diff options
Diffstat (limited to '75410-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 75410-0.txt | 6367 |
1 files changed, 6367 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/75410-0.txt b/75410-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05f6de2 --- /dev/null +++ b/75410-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6367 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75410 *** + + + + + + Transcriber’s Note + Italic text displayed as: _italic_ + + + + + THE FATAL THREE + + A Novel + + BY THE AUTHOR OF + + “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,” + “ISHMAEL,” “MOHAWKS,” + ETC. + + IN THREE VOLUMES + VOL. I. + + LONDON + SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. + STATIONERS’ HALL COURT + + [_All rights reserved_] + + + LONDON: + ROBSON AND SONS LIMITED, PRINTERS PANCRAS ROAD N.W. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL. I. + +Book the First. + + +CLOTHO; OR SPINNING THE THREAD. + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. “WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY” 3 + + II. FAY 13 + + III. A SUPERIOR PERSON 27 + + IV. ALL SHE COULD REMEMBER 41 + + V. WITHOUT THE WOLF 79 + + VI. “AH! PITY! THE LILY IS WITHERED” 112 + + VII. DRIFTING APART 129 + + VIII. “SUCH THINGS WERE” 146 + + IX. THE FACE IN THE CHURCH 160 + + X. THERE IS ALWAYS THE SKELETON 179 + + XI. THE BEGINNING OF DOUBT 210 + + XII. “SHE CANNOT BE UNWORTHY” 231 + + XIII. SHALL SHE BE LESS THAN ANOTHER? 244 + + XIV. LIFTING THE CURTAIN 274 + + + + + BOOK THE FIRST. + + CLOTHO; OR SPINNING THE THREAD. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +“WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY.” + + +“I’m afraid she will be a terrible bore,” said the lady, with a slight +pettishness in the tone of a voice that was naturally sweet. + +“How can she bore us, love? She is only a child, and you can do what +you like with her,” said the gentleman. + +“My dear John, you have just admitted that she is between thirteen and +fourteen—a great deal more than a child—a great overgrown girl, who +will want to be taken about in the carriage, and to come down to the +drawing-room, and who will be always in the way. Had she been a child +of Mildred’s age, and a playfellow for Mildred, I should not have +objected half so much.” + +“I’m very sorry you object; but I have no doubt she will be a +playfellow for Mildred all the same, and that she will not mind +spending a good deal of her life in the schoolroom.” + +“Evidently, John, you don’t know what girls of fourteen are. I do.” + +“Naturally, Maud, since it is not so many years since you yourself were +that age.” + +The lady smiled, touched ever so slightly by the suggestion of youth, +which was gratifying to the mother of a seven-year-old daughter. + +The scene was a large old-fashioned drawing-room, in an old-fashioned +street in the very best quarter of the town, bounded on the west by +Park Lane and on the east by Grosvenor Square. The lady was sitting +at her own particular table, in her favourite window, in the summer +gloaming; the gentleman was standing with his back to the velvet-draped +mantelpiece. The room was full of flowers and prettinesses of every +kind, and offered unmistakable evidence of artistic taste and large +means in its possessors. + +The lady was young and fair, a tall slip of a woman, who afforded a +Court milliner the very best possible scaffolding for expensive gowns. +The gentleman was middle-aged and stout, with strongly-marked features +and a resolute, straightforward expression. The lady was the daughter +of an Irish peer; the gentleman was a commoner, whose fortune had been +made in a great wholesale firm, which had still its mammoth warehouses +near St. Paul’s Churchyard, and its manufactory at Lyons, but with +which John Fausset had no longer any connection. He had taken his +capital out of the business, and had cleansed himself from the stain +of commercial dealings before he married the Honourable Maud Donfrey, +third daughter of Lord Castle-Connell. + +Miss Donfrey had given herself very willingly to the commoner, +albeit he was her senior by more than twenty years, and, in her own +deprecating description of him, was quite out of her set. She liked +him not a little for his own sake, and for the power his strong will +exercised over her own weaker nature; but she liked him still better +for the sake of wealth which seemed unlimited. + +She was nineteen at the time of her marriage, and she had been married +nine years. Those years had brought the Honourable Mrs. Fausset only +one child, the seven-year-old daughter playing about the room in the +twilight; and maternity had offered very little hindrance to the lady’s +pleasures as a woman of fashion. She had been indulged to the uttermost +by a fond and admiring husband; and now for the first time in his life +John Fausset had occasion to ask his wife a favour, which was not +granted too readily. It must be owned that the favour was not a small +one, involving nothing less than the adoption of an orphan girl in +whose fate Mr. Fausset was interested. + +“It is very dreadful,” sighed Mrs. Fausset, as if she were speaking +of an earthquake. “We have been so happy alone together—you and I and +Mildred.” + +“Yes, dearest, when we have been alone, which, you will admit, has not +been very often.” + +“O, but visitors do not count. They come and go. They don’t belong to +us. This dreadful girl will be one of us; or she will expect to be. I +feel as if the golden circle of home-life were going to be broken.” + +“Not broken, Maud, only expanded.” + +“O, but you can’t expand it by letting in a stranger. Had the mother +no people of her own; no surroundings whatever; nobody but you who +could be appealed to for this wretched girl?” inquired Mrs. Fausset, +fanning herself wearily, as she lolled back in her low chair. + +She wore a loose cream-coloured gown, of softest silk and Indian +embroidery, and there were diamond stars trembling amongst her feathery +golden hair. The flowing garment in which she had dined alone with her +husband was to be changed presently for white satin and old Mechlin +lace, in which she was to appear at three evening parties; but in the +meantime, having for once in a way dined at home, she considered her +mode of life intensely domestic. + +The seven-year-old daughter was roaming about with her doll, sometimes +in one drawing-room, sometimes in another. There were three, opening +into each other, the innermost room half conservatory, shadowy with +palms and tropical ferns. Mildred was enjoying herself in the quiet +way of children accustomed to play alone, looking at the pretty things +upon the various tables, peering in at the old china figures in the +cabinets—the ridiculous Chelsea shepherd and shepherdess; the Chelsea +lady in hawking costume, with a falcon upon her wrist; the absurd +lambs, and more absurd foliage; and the Bow and Battersea ladies and +gentlemen, with their blunt features and coarse complexions. Mildred +was quite happy, prowling about and looking at things in silent wonder; +turning over the leaves of illustrated books, and lifting the lids of +gold and enamelled boxes; trying to find out the uses and meanings of +things. Sometimes she came back to the front drawing-room, and seated +herself on a stool at her mother’s feet, solemnly listening to the +conversation, following it much more earnestly, and comprehending it +much better, than either her father or mother would have supposed +possible. + +To stop up after nine o’clock was an unwonted joy for Mildred, who went +to bed ordinarily at seven. The privilege had been granted in honour of +the rare occasion—a _tête-à-tête_ dinner in the height of the London +season. + +“Is there no one else who could take her?” repeated Mrs. Fausset +impatiently, finding her husband slow to answer. + +“There is really no one else upon whom the poor child has any claim.” + +“Cannot she remain at school? You could pay for her schooling, of +course. I should not mind that.” + +This was generous in a lady who had brought her husband a nominal five +thousand pounds, and who spent his money as freely as if it had been +water. + +“She cannot remain at school. She is a kind of girl who cannot get on +at school. She needs home influences.” + +“You mean that she is a horrid rebellious girl who has been expelled +from a school, and whom I am to take because nobody else will have her.” + +“You are unjust and ungenerous, Maud. The girl has not been expelled. +She is a girl of peculiar temper, and very strong feelings, and she +is unhappy amidst the icy formalities of an unexceptionable school. +Perhaps had she been sent to some struggling schoolmistress in a small +way of business she might have been happier. At any rate, she is not +happy, and as her people were friends of mine in the past I should +like to make her girlhood happy, and to see her well married, if I can.” + +“But are there not plenty of other people in the world who would do all +you want if you paid them. I’m sure I should not grudge the money.” + +“It is not a question of money. The girl has money of her own. She is +an heiress.” + +“Then she is a ward in Chancery, I suppose?” + +“No, she is my ward. I am her sole trustee.” + +“And you really want to have her here in our own house, and at The +Hook, too, I suppose. Always with us wherever we go.” + +“That is what I want—until she marries. She will be twenty in five +years, and in all probability she will marry before she is twenty. It +is not a life-long sacrifice that I am asking from you, Maud; and, +remember, it is the first favour I have ever asked you.” + +“Let the little girl come, mother,” pleaded Mildred, clambering on to +her mother’s knee. + +She had been sitting with her head bent over her doll, and her hair +falling forward over her face like golden rain, for the last ten +minutes. Mrs. Fausset had no suspicion that the child had been +listening, and this sudden appeal was startling to the last degree. + +“Wisdom has spoken from my darling’s rosy lips,” said Fausset, coming +over to the window and stooping to kiss his child. + +“My dear John, you must know that your wish is a law to me,” replied +his wife, submitting all at once to the inevitable. “If you are really +bent upon having your ward here she must come.” + +“I am really bent upon it.” + +“Then let her come as soon as you like.” + +“I will bring her to-morrow.” + +“And I shall have some one to play with,” said Mildred, in her baby +voice; “I shall give her my second best doll.” + +“Not your best, Mildred?” asked the father, smiling at her. + +Mildred reflected for a few moments. + +“I’ll wait and see what she is like,” she said, “and if she is very +nice I will give her quite my best doll. The one you brought me from +Paris, father. The one that walks and talks.” + +Maud Fausset sighed, and looked at the little watch dangling on her +chatelaine. + +“A quarter to ten! How awfully late for Mildred to be up! And it is +time I dressed. I hope you are coming with me, John. Ring the bell, +please. Come, Mildred.” + +The child kissed her father with a hearty, clinging kiss which meant a +world of love, and then she picked up her doll—not the walking-talking +machine from Paris, but a friendly, old-fashioned wax and bran +personage—and trotted out of the room, hanging on to her mother’s gown. + +“How sweet she is!” muttered the father, looking after her fondly; “and +what a happy home it has been! I hope the coming of that other one +won’t make any difference.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +FAY. + + +Mrs. Fausset’s three parties, the last of which was a very smart ball, +kept her away from home until the summer sun was rising above Grosvenor +Square, and the cocks were crowing in the mews behind Upper Parchment +Street. Having been so late in the morning, Mrs. Fausset ignored +breakfast, and only made her appearance in time for lunch, when her +husband came in from his ride. He had escorted her to the first of her +parties, and had left her on the way to the second, to go and finish +his evening in the House, which he found much more interesting than +society. + +They met at luncheon, and talked of their previous night’s experiences, +and of indifferent matters. Not a word about the expected presence +which was so soon to disturb their domestic calm. Mr. Fausset affected +cheerfulness, yet was evidently out of spirits. He looked round +the picturesque old oak dining-room wistfully; he strolled into the +inner room, with its dwarf bookcases, pictures, and bronzes, its cosy +corner behind a sixfold Indian screen, a century-old screen, bought +at Christie’s out of a famous collection. He surveyed this temple of +domestic peace, and wondered within himself whether it would be quite +as peaceful when a new presence was among them. + +“Surely a girl of fourteen can make no difference,” he argued, “even if +she has a peculiar temper. If she is inclined to be troublesome, she +shall be made to keep herself to herself. Maud shall not be rendered +unhappy by her.” + +He went out soon after lunch, and came home again at afternoon tea-time +in a hansom, with a girl in a black frock. A four-wheeler followed, +with a large trunk and two smaller boxes. The splendid creatures in +knee-breeches and powder who opened the door had been ordered to deny +their mistress to everybody, so Mrs. Fausset was taking tea alone in +her morning-room. + +The morning-room occupied the whole front of the second floor, a +beautiful room with three windows, the centre a large bow jutting out +over empty space. This bow-window had been added when Mr. Fausset +married, on a suggestion from his _fiancée_. It spoiled the external +appearance of the house, but it made the room delightful. For furniture +and decoration there was everything pretty, novel, eccentric, and +expensive that Maud Fausset had ever been able to think of. She had +only stopped her caprices and her purchases when the room would not +hold another thing of beauty. There was a confusion of form and colour, +but the general effect was charming; and Mrs. Fausset, in a loose white +muslin gown, suited the room, just as the room suited Mrs. Fausset. + +She was sitting in the bow-window, in a semicircle of flowers and +amidst the noises of the West End world, waiting for her husband and +the new-comer, nervous and apprehensive. The scarlet Japanese tea-table +stood untouched, the water bubbling in the quaint little bronze +tea-kettle, swinging between a pair of rampant dragons. + +She started as the door opened, but kept her seat. She did not want to +spoil the new-comer by an undue appearance of interest. + +John Fausset came into the room, leading a pale girl dressed in black. +She was tall for her age, and very thin, and her small face had a +pinched look, which made the great black eyes look larger. She was +a peculiar-looking girl, with an olive tint in her complexion which +hinted at a lineage not altogether English. She was badly dressed in +the best materials, and had a look of never having been much cared for +since she was born. + +“This is Fay,” said Mr. Fausset, trying to be cheerful. + +His wife held out her hand, which the girl took coldly, but not shyly. +She had an air of being perfectly self-possessed. + +“Her name is Fay, is it? What a pretty name! By the bye, you did not +tell me her surname.” + +“Did I not? Her name is Fausset. She is a distant relation of my +family.” + +“I did not understand that last night,” said Mrs. Fausset, with a +puzzled air. “You only talked of a friend.” + +“Was that so? I should have said a family connection. Yes, Fay and I +are namesakes, and kindred.” + +He patted the girl’s shoulder caressingly, and made her sit down by the +little red table in front of the tea-cups, and cakes, and buns. The +buns reminded him of his daughter. + +“Where is Mildred?” + +“She is at her music-lesson; but she will be here in a minute or two, +no doubt,” answered his wife. + +“Poor little mite, to have to begin lessons so soon; the chubby +little fingers stuck down upon the cold hard keys. The piano is so +uninviting at seven years old; such a world of labour for such a small +effect. If she could turn a barrel-organ, with a monkey on the top, +I’m sure she would like music ever so much better; and after a year +or two of grinding it would dawn upon her that there was something +wanting in that kind of music, and then she would attack the piano +of her own accord, and its difficulties would not seem so hopelessly +uninteresting. Are you fond of lessons, Fay?” + +“I hate them,” answered the girl, with vindictive emphasis. + +“And I suppose you hate books too?” said Mrs. Fausset, rather +scornfully. + +“No, I love books.” + +She looked about the spacious room, curiously, with admiring eyes. +People who came from very pretty rooms of their own were lost in +admiration at Mrs. Fausset’s morning-room, with its heterogeneous +styles of art—here Louis Seize, there Japanese; Italian on one side, +Indian on the other. What a dazzling effect, then, it must needs have +upon this girl, who had spent the last five years of her life amidst +the barren surroundings of a suburban school! + +“What a pretty room!” she exclaimed at last. + +“Don’t you think my wife was made to live in pretty rooms?” asked +Fausset, touching Maud’s delicate hand as it moved among the tea-things. + +“She is very pretty herself,” said Fay, bluntly. + +“Yes, and all things about her should be pretty. This thing, for +instance,” as Mildred came bounding into the room, and clambered on her +father’s knee. “This is my daughter, Fay, and your playfellow, if you +know how to play.” + +“I’m afraid I don’t, for they always snubbed us for anything like +play,” answered the stranger, “but Mildred shall teach me, if she will.” + +She had learnt the child’s name from Mr. Fausset during the drive from +Streatham Common to Upper Parchment Street. + +Mildred stretched out her little hand to the girl in black with +somewhat of a patronising air. She had lived all her little life among +bright colours and beautiful objects, in a kind of butterfly world; and +she concluded that this pale girl in sombre raiment must needs be poor +and unhappy. She looked her prettiest, smiling down at the stranger +from her father’s shoulder, where she hung fondly. She looked like a +cherub in a picture by Rubens, red-lipped, with eyes of azure, and +flaxen hair just touched with gold, and a complexion of dazzling lily +and carnation-colour suffused with light. + +“I mean to give you my very best doll,” she said. + +“You darling, how I shall adore you!” cried the strange girl +impulsively, rising from her seat at the tea-table, and clasping +Mildred in her arms. + +“That is as it should be,” said Fausset, patting Fay’s shoulder +affectionately. “Let there be a bond of love between you two.” + +“And will you play with me, and learn your lessons with me, and sleep +in my room?” asked Mildred coaxingly. + +“No, darling. Fay will have a room of her own,” said Mrs. Fausset, +replying to the last inquiry. “It is much nicer for girls to have rooms +to themselves.” + +“No, it isn’t,” answered Mildred, with a touch of petulance that was +pretty in so lovely a child. “I want Fay to sleep with me. I want her +to tell me stories every night.” + +“You have mother to tell you stories, Mildred,” said Mrs. Fausset, +already inclined to be jealous. + +“Not very often. Mother goes to parties almost every night.” + +“Not at The Hook, love.” + +“O, but at The Hook there’s always company. Why can’t I have Fay to +tell me stories every night?” urged the child persistently. + +“I don’t see why they should not be together, Maud,” said Mr. Fausset, +always prone to indulge Mildred’s lightest whim. + +“It is better that Fay should have a room of her own, for a great many +reasons,” replied his wife, with a look of displeasure. + +“Very well, Maud, so be it,” he answered, evidently desiring to +conciliate her. “And which room is Fay to have?” + +“I have given her Bell’s room.” + +Mr. Fausset’s countenance fell. + +“Bell’s room—a servant’s room!”—he repeated blankly. + +“It is very inconvenient for Bell, of course,” said Mrs. Fausset. “She +will have to put up with an extra bed in the housemaid’s room; and as +she has always been used to a room of her own, she made herself rather +disagreeable about the change.” + +Mr. Fausset was silent, and seemed thoughtful. Mildred had pulled Fay +away from the table and led her to a distant window, where a pair of +Virginian love-birds were twittering in their gilded cage, half hidden +amidst the bank of feathery white spirea and yellow marguerites which +filled the recess. + +“I should like to see the room,” said Fausset presently, when his wife +had put down her teacup. + +“My dear John, why should you trouble yourself about such a detail?” + +“I want to do my duty to the girl—if I can.” + +“I think you might trust such a small matter to _me_, or even to my +housekeeper,” Maud Fausset answered with an offended air. “However, +you are quite at liberty to make a personal inspection. Bell is very +particular, and any room she occupied is sure to be nice. But you can +judge for yourself. The room is on the same floor as Mildred’s.” + +This last remark implied that to occupy any apartment on that floor +must be a privilege. + +“But not with the same aspect.” + +“Isn’t it? No, I suppose not. The windows look the other way,” said +Mrs. Fausset innocently. + +She was not an over-educated person. She adored Keats, Shelley, and +Browning, and talked about them learnedly in a way; but she hardly +knew the points of the compass. + +She sauntered out of the room, a picture of languid elegance in her +flowing muslin gown. There were flowers on the landing, and a scarlet +Japanese screen to fence off the stairs that went downward, and a +blue-and-gold Algerian curtain to hide the upward flight. This second +floor was Mrs. Fausset’s particular domain. Her bedroom and bathroom +and dressing-room were all on this floor. Mr. Fausset lived there also, +but seemed to be there on sufferance. + +She pulled aside the Algerian curtain, and they went up to the third +story. The two front rooms were Mildred’s bedroom and schoolroom. +The bedroom-door was open, revealing an airy room with two windows +brightened by outside flower-boxes, full of gaudy red geraniums and +snow-white marguerites, a gay-looking room, with a pale blue paper and +a blue-and-cream-colour carpet. A little brass bed, with lace curtains, +for Mildred—an iron bed, without curtains, for Mildred’s maid. + +The house was like many old London houses, more spacious than it +looked outside. There were four or five small rooms at the back +occupied by servants, and it was one of those rooms—a very small room +looking into a mews—which Mr. Fausset went to inspect. + +It was not a delightful room. There was an outside wall at right-angles +with the one window which shut off the glory of the westering sun. +There was a forest of chimney-pots by way of prospect. There was +not even a flower-box to redeem the dinginess of the outlook. The +furniture was neat, and the room was spotlessly clean; but as much +might be said of a cell in Portland Prison. A narrow iron bedstead, +a couple of cane chairs, a common mahogany chest of drawers in the +window, and on the chest of drawers a white toilet-cover and a small +mahogany looking-glass; a deal washstand and a zinc bath. These are not +luxurious surroundings; and Mr. Fausset’s countenance did not express +approval. + +“I’m sure it is quite as nice a room as she would have at any +boarding-school,” said his wife, answering that disapproving look. + +“Perhaps; but I want her to feel as if she were not at school, but at +home.” + +“She can have a prettier room at The Hook, I daresay, though we are +short of bedrooms even there—if she is to go to The Hook with us.” + +“Why, of course she is to go with us. She is to live with us till she +marries.” + +Mrs. Fausset sighed, and looked profoundly melancholy. + +“I don’t think we shall get her married very easily,” she said. + +“Why not?” asked her husband quickly, looking at her anxiously as he +spoke. + +“She is so remarkably plain.” + +“Did she strike you so? I think her rather pretty, or at least +interesting. She has magnificent eyes.” + +“So has an owl in an ivy-bush,” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset petulantly. +“Those great black eyes in that small pale face are positively +repulsive. However, I don’t want to depreciate her. She is of your kith +and kin, and you are interested in her; so we must do the best we can. +I only hope Mildred will get on with her.” + +This conversation took place upon the stairs. Mr. Fausset was at the +morning-room door by this time. He opened it, and saw his daughter in +the sunlit window among the flowers, with her arm round Fay’s neck. + +“They have begun very well,” he said. + +“Children are so capricious,” answered his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +A SUPERIOR PERSON. + + +Mildred and her father’s ward got on remarkably well—perhaps a little +too well to please Mrs. Fausset, who had been jealous of the new-comer, +and resentful of her intrusion from the outset. Mildred did not show +herself capricious in her treatment of her playfellow. The child had +never had a young companion before, and to her the advent of Fay +meant the beginning of a brighter life. Until Fay came there had been +no one but mother; and mother spent the greater part of her life in +visiting and receiving visits. Only the briefest intervals between a +ceaseless round of gaieties could be afforded to Mildred. Her mother +doated on her, or thought she did; but she had allowed herself to be +caught in the cogs of the great society wheel, and she was obliged to +go round with the wheel. So far as brightly-furnished rooms and an +expensive morning governess, ever so much too clever for the pupil’s +requirements, and costly toys and pretty frocks and carriage-drives, +could go, Mildred was a child in an earthly paradise; but there are +some children who yearn for something more than luxurious surroundings +and fine clothes, and Mildred Fausset was one of those. She wanted a +great deal of love—she wanted love always; not in brief snatches, as +her mother gave it—hurried caresses given in the midst of dressing for +a ball, hasty kisses before stepping into her carriage to be whisked +off to a garden-party, or in all the pomp and splendour of ostrich +feathers, diamonds, and court-train before the solemn function of +a Drawing-room. Such passing glimpses of love were not enough for +Mildred. She wanted warm affections interwoven with the fabric of her +life; she wanted loving companionship from morning till night; and this +she had from Fay. From the first moment of their clasping hands the +two girls had loved each other. Each sorely in need of love, they had +come together naturally, and with all the force of free undisciplined +nature, meeting and mingling like two rivers. + +John Fausset saw their affection, and was delighted. That loving union +between the girl and the child seemed to solve all difficulties. Fay +was no longer a stranger. She was a part of the family, merged in the +golden circle of domestic love. Mrs. Fausset looked on with jaundiced +eye. + +“If one could only believe it were genuine!” she sighed. + +“Genuine! which of them do you suppose is pretending? Not Mildred, +surely?” + +“Mildred! No, indeed. _She_ is truth itself.” + +“Why do you suspect Fay of falsehood?” + +“My dear John, I fear—I only say I fear—that your _protégée_ is sly. +She has a quiet self-contained air that I don’t like in one so young.” + +“I don’t wonder she is self-contained. You do so little to draw her +out.” + +“Her attachment to Mildred has an exaggerated air—as if she wanted to +curry favour with us by pretending to be fond of our child,” said Mrs. +Fausset, ignoring her husband’s remark. + +“Why should she curry favour? She is not here as a dependent—though she +is made to wear the look of one sometimes more than I like. I have +told you that her future is provided for; and as for pretending to be +fond of Mildred, she is the last girl to pretend affection. She would +have been better liked at school if she had been capable of pretending. +There is a wild, undisciplined nature under that self-contained air you +talk about.” + +“There is a very bad temper, if that is what you mean. Bell has +complained to me more than once on that subject.” + +“I hope you have not set Bell in authority over her,” exclaimed Mr. +Fausset hastily. + +“There must be some one to maintain order when Miss Colville is away.” + +“That some one should be you or I, not Bell.” + +“Bell is a conscientious person, and she would make no improper use of +authority.” + +“She is a very disagreeable person. That is all I know about her,” +retorted Mr. Fausset, as he left the room. + +He was dissatisfied with Fay’s position in the house, yet hardly knew +how to complain or what alteration to suggest. There were no positive +wrongs to resent. Fay shared Mildred’s studies and amusements; they +had their meals together, and took their airings together. + +When Mildred went down to the morning-room or the drawing-room Fay +generally went with her—generally, not always. There were times when +Bell looked in at the schoolroom-door and beckoned Mildred. “Mamma +wants you alone,” she would whisper on the threshold; and Mildred ran +off to be petted and paraded before some privileged visitor. + +There were differences which Fay felt keenly, and inwardly resented. +She was allowed to sit aloof when the drawing-room was full of fine +ladies, upon Mrs. Fausset’s afternoon; while Mildred was brought into +notice and talked about, her little graces exhibited and expatiated +upon, or her childish tastes conciliated. Fay would sit looking at one +of the art-books piled upon a side-table, or turning over photographs +and prints in a portfolio. She never talked unless spoken to, or did +anything to put herself forward. + +Sometimes an officious visitor would notice her. + +“What a clever-looking girl! Who is she?” asked a prosperous dowager, +whose own daughters were all planted out in life, happy wives and +mothers, and who could afford to interest herself in stray members of +the human race. + +“She is a ward of my husband’s, Miss Fausset.” + +“Indeed! A cousin, I suppose?” + +“Hardly so near as that. A distant connection.” + +Mrs. Fausset’s tone expressed a wish not to be bored by praise of the +clever-looking girl. People soon perceived that Miss Fausset was to +be taken no more notice of than a piece of furniture. She was there +for some reason known to Mr. and Mrs. Fausset, but she was not there +because she was wanted—except by Mildred. Everybody could see that +Mildred wanted her. Mildred would run to her as she sat apart, and +clamber on her knee, and hang upon her, and whisper and giggle with +her, and warm the statue into life. Mildred would carry her tea and +cakes, and make a loving fuss about her in spite of all the world. + + * * * * * + +Bell was a power in the house in Upper Parchment Street. She was that +kind of old servant who is as bad as a mother-in-law, or even worse; +for your mother-in-law is a lady by breeding and education, and is in +somewise governed by reason, while your trustworthy old servant is apt +to be a creature of impulse, influenced only by feeling. Bell was a +woman of strong feelings, devotedly attached to Mrs. Fausset. + +Twenty-seven years ago, when Maud Donfrey was an infant, Martha Bell +was the young wife of the head-gardener at Castle-Connell. The gardener +and his wife lived at one of the lodges near the bank of the Shannon, +and were altogether superior people for their class. Martha had been a +lace-maker at Limerick, and was fairly educated. Patrick Bell was less +refined, and had no ideas beyond his garden; but he was honest, sober, +and thoroughly respectable. He seldom read the newspapers, and had +never heard of Home Rule or the three F.s. + +Their first child died within three weeks of its birth, and a wet-nurse +being wanted at the great house for Lady Castle-Connell’s seventh +baby, Mrs. Bell was chosen as altogether the best person for that +confidential office. She went to live at the great white house in the +beautiful gardens near the river. It was only a temporary separation, +she told Patrick; and Patrick took courage at the thought that his +wife would return to him as soon as Lady Castle-Connell’s daughter was +weaned, while in the meantime he was to enjoy the privilege of seeing +her every Sunday afternoon; but somehow it happened that Martha Bell +never went back to the commonly-furnished little rooms in the lodge, or +to the coarse-handed husband. + +Martha Bell was a woman of strong feelings. She grieved passionately +for her dead baby, and she took the stranger’s child reluctantly to +her aching breast. But babies have a way of getting themselves loved, +and one baby will creep into the place of another unawares. Before +Mrs. Bell had been at the great house three months she idolised +her nursling. By the time she had been there a year she felt that +life would be unbearable without her foster-child. Fortunately for +her, she seemed as necessary to the child as the child was to her. +Maud was delicate, fragile, lovely, and evanescent of aspect. Lady +Castle-Connell had lost two out of her brood, partly, she feared, from +carelessness in the nursery. Bell was devoted to her charge, and Bell +was entreated to remain for a year or two at least. + +Bell consented to remain for a year; she became accustomed to the +comforts and refinements of a nobleman’s house; she hated the lodge, +and she cared very little for her husband. It was a relief to her +when Patrick Bell sickened of his desolate home, and took it into his +head to emigrate to Canada, where he had brothers and sisters settled +already. He and his wife parted in the friendliest spirit, with some +ideas of reunion years hence, when the Honourable Maud should have +outgrown the need of a nurse; but the husband died in Canada before the +wife had made up her mind to join him there. Mrs. Bell lived at the +great white house until Maud Donfrey left Castle-Connell as the bride +of John Fausset. She went before her mistress to the house in Upper +Parchment Street, and was there when the husband and wife arrived after +their Continental honeymoon. From that hour she remained in possession +at The Hook, Surrey, or at Upper Parchment Street, or at any temporary +abode by sea or lake. Bell was always a power in Mrs. Fausset’s life, +ruling over the other servants, dictating and fault-finding in a quiet, +respectful way, discovering the weak side of everybody’s character, +and getting to the bottom of everybody’s history. The servants hated +her, and bowed down before her. Mrs. Fausset was fond of her as a part +of her own childhood, remembering that great love which had watched +through all her infantine illnesses and delighted in all her childish +joys. Yet, even despite these fond associations, there were times +when Maud Fausset thought that it would be a good thing if dear old +Bell would accept a liberal pension and go and live in some rose and +honeysuckle cottage among the summery meadows by the Thames. Mrs. +Fausset had only seen that riverside region in summer, and she had +hardly realised the stern fact of winter in that district. She never +thought of rheumatism in connection with one of those low white-walled +cottages, half-hidden under overhanging thatched gables, and curtained +with woodbine and passionflower, rose and myrtle. Dear old Bell was +forty-eight, straight as a ramrod, very thin, with sharp features, and +eager gray eyes under bushy iron-gray brows. She had thick iron-gray +hair, and she never wore a cap; that was one of her privileges, and a +mark of demarcation between her and the other servants—that and her +afternoon gown of black silk or satin. + +She had no specific duties in the house, but had something to say about +everything. Mrs. Fausset’s French maid and Mildred’s German maid were +at one in their detestation of Bell; but both were eminently civil to +that authority. + +From the hour of Fay’s advent in Upper Parchment Street, Bell had set +her face against her. In the first place, she had not been taken into +Mr. and Mrs. Fausset’s confidence about the girl. She had not been +consulted or appealed to in any way; and, in the second place, she +had been told that her bedroom would be wanted for the new-comer, and +that she must henceforward share a room with one of the housemaids, an +indignity which this superior person keenly felt. + +Nor did Fay do anything to conciliate this domestic power. Fay +disliked Bell as heartily as Bell disliked Fay. She refused all offers +of service from the confidential servant at the outset, and when +Bell wanted to help in unpacking her boxes—perhaps with some idea of +peering into those details of a girl’s possessions which in themselves +constitute a history—Fay declined her help curtly, and shut the door in +her face. + +Bell had sounded her mistress, but had obtained the scantiest +information from that source. A distant connection of Mr. Fausset’s—his +ward, an heiress. Not one detail beyond this could Bell extract from +her mistress, who had never kept a secret from her. Evidently Mrs. +Fausset knew no more. + +“I must say, ma’am, that for an heiress the child has been sadly +neglected,” said Bell. “Her under-linen was all at sixes and sevens +till _I_ took it in hand; and she came to this house with her left boot +worn down at heel. Her drawers are stuffed with clothes, but many of +them are out of repair; and she is such a wilful young lady that she +will hardly let _me_ touch her things.” + +Bell had a habit of emphasising personal pronouns that referred to +herself. + +“You must do whatever you think proper about her clothes, whether she +likes it or not,” answered Mrs. Fausset, standing before her glass, +and giving final touches to the feathery golden hair which her maid +had arranged a few minutes before. “If she wants new things, you can +buy them for her from any of my tradespeople. Mr. Fausset says she is +to be looked after in every way. You had better not go to Bond Street +for her under-linen. Oxford Street will do; and you need not go to +Stephanie for her hats. She is such a very plain girl that it would be +absurd—cruel even—to dress her like Mildred.” + +“Yes, indeed, it would, ma’am,” assented Bell; and then she pursued +musingly: “If it was a good school she was at, all I can say is that +the wardrobe-woman was a very queer person to send any pupil away with +her linen in such a neglected state. And as for her education, Miss +Colville says she is shockingly backward. Miss Mildred knows more +geography and more grammar than that great overgrown girl of fourteen.” + +Mrs. Fausset sighed. + +“Yes, Bell, she has evidently been neglected; but her education matters +very little. It is her disposition I am anxious about.” + +“Ah, ma’am, and so am _I_,” sighed Bell. + +When Bell had withdrawn, Maud Fausset sat in front of her +dressing-table in a reverie. She forgot to put on her bonnet or to ring +for her maid, though she had been told the carriage was waiting, and +although she was due at a musical recital in ten minutes. She sat there +lost in thought, while the horses jingled their bits impatiently in the +street below. + +“Yes, there is a mystery,” she said to herself; “everybody sees it, +even Bell.