“The Rector says Paul must not go; that he ought to go into the Church and succeed to the living. Ah!” cried Lady Markham, “it is so easy to say ‘ought’ and ‘must not.’ And what can I say? that he will do what he thinks right, not what we think right. What does any one else matter? He will do—what he likes himself.”
Her voice was choked—her heart was very sore. Never had she breathed a word of censure upon Paul to other ears than perhaps those of Alice before. Her usual strength had forsaken her. And Alice, who was estranged and chilled, did not go near her mother. Dolly Stainforth had never been brought up to neglect her duties in this particular. Her business in life had always been with people who were in trouble; a kind of professional habit, so to speak, delivered her from shyness even when her own feelings were concerned. She went up quickly to the poor lady who was weeping, without restraint, and took her hand in those soft little firm hands which had held up so many. Not so much a shy girl full of great tenderness as a little celestial curate, devoted everywhere to the service of the sorrowful, she did not blush or hesitate, but with two big tears in her eyes spoke her consolation.
“Oh dear Lady Markham,” Dolly said, “are you not proud, are you not happy to know that it is only what he thinks right that he will do? What could any one say more? Papa does not know him as—as you do. He thinks he might be persuaded, though his heart would not be in it; but you—you would not have him do that? I—” said Dolly all unawares, betraying herself with a little sob in her throat and her voice sinking so low as almost to be inaudible—“I” (as if she had anything to do with it! strong emotion gave her such importance) “would rather he should go—than stay like that!”
Lady Markham clasped her fingers about those two little firm yet tremulous hands. It was the kind of consolation she wanted. She put up her face to kiss Dolly, who straightway broke down and cried, and was an angel-curate no longer. By this time herself had come in, and her own deep-seated, childish preference, which she had not known to be love. “Tch—tch—tch,” said the Rector under his breath, thinking within himself some common thought about the ridiculousness of women, even the best. But already there were other spectators who had seen and heard some portion of what was going on. It was the worst of Lady Markham’s pretty room that it was liable to be approached without warning. Alice suddenly sprang up with a cry of astonishment, dismay, and delight. “Paul!” she cried, startling the whole party as if a shell had fallen among them. The young man stood within the half-drawn curtains with a pale and serious face, looking at the group. His mother thought of but one thing as she looked up and saw him before her. He had come to tell her that now all was over, and nothing remaining but the last farewell to say.
The rest of the party did not see, however, what Alice, who was detached from them saw, that there was some one beyond the curtains, hanging outside as one who had no right to enter—a little downcast, but yet, as always, faintly amused by the situation. The sight of him gave her a shock as of a dream come true. “If you should think better of it,” he seemed to be saying. The sudden apparition, with the smile about the corners of his lips which seemed so familiar, startled her as much as the appearance which her imagination had called forth a few hours before.
CHAPTER IX.
The presence of Mr. Stainforth and his daughter added another embarrassment to the sudden arrival of Paul. His mother did not know what to say to him, how to restrain her questions,—how to talk of his health and his occupations, if the journey had been pleasant, how he had come from the station, and all the other trivialities which are said to a visitor suddenly arriving. She had to treat Paul like a visitor while the others were there. Paul for his part answered these matter-of-course questions very briefly. He had an air of suffering both mentally and bodily, and he was very pale. He looked at Dolly Stainforth, and said nothing, sitting in the shade as far from the great window as possible. And the Rector would not go away. He sat and put innumerable questions to the new-comer. What he was going to do? What he thought of this thing and the other? Of course he was going back to Oxford to take his degree? that was the one thing that was indispensable. Paul gave the shortest possible answers to every question, and they were not of a satisfactory description. His mother, anxiously watching and fretting beyond measure to be thus kept in suspense about his purposes, could get no information from what he said to Mr. Stainforth, nor did the earnest gaze she had fixed upon him bring her any more enlightenment. Alice had gone out beyond the shade of the curtains to speak to Fairfax, and the embarrassment of the four thus left together was extreme. Dolly had not spoken a word since Paul entered. She had given him her hand, no more, when he came in, but she did not speak to him or even raise her head, except to listen with something of the same breathless anxiety as was apparent in Lady Markham’s face, while the old Rector went on with his questions and advices. The two women trembled in concert with a mutual sense of intolerable suspense, scarcely able to bear it. Dolly knew, however, that she would have to bear it, that she had nothing to do with the matter, that the only service she could do them was to relieve the mother and son of her presence and that of her father, who, however, after she had at length got him to his feet, still stood for ten minutes at least holding Paul’s hand and impressing a great many platitudes upon his attention—with “Depend upon it, my dear boy,” and “You may take my word for it.” Paul had no mind to depend upon anything he said or to take his word for it in any way. He stood saying “Yes” and “No,” or replying only with a nod of his head to his mentor. But Mr. Stainforth was not at all aware that he had stayed a second too long. He blamed Dolly for the haste with which she had hurried him away. “But I am glad I had the opportunity of seeing Paul,” the old man said complacently, as his daughter drove him down the avenue. “You must have seen how pleased he was to talk his circumstances over with such an old friend as myself. Poor fellow, that is just what he must most want now. The ladies are very much attached to him, of course, but with the best intentions in the world, how can they know? He wants a man to talk to,” said Mr. Stainforth; and “I suppose so, papa,” Dolly said.
Lady Markham turned to her son as soon as the Rector’s back was turned, her face quivering with anxiety. “Paul? Paul?” she said with the intensest question in her tone, though she asked nothing, seizing him by both hands.
“Well, mother?” He met her eye with something of the old impatience in his voice.
“You have come to tell me——?” she said breathless.