“Is she a princess, then?” cried Bee, “or an angel? Or what is she?”
“She is both, I think,” said Charlie, in a voice full of awe, “at least to me. I wish you wouldn’t talk of her in that way. I am sorry I ever told you her name. And please just let my affairs alone. You haven’t been able to do anything for me with my father, which is the only thing you might have done—and I don’t want to discuss other things with you. So please just let my concerns alone from this day.”
“It was not I that ever wished to interfere!” cried Bee, with great mortification and resentment, and after a few minutes’ silent walk together in much gloom and stateliness the brother and sister bade each other an offended and angry good-night.
CHAPTER XXX.
This made, however, but a very temporary breach between Bee and her brother. They were a little stiff next morning at breakfast, and elaborately refrained from talking on any but the most trivial things, but by noon this reserve had broken down, and in the evening, though Bee proudly refrained from any reference to Laura, they were as confidential as ever. Bee’s mind had passed through various vicissitudes in respect to the object of Charlie’s adoration. Her first overwhelming interest had given way to a little doubt, and this was naturally strengthened by the overweaning estimate of the unknown which Charlie thrust upon her. A girl is very willing to admire at second-hand her brother’s love, but when she is told that it is presumption to compare herself with that divinity, her sympathy is strained too far. Bee began to have an uneasy feeling about this unknown Laura. It was one thing to stimulate Charlie to work, to stir up all that was best in him, to urge him to distinguish himself, for Charlie’s sake or for their joint sakes, if they married and became one—which was the only thing that could happen in Bee’s idea—but it was quite another thing to pretend an enthusiasm for this in order that Charlie should be kept within her reach and at her feet during that quiet time of the long vacation. Bee knew enough to know that severe work is not compatible with much love-making. She imagined her brother strolling away from his books to take Laura out on the river, or lie at her feet in the garden, which had become the habit of his life, as he betrayed to her accidentally. Bee thought, with a little indignation, that the lofty intentions which would probably end in these proceedings were of the nature of false pretences, and that the girl whom Charlie endowed with the most superlative qualities should not attempt to take him from his home for such reason; or, at least, if she did should do it frankly for love’s sake—which was always a thing to be forgiven—and not on any fictitious pretence.
For Charlie, being refused that heroic way of working, “going up to read,” did not read at all, as was apparent to his sister’s keen eyes. He did not attempt to do the best he could, being prevented from doing what he desired. He settled himself, it is true, in the library after breakfast, with his books, as if with the intention of working, but before Bee got through the little lesson which she gave every morning to the little ones, Charlie was out strolling about the garden, or lying on the grass in the shade with a book, which was usually a novel, or one which lay closed by his side while he abandoned himself to thought—to thought, not about his books it was to be feared, for Bee, with tremors of sympathy in her heart, recognised too well the dreamy look, the drooped eyelids, the air astray from anything going on around. From questions of study, as far as Bee had perceived in her short experience, the merest footstep on a path, the dropping of a leaf, was enough to rouse the student. Charlie’s thoughts were of a far more absorbing kind.
Colonel Kingsward suggested once more the week in town, when he came on another Saturday evening to Kingswarden. He was a man not very open to a perception of the wants of others, but as time went on, and he himself became more and more sensible of the ameliorating influences of society and occupation, the stagnant atmosphere at home, where his two elder children were vegetating, so much against all their previous habits, struck him with a sensation which he could not wholly get the better of. It was only right that Bee, at least, should remain in the country and in retirement the first summer after her mother’s death. It would have been most unbecoming had she been in town seeing people, and necessarily, more or less, been seen by the world. But yet he felt the stillness close round him like a sensible chill, and was aware of the great quiet—aggravated by his own presence, though of this he was scarcely aware—as if it had been a blight in the air. It made him angry for the moment. In other times his house in the country had always been refreshing and delightful to him. Now, the air, notwithstanding that it was full summer, chilled him to the bone.
When you are escaping from the atmosphere of grief, anything that draws you back to it feels like an injury. He was very cross, very impatient with the silence at table, the subdued looks of the young people, and that they had nothing to say. Was it not worse for him than for them? He was the one who had lost the most, and to whom all ministrations were due, to soften the smart of sorrow. But afterwards his thoughts towards his children softened. It was very dull for them. On the Sunday evening he took the trouble to press that week in town upon Charlie. “There’s a spare closet you can have at my rooms at the office,” he said. “It’s very central if not much else, and I daresay your friends will ask you out quietly as they do me. I think even you might bring up Bee for the day to see the pictures. She could stay the night with the Hammonds and see Betty.”
“Oh, don’t think of me, papa,” cried Bee. “I would rather, far rather, stay at home. I don’t care for the pictures—this year.”
“That is foolish, my dear,” said the Colonel. “There is nothing in the least unbecoming to your mourning in going there. Indeed, I wish you to go. You ought not to miss the pictures, and it will be a little change. Of course, I cannot go with you myself, but Charlie will take you, and you can go to Portman Square to sleep. You will see Betty, who must be thinking of coming home about now; indeed, it is quite necessary you should settle that with her. She can’t stay there all the season, and it is rather heartless leaving you like this alone.”