‘So that is it!’ said Miss Charity. She was not quite decorous in all her ways, but took the privilege of her age, and often shocked her more scrupulous niece. She uttered a sound which was not unlike a low whistle of mingled astonishment and amusement. ‘So that is what it is! These men with broken hearts are incroyable, Cherry. And will she have him, I wonder?’
‘Have him?’ Miss Cherry echoed, with something which from her gentle lips was like scorn. She was over severe in this case as naturally as in other cases she was over-charitable. ‘She had not seen her husband for I don’t know how many years—there cannot be any very great grief on his account. And James goes there—every night.’
‘Ah! but I wonder if they’ll care to marry,’ said the old lady—‘that’s different—I should think they would prefer not to marry——’
‘Aunt Charity! James may be weak but he is not wicked. He would not do such a thing——’
‘You are a little old maid, and you don’t know anything about it,’ cried Miss Charity, peremptorily. She was an old maid herself, to speak by the book—but she thought she did understand. Miss Cherry said nothing of her other trouble. She went and got her knitting meekly, and settled down in the old way as if she had never left the Hill. Well! it was home, and this was her natural life—but when her old aunt, who was now quite strong again, went briskly out to the garden to look after the flowers and her gardener, Miss Cherry let her hands fall into her lap, and felt the stillness penetrate to her soul. The troubles of the Square, the commotions and displeasures, Cara who would not open her heart—saucy Oswald who smiled in her face and defied her—poor Edward with his disappointment, and even James, who according to all appearance was going to marry again;—how angry she had been with them! how she had felt their different faults, crying to herself bitterly over them—and yet how she missed them! That was life—this—this was home—which was quite a different thing. It was very wicked of her, very ungrateful to God who had given her such a lovely house, such a good kind aunt, nobody to trouble or disturb her; very ungrateful, very wicked. Had she not everything that heart could desire? and peace and quiet to enjoy it. Miss Cherry acknowledged all this—and cried. How still it was! nothing moving, nothing happening—and yet, ungrateful woman, to be so well off and not to appreciate it! What could she wish for more?—indeed, Mrs. Burchell thought that she had a great deal too much, and that it was sinful for an unmarried woman without a family to be so well off as Miss Cherry was.
Meantime Cara, left alone in the Square, fell into all the melancholy of her beginning. Oswald still came to see her from time to time in the morning, confiding to her all the steps of his progress, and receiving sometimes her sympathy, sometimes reproof, sometimes what they both called ‘advice.’ Though she had very good cause to be angry with him, yet it was very difficult to be angry with Oswald—for though he was so self-regarding, he was too light-hearted to be stigmatised with the harsher quality of selfishness. It came to the same thing often, but yet the name seemed too harsh. And he was Cara’s only friend. She had not had time to form many acquaintanceships, and she was too shy to go by herself to return the calls, or even to accept the invitations of the people she did know. How was she to go anywhere? Her father took no interest, asked no questions—and Mrs. Meredith was no longer the confidant of everything that happened, to arrange all for her. Therefore she refused the invitations, and shrank more and more into her corner. Between her and Mrs. Meredith a great gulf had risen. Who had caused it or what had caused it no one could tell—but there it lay, separating them, causing embarrassment when they met, and driving them daily further and further apart. Mrs. Meredith was angry with Cara as Miss Cherry was. She saw no sense, no meaning, in the concealment which she too believed in; and it had done a positive wrong to Edward, who never, she felt sure, would have permitted himself to go so far had the position been definitely settled. Edward had resumed his work with greater energy than ever. He was going forward now for his final examination, after which very little interval was left. His mother could not think of it without tears. One of her two boys was thus lost to her—the half of her fortune so to speak, and more than the half, for Edward had gradually assumed all the kindly offices which Oswald had been too much self-occupied to undertake—and it was all Cara’s fault. Thus they blamed each other, not saying a word except in their own hearts—as women will do, I suppose, till the end of time. Mrs. Meredith would have allowed, had you pressed her, that Oswald too was wrong; but in her heart she never thought of his fault, only of Cara’s. It was Cara who had done it—a little frankness on her part, natural confidence in one who was to be her mother, and who was so willing (Mrs. Meredith said to herself with genuine feeling) to accept that office, and care for the child and her comforts; how much evil might have been avoided had Cara possessed this quality, so winning in young people! Then Oswald would have been drawn closer to, instead of separated as he now seemed, from his family—then Edward would have checked himself in time, and his thoughts would have travelled in some other direction. All Cara’s fault! With a real ache in her heart at the thought of the mischief done, this was what the elder woman thought. So that when Cara withdrew, wounded, and sad, and angry at the position in which she found herself, Mrs. Meredith made no effort to call her from her retirement. She was full of many reflections and questions of her own—and surely it was the part of the children to inform her of everything, to seek her consent, to conciliate her, not hers to do all this to them.