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ALL SHE COULD REMEMBER. + + +The London season was waning, and fewer carriages rolled westward to +the Park gates in the low sunlight of late afternoon, and fewer riders +trotted eastward towards Grosvenor Square in the brighter sunshine +before luncheon. Town was gay still; but the flood-tide of pleasure +was over. The river of London life was on the ebb, and people were +beginning to talk about grouse-moors in Scotland and sulphur-springs in +Germany. + +Fay had lived in Upper Parchment Street nearly two months. It seemed +to her impatient spirit as if she had lived there half a lifetime. The +life would have been hateful to her without Mildred’s love. That made +amends for a good deal, but it could not make amends for everything; +not for Bell’s quiet insolence, for instance. + +Bell had replenished the alien’s wardrobe. Everything she had bought +was of excellent quality, and expensive after its kind; but had a prize +been offered for bad taste, Bell would have taken it by her selections +of raiment on this occasion. Not once did she allow Fay to have a voice +in the matter. + +“Mrs. Fausset deputed _me_ to choose the things, miss,” she said, “and +I hope _I_ know my duty.” + +“I suppose I _am_ very ugly,” said Fay resignedly, as she contemplated +her small features in the glass, overshadowed by a mushroom hat of +coarse brown straw, with a big brown bow, “but in this hat I look +positively hideous.” + +The hat was an excellent hat: that good coarse Dunstable, which costs +money and wears for ever, the ribbon of the best quality; but Hebe +herself would have looked plain under a hat shaped like a bell-glass. + +Fay’s remark was recorded to Mrs. Fausset as the indication of a +discontented spirit. + +Not being able to learn anything about Fay’s history from her mistress, +Bell had tried to obtain a little light from the girl herself, but +without avail. Questioned about her school, Fay had replied that she +hated her school, and didn’t want to talk of it. Questioned about her +mother, she answered that her mother’s name was too sacred to be spoken +about to a stranger; and on a subtle attempt to obtain information +about her father, the girl flushed crimson, started up angrily from her +chair, and told the highly respectable Bell that she was not in the +habit of chattering to servants, or being questioned by them. + +After this it was war to the knife on Martha Bell’s part. + +Miss Colville, the expensive morning governess, was in somewise above +prejudice, and was a person of liberal mind, allowing for the fact +that she had lived all her life in other people’s houses, looking on +at lives of fashionable frivolity in which she had no share, and had +been obliged to study Debrett’s annual volume as if it were her Bible, +lest she should commit herself in every other speech, so intricate +are the ramifications and intermarriages of the Upper Ten Thousand. +Miss Colville was not unkind to Fay Fausset, and was conscientious +in her instructions; but even she resented the mystery of the girl’s +existence, and felt that her presence blemished the respectability of +the household. By and by, when she should be seeking new employment, +and should have occasion to refer to Mrs. Fausset, and to talk of +her pupils in Upper Parchment Street, there would be a difficulty in +accounting for Fay. A ward of Mr. Fausset’s, a distant connection: the +whole thing sounded improbable. An heiress who had come to the house +with torn embroidery upon her under-linen. A mystery—yes, no doubt +a mystery. And in Miss Colville’s ultra-particular phase of life no +manner of mystery was considered respectable; except always those open +secrets in the very highest circles which society agrees to ignore. + +In spite of these drawbacks, Miss Colville was fairly kind to her new +charge. Fay was backward in grammar and geography; she was a dullard +about science; but she could chatter French, she knew a little Italian, +and in music she was highly gifted. In this she resembled Mildred, +who adored music, and had taken her first lessons on the piano as a +water-fowl takes to a pond, joyously, as to her native element. Fay was +not advanced in the _technique_ of the art, but she played and sang +charmingly, for the most part by ear; and she used to play and sing to +Mildred in the summer twilight, till Bell came like a prison-warder and +insisted upon Mildred’s going to bed. + +“I nursed your mamma, miss,” she would say, “and _I_ never allowed her +to spoil her complexion with late hours as Miss Fay is leading you on +to do.” + +At seven Mildred cared neither for health nor complexion in the +abstract, and she loved Fay’s music and Fay’s stories. Fay would tell +her a fairy tale, with musical accompaniments, improvised to suit +the story. This was Beauty’s father groping through the dark wood. +Then came the swaying of branches, the rustling of summer leaves, the +long, long sigh of the night wind, the hoot of the owl, and the roll +of distant thunder. Here came Fatima’s brothers to the rescue, with +a triumphant march, and the trampling of fiery steeds, careering up +and down the piano in presto arpeggios, bursting open the gates of +Bluebeard’s Castle with a fortissimo volley of chords. + +“_I_ never heard any one make such a noise on a piano,” said Bell, +bristling with indignation. + +At eight o’clock Fay’s day and evening were done. Mildred vanished like +the setting of the sun. She would like to have had Fay to sit beside +her bed and tell her stories, and talk to her, till she dropped to +sleep; but this happiness was sternly interdicted by Bell. + +“She would keep you awake half the night, Miss Mildred, over-exciting +you with her stories; and what would your pa and the doctors say to +_me_?” exclaimed Bell. + +The door of the bright, pretty bedchamber closed upon Mildred, and Fay +went back to the schoolroom heavy of heart, to enjoy the privilege of +sitting up by herself till half-past nine, a privilege conceded to +superior years. In that dismal hour and a half the girl had leisure +to contemplate the solitude of her friendless life. Take Mildred from +her, and she had no one—nothing. Mr. Fausset had meant to be kind to +her, perhaps. He had talked very kindly to her in the long drive +from Streatham. He had promised her a home and the love of kindred; +but evil influences had come in his way, and he had given her—Bell. +Perhaps she was of a jealous, exacting disposition; for, fondly as she +loved Mildred, she could not help comparing Mildred’s lot with her own: +Mildred’s bright, airy room and flower-decked windows, looking over +the tree-tops in the Park, with her dingy cell opening upon a forest +of chimneys, and tainted with odours of stables and kitchen; Mildred’s +butterfly frocks of lace and muslin, with the substantial ugliness +of her own attire; Mildred’s manifold possessions—trinkets, toys, +books, games, pictures, and flowers—with her empty dressing-table and +unadorned walls. + +“At your age white frocks would be ridiculous,” said Bell; yet Fay +saw other girls of her age flaunting in white muslin all that summer +through. + +Sometimes the footman forgot to bring her lamp, and she would sit in +the schoolroom window, looking down into the street, and watching the +carriages roll by in endless procession, with their lamps flaming in +the pale gray night, carrying their freight to balls and parties, +hurrying from pleasure to pleasure on swift-revolving wheels. A +melancholy hour this for the longing heart of youth, even when +the schoolgirl’s future participation in all these pleasures is a +certainty, or contingent only upon life; but what was it for this girl, +who had all girlhood’s yearnings for pleasure and excitement, and who +knew not if that sparkling draught would ever touch her lips, who felt +herself an alien in this fine house, a stranger at this fashionable end +of the town? It was no new thing for her to sit alone in the twilight, +a prey to melancholy thoughts. Ever since she could remember, her life +had been solitary and loveless. The home ties and tender associations +which sweeten other lives were unknown to her. She had never known +what love meant till she felt Mildred’s warm arms clinging round her +neck, and Mildred’s soft cheek pressed against hers. Her life had +been a shifting scene peopled with strangers. Dim and misty memories +of childhood’s earliest dawn conjured up a cottage-garden on a windy +hill; the sea stretching far away in the distance, bright and blue, but +unattainable; a patch of grass on one side, a patch of potatoes on the +other; a bed of wallflowers and stocks and yellow marigolds in front of +the parlour window; a family of hens and an arrogant cock strutting in +the foreground; and, standing out sharply against the sky and the sea, +a tall column surmounted by a statue. + +How she had longed to get nearer that vast expanse of water, to find +out what the sea was like! From some points in the view it seemed so +near, almost as if she could touch it with her outstretched hands; from +other points it looked so far away. She used to stand on a bank behind +the cottage and watch the white-sailed boats going out to sea, and the +steamers with their trailing smoke melting and vanishing on the horizon. + +“Where do they go?” she asked in her baby French. “Where do they go?” + +Those were the first words she remembered speaking, and nobody seemed +ever to have answered that eager question. + +No one had cared for her in those days. She was very sure of that, +looking back upon that monotonous childhood: a long series of empty +hours in a cottage garden, and with no companions except the fowls, +and no voice except that of the cow in the meadow hard by: a cow which +sent forth meaningless bellows occasionally, and which she feared as if +it had been a lion. + +There was a woman in a white cap whom she called Nounou, and who seemed +too busy to care about anybody; a woman who did all the housework, and +dug the potato-garden, and looked after the fowls, and milked the cow +and made butter, and rode to market on a donkey once or twice a week: +a woman who was always in a hurry. There was a man who came home from +work at sundown, and there were two boys in blouses and sabots, the +youngest of whom was too old to play with the nurse-child. Long summer +days in the chalky garden, long hours of listless monotony in front of +the wide bright sea, had left a sense of oppression upon Fay’s mind. +She did not know even the name of the town she had seen far below the +long ridge of chalky hill—a town of tall white houses and domes and +spires, which had seemed a vast metropolis to the eyes of infancy. +She had but to shut her eyes in her evening solitude, and she could +conjure up the picture of roofs and spires, and hill and sea, and the +tall column in its railed enclosure; yet she knew no more of town or +hill than that they were on the other side of the Channel. + +She remembered lying in a narrow little bed, that rocked desperately +on a windy day, and looking out at the white sea-foam dashing against +a curious oval window, like a giant’s eye; and then she remembered her +first wondering experience of railway travelling; a train flashing +past green fields and hop-gardens and houses; and then darkness and +the jolting of a cab; and after that being carried half-asleep into +a strange house, and waking to find herself in a strange room, all +very clean and neat, with a white-curtained bed and white muslin +window-curtains, and on looking out of the window, behold, there was a +patch of common all abloom with yellow gorse. + +She remembered dimly that she had travelled in the charge of a little +gray-haired man, who disappeared after the journey. She found herself +now in the care of an elderly lady, very prim and strict, but not +absolutely unkind; who wore a silk gown, and a gold watch at her +waistband, and who talked in an unknown tongue. Everything here was +prettier than in Nounou’s house, and there was a better garden, a +garden where there were more flowers and no potatoes and there was the +common in the front of the garden, all hillocks and hollows, where +she was allowed to amuse herself in charge of a ruddy-faced girl in a +lavender cotton frock. + +The old lady taught her the unknown tongue, which she discovered in +time to be English, and a good deal besides—reading and writing, for +instance, and the rudiments of music, a little arithmetic, grammar, +and geography. She took kindly to music and reading, and she liked to +dabble with ink; but the other lessons were abhorrent, and she gave +the orderly old lady a good deal of trouble. There was no love between +them, only endurance on either side; and the long days on the common +were almost as desolate as the days on the chalky hill above the sea. + +At last there came a change. The dressmaker sent home three new frocks, +all uncompromisingly ugly; the little old gray-haired man reappeared, +looking exactly as he had looked on board the steamer, and a fly +carried Fay and this guardian to the railway-station on the common, +and thence the train took them to a great dark city, which the man +told Fay was London; and then they went in a cab through streets that +seemed endless, till at last the streets melted into a wide high-road, +with trees on either side, and the cab drove into a garden of shining +laurels and rhododendrons, and pulled up before a classic portico. Fay +had no memory of any house so grand as this, although it was only the +conventional suburban villa of sixty or seventy years ago. + +Just at first the change seemed delightful. That circular +carriage-sweep, those shining rhododendrons with great rose-coloured +trusses of bloom, the drooping gold of the laburnums, and the masses +of perfumed lilac, were beautiful in her eyes. Not so beautiful the +long, bare schoolroom and the willow-pattern cups and saucers. Not so +beautiful that all-pervading atmosphere of restraint which made school +odious to Fay from the outset. + +She stayed there for years—an eternity it seemed to her, looking back +upon its hopeless monotony. Pleasure, variety, excitement, she had +none. Life was an everlasting treadmill—up and down, down and up, over +and over again. The same dull round of lessons; a dismal uniformity +of food; Sunday penance in the shape of two long services in a badly +ventilated church, and one long catechism in a dreary schoolroom. No +gaol can be much duller than a well-regulated middle-class girls’ +school. Fay could complain of no ill-treatment. She was well fed, +comfortably housed, warmly clad; but her life was a burden to her. + +She had a bad temper; was irritable, impatient, quick to take +offence, and prone to fits of sullenness. This was the opinion of the +authorities; and her faults increased as she grew older. She was not +absolutely rebellious towards the governesses; but there was always +something amiss. She was idle and listless at her studies, took +no interest in anything but her music-lessons, and was altogether +an unsatisfactory pupil. She had no lasting friendships among her +schoolfellows. She was capricious in her likings, and was prone to +fancy herself slighted or ill-treated on the smallest provocation. The +general verdict condemned her as the most disagreeable girl in the +school. With the meaner souls among her schoolfellows it was considered +an affront that she should have no antecedents worth talking about, +no relatives, no home, and no hampers or presents. Even the servants +neglected her as a young person without surroundings, upon whom +kindness would be thrown away. The wardrobe-woman left her clothes +unmended, feeling that it mattered very little in what order they were +kept, since the girl never went home for the holidays, and there was no +mother or aunt to investigate her trunks. She was condemned on every +hand as a discreditable mystery; and when, one unlucky afternoon, a +sultry afternoon at the beginning of a hot summer, she lost her temper +in the middle of a class-lesson, burst into a torrent of angry speech, +half defiance, half reproach, bounced up from her seat, and rushed out +of the schoolroom, there were few to pity, and none to sympathise. + +The proprietress of the school was elderly and lymphatic. Miss Fausset +had been stigmatised as a troublesome pupil for a long time. There +were continual complaints about Miss Fausset’s conduct, worrying +complaints, which spoilt Miss Constable’s dinner and interfered with +her digestion. Really, the only course open to that prosperous, +over-fed personage was to get rid of Miss Fausset. There was an amiable +family of three sisters—highly connected young persons, whose father +was in the wine trade—waiting for vacancies in that old-established +seminary. + +“We will make a _tabula rasa_ of a troublesome past,” said Miss +Constable, who loved fine words. “Miss Fausset must go.” + +Thus it was that John Fausset had been suddenly called upon to find a +new home for his ward; and thus it was that Fay had been brought to +Upper Parchment Street. + +No doubt Upper Parchment Street was better than school; but if it had +not been for Mildred the atmosphere on the edge of Hyde Park would +have been no more congenial than the atmosphere at Streatham. Fay +felt herself an intruder in that splendid house, where, amidst that +multitude of pretty things, she could not put her finger upon one +gracious object that belonged to her—nothing that was her “very own,” +as Mildred called it; for she had refused Mildred’s doll and all other +proffered gifts, too proud to profit by a child’s lavish generosity. +Mrs. Fausset made her no gifts, never talked to her, rarely looked at +her. + +Fay knew that Mrs. Fausset disliked her. She had divined as much from +the first, and she knew only too well that dislike had grown with +experience. She was allowed to go down to afternoon tea with Mildred; +but had she been deaf and dumb her society could not have been less +cultivated by the mistress of the house. Mrs. Fausset’s feelings were +patent to the whole household, and were common talk in the servants’ +hall. “No wonder,” said the women; the men said “What a shame!” but +footmen and housemaids were at one in their treatment of Fay, which +was neglectful, and occasionally insolent. It would hardly have been +possible for them to behave well to the intruder and keep in favour +with Bell, who was absolute—a superior power to butler or housekeeper, +a person with no stated office, and the supreme right to interfere with +everybody. + +Bell sighed and shook her head whenever Miss Fay was mentioned. She +bridled with pent-up indignation, as if the girl’s existence were an +injury to her, Martha Bell. “If _I_ hadn’t nursed Mrs. Fausset when +she was the loveliest infant that ever drew breath, _I_ shouldn’t feel +it so much,” said Bell; and then tears would spring to her eyes and +chokings would convulse her throat, and the housekeeper would shake her +head and sympathise mysteriously. + +At the end of July the establishment migrated from Parchment Street to +The Hook, Mr. Fausset’s riverside villa between Chertsey and Windsor. +The Hook was an expanse of meadow-land bordered with willows, round +which the river made a loop; and on this enchanted bit of ground—a +spot loved by the river-god—Mr. Fausset had built for himself the most +delightful embodiment of that much-abused word villa; a long, low, +white house, with spacious rooms, broad corridors, a double flight of +marble stairs, meeting on a landing lit by an Italian cupola—a villa +surrounded with a classic colonnade, and looking out upon peerless +gardens sloping to the willow-shadowed stream. + +To Fay The Hook seemed like a vision of Paradise. It was almost +happiness even to her impatient spirit to sit in a corner of those +lovely grounds, screened from the outer world by a dense wall of +Portugal laurels and arbutus, with the blue water and the low, flat +meadows of the further shore for her only prospect. + +Miss Colville was left behind in London. For Fay and Mildred life was +a perpetual holiday. Mrs. Fausset was almost as much in society at The +Hook as she had been in London. Visitors came and visitors went. She +was never alone. There were parties at Henley and Marlow, and Wargrave +and Goring. Two pairs of horses were kept hard at work carrying Mr. and +Mrs. Fausset about that lovely riverside landscape to garden-parties +and dinners, picnics and regattas. John Fausset went because his wife +liked him to go, and because he liked to see her happy and admired. +The two girls were left, for the most part, to their own devices, +under the supervision of Bell. They lived in the gardens, with an +occasional excursion into the unknown world along the river. There +was a trustworthy under-gardener, who was a good oarsman, and in his +charge Mildred was allowed to go on the water in a big wherry, which +looked substantial enough to have carried a select boarding-school. + +This life by the Thames was the nearest approach to absolute happiness +which Fay had ever known; but for her there was to be no such thing as +unbroken bliss. In the midst of the sultry August weather Mildred fell +ill—a mild attack of scarlet fever, which sounded less alarming to Mrs. +Fausset’s ear, because the doctor spoke of it as scarlatina. It was a +very mild case, the local practitioner told Mrs. Fausset; there was +no occasion to send for a London physician; there was no occasion for +alarm. Mildred must keep her bed for a fortnight, and must be isolated +from the rest of the house. Her own maid might nurse her if she had had +the complaint. + +“How could she have caught the fever?” Mrs. Fausset asked, with an +injured air; and there was a grand investigation, but no scarlet fever +to be heard of nearer than Maidenhead. + +“People are so artful in hiding these things,” said Mrs. Fausset; and +ten minutes afterwards she begged the doctor not to mention Mildred’s +malady to any of her neighbours. + +“We have such a host of engagements, and crowds of visitors coming from +London,” she said. “People are so ridiculously nervous. Of course I +shall be extremely careful.” + +The doctor gave elaborate instructions about isolation. Such measures +being taken, Mrs. Fausset might receive all fashionable London with +safety. + +“And it is really such a mild case that you need not put yourself about +in any way,” concluded the doctor. + +“Dear, sweet pet, we must do all we can to amuse her,” sighed the fond +mother. + +Mild as the case might be, the patient had to suffer thirst and +headache, a dry and swollen throat, and restless nights. Her most eager +desire was for Fay’s company, and as it was ascertained that Fay had +suffered from scarlet fever some years before in a somewhat severe +form, it was considered she might safely assist in the sick-room. + +She was there almost all day, and very often in the night. She read +to Mildred, and sang to her, and played with her, and indulged every +changing fancy and caprice of sickness. Her love was inexhaustible, +indefatigable, for ever on the watch. If Mildred woke from a feverish +dream in the deep of night, with a little agitated sob or cry, she +found a figure in a white dressing-gown bending over her, and loving +arms encircling her before she had time to feel frightened. Fay slept +in a little dressing-room opening out of Mildred’s large, airy bedroom, +so as to be near her darling. It was a mere closet, with a truckle-bed +brought down from the servants’ attic; but it was good enough for Fay, +whose only thought was of the child who loved her as none other had +ever loved within her memory. + +Mrs. Fausset was prettily anxious about her child. She would come +to Mildred’s room in her dressing-gown before her leisurely morning +toilet, to hear the last report. She would sit by the bed for five +minutes showering kisses on the pale cheeks, and then she would go +away to her long summer-day of frivolous pleasures and society talk. +Ripples of laughter and snatches of speech came floating in at the +open windows; and at Mildred’s behest Fay would stand at a window and +report the proceedings of that happy world outside. + +“They are going out in the boat. They are going to have tea on the +lawn. Your mamma is walking up and down with Sir Horace Clavering. Miss +Grenville and her sister are playing croquet;” and so on, and so on, +all day. + +Mildred tossed about on her pretty white bed impatiently. + +“It is very horrid being shut up here on these fine days,” she said; +“or it would be horrid without you, Fay. Mamma does not come to see me +much.” + +Mamma came three or four times a day; but her visits were of the +briefest. She would come into the room beaming with smiles, looking +like living sunlight in her exquisite white gown, with its delicate +ribbons and cloudy lace—a fleecy white cloud just touched with +rose-colour, as if she were an embodiment of the summer dawn. Sometimes +she brought Mildred a peach, or a bunch of hothouse grapes, or an +orchid, or a new picture-book; but beautiful as these offerings were, +the child did not always value them. She would push the plate of +grapes or the peach aside impatiently when her mother was gone, or she +would entreat Fay to eat the dainty. + +“Mamma thinks I am greedy,” she said; “but I ain’t, am I, Fay?” + +Those three weeks in the sick-room, those wakeful nights and long, slow +summer days, strengthened the bond of love between the two girls. By +the time Mildred was convalescent they seemed to have loved each other +for years. Mildred could hardly remember what her life was like before +she had Fay for a companion. Mrs. Fausset saw this growing affection +not without jealousy; but it was very convenient that there should be +some one in the house whose companionship kept Mildred happy, and she +even went so far as to admit that Fay was “useful.” + +“I cannot be with the dear child half so much as I should like to be,” +she said; “visitors are so exacting.” + +Fay had slept very little during Mildred’s illness, and now that the +child was nearly well the elder girl began to flag somewhat, and was +tired early in the evening, and glad to go to bed at the same hour as +the patient, who, under Bell’s supervision, was made to retire before +eight. She was now well enough to sit up all day, and to drive out in a +pony-carriage in the sunny hours after early dinner. Fay went with her, +of course. Pony and landscape would have been wanting in charm without +Fay’s company. Both girls had gone to bed one sultry evening in the +faint gray twilight. Fay was sleeping profoundly; but Mildred, after +dozing a little, was lying half-awake, with closed eyelids, in the +flower-scented room. The day had been exceptionally warm. The windows +were all open, and a door between Mildred’s bedroom and sitting-room +had been left ajar. + +Bell was in the sitting-room at her favourite task of clearing up the +scattered toys and books, and reducing all things to mathematical +precision. Meta, Mildred’s German maid, was sitting at needlework +near the window by the light of a shaded lamp. The light shone in the +twilight through the partly-open door, and gave Mildred a sense of +company. They began to talk presently, and Mildred listened, idly at +first, and soothed by the sound of their voices, but afterwards with +keen curiosity. + +“I know I shouldn’t like to be treated so,” said Meta. + +“_I_ don’t see that she has anything to complain of,” answered Bell. +“She has a good home, and everything provided for her. What more can +she want?” + +“I should want a good deal more if I was a heiress.” + +“_An_ heiress,” corrected Bell, who prided herself on having cultivated +her mind, and was somewhat pedantic of speech. “That’s all nonsense, +Meta. She’s no more an heiress than I am. Mr. Fausset told my poor +young mistress that just to throw dust in her eyes. Heiress, indeed! +An heiress without a relative in the world that she can speak of—an +heiress that has dropped from the moon. Don’t tell _me_.” + +Nobody was telling Mrs. Bell anything; but she had a resentful air, as +if combating the arguments of an invisible adversary. + +There was a silence during which Mildred nearly fell asleep; and then +the voices began again. + +“It’s impossible for sisters to be fonder of each other than those two +are,” said Meta. + +“There’s nothing strange in that, considering they _are_ sisters,” +answered Bell angrily. + +“O, but you’ve no right to say that, Mrs. Bell; it’s going too far.” + +“Haven’t I a right to use my eyes and ears? Can’t I see the family +look in those two faces, though Miss Mildred is pretty and Miss Fay is +plain? Can’t I hear the same tones in the two voices, and haven’t I +seen his way of bringing that girl into the house, and his guilty look +before my poor injured mistress? Of course they’re sisters. Who could +ever doubt it? _She_ doesn’t, I know, poor dear.” + +She, in this connection, meant Mrs. Fausset. + +There was only one point in this speech which the innocent child +seized upon. She and Fay were said to be sisters. O, how she had +longed for a sister in the last year or so of her life, since she had +found out the meaning of solitude among fairest surroundings! How all +the brightest things she possessed had palled upon her for want of +sisterly companionship! How she had longed for a baby-sister even, and +had envied the children in households where a new baby was an annual +institution! She had wondered why her mother did not treat herself to a +new baby occasionally, as so many of her mother’s friends did. And now +Fay had been given to her, ever so much better than a baby, which would +have taken such a long time to grow up. Mildred had never calculated +how long, but she concluded that it would be some months before the +most forward baby would be of a companionable age. Fay had been given +to her—a ready-made companion, versed in fairy tales, able to conjure +up an enchanted world out of the schoolroom piano, skilful with pencil +and colour-box, able to draw the faces and figures and palaces and +woodlands of that fairy world, able to amuse and entertain her in a +hundred ways. And Fay was her sister after all. She dropped asleep in a +flutter of pleasurable excitement. She would ask her mother all about +it to-morrow; and in the meantime she would say nothing to Fay. It was +fun to have a secret from Fay. + +A batch of visitors left next day after lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Fausset +were to be alone for forty-eight hours, a rare oasis of domesticity in +the society desert. Mildred had been promised that the first day there +was no company she was to have tea with mamma in the tent on the lawn. +She claimed the fulfilment of that promise to-day. + +It was a lovely day after the sultry, thundery night. Mrs. Fausset +reclined in her basket-chair in the shelter of the tent. Fay and +Mildred sat side by side on a low bamboo bench on the grass: the +little girl, fairy-like, in her white muslin and flowing flaxen hair, +the big girl in olive-coloured alpaca, with dark hair clustering in +short curls about the small intelligent head. There could hardly have +been a stronger contrast than that between the two girls; and yet +Bell was right. There was a family look, an undefinable resemblance +of contour and expression which would have struck a very attentive +observer—something in the line of the delicate eyebrow, something in +the angle of the forehead. + +“Mamma,” said Mildred suddenly, clambering into her mother’s lap, “why +mayn’t I call Fay sister?” + +Mrs. Fausset started, and flushed crimson. + +“What nonsense, child! Why, because it would be most ridiculous.” + +“But she _is_ my sister,” urged Mildred, looking full into her mother’s +eyes, with tremendous resolution in her own. “I love her like a sister, +and she is my sister. Bell says so.” + +“Bell is an impertinent person,” cried Mrs. Fausset angrily. “When did +she say so?” + +“Last night, when she thought I was asleep. Mayn’t I call Fay sister?” +persisted Mildred coaxingly. + +“On no account. I never heard anything so shameful. To think that Bell +should gossip! An old servant like Bell—my own old nurse. It is too +cruel!” cried Mrs. Fausset, forgetting herself in her anger. + +Fay stood tall and straight in the sunshine outside the tent, wondering +at the storm. She had an instinctive apprehension that Mrs. Fausset’s +anger was humiliating to her. She knew not why, but she felt a sense +of despair darker than any other evil moment in her life; and yet her +evil moments had been many. + +“You need not be afraid that I shall ask Mildred to call me sister,” +she said. “I love her dearly, but I hate everybody else in this house.” + +“You are a wicked, ungrateful girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset, “and I am +very sorry I ever saw your face.” + +Fay drew herself up, looked at the speaker indignantly for a moment or +so, and then walked quietly away towards the house. + +She passed the footman with the tea-tray as she crossed the lawn, +and a little further on she passed John Fausset, who looked at her +wonderingly. + +Mildred burst out crying. + +“How unkind you are, mamma!” she sobbed. “If I mayn’t call her my +sister I shall always love her like a sister—always, always, always.” + +“What is the matter with my Mildred?” asked Mr. Fausset, arriving at +this moment. + +“Nothing. She has only been silly,” his wife answered pettishly. + +“And Fay—has she been silly, too?” + +“Fay, your _protégée_, has been most impertinent to me. But I suppose +that does not count.” + +“It does count, for a good deal, if she has been intentionally +impertinent,” answered Fausset gravely. + +He looked back after Fay’s vanishing figure with a troubled expression. +He had so sighed for peace. He had hoped that the motherless girl +might be taken into his home and cared for and made happy, without +evil feeling upon any one’s part; and now he could see by his wife’s +countenance that the hope of union and peace was at an end. + +“I don’t know what you mean about intention,” said his wife; “I only +know that the girl you are so fond of has just said she hates everybody +in this house except Mildred. That sound rather like intentional +impertinence, I think.” + +“Go and play, darling,” said Fausset to his child; “or run after Fay, +and bring her back to tea.” + +“You show a vast amount of consideration for your wife,” said Mrs. +Fausset. + +“My dear Maud, I want you to show a little more consideration for that +girl, who has been so devoted to Mildred all through her illness, and +who has one very strong claim upon a mother’s heart—she is motherless.” + +“I should think more of that claim, perhaps, if I knew who her mother +was, and what she was to you,” said Maud Fausset. + +“She was once near and dear to me. That is all I can tell you, Maud; +and it ought to be enough.” + +“It is more than enough,” his wife answered, trembling from head to +foot, as she rose from her low chair, and walked away from the tent. + +John Fausset looked after her irresolutely, went a few steps as if he +meant to follow her, and then turned back to the tent, just as Mildred +reappeared with Fay from another direction. + +“We three will have tea together,” he exclaimed, with demonstrative +cheerfulness. “Mamma is not very well, Mildred; she has gone back to +the house. You shall pour out my tea.” + +He seated himself in his wife’s chair, and Mildred sat on his knee, +and put her arms round his neck, and adored him with all her power of +adoration. Her household divinity had ever been the father. Perhaps +her baby mind had found out the weakness of one parent and the strength +of the other. + +“Fay shall pour out the tea,” she said, with a sense of self-sacrifice. +“It will be a treat for Fay.” + +So Fay poured out the tea, and they all three sat in the tent, and were +happy and merry—or seemingly so, perhaps, as concerned John Fausset—for +one whole sunshiny hour, and for the first time Fay felt that she +was not an outsider. Yet there lurked in her mind the memory of Mrs. +Fausset’s anger, and that memory was bitter. + +“What am I, that almost everybody should be rude to me?” she asked +herself, as she sat alone that night after Mildred had gone to bed. + +From the open windows below came the languid sweetness of a nocturne +by Chopin. Mrs. Fausset was playing her husband to sleep after dinner. +Sure token of reconciliation between husband and wife. + + * * * * * + +The doctor came next morning. He appeared upon alternate days now, and +looked at Mildred in a casual manner, after exhausting the local gossip +with Mrs. Fausset. This morning he and Mrs. Fausset were particularly +confidential before the patient was sent for. + +“Admirable!” he exclaimed, when he had looked at her tongue and felt +her pulse; “we are as nearly well as we can be. All we want now is a +little sea-air to set us up for the winter. The great point, my dear +madam”—to Mrs. Fausset—“is to avoid all risk of _sequelæ_. A fortnight +at Brighton or Eastbourne will restore our little friend to perfect +health.” + +There were no difficulties in the way of such people as the Faussets, +no question of ways and means. Bell was sent for, and despatched +to Eastbourne by an afternoon train. She was to take lodgings in a +perfect position, and of impeccable repute as to sanitation. Mildred +was to follow next day, under convoy of Meta and the under-butler, a +responsible person of thirty-five. + +“Fay must go, too,” exclaimed Mildred; whereupon followed a tragic +scene. + +Fay was not to go to Eastbourne. No reasons were assigned for the +decision. Mildred was to ride a donkey; she was to have a pony-carriage +at her disposition; but she was to be without Fay for a whole +fortnight. In a fortnight she would be able to come home again. + +“How many days are there in a fortnight?” she asked piteously. + +“Fourteen.” + +“O Fay, fourteen days away from you!” she exclaimed, clinging with fond +arms round Fay’s neck, and pulling down the dark head on a level with +her own bright hair. + +Fay was pale, but tearless, and said not a word. She let Mildred kiss +her, and kissed back again, but in a dead silence. She went into the +hall with the child, and to the carriage-door, and they kissed each +other on the doorstep, and they kissed at the carriage-window; and then +the horses trotted away along the gravel drive, and Fay had a last +glimpse of the fair head thrust out of the window, and the lilies and +roses of a child’s face framed in pale gold hair. + +It was a little more than a fortnight before Bell and her charge went +back to The Hook. Mildred had sorely missed her playfellow, but had +consoled herself with a spade and pail on the beach, and a donkey of +venerable aspect, whose chief distinction was his white linen panoply, +on the long dusty roads. + +Mrs. Fausset was not at home to receive her daughter. She had a +superior duty at Chertsey, where people of some social importance were +giving a lawn-party. The house seemed empty and silent, and all its +brightness and graceful furniture, and flowers in the hall and on the +staircase, could not atone for that want of human life. + +“Where is Fay?” cried Mildred, taking alarm. + +Nobody answered a question which was addressed to everybody. + +“Fay, Fay, where are you?” cried the child, and then rushed up-stairs +to the schoolroom, light as a lapwing, distracted with that sudden +fear. “Fay, Fay!” The treble cry rang through the house. + +No one in the schoolroom, nor in Mildred’s bedroom, nor in the little +room where Fay had slept, nor in the drawing-rooms, whither Mildred +came running, after that futile quest up-stairs. + +Bell met her in the hall, with a letter in her hand. + +“Your mamma wished to break it to you herself, miss,” said Bell. “Miss +Fay has gone.” + +“Gone, where?” + +“To Brussels.” + +“Where is Brussels?” + +“_I_ believe, miss, that it is the capital of Belgium.” + +Mildred tore open the letter, which Bell read aloud over the child’s +shoulder. + +“I hope you won’t be grieved at losing your playfellow, my dearest pet. +Fay is dreadfully backward in her education, and has no manners. She +has gone to a finishing-school at Brussels, and you may not see her +again for some years.” + +And so the years go by, and this story passes on to a time when the +child Mildred is a child no more, but the happy mother of a fair young +daughter, and the wife of an idolised husband. