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diff --git a/78381-0.txt b/78381-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd3f327 --- /dev/null +++ b/78381-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4918 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78381 *** + + + + + AN + + ODD COUPLE + + BY + + MRS. OLIPHANT, + + AUTHOR OF “CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” “SALEM CHAPEL,” + “THE MINISTER’S WIFE,” &C. + + PHILADELPHIA: + PORTER AND COATES, + NO. 822 CHESTNUT STREET. + + + PRESS OF + HENRY B. ASHMEAD, + 1102 and 1104 Sansom St. + + + + + AN ODD COUPLE. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +_CHAPTER I._ + + PAGE + +_He, and She_ 7 + +_CHAPTER II._ + +_Conjugality_ 27 + +_CHAPTER III._ + +_A Mediator_ 42 + +_CHAPTER IV._ + +_The Breach Accomplished_ 56 + +_CHAPTER V._ + +_Education_ 74 + +_CHAPTER VI._ + +_The Captain of the Eleven_ 91 + +_CHAPTER VII._ + +_A Dinner at Hyde Park Square_ 111 + +_CHAPTER VIII._ + +_The Villa_ 130 + +_CHAPTER IX._ + +_The Villa_ (_continued_) 141 + +_CHAPTER X._ + +_Edward_ 153 + +_CHAPTER XI._ + +_The Day After_ 163 + +_CHAPTER XII._ + +_Romance_ 178 + +_CHAPTER XIII._ + +_An Anxious Mother_ 193 + +_CHAPTER XIV._ + +_The Boy’s Appeal_ 214 + +_CHAPTER XV._ + +_The Girl’s Escape_ 229 + +_CHAPTER XVI._ + +_Conclusion--The Father’s Share_ 244 + + + + +AN ODD COUPLE. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +HE, AND SHE. + + +“In that case, perhaps, it would be better that we should part!” + +These ominous words were said very steadily and precisely, but with a +certain sense of nervous excitement in the utterance, by Mr. Charles +Tremenheere, one morning in November, in his own drawing-room, and were, +I need scarcely say, addressed to his own wife. To whom else could they +have been said? He was not the kind of man who might have been expected +to speak words striking at the very root of family existence, being, +indeed, a very orderly and respectable personage,--anything but a +revolutionary. The amount of provocation which he had endured before he +said them need not be entered into here. He had been married about ten +years, and had two children, a boy of nine and a girl of seven. Mrs. +Tremenheere was seated opposite to him at a small work-table knitting, +with a composure which was aggravating to the last degree. Her needles +met each other with tranquil regularity, and not a single dropped stitch +or irregular line bore witness to any excitement of feeling. They were +middle-aged people, and might very well have been married twenty years +instead of ten. He was standing in the favorite attitude of Englishmen, +in front of the fire, a thin angular man, moving with a certain +jerkiness and rapidity, slightly bald, with refined features, and hair +growing gray, and looking very much what he was, a clerk in a public +office, much more experienced and learned in the country’s business than +was in general the distinguished “chief” at the head of the department, +though he was a Minister of State and probably a Grand Seigneur, Knight +of the Garter, and everything that was splendid--while his instructor +and referee who kept him out of mischief was only Mr. Charles +Tremenheere. Nevertheless, the injustice in this respect was more +apparent than real, for Mr. Tremenheere was a man as well known in those +high regions from which the country is ruled as the Queen herself, and +most people whose opinion he cared about were perfectly acquainted with +the real standing of which the vulgar knew nothing. “Tremenheere will +keep him right,” the Premier himself said when he appointed the rising +man of the day Secretary of State for _that_ department. Indeed, I need +not tell you, dear reader, which department it was. It is in very good +hands and does not require our interference, and it is enough for the +purpose of the narrative that you should know who this gentleman was. He +had been very much in society in his younger days, and still kept up his +old friends, though his wife, whose taste was somewhat different from +his own, had separated him from the tide of fashion; and he loved +society, judging men and things by the standard in favor there, and +making but small account of qualities which were not appreciated in +these finest circles. This was a grave ground of debate between his wife +and himself. They did not quarrel according to the ordinary pattern of +conjugal quarrels. She was not a scold nor he a villain; he behaved as a +gentleman should and she like a well-bred woman. But they differed +incessantly, continually, with the heat of people who quarrel about +convictions, a thing more persistent than the light differences which +arise on every-day subjects; and so at last it had come to +this--“Perhaps in that case it would be better that we should part!” + +Mr. Tremenheere felt when he said this that he had discharged his last +volley. What more could he say or do? and he expected it to startle and +appal his calm antagonist. He thought that an utterance so trenchant, so +final, would penetrate through all her defences, and make her feel what +it was to defy a man who was her natural head, her social +representative. Almost, he expected to see the common appeal of +womankind which he had read of in books, and which everybody, so far as +he knew (who was not married to Mrs. Tremenheere), believed in. Mrs. +Tremenheere had never yet wept to him nor pleaded for forgiveness. She +had never broken down under any of his reproaches--never been melted +into helplessness by his appeals. Would she do it now--would she +cry--would she throw herself at his feet or on his neck and ask him to +take back that cruel suggestion? Inevitably it must bring her to +herself. + +But, indeed, the result was not as he anticipated. Mrs. Tremenheere bore +the shock with wonderful composure. She scarcely raised her head; she +scarcely paused in her knitting. She allowed him to speak as calmly as +if he had been saying, “I will dine at my club.” And then there followed +an interval of silence which was as if the spheres stood still to Mr. +Tremenheere. His eyes were upon her, but she did not look at him. Was it +that she did not dare to look at him? Was it her pride which kept her +eyes on her knitting, her head bowed down? one or the other it must be. + +But if she did not feel the shock, he did, when Mrs. Tremenheere, +raising her head and looking at him, without any of the excitement in +her eyes which blinded his, replied quietly, “I have no doubt, as things +have gone so far, that it would be the best--in every way.” + +“Good God! Ada,” he said in sudden horror. “What do you mean?” + +“It is not what I mean, Mr. Tremenheere. I have not taken any +initiative. We do not agree, unfortunately, or think alike in anything; +but it was not I who called attention to this. I had made up my mind to +go on and make the best of it. But when you see it so clearly I feel +that it would be foolish to contradict you. Yes,” she said with a sigh; +“it is a pity, but I think you are right: and separation would be the +best.” + +“You think so!” he said, furious. “Oh, you think so! Good heavens! and +this is what it is to end in, after all that has come and gone!” + +“It was not I who suggested it,” she said, resuming her knitting; “but +since you think so, dear----” + +“Dear! dear comes in well in such a discussion,” said the husband +furiously. He left the fire and strode across to the window, and stood +gazing out with his back to her. The sight of her composure made him +wild. “If we are to arrange this let it be without any pretence of false +affection. Conventional humbug may at least be put away now.” + +“I am never conventional that I know of,” she said slightly roused. “We +do not agree, Charles; but why should we hate each other? It is this +that would be conventional, not an innocent word.” + +“Oh, confound your innocent words,” he muttered through his teeth; but +this she did not hear, nor was she intended to hear it. He could hear +the slight stir of her needles where he stood looking out upon the +rolling of the fog which now lifted a little, now came down heavier. +Nothing could be more doleful than the prospect out-of-doors. Hyde Park, +which was opposite, threw up a line of spectral trees into the yellow of +the atmosphere. The passengers went by slipping upon the greasy +pavement, the horses surrounded themselves with a halo of white breath +like the _nimbus_ of a mediæval saint; the kind of day from which you +shrink and turn to the cheerful fire within; but to poor Mr. Tremenheere +the fog itself was more cheerful than the genial blaze near which the +wife sat in her warm velvet dress, the impersonation of domestic +comfort. How comfortable she looked! He saw her very well, though his +back was turned. With a matronly fulness of person,--not too much, only +enough to be becoming,--light brown hair, not changed or touched by +time, and a great deal more abundant than is usual nowadays. It seemed +suddenly to flash upon him how changed the room would look without her, +and the house and all his daily life. Was it possible that she could be +so hard-hearted, so cruel, so blind to every duty? If it had not been +his own suggestion he would have turned round and laughed in her face. +She go away after ten years’ companionship and quarrelling! Quarreling +when it is continuous and familiar endears just as much as anything +else. She could not think of it. It must be a bit of bravado to frighten +him and make him give in on the subject they had disagreed upon. Women +were bad enough; but they were not so bad, not so heartless as this. So +Mr. Tremenheere considered that the wisest thing he could do was to show +the impatience, but not the uneasiness he felt, and to rush off to the +office, where he ought to have been some time ago, but for the +disagreement which had brought matters all at once and unexpectedly to a +crisis so terrible. + +“I am aware that you have plenty of time to talk,” he said, “but I have +not. I am off to the office. You have detained me too long already with +this ridiculous discussion. Why should we have these continual +misunderstandings? I advise you to put folly out of your head, and try +to find some way by which we can get on like other people. I shall be +back at seven to-night.” + +And he turned round and looked at her. Surely at least she would show +some natural feeling now. But she did not. She bent her head a little +and said, “Very well, good morning,” and went on with her knitting. Good +morning! Good heavens! What did she mean by that “good morning!” Was it +anxiety! Was it determination? He would rather have seen her eyes, and +then he might have known what she meant. But he would not resign the +superior position he had assumed by waiting to see what her eyes meant. +He had to go, as he said, shutting the door with some energy behind him. +He stumbled over the children at the door, and, instead of stopping to +kiss them, as was his wont, pushed the little things away, who were all +done up in their winter gear, great coats and furs. + +“Is this a day to take the children out? Go back to the nursery at +once,” he said, not stopping to hear what the nurse, indignant, said +about Missis. Missis! what was she that she must argue about everything, +instead of taking her husband’s opinion like other people?--when of +course he must know best; he a man of the world. But Mr. Tremenheere +went to the office that day with a heavy heart. He had “shot an arrow +into the air,” and he did not know where he should find that inadvertent +missile. And all without meaning it! meaning nothing more than to +frighten her; to show her what terrors might be if she did not mind what +she was about--to warn her of possibilities which perhaps had never +dawned upon her before. + +Mrs. Tremenheere, however, was much more startled by her husband’s +suggestion than she allowed to appear; but scarcely in the way a wife +might be supposed to be startled. It was not the fear of lost love or +any sentimental disturbance which was in her mind. There are wives, and +even some whose married life is not particularly harmonious, to whom +such words would be as the rending asunder of heaven and earth; but this +lady was not one of them. She did not feel the soil crumbling under her +feet or the skies dividing over her head because her husband threw out +the suggestion, that probably they might be better apart. She was not +wounded in this profound and poignant way, but she was startled by the +sudden introduction to her of a new idea, a something previously +unthought of which was evidently worthy of thought. And perhaps she was +a little piqued and slightly stung in her pride that the idea had not +originated with herself. Even the most philosophical woman, she who has +least care to preserve the often humiliating privileges of sex, has a +kind of prejudice in favor of all such suggestions originating with +herself. That her husband should be able calmly to contemplate a +separation did not throw her into hysterics or into despair, but yet she +should have liked to have been the first to suggest the separation. +When, however, she had got over this she was seriously struck by the new +idea. Separation! it meant a great deal which Mrs. Tremenheere had never +considered before, and which she began to consider with the seriousness +which became a very important matter. Living separate was easy enough to +friends who perhaps might be better friends apart than if thrown +continually together. It was nothing very dreadful even for members of +the same family. Brothers and sisters separated continually, yet +remained brotherly and sisterly all their lives; but a man and +wife,--this was something totally different, involving a very great deal +more. A separation of this sort is seldom considered in the reflective +and calm spirit in which Mrs. Tremenheere regarded it. Usually it is +decided upon in mere heat of passion, or under the sting of some +intolerable wrong--and only when the misery of the two compelled to live +together has become past bearing. All this was very different from her +sentiments; she sat very still going on with her knitting, her needles +perhaps moving a little more quickly than usual, and her eyes very +intent upon what she was doing, until at last she dropped her work on +her lap, letting fall the ball of wool with which she was knitting, and +which a playful kitten from the hearthrug immediately sprang upon. The +kitten thought her mistress had done it on purpose, and that this was an +invitation to play, and purred loudly to show her satisfaction, arching +her back and looking up into Mrs. Tremenheere’s abstracted face as she +put her foot upon the ball. It was a pretty Persian kitten with a long +sweeping tail, and the room was very pretty, with harmonious furniture +and fine water-color drawings, a carefully selected collection, for both +husband and wife prided themselves on knowing something about art. The +chair upon which Mrs. Tremenheere sat was an elegant Chippendale, which +she preferred to the usual luxurious articles of the drawing-room. The +table by her side was spider-legged, and daintily carved in ebony. An +old Italian cabinet in the same wood, inlaid with silver, stood against +the wall behind. Careful thought and taste, and some amount of culture, +showed in every part of the room. A bright fire blazed, throwing +pleasant lights about, sparkling in the glasses of the old Venice +chandelier, and doing its best to neutralize the effects of the fog +without. When Mrs. Tremenheere dropped her knitting in her lap she +raised her head with a sigh and turned her eyes to the window, as it is +so natural to do when one is in trouble. She was not young; but she was +a handsome woman, with clear high features, blue eyes, and abundant +hair--not fat, though that is the usual epithet to apply to a woman of +forty, which was her age, but tall and of an imposing presence. And she +was very well dressed in a dark velvet gown, which threw up her +fairness, with old-fashioned ornaments such as betrayed the same +prevailing taste as that which was apparent in the room. She was so +entirely in keeping with the place that it may be supposed the idea of +leaving it was not agreeable to her. But even this was not how the +matter appeared at the present moment to Mrs. Tremenheere. She had not +yet come so far as to think of leaving her home, or of any of the +material consequences to follow, but was only startled into serious +consideration of the idea and of what it meant, and if it really would +be “best,” as her husband had said. + +She was asking herself this question when the nurse and children burst +into the room in full walking array, as when Mr. Tremenheere had turned +them back--every ribbon on nurse’s bonnet (and there were a great many), +and every hair on her head, though they were less abundant, was bridling +with indignation. The little girl had her finger in her mouth, and was +whimpering in sympathy. The boy, more indifferent, received imaginary +balls upon the short hoop-stick which he held like a cricket-bat, and +let the woman talk with masculine composure. + +“Please ma’am, master-has-turned-us-back,” said nurse, running all her +words into one. “It’s-a-fog-and-we-ain’t-to-go-out-in-a-fog; and a deal +of exercise the dear children will get in London if we don’t never go +out in fogs. I said as it was you, but he said as it was me, and gave +’em a push which it isn’t like a gentleman,” said the nurse out of +breath; while little Vera, stamping her little foot, cried, “Naughty +papa!” + +“And master is as unreasonable as unreasonable, as well you knows, +ma’am, though you might’nt say it,” nurse added, before she could be +stopped. + +Mrs. Tremenheere colored high, and when she flushed the color remained, +as she was well aware, on the ridge of her delicate high nose much +longer than was becoming or agreeable, which made her still more angry. +“You are very impertinent to speak of your master so,” she said. “Take +the children’s things off at once, and send them to me; and Vera, if you +whimper you shall have a punishment. Go directly. I am very much +displeased.” + +“It ain’t us, ma’am, that you’ve occasion to be displeased with,” nurse +began. “It’s Mr. ----” + +“Do you wish me to send you away at an hour’s notice?” said Mrs. +Tremenheere in a low voice, hastily rising from her chair and putting +down the knitting with some impatience on the table, as she dismissed +the party peremptorily. Was this the end of it all? She had meant well, +as well as ever woman meant, or so at least she thought; but this was +the end. A servant who ventured to appeal to her knowledge of her +husband’s unreasonableness--a child who felt itself justified in saying +“Naughty papa.” Was this what she had done, betraying herself and +betraying him, bringing down the credit and good reputation which she +was bound to preserve? Then indeed he was right, and it would be best +for them to part. + +She had, however, little time to pursue these reflections, for soon +after the door again opened, and the little pair came back, Vera in a +little velvet frock like her mother’s, with the hair cut square on her +forehead and falling behind upon her shoulders, leading the way,--Eddy +behind, still with the hoop-stick of which he made an imaginary +cricket-bat. Vera had a lapful of dolls in her pinafore--dolls without +noses, without arms, with feet twisted off, with necks wrung, with hair +torn from their heads, but only the dearer for all their misfortunes, as +Othello was “for the dangers he had known.” Vera tripped in light as a +little fairy, her pretty hair streaming over her shoulders. She was one +of those born actors who (up to the age of ten or so) are always +consciously playing some _rôle_ or other, and to-day her part was that +of an anxious mother taking care of her offspring. The little creature +took no notice of her own mother, who sat gazing at her with many +thoughts in her heart, but seating herself on the other side of the +fireplace began to arrange her family. She put her dolls round her like +a class at school, setting them up to sit with their miserable legs +thrust out on all the stools she could find, and then began to address +them with busy gravity--now pulling a dress straight, now arranging a +wig of tow. The busy little human thing among all these wooden +counterfeits of herself was as curious a sight as one could wish to see. +How she managed them, pulling this one roughly about, coaxing another, +according to their character! and indeed there were to the child’s +lively imagination distinct traces of character in the very attitude of +these ungainly babes. + +“Try and sit up like a lady,” she said, taking up unceremoniously one of +her collected family by the head and setting it down again with a shake, +“is that how a lady sits? If you are all good and don’t make a noise, +nor spoil your pinnies, I will tell you a story. Oh you disagreeable +little fright, why can’t you hold your toes straight? Now listen!” Vera +held up a small finger in the air to enforce attention. “There was once +a little girl, and she was sometimes naughty just like you, and she had +a great many little children belonging to her, and one that was called +Rose, and one that was called Violet, and one that was called Lily, just +the same names as you have; ain’t it strange? And this little girl had a +mamma, the same as you have, but she had a papa too, and you never had a +papa. You hold your tongue, you naughty Rose. You want to know what a +papa is like--you all want to know? Well, a papa is a very funny thing. +Sometimes he is good and gives you new dolls, but I do not like any new +dolls, the nicest that could be got, so much as I love you, you dear old +dirty naughty ones; so be quiet and don’t interfere ever any more. But +then a papa is sometimes cross. He is very funny to look at, and doesn’t +wear frocks like us; and some of them have beards, great hairy things +like your muff stuck on to your chin, and when they kiss you it pricks. +But that is not all. Now you shall hear about the little girl in the +story. Once she met her papa when she was just going out for a walk, and +her nurse was going to take her to the Baker Street Bazaar, and she was +so happy; and what do you think this naughty, naughty, cross, unkind +papa did?----” + +“Vera, what are you talking about?” + +“I was not talking, mamma; I was only telling Rose and Violet and the +rest, a story. I often tell them stories--like what you used to tell +me--that begin--‘There was once a little girl.’ I never liked to hear +about that little girl,” said Vera, shaking her head; “she was always +doing silly things, and I knew she was me.” + +“Vera, it is very naughty either to your dolls, or any one, to talk so +of your papa.” + +“My papa!” said Vera with well-feigned surprise. “I was only talking of +the little girl’s papa.” + +But here the boy, who had been silent, interposed with masculine +reproof, “What stupids girls are with their dolls! You might come and +bowl for me,” said Eddy, who was still playing imaginary cricket. + +Vera threw all her dolls into a heap in a corner and went with +light-hearted fickleness; while the mother sat by and went on with her +thoughts. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +CONJUGALITY. + + +Mr. Tremenheere came home that evening at seven o’clock. It was not his +custom to be quite so early. He went late in the morning, and was not +unwilling to stay late, and to get all the evening’s news before he went +home, so that the dinners generally were very late in Hyde Park Square. +Mrs. Tremenheere, who was a busy woman with many occupations of her own, +did not object to this--indeed she was (as he remembered on his way +home) on the whole a very easy woman to live with, and disposed to use +mutual toleration in respect to a great many things which women in +general are inclined to make unnecessary fusses about. Oddly enough, +when he came to think of it, there were a great many things in respect +to which she was very easy. It was ideas that she fought about, but of +all things that make a woman disagreeable, ideas, it must be allowed, +are among the worst. + +However, he dressed and made himself particularly pleasant at dinner. +They were people who took pleasure in the table after a more refined +fashion than that generally understood by these words. Mr. Tremenheere +indeed liked a good dinner with that _naive_ devotion which is common +among men of his age, but Mrs. Tremenheere considered cookery one of the +fine arts, and studied it in an elevated and elevating way. Mr. +Tremenheere had made up his mind when he married, with a certain rueful +submission, that it would be madness to expect in an imperfect and +newly-constituted establishment under the charge of a lady whom he knew +to be much too enlightened on other subjects, and consequently expected +little from on this, the carefully-regulated cuisine, the excellent +cookery which to a man of many clubs, with a tolerable income, had +become second nature. He had even had jokes made upon him on the +subject, and had made jokes of a melancholy nature in return. But to his +great and delightful surprise he had been able to turn the tables upon +his sympathizers by giving them dinners which the best _chef_ could not +have surpassed. “I don’t suppose you want banquets,” Mrs. Tremenheere +had said, “but I think we are capable of dinners of eight--or even of +ten, if you please;” and she had kept her word in the most noble way. To +such a philosophical artist as she had proved herself, it need not be +said that a dinner for two--a delicate composition which answers to a +copy of verses from a poet, or a short story from a novelist--was a +special triumph of art; but on this particular evening, when Mr. +Tremenheere came home, trembling with suppressed anxiety, from his +office, and not very sure as to whether Fate and his offended wife would +allow him any dinner at all, the _ménu_ of the little repast was +unusually exquisite. He took this, deluded man, for a good sign. He +thought if she had been going to take those idle words of his at their +full value and act upon them, that it was not female nature (of which, +like many men, he thought he knew much) to have taken so much trouble +about what he ate. He believed that she would have been spiteful, and +refused him such a meal as he could sit down to with any pleasure. But +on the contrary--! Mr. Tremenheere’s courage rose. It is impossible to +describe how genial he was. He praised every dish; the fish was a wonder +of freshness--the _entrêes_ were perfect--the birds were cooked as one +scarcely ever saw them out of Scotland. He glowed and beamed over the +well-spread table. Was it not a promise, a foretaste of years of good +dinners and friendly conjugalities--all the better, perhaps, for this +sudden and alarming cloud--to come? + +And he was equally genial to the children, whose introduction at dessert +did not always please him. To-night he was the politest and most amiable +of fathers. Vera, taking advantage of the opportunity, though most +inopportunely, so far as his feelings were concerned, plunged +immediately into comment upon the transactions of the morning. + +“We have never been out all day, not one little bit,” she said. “Why +mustn’t we go out when its a fog? We have been ever so often before, and +no one found fault. Papa, you know it was because you were cross you +turned us back; and we were going to the Bazaar to see all the things +for Christmas. Naughty papa!” + +“Vera, I must send you to bed,” said Mrs. Tremenheere. + +“Let her talk--let her talk,” said the conciliating father. “Going to +the Bazaar, were you! I will take you myself when it is a fine day and +buy you something.” + +“You!” Vera’s delight was great. “Do you hear, Eddy? Papa himself! But +you never did it before.” + +“I am always so busy, my dear.” + +“Are you busy? I should like to go with you; shouldn’t you, Eddy? better +than with nurse--better than with mamma.” + +“Vera, that is very ungrateful,” said Mr. Tremenheere, secretly +flattered by the preference, “and, besides, I don’t believe it. You +would rather go with mamma.” + +“No; she would come any time. I should like you because you never, never +did it before. I like everything that is new,” cried Vera, clapping her +hands; “and then you would be stupid--you would not know where to go, or +anything. You would not know which was the place for the dolls, nor +where those funny Japan things are. Will you come to-morrow, papa?” + +“That is abrupt,” he said. “Yes, perhaps, Vera, if nothing happens to +interfere I will go to-morrow. Will that please you? and then I shall be +made, I suppose, to buy half the dolls in the Bazaar.” + +“Vera, it is your hour for bed,” said her mother; and the remonstrances +which were on the child’s lips were hushed by the fact that just then +nurse came in solemnly and took her place at the door. As is usual in +well-regulated families, mothers and fathers may yield, but nurse is +inexorable. The children did not even attempt by any unnecessary +blandishments to work upon the feelings of that Rhadamantha. They +yielded at once. Eddy rose from his oranges without much reluctance, and +Vera slid down unwillingly from her father’s knee. At the same moment +Mrs. Tremenheere rose. “You will find me in the drawing-room if you want +me, Charles,” she said quietly. Alas, he felt there was more in these +words than met the ear. + +And then an interval ensued which was not delightful for either of them. +Mr. Tremenheere was long of making his appearance that night--which was +not even to be explained by the fact that he took a glass of wine more +than usual to strengthen him for the evening trial--not even that; he +did it on purpose, poor man, thinking that her courage would ooze out at +her fingers’ end, when she saw how late it was and how little time there +was for talk. He strolled in at length in a careless way. + +“Give me a cup of tea, my dear,” he said, with ostentatious +friendliness. “I have brought some work home with me from the office, +and I want to have all my wits about me. In such cases there is nothing +so good as a cup of your tea----” + +“I am sorry, Charles, that you have work to-night.” + +“Yes?--well, so am I. I don’t like it much, I assure you--but the +country’s business must be attended to,” he said, rubbing his hands with +premature delight over the success of his scheme. + +“I don’t doubt it; still our own life is sometimes more important to us +than even the country’s business--though I have never, that I know of, +interfered with that.” + +“Never, Ada, never,” he answered, briskly, “--of course, you are a +sensible woman and know the importance of it as well as I do.” + +“And I have never wasted your time or kept you from your work for my own +pleasure----” + +“Never, my dear, never!” He interrupted her more nervously this time, +feeling that so strenuous a self-defence must mean something more. + +“Then I need the less excuse for now occupying your time, Charles. I +must speak to you. Things are involved of more consequence to us than +there can be in your office papers for the country. The country is not +in mortal peril, that I know of, but our house is----” + +“My dear, you astonish me----” + +“No indeed, I don’t astonish you. You know very well what I mean. You +cannot have passed the day without thinking of it. I do not think it is +worthy of you to suppose that we can get over this by simply ignoring +the whole matter. Something was said this morning----” + +“Yes, yes! I knew you would come back to that,” he said, pettishly. +“Well, it was a foolish speech on my part. I said it in the heat of +discussion, not meaning it. Will that satisfy you? When a man is very +much provoked he is not always master of what he says. There, Ada! I did +think that to ignore the whole business was the best--but since you +insist upon it, I apologize, and I hope now you are content.” + +“The view you take of this is not the same as mine,” said Mrs. +Tremenheere. “You laugh: you are accustomed to hear such words from me. +But don’t laugh, I beg of you, for this is far more serious than any +disagreement we have ever had. Charles, you said it would be best for us +to separate. I have thought of little else since.” + +“Nor I, for that matter,--if that will be any consolation to you,” he +muttered between his teeth. + +“Why should it be a consolation to me? It is not that I want to get the +better of you, to be apologized to, or think myself the wiser. Again,” +cried Mrs. Tremenheere, “it is the old difficulty. You will not go to +the heart of the matter. You will think only of the outside.” + +“It has no heart that I know of,” he said, with a sullen acceptance of +the new controversy, placing himself once more in that citadel of +argument, the front of the fire. “The whole affair lies in a nutshell. +In one of our continual and apparently inevitable quarrels, I said some +inadvertent words which I am sorry for. They were struck out of me in +the heat of quarrel, and I tell you I am sorry for them; what more is to +be done? I have said all a man can say.” + +“But yet you have not touched the heart of the subject. If, indeed, our +quarrels are continual and apparently inevitable, that gives double +force to your words. Charles, I have been thinking it over all day, and +I think perhaps you are right. It will make a wonderful change in our +lives, and it is not a thing to be done lightly--but yet I think you are +right. We do quarrel a great deal. I don’t know whose fault it is, but +it is very undignified and unseemly. We will do our duty better and fill +our place in the world better--apart.” + +“Apart?” + +She said the last word so low that he stooped to hear what it was. + +“Yes--apart!” Mrs. Tremenheere spoke tremulously, but firmly. Never was +woman stronger in her own opinion, and, perhaps, in all her life she +had never formed a more decided opinion than now. + +“You speak like a fool, Ada,” he said, with a rudeness quite unusual to +him. “This is carrying matters ridiculously far. And yet you are not a +silly woman to leap to conclusions. You know, as well as I do, that +there is a great deal more involved than mere agreement or disagreement. +We can always wash our dirty linen at home, at all events. If we +quarrel, there is no occasion to publish it to all the world. And this +must be done if we separate; nonsense; separate! for one ill-advised and +hasty word! Expose ourselves, break up our house, put a stigma on our +children! You cannot think of such a thing. One can surely trust to your +good sense to see that.” + +“I have thought of it all,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, “and painfully +enough. That is the outside view of the question--but the other aspect +of it is this. Which is best? To undergo what you have described once +for all: or to go on quarrelling, never taking the same view of +anything, bringing up our children without any feeling of household +sanctity, to see their father and mother in a perpetual struggle, to +take sides, perhaps, and fight too, after our fashion, and think of us +as of antagonistic powers? Apparently, so far as I can make out, one or +the other of these must be.” + +“Folly! utterly far-fetched, and unlike your good sense. Why should +either of them be?” + +“Do not you see why? Charles, Vera came to me this morning, quite ready +to enter on the fray. You had turned them back when they were ready to +go out, unreasonably. Yes, I cannot deny it was unreasonably. You were +angry, and you made them turn back, saying it was the fog, and they came +to me to complain. Of course, I had to maintain your authority; but I +did so simply as a matter of duty. And children are very quick to notice +this, Mr. Tremenheere.” + +“Oh! confound the children!” he cried. “This question surely may be +allowed to be between us; it does not affect the children. Why should +they be brought into it? Surely nothing can be more distinctly between +you and me.” + +“It was you who brought in the children first, not I,” she said. + +“So! so!” cried Mr. Tremenheere, rubbing his hands together with growing +rage, “and thus the whole old business commences again. It was not I but +you--it is not one incidental question or another, but the entire matter +between us, how we are to get on at all, what is to become of the +family! I take heaven to witness it is not my fault. I said a few hasty +unintentional words. I have withdrawn them--I have begged you pardon, +which is a great deal for a man in my circumstances to do. If you are +determined to go on, well! do it on your own responsibility. It is +true,” he continued, growing in excitement as he went on, “that this +house is a perfect hell upon earth, that one is never safe from argument +even at the moment one is least inclined for it. That is what comes of +your educated women,” cried the unlucky man. “This is the Attic salt +they season their husband’s daily fare with! Give me the old domestic +drudge, the one that suckled fools, and gave her family a little +peace.