devil, was of course happy after a very different fashion. The blood has not yet cooled to any great extent at six and thirty, and blue eyes that have haunted you for seven years lose none of their witchery at that age, when the demon Reason throws his weight into the scale on the side of Evil, and tells you that the years are flitting by, carrying away the time for happiness, and that the beauty which steeps you to the soul in longing has been left unheeded by its possessor like a withered flower. But Babiole's perfect confidence was her safeguard and mine, and like the wind among the pines, I kept my tumults within due bounds. I was, however, occasionally distressed by a consideration for which I had never cared a straw before—what the neighbours would say. If I, an indifferent honest man, really had some trouble in keeping unworthy thoughts and impulses down within me, what sort of conduct these carrion-hunting idiots would ascribe to a man, whom they looked upon as an importer of foreign vices and the type of all that was godless and lawless, was pretty evident. They would all, in a commonplace chorus, take the part of the commonplace Miss Farington, and unite in condemnation of poor Babiole. Now no man likes to let the reputation of his queen of the earth be pulled to pieces by a cackling crew of idiots, and, therefore, though I had not enough strength of mind to suggest giving up those treasured walks, I began, torn by my struggling feelings, to look forward feverishly to the letter which Fabian had promised to send off as soon as he knew on what date he would be free to come north. His wife herself showed no eagerness.
'He is the very worst of correspondents,' she said. 'He will probably write a letter to say he is coming just before starting, post it at one of the last stations he passes through, and arrive here before it.'
It did not comfort me to learn thus that he might come at any moment. My conscience was pretty clear, but I wanted to have a fair notice of his arrival, that I might receive him in such a manner as to prepare the peccant husband for the desperately earnest sermon I had made up my mind to preach him on what his wife called neglect, but what I felt sure was infidelity.