Mary, for some little time past, had been believing her punishment complete. Now, as Mrs Greville spoke, she realised that it had not been so. She had been cruel to Alys; she had allowed her own feelings—her mortification at the past, her proud terror of possible misapprehension in the future—to override what was the clearest and plainest of duties. “I am not worthy to be called a friend,” she said to herself, and tears filled her eyes as she turned to Mrs Greville.
“Thank you,” she said, gently, “for what you have said. It will not have been in vain.”
And Mrs Greville kissed and told her if she were proud and prejudiced, she was also honest and magnanimous. And then the good lady drove herself home in her pony-carriage with a comfortable feeling of self-satisfaction, and a vague, not unpleasing suspicion that she might turn out to have been a sort of “Deus ex machinâ,” or “benevolent fairy god-mother, we’ll say,” she added to herself, not feeling quite sure of the Latin of the first phrase, or that it did not savour a little of profanity, “just to give a little shove to affairs at the right moment.”
All day Mary thought and thought over what she should do. Could she get to see Alys, now at the eleventh hour, for the Cheviotts, if they had not already done so, must be on the eve of quitting Romary for the winter? Should she write to Mrs Greville and ask her to convey some message? Should she—so many months had passed since she had seen Alys that a little further delay could be of small consequence—should she wait for an opportunity of seeing Lilias, and asking her to explain? To explain what, and how? Ah! no. Explanation of any kind was impossible, and the necessity for it she had nothing but her own foolish conduct to thank for. At last—“I will attempt no explanation, no excuse, or palliation,” she decided, “Alys is generosity itself. I will trust her by asking her to trust me.” And that same evening she wrote to her a few simple words, which she felt to be all she could say.
“My dear Alys,” she said, “will you forgive me? I see now that I have made a grievous mistake, done a wrong and cruel thing in never going to see you all this time. This knowledge has come to me suddenly and startlingly, and I cannot rest till I write to you. I cannot explain to you what has distorted my way of seeing things, but I ask you to forgive me, and to believe that, selfishly and unkindly as I have acted, there has not been a day, scarcely an hour, since we were together in which I have not thought of you.
“Yours affectionately,—
“Mary Western.”
And when this letter was written and sent, Mary felt happier than she had done for a long time. Was it all “the reward of a good conscience?” Was there not deep down, unrecognised, in a corner of her “inner consciousness,” wherever that debatable land may be, a hope, a possibility of a hope rather, that Mrs Greville’s statement, to some extent, explained the change in Mr Cheviott’s manner? What if Alys, after all, had been the innocent marplot—suggesting to her brother in her disappointment that the “all coming right” of Lilias’s affairs had not resulted in a complete change of attitude on Mary’s part; that her dislike to him must be even deeper founded than could be explained by her misjudgment of his conduct towards her sister? What if they had both been at cross-purposes—each attributing to the other a prejudice that no longer existed—which, indeed, Mary had done nothing to remove his belief in on her part—which, as existing on his side towards her, she had imagined to have yielded temporarily to what he himself had described as an “infatuation,” but to return with tenfold strength?
All this she did not say to herself in distinct words, but the suggestion had taken root in her heart, and was not to be dislodged. And though days grew into weeks before there came from Alys an answer to her letter, Mary went about through those weeks with lightened steps and hopeful eyes. She could not distrust Alys, she told herself; and her mother, seeing her so cheerful, congratulated herself that Mary was “getting over” the loss of Lilias, which she had been beginning to fear had greatly depressed her.
Alys’s letter, when it did come, was all that Mary had expected and more, much more than she felt herself to have deserved.
“I will not ask you to explain anything,” wrote Alys, “I am more than satisfied. I cannot tell you what a change it makes in my life to be able to look forward to seeing you as much and as often as you can be spared to me. It will help me to be patient, and to try to get strong again. I am likely to be much alone when we return to England, for Laurence is thinking of letting Romary and taking a house for me somewhere not very far from town. He seems to have taken a dislike to a country life, and says he thinks he would be better if he had ‘more to do.’ I cannot agree with him that such a thing is possible, for I have never known him idle for half an hour.”
Mary gave a little sigh as she folded up the letter—that was all. And soon after came on the time for the family move to Bournemouth, and with a strange feeling of regret she again said good-bye to Hathercourt.