He that will not when he may; vol. I

by Mrs. Oliphant

“The West Indies!” Was it possible that Sir William started so much as to shake the pony carriage in which he sat? A cloud came suddenly over his serene countenance. He did not say, as Alice fancied he would, “I know nothing about the West Indies.” On the contrary, he paused, cleared his throat, and asked in a curiously restrained, yet agitated voice, “What does he—call himself?—what is his name?”

Alice was half alarmed by the effect she had produced. She did not understand it. She wanted to soften and do away with any disagreeable impression.

“Oh, he is very nice,” she said. “It is not any one you will mind, papa. And he is all right; he is in the Army List; we looked him up at once; we took every precaution; and there he was, just as he said, J. St. John Lenny, 50th West India Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel. After that, of course, and when he said he had known you so well, we could not hesitate any more.”

“Lenny!” Sir William said. It was with a tone of relief. He drew a long breath “as if he had expected something much worse,” Alice said afterwards. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. To be sure it was a warm evening. But there was something very strange to the girl in her father’s agitation. She did not understand it—he who was always so calm, who never allowed anything to put him out.

“Then were you really in the West Indies, papa?”

“I was in a great many places in my youth,” he said. “I was not taken care of as my boys have been. I was the youngest, and I did pretty much as I liked—a bad thing,” he added, after a pause; “a very bad thing, though you children never understand it. It led me into places and among people whose very names I seem to have forgotten now.”

There was a pause. Alice was very curious, but she did not venture to say more. She did not like even to look at her father who was so unusually disturbed. What could make him so unlike himself? The idea that there might be a mystery in Sir William’s life was more than impossible, it was ludicrous. She tried to fix her attention upon the ponies, who were going so beautifully. Then her ear was caught by the steady roll of wheels coming after them. Certainly it was the fly from the village; and certainly it was following on to the gates of the Chase which were now in sight. This was not the way to the vicarage or to any other house to which a stranger who had stopped at the station of Markham Royal could be going. She had not really believed it possible that the lady in the pink bonnet could be coming to the Chase; but now it seemed almost certain. What could be the meaning of it? Her heart jumped up into sudden excitement. She nourished her whip and touched the ponies till they flew. She could not bear the heavy rolling of that fly, a long way behind, yet always following with the steadiness of fate. This distracted her thoughts at once from her father, and a thousand conjectures rushed into the girl’s head. Could it be somebody from Paul? The fly came pounding heavily along, nothing stopping it. What could she do to stop it or conjure its passenger away? If it was bad news that was coming in it, what doubt that it would arrive quite safely? Paul! what could a woman in a pink bonnet have to do with Paul? Could he be ill? Could he be going to marry somebody, to do something foolish? Alice became herself so excited that she could not think of her father. And her father for his part took little notice of Alice. His mind was full of thoughts that would have been very incomprehensible, very startling to her. The stranger’s name had fallen upon him in his tranquillity as a stone falls into still waters. The calm surface of his mind was all broken, filled with widening and ever-widening circles of recollection. He felt dizzy like a man in a dream. The past was so long past, that, thus suddenly recalled to him, after such an interval of years, Sir William had a moment of giddy uncertainty as to whether it had actually existed at all, whether it was not a mere fable, something he had read in a book. Forty years ago—is a man responsible for things he did forty years ago? Can he be blamed if he forgets them? Can he be expected to remember? He who was so systematic, so careful, who never lost anything, who had for years been in a position to set every one else right: was it possible that he had once been foolish as other men? He himself did not understand it. He could not believe it. Lenny? Yes, he remembered there had been a man—the West Indies—ah, yes! things had passed there which he would not care now to talk about, which had been forgotten, which were to him as if they had never been. Had they ever been? he could scarcely tell. The ponies skimmed along the road, the bells jingled, the gates of the house were in sight, another minute and they would have reached the avenue. And then—instead of his gentle wife, and his innocent children, and universal respect, service, comfort, and worship of every kind, would it be the past in bodily presence that would have to be encountered, painful explanations, revelations, which might make a sudden rending asunder of the beauty and the happiness of life? Sir William wiped his forehead again as they turned in at the gate to the shelter of the familiar trees.

And still there was the dull rumbling of the fly behind. He did not so much as hear it, having been swept away on this torrent of thought. But Alice cast a troubled glance behind as she turned round to go in at the open gate, and made sure that it was coming after her. The girl’s head was buzzing and her heart throbbing with mingled fear and excitement. “Would you mind driving up the avenue yourself, papa? I have something to say to Mrs. Lowry at the gate,” she said, faltering. Her father scarcely seemed to hear her; he said, “Go on, go on,” with an impatient wave of his hand. She knew nothing about his alarms, nor he about hers. Perhaps, after all, the anxious desire of Alice to intercept what her hasty imagination had concluded to be a messenger of evil had something in it of that eager youthful curiosity which burns to forestall every new event. But if so disappointment was her fate. The little carriage flashed on under the trees and through the slanting lines of sunshine in a breathless silence, both its occupants being far too much absorbed to speak. Half way up the avenue two figures were visible advancing towards them. Lady Markham had been joined by Colonel Lenny a few minutes before. They stood aside, one on each side of the road as the pony-carriage came up. And here on every other occasion Sir William had got down and walked back with his wife to the house. It was part of the formula of his return, which was never omitted. This time, however, when Alice drew up her impatient ponies, he greeted his wife without moving from the carriage.

“We have had a very tedious, dusty journey,” he said. “I will go home at once, my love, pardon me, and shake my dust off.”

Lady Markham, in the midst of her anxiety, grew pale with surprise at this unusual proceeding. She pressed close to the side of the little carriage—“William,” she said, “do you know who it is that is with me?”