Carità

by Mrs. Oliphant

‘Yes,’ said Edward; ‘I don’t think my mother is a humbug—at least, yes, she is, in the way of kindness. She can’t bear that anyone should feel neglected—and yet she means it, too,’ he added, doubtfully looking up at the window, at which some of her visitors showed, for the day was very warm. Her friends had flooded back upon her, notwithstanding her recent widowhood. It was not like going into society, they all said. Society, indeed, went to her instead. To desert her in her troubles was not a friend’s part. The consequence of this doctrine was that her receptions were almost as crowded as ever, and that all who considered themselves her intimates were more punctual than ever they had been.

‘Ought we not to go?’ said Cara at last, and they turned and came out through the dusty bushes once more. The Square was not lovely in itself, but it looked like a garden of Eden to the two, when they had been walking in the cool of the day, like Adam and Eve, thinking of each other, talking, with little breaks and relapses into thoughts which were dangerous, but very sweet, of other things. Now they came out again, side by side. As they crossed the road, Roger Burchell joined them. He had been sent for, and had hurried up, poor fellow, to do his duty, and look for his lost sister. It was not a happy errand to begin with, nor was it exactly happiness for him to see Cara, though the thought of doing so had lent wings to his feet. He looked at her with a face full of suppressed agitation, longing and yet suspicious. This was not the Meredith he was afraid of—this was the one with whom he was rather in sympathy, the unfortunate one, like himself. But there was something in the looks of the two which hurt Roger and angered him, he could scarcely have told why.

He addressed Edward rather roughly. ‘If you are going after them, tell me,’ he said, with a hoarse tone in his voice, ‘or I will do it. There is no time to lose.’

‘I am waiting only for the train,’ said Edward. It was a valid excuse enough, and poor Roger felt that he might have waited hours for the train without being amused meantime in this heavenly fashion. The gate of the garden was at some little distance from the house, close to the thoroughfare which passed along the end of the Square. They could see along this line of road as they turned to go back.

‘We must go for Mr. Beresford,’ Edward was saying. ‘He was to go with us first to the House.’

Here he stopped short, open-mouthed, and the others stopped too, by that curious instinct which makes one man share in the startled sensations of his companion, without knowing what they mean. They were both startled like Edward. A carriage had drawn up within a little distance, and two people were getting out of it. Cara’s eye, following Edward’s, reached this little group. She ran forward, with a low cry. The new-comers, seeing nobody, occupied with themselves, advanced steadily. They came up to the corner of the Square. Just within that comparative stillness, they too started and stopped, he facing the others boldly, with smiles on his face, she drooping, blushing, trembling, with her hand on his arm.

‘Oswald! for heaven’s sake, who is this lady?’ cried Edward, stepping in advance. The others waited with equal eagerness, though they knew very well who she was.

‘Edward, my good fellow, you must make much of her,’ said Oswald. He was really moved, and his gay voice faltered. ‘You and Cara—We want you and Cara to make up our happiness. This is my wife.’

Though it was the public road, or, at least, the corner of the Square, Cara rushed forward and threw herself upon Agnes, who, red as a rose, with downcast face and eyes that could not bear the light, stood on her trial, as it were. Edward put out one hand to her and another to his brother, without saying a word. He came, unthinking, between Roger and his sister.

‘You and Cara.’ He and Cara; nothing to say to the brother, who stood behind, red and lowering, looking on, noticed by no one, like a stranger. The two pairs fell together as by nature; Roger was the one who was left out. Is it not the very essence of all youthful story, even of all childish games, that someone should be left out? The little girl in the sun-bonnet in the Square garden could have produced half a dozen instances—that there is no fun without this; from puss in the corner upwards, the situation is invariable. But the left-out one does not see the fun. Roger stood, and changed into all manner of colours. He was not wanted. He and Agnes—he and Cara; for himself nobody, no companion, no notice, no share in it all. To take it sentimentally and sadly, and turn away, in all the dignity of the neglected, is one way; to be angry and resent is another. Roger, who felt the hot blood tingling down to his very finger-points, chose the latter. He made a step forward, pushing Edward aside, even thrusting aside Cara, and seized his sister roughly by the arm.