As for Edward he went no more to the house in which he had spent so many happy hours. Looking back at them now, how happy they seemed! No cloud seemed to have been on his sky when he sat there by the light of Cara’s lamp, reading to her, seeing her through all his reading, feeling the charm of her presence. In reality they had been full of very mingled pleasure, and often the bitterness involved had overbalanced the sweetness; but he did not remember that now that they were past—they seemed to have been all happiness, a happiness lost for ever. He made up for the loss, which seemed to have impoverished his whole life, by work. Fortunately he had lost ground which had to be recovered now, if he was to carry out his original intention about India—and he gave himself up to this with something like passion. All the evening through, in those hours which he used to spend with Cara, he worked, deadening himself, stupefying himself with this like a narcotic, exciting his brain to take the part of a counter-irritant against his heart. Now and then, if the poor young fellow paused for a moment, a sudden softness would steal over him, a recollection of the room next door with Miss Cherry counting her stitches on the other side of the fire—and the soft rose-reflection on Cara’s white dress. How could he defend himself against these remembrances? All at once, while his eyes were fixed on his book, this scene would come before him, and lines of exasperating verse would tingle through him—reminding him of Elaine, and how she ‘loved him with that love that was her doom.’ Thus some malicious spirit played upon the boy—
I loved you and my love had no return,
And therefore my true love has been my death.
No, he thought with a faint half-smile, it would not be his death. If such things happened once they did not happen now. It was not so easy to die. A man had got to live and make the best of it—to forget what was so near to him, yet so unattainable, and fix his thoughts on law-cases instead. This was the modern form of tragedy. To go and work, and to live, and do as other men did—yet never be as other men. Who does not know the poignant yet sweet misery that is in that thought: never to be as other men—to carry the wound all through one’s life—to be struck with a delicate arrow which would vibrate in the wound for ever! And then, with renewed zeal, he would plunge into his work. What notes he made, what reports he drew out, digests of the dreariest books, accounts of the dullest trials! I think he liked the dullest best; anything that was interesting, anything that had any humanity in it, seemed by some strange by-path or other to take him back to Cara. Poor boy! and then, when it suddenly occurred to him that Cara was alone on the other side of the wall, the book would fall out of his hand or the pen from his fingers. She was alone as he was alone. Oswald, who ought to bear her company, was away somewhere following his own fancies—her aunt was gone—and her father was here. Then Edward trembled in mind and in body, under the force of the temptation to go to her, to cheer her, whatever might happen to him. He seemed to see her, lonely in a corner. She had not even work to do as he had, to force her from herself. How the poor boy’s heart would beat!—but then—if she were his he knew he would not fear solitude, nor dislike having nothing to do—to think of her would keep him happy; and perhaps if she loved Oswald as Edward loved her—— This thought stung him back to his work again with greater energy than ever. Most likely she loved her solitude, which was sweet with recollections. Then there would break through all his law and all his labour a violent hot pulse of resentment. For Oswald’s sake!—who went wandering about, gay and light-hearted, from club to club, from dinner to dinner, and had not so much gratitude, so much decency, as to give one evening out of a dozen to her!
But Cara, as the reader knows, had not the consolation with which Edward credited her. Happiness of all kinds, she thought, had deserted her for ever. There was not even a fire to keep her company, to make her an imitation of a companion. If one could choose the time to be unhappy, it would be always best in winter, when one can cower over the glow of the fire, and get some comfort out of the warmth. It was like stealing away her last friend from her to take away her fire. When she sat in her usual place the dark fire-place seemed to glare at her like a kind of grave. And when she sat at the window, all the evening lights got into her eyes and drew tears, so sweet were they and wistful, even though it was but a London sky. Cara had once read a foolish little poem somewhere, in which the twilight was embodied in the form of a poor girl looking stealthily in at the open windows, to look for her lost lover, and sighing when she could not find him. At her age allegory is still beautiful—and the very dimness shadowed into visionary form about her, looking for something—for what? for happiness, that was lost and could not be found again, never could be found. She did not think any longer as she had done at first, with a half-superstitious tremor, of her mother who might be about, looking at her with anxious spiritual eyes, unable to make herself known. It was a lower level of thought upon which the girl had fallen; she had strayed from the high visionary ground, and had begun to think of herself. She wanted someone near, some voice, some touch, some soft words breaking the stillness; but these sweetnesses were not for her. By turns she too would study like Edward; but then she had no occasion to study, there was no bond of duty upon her. She read Elaine over again, poring over her book in the twilight, which was a congenial light to read by, and the same words which pursued Edward went thrilling through her also like the note of a nightingale floating through the dark—‘Loved him with that love that was her fate’—but how fortune favoured Elaine! what an end was hers! whereas there was nothing wonderful about poor little Cara, only a foolish mistake which she could not set right, which nobody cared enough about her to set right, and which must mar her whole life without remedy. The house was quite still as it had been before Miss Cherry came—but worse than that; for then there was no imbroglio, no web of falsehood about her poor little feet. Things had grown worse and worse for her as the days went on. She wrote little formal letters to the Hill saying that she and papa were quite well. She went out to take a walk every day with nurse, and according to the orders of that authority. She asked cook what there was to be for dinner, and agreed to it whatever it was. She made her father’s coffee in the morning, and was very quiet, never disturbing him, saying Yes or No, when he asked her any question—and sat at the other end of the table when he dined at home. He thought she was a very good little girl—not so clever as he had expected; but children so often grow up different from their promise—a very good little girl of the old-fashioned type, made to be seen and not heard. He had never been used to her, and did not require his child to sympathise with him or amuse him as some men do—and his mind was full of other things. It did occur to him as the summer went on that she was pale—‘I think you ought to see Maxwell, Cara,’ he said; ‘you are looking very colourless; write a little note, and ask him to come to put you to-rights.’