‘I suppose,’ said Beresford, with a long-drawn breath of mingled pain and anger, ‘this was what Cherry meant. I could not make her out. She is in it too. Have you all laid your heads together and consulted what was the thing that would pain me most—the most susceptible point left?’
Maxwell made no direct reply. ‘If Miss Cherry has spoken to you, Beresford, you know your sister,’ he said. ‘She would not hurt a fly—much less you, whom she holds in such high respect; and she would not think evil readily—would she, now? If she has spoken, you must understand that there is something in it. Listen, my dear fellow. There are things that must be done and left undone in this world for the sake of the fools in it merely. You know that as well as I do. Say the fools ought to be defied and crushed if you like, but in reality we have all to consider them. The people of bad imaginations and low minds and mean views really make the laws for the rest of the world. We can’t help it. For ourselves it might not matter; but for those who are dear to us—for those who are less independent than we——’
Again there was a pause. Beresford sat with his elbows on the table and bit his nails savagely. In this painful amusement there seemed a certain relief. He stared straight before him, seeing nothing. At last he turned round sharply upon the doctor, who, with his head bent down, still sat scribbling without any ink with the old stump of the pen in his hand. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘Beresford, I did not come here to dictate to you. I came simply to call your attention——’
‘Oh, let us not quibble about words! Dictation! yes, and something more than dictation. Of course I am helpless before the plea you bring up. Of course I have nothing to do but submit, if there is any question of annoyance to—— Low minds and bad imaginations, indeed! That anyone should suggest the most distant possibility, the shadow of a reproach!’
‘We suggest nothing of the sort, Beresford. We suggest only a most simple precaution—a rule ordinarily observed.’
He made a gesture of impatience, stopping further explanation, and again for two minutes, which looked like an hour, the two men sat silent together, not, it may be supposed, with any increase of friendliness towards each other in their thoughts. Perhaps, however, it was only on the side of the reproved that this feeling was really strong. The reprover was compunctious and eager to do anything he could to conciliate. He kept a furtive watch upon his victim as he scribbled. Beresford had retreated within that most invulnerable of all fortresses—silence, and sat, still biting his nails, staring into the vacant air, neither by word nor look making any communication of his thoughts. Nothing is more difficult than to maintain a silence like this; the least absorbed of the two engaged in the passage of arms comes to feel after a time that he must speak or die—and what to say? More upon the same subject might lessen the impression already made, and to introduce another subject would be impossible. When the pause had lasted as long as possibility permitted, Maxwell got up, put the pen slowly back in the tray from which it had strayed, tossed the piece of paper he had been scribbling upon into the waste-basket, gathered up his gloves, his stick, his hat. Nothing could be more slow and hesitating than all these preparations for departure, which were somewhat ostentatious at the same time, by way of calling the attention of Beresford, and perhaps drawing forth something more. ‘I must be going,’ he said at last, holding out his hand. ‘I hope you won’t think me—unfriendly, Beresford, in anything I have said.’
‘Good morning,’ said the other, sullenly; then he made a visible effort to command himself and rose up, but slowly, putting out his hand. ‘Very likely not,’ he said. ‘I don’t say it was unfriendly. You would not have taken such a disagreeable office on yourself if you had meant unkindness, No; I suppose I should thank you, but it is rather hard to do it. Good-by.’
There was no more said. Maxwell went away, not feeling very victorious or proud of himself. Was not he a fool to have undertaken it in order to prevent scandal, he said to himself, in order to save a woman from annoyance, in order to help James Beresford out of trouble—a man whom he had liked, and from whom he had been estranged? What business had he to meddle with other people’s business? This, I fear, was his reflection, as it has been the reflection of so many who have strained a point to aid a friend, and whose self-denial has not been appreciated. ‘Catch me doing such a foolish thing again,’ he said to himself.
As for Beresford, he resumed his seat and his thoughts when the other was gone. Those thoughts were hot within him, and full of pain. He who, even when this messenger of evil arrived, had been thinking with faithful love of his wife; he whose life had been made a desert by her dying, whose whole existence was changed, who had not cared for years what became of him, because of that loss—to be met by this unjust and insane reproval as soon as he had screwed his courage to the sticking-place, and resumed his natural position in his own house. It had been a hard thing to do; at every corner he had expected to meet her—in the silence he had fancied he heard her calling him—the whole house was full of her, echoing with her steps and her voice. Yet he had schooled himself to come back, to resume so much as remained to him of life under his own roof—so much as remained, not thinking of years, but of value and merit. He was not of very much use to anyone, nor had he been much missed, perhaps, except in the working of the societies, and there were so many people who could do that. But he had been patient and come back, and established himself ‘at home,’ because it was his duty. He had not shrunk from his duty. And this was his reward. His one source of soft consolation—the one gentle friend on whose constant sympathy he could reckon—who made this life of endurance supportable to him, and kept him up by kind words, by understanding his wants and troubles—she was to be taken from him. He got up, and walked up and down his room, and then went to the window and looked blankly out. Almost without knowing what it was, he saw a brougham come to the next door, and old Mr. Sommerville step out of it, and enter Mrs. Meredith’s house. He had gone to warn her, to disturb the sweet composure of her mind, to embitter all her thoughts. Beresford turned round, and began to walk up and down more and more hotly. Could anything in the world be more innocent? He asked, nay, he wanted, nothing more of her. To go and sit by her now and then (this was how he characterized his long and daily visits), what was there in that to justify this insulting demand upon him? He lashed himself up into a fury when he thought of it. He, the truest of mourners, and she, the least frivolous of women. If ever there was a true friendship, full of support and mutual comfort, this was the one. And now, at the pleasure of a set of wretched gossips, ill-minded men, disagreeable women, was this gentle makeshift and substitute for domestic happiness to be torn from him? And how—good heavens, how?