That these feelings should exist above stairs, while such very different emotions were in the minds of the family below, where two deaths had occurred, as it were, on one day, need not surprise any one. Verna had been very sorry for the sufferers; but it was not in the nature of things that she could be more than sorry. Her own affairs were nearest to her. They and she inhabited different spheres.
CHAPTER XVIII.
“What did you think of them?” said Fanshawe.
“She cried a great deal; she is very young and pretty. Poor child!” said Marjory. “We did not say much to each other; how could we? Indeed, you know that I cannot talk.”
“I know—” said Fanshawe hastily, and then stopped short. He had done everything for them all during those sad days. It was the eve of the funeral now, and it was he who had taken every necessary care upon him; but I cannot explain how he had grown into the house. They were strangers to him a very short time before; even, it was not long since he had yawned and asked himself why he did not go away? But now it seemed to him that he had lived there all his life; that he had never had any warmer interests; that he could as soon separate himself from his life as from all that remained of the diminished family. He had brought Marjory out as her brother might have done on the eve of that melancholy ceremonial, to breathe the fresh evening breeze, and accustom herself a little to the outer world once more. He had led her, not to the cliff, but to the garden, where the associations were less overwhelming.
The flower-garden was at the other side of the house, sheltered from all the sea-winds by the old Manor-house on the East, and warmly nestling into the angles of the present mansion. It was an old-fashioned garden; there were no stiff flower-beds in it, no studies of colour in red and blue and yellow; no ribbons of brown leafage, or artificial lines. In summer, old roses, old lilies—the flowers that our grandfathers loved, stood about the borders, making the whole garden sweet; but at present, in the Spring, there was little except crisp lines of crocuses and snow-drops; at one side was an avenue of limes, which had, people supposed, been the avenue of the old house. These limes were not large trees, they were too near the sea for that; but they had begun to shake out their light silken green leaves in the soft April air.
It was here the two were walking on the eve of Mr. Heriot’s funeral. The gate of the old house was still standing, ornamented with the cognizance of the Heriots, at the end of the avenue, and here there was still an exit upon the cliff; close to it was the door of the kitchen-garden. I explain this to show how the circumstances, which were about to happen, came to pass. Marjory had walked up and down the avenue three or four times—leaning on Fanshawe’s arm. It had become natural to accept his arm, to take both physical and moral support from him. I do not know that either of them had ever gone further in their imaginations; Marjory, at least, had not. She had no time for any thoughts about herself. Ever since she had known Fanshawe, she had been absorbed in matters of a very different kind. She took his support, his kindness, his sympathy, almost, I fear, as a matter of course, forgetting that she had no right to it; not entering into the question at all; accepting the help which was at hand without questioning what it was.
And Fanshawe, for his part, thought badly of himself when other thoughts would gleam across his mind by turns. He shook himself, as it were, and was angry, asking himself, “Is this the time?—am I the sort of fellow?” He was as far from contemplating marriage as a possibility as any good-for-nothing could be. Marriage! out of Marjory’s presence how he would have laughed at the idea! But still there had been gleams of light which had passed across him, fitful glimpses of meaning, even of a kind of purpose, repressed instantly by a conviction of their utter vanity and foolishness. Sometimes, unawares, when he was thinking of other things, some sudden plan would come into his head, some vision would flit before his eyes; but they were always involuntary. He had not even recognised them so far as to struggle against them. They were stray visitants that came upon him without a moment’s notice unawares, and that were driven away as intruders, without a moment’s indulgence. But sometimes along with these visions, strange words would throw themselves in his way, and claim so urgently to be spoken, that it was very hard to resist them.
This was one of those occasions. In answer to her languid words, “You know I cannot talk,” some devil or other (he thought) thrust a passionate, too expressive answer into his mind. And he had, so to speak, to stoop and pick it up, and throw it from him like a firebrand, before he could continue the calm conversation in which they had been engaged.
“You are getting tired, I think,” he said, anxiously. “Come and sit down here.”