“In that case we will not say anything more on the subject, Mr. Fairfax; you cannot expect us to agree with you,” she said. “Good-bye. I will tell mamma you have called.”
She turned away from him as she spoke, then cast a glance at him from under her eyelids, angry yet relenting. They stood for a moment like the lovers in Molière, eying each other timidly, sadly—but there was no one to bring them together, to say the necessary word in the ear of each. Poor Fairfax uttered a sigh so big that it seemed to move the branches round. He said—
“Good-bye then, Miss Markham; won’t you shake hands with me before I go?”
“Good-bye,” said Alice faintly. She wanted to say something more, but what could she say? Another moment and he was gone altogether, hurrying down the avenue.
“Oh, how nasty you were to poor Mr. Fairfax,” cried Bell. “And he was always so kind. Don’t you remember, Marie, how he ran all the way in the rain to fetch the doctor? even George wouldn’t go. He said he couldn’t take a horse out, and was frightened of the thunder among the trees; but Mr. Fairfax only buttoned his coat and flew.”
“The boys said,” cried little Marie, “that they were sure he would win the mile—in a moment——”
“Oh, children,” cried Alice, “what do you know about it? you will break my heart talking such nonsense—when there is so much trouble in the house. I am going in to mamma.”
But things were not much better there, for she found Lady Markham with Fairfax’s card in her hand, which she was reading with a great deal of emotion. “Put it away with the letters,” Lady Markham said. They had kept all the letters which they received after Sir William’s death by themselves in the old despatch-box which had always travelled with him wherever he went, and which now stood—with something of the same feeling which might have made them appropriate the greenest paddock to his favourite horse—in Lady Markham’s room. Some of them were very “beautiful letters.” They had been dreadful to receive morning by morning, but they were a kind of possession—an inheritance now.
“Put it with the letters,” Lady Markham said; “any one could see that his very heart was in it. He knew your dear father’s worth; he was capable of appreciating him; and he knows what a loss we have had. Poor boy—I will never forget his kindness—never as long as I live.”
“But, mamma,” said Alice, loyal still though her heart was melting, “you know you thought it very strange of Mr. Fairfax to take that horrid little man’s part against Paul.”