In Trust: The Story of a Lady and Her Lover

by Mrs. Oliphant

‘If you call that pluck!’ cried the other, ‘when a fellow thinks of nothing but himself, and goes straight before him, whatever happens.’

The curate pressed his brother’s arm with tacit thanks, but he sighed even more. ‘All the same it was a plucky thing to do,’ he said.

The young men were seen approaching for a long time before they reached the house. ‘I wonder what has happened,’ said Rose; ‘they walk as if they were going to a funeral; but I suppose I had better go and see that everything is ready for the game.’ After all this was the important matter, and the Ashleys, though of no great consequence in themselves, were at least the only young men in the parish; and if the Woodheads came, as Rose expected, it looked a poor sort of thing to have no men. What the game was I can scarcely pretend to say. It might be croquet, or it might be lawn tennis. This is entirely a chronological question, and one upon which, as the date of this commencement is a little vague, I cannot take upon me to decide. And just as Willie and Charley approached slowly, in a solemn march, the familiar house to which they had so often turned with steps and hearts less weighted, the Woodheads appeared on the other side.

‘I was sure they would come,’ cried Rose; ‘here are Gerty and Fanny.’ These young ladies were a clergyman’s daughters, and might have paired off most suitably with the Ashleys and no harm done; but perverse humanity may be so far trusted as to make sure that none of the four thought of any such sensible arrangement.

As for Anne, a sigh of satisfaction and relief came from her bosom, not like that deeper sigh which breathed forth the curate’s cares. As soon as she had seen the game begun and all comfortable, she would escape to her own business. Her heart beat high with the thought of the meeting that awaited her, and of the long, confiding, lover’s talk, the pouring out of all her cares into another heart which was her own. Anne had not been accustomed to much sympathy in her life. She had not wanted it perhaps. She loved her little sister with her whole heart; but a high sense of honour had kept her, even when a child, from confiding to Rose any of the little jars and frets of which Rose’s mother was the chief cause; and what other cares had Anne? So that the delight of saying everything that was in her heart was as new to her as the love that made it possible. And it was one of the elements of wondering happiness that filled her whole being to find out how many things she had to tell. She had thought herself reserved, unexpansive, sometimes even cold and heartless, when she beheld the endless confidential chatter of other girls, and wondered why it was that she had nothing to confide. But now she was half dismayed and half transported to discover how much she too had to say. The deep waters of her heart seemed to flow over from that secret place, and pour out in an irrestrainable flood. It seemed to herself that she kept them in with difficulty even to other people now. She had so much to tell him that she could scarcely help preluding even to those who were indifferent, betraying to them the great tide of utterance that was in her. As a matter of fact, she did not at all betray herself; the Woodheads and the Ashleys saw that Anne was slightly flushed and feverish, justifying the complaint she made of a headache, for the sake of which she feared staying out in the sun; and one of the former, who was a medical young lady, accustomed to manage all the lighter maladies of her father’s parish, immediately prescribed for the sufferer.

‘Don’t stay out here,’ Miss Fanny said; ‘it is the worst thing possible. Go and lie down; or, if you don’t like that, sit down in the shade and take a quiet book. Have you got a novel?—if it’s not an exciting one, that will do—but keep yourself perfectly quiet and never mind us. Her pulse is just a little excited—nothing to be alarmed about—if she will but go and lie down.’

The others, especially the two young men, exchanged furtive glances. Willie pressed Charley’s arm with a whisper, ‘Keep it up, old fellow!’ Poor curate! he looked piteously at the girl whom he had not had the courage to try for. Would her cheeks have taken that lovely flush, her eye got that anxious, nervous brightness for him? Was it all a question of pluck, and who should be the first to speak? He watched her going back to the house, across the flower garden, with his lips in an unconscious foolish gape of self-renunciation and tender pity and regret. But happily that rich brown beard of his hid the imbecility of this pathetic simple gaze. And then he turned with sober resolution to the game. He cared for nothing any more now that Anne had gone. But an Englishman must play his game out whatever happens; though heaven and earth should melt away.

Nobody suspected her, nobody dreamt what Anne was about to do. That she should do anything that was not open and manifest entered into no one’s idea of her. She had always been mistress of herself and all her ways, and had never quailed before the face of man. Did she feel guilty now when she thus appeared to accept the advice offered to her—appeared to consent to take shelter from the sun, and went back to the house to lie down, or take a quiet book, as was recommended? Anne was a great deal too much occupied with her own thoughts and plans to feel any of those little guilts yet. She was scarcely conscious of what she herself felt and thought. She had to carry the report of the morning to the other person, who was as much concerned as she was in it; to tell him everything, to know what he had to say, to consult with him as to what they were to do. With all this in her heart, a flood of thought, rising and falling, like waves of the sea, is it possible that she could think of what the others would say, or even of the novel aspect of her subterfuge and evasion? She could think of nothing about them, but of how to get free, to be delivered from her companions. To see him was necessary, indispensable. She had never permitted it to be supposed that she would not see him, or suffered anything to be drawn from her which could imply an intention of giving him up. Her father had said nothing on this subject. There had been neither condition nor promise. But still it was no doubt contrary to Anne’s character, as it was to high honour and sincerity, that she should allow it to be supposed that she was returning to the house on account of her headache, when her intention was to go out another way and meet her lover. When she thought of it afterwards the flush of shame which came over her ran from head to foot; but at the present moment she was entirely unmoved by it. The idea did not so much as cross the threshold of her mind.

She went softly into the cool and silent house. There was nobody visible in the long passages, nor in the hall through which she passed, not consciously going with any precaution, yet making little sound with her light foot. Even Mr. Mountford was out; the doors stood open, the sunshine streamed in here and there at a window making a bar of blazing whiteness across the corridor or stair. Old Saymore was in the open vestibule, full of plants and flowers, into which the great door opened. He was standing before a tall vase of white glass, almost as high as himself, in which he was arranging with great anxiety and interest a waving bouquet of tall ferns and feathery branches. Old Saymore had a soul for art, and the fancies of his young mistress stood in place of all the canons and science of beauty to his mind. He stood with his head on one side, now and then walking a few steps backward to consider the combination of his leaves like an artist before a picture, pulling one forward, pushing one back, pondering with the gravest countenance how to prop up in the middle the waving plume of sumach with which he intended to crown the edifice. He was too much absorbed in his performance to notice Anne, who for her part was too completely preoccupied by hers to see him where he stood, embowered in all that greenery, calculating and considering with the most serious countenance as if the weight of an empire was on his shoulders. As she ran down the steps he heard her for the first time, and turned round hurriedly, moved by the hope of finding a critic and adviser. But his cry of ‘Miss Anne!’ failed to reach her ear. Her heart was beating high, her thoughts rushing at such a rapid rate that they made a little atmosphere of sound about her, and shut out all less ethereal appeals.

After the Ashleys had left the Rectory, Mr. Cosmo Douglas for his part raised himself from the grass where he had lain so luxuriously puffing his cigar. He was more amused than distressed by the confusion he had brought among them. Charley Ashley was his friend, but the affection had been chiefly on one side. It had been, as the other very well knew, a distinction for Ashley, who was not distinguished in any other way, to be known as the friend of a personage so much more brilliant and popular than himself. Douglas had been accustomed to smile when he was asked by his admirers ‘what he could see’ in the good fellow who was neither clever nor gay, nor rich, nor witty, and who had, indeed, no particular recommendation except his goodness. It pleased him to attach to himself this useful, faithful, humble friend, who was always ready to stand up for him, and never likely to bring him into any scrape or trouble. And he had always been ready, he thought, to do anything for Charley—to coach him for an examination, to write an essay for him, to ‘pull him through’ any of the crises of a college career. But to go so far as to curb his own fancy for a girl who pleased him because Charley had set his affections in the same quarter, was a thing entirely beyond Cosmo’s perceptions of the duties of friendship. And when he saw the dismal looks of his friend—his heavy dropping back upon the sympathy of Willie, his younger brother, who had never hitherto been his confidant, and the suppressed indignation towards himself of that younger and always jealous companion—he was more tickled than grieved by it. The idea that he could find a serious rival in Ashley never entered his thoughts—or, indeed, that anyone should pay the slightest regard to poor Charley while he was by. Douglas had, indeed, so much confidence in the humility of his friend that he felt his own preference of any thing or person to be a quite sufficient reason why Charley should give it up. ‘He likes to give in to me,’ was what he had said on many previous occasions; and he was unable to understand how any other affection could be more deeply rooted in Ashley’s bosom than that which was directed to himself. Therefore he only smiled at what he supposed a momentary petulance. Good simple soul! perhaps Douglas respected his friend more that he was capable of being so badly ‘hit.’ But yet he could scarcely realise the possibility of it. Charley in love had not presented itself to him as a credible idea. It made him laugh in spite of himself. And as for interfering with Charley!—as if anyone could suppose it possible that Charley was a man to catch a lady’s eye.