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +WITHOUT THE WOLF. + + +“Father,” said Lola, “there are ever so many people in the village ill +with fever. Isn’t it sad?” + +Mr. and Mrs. Greswold, of Enderby Manor, had been submitting to a +fortnight’s dissipation in London, and this was their first Sunday at +home after that interval. They had returned late on the previous night, +and house and gardens had all the sweetness and freshness of a scene to +which one is restored after absence. They had spent the summer morning +in the little village church with their daughter; and now they were +enjoying the leisure interval between church and luncheon. + +George Greswold sat in a lounging-chair under a cedar within twenty +yards of the dining-room windows, and Lola was hanging about him as he +read the _Athenæum_, caressing him with little touches of light hands +upon his hair or his coat-collar, adoring him with all her might after +the agony of severance. + +She was his only child, and the love between them was passing the love +of the father and daughter of every-day life. It was an almost romantic +attachment. + +Like most only daughters, Lola was precocious, far in advance of her +years in thoughtfulness and emotion, though perhaps a little behind +the average girl of twelve in the severities of feminine education. +She had been her mother’s chief companion ever since she could speak, +the confidante of all that mother’s thoughts and fancies, which were +as innocent as those of childhood itself. She had read much more than +most girls of her age, and had been made familiar with poets whose +names are only known to the schoolgirl in a history of literature. She +knew a good deal about the best books in European literature; but, most +of all, she knew the hearts and minds of her father and mother, their +loves and likings, their joys and sorrows. She had never been shut out +from their confidence; she had never been told to go and play when they +wanted to talk to each other. She had sat with them, and walked and +ridden and driven with them ever since she was old enough to dispense +with her nurse’s arms. She had lived her young life with them, and had +been a part of their lives. + +George Greswold looked up from his _Athenæum_ in quick alarm. + +“Fever!” he exclaimed, “fever at Enderby!” + +“Strange, isn’t it, father? Everybody is wondering about it. Enderby +has always been such a healthy village, and you have taken such pains +to make it so.” + +“Yes, love, I have done my best. I am a landlord for pleasure, and not +for gain, as you and mother know.” + +“And what seems strangest and worst of all,” continued Lola, “is that +this dreadful fever has broken out among the people you and mother and +I are fondest of—our old friends and pensioners—and the children we +know most about. It seems so hard that those you and mother have helped +the most should be the first to be ill.” + +“Yes, love, that must seem very hard to my tender-hearted darling.” + +Her father looked up at her fondly as she stood behind his chair, +her white arm leaning upon his shoulder. The summer was in its +zenith. It was strawberry-time, rose-time, haymaking-time—the season +of nightingales and meadow-sweet and tall Mary lilies, and all those +lovely things that cluster in the core of summer’s great warm heart. +Lola was all in white—a loose muslin frock, straight from shoulder +to instep. Her thick gold hair fell straight as her frock below her +ungirdled waist, and, in her white and gold, she had the look of an +angel in an early Italian picture. Her eyes were as blue as that +cloudless sky of midsummer which took a deeper azure behind the +black-green branches of the cedar. + +“My pet, I take it this fever is some slight summer malady. Cottagers +are such ravens. They always make the worst of an illness.” + +“O, but they really have been very bad. Mary Martin has had the fever, +but she is getting better. And there’s Johnny Giles; you know what a +strong boy _he_ is. He’s very bad, poor little chap—so delirious; and I +do feel so sorry for his poor mother. And young Mrs. Peter has it, and +two of her children.” + +“It must be contagious,” cried Greswold, seizing his daughter’s round +white arm with an agitated movement. “You have not been to see any +of them, have you, Lola?” he asked, looking at her with unspeakable +anxiety. + +“No; Bell wouldn’t let me go to see any of them; but of course I have +taken them things every day—wine and beef-tea and jelly, and everything +we could think of; and they have had as much milk as they liked.” + +“You should not have gone yourself with the things, darling. You should +have sent them.” + +“That would seem so unkind, as if one hardly cared; and Puck with +nothing to do all the time but to drag me about. It was no trouble to +go myself. I did not even go inside the cottages. Bell said I mustn’t.” + +“Bell was right. Well, I suppose there is no harm done if you didn’t +go into any of the cottages; and it was very sweet of you to take the +things yourself; like Red Riding Hood, only without the wolf. There +goes the gong. I hope you are hungry.” + +“Not very. The weather is too warm for eating anything but +strawberries.” + +He looked at her anxiously again, ready to take alarm at a word. + +“Yes, it is too warm in this south-western country,” he said nervously. +“We’ll go to Scotland next week.” + +“So soon?” + +“Why not a little sooner than usual, for once in a way?” + +“I shall be sorry to go away while the people are ill,” she said +gravely. + +George Greswold forgot that the gong had sounded. He sat, leaning +forward, in a despondent attitude. The very mention of sickness in +the land had unhinged him. This child was so dear to him, his only +one. He had done all that forethought, sense, and science could do to +make the village which lay at his doors the perfection of health and +purity. Famous sanitarians had been entertained at the Manor, and had +held counsel with Mr. Greswold upon the progress of sanitation, and +its latest developments. They had wondered with him over the blind +ignorance of our forefathers. They had instructed him how to drain his +house, and how to ventilate and purify his cottages. They had assured +him that, so far as lay within the limits of human intelligence, +perfection had been achieved in Enderby village and Enderby Manor House. + +And now his idolised daughter hung over his chair and told him that +there was fever raging in the land, his land; the land which he loved +as if it were a living thing, and on which he had lavished care and +money ever since he had owned it. Other men might consider their +ancestral estates as something to be lived upon; George Greswold +thought of his forefathers’ house and lands as something to be lived +for. His cottages were model cottages, and he was known far and wide as +a model landlord. + +“George, are you quite forgetting luncheon?” asked a voice from one of +the open windows, and he looked up to see a beautiful face looking out +at him, framed in hair of Lola’s colour. + +“My dear Mildred, come here for a moment?” he said, and his wife went +to him, smiling still, but with a shade of uneasiness in her face. + +“Go in, pet. We’ll follow you directly,” he said to his daughter; and +then he rose slowly, with an air of being almost broken down by a great +trouble, and put his hand through his wife’s arm, and led her along the +velvet turf beyond the cedar. + +“Mildred, have you heard of this fever?” + +“Yes; Louisa told me this morning when she was doing my hair. It seems +to be rather bad; but there cannot be any danger, surely, after all you +have done to make the cottages perfect in every way?” + +“One cannot tell. There may be a germ of evil brought from somewhere +else. I am sorry Lola has been among the people.” + +“O, but she has not been inside any of the cottages. Bell took care to +prevent that.” + +“Bell was wise, but she might have done better still. She should have +telegraphed to us. Lola must not go about any more. You will see to +that, won’t you, dearest? Before the end of the week I will take you +both to Scotland.” + +“Do you really suppose there can be danger?” she asked, growing very +pale. + +“No, no, I don’t apprehend danger. Only it is better to be +over-cautious than over-bold. We cannot be too careful of our treasure.” + +“No, no, indeed,” answered the mother, with a piteous look. + +“Mother,” called Lola from the window, “are you ever coming? Pomfret +will be late for church.” + +Pomfret was the butler, whose convenience had to be studied upon +Sundays. The servants dined while the family were at luncheon, and +almost all the establishment went to afternoon service, leaving a +footman and an under-housemaid in sole possession of the grave old +manor-house, where the silence had a solemnity as in some monastic +chapel. Lola was anxious that luncheon should begin, and Pomfret be +dismissed to eat his dinner. + +This child of twelve had more than a woman’s forethought. She spent her +life in thinking about other people; but of all those whom she loved, +and for whom she cared, her father was first and chief. For him her +love was akin to worship. + +She watched his face anxiously now, as she took her seat at his right +hand, and was silent until Pomfret had served the soup and retired, +leaving all the rest of the luncheon on the table, and the wine on a +dumb-waiter by his master’s side. + +There was always a cold lunch on Sundays, and the evening meal was +also cold, a compromise between dinner and supper, served at nine +o’clock, by which time the servants had gratified their various tastes +for church or chapel, and had enjoyed an evening walk. There was no +parsonage in England where the day of rest was held in more reverence +than it was at Enderby Manor. + +Mr. Greswold was no bigot, his religion in no wise savoured of the +over-good school; but he was a man of deep religious convictions; and +he had been brought up to honour Sunday as a day set apart. + +The Sunday parties and Sunday amusements of fashionable London were an +abomination to him, though he was far too liberal-minded to wish to +shut museums and picture-galleries against the people. + +“Father,” said Lola, when they were alone, “I’m afraid you had your bad +dream last night.” + +Greswold looked at her curiously. + +“No, love, my dreams were colourless, and have left not even a +remembrance.” + +“And yet you look sorrowful, just as you always look after your bad +dream.” + +“Your father is anxious about the cottagers who are ill, dearest,” said +Mrs. Greswold. “That is all.” + +“But you must not be unhappy about them, father dear. You don’t think +that any of them will die, do you?” asked Lola, drawing very near him, +and looking up at him with awe-stricken eyes. + +“Indeed, my love, I hope not. They shall not die, if care can save +them. I will walk round the village with Porter this afternoon, and +find out all about the trouble. If there is anything that he cannot +understand, we’ll have Dr. Hutchinson over from Southampton, or a +physician from London if necessary. My people shall not be neglected.” + +“May I go with you this afternoon, father?” + +“No, dearest, neither you nor mother must leave the grounds till we go +away. I will have no needless risks run by my dear ones.” + +Neither mother nor daughter disputed his will upon this point. He was +the sole arbiter of their lives. It seemed almost as if they lived +only to please him. Both would have liked to go with him; both thought +him over-cautious; yet neither attempted to argue the point. Happy +household in which there are no arguments upon domestic trifles, no +bickerings about the infinitesimals of life! + +Enderby Manor was one of those ideal homes which adorn the face of +England and sustain its reputation as the native soil of domestic +virtues, the country in which good wives and good mothers are +indigenous. + +There are many such ideal homes in the land as to outward aspect, seen +from the high-road, across park or pasture, shrubbery or flower-garden; +but only a few of these sustain the idea upon intimate knowledge of the +interior. + +Here, within as well as without, the atmosphere was peace. Those +velvet lawns and brilliant flower-beds were not more perfect than the +love between husband and wife, child and parents. No cloud had ever +shadowed that serene heaven of domestic peace. George Greswold had +married at thirty a girl of eighteen who adored him; and those two +had lived for each other and for their only child ever since. All +outside the narrow circle of family love counted only as the margin +or the framework of life. All the deepest and sweetest elements of +life were within the veil. Mildred Greswold could not conceive a +fashionable woman’s existence—a life given up to frivolous occupations +and futile excitements—a life of empty pleasure faintly flavoured with +art, literature, science, philanthropy, and politics, and fancying +itself eminently useful and eminently progressive. She had seen such +an existence in her childhood, and had wondered that any reasoning +creature could so live. She had turned her back upon the modish world +when she married George Greswold, and had surrendered most of the +delights of society to lead quiet days in her husband’s ancestral home, +loving that old house for his sake, as he loved it for the sake of the +dead. + +They were not in outer darkness, however, as to the movement of the +world. They spent a fortnight at Limmers occasionally, when the fancy +moved them. They saw all the pictures worth seeing, heard a good deal +of the best music, mixed just enough in society to distinguish gold +from tinsel, and to make a happy choice of friends. + +They occasionally treated themselves to a week in Paris, and their +autumn holidays were mostly spent in a shooting-box twenty miles +beyond Inverness. They came back to the Manor in time for the +pheasant-shooting, and the New Year generally began with a house-party +which lasted with variations until the hunting was all over, and the +young leaves were green in the neighbouring forest. No lives could +have been happier, or fuller of interest; but the interest all centred +in home. Farmers and cottagers on the estate were cared for as a part +of home; and the estate itself was loved almost as a living thing by +husband and wife, and the fair child who had been born to them in the +old-fashioned house. + +The grave red-brick manor-house had been built when William III. +was King; and there were some Dutch innovations in the Old English +architecture, notably a turret or pavilion at the end of each wing, +and a long bowling-green on the western side of the garden. The walls +had that deep glowing red which is only seen in old brickwork, and the +black glazed tiles upon the hopper roof glittered in the sunlight with +the prismatic hues of antique Rhodian glass. The chief characteristic +of the interior was the oak-panelling, which clothed the rooms +and corridors as in a garment of sober brown, and would have been +suggestive of gloom but for the pictures and porcelain which brightened +every wall, and the rich colouring of brocaded curtains and tapestry +_portières_. The chief charm of the house was the aspect of home life, +the books and musical instruments, the art treasures, and flowers, +and domestic trifles to be seen everywhere; the air which every room +and every nook and corner had of being lived in by home-loving and +home-keeping people. + +The pavilion at the end of the south-west wing was Lola’s special +domain, that and the room communicating with it. That pretty +sitting-room, with dwarf book-shelves, water-colour pictures, and +Wedgwood china, was never called a schoolroom. It was Lola’s study. + +“There shall be no suggestion of school in our home,” said George +Greswold. + +It was he who chose his daughter’s masters, and it was often he who +attended during the lesson, listening intently to the progress of the +work, and as keenly interested in the pupil’s progress as the pupil +herself. Latin he himself taught her, and she already knew by heart +those noblest of Horace’s odes which are fittest for young lips. Their +philosophy saddened her a little. + +“Is life always changing?” she asked her father; “must one never +venture to be quite happy?” + +The Latin poet’s pervading idea of mutability, inevitable death, and +inevitable change impressed her with a flavour of sadness, child as she +was. + +“My dearest, had Horace been a Christian, as you are, and had he lived +for others, as you do, he would not have been afraid to call himself +happy,” answered George Greswold. “He was a Pagan, and he put on the +armour of philosophy for want of the armour of faith.” + +These lessons in the classics, taking a dead language not as a dry +study of grammar and dictionary, but as the gate to new worlds of +poetry and philosophy, had been Lola’s delight. She was in no wise +unpleasantly precocious; but she was far in advance of the conventional +schoolroom child, trained into characterless uniformity by a superior +governess. Lola had never been under governess rule. Her life at the +Manor had been as free as that of the butterflies. There was only Bell +to lecture her—white-haired Mrs. Bell, thin and spare, straight as an +arrow, at seventy-four years of age, the embodiment of servants’-hall +gentility, in her black silk afternoon gown and neat cambric cap—Bell, +who looked after Lola’s health, and Lola’s rooms, and was for ever +tidying the drawers and tables, and lecturing upon the degeneracy of +girlhood. It was her boast to have nursed Lola’s grandmother, as well +as Lola’s mother, which seemed going back to the remoteness of the dark +ages. + +Enderby Manor was three miles from Romsey, and within riding or driving +distance of the New Forest and of Salisbury Cathedral. It lay in the +heart of a pastoral district watered by the Test, and was altogether +one of the most enjoyable estates in that part of the country. + +Before luncheon was finished a messenger was on his way to the +village to summon Mr. Porter, more commonly Dr. Porter, the parish +and everybody’s doctor, an elderly man of burly figure, close-cropped +gray hair, and yeoman-like bearing—a man born on the soil, whose +father and grandfather and great-grandfather had cured or killed the +inhabitants of Enderby parish from time immemorial. Judging from the +tombstones in the pretty old churchyard, they must have cured more than +they killed; for those crumbling moss-grown stones bore the record of +patriarchal lives, and the union near Enderby was a museum of incipient +centenarians. + +Mr. Porter came into the grave old library at the Manor looking more +serious than his wont, perhaps in sympathy with George Greswold’s +anxious face, turned towards the door as the footman opened it. + +“Well, Porter, what does it all mean, this fever?” asked Greswold +abruptly. + +Mr. Porter had a manner of discussing a case which was all his own. +He always appealed to his patient with a professional air, as if +consulting another medical authority, and a higher one than himself. It +was flattering, perhaps, but not always satisfactory. + +“Well, you see, there’s the high temperature—104 in some cases—and +there’s the inflamed throat, and there’s headache. What do _you_ say?” + +“Don’t talk nonsense, Porter; you must know whether it is an infectious +fever or not. If you don’t know, we’ll send to Southampton for +Hutchinson.” + +“Of course, you can have him if you like. I judge more by temperature +than anything—the thermometer is a safer guide than the pulse, as you +know. I took their temperatures this morning before I went to church: +only one case in which there was improvement—all the others decidedly +worse; very strongly developed cases of malignant fever—typhus or +typhoid—which, as you know, by Jenner’s differentiation of the two +forms—” + +“For God’s sake, man, don’t talk to me as if I were a doctor, and had +your ghoulish relish of disease! If you have the slightest doubt as to +treatment, send for Hutchinson.” + +He took a sheaf of telegraph-forms from the stand in front of him, and +began to write his message while he was talking. He had made up his +mind that Dr. Hutchinson must come to see these humble sufferers, and +to investigate the cause of evil. He had taken such pains to create a +healthy settlement, had spared no expense; and for fifteen years, from +the hour of his succession until now, all had gone well with him. And +now there was fever in the land, fever in the air breathed by those two +beloved ones, daughter and wife. + +“I have been so happy; my life has been cloudless, save for one dark +memory,” he said to himself, covering his face with his hands as he +leaned with his elbows on the table, while Mr. Porter expatiated upon +the cases in the village, and on fever in general. + +“I have tested the water in all the wells—perfectly pure. There can be +nothing amiss with the milk, for all my patients are on Mrs. Greswold’s +list, and are getting their milk from your own dairy. The drainage +is perfection—yet here we have an outbreak of fever, which looks +remarkably like typhoid?” + +“Why not say at once that it is typhoid?” + +“The symptoms all point that way.” + +“You say there can be nothing amiss with the milk. You have not +analysed it, I suppose?” + +“Why should I? Out of your own dairy, where everything is managed in +the very best way—the perfection of cleanliness in every detail.” + +“You ought to have analysed the milk, all the same,” said Greswold +thoughtfully. “The strength of a chain is its weakest link. There may +be some weak link here, though we cannot put our fingers upon it—yet. +Are there many cases?” + +“Let me see. There’s Johnny Giles, and Mrs. Peter and her children, and +Janet Dawson, and there’s Andrew Rogers, and there’s Mary Rainbow,” +began Mr. Porter, counting on his fingers as he went on, until the list +of sufferers came to eleven. “Mostly youngsters,” he said in conclusion. + +“They ought to have been isolated,” said Greswold. “I will get out +plans for an infirmary to-morrow. There is the willow-field, on the +other side of the village, a ridge of high ground sloping down +towards the parish drain, with a southern exposure, a capital site for +a hospital. It is dreadful to think of fever-poison spreading from +half-a-dozen different cottages. Which was the first case?” + +“Little Rainbow.” + +“That fair-haired child whom I used to see from my dressing-room window +every morning as she went away from the dairy, tottering under a +pitcher of milk? Poor little Polly! She was a favourite with us all. Is +she very ill?” + +“Yes, I think hers is about the best case,” answered the doctor +unctuously; “the others are a little vague; but there’s no doubt about +_her_, all the symptoms strongly marked—a very clear case.” + +“Is there any danger of a fatal termination?” + +“I’m afraid there is.” + +“Poor little Polly—poor pretty little girl! I used to know it was seven +o’clock when I saw that bright little flaxen head flit by the yew hedge +yonder. Polly was as good a timekeeper as any clock in the village. And +you think she may die? You have not told Lola, I hope?” + +“No, I have not let out anything about danger. Lola is only too anxious +already.” + +“I will put the infirmary in hand to-morrow; and I will take my wife +and daughter to Scotland on Tuesday.” + +“Upon my word, it will be a very good thing to get them away. These +fever cases are so mysterious. There’s no knowing what shape infection +may take. I have the strongest belief in your system of drainage—” + +“Nothing is perfect,” said Greswold impatiently. “The science of +sanitation is still in its infancy. I sometimes think we have not +advanced very far from the knowledge of our ancestors, whose homes were +desolated by the Black Death. However, don’t let us talk, Porter. Let +us act, if we can. Come and look at the dairy.” + +“You don’t apprehend evil there?” + +“There are three sources of typhoid poison—drainage, water, milk. You +say the drains and the water are good, and that the milk comes from my +own dairy. If you are right as to the first and second, the third must +be wrong, no matter whose dairy it may come from.” + +He took up his hat, and went out of the house with the doctor. Gardens +and shrubberies stretched before them in all their luxuriance of summer +verdure, gardens and shrubberies which had been the delight and pride +of many generations of Greswolds, but loved more dearly by none than by +George Greswold and his wife. In Mildred’s mind the old family house +was a part of her husband’s individuality, an attribute rather than +a mere possession. Every tree and every shrub was sacred. These, his +mother’s own hands had cropped and tended; those, grandfathers and +great-grandfathers and _arrière_ great-grandfathers had planted in +epochs that distance has made romantic. + +On the right of the hall-door a broad gravel path led in a serpentine +sweep towards the stables, a long, low building spread over a +considerable area, and hidden by shrubberies. The dairy was a little +further off, approached by a winding walk through thickets of laurel +and arbutus. It had been originally a barn, and was used as a +receptacle for all manner of out-of-door lumber when Mildred came to +the Manor. She had converted the old stone building into a model dairy, +with outside gallery and staircase of solid woodwork, and with a Swiss +roof. Other buildings had been added. There were low cowhouses, and +tall pigeon-houses, and a picturesque variety of gables and elevations +which was delightful to the eye, seen on a summer afternoon such as +this June Sunday, amidst the perfume of clove carnations and old +English roses, and the cooing of doves. + +Mrs. Greswold’s Channel Island cows were her delight—creatures with +cream-coloured coats, black noses, and wistful brown eyes. Scarcely a +day passed on which she did not waste an hour or so in the cowhouses +or in the meadows caressing these favourites. Each cow had her name +painted in blue and white above her stall, and the chief, or duchess of +the herd, was very severe in the maintenance of cowhouse precedence, +and knew how to resent the insolence of a new-comer who should presume +to cross the threshold in advance of her. + +The dairy itself had a solemn and shadowy air, like a shrine, and +was as pretty as the dairy at Frogmore. The walls were lined with +Minton tiles, the shallow milk-pans were of Doulton pottery, and +quaintly-shaped pitchers of bright colours were ranged on china +brackets along the walls. The windows were latticed, and a pane +of ruby, rose, or amethyst appeared here and there among the old +bottle-green glass, and cast a patch of coloured light upon the cool +marble slab below. + +The chief dairy-woman lived at an old-fashioned cottage on the +premises, with her husband, the cowkeeper; and their garden, which +lay at the back of the cowhouses and dairy, was the ideal old English +garden, in which flowers and fruit strive for the mastery. In a corner +of this garden, close to the outer offices of the cottage, among rows +of peas, and summer cabbages, and great overgrown lavender-bushes and +moss-roses, stood the old well, with its crumbling brick border and +ancient spindle, a well that had been dug when the old manor-house was +new. + +There were other water arrangements for Mrs. Greswold’s dairy, a new +artesian well, on a hill a quarter of a mile from the kitchen-garden, +a well that went deep down into the chalk, and was famous for the +purity of its water. All the drinking-water of the house was supplied +from this well, and the water was laid on in iron pipes to dairy and +cowhouses. All the vessels used for milk or cream were washed in this +water; at least, such were Mr. Greswold’s strict orders—orders supposed +to be carried out under the supervision of his bailiff and housekeeper. + +Mr. Porter looked at a reeking heap of stable manure that sprawled +within twenty feet of the old well with suspicion in his eye, and from +the manure-heap he looked at the back premises of the old cob-walled +cottage. + +“I’m afraid there may have been soakage from that manure-heap into the +well,” he said; “and if your dairy vessels are washed in that water—” + +“But they never are,” interrupted Mr. Greswold; “that water is used +only for the garden—eh, Mrs. Wadman?” + +The dairy-woman was standing on the threshold of her neat little +kitchen, curtseying to her master, resplendent in her Sunday gown of +bright blue merino, and her Sunday brooch, containing her husband’s +photograph, coloured out of knowledge. + +“No, of course not, sir; leastways, never except when there was +something wrong with the pipes from the artesian.” + +“Something wrong; when was that? I never heard of anything wrong.” + +“Well, sir, my husband didn’t want to be troublesome, and Mr. Thomas +he gave the order for the men from Romsey, that was on the Saturday +after working-hours, and they was to come as it might be on the Monday +morning, and they never come near; and Mr. Thomas he wrote and wrote, +and my husband he says it ain’t no use writing, and he takes the pony +and rides over to Romsey in his overtime, and he complains about the +men not coming, and they tells him there’s a big job on at Broadlands +and not a plumber to be had for love or money; but the pipes is all +right _now_, sir.” + +“Now? Since when have they been in working order?” + +“Since yesterday, sir. Mr. Thomas was determined he’d have everything +right before you came back.” + +“And how long have you been using that water,” pointing to the well, +with its moss-grown brickwork and flaunting margin of yellow stonecrop, +“for dairy purposes?” + +“Well, you see, sir, we was obliged to use water of some kind; and +there ain’t purer or better water than that for twenty mile round. I +always use it for my kettle every time I make tea for me or my master, +and never found no harm from it in the last fifteen years.” + +“How long have you used it for the dairy?” repeated George Greswold +angrily; “can’t you give a straight answer, woman?” + +Mrs. Wadman could not: had never achieved a direct reply to a plain +question within the memory of man. + +“The men was to have come on the Monday morning, first thing,” she +said, “and they didn’t come till the Tuesday week after that, and then +they was that slow——” + +George Greswold walked up and down the garden path, raging. + +“She won’t answer!” he cried. “Was it a week—a fortnight—three weeks +ago that you began to use that water for your dairy?” he asked sternly; +and gradually he and the doctor induced her to acknowledge that the +garden well had been in use for the dairy nearly three weeks before +yesterday. + +“Then that is enough to account for everything,” said Dr. +Porter. “First there is filtration of manure through a gravelly +soil—inevitable—and next there is something worse. She had her sister +here from Salisbury—six weeks ago—down with typhoid fever three days +after she came—brought it from Salisbury.” + +“Yes, yes—I remember. You told me there was no danger of infection.” + +“There need have been none. I made her use all precautions possible +in an old-fashioned cottage; but however careful she might be, there +would be always the risk of a well—close at hand like that one—getting +tainted. I asked her if she ever used that water for anything but the +garden, and she said no, the artesian well supplied every want. And now +she talks about her kettle, and tells us coolly that she has been using +that polluted water for the last three weeks—and poisoning a whole +village.” + +“Me poisoning the village! O Dr. Porter, how can you say such a cruel +thing? Me, that wouldn’t hurt a fly if I knew it!” + +“Perhaps not, Mrs. Wadman; but I’m afraid you’ve hurt a good many of +your neighbours without knowing it.” + +George Greswold stood in the pathway silent and deadly pale. He had +been so happy for the last thirteen years—a sky without a cloud—and now +in a moment the clouds were closing round him, and again all might be +darkness, as it had been once before in his life. Calamity for which he +felt himself unaccountable had come upon him before—swift as an arrow +from the bow—and now again he stood helpless, smitten by the hand of +Fate. + +He thought of the little village child, with her guileless face, +looking up at his window as she tripped by with her pitcher. His dole +of milk had been fatal to the simple souls who had looked up to him +as a Providence. He had taken such pains that all should be sweet and +wholesome in his people’s cottages; he had spent money like water, and +had lectured them and taught them; and lo! from his own luxurious home +the evil had gone forth. Careless servants, hushing up a difficulty, +loth to approach him with plain facts lest they should be considered +troublesome, had wrought this evil, had spread disease and death in the +land. + +And his own and only child, the delight of his life, the apple of +his eye—that tainted milk had been served at her table! Amidst all +that grace of porcelain and flowers the poison had lurked, as at the +cottagers’ board. What if she, too, should suffer? + +He meant to take her away in a day or two—now—now when the cause of +evil was at work no longer. The thought that it might be too late, that +the germ of poison might lurk in the heart of that fair flower, filled +him with despair. + +Mrs. Wadman had run into her cottage, shedding indignant tears at Dr. +Porter’s cruelty. She came out again, with a triumphant air, carrying +a tumbler of water. + +“Just look at it, sir,” she said; “look how bright and clear it is. +There never was better water.” + +“My good woman, in this case brightness and clearness mean corruption,” +said the doctor. “If you’ll give me a pint of that water in a bottle +I’ll take it home with me, and test it before I sleep to-night.