--This new edition of a wife is not the thing for me.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere grew red and then pale, but with that ridge of color on +her nose of which she was always so unpleasantly conscious. She could +bear (she thought) a great deal of individual abuse, but general abuse +addressed to her as a woman cut her to the heart. But she did not show +anger as he did. She waited until he came to a pause, and then said, +deliberately: + +“It is unnecessary, Mr. Tremenheere, to assail all women on my account. +There are women enough in the world of the kind you like, who might have +married you perhaps had you asked them, so in that matter at least you +have only yourself to blame. The question is strictly between +individuals, not between the sexes--and I must remind you that you +yourself said it lay in a nutshell. We cannot agree. Therefore you think +it is best we should separate--and so do I.” + +“That is putting it in a nutshell, indeed,” he cried. “I never made any +such cut-and-dry statement. I spoke inadvertently in a moment of +excitement.--No doubt it was true enough, if you come to that--but I +have withdrawn it. I do withdraw it----” + +“How can you withdraw it,” she said, quietly, “if still it is true?” + +“Ada, you will drive me mad!” he exclaimed, wiping his forehead +violently. She looked at him with a slight shrug of her shoulders, and +no visible sign of her corresponding excitement except that red line +down the high ridge of her handsome nose. + +“Mr. Tremenheere,” she said, “you withdraw everything and then you +repeat it. Be logical. If I drive you mad--if our house is hell upon +earth--why then it is unquestionable that to separate is the only +possible thing for us to do----” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +A MEDIATOR. + + +Mr. Tremenheere took a very strange step on the morning after this +discussion. He went to call on his wife’s chief friend, Miss Elinor +Meadows, a single woman of fortune and advanced opinions, his aversion +hitherto, and the very impersonation of everything he disliked--and put +the case into her hands. And in less than an hour after, Miss Meadows +burst into the drawing-room at Hyde Park Square. She was a handsome +woman, with a wind of motion always about her, a “tempestuous +petticoat,” and hair somewhat wild at the best of times. Her hair was +gray, curly, and frizzy, and full of life, running into curls and +eddies, even when the most decorous attempts had been made to get it +into order. On this occasion, when she had walked, and walked quickly, +in the teeth of a breeze which had dragged it out from under her +bonnet, and twisted it up in her veil, her broad white forehead shone +out among the unruly locks with greater solidity and breadth than ever. +She had an eager heartiness of manner which corresponded with her +wind-tossed aspect. Her clear brown eyes shone with the excitement of +her mission. When she came into the orderly room it was as if a fresh +breeze had been let loose there. She rushed up to Mrs. Tremenheere, put +her hands on her shoulders, and gave her a kiss upon either cheek. + +“Why, Ada,” she said, “what is this? What have you been doing? Do you +mean it, or are you only frightening this poor man?” + +“What poor man? Of course it is you, Nelly. No one else comes in like a +gale.” + +“I have come to puff the cobwebs away,” said Miss Meadows. “I have had a +penitent husband with me this morning. Fancy! you may imagine how very +droll I found it that he should appeal to me.” + +“Before you go further, let us understand each other,” said her friend, +steadily. “The poor man and the penitent husband do not of course mean +Mr. Tremenheere. Any one else you please you can speak of so, but not +him.” + +“Ada, he has been making me his confidant. It is very strange, I allow, +but still he has done it. Are you both out of your senses, or what on +earth do you mean?” + +“We mean, my dear Nelly, as he has taken you into his confidence, to do +the wisest thing we have done for a long time--to withdraw amicably from +each other’s society. I don’t know what he may have said to you, but +this is really how it is. We differ very much in sentiment and opinion. +We have different ways of regarding things. He considers all subjects by +their bearing on society,--I for what they are in themselves. This makes +frequent dissensions between us. We don’t seem able to modify our views, +or rather, our way of looking at life, and we cannot allow the children +to grow up in constant presence of that which, while it is only +reasonable controversy to us, will look like strife and discord to them. +There! you have the whole affair in a nutshell, as Mr. Tremenheere +says.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere warmed unconsciously as she spoke, and her voice +quivered till it ended in a little outburst. She was perfectly +self-possessed, but not unmoved or callous. In the little tremblings of +her dress, in the slight vibration of her head when she ceased speaking, +in the movements of her hand, she betrayed excitement which was almost +passionate, though so powerfully restrained. + +“Ada, I don’t know what you have been quarrelling about,” said the +intercessor, with deprecating meekness of speech, “but I could see he is +very sorry. If he has provoked you badly, as I suppose, I could almost +promise he will never do it again. Come, Ada----” + +“Is it Mr. Tremenheere you are speaking of, as if he was a child who had +gone wrong? I cannot allow it--this is taking an entirely false view of +the subject.” + +“Upon my word! and so because he is _your_ husband no one is to say a +word about him. You will quarrel with him yourself, but to others he +shall be a demigod!” said Miss Meadows. “_I_ don’t care for the man. I +never did, as you know. I don’t care for men generally. There is not +good enough in them, to make amends for the trouble they give. It is +just like you. At all times everything that was yours was better than +anybody else’s. But I am not going to be put down; I have a mission, and +I must do my duty to my principal. Come, Ada, be reasonable. Fight it +out and be done with it. After all, I don’t suppose he is any worse than +other people. He likes his own way, and so do you, and I, and all of us. +That is why I never understood your marriage at all, for any one more +determined to be in the right than you are I never saw. Give in a +little, and things will come round.” + +At this moment the door slowly opened, and the small figure of Vera, +fully equipped, appeared, framed in by the doorway. The child stood in +her little velvet coat and furs, her little hat, with its long feather +pushed off her forehead, everything perfect and carefully arranged about +her, an example of luxury and warmth and comfort. But Vera, though she +loved her best hat as a little woman ought, was not thinking of it for +the moment. She stood on the threshhold of the room and searched it with +widening eyes of wonder and anxiety and dismay. The changes on her +little countenance amused the visitor, who had stopped short in her +speech to look at the child. All expectation, pleasure and brightness, +just clouded with the suspense of a moment, was the little face when it +first appeared; then the blue eyes grew bigger and searched with a +slight shade of fear in them; then the corners of her mouth began to +droop. “Perhaps he is in the library,” said Vera, slowly. “It is not +possible that he can have forgotten;” and then the little mouth +quivered, and a shower of quick tears came down in a moment. “But no, +no; Aunt Elinor is there, and he does not like her, and she has +frightened him away.” + +“I am much obliged to you, Vera,” said Miss Meadows, laughing; “but on +the contrary, my dear, your father likes me very well, and it is he who +has sent me----” + +“To take us to meet him,” cried the child, with a sudden recovery of +sunshine, despising all probabilities; upon which a gruffer voice arose +behind her, and Eddy said curtly, himself unseen: “He never intended it. +I told you so. Vera, come along and don’t cry!” + +“Your papa is very busy; he was obliged to go out early. I will remind +him when he comes home,” said Mrs. Tremenheere. + +Vera rushed into the room and pulled off her best hat violently, pulling +off along with it the pretty ribbon that tied her hair. She clenched her +fists like a little fury, looking out through a mist of shiny locks with +tears and rage in her eyes, and stamped her little foot on the carpet. +“Eddy said so,” she cried, “but I could not believe him. I would not +believe him. Oh, isn’t it dreadful; isn’t it shameful! To break his +word: You would kill me for it if it was me.” + +“Vera, you forget yourself,” said her mother. + +“But I don’t forget my promises!” cried the child, “and why should big +people be let do things which children musn’t! No, I shan’t come, Eddy. +I’ll stay here. I don’t want to go out. I don’t care for anything. I +have had a disappointment;” and Vera marched to a corner of the room and +sat down, gloomily turning her face to the wall. + +The two women looked on with more interest than the situation warranted, +Vera ought to have been whipped, I allow; but the circumstances gave a +certain changed character to her childish petulance. Elinor Meadows went +up to her friend and stood over her chair, stooping to whisper that the +child might not hear. “If you carry out your intentions,” she said, +feeling herself to be delivering a stroke against which no woman could +have any defence, “what is to be done about _them_? Are they to be +divided and separated like your other goods? Ada, Ada, you can never +have thought of that.” + +“I have thought of little else,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a twitching +about her lips. “Of course it is the chief thing to think of. It has +been my thought night and day. In the ordinary way of arranging such +matters Vera would go with me, and Eddy with his father; but----” + +“But----?” + +“If you only knew how long and how much I have thought of it! Yes--if I +had Vera I should bring her up to be like myself--and I am not such a +great success as I might have been, Nelly; while his father would chill +Eddy into a nobody, and leave him to grow up as he pleased, or as his +schoolmaster pleased. But Mr. Tremenheere is proud of _the child_.” +Here Mrs. Tremenheere’s voice grew choked, and for the moment she broke +down. + +“Ada,” cried her friend, “for heaven’s sake don’t be obstinate. Why +should you bring all this pain upon yourself?” + +“I do it for the best,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, faintly; then she +recovered her tone of authority. “There is, I believe a principle in +human nature which makes men kinder to women (in the abstract) and women +kinder to men than either are to their own sex--at least such is the +general opinion. Bringing up Vera would be to me a matter of course; one +knows all about it--it is a thing of routine; as we were trained +ourselves--or exactly the reverse--we train our daughters; but a +boy--that requires thought. Therefore, Nelly, it is my opinion that I +could do most justice to Eddy.” + +“And Vera?” said Miss Meadows, “she whom you call _the child_? I know +she is the apple of your eye, however you may choose to deny it; is Mr. +Tremenheere, do you think, likely to do the most justice to her?” + +Vera’s mother bore her friend’s satirical gaze for a moment, then she +put up her hands and covered her face. Vera, who was sitting somewhat +sullen on a stool in the corner after her outbreak, her pretty hair +dishevelled, and her pretty face stained with crying, had begun to wake +up from the monotony of a fit of ill-temper, which had lasted two whole +minutes, and as her eyes began to wander round the room in search of +some excitement, she suddenly perceived this group, which surprised her. +Elinor Meadows, with her finger elevated in the air, scolding--as Vera +thought--and mamma crying. Such an extraordinary concatenation of +circumstances had never happened to her knowledge before. She started up +from her seat, and threw herself between them. + +“Aunt Elinor!” cried Vera, thrusting her small person in front of her +mother. “You can tell _me_ what it is if you want to scold--but you +shan’t make mamma cry.” + +Upon this Elinor, strong-minded woman as she was, began to whimper too. + +“Child, you are a darling!” she cried, making a sudden attempt to kiss +her; which Vera repulsed, standing up like a little lioness, at her +mother’s knee. + +Then Mrs. Tremenheere raised her head, and putting an arm round her +little defender, drew Vera to her side. Vera deserved that whipping all +the same, I do not deny, and her mother knew it; but it was not in human +courage to administer it now. She took the little impatient hand which +had been raised in her defence, and held it between her own and kissed +it. Though she had so much self-command it took her some time to clear +her voice. + +“Mr. Tremenheere is a good man,” she said, still faltering. “He will do +as I mean to do myself. He will feel that it is a new thing, and that he +does not understand it, and he will study what is best.” + +“But for a girl! A man, without any experience or understanding, left in +charge of a girl!” + +“Hush!” said Mrs. Tremenheere. + +Vera turned round from one to the other, her eyes widening once more +with curiosity and eagerness. “Something is going to happen,” she said. +“Mamma, tell me what it is?” + +“I cannot tell you yet, dear, for I don’t know. Go, Vera, Eddy is +calling you.--Who has taught her that something is going to happen?” she +said, with a sigh, when they had watched the child’s unwilling +departure. She herself looked so melancholy and depressed that Elinor +saw her opportunity. She was of an oratorical turn, and, indeed had +given some attention to the art of public speaking. She withdrew a step +for the greater effect, and shaking her curly gray locks off her broad +fair forehead, began: + +“Ada! What kind of a woman are you? flesh and blood or rock and stone, +to look at that child and leave her, and make up your mind in cold blood +to give her up! I say nothing about your boy. He won’t talk to me; I +don’t understand him. Mothers have weaknesses for their boys which are +inexplicable; the most uninteresting, speechless, stolid beings! (I +don’t mean Eddy) and yet women will stand by them--for no reason but an +accident of birth--while a child like that!---- If she was mine, they +should cut me in little pieces before I parted with her. They should +take everything else I possess. Ada! I tell you, if she was mine I +should not care for all the men in the world. I should take her, +whatever they did--steal her, if it was necessary; run away, hide +myself; but part with her!--never--not for the world!” + +“I see what you mean,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a trembling voice; +“don’t take the devil’s part and tempt me. I must be just. There are two +of us, and two of them, father and mother, boy and girl. He has a right +to his share as well as I. We must be just. If it is barbarous to give +all to the father, it would be equally barbarous to give all to the +mother. Nelly, say no more! that would be a crime.” + +“Then I should risk the crime,” cried Elinor. “I should care nothing for +justice in comparison with Vera. Bah! abstract justice! who minds it? It +is a thing to frighten babies with. Do you think Mr. Tremenheere would +mind about justice, if he could get the better of you?” + +“You are talking of my husband,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with dignity, +“besides, if he were to do wrong a hundred times (which he would not) +that would be no excuse for me. I will do him no injustice, whatever +happens.” + +“Then put up with him, Ada! It is your only alternative. Good heavens! +what does it matter? An argument more or less, a discussion here or +there. You have always been fond of argument. Make it up! For my part, +I’d almost marry him myself,” cried Elinor, in a burst of energy, “to +have that child--and you have married him, and got all the worst over. +Make it up, Ada; don’t be foolish--make up!” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE BREACH ACCOMPLISHED. + + +Before Christmas it was all over. Christmas! Perhaps we make a good deal +of unnecessary fuss about this festival--not that the associations about +it, the traditions of universal kindness and good-will which, +fortunately for us, are so English, and still more fortunately are more +or less so honestly carried out, can ever be exaggerated. Yet it is no +doubt true that the universal jollity, the rude fun and sometimes +mawkish sentiment which have got to be associated with the name, just as +often disgust and sadden as delight those who have learned by time or +trouble that Christmas does not always bring the reunion and happiness +which are supposed to be its particular privilege. Alas! on the +contrary, how sharply it reminds some of us of gaps not to be filled +again, of empty places, of life diminished and wearing out! But whether +we do rightly or not in making a saturnalia of its homely delights, +certain it is that of all times to choose for a parting, Christmas is +the least appropriate. I don’t think Mrs. Tremenheere thought of this; +she had so many things to think about, how should she remember dates? It +was the morning of the 24th of December, but she had forgotten, so full +was her mind of other things, that the 24th of December was Christmas +eve. She went away in the afternoon in a cab to the railway station, +with Eddy by her side, dull and lowering and miserable, not knowing why +she was so unhappy. No explanations had been entered into with the +children. Mrs. Tremenheere was in reality so miserable that she desired +to avoid dramatic effect as far as this was possible, and her husband, +naturally, as a man and an Englishman, hated scenes. So the curious boy +and girl, full of secret interest in the something going on which was +not confided to them, were put off with the intimation that mamma was +going away for a time, taking Eddy with her, while Vera was to stay at +home to “take care of papa.” Eddy for one was never taken in by this +false explanation, but Vera in the delight of her own importance, +contrived to stave off her vague inquietude on the subject, and accepted +it. The boy’s inquietude was equally vague, but it was stronger. He felt +himself a very forlorn waif and stray as the dreary cab traversed the +streets, where all the shops were decked for Christmas, and where so +many holiday parties were wandering about, looking in at the shop +windows for their Christmas presents. “Mamma,” he said at last, when his +heart was too full to bear the pressure longer, “isn’t it very odd to +leave home to-day when to-morrow is Christmas?” A big tear was forming +in the corner of his eye. He did not like to look up at her, lest she +should see it, or lest--still more terrible possibility--it should fall. + +Mrs. Tremenheere put her arm round him. I will not say that she was in +much better plight than Eddy was, though a strong sense of duty held her +up. Something was choking in her throat which was not exactly the fog, +and her heart was wrung with a sterner pang. She paused a moment, to be +quite firm and collected, and drew him close to her. “Yes,” she said, +“it is very odd, very odd; but I can’t help it, Eddy.” There was a kind +of apology, a kind of appeal in her voice, and it went to Eddy’s heart, +who vaguely comprehended, though it would have been utterly impossible +for him to put in words what it was he felt and understood. He crouched +himself up close against his mother, and caressed the hand that was +round him, and allowed those two tears with which his eyes were big to +drop upon it; and thus the pain in both was a little softened and +sweetened, though the child was as far from understanding intellectually +what the woman had in her mind as if they had been creatures of +different species. But to go away to a hotel in Brighton through the +cold, through the wintry dimness and brightness, through the crowds of +travellers that encumbered every railway, the clusters of happy holiday +people, and all the hampers and all the presents--one must have done it +to know what it is. Mrs. Tremenheere bought some Christmas numbers of +various periodicals at the station to amuse the boy. They were all about +meetings, dances, mistletoe, wanderers returning and hard hearts +relenting, and every kind of revolution made in every kind of life by +the simple agency of Christmas carols, snow, church-bells and sentiment. +“Merry Christmas!” the very shops flaunted at them in big print. “Merry +Christmas!” the porter said when he got his sixpence. And so the +strong-minded woman and her boy went off into the yellow misty distance +which led to Brighton, if you please, but which was the cold outside +world,--outside of home. + +Elinor Meadows joined them next day, in the strange hotel looking out +upon the quay, which Mrs. Tremenheere had chosen as the first step in +her self-banishment. It was not that Miss Meadows had not many cheerful +houses to which to go for Christmas, but being a kind-hearted soul, as +well as a strong-minded woman, she preferred to come to Brighton, and +spend the festival in the dismallest way, over the fire in a +sitting-room of a big vulgar inn, with her depressed and somewhat +irritable friend. Never was a work more worthy of a good Samaritan. She +came in the middle of the day, after church, which was the only cheerful +portion of the Christmas to poor Eddy. The holly-berries and the wreaths +pleased the child, and the Christmas hymns which he could sing, and +which did him good, till they came out of church into the dreary world +again. To be sure, Eddy wanted a hundred times during the service to +nudge Vera, and call her attention to a bit of decoration that pleased +him, or to the little girl in the next pew who fell asleep, or to the +clergyman curtesying to the altar in his long cassock and surplice, or +some one of the other anythings, nothings, that caught his childish +eyes; but still church is church, wherever you are, and not so terribly +dull as a strange place far from home. And then it was a hopeless sort +of Christmas day, with neither sunshine nor frost, such as are orthodox +and befitting, but a drizzling dull rain, and skies so low, so leaden, +and so cloudy that they seemed to Eddy to be coming down upon him, +threatening to crush him every minute. After Elinor came (whom the +children called Aunt Elinor, for friendship’s sake, though there was no +relationship between them), it grew duller and duller for Eddy. He had +not anything to do with the conversation of his mother and her friend, +which was carried on in subdued tones, and with occasional warning +glances from one to the other at himself, which showed him that he was +in the way--upon which, being proud, Eddy gathered together the +Christmas papers his mother had bought him, and drew a chair to the +window, in front of which he placed himself, shutting out half of the +gray and stifled daylight there was, and pored over first one and then +another of his stories, wondering to himself rather why all those tales +were of people who came back, and not one of people who went away just +at Christmas. He read and read, hearing behind him the murmur of the two +voices, the sound of the sparkling, crackling fire, and seeing, when by +chance he lifted his eyes, the gray sea breaking in a muddy soiled rim +of white upon the gray pebbles, and the street, which looked like a very +dismal Sunday street--“only rather more so,” Eddy thought. But he did +not often raise his eyes. He read on and on, one tale after another, +scarcely quite sure where one ended and another began, till the monotony +of his reading and of the lapping waves outside, and the murmuring +voices within, lulled the lonely boy into a kind of dream. + +The ladies had drawn their chairs to the fire; they had eaten their +luncheon, they had done their best to be cheerful; and now the floods of +remark and criticism and question which were in Elinor’s mind could be +contained no longer. She began even before poor Eddy withdrew, leaving +them at liberty; and showed her sympathy, as so many friends do, by +taunt and sudden reproach. + +“Well,” she said, “you have done it now. It is all over, and every place +of repentance comfortably cut off. How do you like it? You have given up +your husband to confusion and remorse. You have left your child----” + +“Mr. Tremenheere has nothing to be remorseful about,” said his wife, +with a slight shiver, turning away from the last suggestion. “You +mistake the matter altogether, Elinor. You do not understand either me +or him. I blame him for nothing. He has no need to be remorseful on my +account.” + +“Then why, in the name of heaven, did you go away? I never believed you +would carry it out. I expected you to threaten and frighten him, and +then to relent.” + +“That is to say,” cried Mrs. Tremenheere, “that you expected me to do +exactly what the woman does whom you find fault with in books, and are +indignant about as a man’s idea of women. You expect me to say things I +don’t mean, and do the reverse of what I say, and act like a creature +without conscience, or honor, or moral responsibility.” + +“Ada! No, I don’t do anything of the sort. Don’t please come down upon +an unoffending person in that way. I don’t quite see why, in a case +where the feelings are concerned, you should not act as a great many +other people act, who are not without honor or conscience.” + +“I may be wrong,” said Mrs. Tremenheere. “No one is free from the risk +of taking a wrong view, but to threaten anything without meaning to do +it is not possible to me. This seemed to me right----” + +“Yes, yes, I know,” said Elinor. “We need not discuss it over again. +Isn’t there a book which is called ‘He Knew He was Right?’ We must put +it the other way now. You are right and you are satisfied. And now what +are you going to do? You can’t stay always here.” + +“No, I am going--to devote myself to _his_ education.” + +She would not say Eddy’s name to attract his attention. Was he not +happily unconscious, absorbed in his Christmas stories? so, at least, +she thought. + +“That too is abstract, Ada. Don’t tell me where you mean to go unless +you like--but give me some idea of your plans.” + +“I have not any yet. I must find out what is best.” + +“Put him to school, Ada. That is always best for boys. Put him to some +good school, and then when you are free of responsibility, come abroad +with me. I have been thinking of it all the morning. You want change, +you want refreshment. You have been worried and tired. Get the boy +comfortably disposed of, so that you need have no anxiety about him, and +come with me.” + +“Get him comfortably disposed of, where I shall have no anxiety about +him!” Mrs. Tremenheere repeated slowly, with a smile. + +“Yes,” said Elinor, suspecting no sarcasm in her tone, “it would be the +very thing to do. That is the chief good of children at his age; you can +dispose of them in so satisfactory a way. Vera under the care of her +father, Eddy at school; and then you and I----” + +“Can go and enjoy ourselves?” Said Mrs. Tremenheere with a forced laugh. + +“Why not? Of course we should enjoy ourselves. Don’t you recollect, +before you were married, that trip we took? I was not much more than a +girl, and how I did enjoy it! I never thought there would be such luck +for me again. Come, Ada, now you are free, with only the boy to dispose +of, this is the very thing to do. We might start almost at once; stay at +Nice or Cannes, to rest ourselves a little, and then on to Rome.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere rose before eager Elinor had got this length, and began +to walk about the room in an agitated way. Then she went across to where +Eddy, in front of the window, had dropped half asleep over the stories, +with the monotony and the misery and the stillness. She woke him up +bending over him, taking his curly head between her hands and kissing +his forehead, a caress which the drowsy, confused child responded to by +stumbling from his chair with a sudden start, and all but knocking her +down. + +“Mamma!” cried Eddy, overpowered, and beginning in spite of his manhood, +to cry without knowing it. + +“Yes, my darling,” she said, with quivering lips, soothing him. Elinor +sat still, turning round in her chair, gazing eagerly at her, not +knowing what it all meant. What had this sudden demonstration to do with +what she had been saying--with that plan of hers which would be so +pleasant and so easily carried out? + +While Eddy and his mother got through this dreary Christmas afternoon a +great many things had happened to Vera. She had managed to keep herself +going all the previous day. A lively, vivacious, independent +disposition, and a great sense of importance were as wings to the little +heroine. She gave herself a great many airs, to the pitying wonder and +admiration of the servants, who, I need not say, were indignant beyond +the power of utterance at Mrs. Tremenheere. Vera walked about over the +house to see that everything was ready for her father when it came to be +time for his return. She interfered with the butler in laying out his +things in his dressing-room. She interfered with the cook, requesting to +know what was ordered for dinner, and suggesting an additional pudding +“out of her own head.” She went to the dining-room and insisted upon +helping to arrange the dessert. Her mind was full of a lofty +determination to make her father so comfortable that “he should not miss +mamma!” Accordingly she took care to remove his claret from the fire +where it had been carefully placed, and let fall the bottle, which was +warm, from her small fingers. + +“If it hadn’t a been for the hearthrug, miss, you’d have broke it, and +spilt the wine all over the floor,” said Jervis. + +“But why do you put it there? Gentlemen take ice in their wine, they +don’t like it hot!” cried Vera, stamping her foot, as she saw it put +back again. “Take it away, take it away!” + +Then when Mr. Tremenheere came in, Vera placed herself at the table +beside him, and pressed him to eat of every dish, especially the pudding +she had ordered. + +“I told cook to make it myself, papa.” + +“Then you had better have some of it,” he said, and Vera was nothing +loth. She sat with him while he took his wine, chattering without pause +or intermission, and she led him up-stairs and made tea for him, her +little heart beating with a mingled pain and pleasure which she did not +analyze, poor child, but which excited her as either sensation unmingled +seldom does. + +“When mamma comes back you can tell her how I took care of you,” she +cried in triumph. “I do love to pour out your tea, papa!” + +All this touched him beyond description with a strange little flavor of +sharp sweetness amid a great deal of pain. Mr. Tremenheere felt the +world’s comments hanging over him, felt that already the servants were +all “sitting upon” himself and his private affairs, and that ere a day +had passed “everybody” in the narrow sense that belongs to that word in +society, would be aware of what had happened, and would discuss them +too. How was he to face their remarks, what account was he to give even +to his best friends? “Incompatibility of temper;” but how few people +would believe that there was not something else below that well-worn +plea? Some _faux pas_ on her part, some atrocity on his--which was being +veiled on one side or the other. As it was, he was very irritable to +the servants, and launched out upon poor Jervis about that very claret +which he had saved from Vera’s meddling little hands. + +“But, Lord bless you, to see her there a setting beside him, comforting +of him, I hadn’t the heart to say as it was Miss Vera’s fault,” that +dignitary said, when he went down-stairs; “and though he’s in the +devil’s own temper, I could’nt stand up to him, not to-night. Poor +beggar, it ain’t very nice for him, whatever you may say.” Nobody, +however, down-stairs took up this challenge, or had a word to say in +favor of Mrs. Tremenheere. She was universally condemned. + +“A woman as thinks of herself first didn’t ought to have children,” said +cook, who was a great domestic authority. + +“And how any woman as hadn’t a heart of stone could go and leave my +little Duckie!” whimpered the nurse. + +In short the house was in a state of moral indignation. But Vera went to +bed, straight from the drawing-room, after tea, supported by her own +elation; and only wept two or three tears when she remembered that +mamma would not come to kiss after she was asleep. + +Next morning, however, it was different. Mr. Tremenheere did not go to +church, but he stayed at home with a sullen respect for the festival +which was so far from being a festival to him. What a day it was! A +drizzling dull Christmas, with scarcely anybody about the streets, the +shops shut, the houses either shut up or turned outside in, as it were, +everything cheerful being concentrated in doors. Vera came down full of +prattle to breakfast, but her father replied to her with an effort. He +was very kind, and kissed her, and gave her a little locket which he had +bought for her for Christmas, and which made her quite happy for five +minutes; but after that he let the child run on without any reply, and +got impatient when she clamored for an answer. “Hush child, I am busy,” +he said. As soon as he had finished his breakfast he went off to the +library to write letters; and Vera went up-stairs, her heart sinking +more and more, and sat down on the carpet close to one of the long +drawing-room windows. She leaned her poor little head against the pane, +looking out. There were only a few people passing under dripping +umbrellas. Everybody who was not out of town was at church, or else +preparing for the festivities of the evening. The house was very still; +there were no preparations going on in Hyde Park Square. Vera’s little +heart sank lower and lower--all the world seemed to ebb away from +her,--mother, brother, even nurse and cook; only herself and her father +remained, two forlorn and shipwrecked people. There came into Vera’s +mind a picture of the Flood, which she had seen somewhere, in which two +people perched on the smallest point of