“This rainy weather has knocked poor Charles over altogether,” he said, “and I’m going to fetch Bowles. He always gets moped when he can’t go out. Ah, Anthony, in old days you would have been up to see us long ago.”
There was a little tone of sadness in Mr Robert’s cheery voice, which Anthony detected in a moment, and it may have been a proof that the young man’s own troubles were no longer hardening him, that it touched him in the way it did.
“The old days—?” he said, his words almost failing him. Mr Robert looked at him in an odd, questioning way.
“My dear fellow,” he said, putting out his hand and grasping Anthony’s, “I’m ready to admit that I didn’t stand by you as stoutly as you’d a right to expect, and I ask your pardon for it. If you knew the story of my life, for even red-faced old bachelors have stories, perhaps you’d see some sort of reason for my feeling about it. But then we none of us take what we don’t see for granted.” Anthony was utterly shamed and overcome. “Don’t, don’t!” he said, putting up his hand to his face, for he had a generous temper, quick to respond to kindness, and he felt now, somehow, as if he had been in the wrong throughout. Mr Robert went on in his kind grave voice,—
“Perhaps I’d no claim to it, but I wish you could have treated me as your friend, and let me know how matters stood exactly. You’ll not be angry at my saying that I guess now what a painful position you were in. I’m not sure that you were right, mind you, but I am sure that not one man in twenty would have behaved as you did.”
He wrung his hand again, and went on. The two men understood each other at last; it is sometimes a little odd to think how a few minutes and a word or two will mend or mar enough for a lifetime. Things did not seem quite so sad to Anthony after that little interview. He would try to do what was right to Ada, to everybody. The bitterness which made him refuse to accept friendship, because it had disappointed him once, was gone; for he had been too blind himself to demand that others should see perfectly, and he felt as if he owed them all amends, if only for the sake of Winifred, whom he had so misjudged.
Chapter Thirty Five.
That winter dragged heavily to more than one of those whose stories I have been telling in a broken one-sided fashion enough. Anthony, one of whose failings, perhaps, was the procrastination which is often joined to a certain eager impetuosity, was going on from day to day without taking a decided step as to his marriage. The spring had been the time originally proposed; and though at one time he had been disposed to hasten matters, his wish had received a check which he had not forgotten. Ada, indeed, did not encourage him to press it. She had lost her old brightness, and the constant smiles were exchanged for a kind of listless irritability, which sometimes broke out into querulous complaint. Nothing had been heard of Mr Warren since he had left them; it seemed as if the young man were trying to forget Underham, or were ashamed of his feelings. At Hardlands life was very quiet. Mrs Orde was doing her best to act as a mother to the two girls; people said how fortunate it was that she was able to live with them, which was true enough; and yet poor Winifred sometimes wondered how many little jars and frets had grown into her life. Frank Orde, who was there again soon after Easter, sometimes wondered sadly, too. His step-mother was a true-hearted woman, full of practical common-sense, but there was a want of sympathy between her and Winifred which could not be explained. The girl was always admiring her and blaming herself for it, but it is probable that it was one of those contrarieties which could hardly have been otherwise. There are people who, quite unconsciously, seem to place us at a disadvantage. We may like them, even love them, but it is from some force of circumstances: they destroy our ease, banish our ideas, and reduce us in some strange fashion to nonentities. Winifred used to puzzle herself by trying to think how this could be. She had a strong sweet nature, to which people turned instinctively for help, but she would shrink at some little speech of her aunt’s which yet was quite free from any sting of unkindness. The fear of bringing it down upon herself would often hamper her, even prevent her from doing what she longed to do. One is struck sometimes by the boundaries with which certain lives are hedged in. They seem so small, a word, an allusion,—perhaps no more than a thread, and yet the thread is as impassable as any fence. Frank Orde, who loved Winifred with all his heart, used to wonder sadly, as I have said, at the want of harmony between the two women who were to him the best and dearest in the world. Perhaps, if he had but known it, here was a little unfolding of the riddle, a touch of jealousy making the mother cold and sarcastic. It was not much, but it caused Winifred’s life to be a little harder than it need have been, at a time when it was hard enough, poor child!