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +“AH! PITY! THE LILY IS WITHERED.” + + +George Greswold left the dairy-garden like a man stricken to death. +He felt as if the hand of Fate were on him. It was not his fault that +this evil had come upon him, that these poor people whom he had tried +to help suffered by his bounty, and were perhaps to die for it. He had +done all that human foresight could do; but the blind folly of his +servants had stultified his efforts. Nothing in a London slum could +have been worse than this evil which had come about in a gentleman’s +ornamental dairy, upon premises where money had been lavished to secure +the perfection of scientific sanitation. + +Mr. Porter murmured some hopeful remark as they went back to the house. + +“Don’t talk about it, Porter,” Greswold answered impatiently; “nothing +could be worse—nothing. Do all you can for these poor people—your +uttermost, mind, your uttermost. Spare neither time nor money. Save +them, if you can.” + +“You may be assured I shall do my best. There are only three or four +very bad cases.” + +“Three or four! My God, how horrible! Three or four people murdered by +the idiocy of my servants.” + +“Joe Stanning—not much chance for him, I’m afraid—and Polly Rainbow.” + +“Polly—poor pretty little Polly! O Porter, you _must_ save her! You +must perform a miracle, man. That is what genius means in a doctor. The +man of genius does something that all other doctors have pronounced +impossible. You will have Hutchinson over to-morrow. He may be able to +help you.” + +“If she live till to-morrow. I’m afraid it’s a question of a few hours.” + +George Greswold groaned aloud. + +“And my daughter has been drinking the same tainted milk. Will she be +stricken, do you think?” he asked, with an awful calmness. + +“God forbid! Lola has such a fine constitution and the antecedent +circumstances are different. I’ll go and have a look at my patients, +and come back to you late in the evening with the last news.” + +They parted by a little gate at the corner of a thick yew hedge, which +admitted Mr. Greswold into his wife’s flower-garden: a very old garden, +which had been the care and delight of many generations; a large square +garden, with broad flower-beds on each side, a stone sundial in the +centre of a grass-plot, and a buttressed wall at the end, a massive old +wall of vermilion brickwork, honeycombed by the decay of centuries, +against which a double rank of hollyhocks made a particoloured screen, +while flaunting dragon’s-mouth and yellow stonecrop made a flame of +colour on the top. + +There was an old stone summer-house in each angle of that end wall, +temples open to the sun and air, and raised upon three marble steps, +stained with moss and lichen. + +Charming as these antique retreats were to muse or read in, Mildred +Greswold preferred taking tea on the lawn, in the shadow of the two +old cedars. She was sitting in a low garden-chair, with a Japanese +tea-table at her side, and a volume of Robertson’s sermons on her lap. + +It was a rule of life at Enderby Manor that only books of pious +tendency should be read on Sundays. The Sunday library was varied and +well chosen. Nobody ever found the books dull or the day too long. The +dedication of that one day in seven to godliness and good works had +never been an oppression to Mildred Greswold. + +She remembered her mother’s Sundays—days of hasty church, and slow +elaborate dressing for afternoon or evening gaieties; days of church +parade and much praise of other people’s gowns and depreciation of +other people’s conduct; days of gadding about and running from place to +place; Sunday luncheons, Sunday musical parties, Sunday expeditions up +the river, Sunday in the studios, Sunday at Richmond or Greenwich. Mrs. +Greswold remembered the fussy emptiness of that fashionable Sunday, and +preferred sermons and tranquil solitude in the manor gardens. + +Solitude meant a trinity of domestic love. Husband, wife, and +daughter spent their Sundays together. Those were blessed days for +the wife and daughter, since there were no business engagements, no +quarter-sessions, or interviews with the bailiff, or letter-writing, +to rob them of the society they both loved best in the world. George +Greswold devoted his Sundays entirely to his Creator and his home. + +“Where is Lola?” he asked, surprised to find his wife alone at this +hour. + +“She has a slight headache, and I persuaded her to lie down for an hour +or so.” + +The father’s face blanched. A word was enough in his overwrought +condition. + +“Porter must see her,” he said; “and I have just let him leave me. I’ll +send some one after him.” + +“My dear George, it is nothing; only one of her usual headaches.” + +“You are sure she was not feverish?” + +“I think not. It never occurred to me. She has often complained of +headache since she began to grow so fast.” + +“Yes, she has shot up like a tall white lily—my lily!” murmured the +father tenderly. + +He sank into a chair, feeling helpless, hopeless almost, under that +overpowering sense of fatality—of undeserved evil. + +“Dear George, you look so ill this afternoon,” said his wife, with +tender anxiety, laying her hand on his shoulder, and looking earnestly +at him, as he sat there in a downcast attitude, his arms hanging +loosely, his eyes bent upon the ground. “I’m afraid the heat has +overcome you.” + +“Yes, it has been very hot. Do me a favour, Mildred. Go into the +house, and send somebody to find Porter. He was going the round of the +cottages where there are sick people. He can easily be found. I want +him to see Lola, at once.” + +“I’ll send after him, George; but, indeed, I don’t see any need for a +doctor. Lola is so strong; her headaches pass like summer clouds. O +George, you don’t think that _she_ is going to have fever, like the +cottagers!” cried Mildred, full of a sudden terror. + +“No, no; of course not. Why should she have the fever? But Porter might +as well see her at once—at once. I hate delay in such cases.” + +His wife hurried away without a word. He had imbued her with all his +own fears. + +He sat in the garden, just as she had left him, motionless, benumbed +with sorrow. There might, indeed, be no ground for this chilling fear; +others might die, and his beloved might still go unscathed. But she had +been subjected to the same poison, and at any moment the same symptoms +might show themselves. For the next week or ten days he must be haunted +by a hideous spectre. He would make haste to get his dearest one away +to the strong fresh mountain air, to the salt breath of the German +Ocean; but if the poison had already tainted that young life, mountain +and sea could not save her from the fever. She must pass through the +furnace, as those others were passing. + +“Poor little Polly Rainbow! The only child of a widow; the only one; +like mine,” he said to himself. + +He sat in the garden till dusk, brooding, praying dumbly, unutterably +sad. The image of the widow of Nain was in his mind while he sat +there. The humble funeral train, the mourning mother, and that divine +face shining out of the little group of peasant faces, radiant with +intellect and faith—among them, but not of them—and the uplifted hand +beckoning the dead man from the bier. + +“The age of miracles is past,” he thought: “there is no Saviour in +the land to help _me_! In my day of darkness Heaven made no sign. I +was left to suffer as the worms suffer under the ploughshare, and to +wriggle back to life as best I could, like them.” + + * * * * * + +It was growing towards the summer darkness when he rose and went into +the house, where he questioned the butler, whom he met in the hall. +Mr. Porter had been brought back, and had seen Miss Greswold. He had +found her slightly feverish, and had ordered her to go to bed. Mrs. +Greswold was sitting with her. Did Dr. Porter seem anxious? No, not at +all anxious; but he was going to send Miss Laura some medicine before +bedtime. + +It was after nine now, but Greswold could not stay in the house. He +wanted to know how it fared with his sick tenantry—most of all with the +little flaxen-haired girl he had so often noticed of late. + +He went out into the road that led to the village, a scattered colony, +a cottage here and there, or a cluster of cottages and gardens on a bit +of rising ground above the road. There was a common a little way from +the Manor, a picturesque, irregular expanse of hollows and hillocks, +skirted by a few cottages, and with a fir plantation shielding it from +the north. Mrs. Rainbow’s cottage stood between the common and the +fir-wood, an old half-timbered cottage, very low, with a bedroom in +the roof, and a curious dormer-window, with a thatched arch projecting +above the lattice, like an overhanging eyebrow. The little garden was +aflame with scarlet bean-blossom, roses, and geraniums, and the perfume +of sweet-peas filled the air. + +Greswold heard the doctor talking in the upper chamber as he stood by +the gate. The deep, grave tones were audible in the evening stillness, +and there was another sound that chilled the Squire’s heart: the sound +of a woman’s suppressed weeping. + +He waited at the gate. He had not the nerve to go into the cottage and +face that sorrowing widow. It seemed to him as if the child’s peril +were his fault. It was not enough that he had taken all reasonable +precautions. He ought to have foreseen the idiocy of his servants. He +ought to have been more on the alert to prevent evil. + +The great round moon came slowly up out of a cluster of Scotch firs. +How black the branches looked against that red light! Slowly, slowly +gliding upward in a slanting line, the moon stole at the back of those +black branches, and climbed into the open sky. + +How often Lola had watched such a moonrise at his side, and with what +keen eyes she had noted the beauty of the spectacle! It was not that he +had trained her to observe and to feel the loveliness of nature. With +her that feeling had been an instinct, born with her, going before the +wisdom of maturity, the cultivated taste of travelled experience. + +To-night she was lying in her darkened room, the poor head heavy and +painful on the pillow. She would not see the moon rising slowly yonder +in that cloudless sky. + +“No matter; she will see it to-morrow, I hope,” he said to himself, +trying to be cheerful. “I am a morbid fool to torment myself; she has +been subject to headaches of late. Mildred is right.” + +And then he remembered that death and sorrow were near—close to him +as he stood there watching the moon. He remembered poor little Polly +Rainbow, and desponded again. + +A woman’s agonised cry broke the soft summer stillness, and pierced +George Greswold’s heart. + +“The child is dead!” he thought. + +Yes, poor little Polly was gone. The widow came out to the gate +presently, sobbing piteously, and clasped Mr. Greswold’s hand and cried +over it, broken down by her despair, leaning against the gate-post, as +if her limbs had lost the power to bear her up. + +“O, sir, she was my all!” she sobbed; “she was my all!” + +She could say no more than this, but kept repeating it again and again. +“She was all I had in the world; the only thing I cared for.” + +George Greswold touched her shoulder with protecting gentleness. +There was not a peasant in the village for whom he had not infinite +tenderness—pitying their infirmities, forgiving their errors, +inexhaustible in benevolence towards them all. He had set himself to +make his dependents happy as the first duty of his position. And yet he +had done them evil unwittingly. He had cost this poor widow her dearest +treasure—her one ewe lamb. + +“Bear up, if you can, my good soul,” he said; “I know that it is hard.” + +“Ah, sir, you’d know it better if it was your young lady that was +stricken down!” exclaimed the widow bitterly; and the Squire walked +away from the cottage-gate without another word. + +Yes, he would know it better then. His heart was heavy enough now. What +would it be like if _she_ were smitten? + + * * * * * + +She was much the same next day: languid, with an aching head and some +fever. She was not very feverish. On the whole, the doctor was hopeful, +or he pretended to be so. He could give no positive opinion yet, nor +could Dr. Hutchinson. They were both agreed upon that point; and they +were agreed that the polluted water in the garden well had been the +cause of the village epidemic. Analysis had shown that it was charged +with poisonous gas. + +Mr. Greswold hastened his preparations for the journey to Scotland with +a feverish eagerness. He wrote to engage a sleeping-carriage on the +Great Northern. They were to travel on Thursday, leaving home before +noon, dining in town, and starting for the North in the evening. If +Lola’s illness were indeed the slight indisposition which everybody +hoped it was, she might be quite able to travel on Thursday, and the +change of air and the movement would do her good. + +“She is always so well in Scotland,” said her father. + +No, there did not seem much amiss with her. She was very sweet, and +even cheerful, when her father went into her room to sit beside her +bed for a quarter of an hour or so. The doctors had ordered that she +should be kept very quiet, and a hospital nurse had been fetched from +Salisbury to sit up at night with her. There was no necessity for such +care, but it was well to do even a little too much where so cherished a +life was at stake. People had but to look at the father’s face to know +how precious that frail existence was to him. Nor was it less dear to +the mother; but she seemed less apprehensive, less bowed down by gloomy +forebodings. + +Yes, Lola was quite cheerful for those few minutes in which her father +sat by her side. The strength of her love overcame her weakness. She +forgot the pain in her head, the weariness of her limbs, while he was +there. She questioned him about the villagers. + +“How is little Polly going on?” she asked. + +He dared not tell the truth. It would have hurt him too much to speak +to her of death. + +“She is going on very well; all is well, love,” he said, deceiving her +for the first time in his life. + +This was on Tuesday, and the preparations for Scotland were still +in progress. Mr. Greswold’s talk with his daughter was all of their +romantic Highland home, of the picnics and rambles, the fishing +excursions and sketching parties they would have there. The nurse sat +in a corner and listened to them with a grave countenance, and would +not allow Mr. Greswold more than ten minutes with his daughter. + +He counted the hours till they should be on the road for the North. +There would be the rest of Tuesday and all Wednesday. She would be up +and dressed on Wednesday, no doubt; and on Thursday morning the good +old gray carriage-horses would take them all off to Romsey Station—such +a pretty drive on a summer morning, by fields and copses, with +changeful glimpses of the silvery Test. + +Dr. Hutchinson came on Tuesday evening, and found his patient not quite +so well. There was a long conference between the two doctors, and then +the nurse was called in to receive her instructions; and then Mr. +Greswold was told that the journey to Scotland must be put off for a +fortnight at the very least. + +He received the sentence as if it had been his death-warrant. He asked +no questions. He dared not. A second nurse was to be sent over from +Southampton next morning. The two doctors had the cool, determined air +of men who are preparing for a battle. + +Lola was light-headed next morning; but with intervals of calmness and +consciousness. She heard the church bell tolling, and asked what it +meant. + +“It’s for Polly Rainbow’s funeral,” answered the maid who was tidying +the room. + +“O, no,” cried Lola, “that can’t be! Father said she was better.” + +And then her mind began to wander, and she talked of Polly Rainbow as +if the child had been in the room: talked of the little girl’s lessons +at the parish school, and of a prize that she was to get. + +After that all was darkness, all was despair—a seemingly inevitable +progress from bad to worse. Science, care, love, prayers—all were +futile; and the bell that had tolled for the widow’s only child tolled +ten days afterwards for Lola. + +It seemed to George Greswold as those slow strokes beat upon his brain, +heavily, heavily, like minute guns, that all the hopes and cares and +joys and expectations life had held for him were over. His wife was +on her knees in the darkened house from which the funeral train was +slowly moving, and he had loved her passionately; and yet it seemed to +him as if the open car yonder, with its coffin hidden under snow-white +blossoms, was carrying away all that had ever been precious to him upon +this earth. + +“She was the morning, with its promise of day,” he said to himself. +“She was the spring-time, with its promise of summer. While I had her +I lived in the future; henceforward I can only live in the present. I +dare not look back upon the past!” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DRIFTING APART. + + +George Greswold and his wife spent the rest of that fatal year in a +villa on the Lake of Thun, an Italian villa, with a campanello tower, +and a long white colonnade, and stone balconies overhanging lawn and +gardens, where the flowers grew in a riotous profusion. The villa +was midway between two of the boat-stations, and there was no other +house near, and this loneliness was its chief charm for those two +heart-broken mourners. They yearned for no sympathy, they cared for no +companionship—hardly even for that of each other, close as the bond of +love had been till now. Each seemed to desire above all things to be +alone with that great grief—to hug that dear, sad memory in silence +and solitude. Only to see them from a distance, from the boat yonder, +as it glided swiftly past that flowery lawn, an observer would have +guessed at sorrow and bereavement from the mere attitude of either +mourner—the man sitting with his head bent forward, brooding on the +ground, the unread newspaper lying across his knee; the woman on the +other side of the lawn, beyond speaking distance, half reclining in +a low basket-chair, with her hands clasped above her head, gazing +at the distant line of snow mountains in listless vacancy. The huge +tan-coloured St. Bernard, snapping with his great cavern-like jaws at +infinitesimal flies, was the only object that gave life to the picture. + +The boats went by in sunshine and cloud, the boats went by under +torrential rain, which seemed to fuse lake and mountains, villas and +gardens, into one watery chaos; the boats went by, and the days passed +like the boats, and made no difference in the lives of those two +mourners. Nothing could ever make any difference to either of them for +evermore, it seemed to Mildred. It was as if some spring had broken in +the machinery of life. Even love seemed dead. + +“And yet he was once so fond of me, and I of him,” thought the wife, +watching her husband’s face, with its curious look of absence—the look +of a window with the blind down. + +There were times when that look of utter abstraction almost frightened +Mildred Greswold. It was an expression she had seen occasionally during +her daughter’s lifetime, and which had always made her anxious. It +was the look about which Lola used to say when they all met at the +breakfast-table, + +“Papa has had his bad dream again.” + +That bad dream was no invention of Lola’s, but a stern reality in +George Greswold’s life. He would start up from his pillow in an agony, +muttering broken sentences in that voice of the sleeper which seems +always different from his natural voice—as if he belonged to another +world. Cold beads of sweat would start out upon his forehead, and the +wife would put her arms round him and soothe him as a mother soothes +her frightened child, until the muttering ceased and he sank upon +his pillow exhausted, to lapse into quiet sleep, or else awoke and +recovered calmness in awakening. + +The dream—whatever it was—always left its mark upon him next day. It +was a kind of nightmare, he told his wife, when she gently questioned +him, not urging her questions lest there should be pain in the +mere recollection of that horrid vision. He could give no graphic +description of that dream. It was all confusion—a blurred and troubled +picture; but that confusion was in itself agony. + +Rarely were his mutterings intelligible; rarely did his wife catch +half-a-dozen consecutive words from those broken sentences; but once +she heard him say, + +“The cage—the cage again—iron bars—like a wild beast!” + +And now that absent and cloudy look which she had seen in her husband’s +face after the bad dream was there often. She spoke to him sometimes, +and he did not hear. She repeated the same question twice or thrice, in +her soft low voice, standing close beside him, and he did not answer. +There were times when it was difficult to arouse him from that deep +abstraction; and at such times the utter blankness and solitude of her +own life weighed upon her like a dead weight, an almost unbearable +burden. + +“What is to become of us both in all the long years before us?” she +thought despairingly. “Are we to be always far apart—living in the same +house, spending all our days together, and yet divided?” + +She had married before she was eighteen, and at one-and-thirty was +still in the bloom of womanhood, younger than most women of that age; +for her life had been subject to none of those vicissitudes and fevers +which age women of the world. She had never kept a secret from her +husband, never trembled at opening a milliner’s account, or blushed at +the delivery of a surreptitious letter. The struggles for preëminence, +the social race in which some women waste their energies and strain +their nerves, were unknown to her. She had lived at Enderby Manor as +the flowers lived, rejoicing in the air and the sunshine, drinking +out of a cup of life in which there mingled no drop of poison. Thus +it was that not one line upon the transparent skin marked the passage +of a decade. The violet eyes had the limpid purity, and the emotional +lips had the tender carnation, of girlhood. Mildred Greswold was as +beautiful at thirty-one as Mildred Fausset had been at seventeen. +And yet it seemed to her that life was over, and that her husband had +ceased to care for her. + +Many and many an hour in that lovely solitude beside the lake she sat +with hands loosely clasped in her lap or above her head, with her books +lying forgotten at her feet—all the newest books that librarians could +send to tempt the jaded appetite of the reader—and her eyes gazing +vacantly over the blue of the lake or towards the snow-peaks on the +horizon. Often in these silent musings she recalled the past, and +looked at the days that were gone as at a picture. + +She remembered just such an autumn as this, a peerless autumn spent +with her father at The Hook—spent for the most part on the river and +in the garden, the sunny days and moonlit nights being far too lovely +for any one to waste indoors. Her seventeenth birthday was not long +past. It was just ten years since she had come home to that house to +find Fay had vanished from it, and to shed bitter tears for the loss +of her companion. Never since that time had she seen Fay’s face. Her +questions had been met coldly or angrily by her mother; and even her +father had answered her with unsatisfactory brevity. + +All she could learn was that Fay had been sent to complete her +education at a finishing-school at Brussels. + +“At school! O, poor Fay! I hope she is happy.” + +“She ought to be,” Mrs. Fausset answered peevishly. “The school is +horridly expensive. I saw one of the bills the other day. Simply +_enormous_. The girls are taken to the opera, and have all sorts of +absurd indulgences.” + +“Still, it is only school, mother, not home,” said Mildred +compassionately. + +This was two years after Fay had vanished. No letter had ever come +from her to Mildred, though Mildred was able to write now, in her own +sprawling childish fashion, and would have been delighted to answer any +such letter. She had herself indited various epistles to her friend, +but had not succeeded in getting them posted. They had drifted to the +waste-paper basket, mute evidences of wasted affection. + +As each holiday time came round the child asked if Fay were coming +home, always to receive the same saddening negative. + +One day, when she had been more urgent than usual, Mrs. Fausset lost +temper and answered sharply, + +“No, she is not coming. She is never coming. I don’t like her, and I +don’t intend ever to have her in any house of mine, so you may as well +leave off plaguing me about her.” + +“But, mother, why don’t you like her?” + +“Never mind why. I don’t like her. That is enough for you to know.” + +“But, mother, if she is father’s daughter and my sister, you ought to +like her,” pleaded Mildred, very much in earnest. + +“How dare you say that! You must never say it again—you are a naughty, +cruel child to say such things!” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset, beginning to +cry, + +“Why naughty? why cruel? O, mother!” and Mildred cried too. + +She clasped her arms round her mother’s neck and sobbed aloud. + +“Dear mother, indeed I’m not naughty,” she protested, “but Bell said +Fay was papa’s daughter. ‘Of course she’s his daughter,’ Bell said; and +if she’s father’s daughter, she’s my sister, and it’s wicked not to +love one’s sister. The psalm I was learning yesterday says so, mother. +‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together +in unity!’ And it means sisters just the same, Miss Colville said, when +I asked her; and I do love Fay. I can’t help loving her.” + +“You must never speak her name again to me,” said Mrs. Fausset +resolutely. “I shall leave off loving you if you pester me about that +odious girl!” + +“Then wasn’t it true what Bell said?” + +“Of course not.” + +“Mother, would it be wrong for papa to have a daughter?” asked Mildred, +perplexed by this mysterious resentment for which she could understand +no cause, + +“Wrong! It would be _infamous_.” + +“Would God be angry?” asked the child, with an awe-stricken look. +“Would it be wicked?” + +“It would be the worst possible insult to _me_,” said Lord +Castle-Connell’s daughter, ignoring the minor question. + +After this Mildred refrained from all further speech about the absent +girl to her mother; but as the years went by she questioned her father +from time to time as to Fay’s whereabouts. + +“She is very well off, my dear. You need not make yourself unhappy +about her. She is with a very nice family, and has pleasant +surroundings.” + +“Shall I never see her again, father?” + +“Never’s a long day, Mildred. I’ll take you to see her by and by when +there is an opportunity. You see, it happens unfortunately that your +mother does not like her, so it is better she should not come here. It +would not be pleasant for her—or for me.” + +He said this gravely, with a somewhat dejected look, and Mildred felt +somehow that even to him it would be better to talk no more of her lost +companion. + +As the years went by Mrs. Fausset changed from a woman of fashion to a +nervous valetudinarian. It was not that she loved pleasure less, but +her beauty and her health had both begun to dwindle and fade at an age +when other women are in their prime. She fretted at the loss of her +beauty—watched every wrinkle, counted every gray hair, lamented over +every change in the delicate colouring which had been her chief charm. + +“How pretty you are growing, Mildred!” she exclaimed once, with a +discontented air, when Mildred was a tall slip of fourteen. “You are +just what I was at your age. And you will grow prettier every day until +you are thirty, and then I daresay you will begin to fade as I have +done, and feel an old woman as I do.” + +It seemed to her that her own charms dwindled as her daughter grew. +As the bud unfolded, the flower faded. She felt almost as if Mildred +had robbed her of her beauty. She would not give up the pleasures +and excitement of society. She consulted half-a-dozen fashionable +physicians, and would not obey one of them. They all prescribed the +same repulsive treatment—rest, early hours, country air, with gentle +exercise; no parties, no excitement, no strong tea. + +Mrs. Fausset disobeyed them all, and from only fancying herself ill +grew to be really ill; and from chronic lassitude developed organic +disease of the heart. + +She lingered nearly two years, a confirmed invalid, suffering a good +deal, and giving other people a great deal of trouble. She died soon +after Mildred’s sixteenth birthday, and on her death-bed she confided +freely in her daughter, who had attended upon her devotedly all through +her illness, neglecting everything else in the world for her mother’s +sake. + +“You are old enough to understand things that must once have seemed +very mysterious to you, Mildred,” said Mrs. Fausset, lying half-hidden +in the shadow of guipure bed-curtains, with her daughter’s hand clasped +in hers, perhaps forgetting how young that daughter was in her own +yearning for sympathy. “You couldn’t make out why I disliked that +horrid girl so much, could you?” + +“No, indeed, mother.” + +“I hated her because she was your father’s daughter, Mildred—his +natural daughter; the child of some woman who was not his wife. You are +old enough now to know what that means. You were reading _The Heart of +Midlothian_ to me last week. You know, Mildred?” + +Yes, Mildred knew. She hung her head at the memory of that sad story, +and at the thought that her father might have sinned like George +Staunton. + +“Yes, Mildred, she was the child of some woman he loved before he +married me. He must have been desperately in love with the woman, or +he would never have brought her daughter into my house. It was the +greatest insult he could offer to me.” + +“Was it, mother?” + +“Was it? Why, of course it was. How stupid you are, child!” exclaimed +the invalid peevishly, and the feverish hand grew hotter as she talked. + +Mildred blushed crimson at the thought of this story of shame. Poor +Fay! poor, unhappy Fay! And yet her strong common sense told her that +there were two sides to the question. + +“It was not Fay’s fault, mother,” she said gently. “No one could blame +Fay, or be angry with _her_. And if the—wicked woman was dead, and +father had repented, and was sorry, was it very wrong for him to bring +my sister home to us?” + +“Don’t call her your sister!” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset, with a feeble +scream of angry alarm; “she is not your sister—she is no relation—she +is nothing to you. It was an insult to bring her across my threshold. +You must be very stupid, or you must care very little for _me_, if you +can’t understand that. His conduct proved that he had cared for that +low, common woman—Fay’s mother—more than ever he cared for me; perhaps +he thought her prettier than me,” said the invalid in hysterical +parenthesis, “and I have never known a happy hour since.” + +“O, mamma dear, not in all the years when you used to wear such lovely +gowns, and go to so many parties?” protested the voice of common sense. + +“I only craved for excitement because I was miserable at heart. I +don’t think you can half understand a wife’s feelings, Mildred, or you +wouldn’t say such foolish things. I wanted you to know this before my +death. I want you to remember it always, and if you meet that odious +girl avoid her as you would a pestilence. If your father should attempt +to bring her here, or to Parchment Street, after I am gone——” + +“He will not, mother. He will respect your wishes too much—he will be +too sorry,” exclaimed Mildred, bending down to kiss the hot, dry hand, +and moistening it with her tears. + + * * * * * + +The year of mourning that began soon after this conversation was a very +quiet interval for father and daughter. They travelled a little, spent +six months in Leipsic, where Mildred studied the piano under the most +approved masters, a couple of months in Paris, where her father showed +her all the lions in a tranquil, leisurely way that was very pleasant; +and then they went down to The Hook, and lived there in happy idleness +on the river and in the gardens all through a long and lovely summer. + +Both were saddened at the sight of an empty chair—one sacred corner +in all the prettiest rooms—where Maud Fausset had been wont to sit, +a graceful languid figure, robed in white, or some pale delicate +hue even more beautiful than white in contrast with the background +of palms and flowers, Japanese screen or Indian curtain. How pretty +she had looked sitting there, with books and scent-bottles, and +dainty satin-lined basket full of some light frivolous work, which +progressed by stages of half-a-dozen stitches a day! Her fans, her +Tennyson, her palms, and perfumes—all had savoured of her own fragile +bright-coloured loveliness. She was gone; and father and daughter were +alone together—deeply attached to each other, yet with a secret between +them, a secret which made a darkening shadow across the lives of both. + +Whenever John Fausset wore a look of troubled thought Mildred fancied +he was brooding upon the past, thinking of that erring woman who had +borne him a child, the child he had tried to fuse into his own family, +and to whom her own childish heart had yearned as to a sister. + +“It must have been instinct that made me love her,” she said to +herself; and then she would wonder idly what the fair sinner who had +been Fay’s mother was like, and whether her father had really cared +more for that frail woman than for his lawful wife. + +“Poor pretty mamma! he seemed to doat upon her,” thought Mildred. “I +cannot imagine his ever having loved any one so well. I cannot imagine +his ever having cared for any other woman in this world.” + +The formless image of that unknown woman haunted the girl’s +imagination. She appeared sometimes with one aspect, sometimes +another—darkly beautiful, of Oriental type, like Scott’s Rebecca, or +fair and lowly-born like Effie Deans—poor fragile Effie, fated to fall +at the first temptation. Poetry and fiction were full of suggestions +about that unknown influence in her father’s life; but every thought +of the past ended in a sigh of pity for that fair wife whose domestic +happiness had been clouded over by that half-discovered mystery. + +Never a word did she breathe to her father upon this forbidden subject; +never a word to Bell, who was still at the head of affairs in both Mr. +Fausset’s houses, and who looked like a grim and stony repository of +family secrets. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +“SUCH THINGS WERE.” + + +Mildred had been motherless for a year when that new love began to grow +which was to be stronger and closer than the love of mother or father, +and which was to take possession of her life hereafter and transplant +her to a new soil. + +How well she remembered that summer afternoon on which she and George +Greswold met for the first time!—she a girl of seventeen, fresh, +simple-minded, untainted by that life of fashion and frivolity which +she had seen only from the outside, looking on as a child at the +follies of men and women—he her senior by thirteen years, and serious +beyond his age. Her father and his father had been companions at +the University, as undergraduates, with full purses and a mutual +delight in fox-hunting and tandem-driving; and it was this old Oxford +friendship which was the cause of George Greswold’s appearance at The +Hook on that particular summer afternoon. Mr. Fausset had met him on +a house-boat at Henley Regatta, had been moved by the memory of the +past on discovering that Greswold was the son of George Ransome of +Magdalen, and had brought his friend’s son home to introduce to his +daughter. It was not altogether without ulterior thought, perhaps, +that he introduced George Greswold into his home. He had a theory that +the young men of this latter day were for the most part a weak-kneed +and degenerate race; and it had seemed to him that this tall, +broad-shouldered young man with the marked features, dark eyes, and +powerful brow was of a stronger type than the average bachelor. + +“A pity that he is rather too old for Mildred,” he said to himself, +supposing that his daughter would hardly feel interested in a man who +was more than five-and-twenty. + +Mildred could recall his face as she saw it for the first time, to-day +in her desolation, sitting idly beside the lake, while the rhythmical +beat of the paddle-wheels died away in the distance. That grave dark +face impressed her at once with a sense of power. She did not think +the stranger handsome, or fascinating, or aristocratic, or elegant; +but she thought of him a great deal, and she was silent and shy in his +presence, let him come as often as he might. + +He was in mourning for his mother, to whom he had been deeply attached, +and who had died within the last three months, leaving him Enderby +Manor and a large fortune. His home life had not been happy. There had +been an antagonism between him and his father from his boyhood upwards, +and he had shaken the dust of the paternal house off his feet, and had +left England to wander aimlessly, living on a small income allowed him +by his mother, and making a little money by literature. He was a second +son, a person of no importance, except to the mother, who doated upon +him. + +Happily for this younger son his mother was a woman of fortune, and +on her death George Ransome inherited Enderby Manor, the old house in +which generations of Greswolds had come and gone since Dutch William +was King of England. There had been a much older house pulled down to +make room for that red brick mansion, and the Greswolds had been lords +of the soil since the Wars of the Roses—red-rose to the heart’s core, +and loyal to an unfortunate king, whether Plantagenet, Tudor, or Stuart. + +By the conditions of his mother’s will, George Ransome assumed her +family name and arms, and became George Ransome Greswold in all legal +documents henceforward; but he signed himself George Greswold, and was +known to his friends by that name. He had not loved his father nor his +father’s race. + +He came to The Hook often in that glorious summer weather. At the first +he was grave and silent, and seemed oppressed by sad memories; but +this seemed natural in one who had so lately lost a beloved parent. +Gradually the ice melted, and his manner brightened. He came without +being bidden. He contrived to make himself, as it were, a member of the +family, whose appearance surprised nobody. He bought a steam-launch, +which was always at Mr. Fausset’s disposal, and Miss Fausset went +everywhere with her father. She recalled those sunlit days now, with +every impression of the moment; the ever-growing sense of happiness; +the silent delight in knowing herself beloved; the deepening reverence +for the man who loved her; the limitless faith in his power of heart +and brain; the confiding love which felt a protection in the very +sound of his voice. Yes, those had been happy days—the rosy dawning +of a great joy that was to last until the grave, Mildred Fausset had +thought; and now, after thirteen years of wedded love, they had drifted +apart. Sorrow, which should have drawn them nearer together, had served +only to divide them. + +“O, my lamb, if you could know in your heavenly home how much your loss +has cost us!” thought the mother, with the image of that beloved child +before her eyes. + +There had been a gloomy reserve in George Greswold’s grief which had +held his wife at a distance, and had wounded her sorrowful heart. He +was selfish in his sorrow, forgetting that her loss was as great as +his. He had bowed his head before inexorable Fate, had sat down in dust +and ashes, and brooded over his bereavement, solitary, despairing. +If he did not curse God in his anguish, it was because early teaching +still prevailed, and the habits of thought he had learned in childhood +were not lightly to be flung off. Upon one side of his character he +was a Pagan, seeing in this affliction the hand of Nemesis, the blind +Avenger. + +They left Switzerland in the late autumn, and wintered in Vienna, where +Mr. Greswold gave himself up to study, and where neither he nor his +wife took any part in the gaieties of the capital. Here they lived +until the spring, and then, even in the depths of his gloom, a yearning +came upon George Greswold to see the home of his race, the manor which +he had loved as if it were a living thing. + +“Mildred, do you think you could bear to be in the old home again?” he +asked his wife suddenly, one morning at breakfast. + +“I could bear anything better than the life we lead here,” she +answered, her eyes filling with tears. + +“We will go back, then—yes, even if it is only to look upon our +daughter’s grave.” + +They went back to England and to Enderby Manor within a week after that +conversation. They arrived at Romsey Station one bright May afternoon, +and found the gray horses waiting to carry them to the old house. How +sad and strange it seemed to be coming home without Lola! She had +always been their companion in such journeys, and her eager face and +glad young voice, on the alert to recognise the first familiar points +of the landscape, hill-top, or tree, or cottage that indicated home, +had given an air of gaiety to every-day life. + +The old horses took them back to the Manor, but not the old coachman. +A great change in the household had come about after Lola’s funeral. +George Greswold had been merciless to those servants whose carelessness +had brought about that great calamity, which made seven new graves in +the churchyard before all was done. He dismissed his bailiff, Mrs. +Wadman and her husband, an under-dairymaid and a cowman, and his +housekeeper, all of whom he considered accountable for the use of that +foul water from the old well—accountable, inasmuch as they had given +him no notice of the evil, and had exercised no care or common sense in +their management of the dairy. These he dismissed sternly, and that +party feeling which rules among servants took this severity amiss, and +several other members of the household gave warning. + +“Let it be a clean sweep, then,” said Mr. Greswold to Bell, who +announced the falling-away of his old servants. “Let there be none of +the old faces here when we come back next year—except yours. There will +be plenty of time for you to get new people.” + +“A clean sweep” suited Bell’s temper admirably. To engage new servants +who should owe their places to her, and bow themselves down before her, +was a delight to the old Irishwoman. + +Thus it was that all things had a strange aspect when Mildred Greswold +reëntered her old home. Even the rooms had a different air. The new +servants had arranged the furniture upon new lines, not knowing that +old order which had been a part of daily life. + +“Let us go and look at _her_ rooms first,” said Mildred softly; and +husband and wife went silently to the rooms in the south wing—the +octagon-room with its dwarf bookcases and bright bindings, its +proof-engravings after Landseer—pictures chosen by Lola herself. Here +nothing was changed. Bell’s own hands had kept all things in order. No +unfamiliar touch had disturbed the relics of the dead. + +Mrs. Greswold stayed in that once happy scene for nearly an hour. It +was hard to realise that she and her daughter were never to be together +again, they who had been almost inseparable—who had sat side by side +by yonder window or yonder hearth in all the changes of the seasons. +There was the piano at which they had played and sung together. The +music-stand still contained the prettily-bound volumes—sonatinas by +Hummel and Clementi—easy duets by Mozart, national melodies, Volks +Lieder. In music the child had been in advance of her years. With the +mother music was a passion, and she had imbued her daughter with her +own tastes in all things. The child’s nature had been a carrying on and +completing of the mother’s character, a development of all the mother’s +gifts. + +She was gone, and the mother’s life seemed desolate and empty—the +future a blank. Never in her life had she so much needed her husband’s +love—active, considerate, sympathetic—and yet never had he seemed so +far apart from her. It was not that he was unkind or neglectful, it +was only that his heart made no movement towards hers; he was not in +sympathy with her. He had wrapped himself in his grief as in a mantle; +he stood aloof from her, and seemed never to have understood that her +sorrow was as great as his own. + +He left her on the threshold of Lola’s room. It might be that he could +not endure the sight of those things which she had looked at weeping, +in an ecstasy of grief. To her that agony of touch and memory, the +aspect of things that belonged to the