rock were holding by each other. +“Like me and poor papa!” she said to herself, with a rising sob in her +lonely little bosom. Just at that moment, however, she heard her +father’s voice down-stairs. + +“I am going out,” Mr. Tremenheere was saying. “Probably I shall dine +out. You needn’t prepare anything; and tell nurse to look after Miss +Vera.” When nurse did go, very ill-tempered to have her holiday thus +interfered with, she found Vera lying on the floor, crying her little +heart out. The loneliness had swallowed up all her little bravery, her +resolution and courage. She put her hand to the locket round her neck +to try and console herself; but even that did not reanimate her failing +spirit. Poor little Vera! It was she now who was on that peak alone, +with the hurrying muddy waters sweeping round her, and nobody to lay +hold of. She sank down like a weak little unfledged bird. Was mamma in +that cruel ark, floating, floating away, taking no thought for her? Love +and help and kindness seemed to have abandoned the child. Her pretty +hair was ruffled, her eyes blind with tears; she laid down her head and +thought she would die. And it was Christmas day! + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +EDUCATION. + + +Whether Mrs. Tremenheere had any foundation of justice in the theory +which made her take her boy’s education in hand instead of her girl’s, I +cannot venture to say; but in the meantime the poor children had a +troubled interval to go through. She devoted herself to Eddy, walking +with him, superintending his lessons, doing everything the most anxious +care could do. The toys she bought him, the books she accumulated, the +common people with children whose acquaintance she permitted herself to +make on her boy’s account, that he might have some one to play with, are +not to be described. And she had a tutor for him, who came daily and +drove him quickly along the stony ways of learning, and took him out for +walks upon the Downs, and told his mother he was one of the brightest +of boys, not convincing her much, though he pleased her by so saying. +She had settled herself in Brighton with the express idea that it would +be good for him and cheerful, and I cannot tell with what anxiety, poor +soul, she watched over him, straining every faculty to amuse and cheer +him. But the more she devoted herself to Eddy the paler and quieter he +grew. He became as mild as a little invalid, and weak, though there was +nothing the matter with him. He clung to his mother, as sick children +do, stealing his hand into her’s when he walked with her, pressing close +up to her when she talked to any one, never leaving her when he could +help it, he who had been so little amenable to female government in +those old days at home. She perceived it and yet she did not perceive +it, as people do who resolutely shut their eyes and will not see; and it +was again her friend Elinor who first really called her attention to the +state of affairs, which had then lasted more than a year. + +“Do you remember telling me your ideas about men training girls and +women boys?” said Elinor. Eddy was in the room with them as usual. It +was a warm day in the early spring, and the boy sat half out in the +balcony, with a book over which he pored. He heard what they were +saying, and yet did not hear, in his abstracted way. + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, raising herself up. “What then? You have +seen my Vera, Elinor!” + +“I have seen her; but that is not what I was thinking of.” + +“What were you thinking of? Her letters are full of bright spirits, and +amusing, as she always was. Is her father not doing his duty to her? +Tell me, tell me, Nelly!” + +“She is very well--quite well. I was not thinking of anything so far +off.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere sat upright on her chair, very upright, grasping as it +were instinctively for her weapons of defence. “You are thinking of me?” + +Elinor stretched out her oratorical right hand. “Look at that child, +Ada! is that a good specimen of a woman’s training? You are bringing him +up entirely as you would bring up a girl. Look at the color of his +hands--are these like a boy’s hands? Look at his quiet timid way. You +are ruining him, both health and spirit. I don’t know what you mean by +it; while Vera, whom you could have managed----” + +“Nelly, you have heard something about my child.” + +She began to tremble, she who was so firm and steady. Somehow any +mistakes she herself might have made seemed so trivial, so easily +rectified, in comparison with the mistakes that might be made on the +other side. + +“It is not Vera,” said Elinor. “Vera is running wild; she is growing a +romp and a tomboy; but that is less harm. Her health will not suffer, +nor her mind much, at her age. But, Ada, look there! Is that pale, still +child, poring over his book, the sort of creature you wish your son to +be? You are bringing him up like a girl, not like a boy.” + +“I thought you and your friends maintained that there should be no +difference between girls and boys,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a faint +smile. She had received the arrow into her very heart; but she did not +mean to show it now, however it might affect her afterwards. She was too +proud all at once to own herself in the wrong. + +“You need not sneer about my friends,” said Miss Meadows, warmly. “I +thought, too, that you had been one of them, that you had yourself shown +some interest in such questions. I don’t care whether I am consistent or +not, any more than I care whether you are angry or not. Girls and boys +may be the same in the abstract, and it may be good for girls perhaps to +have more of a boy’s training; but for a boy to be thrown back into the +domestic bondage which I hope we shall break for girls, is monstrous--it +is a disgrace--it is against nature.” + +“Do you wish me to quarrel with you, Nelly?” + +“I don’t care whether you quarrel or not,” cried the orator, with a +large gesture of indifference. “Quarrel as you like, so long as you open +your eyes and see what you are doing to that boy.” + +After this there was a long pause. Elinor, somewhat agitated by her own +boldness, sat still and began to work with great but fatal ardor at a +piece of embroidery she found on the table, and to which she did untold +damage. She was so carried away by her feelings that she did not +perceive that her friend had left the room. But when Mrs. Tremenheere +came down-stairs again, though there were traces of emotion about her +face she was as friendly as ever. She had put on her hat, and invited +Elinor to come out for a walk. + +“Eddy, I see the Troutbeck boys going out to play cricket,” she said, +“could not you join them?” + +A flash of boyish triumph came into Eddy’s still eyes. + +“Cricket, mamma! What can you be thinking of? There is no cricket at +this time of the year.” + +“What does it matter for the name? They are going to play at something.” + +“Jumping, perhaps, or football. Some people still play football at this +season; or hare and hounds.” + +“What does it matter which it is? but it does matter that you should +play and get a little color in your cheeks.” + +“They are jumping,” said Eddy, from the window, with a sparkle of +energy, “but then there is a lot of them,” he added, falling back, “they +won’t want me.” + +“Nonsense--go!” said his mother, peremptorily. + +He got up from his book with reluctance. He did care for the jumping, +but was it worth while to disturb himself for that, or anything else? He +was quite comfortable and interested in his story. The two ladies stood +still and watched him creeping away, languid and indifferent. For the +first time Mrs. Tremenheere noticed the change in the boy. A great +wrinkle of anxiety came into her forehead. “Nelly, I am very much +obliged to you,” she cried. “What shall I do?” + +Miss Meadows glowed and expanded with the sense of victory. “Ada,” she +said, “it is not many people who have the sense to see where they have +been wrong. I always said you were no ordinary woman. Send him to +school, my dear--send him to school; let him be among other boys; try +him with wholesome neglect; and come off to Italy with me.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere listened very seriously till Elinor came to her last +clause, then she laughed, though her face was still clouded. “Come and +walk,” she said. + +In the meantime things were going on very differently, and yet with much +the same result, at Hyde Park Square. Mr. Tremenheere was very kind to +Vera when she came immediately under his notice. He still allowed her to +pour out his tea for him in the morning while he read his newspaper, and +had her down-stairs to amuse him after dinner, when now and then he +dined at home. But in a very short time after his wife left him, this +ceased to be his ordinary custom. He got over the scandal much better +than he had hoped. It had taken place when Society was out of town, and +therefore had passed comparatively without notice; and without much +difficulty he fell back into his bachelor habits. He had suffered more +at the moment than she did, but he did not suffer very much after it was +over, and when the secondary consequences he feared proved in great part +illusory. He had liked his old life, with all its varieties and +comforts, and now, notwithstanding the interval of ten years which he +had spent in trying to learn how to be happy otherwise, he took it up +again with unfeigned pleasure. Now and then a few men dined with him at +home, and then Vera would come down in her best frock, and chatter to +them, and do the honors with childish excitement, her eyes blazing with +the novelty and pride of her position. Mr. Tremenheere had been +considerably startled, it is not to be denied, by her talk on several of +these occasions, and one morning he remonstrated gently. + +“When there is company, as the servants say, a little girl of your age +should be very quiet, Vera. It is not to you, my dear, that my friends +look for amusement. You must be quiet and good, and answer when people +speak to you.” + +“Why, papa, they all like to talk to me best,” said Vera, tossing her +little head. “They all laugh and say I am clever. Why shouldn’t I talk? +I am very fond of talking. I talk to everybody, and that is why people +like me, and say I am not at all proud.” + +“What sort of people do you talk to?” said her father, half alarmed, +half amused. + +“Oh, all sorts of people; not only gentlemen, papa. When Nurse goes to +see her friends I go with her, and they all say it is nice of me not to +be proud. They are going to have a party in the kitchen to-night. It is +such fun. They have tea, and then they dance, and then they have supper, +and Nurse says if I am good I may stay to supper this time.” + +“This time!” said Mr. Tremenheere, with horror; “have you gone to +anything of the sort before?” + +“Oh yes, papa, several! I went with Nurse to the servants’ party next +door; but oh,” said Vera, suddenly, “I am afraid I ought not have talked +of it. I don’t think they like the masters to know.” + +Mr. Tremenheere rose and walked about the room in great agitation. Here +was an unlooked-for disclosure. For a moment he was quite appalled by +the discovery he had made. “Vera,” he said in a voice which trembled, +“you must promise not to go to this affair to-night.” + +“Papa! not to go!” cried Vera, the corners of her mouth dropping; “oh, +you can’t mean it! you can’t mean it! It is such a nice party, papa, and +they take such care of me. I sit next to Nurse or the cook always, and I +dance with the nicest people only. There was once somebody quite as +nicely dressed as you, and with beautiful diamond studs, and who could +speak French and do all sorts of things. Papa, you can’t mean it. Nurse +says it is the only party I ever have, and that it would be cruel to +send me to bed.” + +“The only party you ever have! I thought you went out a great deal, and +had a great many parties?” + +“Yes, baby parties; I don’t care for them,” said Vera, with serene +fatuity, looking her father in the face, and holding up her little head. + +After this a storm arose. Mr. Tremenheere sent for his three principal +functionaries, Jervis, the cook, and the nurse, and demanded to know how +they dared to take Miss Vera to their d---- parties. He was not a man +who interfered much in his household, and when he did so he was usually +calm and polite, a thing which the domestics understood much less and +resented much more deeply than the chance blasphemy, which they forgave +easily. Jervis stammered out excuses, and apologies, and protestations. +“As I was always against it, and knew it wasn’t no place for Miss Vera.” +Nurse retired in floods of tears, which threatened every moment to +become hysterics, and cook, who was hot-tempered, threw up her place. +Vera, very red and very angry, darted in front of the accused to defend +them. “Papa! when it was I who told you! They will never trust me any +more; they will think I am a traitor and betrayed them! Papa, you are +not to scold them, when it is all my fault!” + +“Take Miss Vera up-stairs,” said Mr. Tremenheere to the housemaid, who, +stood by. “Go at once without a word,” he cried, and very reluctantly +the child, still hot and red with excitement, was forced to obey. Vera +was shut up all day, and overwhelmed by reproaches from the nurse. “You +see what comes of it with your tongue, Miss,” cried this weeping +sufferer. “Can’t you never hold your tongue, as I’m a telling of you, +night and day? Them as can’t hold their tongues should never be let into +secrets, and it’s all over Miss Vera, I can tell you, between you and +me. No more parties in this house, nor no other house; no more cakes as +I asked cook to make for you--no more nice suppers. After this you’ll go +to bed at eight o’clock regular, as you used to in your mamma’s time, +and when you feel to want something nice you needn’t look to me. And +here’s poor cook losing her good place along of your chatter!” she +added, discharging this last arrow with full confidence in its effect. +There was no party in the house that night; but nobody informed Vera of +this fact, which might have been partially consolatory. She was put to +bed, and left there in solitude to cry her eyes out, no one coming near +her. “Oh, mamma, mamma!” cried poor little Vera, forlorn in the +darkness. Her mother was miles off, and could not hear; her father was +at his club; the servants were having an indignation supper down-stairs, +four stories off, and there was nobody to say a word of consolation to +the poor little abandoned girl. + +However, after these very different scenes, both husband and wife set +themselves to think on the subject, as Mrs. Tremenheere had predicted. +“He shall not say that the boy is ruined by a woman’s training,” she +said to herself; and “She shall not taunt me that I have not been able +to look after the girl,” said Mr. Tremenheere. This delightful spirit of +opposition worked strongly in concert with other feelings more laudable, +for indeed both parents were fond of their children, in their different +ways. Mrs. Tremenheere’s part was the easiest of the two, and she took +her steps promptly. The very next day after that revelation had been +made to her, she went off to one of the great public schools and put +Eddy’s name down, and began herself to look for a house in the +neighborhood, for she did not mean to throw the boy off entirely, as her +childless friend thought right and expedient. Before Easter, at which +time Eddy began his school-life, she had found the house she wanted, a +villa on a hillside, which was not high indeed, but which had all the +advantages of much greater height, since it looked over a great plain of +rich cultivated country, fields, and hedges, and fine trees, and red +farmhouses, with here and there a great mansion gleaming away into the +far distance, till it got indistinct like the sea, and almost as +suggestive. Here she settled and furnished her house, which was +agreeable work, and tossed the pale boy into the sea of life and youth +close by--where he soon ceased to be pale. + +Mr. Tremenheere, poor man, had a more difficult task. The first thing he +did was to reflect bitterly upon his wife’s abandonment of her natural +duty. “It is just like a woman,” he said to himself through his teeth. +“They profess to love their children beyond everything, and yet they +will give up their children rather than give in or own themselves +wrong.” But this reflection, though it was in its way satisfactory, did +not help him to the solution of his problem. How was he to bring up his +daughter? In his perplexity he betook himself wisely to a friend who was +a clergyman, and had to do with all kind of educational and benevolent +institutions. “I suppose I want a governess,” he said. “She must be old +to avoid scandal, and well educated and so forth, but chiefly she must +be a dragon--recollect this. She must never relax, night or day. I will +have my girl well looked after; that is one thing I am determined on. A +woman who will suspect everything, believe nothing, and keep an eye upon +her for ever.” + +“Surely this is going too far. It is against the spirit of the time. +Everything tends to emancipate women, Tremenheere, not to make slaves of +them.” + +“I hate the spirit of the time,” he said. “I hate your enlightened +women, that know the world as well as we do. I want my girl to be of the +old type. I want her to be seen and not heard, like our grandmothers. +And therefore I want a dragon for her governess--a woman that will allow +nothing out of the regulation in point of propriety--an iceberg, a +machine, whatever you please, but one that will guard the child, and +watch her and make her incapable of mischief. Now, if you have any +regard for me, bestir yourself and find out what I want.” + +“I have her,” said the clergyman, sighing. “So few people want dragons +nowadays that I feared she would have to fall back upon the Home, poor +lady. But, as that is what you want--only I don’t think you’ll find it +successful with a high-spirited child like Vera.” + +“Vera’s high spirits must come down,” said her father. “I want a soft, +submissive, yielding girl, and not a self-opinionated being that will +set up for a mind of her own. What do they want with minds of their +own?” + +“Tremenheere, you speak like a Turk.” + +“Perhaps I feel like one,” he said, dismissing the subject with a forced +laugh. And this was how he found his way out of the dilemma. Miss +Campbell arrived at the end of the week, a tall, severe Scotswoman, with +a large nose and high cheekbones. She was over fifty, and she had been +trained in the belief that young ladies ought to be kept in absolute +subjection. A girl who had no will but that of her parents, and who +consulted her mother with her eyes before she took a piece of bread and +butter, was Miss Campbell’s ideal; she was exactly the kind of person to +satisfy Mr. Tremenheere. + +Thus father and mother entered at the same time into the right way, or +into what they thought to be the right way; and the two experiments of +education began. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CAPTAIN OF THE ELEVEN. + + +A bright July day, early in the month, with London still full, and all +the world weary yet toiling on, more or less, in the treadmill work of +society; such a day as revives the toilers in that everlasting round, +and breathes into hundreds of worn-out minds an air of freshness, waking +them up from the fatigue of their pleasures and of their disgust. Stands +all round, with ladies ranged one row above another like banks of +flowers, carriages thronging twenty deep, and crowds standing in a deep +inner ring. But it is not a race-course, like Ascot or Epsom. It is in +the heart of London; and all these thousands of fine people surround a +green smooth lawn, on which a set of lads are playing--no such great +matter, one would suppose, and little comprehensible to a foreigner. +Yet surely this is one of the most innocent, the kindliest of all freaks +of fashion. The fine ladies are turned as by magic into mothers and +sisters. They have their parasols and their dresses and their horses’ +heads trimmed with symbolical ribbons. Many of the younger ones watch +the game with an anxiety as great as if the welfare of the kingdom +depended upon it; and the men, world-worn men from all sorts of unlikely +places, men from the clubs and the public offices, and Parliament, and +business, carry their ensigns too, if not so openly, in some snip of +blue somewhere about them, a forget-me-not in a button-hole, a tassel to +an umbrella. And this is all, need I say, for Eton against Harrow, the +Public Schools Match. Not to a hundredth part of these crowds is it +given to have a personal interest in the sublime band on either side. +But as every smallest imp, with his knot of blue ribbon, feels himself +Eton or Harrow impersonated against all the world, so all the elder +people stand by the school to which they are vaguely attached in the +person of that smallest of schoolboys, with as much fervor as if they +belonged to the Captain of the Eleven. But those who do belong to the +Captain of the Eleven--those who can with exultant yet anxious eyes +follow the apparition of that demigod, as he comes and goes--who can +describe the feelings that agitate their bosoms? Such feelings had full +sway on the special occasion to which we refer, in a certain modest +carriage, holding two ladies, which occupied one of the places in the +front rank at Lord’s, carefully placed there before daylight to make +sure of a good view. The elder lady in it took but little interest in +what was going on, but then, though the elder, she was the least +important, and her young companion was entirely absorbed in the scene. +She was but sixteen, dressed in the simplest demure costume of white, +and sometimes whiter still than her dress with agitation, sometimes all +flushed and rose-red with excitement. Her eyes, her whole soul, her +whole heart were fixed on the game and the players. Her young bosom gave +a great throb whenever there was a good hit on her own side. Her heart +sank when the good hit was on the other. She had neither sight, nor +hearing, nor understanding for anything else. And who will wonder? She +was the sister of the Captain of the Eleven. It is unnecessary to say +which of the blues that captain wore. Tremenheere had played once before +for his school, but as this was almost by an accident, and not known +until the last moment, “his people” did not have the glory of it as they +ought; but with full announcement and preparation the once backward +Eddy, the boy whom his mother had spoilt, burst suddenly upon the world +now. And everything else was dwarfed to Vera by this event. All other +honors and delights grew dim before it. She watched her brother (whom +she scarcely knew) with a strange enthusiasm, and eagerness, and anxiety +which it is impossible to describe. How could she bear to see him +beaten? If life and death had been on it she could not have taken it +more seriously. Her hand was on the door of the carriage, sometimes +trembling, sometimes holding it tight with agony when the other side +seemed to be making progress; the pretty girlish figure bent a little +forward, her eyes intent, never losing a movement, seeing nothing, +hearing nothing, unaware who came near her, who passed, even who spoke +to her,--and all this for a cricket match! But then it was much more +than a cricket match for Vera. Her brother seemed to her the very +foremost young man in England. Had not he and his comrades eclipsed all +other incidents in busy London on this hot day? Parliament itself was +diminished. There was nobody in the Row; afternoon teas were as good as +done away with; telegrams from hour to hour appeared in all the papers; +the streets were full of the two different blues. What wonder that Vera, +only sixteen, should think her brother the very greatest personage that +ever girl belonged to? She looked at the card in her hand now and then +when Edward was not playing, to read his name with a thrill of fresh +excitement. “Tremenheere, captain.” If he had come to this honor and +glory when he was only eighteen, what prizes must not life hold for such +a hero? + +“Vera, my dear, I think you should put down your veil? People are +remarking you. I don’t think it is nice to be so absorbed in anything. +You forget yourself altogether, my dear.” + +“Why should I remember myself?--there is nothing in me to remember,” she +said, in her excitement. Then coming to herself, “Oh please, Miss +Campbell, I do so hate a veil. It gets in one’s eyes, and one can’t +see.” + +“Dear, how often must I tell you that a well-bred girl expresses herself +much more quietly. Take the opera-glass, then, that conceals the face.” + +“But I can see very well without it. I can see Eddy quite plain. Look, +Miss Campbell! I can always make him out. There! four for us!” + +“I don’t understand the interest you all take in this game,” said Miss +Campbell. “In Scotland the gentlemen play golf, which they tell me is +much finer exercise. All this I think is very bad for the boys. All +London coming out to look at them hitting a ball with a stick. And bad +for you too, Vera. If you get so very much excited I think I must take +you away.” + +Vera knew that this could not be done, and therefore heard the threat +calmly. Fortunately, after a while, Miss Campbell got engrossed with +something else, and with a sigh of relief she let the glass drop, thus +revealing her moving animated countenance all at once to two people to +whom the sight of it was like something from heaven. The one was a +middle-aged woman, no more or less than Vera’s mother; the other a +young man. Let us keep the more interesting personage to the last. Mrs. +Tremenheere has the best right to come forward. She stood at a little +distance among the crowd looking at her child. She had always called +Vera by this name. After years of virtual separation--though there never +had been any personal objection made on either side to either parent +seeing the children when he or she pleased--here was the child she had +left, grown into a woman. I cannot describe the feelings with which her +mother regarded her, gazing at the young absorbed countenance. Little +Vera, the baby, the plaything, the amusement of the house, the little +bud of life whom she had left behind, not knowing what was to come of +her! + +“Look, Elinor!” she said, grasping the arm of her inseparable companion, +and leaning on her with a trembling which she could not command. + +“I see her,” said Miss Meadows, cheerfully. “Hasn’t she grown up pretty? +Come and speak to her, Ada. She must be looking for you.” + +“She is looking for her brother, nothing else,” said Mrs. Tremenheere. +“Wait a little, Nelly; I feel like a divorced woman, with no right to go +near my child. God help us! what those wretched beings must suffer! I +never thought of it before.” + +“One never does think of other people’s sufferings till one shares +them,” said Elinor, oracularly. “Thank heaven, you are not so bad as +that! Come along. Shall I go first and tell her.” + +“Wait a little.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere, though she was a strong-minded woman, trembled for the +meeting. What would the child think of the mother who had deserted her? +If she had been only a child! but a woman with a mind and judgment--who +could understand and perhaps condemn. She stood by and looked at this +creature of sixteen with her heart in a flutter. The judgment of a child +is a terrible tribunal. One can face the world and one’s equals, knowing +all that is in one’s favor, and feeling the full force of one’s rights. +But the secret verdict of a boy or girl, whom natural respect will +prevent from expressing it or even defining it to themselves--what a +thing that is to encounter! Very seldom do fathers or mothers encounter +this judgment in so dramatically distinct a manner as Mrs. Tremenheere +had to do; and she trembled and held back. What if she should read +dislike, disapproval, the pained and wondering sentence of the innocent +in Vera’s eyes? + +In the meantime the other individual of whom I have spoken had gone past +again, gazing furtively at the carriage. “Jove! how pretty she is,” he +was saying to himself. “How absorbed she is, not seeing me nor any one! +That’s what I like in a girl; never to see you if you stare like a +madman. Why should she? The ones that are thinking of themselves see you +fast enough. She is not thinking of herself, bless her. I wonder who +she’s thinking of? one of those fellows in their flannels? Idiots! with +nothing but hits to leg, and catches got, or missed, in their empty +heads. I beg your pardon, Miss Meadows, I am very sorry. I hope I did +not hurt a ribbon or a feather.” + +“You are very saucy to talk of feathers and ribbons. You have hurt _me_. +Where are you going with your head over your shoulder? Who are you +gazing at?” + +“Look here,” cried the young man, drawing her aside. “Look at that +girl’s face. What is she, a St. Cecilia or a rapt young Madonna intent +upon the angel? No, perhaps she is not exactly beautiful. I don’t care +for your beautiful faces, all feature and nothing else.” + +“Oswald! when you do nothing but rave about form. Greek, forsooth! As if +good English flesh and blood was not finer than your marbles!” + +“Miss Meadows, you were always a woman of the most just ideas. Precisely +what I think. Look at her! the features are not much, but the expression +is divine. I should like to paint her, I should like to carry her off! I +should like to----” + +“Not eat her I hope, though your eyes look like it--for, hush! here is +her mother,” cried Elinor. Mr. Oswald Fane started, and grew red, and +drew back a step. He turned to the other face behind him in which he was +not so interested; and yet that, too, if painting had been all that he +was thinking of! Mrs. Tremenheere had not heard what was going on +between the others. She, too, was absorbed, thinking only of one +thing,--how Vera would look at her, what she should see in the child’s +eyes. The young man gave a glance at her, then turned back to the first +object of his admiration. + +“Is it only that they resemble each other,” he whispered, “or what gives +them both that rapt look? It is interesting.--Do you know them?--I +should like to be you. I wonder if that girl is like her face.” + +“If you are patient and wait, perhaps I may introduce you,” said Elinor. +“I don’t know that she is like her face. That is one side of her. +Wait--I must introduce her mother to her first.” + +“Introduce--her mother!” + +“Hush! It’s a story. I’ll tell it you afterwards.--Ada, come! you are +wasting all the morning, and I tell you she expects you. That is what +she is looking for.” + +“She is looking for her brother,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, “and it is +quite right; I don’t complain. Stand by me, Nelly. I feel very silly, as +if I might make a scene.” + +“Don’t make a scene, whatever you do!” cried Elinor. “Nonsense; there is +nothing so dreadful about it. Come!” + +Vera’s attention was aroused a moment after by the shock of finding a +hand laid upon hers. She looked up quickly with a start, and saw the +mother of whom she had seen so little, and whom at the first moment she +scarcely recognised, standing beside her. The girl’s heart gave a +violent jump--sudden tears came into her eyes and a choking in her +throat. + +“Mamma?” she said, interrogatively. The shock brought all the blood to +her heart. She looked wistfully, anxiously at this sudden claimant. Miss +Campbell sat looking on, somewhat uneasy. She had never believed in the +pretence about Mrs. Tremenheere’s separation from her husband. +Incompatibility! It was no use telling a woman of her experience this. +She looked at the stranger with a mixture of disapproval and dislike, +and bent forward across the carriage, as if to ask what she wanted, +pretending she did not know. + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, taking her daughter’s hand between her +own, and holding it closely, “I have been looking for you, Vera.” + +What was in Vera’s face? Her eyes were not so limpid, so frankly and +tenderly eager as when she gazed at her brother; a shadow was over the +young countenance--but what? Mrs. Tremenheere could not tell what it was +that clouded her eyes. + +“Oh, mamma! you will get into the carriage, won’t you?” she said, trying +to open the door. + +“I will stand here and talk to you a little. Stoop down and give me a +kiss, Vera, my darling,” cried the poor woman. + +Vera put down her soft, youthful face, upon which the same doubtful, +wondering, troubled expression still hung. She did not know what to +think. Her brother--yes, that was right, that was nature. But her +mother? Could she sit here and let her stand by her. Should not she get +out, and follow her, and cease to be a stranger to her; or should she be +cold and keep back and take papa’s part? Vera did not know what to do. +The triumphant satisfaction died out of her face. Eddy was the sunshine +of this picture, but her mother was the inevitable shadow. She put her +soft face down to meet Mrs. Tremenheere’s kiss, but raised it again +tingling with blushes, as if it had been a stranger who had kissed her. +She could not look at her brother again, with this figure at her elbow. +Ought she not to give her entire attention to the new-comer? So many +emotions chased each other over her face that the young man in the crowd +who was still looking at her groped in his pockets instinctively for a +pencil, and then laughed at himself. “Draw all that--a whole volume in +two lines?” he said to himself. “What a fool I am.” + +“Vera, you have grown almost a woman----” + +“Yes, mamma.” She made a little pause, panting in her agitation and +bewilderment, which poor Mrs. Tremenheere feared was reluctance to give +her that title. This went to her heart, but she would not show it. She +began bravely again. + +“And Eddy is almost a man. You are like each other; he has grown +stronger and taller than I expected. You are pleased to see him, Vera? +and of course you have got his colors. Poor boy, I suppose he is very +happy with all these people staring at him; and that pleases you too?” + +“Pleases me! oh, more than that! I am so proud I don’t know what to +say--no word is strong enough. Are not you proud and happy, too, mamma?” + +“I proud and happy? I don’t know, my darling, I do not use such words. +I am pleased that you are all pleased----” + +“Oh, mamma! What could you wish, what could you have more?” said Vera, +indignant with fire in her eyes. + +“Vera, I beg you will not be so vehement. It is quite out of place,” +said Miss Campbell with dignity, “in a well-bred girl.” + +The blood rushed to Mrs. Tremenheere’s face. She felt herself stung to +the very heart. Of all that had happened to her this reproof, addressed +by another woman to her child in her presence, was, I think, the very +hardest blow she had yet had to bear. She made a strenuous effort to +command herself. “I must beg pardon,” she said, “for forgetting Miss +Campbell in the agitation of seeing Vera for the first time after a long +separation; and I owe you many, many thanks for your good offices to my +child.” She held out her hand across Vera. Miss Campbell touched the +tips of her fingers with reluctance. All very well to talk of +incompatibility! She, an experienced woman, felt sure that there was +more in it than that, and she did not like to touch the erring woman, +even with her finger tips. + +“I wish Vera would profit more by my lessons; but it is a thankless +task,” she said. + +“Mamma,” said Vera, “it is impossible that I can sit here and see you +standing there; either you must come into the carriage or I must get +down; this sort of thing cannot be!” + +At this moment, however, another personage came suddenly on the scene, +whose appearance stilled Vera and had the strangest effect upon her +mother,--Mr. Tremenheere, with Edward’s colors in his button-hole, and a +glow of pleasure on his face which smoothed away all harshness from it. +He came up to his wife with outstretched hands. “How do you do, Ada? I +am very glad to see you looking so well,” he said heartily, “though here +you are, triumphing over me with your boy.” + +“Triumphing over you? I had no such meaning.” It seemed impossible not +to contradict him, do what she would. She saw this, and her voice sank a +little. Then she said with a smile: “He is your boy as well as mine.” + +“I am taking all the credit of him, I assure you,” he said. “I never +thought Eddy would have turned out so well. He does you credit. The most +prominent young person in England for the moment; to be sure it won’t +last long, but still it is always something. Look at Vera, as proud as a +little peacock!” + +“What an idiot the man is!” whispered Oswald Fane, behind backs, to +Elinor Meadows; for they were all within hearing, and quite innocently +so in consequence of the crowd, “he means like a little white dove.” + +“Not such a dove either,” said Elinor. “Vera has a spirit--but she has a +dragon by her side, and is kept down dreadfully, poor little darling.” + +“I wish mine might be the hand to free her.” + +“What do you say? Oswald, she is too young to flirt.--Promise me you +will attempt no flirtation if I introduce you. She is only a child, and +you are, as you know, not so----” + +“Angelic as I ought to be,” he answered, laughing. “No, I promise you, +on my honor, there shall be no flirtation, properly so-called. But +stop--If I can make her like me? I won’t deceive you----” + +“Then I shan’t introduce you at all,” said Elinor, putting back from her +forehead those gray curls, like a child’s, which the wind kept ruffling +out. + +“I want mamma to come into the carriage, please,” said Vera. + +“Of course, she must,” Mr. Tremenheere cried, opening the door, “and you +are coming home with us, the boy and you? Nobody can have so good a +claim upon you. Where are you staying--with Elinor Meadows? Well, she +shall come too; and you will tell me, Ada, if you approve of my work as +much as I approve of yours. Come, Vera will be unhappy otherwise--and so +shall I.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere kept asking herself all this time whether the nerves of +a woman like herself, always strong and steady, as she liked to think +them, were to be less under command than the nerves of a man. If he took +it as a matter of course, must not she do the same? But it cost her an +effort--for sentiment, perhaps, in all circumstances has more power, +whether she will own it or not, over a woman than over a man. She +answered, however, cheerfully, after that struggle. + +“To be sure--it is the natural arrangement. Eddy will be very glad to +spend an evening with his sister--and I----” + +Nobody heard the end of the sentence. Her husband had given her his hand +to help her into the carriage; where she sat down by the side of prim +Miss Campbell, who did not budge, and who kept thinking to herself with +_naïve_ disregard of grammar--“Me to be sitting by the side of a woman +compromised!” And there Mrs. Tremenheere sat for the first half hour in +a sort of dream, Vera opposite to her, all apparently as it might have +been had she never deserted her home; apparently--yet without any +reality in the appearance. By and by old friends began to find her out, +and one brought another to greet and congratulate her. + +“All made up, I suppose?” these visitors whispered to Elinor Meadows as +they passed. “Absurd business altogether?” But no one was prim except +Miss Campbell, who scarcely condescended to notice the mother of her +charge. As for Mr. Tremenheere, he went about among the crowd radiant. +“Tremenheere must be a relative of yours,” his friends said to him. +“Yes;--only my son,” he said, his countenance expanding. Eddy might have +attained a much more substantial success without pleasing him half so +much. Pride very often puts on the very guise of love, so that one +cannot tell them apart. Mr. Tremenheere had thought but little of Eddy +hitherto; he took all the credit, as he said, and really felt that he +had everything to do with the boy. A boy who had put himself in the +front so easily, and was for the moment the observed of all observers, +the very centre to which was directed the gaze of society, was +indisputably a son of whom every parent was entitled to be proud. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +A DINNER AT HYDE PARK SQUARE. + + +I do not know by what charm Miss Meadows had been gained over to tell a +fib, and enact a whole little drama of domestic perfidy; but she did it. +When Mr. Tremenheere in his satisfaction asked her to dinner she told +him unblushingly that she had just invited young Oswald Fane, a +connection of Lord Fanebury’s, a very clever young man, in whom she took +a great interest, to dine with her, and did not see how she could put +him off. “Clever young men were always Elinor’s weakness,” said Mr. +Tremenheere, so intoxicated with his own contentment that he forgot for +the moment that it was not his habit to call Miss Meadows by her +Christian name. “But if he is one of the Fanes of Fanebury I know his +uncle. Bring him with you. That will make it all right.” + +And thus accidentally Oswald Fane was introduced into Hyde Park Square. +He was not so near a relation of Lord Fanebury’s as Mr. Tremenheere in +his moment of elation was ready to suppose. As he waited till his son +had changed his dress, and walked out with him to the crowded streets, +feeling sure that everybody he met knew that the blushing youth was the +hero of the day, that proud father was ready to receive as an heir +presumptive at the least, anybody who might have been presented to him. +His gratified pride threw a radiance over all the world. He was for the +time being the most proud of fathers, the most kind of men. He put his +arm through Eddy’s who was two inches taller than himself, with that +delightful mixture of the familiar friend with the father which +everybody says it is so pleasant to see, and introduced him to several +men they met, with overflowing satisfaction. Then when they got out of +the lingering crowd, away into the more quiet streets, Mr. Tremenheere +began to inquire into his son’s hopes and intentions for the future, as +a father should. + +“Is this your last year at school,” he said. “How old are you? Eighteen! +Are you expected to stay another year?” + +“I think, sir,” said Edward, “that my mother means me to leave and go to +Oxford at once. But--I don’t think anything is settled. If you +thought----” + +“I have left all that to your mother,” said Mr. Tremenheere. “That was a +bargain, and I don’t mean to interfere with her. Your mother is a very +sensible woman. We did not get on when we were together, which was +unfortunate, but she has managed admirably with you, and I approve all +she does. And after Oxford, Ned, what then, my boy? What do you think of +doing then?” + +“Well, sir,” said Eddy, “that is a thing there has been no decision +about--I think my mother----” + +“Yes, but in the choice of a profession one must act for one’s self. +What do _you_ think? You will have your mother’s money, of course, but +it will scarcely be enough to enable you to take the position I should +like to see you take. You must do something----” + +“My mother’s money is her own,” said Edward, with a slight flush upon +his face. “I don’t want her to give it me. I am very willing to do +something. Indeed, I am not at all sure about Oxford for my part, +except that she wishes it. For you ought to know, sir,” he added, +looking down with another flush of color, “I am not clever; good enough +as a bat and that sort of thing, but not much good in school.”! + +“Is that so?” said Mr. Tremenheere. But he said it without anything of +that half shame, half pity, both sentiments generally concealed by a +caress, with which the women among whom Edward Tremenheere had been +brought up regarded his want of success in school. The boy had learned +to divine this though nobody ever put it into words, and the easy tone +of his father cheered and eased him in the most wonderful way. Was it +then perhaps not so humiliating after all to be without cleverness? +Might a fellow still do something though he could not get Greek and +Latin into his head, and had no hope of a scholarship? Edward felt +cheered and encouraged, he could scarcely tell why. + +“Yes, I am afraid it is so, I have got such a bad memory or something. I +do my work, but it goes out of my head again just as fast. That is why I +think it is money wasted sending me to Oxford.” + +“Not at all,” said Mr. Tremenheere. “It is not for work alone that men +go to Oxford. It always tells well in society. Not a high degree, or +honors or anything of that sort; for unless you are going into a +profession, the world cares very little for Senior Wranglers, &c. But +you make friends who can help you in life, and widen your acquaintance, +and learn a great deal that is quite as important. Yes, yes, you must go +to college; but after? as I asked before----” + +“I don’t know, sir,” said Edward, “my mother used to talk of the Bar, +not knowing how stupid I was. But that would never do. I don’t seem to +have any particular choice; anything that pleases other people----” + +“You are too good, I am afraid,” said his father. “Your mother can’t go +on thinking for you----” + +“So she says,” said the boy with a laugh. At this moment they met a +group of other lads with blue ribbons who stared at Eddy’s appearance +here; he nodded to them with a look of dejection. “The rest of the +fellows are dining together,” he said. “It is rather fun; but I don’t +suppose I shall mind.” + +“And you came away without telling me! That was kind of you, Ned. But I +hope you will enjoy yourself with us. You will see a great difference in +Vera. She is almost grown up, and I shall soon have to think of getting +her brought out and introduced into society, which is a great bore for +me. So you see we all have our difficulties. I am still in that same old +house which you remember. It will be pleasant to dine together this one +night.” + +“Yes,” said Edward, somewhat disconsolately. He would have liked the +dinner with his comrades better, but he was too good to put his own +wishes forward. And Mr. Tremenheere thought no more about it. He told +him of several young potentates at Oxford whom he should introduce him +to. “And I hope you will be very careful about the set you get into. +Whatever you may do in the way of scholarship you must never be +indifferent to the art of making friends.” + +“That is what my mother says,” said the lad, a statement which made his +father stare. “She says that if I get into a good reading set----” + +Mr. Tremenheere laughed. “That is very like your mother,” he said, “but +not exactly what I meant. If you are weak in scholarship don’t go in +for it, my boy. What I mean is a good set of men, men whom it will be of +use for you to know, who may give you a helping hand in life, or at +least in society. A great deal depends on that.” + +“Yes,” said Eddy, dutifully. “A good set of men” sounded much better to +him than “the reading set” of whom he had been thinking with some alarm, +but he did not so well understand about the “helping hand in life” to +which his father referred. He was a perfectly humble simple-minded +fellow, but yet he was not without a certain pride of his own. + +Thus they went home to Hyde Park Square, where Mrs. Tremenheere, +agitated by many thoughts, was preparing for dinner in her old room, now +empty, swept, and garnished, and asking herself various questions which +she could not answer, which she did not like even to put in words. There +was a little pause when they all came together in the drawing-room, a +little holding of the breath, or so, she thought. It was late and +beginning to be twilight, and I cannot describe with what a strange +thrill of curiosity Edward looked at his two parents thus brought +together. What could they be thinking, these two people who belonged to +each other, yet did not belong to each other? And--whose fault was it? +The boy was instinctively respectful and dutiful, and made no reply to +himself, but yet the question arose in his mind whether he would or not. + +“I have been speaking to Ned about his future,” said Mr. Tremenheere. +“He does not seem to be very clear what he is to do after Oxford.” + +“No. We must let circumstances decide,” said his mother. “Perhaps if he +reads hard----” + +“My dear Ada, I wouldn’t interfere with you for the world, but why +should he read if that is not the turn of his mind?” said Mr. +Tremenheere. + +“It is the turn his mind ought to take,” she said. “It is the only use +so far as I can see of a University. What were colleges instituted for +but reading? And it is his duty as well as the best thing to do.” + +“Well, I think there are other uses for Universities,” said Mr. +Tremenheere. “Is that you, Vera? Come here; your mother cannot see you +in this light. You would not think, would you,” he added, with some +pride, “that this demure little person was the saucy Vera who used to +poke her small fingers into everything?” He laid his hand upon her head +caressingly--not that he was much in the habit of caressing her, but he +felt a natural impulse to put forth his own production, as it were, by +the side of his wife’s, in an amiable rivalry which had no evil +intention in it. For, indeed, though he felt proud of his son, and was +pleased with him, he was not at all jealous of his son’s mother, to whom +the boy specially belonged, and could not have understood the sharp and +keen jealousy of himself, almost bitter, which shot like an arrow +through Mrs. Tremenheere’s heart as he laid his hand on Vera’s head. + +“I had no objections to the saucy Vera,” she said, hurriedly forcing +herself to smile. + +“Ah, that is not my ideal of a young woman,” said the father, equally +unaware how much of the original leaven remained in the demure little +person of whose quietness he was so proud. + +Mrs. Tremenheere restrained herself as by force and made no reply, +though all the old lively impulses of contradiction seemed to spring up +in her as she listened; and thus the divided family remained for a +moment silent, the father and son standing together, the mother and +daughter seated in the shadow. Miss Campbell kept apart at the furthest +window, with a book in her hand. She disapproved profoundly of Mrs. +Tremenheere. What did she want in this house which she had left of her +own accord? Did she mean to come back, disturbing other people in the +established routine of their life, perhaps turning the carefully-trained +Vera into something fast and disorderly? Such a woman was capable of +anything, Miss Campbell thought, and the poor lady had an excuse for her +dislike in her growing alarm and terror. She had a very comfortable +position in Mr. Tremenheere’s house, and was fond of Vera in her way, +and if she left Hyde Park Square there was at her age little before her, +except poor genteel lodgings on a small annuity, or the “Home.” + +When Miss Meadows came in with young Fane, followed at a moment’s +interval by the stray man, adapted to fill a place at an emergency, whom +Mr. Tremenheere had met at Lords’, the family were not sorry. Perhaps, +on the whole, it was more easy to get on when there were strangers +present. There was an awkward moment, however, when they went to +dinner. Mr. Tremenheere went across the room to Miss Campbell before the +procession started. + +“Perhaps,” he said, in a slightly nervous tone, “it would be better if +Vera took the head of the table to-day?” + +“It must be exactly as you please, Mr. Tremenheere,” she replied +stiffly, giving him no assistance. And then he had to give his wife his +arm, and hand her down-stairs. + +“You are the greatest stranger, Ada,” he cried, with a nervous laugh, +and attempt at jauntiness. “The guest of the evening!” + +She did not say anything, but put her hand within his arm, as if she had +been in a dream. But after that, the small party round the dinner-table +went on quite smoothly. Vera, her cheeks burning, sat at the head of the +table, feeling wretched, ashamed and proud. She could not bear to look +at her mother, who ought to have been occupying that place, and yet +could look at nothing else, not even at Eddy, who kept smiling at her, +shy but genial. She did not even notice, for five minutes at least, the +handsome countenance of Oswald Fane at her left hand, though it was one +which few girls of Vera’s age looked at with absolute indifference. He +had one of those picturesque dark faces which physiognomists suspect and +sentimentalists love; dark eyes, liquid and persuasive, capable of +looking unutterable things; dark hair, curling crisply round a +well-shaped head; a smile on the curved lips, just shaded with a soft +line of moustache which no unsuspecting person could resist. And he had +judgment to add to his personal attractions. He saw Vera’s agitation, +and neither spoke nor looked at her for these five minutes, but +chattered pleasantly to Elinor Meadows, shielding her from observation. +Then when Vera began to get used to her position, and to calm out of her +excitement, he threw over Elinor and struck in: + +“You were very much interested in the match to-day, Miss Tremenheere. +Was it for the sake of cricket? Some ladies, I know, are great +connoisseurs----” + +“Oh, no! I don’t know anything about cricket. My brother was playing.” + +“I know; and I knew that was the reason, if you will let me say so. +Cricketing young ladies don’t look as you look.” + +“I? How did I look? Not very odd, I hope?” said Vera; “Miss Campbell +says I am always showing my feelings.” + +“I must not trust myself to description,” he said. “Your look raised +very violent emotions in my mind. Yes, I may as well confess. I turned +immediately to the men in the field, and I said to myself, ‘A set of +wretched schoolboys. What have they done, I wonder, with their stupid +game that any idiot could play, to deserve _that_?----’” + +“Mr. Fane! I hope you don’t mean what you say!” cried Vera, indignantly, +raising her head, “because I am Edward’s sister. No one ought to speak +like that, knowing that my brother is Captain of the Eleven.” + +“I told you, you had raised diabolical passions in my breast,” said Fane +unmoved. “Envy, hatred, and jealousy; because you see, I knew very well +that if I were to do the greatest feat that a man could do, no one would +look so at me.” + +“Ah!” said Vera, mollified, drawing a breath of relief; “then you have +no sister,” she added softly, looking at him for the first time with +interest. + +Here I think it was the duty of Elinor to have interfered; but she was +much amused; and she was, as she avowed boldly, half in love herself, in +an elderly fashion, with Oswald Fane. + +“No,” he said, “I am all alone in the world. It does not matter to any +one what I do or what I don’t do; so, you must forgive me my grudge at +that happy fellow you were watching. I did not intend him any harm.” + +“Eddy played very well to-day,” said the friend of the family, who sat +at Vera’s right hand. “Made a good score. Saved that last innings, he +did. I don’t like to see my old school beaten, though I’m an old fellow. +I give you leave to be proud of your brother, Vera. I never saw a neater +catch. It made a man feel young again.” + +“I am very proud of him, thanks,” said Vera, beaming. She looked at Eddy +almost for the first time. His face was very serious, poor fellow. He +was sitting next to Miss Campbell, who addressed instructive +conversation to him, as she thought it was her duty to do with the +young. And, alas, I fear poor Eddy, though he was at home, with all the +members of his family round him, was thinking ruefully of the gay dinner +at which the others were drinking their toasts and making their +speeches. This certainly was not so lively. He did not see Vera look at +him, but he met his mother’s eye, and smiled, with a slight shrug of the +shoulders. Vera saw this pantomime, and was angry. Was he not glad to be +at home? + +Thus the dinner was not the greatest of successes; and the ordeal of the +drawing-room was still more severe. Mr. Tremenheere walked up to his +wife when he came up-stairs, and sat down beside her. + +“I could not say anything to you at dinner,” he said, “Ada; but I want +now just to say a word. Don’t press the scholarship business upon Ned. +You can afford to send him to Oxford, and he can afford to go; that is, +he is young enough not to be losing his time; but don’t worry him and +strain him to do something out of his line altogether. There, I don’t +want to interfere; but this you must let me say.” + +“Thank you,” she said, a little stiffly; “I will think of it, Charles. +Of course your advice in respect to Eddy must always have the greatest +weight.” + +“Well, yes, I think it ought,” said the father, “especially as there has +never been any quarrel, so to speak, between us. We have always been +quite good friends.” + +“Perfectly good friends; if you will allow me in my turn to make a +remark, I think poor Vera’s natural vivacity is too much repressed. Miss +Campbell, I have no doubt, is a very good woman, but Vera will never be +really one of those meek girls whom you admire. She has a great deal of +energy and spirit in her. I think you should take care not to carry the +subduing process too far.” + +“Ah!” he said, raising his eyebrows, “do you think so? I should not have +supposed that would have occurred to you. Miss Campbell’s process seems +to me to have answered admirably. However, I will keep my eye upon her, +since you think so. Curious! I expected you to compliment me, as +everybody does.” + +“Yes, and so I do; she has grown up very sweet and fair,” she said, with +some emotion. + +“But only you do not approve of the way in which she has been brought +up,” he said, with a laugh. “Well, well, we never did agree, and it is +evident we were never intended to agree, Ada; which does not, however, +prevent me from giving, as you say, the greatest weight to your advice, +and from our continuing the best of friends.” + +With this he grasped her hand heartily, and rising from his chair beside +her, went off to talk to Edward, whom old Mr. Carnaby was +cross-questioning. Mrs. Tremenheere sat alone for a time. Near the open +window, with its long lace curtains swaying softly in the summer air, +sat Vera beside Miss Meadows, looking up into the dark, handsome face of +young Fane, who bent over her. I don’t think it occurred to the mother +to take any panic about young Fane. She had subjects enough to occupy +her mind without that. But whether by inadvertence or purpose, I cannot +tell which, Elinor Meadows rose up suddenly, and came and joined her, +leaving the two young people together--Miss Campbell, not being able to +put up with this overturn of all her habits, having left the room. + +“Well,” said Elinor, eagerly, “have you settled anything? Indeed you +ought to have come to your senses, you two, at your age.” + +“Perhaps we ought,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, “but nothing is changed that +I can see. Age makes little difference. For Vera’s sake I might risk it, +but he has no such idea; he is too triumphant in his own success.” + +“Then nothing is to come of it; what was the good then--” cried Elinor, +with tears in her eyes. “Ada! Ada! I thought you would have done +anything for poor little Vera’s sake.” + +“I suppose it is only justice,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a slight +faltering; “when he would have made it up, I wouldn’t; and now when +perhaps--I don’t know--I might----” + +“Is that all you say? when of course you would that or anything else, +for Vera’s sake.” + +“Well, put it as you please; but anyhow it would be a failure. We should +begin again to contradict each other the very next day. However, it is +needless to discuss the question, for he does not wish it; that is as +clear as daylight.” + +A little while after the two halves of the divided family said goodbye +to each other, and the mother and son went back to their separate +lodgings with Elinor, like any other visitors. + +“Well, Eddy, have you spent a happy evening?” said Miss Meadows, in the +darkness of the carriage, driving home. + +“Oh, happy? Well enough,” said Edward. “Of course I was glad to see my +father and Vera; still it was a bore not to be at the dinner with the +other fellows, and this my last year.” + +The next step after this strange family meeting was taken in all +innocence, with no thought of the complications it might lead to. Mr. +Tremenheere consented that Vera should pay a visit to her mother in the +country, under the charge of Elinor Meadows. It was to be for two days +only, too short a time to have much effect upon the girl, one way or +another,--Miss Meadows, however, did not tell any one that on her own +responsibility she had offered a seat in her carriage, and an +introduction into her friend’s house, to Oswald Fane. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE VILLA. + + +Mrs. Tremenheere rather prided herself on her society; though she had +given up so much she had never given up that; the people she knew were +not commonplace people, such as you meet everywhere, but persons of high +intelligence, of advanced opinions, people known in literature, in art, +and in science. Her parties were generally in summer, daylight parties, +a combination of outdoor pleasures, concluding with that good dinner +which mortal men, even when they are philosophers, love. When the little +party arrived from town they found preparations going on for one of +these gatherings. Mrs. Tremenheere took Vera through the garden and +shady grounds, which were skilfully planted to look double their size, +and showed her everything with tender anxiety. “You must help me to +receive my friends,” she said, smiling upon her little daughter. + +“What would Miss Campbell say? she is not ‘out’ of course,” said Elinor. + +“A girl does not require to be ‘out’ when she is by her mother’s side,” +said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a sigh, drawing Vera’s hand within her arm. +It was not for Vera she said this, but for the relief of her own mind; +but Vera heard it, and ventured to clasp her mother’s arm with a sudden +sense of security, such as she thought she had never experienced before. + +By her mother’s side--very different from Miss Campbell’s; everything +was made natural, everything as it ought to be, by that one fact. She +turned round without knowing why, and met Fane’s dark eyes fixed upon +her; never before had innocent Vera met such looks; and a soft +suffusion, the first blush of tenderest youth, came over her white +throat and delicate cheeks. She clung a little closer to her mother’s +arm. Yes, even this, the confused sweet guiltiness, the innocent shame +where no shame was, all were without danger, without harm there--by her +mother’s side. + +Then the strangers began to arrive, but first of all came Edward, fresh +from school, happy and radiant in the delight of “leave,” and the whole +day to himself, though not so happy about “the party.” + +“To be sure we can have some croquet,” said Edward, “though that is not +much; but with such a terrible set of swells what else can one do?” + +“There is a swell coming who will fascinate you, Eddy,” said his mother. +The lad shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. + +“All right, if they please you, mamma,” he said, putting his arm round +her with a happy ease which made Vera wonder. Fancy any one doing that +to papa, she said to herself--or Miss Campbell! After a while Edward +dragged her off to see the croquet-ground, where the implements of that +diversion were all in order. “Between ourselves it is a bore, rather,” +he said; “a lot of bigwigs all talking as if to talk was the best thing +in the world; but, never mind, it pleases the mother. And then a day’s +leave is always a day’s leave,” he added, with good-humored philosophy. +It was Edward’s disposition to make the best of everything. + +“And I have a day’s leave, too,” said Vera, with a little sigh; “but I +can’t have one whenever I please, Eddy, like you.” + +“Whenever I please!” he looked at her with natural contempt for her +ignorance; but then what can a girl be expected to know? “Why can’t you +stay?” he said; “it would be much jollier if you were here. Why can’t we +all live together, as we used to do--as we ought to do?” the boy added, +suddenly. + +This conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Fane, who was +never long absent from Vera’s elbow, and by the gradual arrival of the +visitors--among whom, as I have said, there was one celebrity of the +moment whom it was a very great honor to produce here so far out of +town. While the young people were in the garden Elinor Meadows came +rushing towards them, her black lace billowing around her, and the rings +of her gray hair blown about her forehead. + +“Come!” she cried, breathless, “come, before there is a crowd, and be +introduced to him, both of you. You, too, Oswald, if you like,--only +make haste and come!” + +“Who is it?” they all asked in a breath. + +“It is the lion--and a real great roaring lion, shaking his mane--none +of your make-believes, that don’t know how to keep it up. It is Mr. +Buckram Bass, the great African traveller. He has been everywhere where +nobody ever was before. Come, you foolish boys and girls. You may never +have another such opportunity. Come, Vera; and Edward especially,--you +must come!” + +“Presently. I shall see him soon enough,” said Edward. + +He would not come in. He was busy out of doors, looking after the +croquet, showing the finer points of view to one wandering group after +another, pointing out the pinnacles of the great school in the distance, +telling the names of the distant places, and also the names of the +notabilities present to his mother’s guests. + +“That is Dr. Jones, the great geologist, I believe--and that lady +yonder, in the corner with a lot of people round her, is the lady that +plays the fiddle--well, yes, violin, it’s all the same, isn’t it? I +daresay my mother will get her to play after dinner. And that is the +Bishop of St. James’s, who is an old friend of my mother’s.” + +“Will he preach after dinner?” said some one, hoping to be witty. + +“I hope not,” said Edward gravely. “I don’t think he is a fool, nor my +mother either. There is the editor of the ‘Northerly,’ whom you may have +heard of, and Miss Cloots, who writes novels. By the way, I believe +there is somebody here who is the very last novelty in the way of +travels. The great African man, that----” + +“Hush!” said Elinor Meadows, by his side. + +“Why should he hush? I wish he had described me as well as he described +the rest,” said Mr. Buckram Bass himself, stepping into the circle. +“This is Mrs. Tremenheere’s son, the hero of the cricket, and why has he +not been introduced to me? There spoke the true spirit of youth! not +feelings!--When his time comes, ladies, he will experience them; at +present he does not care to have any babbling about them. Bravo! those +are my sentiments exactly. Let us shake hands upon it. Yes, what is +worth is doing--not to talk, not to read, but to do. Schools! yes, +schools are excellent. I do not say a word against schools. I myself was +not created by any school, but what does that matter? When I was your +age I rebelled against books. I felt myself a slave. To tie me down,” +cried the lion, roaring loudly, and grasping his red beard--he was a +large man, handsome and even commanding in appearance, and when he +spoke, took a large handful of the vast beard which he had grown during +his travels--“to tie me down with all my energies fettered, to construe +Herodotus! when I knew there were things in the world more wonderful +than Herodotus--and true.” + +Edward had looked at him, half contemptuously, half suspiciously when he +began. Gradually, however, his looks changed. His eyes began to laugh, +then to glow. The big man and his beard impressed him. “More wonderful +than Herodotus--and true!” He forgot his natural opposition to the lion. +After all, if this was a lion, he was so because of what he had done, +not of what he had said or written. He began to look eagerly at this new +kind of man. + +“Do you know anything about Africa?” said the traveller. “No! The great +continent of the future!--the real new world, teeming with wealth, full +of wonder, from which there is everything to expect. Take a walk with me +through your mother’s pretty grounds. ‘That moment that his face I see, +I know the man that must hear me.’” + +With this the adventurer thrust his great arm through Edward’s and led +him away, half pleased, half reluctant. The others who stood round heard +his big voice discoursing as he promenaded through the shrubbery. + +Nothing more was seen of Eddy that day, except at dinner, during which +he was very absent and _distrait_, straining his attention to make out +what Mr. Buckram Bass was saying at the other end of the table. He +reappeared in the evening, but only in the train of the traveller, who +was delighted by the boy’s enthusiasm. Few people noticed even then that +it was to Edward he was talking, for the talk was addressed to the whole +gathering, as well as to that one particular boy who stood close by him, +his eyes gleaming, his whole aspect changed. + +“Yes, yes, you are right, and I respect you for it,” said the traveller. +“This is not a time for music, for the fine arts, for poetry and +feeling. What men want is to be doing. You know where I am going +to--what I call the Continent of the future, that great mysterious +Africa, to one corner of which the roots of our religion itself still +cling. Is it not a work worthy of Christianity to carry freedom and +civilization back to the warm, rich, teeming countries where so much +wealth and capability lie dormant? Yes, sir, take the question at its +lowest, nothing could be more admirable for trade. In that view alone it +is worth doing--opening up, not a single nation, like France or Germany, +but a crowd of nations, a whole continent to British enterprise. But I +don’t profess myself to take that point of view. My mind is burdened +with the thought of so many fine, interesting races, so many tribes and +peoples, as varied as Europeans, not stupid negroes only, who are living +in mud-cabins, under savage laws, decimated by fever and by each other, +whom we might help with a little trouble into civilization and humanity. +My expedition starts in October. It is not all filled up. How thankful I +should be to have volunteers, sportsmen, adventurers, whatever you +please to call them. Every new traveller is so much gain.” + +“For heaven’s sake, Ada, do something to stop that man,” cried Elinor +Meadows, in Mrs. Tremenheere’s ear. “Ask somebody to play; let us do +something.” + +“Why? I find him very interesting,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, smiling +calmly in her friend’s face, “and he always does this, you know, +wherever he goes. It is tacitly understood.” + +“Look at Edward’s face.” + +“Yes, he is interested, poor boy. I am so glad that he should have had +his mind roused by some new subject.” + +Edward stood by his new apostle, his eyes fixed upon him, swallowing +every word with eager interest. