‘To think you should have undergone such a loss for me!—and I am not worth it—it humbles me, Anne. I could not believe it was possible. Up to the last minute I felt it could not be.’
‘I knew it would be,’ she said softly: was not there something else that Cosmo had to say? She waited for half a minute with a certain wistfulness in her eyes. The glory of her approval faded a little—a very little. To be perfect he had to say something more. ‘If thou wouldst be perfect!’ Was not even the Saviour himself disappointed (though he knew what was in man) when the young ruler whom he loved at first sight did not rise to that height which was opened to him? Anne could not say the same words, but she felt them in her heart. Oh, Cosmo, if thou wouldst be perfect! but he did not see it, or he did not do it at least.
‘I cannot understand it yet,’ he went on. ‘Such injustice, such cruelty—do I pain you, my darling? I cannot help it. If it had been only the postponement of all our hopes, that would have been bad enough: but to take your rights from you arbitrarily, absolutely, without giving you any choice——’
‘I would so much rather you did not speak of it, Cosmo. It cannot be mended. I have got to accept it and do the best I can,’ she said.
‘You take it like an angel, Anne. I knew you would do that: but I am not an angel: and to have all our happiness thrust into the distance, indefinitely, making the heart sick—you must not expect me to take it so easily. If I had been rich indeed—how one longs to be rich sometimes!’ he said, almost hurting her with the close clasp of his arm. Every word he said was true; he loved her even with passion, as he understood passion. And if he had been rich, Cosmo would have satisfied that judgment of hers, which once more, in spite of her, was up in the tribunal, watchful, anxious, not able to blind its eyes.
‘I do not long to be rich,’ she said; ‘little will content me.’
‘My dearest!’ he said with tender enthusiasm, with so much love in his looks and tone, so much admiration, almost adoration, that Anne’s heart was put to silence in spite of herself. How is a woman, a girl, to remain uninfluenced by all these signs of attachment? She could not repulse them; she could not say, All this is nothing. If thou would’st be perfect! Her consciousness of something wanting was not put away, but it was subdued, put down, forced into the shade. How could she insist upon what was, indeed, the final test of his attachment? how could she even indicate it? Anne had, in her mind, no project of marriage which would involve the laying aside of all the active practical duties which her father had left as his only legacy to her; but that her lover should take it for granted that her loss postponed all their hopes, was not a thing which, in itself, was pleasant to think of. She could not banish this consciousness from her mind. But in those early moments when Cosmo was so tender, when his love was so evident, how could she hold back and doubt him? It was easier by far to put a stop upon herself, and to silence her indefinite, indefinable dissatisfaction. For in every respect but this Cosmo was perfect. When he presented himself before Mrs. Mountford his demeanour was everything that could be desired. He threw himself into all their arrangements, and asked about their plans with the gentle insistence of one who had a right to know. He promised, nay offered, at once to begin the search for a house, which was the first thing to be done. ‘It will be the pleasantest of duties,’ he said. ‘What a difference to my life! It will be like living by the gates of heaven, to live in the same place with you, to know I may come and see you: or even come and look at the house you are in.’ ‘Certainly,’ Mrs. Mountford said afterwards, ‘Mr. Douglas was very nice. I wonder why dear papa was so prejudiced against him, for, indeed, nothing could be nicer than the way he talked; and he will be a great help to us in finding a house.’ He stayed the whole day, and his presence made everything go smoothly. The dinner-table was absolutely cheerful with the aid of his talk, his town news, his latest information about everything. He pleased everybody, even down to old Saymore, who had not admired him before. Cosmo had to leave next day, having, as he told them, while the courts were sitting, no possibility of a holiday; but he went charged with many commissions, and taking the position almost of a member of the family—a son of the house. Anne walked with him to the village to see him go; and the walk through the park, though everything was postponed, was like a walk through Paradise to both. ‘To think that I am going to prepare for your arrival is something more than words can say,’ he told her as they parted. ‘I cannot understand how I can be so happy.’ All this lulled her heart to rest, and filled her mind with sweetness, and did everything that could be done to hoodwink that judgment which Anne herself would so fain have blindfolded and drowned. This she did not quite succeed in doing—but at all events she silenced it, and kept it quiescent. She began to prepare for the removal with great alacrity and pleasure; indeed, the thought of it cheered them all—all at least except Heathcote Mountford, whose views had been so different, and whose indignation and annoyance, though suppressed, were visible enough. He was the only one who had not liked Cosmo. But then he did not like the family plans, nor their destination, nor anything, Rose said with a little pique. Anne, for her part, avoided Heathcote, and declared to herself that she could not bear him. What right had he to set up a tribunal at which Cosmo was judged? That she should do it was bad enough, but a stranger! She knew exactly what Heathcote thought. Was it because she thought so, too, that she divined him, and knew what was in his heart?
