“But,” said Aubrey, “there are the—elder sisters—the young ladies.”
“Miss Bee! Lord bless us, sir, do ye know the age that child is? Nineteen, and no more. Is that an age to take the charge of a nursery full of children? Why, her mother was but forty as has been laid in her grave to-day. I wish to goodness as that marriage hadn’t been broke off. He was a widower—and I don’t much hold with widowers—but I wish that I could give him a sign to come back, if he has any spirit in him, and try and get that poor young lady away.”
“If he has been sent about his business,” said Aubrey, forcing a smile, “he could have no right to come back.”
“I don’t know whose fault it was,” said the landlady. “None o’ missis’s, you take my word; but, Lord, if a gentleman loves a young lady, what’s to hinder him putting his pride in his pocket? A man does when he’s real fond of a woman in our rank of life.”
“I don’t know about that,” said her husband. “If I had been sent away with a cuff on the side of my head, blessed if I’d ever have come back.”
“You’re a poor lot, all of you,” the woman said.
Aubrey could not but smile at the end of the argument, but he asked himself when he was alone—Was he a poor lot? Was he unwilling to put his pride in his pocket? Walking about his little room, turning over and over the circumstances, remembering the glare from Colonel Kingsward’s eye, which had recognised him, he at last evolved out of his own troubled feelings and imagination the idea that it was his part to offer sympathy, to hold out an olive branch. Perhaps, after all, the stern man’s heart was really touched; perhaps it would soothe him in his grief to hear that “when the eye saw her, then it blessed her,” which was Aubrey’s sincere feeling at this moment in respect to Bee’s mother. It seemed to him that it was best to act upon this impulse before other arguments came in; before the sense of wounding and pain in Bee’s silence got the upper hand. He spent most of the afternoon in writing a letter, so carefully put together, copied over and over again, that there might be nothing in it to wound the most sensitive feelings; offering to Colonel Kingsward his profound sympathy, telling him with emotion of her kindness to himself, her sweetness, her beauty, with that heightening of enthusiastic admiration, which, if it is permissible anywhere, is so over a new-made grave. And at the end he asked, with all the delicacy he could, whether in these new circumstances he might not ask a hearing, a renewed consideration, for her dear sake who had been so good to him, and who was gone.
I am not sure that his judgment went fully with this renewed effort, and his landlady’s remarks were but a poor reason for any such step. But his heart was longing after Bee, angry with her, impatient beyond words, disturbed, miserable, not knowing how to support the silence and separation while yet so near. And to do something is always a relief, even though it may be the worst and not the best thing to do. In the evening after dark, when there was no one about, he went up to Kingswarden, and himself put his letter into the hands of the butler, who did not know him, and therefore knew no reason why the letter should either be carried in haste to his master or delayed. Aubrey heard that the young ladies were quite as well as could be expected, and the Colonel very composed, considering—and then he returned to the village. How silent the house was! Not a creature about, and how disturbing and painful to the anxious spirit even the simple noises and commotion of the village street.
Next morning a letter came, delivered by the postman, from Kingswarden. It contained only a few words.
“Colonel Kingsward is obliged to Mr. Aubrey Leigh for his message of sympathy, but, on consideration of the whole circumstances, thinks it better that no pretence at intercourse should be resumed. It could be nothing but painful to both parties, and Colonel Kingsward, with his compliments, takes the liberty to suggest that Mr. Aubrey Leigh would do well to remain in the neighbourhood as short a time as suits his convenience.