past, seemed to bring her lost +child nearer to her—it was as if she stretched her hands across the +gulf and touched those vanished hands. + +“Poor piano!” she sighed; “poor piano, that she loved.” + +She touched the keys softly, playing the opening bars of _La ci darem +la mano_. It was the first melody they had played together, mother and +child—arranged easily as a duet. Later they had sung it together, the +girl’s voice clear as a bird’s, and seeming to need training no more +than a bird’s voice. These things had been, and were all over. + +“What shall I do with my life?” cried the mother despairingly; “what +shall I do with all the days to come—now she is gone?” + +She left those rooms at last, locking the doors behind her, and went +out into the garden. The grand old cedars cast their broad shadows on +the lawn. The rustic chairs and tables were there, as in the days gone +by, when that velvet turf under the cedars had been Mrs. Greswold’s +summer parlour. Would she sit there ever again? she wondered: could she +endure to sit there without Lola? + +There was a private way from the Manor gardens into the churchyard, +a short cut to church by which mother and daughter had gone twice on +every Sunday ever since Lola was old enough to know what Sunday meant. +She went by this path in the evening stillness to visit Lola’s grave. + +She gathered a few rosebuds as she went. + +“Flowers for my blighted flower,” she murmured softly. + +All was still and solemn in the old churchyard shadowed by sombre +yews—a churchyard of irregular levels and moss-grown monuments enclosed +by rusty iron railings, and humbler headstones of crumbling stone +covered over with an orange-coloured lichen which was like vegetable +rust. + +The names on these were for the most part illegible, the lettering of +a fashion that has passed away; but here and there a brand-new stone +perked itself up among these old memorials with an assertive statement +about the dead. + +Lola’s grave was marked by a large white marble cross, carved in _alto +relievo_ on the level slab. The inscription was of the simplest: + +“Laura, the only child of George and Mildred Greswold, aged twelve.” + +There were no words of promise or of consolation upon the stone. + +On one side of the grave there was a large mountain-ash, whose white +blossoms and delicate leaves made a kind of temple above the marble +slab; on the other, an ancient yew cast its denser shade. Mildred knelt +down in the shadow, and let her head droop over the cold stone. There +was a skylark singing in the blue vault high above the old Norman +tower—a carol of joy and glad young life, as it seemed to Mildred, +sitting in the dust. What a mockery that joyousness of spring-time and +Nature seemed! + +She knew not how long she had knelt there in silent grief when the +branches rustled suddenly, as if a strong arm had parted them, +and a man flung himself down heavily upon a turf-covered mound—a +neglected, nameless grave—beside Lola’s monument. She did not stir +from her kneeling attitude, or lift her head to look at the new-comer, +knowing that the mourner was her husband. She had heard his footsteps +approaching, heavy and slow in the stillness of the place. + +The trunk of the tree hid her from that other mourner as she knelt +there. He thought himself alone; and, in the abandonment of that +fancied solitude, he groaned aloud, as Job may have groaned, sitting +among ashes. + +“Judgment!” he cried, “judgment!” and then, after an interval of +silence, he cried again, “judgment!” + +That one word, so repeated, seemed to freeze all the blood in her +veins. What did it mean, that exceeding bitter cry, + +“Judgment!” + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE FACE IN THE CHURCH. + + +Two months had gone since that first visit to Lola’s grave, when the +husband and wife had knelt so near each other, and yet so far apart +in the infinite mystery of human consciousness; he with his secret +thoughts and secret woes, which she had never fathomed. He, unaware +of her neighbourhood; she, chilled by a vague suspicion and sense of +estrangement which had been growing upon her ever since her daughter’s +death. + +It was summer again, the ripe full-blown summer of mid-July. The awful +anniversary of their bereavement had passed in silence and prayer. All +things at Enderby looked as they had looked in the years that were +gone, except the faces of the servants, which were for the most part +strange. That change of the household made a great change in life to +people so conservative as George Greswold and his wife; and the old +home seemed so much the less like home because of that change. The +Squire of Enderby felt that his popularity was lessened in the village +for which he had done so much. His severe dealing with the offenders +had pleased nobody, not even the sufferers from the epidemic, whose +losses he had avenged. He had shown himself implacable; and there were +many who said he had been unjust. + +“It was hard upon Wadman and his wife to be turned off after twenty +years’ faithful service,” said one of the villagers. “The Squire may go +a long way before he’ll get as good a bailiff as Thomas,” said another. + +For the first time since he had inherited the estate George Greswold +felt himself surrounded by an atmosphere of discontent, and even +dislike. His tenants seemed afraid of him, and were reticent and moody +when he talked to them, which he did much seldomer than of old, making +a great effort in order to appear interested in their affairs. + +Mildred’s life during those summer weeks, while the roses were +opening and all the flowers succeeding each other in a procession of +loveliness, had drifted along like a slow dull stream that crawls +through a desolate swamp. There was neither beauty nor colour in her +existence; there was a sense of vacuity, an aching void. Nothing to +hope for, nothing to look back upon. + +She did not abandon herself slavishly to her sorrow. She tried to +resume the life of duty which had once been so full of sweetness, +so rich in its rewards for every service. She went about among the +cottagers as of old; she visited the shabby gentilities on the fringe +of the market town, the annuitants and struggling families, the poor +widows and elderly spinsters, who had quite as much need of help as +the cottagers, and whom it had always been her delight to encourage +and sustain with friendliness and sympathy, as well as with delicate +benefactions, gifts that never humiliated the recipient. She took up +the thread of her work in the parish schools; she resumed her old +interest in the church services and decorations, in the inevitable +charity bazaar or organ-fund concert. She played her part in the parish +so well that people began to say, + +“Mrs. Greswold is getting over her loss.” + +In him the shock had left a deeper mark. His whole aspect was changed. +He looked ten years older than before the coming of sorrow; and though +people loved her better, they pitied him more. + +“She has more occupations and pursuits to interest her,” said Mr. +Rollinson, the curate. “She is devoted to music, and that employs her +mind.” + +Yes, music was her passion; but in these days of mourning even music +was allied to pain. Every melody she played, every song she sang, +recalled the child whose appreciation of that divine art had been far +beyond her years. They had sung and played together. Often singing +alone in the summer dusk, in that corner of the long drawing-room, +where Lola’s babyish chair still stood, she had started, fancying she +heard that other voice mingling with her own—the sweet clear tones +which had sounded seraphic even upon earth. + +O, was she with the angels now; or was it all a fable, that fond vision +of a fairer world and an angelic choir, singing before the great white +throne? To have lost such a child was almost to believe in the world +of seraphim and cherubim, of angels and purified spirits. Where else +could she be? + +Husband and wife lived together, side by side, in a sad communion that +seemed to lack the spirit of unity. The outward semblance of confiding +affection was there, but there was something wanting. He was very good +to her—as kind, as attentive, and considerate as in their first year of +marriage; and yet there was something wanting. + +She remembered what he had been when he came as a stranger to The Hook; +and it seemed to her as if the glass of Time had been turned backwards +for fourteen years, and that he was again just as he had been in those +early days, when she had watched him, curiously interested in his +character as in a mystery. He was too grave for a man of his years—and +with a shade of gloom upon him that hinted at a more than common grief. +He had been subject to lapses of abstraction, as if his mind had +slipped back to some unhappy past. It was only when he had fallen in +love and was wholly devoted to her that the shadow passed away, and he +began to feel the joyousness of life and the fervour of ardent hopes. +Then the old character dropped off him like the serpent’s slough, and +he became as young as the youngest—boyish even in his frank felicity. + +This memory of her first impressions about him was so strong with her +that she could not help speaking of it one evening after dinner when +she had been playing one of Beethoven’s grandest adagios to him, and +they were sitting in silence, she by the piano, he far away by an open +window on a level with the shadowy lawn, where the great cedars rose +black against the pale gray sky. + +“George, do you remember my playing that adagio to you for the first +time?” + +“I remember you better than Beethoven. I could scarcely think of the +music in those days for thinking so much of you.” + +“Ah, but the first time you heard me play that adagio was before you +had begun to care for me—before you had cast your slough.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Before you had come out of your cloud of sad memories. When first you +came to us you lived only in the past. I doubt if you were more than +half-conscious of our existence.” + +She could only distinguish his profile faintly defined against the +evening gray as he sat beside the window. Had she seen the expression +of his face, its look of infinite pain, she would hardly have pursued +the subject. + +“I had but lately lost my mother,” he said gravely. + +“Ah, but that was a grief which you did not hide from us. You did not +shrink from our sympathy there. There was some other trouble, something +that belonged to a remoter past, over which you brooded in secret. Yes, +George, I know you had some secrets then—that divided us—and—and—” +falteringly, with tears in her voice—“I think those old secrets are +keeping us asunder now, when our grief should draw us nearer together.” + +She had left her place by the piano, and had gone to him as she spoke, +and now she was on her knees beside him, clinging to him tearfully. + +“George, trust me, love me,” she pleaded. + +“My beloved, do I not love you?” he protested passionately, clasping +her in his arms, kissing away her tears, soothing her as if she had +been a child. “My dearest and best, from the first hour I awakened to +a new life in your love my truth has never wavered, my heart has never +known change.” + +“And yet you are changed—since our darling went—terribly changed.” + +“Do you wonder that I grieve for her?” + +“No, but you grieve apart—you hold yourself aloof from me.” + +“If I do it is because I do not want you to share my burden, Mildred. +Your sorrow may be cured, perhaps—mine never can be. Time may be +merciful to you—for me time can do nothing.” + +“Dearest, what hope can there be for me that you do not share?—the +Christian’s hope of meeting our loved one hereafter. I have no other +hope.” + +“I hardly know if I have that hope,” he answered slowly, with deepest +despondency. + +“And yet you are a Christian.” + +“If to endeavour to follow Christ, the Teacher and Friend of humanity, +is to be a Christian—yes.” + +“And you believe in the world to come?” + +“I try so to believe, Mildred. I try. Faith in the Kingdom of Heaven +does not come easily to a man whose life has been ruled by the +inexorable Fates. Not a word, darling; let us not talk of these things. +We know no more than Socrates knew in his dungeon; no more than Roger +Bacon knew in his old age—unheard, buried, forgotten. Never doubt my +love, dearest. That is changeless. You and Lola were the sunshine of +my life. You shall be my sunshine henceforward. I have been selfish in +brooding over my sorrow; but it is the habit of my mind to grieve in +silence. Forgive me, dear wife; forgive me.” + +He clasped her in his arms, and again she felt assured of her husband’s +affection; but she knew all the same that there was some sorrow in his +past life which he had kept hidden from her, which he meant her never +to know. + +Many a time in their happy married life she had tried to lead him to +talk of his boyhood and youth. About his days at Eton and Oxford he was +frank enough, but he was curiously reticent about his home life and +about those years which he had spent travelling over the Continent +after he had left his father’s house for good. + +“I was not happy at home, Mildred,” he told her one day. “My father +and I did not get on together, as the phrase goes. He was very fond of +my elder brother. They had the same way of thinking about most things. +Randolph’s marriage pleased my father, and he looked to Randolph to +strengthen the position of our family, which had been considerably +reduced by his own extravagance. He would have liked my mother’s estate +to have gone to the elder son; but she had full disposing power, and +she made me her heir. This set my father against me, and there came a +time when, dearly as I loved my mother, I found that I could no longer +live at home. I went out into the world, a lonely man; and I only came +back to the old home after my father’s death.” + +This was the fullest account of his family history that George Greswold +had given his wife. From his reserve in speaking of his father she +divined that the balance of wrong had been upon the side of the parent +rather than of the son. Had a man of her husband’s temper been the +sinner he would have frankly confessed his errors. Of his mother he +spoke with undeviating love; and he seemed to have been on friendly +terms with his brother. + +On the morning after that tearful talk in the twilight Mr. Greswold +startled his wife from a pensive reverie as they sat at breakfast +in the garden. They always breakfasted out of doors on fine summer +mornings. They had made no change in old customs since their return, +as some mourners might have done, hoping to blunt the keen edge of +memory by an alteration in the details of life. Both knew too well +how futile any such alteration of their surroundings would be. They +remembered Lola no more vividly at Enderby than they had remembered her +in Switzerland. + +“My dearest, I have been thinking of you incessantly since last night, +and of the loneliness of your life,” George Greswold began seriously, +as he sat in a low basket-chair, sipping his coffee, with his favourite +setter Kassandra at his feet; an Irish dog that had been famous for +feather in days gone by, but who had insinuated herself into the family +affections, and had got herself accepted as a household companion to +the ruin of her sporting qualities. Kassandra went no more with the +guns. Her place was the drawing-room or the lawn. + +“I can never be lonely, George, while I have you. There is no other +company I can ever care about henceforward.” + +“Let me always be the first, dear; but you should have female +companionship of some kind. Our house is empty and voiceless. There +should be some young voice—some young footstep—” + +“Do you mean that I ought to hire a girl to run up and down stairs, +and laugh in the corridors, as Lola used? O, George, how can you!” +exclaimed Mildred, beginning to cry. + +“No, no, dear. I had no such thought in my mind. I was thinking of +Randolph’s daughter. You seemed to like her when she and her sister +were here two years ago.” + +“Yes, she was a nice, bright girl then, and my darling was pleased with +her. How merry they were together, playing battledore and shuttlecock +over there by the yew hedge! Don’t ask me ever to see that girl again, +George. It would make my heart ache.” + +“I am sorry to hear you say that, Mildred. I was going to ask you to +have her here on a good long visit. Now that Rosalind is married, +Pamela has no home of her own. Rosalind and her husband like having +her occasionally—for a month or six weeks at a time; but Sir Henry +Mountford’s house is not Pamela’s home. She would soon begin to feel +herself an incubus. The Mountfords are very fond of society, and just +a little worldly. They would soon be tired of a girl whose presence +was no direct advantage. I have been thinking that with us Pamela +would never be in the way. You need not see too much of her in this +big house. There would be plenty of room for her to carry on her own +pursuits and amusements without boring you; and when you wanted her she +would be at hand, a bright companionable girl, who would grow fonder of +you every day.” + +“I could not endure her fondness. I could not endure any girl’s +companionship. Her presence would only remind me of my loss.” + +“Dearest, I thought we were both agreed that, as nothing can make us +forget our darling, it cannot matter to us how often we are reminded of +her.” + +“Yes, by silent, unreasoning things like Kassandra,” touching the dog’s +tawny head with a caressing hand; “or the garden—the trees and flowers +she loved—her books—her piano. Those things may remind us of our +darling without hurting us. But to hear a girl’s voice calling me—as +she used to call me from the garden on summer mornings—to hear a girl’s +laughter——” + +“Yes, it would be painful, love, at first. I can understand that, +Mildred. But if you can benefit an orphan girl by having her here, I +know your kind heart will not refuse. Let her come for a few weeks, +and if her presence pains you she shall stay no longer. She shall not +be invited again. I would not ask you to receive a stranger, but my +brother’s daughter is near me in blood.” + +“Let her come, George,” said Mildred impulsively; “I am very +selfish—thinking only of my own feelings. Let her come. How strangely +this talk of ours reminds me of something that happened when I was a +child!” + +“What was that, Mildred?” + +“You have heard me speak of Fay, my playfellow?” + +“Yes.” + +“I remember the evening my father asked mamma to let her come to us. It +seemed just now as if you were using his very words; and yet all things +were different.” + +Mildred had told him very little about that childish sorrow of hers. +She had shrunk from any allusion to the girl whose existence bore +witness against her father. She, too, fond and frank as she was, had +kept her own counsel, had borne the burden of a secret. + +“Yes, I have heard you speak of the girl you called Fay, and of whom +you must have been very fond, for the tears came into your eyes when +you mentioned her. Did she live with you long?” + +“O, no, a very short time! She was sent to school—to a finishing-school +at Brussels.” + +“Brussels!” he repeated, with a look of surprise. + +“Yes. Do you know anything about Brussels schools?” + +“Nothing personally. I have heard of girls educated there. And what +became of your playfellow after the Brussels school?” + +“I never heard.” + +“And you never tried to find out?” + +“Yes, I asked my mother; but there was a prejudice in her mind against +poor Fay. I would rather not talk about her, George.” + +Her vivid blush, her evident confusion, perplexed her husband. There +was some kind of mystery, it seemed—some family trouble in the +background, or Mildred, who was all candour, would have spoken more +freely. + +“Then may I really invite Pamela?” he asked, after a brief silence, +during which he had responded to the endearments of Kassandra, too well +fed to have any design upon the dainties on the breakfast-table, and +only asking to be loved. + +“I will write to her myself, George. Where is she?” + +“Not very far off. She is at Cowes with the Mountfords, on board +Sir Henry’s yacht the Gadfly. You had better send your letter to the +post-office, marked Gadfly.” + +The invitation was despatched by the first post; Miss Greswold was +asked to come to the Manor as soon as she liked, and to stay till the +autumn. + +The next day was Sunday, and Mr. and Mrs. Greswold went to church +together by the path that led them within a few paces of Lola’s grave. + +For the first time since her daughter’s death Mildred had put on a +light gown. Till to-day she had worn only black. This morning she came +into the vivid sunlight in a pale gray gown of soft lustreless silk, +and a neat little gray straw bonnet, which set off the fairness of +her skin and the sheen of her golden hair. The simple fashion of her +gown became her tall, slim figure, which had lost none of the grace of +girlhood. She was the prettiest and most distinguished-looking woman in +Enderby Church, although there were more county families represented +there upon that particular Sunday than are often to be seen in a +village church. + +The Manor House pew was on one side of the chancel, and commanded a +full view of the nave. The first lesson was long, and while it was +being read Mildred’s eyes wandered idly along the faces in the nave, +recognising countenances that had been familiar to her ever since her +marriage, until that wandering gaze stopped suddenly, arrested by a +face that was strange. + +She saw this strange face between other faces—as it were in a cleft +in the block of people. She saw it at the end of a vista, with the +sunlight from the chancel window full upon it—a face that impressed her +as no face of a stranger had ever done before. + +It looked like the face of Judas, she thought; and then in the next +moment was ashamed of her fancy. + +“It is only the colouring, and the effect of the light upon it,” she +told herself. “I am not so weak as to cherish the vulgar prejudice +against that coloured hair.” + +“That coloured hair” was of the colour which a man’s enemies call red +and his friends auburn or chestnut. It was of that ruddy brown which +Titian has immortalised in more than one Venus, and without which +Potiphar’s wife would be a nonentity. + +The stranger wore a small pointed beard of this famous colouring. +His eyes were of a reddish brown, large, and luminous, his eyebrows +strongly arched; his nose was a small aquiline; his brow was wide +and lofty, slightly bald in front. His mouth was the only obviously +objectionable feature. The lips were finely moulded, from a Greek +sculptor’s standpoint, and would have done for a Greek Bacchus, but the +expression was at once crafty and sensual. The auburn moustache served +to accentuate rather than to conceal that repellant expression. Mildred +looked at him presently as he stood up for the _Te Deum_. + +He was tall, for she saw his head well above intervening heads. He +looked about five-and-thirty. He had the air of being a gentleman. + +“Whoever he is, I hope I shall never see him again,” thought Mildred. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THERE IS ALWAYS THE SKELETON. + + +When Mr. and Mrs. Greswold left the church, the stranger was taking his +place in the Hillersdon wagonette, a capacious vehicle, drawn by a pair +of upstanding black-brown horses, set off by servants in smart liveries +of dark brown and gold. + +Mildred gave a sigh of relief. If the stranger was a visitor +at Riverdale it was not likely that he would stay long in the +neighbourhood, or be seen again for years to come. The guests at +Riverdale were generally birds of passage; and the same faces seldom +appeared there twice. Mr. and Mrs. Hillersdon of Riverdale were famous +for their extensive circle, and famous for bringing new people into the +county. Some of their neighbours said it was Mr. Hillersdon who brought +the people there, and that Mrs. Hillersdon had nothing to do with the +visiting list; others declared that husband and wife were equally +fickle and equally frivolous. + +Riverdale was one of the finest houses within ten miles of Romsey, +and it was variously described by the local gentry. It was called a +delightful house, or it was called a curious house, according to the +temper of the speaker. Its worst enemy could not deny that it was +a splendid house—spacious, architectural, luxurious, with all the +appendages of wealth and dignity—nor could its worst enemy deny its +merit as one of the most hospitable houses in the county. + +Notwithstanding this splendour and lavish hospitality, the local +magnates did not go to Riverdale, and the Hillersdons were not received +in some of the best houses. Tom Hillersdon was a large landowner, +a millionaire, and a man of good family; but Tom Hillersdon was +considered to have stranded himself in middle life by a marriage +which in the outer world was spoken of vaguely as “unfortunate,” but +which the straitlaced among his neighbours considered fatal. No man +who had so married could hold up his head among his friends any more; +no man who had so married could hope to have his wife received in +decent people’s houses. In spite of which opinion prevailing among +Tom Hillersdon’s oldest friends Mrs. Hillersdon contrived to gather a +good many people round her, and some of them the most distinguished +in the land. She had Cabinet Ministers, men of letters, and famous +painters among her guests. She had plenty of women friends—of a sort: +attractive women, intellectual and enlightened women; sober matrons, +bread-and-butter girls; women who doated on Mrs. Hillersdon, and, +strange to say, had never heard her history. + +And yet Hillersdon’s wife had a history scarcely less famous than +that of Cleopatra or Nell Gwynne. Louise Hillersdon was once Louise +Lorraine, the young adventuress whose Irish gray eyes had set all +London talking when the Great Exhibition of ’62 was still a monstrous +iron skeleton, and when South Kensington was in its infancy. Louise +Lorraine’s extravagance, and Louise Lorraine’s devotees, from German +princes and English dukes downwards, had been town-talk. Her box at the +opera had been the cynosure of every eye; and Paris ran mad when she +drove in the Bois, or exhibited her diamonds in the Rue Lepelletier; +or supped in the small hours at the Café de Paris, with the topmost +strawberries in the basket. Numerous and conflicting were the versions +of her early history—the more sensational chronicles describing her +as the Aphrodite of the gutter. Some people declared that she could +neither read nor write, and could not stir without her amanuensis at +her elbow; others affirmed that she spoke four languages, and read +a Greek play or a chapter of Thucidydes every night, with her feet +on the fender, while her maid brushed her hair. The sober truth lay +midway between these extremes. She was the daughter of a doctor in a +line regiment; she was eminently beautiful, very ignorant, and very +clever. She wrote an uneducated hand, never read anything better than +a sentimental novel, sang prettily, and could accompany her songs on +the guitar with a good deal of dash and fire. To this may be added that +she was an adept in the art of dress, had as much tact and finesse as +a leader of the old French noblesse, and more audacity than a Parisian +cocotte in the golden age of Cocotterie. Such she was when Tom +Hillersdon, Wiltshire squire, and millionaire, swooped like an eagle +upon this fair dove, and bore her off to his eerie. There was howling +and gnashing of teeth among those many admirers who were all thinking +seriously about making the lovely Louise a _bonâ fide_ offer; and it +was felt in a certain set that Tom Hillersdon had done a valiant and +victorious deed; but his country friends were of one accord in the idea +that Hillersdon had wrecked himself for ever. + +The Squire’s wife came to Riverdale, and established herself there +with as easy an air as if she had been a duchess. She gave herself +no trouble about the county families. London was near enough for the +fair Louise, and she filled her house—or Tom Hillersdon filled it—with +relays of visitors from the great city. Scarcely had she been settled +there a week when the local gentry were startled at seeing her sail +into church with one of the most famous English statesmen in her +train. Upon the Sunday after she was attended by a great painter and +a well-known savant; and besides these she had a pew full of smaller +fry—a lady novelist, a fashionable actor, a celebrated Queen’s +Counsel, and a county member. + +“Where does she get those men?” asked Lady Marjorie Danefeld, the +Conservative member’s wife; “surely they can’t _all_ be—reminiscences.” + +It had been supposed while the newly-wedded couple were on their +honeymoon that the lady’s arrival at Riverdale would inaugurate a reign +of profanity—that Sunday would be given over to Bohemian society, +café-chantant songs, champagne, and cigarette-smoking. Great was the +surprise of the locality, therefore, when Mrs. Hillersdon appeared in +the Squire’s pew on Sunday morning, neatly dressed, demure, nay, with +an aspect of more than usual sanctity; greater still the astonishment +when she reappeared in the afternoon, and listened meekly to the +catechising of the school-children and to the baptism of a refractory +baby; greater even yet when it was found that these pious practices +were continued, that she never missed a Saint’s-Day service, that +she had morning prayers for family and household, and that she held +meetings of an evangelical character in her drawing-room—meetings at +which curates from outlying parishes gathered like a flock of crows, +and at which the excellence of the tea and coffee, pound-cake and +muffins, speedily became known to the outside world. + +Happily for Tom Hillersdon these pious tendencies did not interfere +with his amusements or the pleasantness of his domestic life. Riverdale +was enlivened by a perennial supply of lively or interesting people. +Notoriety of some kind was a passport to the Hillersdons’ favour. It +was an indication that a man was beginning to make his mark when he +was asked to Riverdale. When he had made his mark he might think twice +about going. Riverdale was the paradise of budding celebrities. + +So to-day, seeing the stranger get into the Hillersdon wagonette, Mrs. +Greswold opined that he was a man who had made some kind of reputation. +He could not be an actor with that beard. He was a painter, perhaps. +She thought he looked like a painter. + +The wagonette was full of well-dressed women and well-bred men, +all with an essentially metropolitan—or cosmopolitan—air. The +eighteen-carat stamp of “county” was obviously deficient. Mrs. +Hillersdon had her own carriage—a barouche—which she shared with an +elderly lady, who looked as correct as if she had been a bishop’s wife. +She was on bowing terms with Mrs. Greswold. They had met at hunt-balls +and charity bazaars, and at various other functions from which the wife +of a local landowner can hardly be excluded—even when she has a history. + +Mildred thought no more of the auburn-haired stranger after the +wagonette had disappeared in a cloud of summer-dust. She strolled +slowly home with her husband by a walk which they had been in the habit +of taking on fine Sundays after morning service, but which they had +never trodden together since Lola’s death. It was a round which skirted +the common, and took them past a good many of the cottages, and their +tenants had been wont to loiter at their gates on fine Sundays, in the +hope of getting a passing word with the Squire and his wife. There +had been something patriarchal, or clannish, in the feeling between +landlord and tenant, labourer and master, which can only prevail in a +parish where the chief landowner spends the greater part of his life +at home. + +To-day every one was just as respectful as of old; curtsies were as low +and tones as reverential; but George Greswold and his wife felt there +was a difference, all the same. A gulf had been cleft between them and +their people by last summer’s calamity. It was not the kindred of the +dead in whom this coolness was distinguishable. The bereaved seemed +drawn nearer to their Squire by an affliction which had touched him +too. But in Enderby parish there was a bond of kindred which seemed to +interlink the whole population. There were not above three family names +in the village, and everybody was everybody else’s cousin, when not +a nearer relative. Thus, in dismissing his bailiff and dairy people, +Mr. Greswold had given umbrage to almost all his cottagers. He was no +longer regarded as a kind master. A man who could dismiss a servant +after twenty years’ faithful service was, in the estimation of Enderby +parish, a ruthless tyrant—a master whose yoke galled every shoulder. + +“Him seemed to be so fond of we all,” said Luke Thomas, the village +wheelwright, brother of that John Thomas who had been Mr. Greswold’s +bailiff, and who was now dreeing his weird in Canada; “and yet offend +he, and him can turn and sack yer as if yer was a thief—sweep yer off +his premises like a handful o’ rubbish. Faithful service don’t count +with he.” + +George Greswold felt the change from friendly gladness to cold +civility. He could see the altered expression in all those familiar +faces. The only sign of affection was from Mrs. Rainbow, standing at +her cottage gate in decent black, with sunken cheeks worn pale by many +tears. She burst out crying at sight of Mildred Greswold, and clasped +her hand in a fervour of sympathy. + +“O, to think of your sweet young lady, ma’am! that you should +lose her, as I lost my Polly!” she sobbed; and the two women wept +together—sisters in affliction. + +“You don’t think we are to blame, do you, Mrs. Rainbow?” Mildred said +gently. + +“No, no, indeed, ma’am. We all know it was God’s will. We must kiss the +rod.” + +“What fatalists these people are!” said Greswold, as he and his wife +walked homeward by the sweet-smelling common, where the heather showed +purple here and there, and where the harebells were beginning to dance +upon the wind. “Yes, it is God’s will; but the name of that God is +Nemesis.” + +Husband and wife were almost silent during luncheon. Both were +depressed by that want of friendliness in those who had been to them as +familiar friends. To have forfeited confidence and affection was hard +when they had done so much to merit both. Mildred could but remember +how she and her golden-haired daughter had gone about amongst those +people, caring for all their needs, spiritual and temporal, never +approaching them from the standpoint of superiority, but treating +them verily as friends. She recalled long autumn afternoons in the +village reading-room, when she and Lola had presided over a bevy +of matrons and elderly spinsters, she reading aloud to them while +they worked, Lola threading needles to save elderly eyes, sewing +on buttons, indefatigable in giving help of all kinds to those +village sempstresses. She had fancied that those mothers’ meetings, +the story-books, and the talk had brought them all into a bond of +affectionate sympathy; and yet one act of stern justice seemed to have +cancelled all obligations. + +Mr. Greswold lighted a cigar after lunch, and went for a ramble in +those extensive copses which were one of the charms of Enderby Manor, +miles and miles of woodland walks, dark and cool in the hottest day of +summer—lonely footpaths where the master of Enderby could think his own +thoughts without risk of coming face to face with any one in that leafy +solitude. The Enderby copses were cherished rather for pleasure than +for profit, and were allowed to grow a good deal higher and a good deal +wilder and thicker than the young wood upon neighbouring estates. + +Mildred went to the drawing-room and to her piano, after her husband +her chief companion and confidante now that Lola was gone. Music was +her passion—the only art that moved her deeply, and to sit alone +wandering from number to number of Beethoven and Mozart, Bach or +Mendelssohn, was the very luxury of loneliness. + +Adhering in all things to the rule that Sunday was not as other days, +she had her library of sacred music apart from other volumes, and it +was sacred music only which she played on Sundays. Her _répertoire_ was +large, and she roamed at will among the classic masters of the last two +hundred years, but for sacred music Bach and Mozart were her favourites. + +She was playing a Gloria by the latter composer when she heard a +carriage drive past the windows, and looked up just in time to catch +a glimpse of a profile that startled her with a sudden sense of +strangeness and familiarity. The carriage was a light T-cart, driven by +a groom in the Hillersdon livery. + +A visitor from Riverdale was a novelty, for, although George Greswold +and Tom Hillersdon were friendly in the hunting-field, Riverdale and +the Manor were not on visiting terms. The visit was for her husband, +Mildred concluded, and she went on playing. + +The door was opened by the new footman, who announced “Mr. Castellani.” + +Mrs. Greswold rose from the piano to find herself face to face with +the man whose countenance, seen in the distance, in the light of the +east window, had reminded her of Judas. Seen as she saw him now, in the +softer light of the afternoon, standing before her with a deprecating +air in her own drawing-room, the stranger looked altogether different, +and she thought he had a pleasing expression. + +He was tall and slim, well dressed in a subdued metropolitan style; +and he had an air of distinction and elegance which would have marked +him anywhere as a creature apart from the common herd. It was not +an English manner. There was a supple grace in his movements which +suggested a Southern origin. There was a pleading look in the full +brown eyes which suggested an emotional temperament. + +“An Italian, no doubt,” thought Mildred, taking this Southern +gracefulness in conjunction with the Southern name. + +She wondered on what pretence this stranger had called, and what could +be his motive for coming. + +“Mrs. Greswold, I have to apologise humbly for presenting myself +without having first sent you my credentials and waited for your +permission to call,” he said, in very perfect English, with only the +slightest Milanese accent; and then he handed Mrs. Greswold an unsealed +letter, which he had taken from his breast-pocket. + +She glanced at it hastily, not a little embarrassed by the situation. +The letter was from an intimate friend, an amateur _littérateur_, who +wrote graceful sonnets and gave pleasant parties: + + “I need not excuse myself, my dear friend, for making Mr. Castellani + known to you in the flesh, as I have no doubt he is already familiar + to you in the spirit. He is the anonymous author of _Nepenthe_, the + book that _almost every one_ has been reading and _quite every one_ + has been talking about this season. Only the few can _understand_ it; + but you are of those few, and I feel assured your _deepest_ feelings + have been stirred by that _most exceptional_ work. How delicious it + must be with you among green lanes and English meadows! We are just + rushing off to a land of extinct volcanoes for my poor husband’s + annual cure. _A vous de cœur_, + + DIANA TOMKISON.” + +“Pray sit down,” said Mildred, as she finished her gushing friend’s +note; “my husband will be in presently—I hope in time to see you.” + +“Pardon me if, in all