"Then Mr. Berwick won't be able to be here so much. Miss Vipen tells me that the village people all think he must be in love with Mrs. Rebell!"
Mrs. Boringdon's words had an effect very different from what she had intended them to have. They drew from her son neither assent nor denial, but they confirmed and made real to him certain facts from which he had shrunk, and which he had tried to persuade himself did not exist. For five long weeks he had been alive to the knowledge that Berwick was continually with Barbara—in fact, that he was with her whenever he chose to be, excepting during those few moments when he, Boringdon, was grudgingly allowed to have a few minutes' talk, generally in the presence of some third person, with the invalid. The state of things at the Priory had made the young man so wretched, so indignant, that more than once he had felt tempted to attack Doctor McKirdy. What did they all mean by allowing James Berwick to behave as if he were Mrs. Rebell's brother instead of a mere acquaintance?
And so Mrs. Boringdon's words spurred her son to do that which he had hoped would not be necessary. They showed him that the time had come for a clear explanation between himself and Berwick. He told himself that the latter would probably be surprised to learn how his constant visits to the Priory were regarded; still, the matter could not be to him one of vital concern, and when once the man who had been for so many years his friend told him how matters stood, he would surely leave Chancton.
Boringdon thought he knew only too well James Berwick's peculiar moral code; certain things he might be trusted not to do. Thus, Oliver had heard him speak with condemnation of the type of man who makes love to a happily-married woman, or who takes advantage of his amatory science to poach on an intimate's preserves. Surely he would withdraw from this strange sentimental friendship with Barbara Rebell the moment it was made clear to him that she would soon be free,—free to be wooed and won by any honest man, and, as a matter of fact, already loved by Boringdon, his friend of so many years' standing? Accordingly, after a day or two of painful hesitation, Oliver wrote a note, more formal in its wording than usual, and asked Berwick for an appointment.
He received his answer—life is full of such ironies—in Mrs. Rebell's presence, on the day when she was allowed to take her first drive in the little French brougham, which, as Boringdon noted with jealous eyes, had been sent over for her use from Chillingworth. Oliver happened to come up to the porch of the Priory as Berwick was actually settling her and the grim Scotchwoman, Jean, into the carriage. Barbara was flushed and smiling—a happy light in her eyes. "I'm so sorry to be going out just now," she cried, "Will you come to tea this afternoon, Mr. Boringdon? Miss Kemp is coming, and I shall be down in the Blue drawing-room for the first time. To-day is a day of first times!"
Then Berwick turned round: "I didn't answer your note because I thought I should almost certainly be seeing you to-day. Would you like to come over to Chillingworth this evening? Come to dinner, and we can have a talk afterwards——"
But Boringdon answered quickly: "Thanks, I won't come to dinner, I'll turn up about nine."
And now Berwick sat waiting for Boringdon in the room where he had spent the rest of the night after his drive with Barbara from Halnakeham Castle.
He was in that delightful state of mind which comes so rarely to thinking mortals,—when the thinker wishes to look neither backwards nor forwards. It was worth while to have gone through all he had gone through, to have won such weeks as had been his! Nay more, he was in the mood to tell himself that he would be content were life to go on as it was now for ever and a day, were his relations with Mrs. Rebell to remain as close, as tender—ay, even as platonic—as they had been during that strange period of her convalescence. With what emotion, with what sympathy she had described to him her interview with Lord Bosworth; there had been such complete comprehension of his attitude, such keen distress that Madame Sampiero had repulsed him!