She would not have said it had she taken time to think. What folly to let him know that she understood that enigmatical phrase about the pre-occupied imagination! Lucy went on, quickening her pace, feeling the glow of a sudden blush run all over her in the gathering dark. And the silence seemed to thrill about them with all manner of possibilities of what might be said next. They were as much alone as if they had been in a desert island—bare trees standing closely about, the twilight all grey among the branches, the whole world still and listening. The thrill came to Lucy too, a kind of visionary tremor.
“Mamma will be looking out for you,” she said, hurriedly. “She will scold me for keeping you so long walking, when you might have been there in the dogcart half an hour ago;” and she sensibly quickened her own pace.
But Durant did not share in that thrill. It affected him only with a contrary touch of despondency. Lucy’s fright lest he should go on to tell her who it was who had pre-occupied his imagination (could she entertain any doubt who it was?) reflected itself in his melancholy sense that he dared not tell her any more. He dared not because he was poor, he who, even if he had been rich, would not have been thought her equal by anyone belonging to her; and because he was her father’s guest, and incapable of betraying his hospitality by a word to his daughter which Sir John would not have permitted. Thus that suggestion of self-disclosure ended in a blank silence which neither would break. He, too, quickened his steps to keep up with her, and in a few minutes they reached the house, which rayed out light into the darkness from the open door and windows. It seemed all bright, all open, full of hospitable warmth and radiance. When Durant had come here before, he had come with Arthur, and there had been a rush of mother and sister to the door to meet the heir of everything, the first thought and hope of all within these walls. Durant had been half-saddened many a time by that warm and exuberant welcome which Arthur always received. He himself had been received kindly too, but with what a difference! and as there was no particular enthusiasm about him in his own home, notwithstanding the fact that his family were indebted to him for everything, he had never been able to divest himself of a certain envy for Arthur. But he was a thousand times more saddened now to go up the great steps into the hall, and see no mother hurrying out to receive her son, no Arthur coming with cheerful outcry, nothing but himself stealing in softly, half ashamed of being there without Arthur, half afraid to look at Lucy, who must feel it too, he felt. He did not know how to go on and meet Lady Curtis’s eyes. He felt sure they must meet him with a reproach. “Where is Arthur?” he felt the very house say to him; and almost wished that he had been guilty, that he could have taken their reproaches to himself, and answered for his friend’s sake, “It is my fault.” He paused in the hall, and looked round wistfully at Lucy. Her eyes were wet, her lips faltering. She held out that hand to him.
“I know,” she said; “but when we have got over the first, it will be almost as if he had come too.”
“Almost!” he said shaking his head. He felt his eyes grow wet, and held her hand almost without knowing that he held it. Lady Curtis had heard the movement in the hall, though she had been trying not to hear it, and the shock had been broken to her by the arrival of the dogcart which she thought was bringing him. She came out now hiding her agitation with a smile, and held out her hands. Neither of them could speak. But when they got into that room which had seen so many happy meetings, it was too much for Arthur’s mother. She took hold of his arm convulsively with both her hands, and leaned her weight upon his shoulder and cried, “Oh, my boy!” through the sobs which she could not suppress. Durant was overcome at once by the emotion and the confidence. He stooped down with tender reverence and kissed her cheek.
“He is all the brother I have ever known,” he said.
“Yes, Lewis, yes, I know; God bless you! you have always been on Arthur’s side.”
Lucy stood by with strange currents of thought going through her mind, dimly understanding the man who was not her lover, but whose imagination was pre-occupied past being touched by any one else—yet tempted grievously to misunderstand him, and wondering with a latent pain just ready to come into being, whether this was one of the common mockeries of fate which made her mother receive him thus almost as a son, at the very time when he had ceased to entertain that sentiment which might have made a true son of him? Strange are the vagaries of young minds at this doubtful period, when everything is undisclosed and uncertain. She had entertained no doubt as to who it was who occupied his imagination when he had said those words. Did she really entertain a doubt now? or was she fostering such a thing into being—trying to make herself believe it? it would be hard to say. She stood by wondering, feeling in herself all the germs of doubt, and that inclination to nurse and develope them, and make herself unhappy which most of us have felt; all this, however, tempered by a curious thrill of pleasure to hear what Lady Curtis said. Lewis! they had called him Lewis Durant among themself for years, as (she felt no doubt) he had called her Lucy; but the name had never been employed before by anyone but Arthur. This was a leap unspeakable in intimacy. Lady Curtis had adopted him, so to speak, by thus involuntary casting herself upon him, and the sudden use of his name. But what did he think? was it Arthur only that was in his mind?
Lucy drew her mother’s chair to the fire, and pulled off her own thick outdoor jacket. There was tea on the table ready to be poured out, and the soft lamplight and warm glow of the fire brought out all the prettiness of the room, with its gay tints and gleams of gold. What had trouble to do in that cheerful place, amid those artificial graces which had become natural and kindly by use and wont? The stir of her daughter’s movements brought Lady Curtis to herself. They sat down round the fire as if the new comer had been another son, and talked of Arthur. It was almost as endless, almost as engrossing a talk as when the mother and sister sat alone together, and felt as if they could never cease. But by and by Sir John came in for his cup of tea, and asked how it was the train was so late, and all the particulars of the journey. Sir John himself had delayed half an hour beyond his usual time in coming for his tea. He had felt Durant’s arrival too.