humility, I say it is _you_ I was especially +anxious to see, to know, if it were possible—delightful as it will +be also to know Mr. Greswold. It is with your name that my past +associations are interwoven.” + +“Indeed! How is that?” + +“It is a long story, Mrs. Greswold. To explain the association I must +refer to the remote past. My grandfather was in the silk trade, like +your grandfather.” + +Mildred blushed; the assertion came upon her like an unpleasant +surprise. It was a shock. That great house of silk merchants from which +her father’s wealth had been derived had hardly ever been mentioned in +her presence. Lord Castle-Connell’s daughter had never grown out of the +idea that all trade is odious, and _her_ daughter had almost forgotten +that her father had ever been in trade. + +“Yes, when the house of Fausset was in its infancy the house of Felix & +Sons, silk manufacturers and silk merchants, was one of the largest on +the hillside of old Lyons. My great-grandfather was one of the richest +men in Lyons, and he was able to help the clever young Englishman, your +grandfather, who came into his house as corresponding clerk, to perfect +himself in the French language, and to find out what the silk trade +was like. He had a small capital, and when he had learnt something +about the trade, he established himself near St. Paul’s Churchyard as +a wholesale trader in a very small way. He had no looms of his own in +those days; and it was the great house of Felix, and the credit given +him by that house, which enabled him to hold his own, and to make a +fortune. When your father began life the house of Felix was on the +wane. Your grandfather had established a manufactory of his own at +Lyons. Felix & Sons had grown old-fashioned. They had forgotten to +march with the times. They had allowed themselves to go to sleep; and +they were on the verge of bankruptcy when your father came to their +rescue with a loan which enabled them to tide over their difficulties. +They had had a lesson, and they profited by it. The house of Felix +recovered its ascendency, and the loan was repaid before your father +retired from business.” + +“I am not surprised to hear that my father was generous. I should have +been slow to believe that he could have been ungrateful,” said Mildred +softly. + +“Your name is among my earliest recollections,” pursued Castellani. +“My mother was educated at a convent at Roehampton, and she was very +fond of England and English people. The first journey I can distinctly +remember was a journey to London, which occurred when I was ten years +old. I remember my father and mother talking about Mr. Fausset. She had +known him when she was a little girl. He used to stay in her father’s +house when he came to Lyons on business. She would like to have seen +him and his wife and daughter, for old times’ sake; but she had been +told that his wife was a lady of rank, and that he had broken off all +associations with his trading career. She was too diffident to intrude +herself upon her father’s old ally. One day our carriage passed yours +in the Park. Yes, I saw you, a golden-haired child—yes, madam, saw you +with these eyes—and the vision has stayed with me, a sunny remembrance +of my own childhood. I can see that fair child’s face in this room +to-day.” + +“You should have seen my daughter,” faltered Mildred sadly. + +“You have a daughter?” said the stranger eagerly. + +“I _had_ a daughter. She is gone. I only put off my black gown +yesterday; but my heart and mind will wear mourning for her till I go +to my grave.” + +“Ah, madam, how deeply I sympathise with such a grief!” murmured +Castellani. + +He had a voice of peculiar depth and beauty—one of those rare voices +whose every tone is music. The pathos and compassion in those few +commonplace words moved Mildred to sudden tears. She commanded herself +with an effort. + +“I am much interested in your reminiscences,” she said, after a brief +pause. “My father was very dear to me. My mother came of an old Irish +family, and the Irish, as you know, are apt to be over-proud of high +birth. I had never heard my father’s commercial life spoken about until +to-day. I only knew him as an idle man, without business cares of any +kind, able to take life pleasantly. He used to spend two or three +months of every year under this roof. It was a terrible blow to me when +we lost him six years ago, and I think my husband mourned him almost as +deeply as I did. But tell me about your book. Are you really the author +of _Nepenthe_, that nameless author who has been so much discussed?” + +“And who has been identified with so many distinguished people—Mr. +Gladstone—Cardinal Newman.” + +“Mr. Swinburne—Mr. Browning. I have heard all kinds of speculations. +And is it really you?” + +“Yes, it is I. To you I may plead guilty, since, unfortunately, the +authorship of _Nepenthe_ is now _le secret de Polichinelle_.” + +“It is a—strange book,” said Mildred. “My husband and I were both +interested in it, and impressed by it. But your book saddened us both. +You seem to believe in nothing.” + +“‘Seems,’ madam! nay, I know not ‘seems;’ but perhaps I am not so +bad as you think me. I am of Hamlet’s temper—inquiring rather than +disbelieving. To live is to doubt. And I own that I have seen enough of +this life to discover that the richest gift Fate can give to man is the +gift of forgetfulness.” + +“I cannot think that. I would not forget, even if I could. It would be +treason to forget the beloved ones we have lost.” + +“Ah, Mrs. Greswold, most men have worse memories than the memory of the +dead. The wounds we want healed are deeper than those made by Death; +his scars we can afford to look upon. There are wounds that have gone +deeper, and that leave an uglier mark.” + +There was a pause. Mr. Castellani made no sign of departure. He +evidently intended to wait for the Squire’s return. Through the open +windows of a second drawing-room, divided from the first by an +archway, they could see the servants setting out the tea-table on +the lawn. A Turkey carpet was spread under the cedar, and there were +basket-chairs of various shapes, cushioned, luxurious, and two or +three small wicker-tables of different colours, and a milking-stool or +two, and all the indications of out-door life. The one thing missing +was that aerial figure, robed in white, which had been wont to flit +about among the dancing shadows of branch and blossom—a creature as +evanescent as they, it seemed to that mourning mother who remembered +her to-day. + +“Are you staying long at Riverdale?” asked Mildred presently, by way of +conversation. + +“If Mrs. Hillersdon would be good enough to have me, I would stay +another fortnight. The place is perfect, the surrounding scenery has +your true English charm, and my hostess is simply delightful.” + +“You like her?” asked Mildred, interested. + +No woman can help being curious about a woman with such a history as +Mrs. Hillersdon’s. All the elements of romance and mystery seem, +from the feminine standpoint, to concentre in such a career. How +many hearts has such a woman broken; how many lives has she ruined; +how often has she been on the brink of madness or suicide?—she, the +placid matron, with her fat carriage-horses, and powdered footmen, +and big prayer-book, and demure behaviour, and altogether bourgeois +surroundings. + +“Like her? Yes; she is such a clever woman.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Yes, she is a marvel—the cleverest woman I know.” + +He laid a stress on the superlative. His praise might mean +anything—might be a hidden sneer. He might praise as the devil +prays—backwards. Mildred had an uncomfortable feeling that he was not +in earnest. + +“Have you known her long?” she asked. + +“Not very long; only this season. I am told that she is fickle, or that +other people are fickle, and that she seldom knows any one more than a +season. But I do not mean to be fickle; I mean to be a house-friend at +Riverdale all my life if she will let me. She is a very clever woman, +and thoroughly artistic.” + +Mildred had not quite grasped the modern significance of this last word. + +“Does Mrs. Hillersdon paint?” she asked. + +“No, she does not paint.” + +“She plays—or sings, I suppose?” + +“No. I am told she once sang Spanish ballads with a guitar +accompaniment; but the people who remember her singing tell me that her +arms were the chief feature in the performance. Her arms are lovely +to this day. No; she neither paints, nor plays, nor sings; but she is +supremely artistic. She dresses as few women of five-and-forty know +how to dress—dresses so as to make one think five-and-forty the most +perfect age for a woman; and she has a marvellous appreciation of +art, of painting, of poetry, of acting, of music. She is almost the +only woman to whom I have ever played Beethoven who has seemed to me +thoroughly _simpatica_.” + +“Ah!” exclaimed Mildred, surprised, “you yourself play, then?” + +“It is hardly a merit in me,” answered Castellani modestly; “my father +was one of the finest musicians of his time in Italy.” + +“Indeed!” + +“You are naturally surprised. His genius was poorly appreciated. His +name was hardly known out of Milan and Brussels. Strange to say, those +stolid Flemings appreciated him. His work was over the heads of the +vulgar public. He saw such men as Verdi and Gounod triumphant, while he +remained obscure.” + +“But surely you admire Verdi and Gounod?” + +“In their places, yes; both are admirable; but my father’s place should +have been in a higher rank of composers. But let me not plague you +about him. He is dead, and forgotten. He died crown-less. I heard you +playing Mozart’s ‘Gloria’ as I came in. You like Mozart?” + +“I adore him.” + +“Yes, I know there are still people who like his music. Chopin did; +asked for it on his death-bed,” said Castellani, with a wry face, as +if he were talking of a vulgar propensity for sauerkraut or a morbid +hankering for asafœtida. + +“How I wish you would play something while we are waiting for my +husband!” said Mildred, seeing her visitor’s gaze wandering to the open +piano. + +“If you will go into the garden and take your tea, I will play with +delight while you take it. I doubt if I could play to you in cold +blood. I know you are critical.” + +“And you think I am not _simpatica_,” retorted Mildred, laughing +at him. She was quite at her ease with him already, all thought of +that Judas face in the church being forgotten. His half-deferential, +half-caressing manner; his easy confidences about himself and his own +tastes, had made her more familiar with his individuality in the space +of an hour than she would have been with the average Englishman in +a month. She did not know whether she liked or disliked him; but he +amused her, and it was a new sensation for her to feel amused. + +She sauntered softly out to the lawn, and he began to play. + +Heavens, what a touch! Was it really _her_ piano which answered with +tones so exquisite—which gave forth such thrilling melody? He played +an improvised arrangement of Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” and she stood +entranced till the last dying _arpeggio_ melted into silence. No one +could doubt that he came of a race gifted in music. + +“Pray don’t leave the piano,” she said softly, from her place by the +open window. + +“I will play till you call me away,” he answered, as he began Chopin’s +Etude in C sharp minor. + +That weird and impassioned composition reached its close just as George +Greswold approached from a little gate on the other side of the lawn. +Mildred went to meet him, and Castellani left the piano and came out of +the window to be presented to his host. + +Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the two +men, as they stood facing each other in the golden light of afternoon. +Greswold, tall, broad-shouldered, rugged-looking, in his rough brown +heather suit and deerstalker cap, carrying a thick stick, with an iron +fork at the end of it, for the annihilation of chance weeds in his +peregrinations. His fine and massive features had a worn look, his +cheeks were hollow, his dark hair and beard were grizzled here and +there, his dark complexion had lost the hue of youth. He looked ten +years older than his actual age. + +Before him stood the Italian, graceful, gracious in every line and +every movement; his features delicately chiselled, his eyes dark, full, +and bright; his complexion of that milky pallor which is so often seen +with hair tending towards red; his brown beard of silkiest texture; +his hands delicately modelled and of ivory whiteness; his dress imbued +with all the grace which a fashionable tailor can give to the clothes +of a man who cultivates the beautiful, even in the barren field of +nineteenth century costume. It was impossible that so marked a contrast +could escape Mildred’s observation altogether; yet she perceived it +dimly. The picture came back to her memory afterwards in more vivid +colours. + +She made the necessary introduction, and then proceeded to pour out the +tea, leaving the two men to talk to each other. + +“Your name has an Italian sound,” Greswold said presently. + +“It is a Milanese name. My father was a native of Milan; my mother +was French, but she was educated in England, and all her proclivities +were English. It was at her desire my father sent me to Rugby, and +afterwards to Cambridge. Her fatal illness called me back to Italy +immediately after I had got my degree, and it was some years before I +again visited England.” + +“Were you in Italy all that time?” asked Greswold, looking down +absently, and with an unwonted trouble in his face. + +Mildred sat at the tea-table, the visitor waiting upon her, insisting +upon charging himself with her husband’s cup as well as his own; an +attention and reversal of etiquette of which Mr. Greswold seemed +unconscious. Kassandra had returned with her master from a long walk, +and was lying at his feet in elderly exhaustion. She saluted the +stranger with a suppressed growl when he approached with the tea-cups. +Kassandra adored her own people, but was not remarkable for civility to +strangers. + +“Yes; I wasted four or five years in the South—in Florence, in Venice, +or along the Riviera, wandering about like Satan, not having made up +my mind what to do in the world.” + +Greswold was silent, bending down to play with Kassandra, who wagged +her tail with a gentle largo movement, in grateful contentment. + +“You must have heard my father’s name when you were at Milan,” said +Castellani. “His music was fashionable _there_.” + +Mildred looked up with a surprised expression. She had never heard her +husband talk of Milan, and yet this stranger mentioned his residence +there as if it were an established fact. + +“How did you know I was ever at Milan?” asked Greswold, looking up +sharply. + +“For the simplest of reasons. I had the honour of meeting you on +more than one occasion at large assemblies, where my insignificant +personality would hardly impress itself upon your memory. And I met you +a year later at Lady Lochinvar’s palace at Nice, soon after your first +marriage.” + +Mildred looked up at her husband. He was pale as ashes, his lips +whitening as she gazed at him. She felt her own cheeks paling; felt +a sudden coldness creeping over her, as if she were going to faint. +She watched her husband dumbly, expecting him to tell this man that he +was mistaken, that he was confounding him, George Greswold, with some +one else; but Greswold sat silent, and presently, as if to hide his +confusion, bent again over the dog, who got up suddenly and licked his +face in a gush of affection—as if she knew—as if she knew. + +He had been married before, and he had told his wife not one word of +that first marriage. There had been no hint of the fact that he was a +widower when he asked John Fausset for his daughter’s hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE BEGINNING OF DOUBT. + + +Enderby Church clock struck six. They heard every chime, slow and clear +in the summer stillness, as they sat in the broad shadow of the cedar, +silent all three. + +It seemed as if the striking of the clock were the breaking of a spell. + +“So late?” exclaimed Castellani, in a cheery voice; “and I promised +Mrs. Hillersdon to be back in time to drive to Romsey for the evening +service. The old Abbey Church of Romsey, she tells me, is a thing to +dream about. There is no eight o’clock dinner at Riverdale on Sundays. +Every one goes to church somewhere, and we sup at half-past nine, and +after supper there is sometimes extempore prayer—and sometimes there +are charades or dumb crambo. _C’est selon._ When the Prince was there +they had dumb crambo. Good-bye. I am almost ashamed to ask if I may +ever come again, after having bored you for such an unconscionable +time.” + +He had the easiest air possible, and seemed totally unconscious of +any embarrassment caused by his allusions to the past; and yet in +both faces, as he looked from one to the other, he must have seen the +strongest indications of trouble. + +Mrs. Greswold murmured something to the effect that she would be glad +to see him at any time, a speech obviously conventional and unmeaning. +Mr. Greswold rose hastily and accompanied him to the hall-door, +where the cart still waited for him, the groom fixed as a statue of +despondency. + +Mr. Castellani was inclined to be loquacious to the last. Greswold was +brief almost to incivility. He stood watching the light cart roll away, +and then went slowly back to the garden and to his seat under the cedar. + +He seated himself without a word, looking earnestly at his wife, +whose drooping head and fixed attitude told of deepest thought. So +they sat for some minutes in dead silence, Kassandra licking her +master’s pendant hand, as he leaned forward with his elbow on his knee, +infinitely sorry for him. + +Mildred was the first to break that silence. + +“George, why did you not tell me,” she began in a low faltering +voice, “that I was not your first wife? What reason could there be +for concealment between you and me? I so trusted you; I so loved you. +Nothing you could have told would have changed me.” + +“Dearest, there was one reason, and a powerful one,” answered George +Greswold firmly, meeting the appealing look of her eyes with a clear +and steady gaze. “My first marriage is a sad remembrance for me—full +of trouble. I did not care to tell you that miserable story, to call a +dreaded ghost out of the grave of the past. My first marriage was the +one great sorrow of my life, but it was only an episode in my life. It +left me as lonely as it found me. There are very few who know anything +about it. I am sorry that young man should have come here to trouble us +with his uninvited reminiscences. For my own part, I cannot remember +having ever seen his face before.” + +“I am sorry you should have kept such a secret from me,” said Mildred. +“It would have been so much wiser to have been candid. Do you think I +should not have respected your sad memories? You had only to say to me +‘Such things were; but let us not talk of them.’ It would have been +more manly; it would have been kinder to me.” + +“Say that I was a coward, if you like; that I am still a coward, where +those memories are concerned,” said Greswold. + +The look of agony in his face melted her in a moment. She threw herself +on her knees beside his chair, she and the dog fawning upon him +together. + +“Forgive me, forgive me, dearest,” she pleaded, “I will never speak to +you of this again. Women are so jealous—of the past most of all.” + +“Is that all?” he said: “God knows you have little need. Let us say no +more, Mildred. The past is past: neither you nor I can alter it. Memory +is inexorable. God Himself cannot change it.” + +“I will contrive that Mr. Castellani shall not come here again, George, +if you object to see him.” + +“Pray don’t trouble yourself. I would not have such a worm suppose that +he could be obnoxious to me.” + +“Tell me what you think of him,” she asked, in a lighter tone, anxious +to bring back the easy mood of every-day life. “He seems very clever, +and he is rather handsome.” + +“What do I think of the trumpet-ash on the verandah yonder? A beautiful +parasite, which will hold on anywhere in the sunshine. Mr. Castellani +is of the same family, I take it—studies his own interests first, and +chooses his friends afterwards. He will do admirably for Riverdale.” + +“He plays divinely. His touch transformed my piano.” + +“He looks the kind of man who would play the piano,” said Greswold, +with ineffable contempt, looking down at his own sunburnt hands, +hardened by exposure to all weathers, broadened by handling gun and +punt-pole, and by half-a-dozen other forms of out-door exercise. +“However, I have no objection to him, if he serve to amuse you and +Pamela.” + +He spoke with a kind of weary indifference, as of a man who cared for +very little in life; and then he rose slowly, took up his stick, and +strolled off to the shrubbery. + + * * * * * + +Pamela appeared on the following afternoon with boxes, bags, +music-books, raquets, and parasols, in a proportion which gave promise +of a long visit. She had asked as a tremendous favour to be allowed +to bring Box—otherwise Fitz-Box—her fox-terrier, son of Sir Henry +Mountford’s Box, great-grandson of Brockenhurst Joe, through that +distinguished animal’s daughter Lyndhurst Jessie, and on the paternal +side a lineal descendant of Mr. Murchison’s Cracknel. + +“I hope you won’t mind very much,” she wrote; “but it would be death to +him if I were to leave him behind. To begin with, his brother Fitz-Cox, +who has a villanous temper, would inevitably kill him; and besides +that, he would pine to death at not sleeping in my room at night, which +he has done ever since he was a puppy. If you will let me bring him, I +will answer for his good manners, and that he shall not be a trouble to +any one.” + +The descendant of Brockenhurst Joe rushed out into the garden, and made +a lightning circuit of lawn and shrubberies, while his young mistress +was kissing her Aunt Mildred, as she called her uncle’s wife in the +fulness of her affection. + +“It is so very good of you to have me, and I am so delighted to come!” +she said. + +Mildred would have much preferred that she were anywhere else, yet +could not help feeling kindly to her. She was a frank, bright-looking +girl, with brown eyes, and almost flaxen hair; a piquant contrast, for +the hair was genuine, and carried out in the eyebrows, which were only +just a shade darker. Her complexion was fair to transparency, and she +had just enough soft rosy bloom to light up the delicate skin. Her nose +was slightly _retroussé_, her mouth was a little wider than she herself +approved, and her teeth were perfection. She had a charming figure of +the plump order, but its plumpness was a distress to her. + +“Don’t you think I get horribly stout?” she asked Mildred, when she was +sitting at tea in the garden presently. + +“You may be a little stouter than you were at sixteen, perhaps, but not +at all too stout.” + +“O, but I am! I know it, I feel it. Don’t endeavour to spare my +feelings, aunt. It is useless. I know I am fat. Rosalind says I ought +to marry; but I tell her it’s absurd. How can anybody ever care for me +now I am fat? They would only want my money if they asked me to marry +them,” concluded Pamela, clinging to the plural. + +“My dear Pamela, do you wish me to tell you that you are charming, and +all that you ought to be?” asked Mildred, laughing. + +“O, no, no! I don’t want you to spare my feelings. Everybody spares +one’s feelings. One grows up in ignorance of the horrors in one’s +appearance, because people _will_ spare one’s feelings. And then one +sees oneself in a strange glass; or a boy in the street says something, +and one knows the worst. I think I know the worst about myself. That +is one comfort. How lovely it is here!” said Pamela, with a sudden +change of mood, glancing at Mildred with a little pathetic look as she +remembered the childish figure that must be for ever missing from that +home picture. + +“I am so glad to be with you,” she murmured softly, nestling up to +Mildred’s side, as they sat together on a rustic bench; “let me be +useful to you, let me be a companion to you, if you can.” + +“You shall be both, dear.” + +“How good to say that! And you won’t mind Box?” + +“Not the least. If he will be amiable to Kassandra.” + +“He will. He has been brought up among other dogs. We are a very doggy +family at the Hall. Would you think he was worth a hundred and fifty +guineas?” asked Pamela with ill-concealed pride, as the scion of +illustrious progenitors came up and put his long lean head in her hand, +and conversed with her in a series of expressive snorts, as it were a +conversational code. + +“I hardly know what constitutes perfection in a fox-terrier.” + +“No more do I; but I know he is perfect. He is said to be the image of +Cracknel, only better. I tremble when I think that my possession of +him hangs by a thread. He might be stolen at any moment.” + +“You must be careful.” + +“Yes, I cannot be too careful. Here comes Uncle George,” said Pamela, +rising and running to meet Mr. Greswold. “O, Uncle George, _how_ +altered you are!” + +She was always saying the wrong thing, after the manner of impulsive +girls; and she was quickwitted enough to discover her mistake the +instant after. + +Happily the dogs furnished a ready diversion. She introduced Box, and +expatiated upon his grand qualities. She admired and made friends with +Kassandra, and then settled down almost as lightly as a butterfly, in +spite of her plumpness, on a Japanese stool, to take her teacup from +Mildred’s hands. + +She was perfectly at her ease by this time, and told her uncle and +aunt all about her sister Rosalind, and Rosalind’s husband, Sir Henry +Mountford, whom she summed up lightly as a nice old thing, and no end +of fun. It was easy to divine from her discourse that Rainham Hall was +not an especially intellectual atmosphere, not a school of advanced +thought, or of any other kind of thought. Pamela’s talk was of tennis, +yachting, fishing, and shooting, and of the people who shared in those +sports. She seemed to belong to a world in which nobody ever sat down +except to eat, or stayed indoors except under stress of weather. + +“I hear you have all manner of clever people in your neighbourhood,” +she said by and by, having told all she had to tell about Rainham. + +“Have we?” asked Greswold, smiling at her intensity. + +“Yes, at Riverdale. They do say the author of _Nepenthe_ is staying +there, and that he is not a Roman Cardinal or an English statesman, but +almost a young man—an Italian by birth—and _very_ handsome. I would +give worlds to see him.” + +“It is not unlikely you may be gratified without giving anything,” +answered her uncle. “Mr. Castellani was here yesterday afternoon, and +threatened to repeat his visit.” + +“Castellani! Yes, that is the name I heard. What a pretty name! And +what is he like? Do tell me all about him, Aunt Mildred.” + +She turned to the woman as the more likely to give her a graphic +description. The average man is an undescribing animal. + +Mildred made an effort at self-command before she spoke. Castellani +counted for but little in her recent trouble. His revelation had been +an accident, and its effect entirely dissociated from him. Yet the very +thought of the man troubled her, and the dread of seeing him again was +like a physical pain. + +“I do not know what to say about his appearance,” she answered +presently, slowly fanning herself with a great scarlet Japanese fan, +pale and cool looking in her plain white gown with its black ribbons. +The very picture of domestic peace, one would suppose, judging by +externals only. “I suppose there are people who would think him +handsome.” + +“Don’t you, aunt?” + +“No. I don’t like the colour of his eyes or of his hair. They are +of that reddish-brown which the Venetian painters are so fond of, +but which always gives me an idea of falsehood and treachery. Mr. +Castellani is a very clever man, but he is not a man whom I could ever +trust.” + +“How nice!” cried Pamela, her face radiant with enthusiasm; “a creature +with red-brown hair, and eyes with a depth of falsehood in them. That +is just the kind of man who might be the author of _Nepenthe_. If +you had told me he was stout and rosy-cheeked, with pepper-and-salt +whiskers and a fine, benevolent head, I would never have opened his +book again.” + +“You seem to admire this _Nepenthe_ prodigiously,” said her uncle, +looking at her with a calmly critical air. “Is it because the book is +the fashion, or from your own unassisted appreciation of it? I did not +think you were a bookish person.” + +“I’m not,” cried Pamela. “I am a mass of ignorance. I don’t know +anything about science. I don’t know the name of a single butterfly. +I don’t know one toadstool from another. But when I love a book it +is a passion with me. My Keats has tumbled to pieces; my Shelley is +disgracefully dirty. I have read _Nepenthe_ six times, and I am +waiting for the cheap edition, to keep it under my pillow. It has made +me an Agnostic.” + +“Do you know the dictionary meaning of that word?” + +“I don’t think I do; but I know I am an Agnostic. _Nepenthe_ has +unsettled all my old beliefs. If I had read it four years ago I should +have refused to be confirmed. I am dying to know the author.” + +“You like unbelievers, then?” said Mr. Greswold. + +“I adore men who dare to doubt, who are not afraid to stand apart from +their fellow-men.” + +“On a bad eminence?” + +“Yes, on a bad eminence. What a sweet expression! I can never +understand Goethe’s _Gretchen_.” + +“Why not?” + +“How could she have cared for _Faust_, when she had the privilege of +knowing _Mephistopheles_?” + + * * * * * + +Pamela Ransome had established herself in her pretty bedroom and +dressing-room, and had supervised her maid while she unpacked and +arranged all her belongings, before dinner-time. She came down to the +drawing-room, at a quarter to eight, as thoroughly at her ease as if +she had lived half her life at Enderby Manor. She was a kind of visitor +who gives no trouble, and who drops into the right place instinctively. +Mildred Greswold felt cheered by her presence, in spite of that +ever-recurrent pang of memory which associated all young bright things +with the sweet girl-child who should have grown to womanhood under that +roof, and who was lying a little way off, under the ripening berries of +the mountain-ash, and in the deep shadow of a century-old yew. + +They were very quiet in the drawing-room after dinner; Greswold reading +in a nook apart, by the light of his own particular lamp; his wife +bending over an embroidery-frame in her corner near the piano, where +she had her own special dwarf bookcase and her work-basket, and the +_bonheur du jour_ at which she sometimes wrote letters, her own little +table scattered with old family miniatures by Angelica Kaufmann, +Cosway, and Ross, and antique watches in enamelled cases, and boxes of +porcelain and gold and silver, every one of which had its history. +Every woman who lives much at home has some such corner, where the very +atmosphere is full of home thoughts. She asked her niece to play, and +to go on playing as long as she liked; and Pamela, pleased with the +touch of the Broadwood grand, rang the changes upon Chopin, Schumann, +Raff, and Brahm, choosing those compositions which least jarred upon +the atmosphere of studious repose. + +Mildred’s needle moved slowly, as she sat in her low chair, with her +hands in the lamp-light and her face in shadow, moved very slowly, and +then stopped altogether, and the white hands lay idle in her lap, and +the embroidery-frame, with its half-finished group of azaleas, slid +from her knee to the ground. She was thinking—thinking of that one +subject which had possessed her thoughts since yesterday afternoon; +which had kept her awake through the brief darkness of the summer night +and in the slow hours betwixt dawn and seven o’clock, when the entrance +of the maid with the early cup of tea marked the beginning of the daily +routine. In all those hours her thoughts had revolved round that one +theme with an intolerable recurrence. + +It was of her husband’s first marriage she thought, and of his motive +for silence about that marriage: that he who, in the whole course of +their wedded lives, had been the very spirit of single-minded candour, +should yet have suppressed this all-important event in his past +history, was a fact in itself so startling and mysterious that it might +well be the focus of a wife’s troubled thoughts. He could not so have +acted without some all-sufficient reason; and what manner of reason +could that have been which had influenced him to conduct so entirely at +variance with his own character? + +What was there in the history of that marriage which had sealed his +lips, which made it horrible to him to speak about it, even when fair +dealing with the girl who was to be his wife should have constrained +frankness? + +Had he been cursed with a wicked wife; some beautiful creature, who had +caught his heart in her toils, as a cat catches a bird, and had won him +only to betray and to dishonour him? Had she blighted his life, branded +him with the shame of a forsaken husband? + +And then a hideous dread floated across her mind. What if that +first wife were still living—divorced from him? Had she, Mildred +Fausset, severely trained in the strictest principles of the Anglican +Church—taught her creed by an ascetic who deemed divorce unchristian +and an abomination, and who had always refused to marry those who had +been divorced—had she, in whose life and mind religion and duty were as +one feeling and one principle—had she been trapped into a union with +a man whose wife yet lived, and in the sight of God was yet one with +him—a wife who might crawl penitent to his feet some day, and claim him +as her own again by the right of tears and prayers and a soul cleansed +from sin? Such a sinner must have some hold, some claim even to the +last, upon the man who once was her husband, who once swore to cherish +her and cleave to her, of whom it had once been said, “And they two +shall be one flesh.” + +No; again and again, no. She could not believe George Greswold capable +of such deep dishonour as to have concealed the existence of a divorced +wife. No; the reason for that mysterious silence must be another +reason than this. + +She had sinned against him, it might be, and had died in her sin, under +circumstances too sad to be told without infinite pain; and he, who had +never in her experience shown himself wanting in moral courage, had +in this one crisis of his life acted as the coward acts. He had kept +silence where conscience should have constrained him to speak. + +And then the wife’s vivid fancy conjured up the image of that other +wife. Her jealous fears depicted that wife of past years as a being to +be loved and remembered until death—beautiful, fascinating, gifted with +all the qualities that charm mankind. “He can never care for me as he +once cared for her,” Mildred told herself. “She was his first love.” + +His first—the first revelation of what love means to the passionate +heart of youth. What a world there is in that! Mildred remembered how +a new life began for her with the awakening of her love for George +Greswold. What a strange sweet enchantment, what an intoxicating +gladness which glorified the whole face of nature! The river, and the +reedy islets, and the pollard willows, and the autumn sunsets—things so +simple and familiar—had all taken new colours in that magical dawn of +her first love. + +She—that unknown woman—had been George Greswold’s first love. Mildred +envied her that brief life, whose sole distinction was to have been +loved by him. + +“Why do I imagine a mystery about her?” she argued, after long +brooding. “The only secret was that he loved her as he could never love +me, and he feared to tell me as much lest I should refuse the remnant +of a heart. It was out of kindness to me that he kept silence. It would +have pained me too much to know how _she_ had been loved.” + +She knew that her husband was a man of exceeding sensitiveness; she +knew him capable of almost woman-like delicacy. Was it altogether +unnatural that such a man should have held back the history of his +first marriage—with its passionate love, its heart-broken ending—from +the enthusiastic girl who had given him all her heart, and to whom he +could give so little in return? + +“He may have seen how I loved him, and may have married me half out of +pity,” she said to herself finally, with unspeakable bitterness. + +Yet if this were so, could they have been so happy together, so +completely united—save in that one secret of the past, that one dark +regret which had revealed itself from time to time in an agonising +dream? He had walked that dark labyrinth of sleep alone with his +sorrow: there she could not follow him. + +She remembered the awful sound of those broken sentences—spoken to +shadows in a land of shadow. She remembered how acutely she had felt +his remoteness as he sat up in bed, pale as death, his eyes open and +fixed, his lips muttering. He and the dead were face to face in the +halls of the past. _She_ had no part in his life, or in his memory. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +“SHE CANNOT BE UNWORTHY.” + + +Mr. Castellani did not wait long before he availed himself of Mrs. +Greswold’s permission to repeat his visit. He appeared on Friday +afternoon, at the orthodox hour of half-past three, when Mildred and +her niece were sitting in the drawing-room, exhausted by a long morning +at Salisbury, where they had explored the cathedral, and lunched in the +Close with a clever friend of George Greswold’s, who had made his mark +on modern literature. + +“I adore Salisbury Close,” said Pamela, as she looked through the +old-fashioned window to the old-fashioned garden; “it reminds me of +Honoria.” + +She did not deem it necessary to explain what Honoria she meant, +presuming a universal acquaintance with Coventry Patmore’s gentle +heroine. + +The morning had been sultry, the homeward drive long, and both ladies +were resting in comfortable silence, each with a book, when Castellani +was announced. + +Mildred received him rather coldly, trying her uttermost to seem +thoroughly at ease. She introduced him to her niece, Miss Ransome. + +“The daughter of the late Mr. Randolph Ransome and the sister of Lady +Mountford?” Castellani inquired presently, when Pamela had run out on +the lawn to speak to Box. + +“Yes. You seem to know everybody’s belongings.” + +“Why not? It is the duty of every man of the world, more especially of +a foreigner. I know Mr. Ransome’s place in the Sussex Weald—a very fine +property—and I know that the two ladies are coheiresses, but that the +Sussex estate is to descend to the eldest son of the elder daughter, or +failing male issue there, to the son of the younger. Lady Mountford has +a baby-son, I believe.” + +“Your information is altogether correct.” + +“Why should it be otherwise? Mr. Hillersdon and his wife discussed +the family history to-day at luncheon, _apropos_ to Miss Ransome’s +appearance in Romsey Church at the Saint’s Day service yesterday.” + +His frankness apologised for his impertinence, and he was a foreigner, +which seems always to excuse a great deal. + +Pamela came back again, after rescuing Box from a rough-and-tumble +game with Kassandra. She looked rosy and breathless, and very pretty, +in her pale-blue gown and girlish sash flying in the wind, and flaxen +hair fluffed into a feathery pile on the top of her head, and honest +brown eyes. She resumed her seat in the deep old window behind the end +of the piano, and made believe to go on with some work, which she took +in a tangled heap from a very untidy basket. Already Pamela had set +the sign of her presence upon the drawing-rooms at Enderby, a trail of +heterogeneous litter which was a part of her individuality. Screened by +the piano, she was able to observe Castellani, as he stood leaning over +the large central ottoman, with his knee on the cushioned seat, talking +to Mrs. Greswold. + +He was the author of _Nepenthe_. It was in that character he interested +her. She looked at him with the thought of his book full in her mind. +It was one of those half-mad, wholly artificial compositions which +delight girls and young men, and which are just clever enough, and +have just enough originality to get talked about and written about by +the cultured few. It was a love-story, ending tragically; a story of +ruined lives and broken hearts, told in the autobiographical form, +with a studied avoidance of all conventional ornament, which gave an +air of reality where all was inherently false. Pamela thought it must +be Castellani’s own story. She fancied she could see the traces of +those heartbreaking experiences, those crushing disappointments in his +countenance, in his bearing even, and in the tones of his voice, which +gave an impression of mental fatigue, as of a man worn out by a fatal +passion. + +The story of _Nepenthe_ was as old as the hills—or at least as old as +the Boulevard des Capucines and the Palais Royal. It was the story +of a virtuous young man’s love for an unvirtuous woman—the story of +Demetrius and Lamia—the story of a man’s demoralisation under the +influence of incarnate falsehood, of the gradual lapse from good to +evil, the gradual extinction of every belief and every scruple, the +final destruction of a soul. + +The wicked siren was taken, her victim was left; but left to expiate +that miserable infatuation by an after-life of misery; left without a +joy in the present or a hope in the future. + +“He looks like it,” thought Pamela, remembering that final chapter. + +Mrs. Greswold was putting a few slow stitches into the azalea-leaves on +her embroidery-frame, and listening to Mr. Castellani with an air of +polite indifference. + +“Do you know that Riverdale is quite the most delightful house I have +ever stayed in?” he said; “and I have stayed in a great many. And do +you know that Mrs. Hillersdon is heart-broken at your never having +called upon her?” + +“I am sorry so small a matter should touch Mrs. Hillersdon’s heart.” + +“She feels it intensely. She told me so yesterday. Perfect candour +is one of the charms of her character. She is as emotional and as +transparent as a child. Why have you not called on her?” + +“You forget that Riverdale is seven miles from this house.” + +“Does not your charity extend so far? Are people who live seven miles +off beyond the pale? I think you must visit a little further afield +than seven miles. There must be some other reason.” + +“There is another reason, which I had rather not talk about.” + +“I understand. You consider Mrs. Hillersdon a person not to be visited. +Long ago, when you were a child in the nursery, Mrs. Hillersdon was +an undisciplined, inexperienced girl, and the world used her hardly. +Is that old history never to be forgotten? Men, who know it all, have +agreed to forget it: why should women, who only know a fragment, so +obstinately remember?” + +“I know nothing, and remember nothing, about Mrs. Hillersdon. My +friends are, for the most part, those of my husband’s choice, and I +pay no visits without his approval. He does not wish me to visit +at Riverdale. You have forced me to give you a plain answer, Mr. +Castellani.” + +“Why not? Plain truth is always best. I am sorry Mr. Greswold has +interdicted my charming friend. You can have no idea how excellent +a woman she is, or how admirable a wife. Tom Hillersdon might have +searched the county from border to border and not have found as good +a woman—looked at as the woman best calculated to make him happy. And +what delightful people she has brought about him! One of the most +interesting men I ever met arrived yesterday, and is to preach the +hospital sermon at Romsey next Sunday. He is an old friend of yours.” + +“A clergyman, and an old friend of mine, at Riverdale!” + +“A man of ascetic life and exceptional culture. I never heard any man +talk of Dante better than he talked to me last night in a moonlight +stroll on the terrace, while the other men were in the smokingroom.” + +“Surely you do not mean Mr. Cancellor, the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s, +Parchment Street?” + +“That is the man—Clement Cancellor, Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s. He looks +like a mediæval monk just stepped out of one of Bellini’s altar-pieces.” + +“He is the noblest, most unselfish of men,” said Mildred warmly; “he +has given his life to doing good among rich and poor. It is so long +since I have seen him. We have asked him to Enderby very often, but he +has always been too busy to come. And to think that he should be in +this neighbourhood and I know nothing about it; and to think that he +should go to Riverdale rather than come here!” + +“He had hardly any option. It was Mrs. Hillersdon who asked him to +preach on Hospital Sunday. She extorted a promise from him three +months ago in London. The Vicar of Romsey was enchanted. ‘You are the +cleverest woman I know,’ he said. ‘No one else could have got me such a +great gun.’” + +“A great gun—Mr. Cancellor a great gun! I can only think of him as I +knew him when I was twelve years old: a tall, thin young man, in a +very shabby coat—he was curate at St. Elizabeth’s then—very gaunt and +hollow-cheeked, but with such a sweet smile. He used to come twice a +week to teach me the history of the Bible and the Church. He made me +love both.” + +“He is gaunt and hollow-cheeked still, tall and bony and sallow, and +he still wears a shabby coat. You will not find much difference in +him, I fancy—only so many more years of hard work and self-sacrifice, +ascetic living and nightly study. A man to know Dante as he does must +have given years of his life to that one poet—and I am told that in +literature Cancellor is an all-round man. His monograph on Pascal is +said to be the best of a brilliant series of such studies.” + +“I hope he will come to see his old pupil before he leaves the +neighbourhood.” + +“He means to do so. He was talking of it yesterday evening—asking +Mrs. Hillersdon if she was intimate with you—so awkward for poor Mrs. +Hillersdon.” + +“I shall be very glad to see him again.” + +“May I drive him over to tea to-morrow afternoon?” + +“He will be welcome here at any time.” + +“Or with any one? If Mrs. Hillersdon were to bring him, would you still +refuse to receive her?” + +“I have never refused to receive her. We have met and talked to each +other on public occasions. If Mr. Cancellor likes her she cannot be +unworthy.” + +“May she come with him to-morrow?” persisted Castellani. + +“If she likes,” faltered Mildred, wondering that any woman could so +force an entrance to another woman’s house. + +She did not know that it was by such forced entrances Mrs. Hillersdon +had made her way in society until some of the best houses in London had +been opened to her. + +“If you are not in a hurry to leave us, I know my niece would much like +to hear you play,” she said, feeling that the talk about Riverdale had +been dull work for Pamela. + +Miss Ransome murmured assent. + +“If you will play something of Beethoven’s,” she entreated. + +“Do you object to Mozart?” he asked, forgetting his depreciation of the +valet-musician’s son a few days before, “I feel more in the humour +for that prince of dramatists. I will give you the supper in _Don +Giovanni_. You shall see Leporello trembling. You shall hear the tramp +of ghostly feet.” + +And then, improvising upon a familiar theme, he gave his own version of +that wonderful scene, and that music so played conjured up a picture as +vivid as ever opera-house furnished to an enthralled audience. + +Pamela listened in silent rapture. What a God-gifted creature this +was, who had so deeply moved her by his pen, who moved her even more +intensely by that magical touch upon the piano! + +When he had played those last crashing chords which consigned the +profligate to his doom, he waited for a minute or so, and then, softly, +as if almost unawares, in mere absent-minded idleness, his hands +wandered into the staccato accompaniment of the serenade, and, with +the finest tenor Mildred had heard since she heard Sim Reeves, he sang +those delicate and dainty phrases with which the seducer woos his last +divinity. + +He rose from the piano at the close of that lovely air, smiling at his +hearers. + +“I had no idea that you were a singer as well as a pianist,” said +Mildred. + +“You forget that music is my native tongue. My father taught me to +play before he taught me to read, and I knew harmony before I knew my +alphabet. I was brought up in the house of a man who lived only for +music—to whom all stringed instruments were as his mother tongue. It +was by a caprice that he made me play the piano—which he rarely touched +himself.” + +“He must have been a great genius,” said Pamela, with girlish fervour. + +“Alas! no, he just missed greatness, and he just missed genius. He +was a highly-gifted man—various—capricious—volatile—and he married +a woman with just enough money to ruin him. Had he been obliged to +earn his bread, he might have been great. Who can say? Hunger is the +slave-driver, with his whip of steel, who peoples the Valhalla of +nations. If Homer had not been a beggar—as well as blind—we might have +had no story of Troy. Good-bye, Mrs. Greswold. Good-bye,” shaking +hands with Pamela. “I _may_ bring my hostess to-morrow?” + +“I—I—suppose so,” Mildred answered feebly, wondering what her husband +would think of such an invasion. + +Yet, if Clement Cancellor, who to Mildred’s mind had always seemed the +ideal Christian priest, if he could tolerate and consort with her, +could she, Mildred Greswold, persist in the Pharisee’s part, and hold +herself aloof from this neighbour, to whose good works and kindly +disposition many voices had testified in her hearing? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +SHALL SHE BE LESS THAN ANOTHER? + + +It was in all good faith that Clement Cancellor had gone to Riverdale. +He had not gone there for the fleshpots of Egypt. He was a man of +severely ascetic habits, who ate and drank as temperately as a disciple +of that old faith of the East which is gaining a curious influence upon +our new life of the West. For him the gratification of the senses, +soft raiment, artistic furniture, thoroughbred horses and luxurious +carriages, palm-houses and orchid-houses, offered no temptation. He +stayed in Mrs. Hillersdon’s house because he was her friend, her +friend upon the broadest and soundest basis on which friendship could +be built. He knew all that was to be known about her. He knew her +frailties of the past, her virtues in the present, her exalted hope +in the future. From her own lips he had heard the story of Louise +Lorraine’s life. She had extenuated nothing. She had not withheld from +him either the foulness of her sins or their number—nay, it may be that +she had in somewise exaggerated the blackness of those devils whom he, +Clement Cancellor, had cast out from her, enhancing by just so much the +magnitude of the miracle he had wrought. She had held back nothing; but +over every revelation she had contrived to spread that gloss which a +clever woman knows how to give to the tale of her own wrong-doing. In +every incident of that evil career she had contrived to show herself +more sinned against than sinning; the fragile victim of overmastering +wickedness in others; the martyr of man’s treachery and man’s passion; +the sport of fate and circumstance. Had Mr. Cancellor known the world +he lived in half as well as he knew the world beyond he would hardly +have believed so readily in the lady who had been Louise Lorraine: but +he was too single-minded to doubt a repentant sinner whose conversion +from the ways of evil had been made manifest by so many good works, and +such unflagging zeal in the exercises of the Anglican Church. + +Parchment Street, Grosvenor Square, is one of the fashionable streets +of London, and St. Elizabeth’s, Parchment Street, had gradually +developed, in Clement Cancellor’s incumbency, into one of the most +popular tabernacles at the West End. He whose life-desire had been +to carry the lamp of the faith into dark places, to be the friend +and teacher of the friendless and the untaught, found himself almost +in spite of himself a fashionable preacher, and the delight of the +cultured, the wealthy, and the aristocratic. In his parish of St. +Elizabeth’s there was plenty of work for him to do—plenty of that +work which he had chosen as the mission that had been given to him to +fulfil. Behind those patrician streets where only the best-appointed +carriages drew up, where only the best-dressed footmen ever pulled +the bells or rattled long peals on high-art knockers, there were some +of the worst slums in London, and it was in those slums that half +Mr. Cancellor’s life was spent. In narrow alleys between Oxford and +Wigmore Streets, and in the intricate purlieus of Marylebone Lane, the +Anglican priest had ample scope for his labour, a vineyard waiting for +the husbandman. And in the labyrinth hidden in the heart of West End +London Mr. Cancellor’s chief coadjutor for the last twenty years had +been Louise Hillersdon. Thoroughness was the supreme quality of Mrs. +Hillersdon’s mind. Nothing stopped her. It was this temper which had +given her distinction in the days when princes were her cupbearers and +diamonds her daily tribute. There had been other women as beautiful, +other women as fascinating; but there was not one who with beauty and +fascination combined the audacity and resolution of Louise Lorraine. +When Louise Lorraine took possession of a man’s wits and a man’s +fortune that man was doomed. He was as completely gone as the lemon in +the iron squeezer. A twist of the machine, and there is nothing left +but broken rind and crushed pulp. A season of infatuation, and there +was nothing left of Mrs. Lorraine’s admirer but shattered health and +an overdrawn banking account. Estates, houses, friends, position, good +name, all dropped away from the man whom Louise Lorraine brayed in her +mortar. She spoke of him next season with half contemptuous pity. “Did +I know Sir Theodore Barrymore? Yes; he used to come to my parties +sometimes. A nice fellow enough, but such a terrible fool.” + +When Louise Lorraine married Tom Hillersdon, and took it into her head +to break away altogether from her past career, and to pose before the +world as a beautiful Magdalen, she was clever enough to know that, to +achieve any place in society, she must have a very powerful influence +to help her. She was clever enough to discover that the one influence +which a woman in her position could count upon was the influence of +the Church. She was beautiful enough and refined enough to win friends +among the clergy by the charm of her personality. She was rich enough +to secure such friends, and bind them to herself by the splendour of +her gifts, by her substantial aid in those good works which are to +the priest as the very breath of his life. One man she could win by +an organ; another lived only to complete a steeple; the third had +been yearning for a decade for that golden hour when the cracked +tintinabulation which now summoned his flock should be exchanged for a +fine peal of bells. Such men as these were only too easily won, and +the drawing-rooms of Mr. Hillersdon’s house in Park Lane were rarely +without the grace of some clerical figure in long frock-coat and Roman +collar. + +Clement Cancellor was of a sterner stuff, and not to be bought by bell +or reredos, rood-screen or pulpit. Him Louise Hillersdon won by larger +measures: to him she offered all that was spiritual in her nature: and +this woman of strange memories was not without spiritual aspirations +and real striving after godliness. Clement Cancellor was no pious +simpleton, to be won by sentimental cant and crocodile tears. He knew +truth from falsehood, had never in his life been duped by the jingle +of false coin. He knew that Mrs. Hillersdon’s repentance had the true +ring, albeit she was in some things still of the earth earthy. She had +worked for him and with him in that wilderness of London as not one +other woman in his congregation had ever worked. To the lost of her own +sex she had been as a redeeming angel. Wretched women had blessed her +with their expiring breath, had died full of hopes that might never +have been awakened had not Louise Lorraine sat beside their beds. Few +other women had ever so influenced the erring of her sex. She who had +waded deep in the slough of sin knew how to talk to sinners. + +Mr. Cancellor never forgot her as he had seen her by the bed of death +and in the haunts of iniquity. She could never be to him as the herd +of women. To the mind of the preacher she had a higher value than one +in twenty of those women of his flock whose unstained lives had never +needed the cleansing of self-sacrifice and difficult works. + +Thus it was that the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s had never shrunk from +acknowledging Mrs. Hillersdon as his personal friend, had never feared +to sit at her board, or to be seen with her in public; and in the work +of Louise Lorraine’s rehabilitation Clement Cancellor had been a tower +of strength. And now this latest mark of friendship, this visit to her +country home, and this appearance in the noble old Abbey Church at her +solicitation, filled her cup of pride. These starched county people +who had shunned her hospitalities were to see that one of the most +distinguished preachers in the High Church party had given her his +friendship and his esteem. + +It had been something for her to have the Prince at Riverdale: it was +still more to her to have Clement Cancellor. + + * * * * * + +Pamela was in a flutter of excitement all Saturday morning, in the +expectation of Castellani’s reappearance in the afternoon. She had +heard Mr. Cancellor preach, and was delighted at the idea of seeing +him in the pleasant intimacy of afternoon tea. Had there been no such +person as Castellani, her spirits would have been on tip-toe at the +idea of conversing with the fashionable preacher—of telling him in +a reverent under-tone of all those deep emotions his eloquence had +inspired in her. But the author of _Nepenthe_ possessed just that +combination of qualities which commands the admiration of such a girl +as Pamela. That exquisite touch on the piano, that perfect tenor voice, +that exotic elegance of dress and figure, all had made their mark upon +the sensitive plate of a girl’s ardent fancy. “If I had pictured to +myself the man who wrote _Nepenthe_, I should have imagined just such +a face, just such a style,” thought Pamela, quite forgetting that when +first she had read the book she had made a very vivid picture of the +author altogether the opposite of César Castellani—a dark man, lean as +a whipping-post, grave as philosophy itself, with sombre black eyes, +and ebon hair, and a complexion of antique marble. And now she was +ready to accept the Italian, sleek, supple, essentially modern in every +grace and attribute, in place of that sage of antique mould. + +She went dancing about with the dogs all the morning, inciting the +grave Kassandra to unwonted exertions, running in and out of the +drawing-room, making an atmosphere of gaiety in the grave old house. +Mildred’s heart ached as she watched that flying figure in the white +gown, youth, health, joyousness, personified. + +“O, if my darling were but here, life might be full of happiness +again,” she thought. “I should cease to weary myself with wondering +about that hidden past.” + +Do what she would her thoughts still dwelt upon the image of that wife +who had possessed George Greswold’s heart before her. She knew that he +must have loved that other woman whom he had sworn before God’s altar +to cherish. He was not the kind of man to marry for any motive but a +disinterested love. That he had loved passionately, and that he had +been wronged deeply, was Mildred’s reading of the mystery. There had +been a look of agony in his countenance when he spoke of the past that +told of a sorrow too deep for words. + +“He has never loved me as he once loved her,” thought Mildred, who +out of the wealth of her own love had developed the capacity for that +self-torture called jealousy. + +It seemed to her that her husband had taken pains to avoid the old +opportunities of confidential talk since that revelation of last +Sunday. He had been more than usually engaged by the business details +of his estate; and she fancied that he made the most of all those +duties which he used once to perform with the utmost despatch, grudging +every hour that was spent away from the home circle. He now complained +of the new steward’s ignorance, which threw so much extra work upon +himself. + +“After jogging on for years in the same groove with a man who knew +every rood of my land, and the idiosyncrasies of every tenant, I find +it hard work teaching a new man,” he told his wife. + +This sounded reasonable enough, yet she could but think that since +Sunday he had studiously avoided being alone with her. If he asked +her to drive or walk with him, he secured Pamela’s company before the +excursion was planned. + +“We must show you the country,” he said to his niece. + +Mildred told him of the threatened incursion from Riverdale as they sat +at luncheon with Pamela. + +“I hope you don’t mind my receiving Mrs. Hillersdon,” she said. + +“No, my dear Mildred, I think it would take a much worse woman than +Mrs. Hillersdon to do you any harm, or Pamela either. Whatever her +early history may have been, she has made Tom Hillersdon an excellent +wife, and she has been a very good friend to the poor. I should not +have cared for you to cultivate Mrs. Hillersdon, or the society she +brings round her, at Riverdale—” + +“Sir Henry says they have people from the music-halls,” interjected +Pamela, in an awe-stricken voice. + +“But if Mrs. Hillersdon likes to come here with her clerical star—” + +“Don’t call him a star, George. He is highly gifted, and people have +chosen to make him the fashion, but he is the most single-hearted and +simple-minded man I ever met. No popularity could spoil him. I feel +that if he holds out the hand of friendship to Mrs. Hillersdon, she +must be a good woman.” + +“Let her come, Mildred, only don’t let her coming open the door to +intimacy. I would not have my wife the friend of any woman with a +history.” + +“And yet there are histories in most lives, George, and there is +sometimes a mystery.” + +She could not refrain from this little touch of bitterness, yet she +was sorry the instant she had spoken, deeply penitent, when she saw +the look of pain in the thoughtful face opposite her. Why should she +wilfully wound him, purposely, needlessly, she who so fondly loved him, +whose keenest pain was to think that he had loved any woman upon earth +before he loved her? + +“Will you be at home to help me to receive my old friend, George?” she +said, as they rose from the table. + +“Yes, I will be at home to welcome Cancellor, and to protect you from +his _protégée’s_ influence, if I can.” + +They were all three in the drawing-room when the Riverdale party +arrived. Mildred and Mrs. Hillersdon met in somewise as old +acquaintances, having been thrown together on numerous occasions, at +hunt balls, charity bazaars, and other public assemblies. Pamela was +the only stranger. + +Although the scandalous romance of Louise Lorraine’s career was +called ancient history, she was still a beautiful woman. The delicate +features, the pure tones of the alabaster skin, and the large Irish +gray eyes, had been kindly dealt with by time. On the verge of fifty, +Mrs. Hillersdon might have owned only to forty, had she cared so far to +palter with truth. Her charm was, however, now more in a fascinating +personality than in the remains of a once dazzling loveliness. There +was mind in the keen, bright face, with its sharply-cut lines, and +those traces of intellectual wear which give a new grace, instead of +the old one of youthful softness and faultless colouring. The bloom +was gone from the peach, the brilliancy of youth had faded from those +speaking eyes, but there was all the old sweetness of expression which +had made Louise Lorraine’s smile irresistible as the song of the lurlei +in the days that were gone. Her dress was perfect, as it had always +been from the day when she threw away her last cotton stocking, darned +by her own fair hands, and took to dressing like a leader of the great +world, and with perhaps even less concern for cost. She dressed in +perfect harmony with her age and position. Her gown was of softest +black silk, draped with some semi-diaphanous fabric and clouded with +Chantilly lace. Her bonnet was of the same lace and gauze, and her +tapering hand and slender wrist were fitted to perfection in a long +black glove which met a cloud of lace just below the elbow. + +At a period when almost every woman who wore black glittered with +beads and bugles from head to foot, Mrs. Hillersdon’s costume was +unembellished by a single ornament. The Parisian milliner had known how +to obey her orders to the letter when she stipulated—_surtout point de +jais_—and the effect was at once distinguished and refined. + +Clement Cancellor greeted his old pupil with warm friendliness, and +meekly accepted her reproaches for all those invitations which he had +refused in the past ten years. + +“You told me so often that it was impossible for you to come to +Enderby, and yet you can go to my neighbour,” she said. + +“My dear Mildred, I went to Riverdale because I was wanted at Romsey.” + +“And do you think you were not wanted at Romsey before to-day?—do you +think we should not have been proud to have you preach in our church +here? People would have flocked from far and wide to hear you—yes, even +to Enderby Church—and you might have aided some good work, as you are +going to do to-morrow. How clever of Mrs. Hillersdon to know how to +tempt you down here!” + +“You may be sure it is not the first time I have tried, Mrs. +Greswold,” said that lady, with her fascinating smile. “Your influence +would have gone further than mine, I daresay, had you taken half as +much trouble as I have done.” + +Mr. Rollinson, the curate of Enderby, was announced at this moment. +The Vicar was a rich man with another parish in his cure, and his own +comfortable vicarage and his brother’s family mansion being adjacent to +the other church, Enderby saw him but seldom, whereby Mr. Rollinson was +a person of much more weight in the parish than the average clerical +subaltern. Mildred liked him for his plain-sailing Christianity and +unfailing kindness to the poor, and she had asked him to tea this +afternoon, knowing that he would like to meet Clement Cancellor. + +Castellani looked curiously unlike those three other men, with their +grave countenances and unstudied dress; George Greswold roughly clad +in shooting jacket and knickerbockers; the two priests in well-worn +black. The Italian made a spot of brightness in that sombre assembly, +the sunlight touching his hair and moustache with glints of gold, his +brown velvet coat and light gray trousers suggestive of the studio +rather than of rustic lanes, a gardenia in his button-hole, a valuable +old intaglio fastening his white silk scarf, and withal a half-insolent +look of amusement at those two priests and the sombre-visaged master +of the house. He slipped with serpentine grace to the further side of +the piano, where he contrived his first _tête-à-tête_ with Pamela, +comfortably sheltered by the great Henri Deux vase of gloxinias on the +instrument. + +Pamela was shy at first, and would hardly speak; then taking courage, +told him how she had wondered and wept over _Nepenthe_, and thereupon +they began to talk as if they were two kindred souls that had been kept +too long apart by adverse fate, and thrilled with the new delight of +union. + +Round the tea-table the conversation was of a graver cast. After a +general discussion of the threatening clouds upon the political and +ecclesiastical horizon, the talk had drifted to a question which at +this time was uppermost in the minds of men. The Deceased Wife’s +Sister’s Bill had been thrown out by the Upper House during the last +session, and everybody had been talking of that debate in which three +princes of the blood royal had been attentive auditors. They had +recorded their vote on the side of liberty of conscience, but in vain. +Time-honoured prejudices had prevailed against modern enlightenment. + +Clement Cancellor was a man who would have suffered martyrdom for his +faith; he was generous, he was merciful, gentle, self-sacrificing, +pure in spirit; but he was not liberal-minded. The old shackles hung +heavily upon him. He could not love Wycliffe; and he could not forgive +Cranmer. He was an ecclesiastic after the antique pattern. To him the +marriage of a priest was a base paltering with the lusts of the flesh; +and to him a layman’s marriage with a dead wife’s sister was unholy +and abominable. He had been moved to indignation by the words that +had been spoken and the pamphlets that had been written of late upon +this question; and now, carried away by George Greswold’s denunciation +of that prejudiced majority by which the Bill had been rejected, Mr. +Cancellor gave his indignation full vent, and forgot that he was +speaking in a lady’s drawing-room, and before feminine hearers. + +He spoke of such marriages as unholy and immoral, he spoke of such +households as accursed. Mildred listened to him, and watched him +wonderingly, scared at this unfamiliar aspect of his character. To her +he had ever been the gentlest of teachers; she saw him now pallid with +wrath—she heard him breathing words of fire. + +George Greswold took up the glove, not because he had ever felt +any particular interest in this question, but because he hated +narrow-minded opinions and clerical prejudices. + +“Why should the sister of his wife be different to a man from all other +women?” he asked. “You may call her different—you may set her apart—you +may say she must be to him as his own sister—her beauty must not touch +him, the attractions that fascinate other men must have no influence +over him. You may lay this down as a law—civil—canonical—what you +will—but the common law of nature will override your clerical code, +will burst your shackles of prejudice and tradition. Shall Rachel be +withheld from him who was true and loyal to Leah? She has dwelt in his +house as his friend, the favourite and playmate of his children. He +has respected her as he would have respected any other of his wife’s +girl-friends; but he has seen that she was fair; and if God takes the +wife, and he, remembering the sweetness of that old friendship, and his +children’s love, turns to her as the one woman who can give him back +his lost happiness—is he to be told that this one woman can never be +his, because she was the sister of his first chosen? She has come out +of the same stock whose loyalty he has proved, she would bring to his +hearth all the old sweet associations—” + +“And she would _not_ bring him a second mother-in-law. What a +stupendous superiority she would have _there_!” interjected the jovial +Rollinson, who had been wallowing in hot-buttered cakes and strong tea, +until his usually roseate visage had become startlingly rubicund. + +He was in all things the opposite of the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s. He +wrote poetry, made puns, played billiards, dined out at all the houses +in the neighbourhood that were worth dining at, and was only waiting +to marry until Tom Hillersdon should be able to give him a living. + +Mr. Cancellor reproved the ribald jester with a scathing look before he +took up the argument against his host. + +“If this Bill were to pass, no virtuous woman could live in the house +of a married sister,” he said. + +“That is as much as to say that no honest woman can live in the house +of any married man,” retorted Greswold hotly. “Do you think if a man is +weak enough to fall in love with another woman under his wife’s roof +he is less likely to sin because your canonical law stares him in the +face, telling him, ‘Thou canst never wed her’? The married man who is +inconstant to his wife is not influenced by the chances of the future. +He is either a bold, bad man, whose only thought is to win the woman +whom he loves at any cost of honour or conscience; or he is a weak +fool, who drifts hopelessly to destruction, and in whom the resolution +of to-day yields to the temptation of to-morrow. Neither the bold +sinner nor the weak one is influenced by the consideration whether he +can or cannot marry the woman he loves under the unlikely circumstance +of his wife’s untimely death. The man who does so calculate is the +one man in so many thousands of men who will poison his wife to clear +the way for his new fancy. I don’t think we ought to legislate for +poisoners. In plain words, if a married man is weak enough or wicked +enough to be seduced by the charms of any woman who dwells beneath his +roof, he will not be the less likely to fall because the law of the +land has made that woman anathema maranatha, or because he has been +warned from the pulpit that she is to be to him as his own flesh and +blood, no dearer and no less dear than the sister beside whom he grew +from infancy to manhood, and whom he has loved all his life, hardly +knowing whether she is as beautiful as Hebe or as hideous as Tisyphone.” + +“You are a disciple of the New Learning, Mr. Greswold,” Cancellor said +bitterly; “the learning which breaks down all barriers and annihilates +the Creator of all things—the learning which has degraded God from +infinite power to infinitesimal insignificance, and which explains the +genius of Plato and Shakespeare, Luther and Newton, as the ultimate +outcome of an unconscious primeval mist.” + +“I am no Darwinian,” replied Greswold coldly, “but I would rather +belong to his school of speculative inquiry than to the Calvinism which +slew Servetus, or the Romanism which lit the death-pile of the Oxford +martyrs.” + +Mildred was not more anxious than Mrs. Hillersdon to end a discussion +which threatened angry feeling. They looked at each other in an agony, +and then with a sudden inspiration Mildred exclaimed, + +“If we could only persuade Mr. Castellani to play to us! We are growing +so terribly serious;” and then she went to Clement Cancellor, who was +standing by the open window, and took her place beside him, while Mrs. +Hillersdon talked with Pamela and Castellani at the piano. “You know +what a privilege it is to _me_ always to hear you talk,” she murmured +in her sweet, subdued voice. “You know how I have followed your +teaching in all things. And be assured my husband is no materialist. +We both cling to the old faith, the old hopes, the old promises. You +must not misjudge him because of a single difference of opinion.” + +“Forgive me, my dear Mildred,” replied Cancellor, touched by her +submission. “I did wrong to be angry. I know that to many good +Christians this question of marriage with a sister-in-law is a +stumbling-block. I have taken the subject too deeply to heart +perhaps—I, to whom marriage altogether seems outside the Christian +priest’s horizon. Perhaps I may exaggerate the peril of a wider +liberty; but I, who look upon Henry VIII. as the arch-enemy of the +one vital Church—of which he might have been the wise and enlightened +reformer—I, who trace to his unhallowed union with his brother’s widow +all the after evils of his career—must needs lift up my voice against a +threatened danger.” + +Castellani began Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” with a triumphant burst +that sounded like mockery. Do what the preacher might to assimilate +earth to heaven, here there would still be marrying and giving in +marriage. + +After the march Mildred went over to the piano and asked Castellani to +sing. + +He smiled assent, and played the brief symphony to a ballad of Heine’s, +set by Jensen. The exquisite tenor voice, the perfect taste of the +singer, held his audience spellbound. They listened in silence, and +entreated him to sing again, and then again, till he had sung four of +these jewel-like ballads, and they felt that it was impertinence to ask +for more. + +Mildred had stolen round to her own sheltered corner, half hidden by +a group of tall palms. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, +her head bent. She could not see the singer. She only heard the low +pathetic voice, slightly veiled. It touched her like no other voice +that she had ever heard since, in her girlhood, she burst into a +passion of sobs at first hearing Sims Reeves, when that divine voice +touched some hyper-sensitive chord in her own organisation and moved +her almost to hysteria. And now, in this voice of the man who of all +other men she instinctively disliked, the same tones touched the same +chord, and loosened the floodgates of her tears. She sat with streaming +eyes, grateful for the sheltering foliage which screened her from +observation. + +She dried her eyes and recovered herself with difficulty when the +singer rose from the piano and Mrs. Hillersdon began to take leave. Mr. +Rollinson button-holed Castellani on the instant. + +“You sing as if you had just come from the seraphic choir,” he said. +“You must sing for us on the seventh.” + +“Who are ‘us’?” asked Castellani. + +“Our concert in aid of the fund for putting a Burne-Jones window over +the altar.” + +“A concert in Enderby village? Is it to be given at the lock-up or in +the pound?” + +“It is to be given in this room. Mrs. Greswold has been good enough +to allow us the use of her drawing-room and her piano. Miss Ransome +promises to preside at the buffet for tea and coffee.” + +“It will be glorious fun,” exclaimed Pamela; “I shall feel like a +barmaid. I have always envied barmaids.” + +“Daudet says there is one effulgent spot in every man’s life—one +supreme moment when he stands on the mountain-top of fortune and +of bliss, and from which all the rest of his existence is a gradual +descent. I wonder whether that afternoon will be your effulgent spot, +Miss Ransome?” said Mrs. Hillersdon laughingly. + +“It will—it must. To superintend two great urns of tea and +coffee—_almost_ as nice as those delicious beer-engines one sees at +Salisbury Station—to charge people a shilling for a small cup of tea, +and sixpence for a penny sponge-cake. What splendid fun!” + +“Will you help us, Mr. Castleton?” asked the curate, who was not good +at names. + +“Mrs. Greswold has only to command me. I am in all things her slave.” + +“Then she will command you—she does command you,” cried the curate. + +“If you will be so very kind—” began Mildred. + +“I am only too proud to obey you,” answered Castellani, with more +earnestness than the occasion required, drawing a little nearer to +Mildred as he spoke; “only too glad of an excuse to return to this +house.” + +Mildred looked at him with a half-frightened expression, and then +glanced at Pamela. Did he mean mischief of some kind? Was this the +beginning of an insidious pursuit of that frank girl, whose fortune was +quite enough to tempt the casual adventurer? + +“Of all men I have ever seen he is the last to whom I would entrust a +girl’s fate,” thought Mildred, determined to be very much on her guard +against the blandishments of César Castellani. + +She took the very worst means to ward off danger. She made the direful +mistake of warning the girl against the possible pursuer that very +evening when they were sitting alone after dinner. + +“He is a man I could never trust,” she said. + +“No more could I,” replied Pamela; “but O, how exquisitely he sings!” +and excited at the mere memory of that singing, she ran to the piano +and began to pick out the melody of Heine’s “Ich weiss nicht was soll +es bedeuten,” and sang the words softly in her girlish voice; and then +slipped away from the piano with a nervous little laugh. + +“Upon my word, Aunt Mildred, I am _traurig_ myself at the very thought +of that exquisite song,” she said. “What a gift it is to sing like +that! How I wish _I_ were César Castellani!” + +“What, when we have both agreed that he is not a good man?” + +“Who cares about being _good_?” exclaimed Pamela, beside herself; +“three-fourths of the people of this world are good. But to be able to +write a book that can unsettle every one’s religion; to be able to make +everybody miserable when one sings! Those are gifts that place a man +on a level with the Greek gods. If I were Mr. Castellani I should feel +like Mercury or Apollo.” + +“Pamela, you frighten me when you rave like that. Remember that, for +all we know to the contrary, this man may be a mere adventurer, and in +every way dangerous.” + +“Why should we think him an adventurer? He told me all about himself. +He told me that his grandfather was under obligations to your +grandfather. He told me about his father, the composer, who wrote +operas which are known all over Italy, and who died young, like Mozart +and Mendelssohn. Genius is hereditary with him; he was suckled upon +art. I have no doubt he is bad, irretrievably bad,” said Pamela, with +unction; “but don’t try to persuade me that he is a vulgar adventurer +who would try to borrow five-pound notes, or a fortune-hunter who would +try to marry one for one’s money,” concluded the girl, falling back +upon her favourite form of speech. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +LIFTING THE CURTAIN. + + +The charity concert afforded César Castellani just the necessary +excuse for going to Enderby Manor House as often as he liked, and for +staying there as long as he liked. He was now on a familiar footing. +He drove or rode over from Riverdale nearly every day during the three +weeks that intervened between Mr. Cancellor’s sermon and the afternoon +concert. He made himself the curate’s right hand in all the details of +the entertainment. He chose the music, he wrote the programme, he sent +it to his favourite printer to be printed in antique type upon ribbed +paper with ragged edges: a perfect gem in the way of a programme. He +scoured the country round in quest of amateur talent, and was much more +successful than the curate had been in the same quest. + +“I’m astounded at your persuading Lady Millborough to show in the +daylight,” said Rollinson, laughing. “You have the tongue of the +serpent to overcome her objection to the glare of the afternoon sun.” + +“_Estote prudentes sicuti serpentes_,” said Castellani. “There’s a fine +old ecclesiastic’s motto for you. I know Lady Millborough rather dreads +the effect of sunlight upon her _nacre Bernhardt_. She told me that +she was never equal to singing in the afternoon: the glare of the sun +always gave her a headache. But I assured her in the first place that +there should be no glare—that as an artist I abhorred a crude, white +light—and that it should be my business to see that our concert-room +was lighted upon purely æsthetic principles. We would have the dim +religious light which painters and poets love. In the second place I +assured her that she had as fine a contralto as Madame Alboni, on whose +knees I had often sat as a child, and who gave me the emerald pin I was +wearing.” + +“My hat, what a man you are!” exclaimed Rollinson. “But do you mean to +say we are to give our concert in the dark?” + +“We will not have the afternoon sun blinding half our audience. +We will have the auditorium in a cool twilight, and we will have +lamp-light on our platform—just that mellow and flattering light in +which elderly women look young and young women angelic.” + +“We’ll leave everything to you,” cried the curate. “I think we ought to +leave him free scope; ought we not, Mrs. Greswold?” + +Mildred assented. Pamela was enthusiastic. This concert was to be one +of the events of her life. Castellani had discovered that she possessed +a charming mezzo-soprano. She was to sing a duet with him. O, what +rapture! A duet of his own composition, all about roses and love and +death. + + “’Twere sweet to die as the roses die, + If I had but lived for thee; + A life as long as the nightingale’s song + Were enough for my heart and me.” + +The words and the voices were interwoven in a melodious web; tenor and +soprano entwined together—following and ever following like the phrases +in an anthem. + +The preparation of this one duet alone obliged Mr. Castellani to be +nearly every day at Enderby. A musician has inexhaustible patience in +teaching his own music. Castellani hammered at every bar and every note +with Pamela. He did not hesitate at unpleasant truth. She had received +the most expensive instruction from a well-known singing-master, and, +according to Castellani, everything she had been taught was wrong. “If +you had been left alone to sing as the birds sing you would be ever so +much better off,” he said; “the man has murdered a very fine organ. If +I had had the teaching of you, you would have sung as well as Trebelli +by this time.” + +Pamela thrilled at the thought. O, to sing like some great singer—to +be able to soar skyward on the wings of music—to sing as _he_ sang! +She had known him a fortnight by this time, and was deeply in love +with him. In moments of confidence by the piano he called her Pamela, +treating her almost as if she were a child, yet with a touch of +gallantry always—an air that said, “You are beautiful, dear child, and +you know it; but I have lived my life.” Before Mrs. Greswold he was +more formal, and called her Miss Ransome. + +All barriers were down now between Riverdale and the Manor. Mrs. +Hillersdon was going to make an extra large house-party on purpose +to patronise the concert. It was to be on the 7th of September: the +partridge-shooting would be in full swing, and the shooters assembled. +Mrs. Greswold had been to tea at Riverdale. There seemed to be no help +for it, and George Greswold was apparently indifferent. + +“My dearest, your purity of mind will be in no danger from Mrs. +Hillersdon. Even were she still Louise Lorraine, she could not harm +you—and you know I am not given to consider the _qu’on dire t’on_ in +such a case. Let her come here by all means, so long as she is not +obnoxious to you.” + +“She is far from that. I think she has the most delightful manners of +any woman I ever met.” + +“So, no doubt, had Circe, yet she changed men into swine.” + +“Mr. Cancellor would not believe in her if she were not a good woman.” + +“I should set a higher value on Cancellor’s opinion if he were more of +a man of the world, and less of a bigot. See what nonsense he talked +about the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill.” + +“Nonsense! O, George, if you knew how it distressed me to hear you take +the other side—the unchristian side!” + +“I can find no word of Christ’s against such marriages, and the Church +of old was always ready with a dispensation for any such union, if it +was made worth the Church’s while to be indulgent. It was the earnest +desire of the Roman Catholic world that Philip should marry Elizabeth. +You are Cancellor’s pupil, Mildred, and I cannot wonder if he has made +you something of a bigot.” + +“He is the noblest and most unselfish of men.” + +“I admit his unselfishness—the purity of his intentions—the tenderness +of his heart; but I deny his nobility. Ecclesiastic narrow-mindedness +spoils a character that might have been perfect had it been less +hampered by tradition. Cancellor is a couple of centuries behind the +time. His Church is the Church of Laud.” + +“I thought you admired and loved him, George,” said Mildred +regretfully. + +“I admire his good qualities, I love him for his thoroughness; but our +creeds are wide apart. I cannot even pretend to think as he thinks.” + +This confession increased Mildred’s sadness. She would have had her +husband think as she thought, believe as she believed, in all spiritual +things. The beloved child they had lost was waiting for them in heaven; +and she would fain that they should both tread the same path to that +better world where there would be no more tears, no more death—where +day and night would be alike in the light of the great Throne. She +shuddered at the thought of any difference of creed on her husband’s +part, shuddered at that beginning of divergence which might end in +infidelity. She had been educated by Clement Cancellor, and she +thought as he thought. It seemed to her that she was surrounded by an +atmosphere of doubt. In the books she read among the more cultivated +people whom she met, she found the same tendency to speculative +infidelity, pessimism, Darwinism, sociology, Pantheism, anything but +Christian belief. The nearest approach to religious feeling seemed to +be found in the theosophists, with their last fashionable Oriental +improvements upon the teaching of Christ. + +Clement Cancellor had trained her in the belief that there was one +Church, one creed, one sovereign rule of life, outside which rigid +boundary-line lay the dominion of Satan. And now, seeing her husband’s +antagonism to her pastor upon this minor point of the marriage law, she +began to ask herself whether those two might not stand as widely apart +upon graver questions—whether George Greswold might not be one of those +half-hearted Christians who attend their parish church and keep Sunday +sacred because it is well to set a good example to their neighbours +and dependants, while their own faith is little more than a memory of +youthful beliefs, the fading reflection of a sun that has sunk below +the horizon. + +She had discovered her husband capable of a suppression of truth that +was almost as bad as falsehood; and now having begun to doubt his +conscientiousness, it was not unnatural that she should begin to doubt +his religious feeling. + +“Had he been as deeply religious as I thought him, he would not have so +deceived me,” she told herself, still brooding upon that mystery of +his first marriage. + +Castellani’s presence in the house was a continual irritation to her. +It tortured her to think that he knew more of her husband’s past life +than was known to her. She longed to question him, yet refrained, +feeling that there would be unspeakable meanness, treachery even, in +obtaining any information about her husband’s past life except from his +own lips. He had chosen to keep silence, he who could so easily have +explained all things; and it was her duty to submit. + +She tried to be interested in the concert, which involved a good +deal of work for herself, as she was to play all the accompaniments, +the piano part in a concertante duet by De Bériot with an amateur +violin player, and a Hungarian march by a modern classic by way of +overture. There were rehearsals nearly every day, with much talk and +tea-drinking. Enderby Manor seemed given over to bustle and gaiety—that +grave old house, which to her mind ought to have been silent as a +sepulchre, now that Lola’s voice could sound there never more, except +in dreams. + +“People must think I am forgetting her,” she said to herself with a +sigh, when half-a-dozen carriages had driven away from the door, after +two hours of bustle and confusion, much discussion as to the choice +of songs and the arrangement of the programme, which everybody wanted +different. + +“I cannot possibly sing ‘The Three Fishers’ after Captain Scobell’s +‘Wanderer,’” protested Lady Millborough. “It would never do to have two +dismal songs in succession.” + +Yet when it was proposed that her ladyship’s song should succeed Mr. +Rollinson’s admirable rendering of George Grossmith’s “He was such a +Careless Man,” she distinctly refused to sing immediately after a comic +song. + +“I am not going to take the taste of Mr. Rollinson’s vulgarity out of +people’s mouths,” she told Mildred, in an audible aside. + +To these God-gifted vocalists the accompanist was as an inferior being, +a person with a mere mechanical gift of playing anything set before her +with taste and style. They treated her as if she had been a machine. + +“If you wouldn’t mind going over our duet just once more, I think +we should feel more comfortable in it,” said one of the two Miss +Tadcasters, who were to take the roof off, metaphorically, in the Norma +duet. + +Mildred toiled with unwavering good-nature, and suppressed her shudders +at many a false note, and cast oil on the waters when the singers were +inclined to quarrel. She was glad of the drudgery that kept her fingers +and her mind occupied; she was glad of any distraction that changed the +current of her thoughts. + + * * * * * + +It was the day before the concert. César Castellani had established +himself as _l’ami de la maison_, a person who had the right to come in +and out as he liked, whose coming and going made no difference to the +master of the house. Had George Greswold’s mind been less abstracted +from the business of every-day life he might have seen danger to Pamela +Ransome’s peace of mind in the frequent presence of the Italian, and +he might have considered it his duty, as the young lady’s kinsman, to +have restricted Mr. Castellani’s privileges. But the blow which had +crushed George Greswold’s heart a little more than a year ago had left +him in somewise a broken man. He had lost all interest in the common +joys and occupations of every-day life. His days were spent for the +most part in long walks or rides in the loneliest places he could find, +his only evening amusement was found in books, and those books of a +kind which engrossed his attention and took him out of himself. His +wife’s companionship was always precious to him; but their intercourse +had lost all its old gaiety and much of the old familiarity. There +was an indefinable something which held them asunder even when they +were sitting in the same room, or pacing side by side, just as of old, +upon the lawn in front of the drawing-room, or idling in their summer +parlour in the shade of the cedars. + +Again and again in the last three weeks some question about the past +had trembled upon Mildred’s lips as she sat at work by the piano where +Castellani played in dreamy idleness, wandering from one master to +another, or extemporising after his own capricious fancies. Again and +again she had struggled against the temptation and had conquered. No, +she would not stoop to a meanness. She would not be disloyal to her +husband by so much as one idle question. + +To-day Castellani was in high spirits, proud of to-morrow’s anticipated +success, in which his own exertions would count for much. He sat at the +piano in a leisure hour after tea. All the performers had gone, after +the final adjustment of every detail. Mildred sat idle with her head +resting against the cushion of a high-backed armchair, exhausted by the +afternoon’s labours. Pamela stood by the piano watching and listening +delightedly as Castellani improvised. + +“I will give you my musical transcript of St. Partridge Day,” he said, +smiling down at the notes as he played a lively melody with little +rippling runs in the treble and crisp staccato chords in the bass. +“This is morning, and all the shooters are on tip-toe with delight—a +misty morning,” gliding into a dreamy legato movement as he spoke. “You +can scarcely see the hills yonder, and the sun is not yet up. See +there he leaps above that bank of purple cloud, and all is brightness,” +changing to crashing chords in the bass and brilliant arpeggios in the +treble. “Hark! there is chanticleer. How shrill he peals in the morning +air! The dogs are leaving the kennel—and now the gates are open, dogs +and men are in the road. You can hear the steady tramp of the clumsy +shooting-boots—your dreadful English boots—and the merry music of the +dogs. Pointers, setters, spaniels, smooth beasts and curly beasts, +shaking the dew from the hedgerows as they scramble along the banks, +flying over the ditches—creatures of lightning swiftness; yes, even +those fat heavy spaniels which seem made to sprawl and snap at flies in +the sunshine or snore beside the fire.” + +He talked in brief snatches, playing all the time—playing with the +easy brilliancy, the unerring grace of one to whom music is a native +tongue—as natural a mode of thought-expression as speech itself. His +father had trained him to improvise, weaving reminiscences of all his +favourite composers into those dreamy reveries. They had sat side by +side, father and son, each following the bent of his own fancy, yet +quick to adapt it to the other, now leading, now following. They had +played together as Moscheles and Mendelssohn used to play, delighting +in each other’s caprices. + +“I hope I don’t bore you very much,” said Castellani, looking up at +Mildred as she sat silent, the fair face and pale gold hair defined +against the olive brocade of the chair cushion. + +He looked up at her in wondering admiration, as at a beautiful picture. +How lovely she was, with a loveliness that grew upon him, and took +possession of his fancy and his senses with a strengthening hold day by +day. It was a melancholy loveliness, the beauty of a woman whose life +had come to a dead stop, in whose breast hope and love were dead—or +dormant. + +“Not dead,” he told himself, “only sleeping. Whose shall be the spell +to awaken the sleepers. Who shall be the Orpheus to bring this sweet +Eurydice from the realms of Death?” + +Such thoughts were in his mind as he sat looking at her, waiting for +her answer, playing all the while, telling her how fair she was in the +tenderest variations of an old German air whose every note breathed +passionate love. + +“How sweet!” murmured Pamela; “what an exquisite melody!” taking some +of the sweetness to herself. “How could such sweetness weary any one +with the ghost of an ear? You are not bored by it, are you, aunt?” + +“Bored? no, it is delightful,” answered Mildred, rousing herself from a +reverie. “My thoughts went back to my childhood while you were playing. +I never knew but one other person who had that gift of improvisation, +and she used to play to me when I was a child. She was almost a child +herself, and of course she was very inferior to you as a pianist; but +she would sit and play to me for an hour in the twilight, inventing +new melodies, or playing recollections of old melodies, describing in +music. The old fairy tales are for ever associated with music in my +mind, because of those memories. I believe she was highly gifted in +music.” + +“Music of a high order is not an uncommon gift among women of sensitive +temperament,” said Castellani musingly. “I take it to be only another +name for sympathy. Want of musical feeling is want of sympathy. +Shakespeare knew that when he declared the non-musical man to be by +nature a villain. I could no more imagine _you_ without the gift of +music than I could imagine the stars without the quality of light. Mr. +Greswold’s first wife was a good musician, as no doubt you know.” + +“You heard her play—and sing?” faltered Mildred, avoiding a direct +reply. + +The sudden mention of her dead rival’s name had quickened the beating +of her heart. She had longed to question him and had refrained; and +now, without any act of hers, he had spoken, and she was going to hear +something about that woman whose existence was a mystery to her, whose +Christian name she had never heard. + +“Yes, I heard her several times at parties at Nice. She was much +admired for her musical talents. She was not a grand singer, but she +had been well taught, and she had exquisite taste, and knew exactly the +kind of music that suited her best. She was one of the attractions at +the Palais Montano, where one heard only the best music.” + +“I think you said the other day that you did not meet her often,” +said Mildred. “My husband could hardly have forgotten you had you met +frequently.” + +“I can scarcely say that we met frequently, and our meetings were +such as Mr. Greswold would not be very likely to remember. I am not a +remarkable man now, and I was a very insignificant person fifteen years +ago. I was only asked to people’s houses because I could sing a little, +and because my father had a reputation in the South as a composer. +I was never introduced to your husband, but I was presented to his +wife—as a precocious youth with some pretensions to a tenor voice—and I +found her very charming—after her own particular style.” + +“Was she a beautiful woman?” asked Mildred. “I—I—have never talked +about her to my husband, she died so young, and—” + +“Yes, yes, I understand,” interrupted Castellani, as she hesitated. +“Of course you would not speak of her. There are things that cannot +be spoken about. There is always a skeleton in every life—not more in +Mr. Greswold’s past than in that of other people, perhaps, could we +know all histories. I was wrong to speak of her. Her name escaped me +unawares.” + +“Pray don’t apologise,” said Mildred, indignant at something in his +tone, which hinted at wrong-doing on her husband’s part. “There can +be no reason why you should keep silence—to me; though any mention of +an old sorrow might wound him. I know my husband too well not to know +that he must have behaved honourably in every relation of life—before I +married him as well as afterwards. I only asked a very simple question: +was my predecessor as beautiful as she was gifted?” + +“No. She was charming, piquant, elegant, spirituelle, but she was not +handsome. I think she was conscious of that want of beauty, and that it +made her sensitive, and even bitter. I have heard her say hard things +of women who were handsomer than herself. She had a scathing tongue +and a capricious temper, and she was not a favourite with her own sex, +though she was very much admired by clever men. I know that as a lad I +thought her one of the brightest women I had ever met.” + +“It was sad that she should die so young,” said Mildred. + +She would not for worlds that this man should know the extent of her +ignorance about the woman who had borne her husband’s name. She spoke +vaguely, hoping that he would take it for granted she knew all. + +“Yes,” assented Castellani with a sigh, “her death was infinitely sad.” + +He spoke as of an event of more than common sadness—a calamity that had +been in somewise more tragical than untimely death must needs be. + +Mildred kept silence, though her heart ached with shapeless +forebodings, and though it would have been an unspeakable relief to +know the worst rather than to feel the oppression of this mystery. + +Castellani rose to take leave. He was paler than he had been before the +conversation began, and he had a troubled air. Pamela looked at him +with sympathetic distress. “I am afraid you are dreadfully tired,” she +said, as they shook hands. + +“I am never tired in this house,” he answered; and Pamela appropriated +the compliment by her vivid blush. + +Mildred shook hands with him mechanically and in silence. She was +hardly conscious of his leaving the room. She rose and went out into +the garden, while Pamela sat down to the piano and began singing her +part in the everlasting duet. She never sang anything else nowadays. It +was a perpetual carol of admiration for the author of _Nepenthe_. + + “’Twere sweet to die as the roses die, + If I had but lived for thee; + ’Twere sweet to fade as the twilight fades + Over the western sea,” + +she warbled, while Mildred paced slowly to and fro in front of the +cedars, brooding over every word Castellani had spoken about her +husband’s first wife. + +“Her death was infinitely sad.” + +Why infinitely? The significance of the word troubled her. It conjured +up all manner of possibilities. Why infinitely sad? All death is +sad. The death of the young especially so. But to say even of a +young wife’s death that it was infinitely sad would seem to lift it +out of the region of humanity’s common doom. That qualifying word +hinted at a tragical fate rather than a young life cut short by any +ordinary malady. There had been something in Castellani’s manner which +accentuated the meaning of his words. That troubled look, that deep +sigh, that hurried departure, all hinted at a painful story which he +knew and did not wish to reveal. + +He had in a manner apologised for speaking of George Greswold’s first +wife. There must have been a reason for that. He was not a man to +say meaningless things out of _gaucherie_; not a man to blunder and +equivocate from either shyness or stupidity. He had implied that Mr. +Greswold was not likely to talk about his first marriage—that he would +naturally avoid any allusion to his first wife. + +Why naturally? Why should he not speak of that past life? Men are not +ordinarily reticent upon such subjects. And that a man should suppress +the fact of a first marriage altogether would suggest memories so dark +as to impel an honourable man to stoop to a tacit lie rather than face +the horror of revelation. + +She walked up and down that fair stretch of velvet turf upon which +her feet had trodden so lightly in the happy years that were gone—gone +never to be recalled, as it seemed to her, carrying with them all that +she had ever known of domestic peace, of wedded bliss. Never again +could they two be as they had been. The mystery of the past had risen +up between them—like some hooded phantom, a vaguely threatening figure, +a hidden face—to hold them apart for evermore. + +“If he had only trusted me,” she thought despairingly, “there is hardly +any sin that I would not have forgiven for love of him. Why could he +not believe in my love well enough to know that I should judge him +leniently—if there had been wrong-doing on his side—if—if—” + +She had puzzled over that hidden past, trying to penetrate the +darkness, imagining the things that might have happened—infidelity on +the wife’s part—infidelity on the husband’s side—another and fatal +attachment taking the place of loyal love. Sin of some kind there +must have been, she thought; for such dark memories could scarcely be +sinless. But was husband or wife the sinner? + +“Her death was infinitely sad.” + +That sentence stood out against the dark background of mystery as if +written in fire. That one fact was absolute. George Greswold’s first +wife had died under circumstances of peculiar sadness; so painful that +Castellani’s countenance grew pale and troubled at the very thought of +her death. + +“I cannot endure it,” Mildred thought at last, in an agony of doubt. +“I will not suffer this torture for another day. I will appeal to him. +I will question him. If he values my love and my esteem he will answer +faithfully. It must be painful for him, painful for me; but it will be +far better for us both in the long-run. Anything will be better than +these torturing fears. I am his wife, and I have a right to know the +truth.” + +The dressing-gong summoned her back to the house. Her husband was in +the drawing-room half-an-hour afterwards, when she went down to dinner. +He was still in his jacket and knickerbockers, just as he had come in +from a long ramble. + +“Will you forgive me if I dine with you in these clothes, Mildred, +and you, Pamela?” to the damsel in white muslin, whom he had just +surprised at the piano still warbling her honeyed strain about death +and the roses; “I came in five minutes ago—dead beat. I have been in +the forest, and had a tramp with the deerhounds over Bramble Hill.” + +“You walk too far, George. You are looking dreadfully tired.” + +“I’m sure you needn’t apologise for your dress on my account,” +said Pamela. “Henry is a perfect disgrace half his time. He hates +evening-clothes, and I sometimes fear he hates soap-and-water. He +can reconcile his conscience to any amount of dirt so long as he has +his cold tub in the morning. He thinks that one sacrifice to decency +justifies anything. I have had to sit next him at dinner when he came +straight from rats,” concluded Pamela, with a shudder. “But Rosalind is +so foolishly indulgent. She would spoil twenty husbands.” + +“And you, I suppose, would be a martinet to one?” said Greswold, +smiling at the girl’s animated face. + +“It would depend. If I were married to an artist I could forgive any +neglect of the proprieties. One does not expect a man of that kind to +be the slave of conventionalities; but a commonplace person like Sir +Henry Mountford has nothing to recommend him but his tailor.” + +They went to dinner, and Pamela’s prattle relieved the gloom which had +fallen upon husband and wife. George Greswold saw that there were signs +of a new trouble in his wife’s face. He sat for nearly an hour alone +with the untouched decanters before him, and with Kassandra’s head upon +his knee. The dog always knew when his thoughts were darkest, and would +not be repulsed at such times. She was not obtrusive: she only wanted +to bear him company. + +It was nearly ten o’clock when he left the dining-room. He looked in at +the drawing-room door, and saw his wife and his niece sitting at work, +silent both. + +“I am going to the library to write some letters, Mildred,” he said: +“don’t sit up for me.” + +She rose quickly and went over to him. + +“Let me have half-an-hour’s talk with you first, George,” she said, in +an earnest voice: “I want so much to speak to you.” + +“My dearest, I am always at your service,” he answered quietly; and +they went across the hall together, to that fine old room which was +essentially the domain of the master of the house. + +It was a large room with three long narrow windows—unaltered from +the days of Queen Anne—looking out to the carriage-drive in the +front of the house, and the walls were lined with books, in severely +architectural bookcases. There was a lofty marble chimneypiece, richly +decorated, and in front of the fireplace there was an old-fashioned +knee-hole desk, at which Mr. Greswold was wont to sit. There was a +double reading-lamp ready-lighted for him upon this desk, and there +was no other light in the room. By this dim light the sombre colouring +of oak bookcases and maroon velvet window-curtains deepened to black. +The spacious room had almost a funereal aspect, like that awful +banqueting-hall to which Domitian invited his parasites and straightway +frightened them to death. + +“Well, Mildred, what is the matter?” asked Greswold, when his wife had +seated herself beside him in front of the massive oak desk at which +all the business of his estate had been transacted since he came to +Enderby. “There is nothing amiss, love, I hope, to make you so earnest?” + +“There is something very much amiss, George,” she answered. “Forgive me +if I pain you by what I have to say—by the questions I am going to ask. +I cannot help giving you pain, truly and dearly as I love you. I cannot +go on suffering as I have suffered since that wretched Sunday afternoon +when I discovered how you had deceived me—you whom I so trusted, so +honoured as the most upright among men.” + +“It is a little hard that you should say I deceived you, Mildred. I +suppressed one fact which had no bearing upon my relations with you.” + +“You must have signed your name to a falsehood in the register, if you +described yourself as a bachelor.” + +“I did not so describe myself. I confided the fact of my first marriage +to your father on the eve of our wedding. I told him why I had been +silent—told him that my past life had been steeped in bitterness. He +was generous enough to accept my confidence and to ask no questions. +My bride was too shy and too agitated to observe what I wrote in the +register, or else she might have noted the word ‘widower’ after my +name.” + +“Thank God you did not sign your name to a lie,” said Mildred, with a +sigh of relief. + +“I am sorry my wife of fourteen years should think me capable of +falsehood on the document that sealed my fate with hers.” + +“O, George, I know how true you are—how true and upright you have +been in every word and act of your life since we two have been one. +It is not in my nature to misjudge you. I cannot think you capable of +wrong-doing to any one under strongest temptation. I cannot believe +that Fate could set such a snare for you as could entrap you into one +dishonourable act; but I am tortured by the thought of a past life of +which I know nothing. Why did you hide your marriage from me when we +were lovers? Why are you silent and secret now, when I am your wife, +the other half of yourself, ready to sympathise with you, to share the +burden of dark memories? Trust me, George. Trust me, dear love, and +let us be again as we have been, united in every thought.” + +“You do not know what you are asking me, Mildred,” said George +Greswold, in his deep, grave voice, looking at her with haggard +reproachful eyes. “You cannot measure the torture you are inflicting by +this aimless curiosity.” + +“You cannot measure the agony of doubt which I have suffered since I +knew that you loved another woman before you loved me—loved her so well +that you cannot bear even to speak of that past life which you lived +with her—regret her so intensely that now, after fourteen years of +wedded life with me, the mere memory of that lost love can plunge you +into gloom and despair,” said Mildred passionately. + +That smothered fire of jealousy which had been smouldering in her +breast for weeks broke out all at once in impetuous speech. She no +longer cared what she said. Her only thought was that the dead love had +been dearer than the living, that she had been cozened by a lover whose +heart had never been wholly hers. + +“You are very cruel, Mildred,” her husband answered quietly. “You are +probing an old wound, and a deep one, to the quick. You wrong yourself +more than you wrong me by causeless jealousy and unworthy doubts. Yes, +I did conceal the fact of my first marriage—not because I had loved +my wife too well, but because I had not loved her well enough. I was +silent about a period of my life which was one of intense misery—which +it was my duty to myself to forget, if it were possible to forget—which +it was perilous to remember. My only chance of happiness—or peace of +mind—lay in oblivion of that bitter time. It was only when I loved +you that I began to believe forgetfulness was possible. I courted +oblivion by every means in my power. I told myself that the man who +had so suffered was a man who had ceased to exist. George Ransome +was dead. George Greswold stood on the threshold of a new life, with +infinite capacities for happiness. I told myself that I might be a +beloved and honoured husband—which I had never been—a useful member +of society—which I had not been hitherto. Until that hour all things +had been against me. With you for my wife all things would be in my +favour. For thirteen happy years this promise of our marriage morning +was fully realised; then came our child’s death; and now comes your +estrangement.” + +“I am not estranged, George. It is only my dread of the beginning of +estrangement which tortures me. Since that man spoke of your first +wife, I have brooded perpetually upon that hidden past. It is weak, I +know, to have done so. I ought to trust unquestioningly: but I cannot, +I cannot. I love you too well to love without jealousy.” + +“Well, let the veil be lifted then, since it must be so. Ask what +questions you please, and I will answer them—as best I can.” + +“You are very good,” she faltered, drawing a little nearer to him, +leaning her head against his shoulder as she talked to him, and laying +her hand on his as it lay before him on the desk, tightly clenched. +“Tell me, dear, were you happy with your first wife?” + +“I was not.” + +“Not even in the beginning?” + +“Hardly in the beginning. It was an ill-advised union, the result of +impulse.” + +“But she loved you very dearly, perhaps.” + +“She loved me—dearly—after her manner of loving.” + +“And you did not love her?” + +“It is a cruel thing you force me to say, Mildred. No, I did not love +her.” + +“Had you been married long when she died?” + +She felt a quivering movement in the clenched hand on which her own lay +caressingly, and she heard him draw a long and deep breath. + +“About a year.” + +“Her death was a sad one, I know. Did she go out of her mind before she +died?” + +“No.” + +“Did she leave you—or do you any great wrong?” + +“No.” + +“Were you false to her, George—O, forgive me, forgive me—but there must +have been something more sad than common sadness, and it might be that +some new and fatal love—” + +“There was no such thing,” he answered sternly. “I was true to my +duties as a husband. It was not a long trial—only a year. Even a +profligate might keep faith for so short a span.” + +“I see you will not confide in me. I will ask no more questions, +George. That kind of catechism will not make us more in sympathy with +each other. I will ask you nothing more—except—just one question—a +woman’s question. Was your first wife beautiful in your eyes.” + +“She was not beautiful; but she was intellectual, and she had an +interesting countenance—a face that attracted me at first sight. It was +even more attractive to me than the faces of handsomer women. But if +you want to know what your fancied rival was like you need not languish +in ignorance,” with some touch of scorn. “I have her photograph in this +desk. I have kept it for my days of humiliation, to remind me of what I +have been and what I may be again. Would you like to see it?” + +“Yes, George, if it will not pain you too much to show it to me.” + +“Do not talk of pain. You have stirred the waters of Marah so deeply +that one more bitter drop cannot signify.” He unlocked his desk as he +spoke, lifted the lid, which was sustained by a movable upright, and +groped among the accumulation of papers and parchments inside. + +The object for which he was seeking was at the back of the desk, under +all the papers. He found it by touch: a morocco case containing a +cabinet photograph. Mildred stood up beside him, with one hand on his +shoulder as he searched. + +He handed her the case without a word. She opened it in silence and +looked at the portrait within. A small, delicately-featured face, with +large dark eyes—eyes almost too large for the face—a slender throat, +thin sloping shoulders—eyes that looked out of the picture with a +strange intensity—a curious alertness in the countenance, as of a woman +made up of nerves and emotions, a nature wanting the element of repose. + +Mildred stared at the picture three or four seconds, and then with a +choking sound like a strangled sob fell unconscious at her husband’s +feet. + + +END OF VOL. I. + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + pg 8 Changed: absurb lambs, and more absurd foliage + to: absurd lambs, and more absurd foliage + + pg 9 Changed: amidst the icy formalties + to: amidst the icy formalities + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75410 *** |