CHAPTER XXV.
PACKING UP.
Mount was soon turned upside down with all the excitement of packing. It was a relief from the monotony which hangs about a house from which the world is shut out, and where the family life is still circling round one melancholy event. Days look like years in these circumstances; even when the grief is of the deepest those who are left behind must do something to keep the dulled wheels of life in motion, since not even the most truly bereaved can die of grief when they will. But in the case of the Mountfords the affliction was not excessive. Anne, whom her father had wronged, perhaps mourned most of all, not because of more love, but more depth of nature, which could not leave the old so lightly to turn to the new, and which felt more awe and reverence for those mysterious changes which alter the very face of life. Rose cried a great deal during the first few days, and Mrs. Mountford still went on performing little acts of devotion, going to look at her husband’s portrait, and thinking of him as a mournful duty; but there was a certain excitement of new existence in both their hearts. So long as he was there they were bound to Mount, and all the old habits of their life—indeed never thought of breaking them, or supposed it possible they could be broken; but now they were free, and their smiles came back involuntarily as they prepared for this exciting removal, the beginning of a new life. Anne’s mind was kept in a graver key by many causes. The nameless and causeless compunctions, remorses, which move the sensitive spirit in profound and awe-stricken sympathy with the dead, were for her alone in the house. She only tormented herself with thoughts of other possibilities, of things that might have been done and were not done; of words, nay even looks, which, had she but known how near her father was to the unseen world, might have been modified or withheld; and she only followed him, halting, uncertain, to the portals of the unseen existence, as she had followed him to his grave. What was he doing there? a man not heavenly, with qualities that were more suited for the common soil below than the celestial firmament above. It was she only who put these questions, not, perhaps as we have said, that she loved him more, but that she felt more deeply, and everything that happened was of more consequence to her. Besides, she had other causes of gravity. Her position was more serious altogether. Even the new-made widow had a straightforward path before her, lonely yet troubled by no uncertainty—but Anne was walking in darkness, and did not comprehend her lot.
Of all her surroundings the one who was most conscious of this was the Rector, who, getting no satisfaction, as he said, from his son, came out to Mount himself one of those wintry mornings to question Anne in person. ‘What have they settled?’ he had asked confidently, as soon as the Curate returned from the station where he had been seeing his friend off. ‘I don’t think they have settled anything, sir,’ said Charley, turning his back upon his father, not caring to betray more than was needful of his own feelings. ‘They are all going off to London—that is the only thing that seems to be decided.’ ‘God bless my soul!’ cried the Rector—which benediction was the good man’s oath; ‘but that has nothing to do with it. I want to know what is settled about Anne.’ Then poor Charley, out of the excess of his devotion and dissatisfaction, made a stand for his friend. ‘You know, sir, what a struggle a young barrister has to do anything,’ he said; ‘how can they—settle, when all the money is gone?’ ‘God bless my soul!’ the Rector said again; and after many thoughts he set off to Mount expressly to have it out, as he said, with Anne herself. He found her in the library, arranging with old Saymore what books were to be packed to take away, while Heathcote Mountford, looking very black and gloomy, sat at the further window pretending to read, and biting his nails furiously. The mild old Rector wondered for a moment what that sullen figure should have to do in the background, and why Heathcote did not go and leave his cousins free: but there was no time then to think of Heathcote. ‘So you are really going,’ the Rector said, ‘the whole family? It is very early days.’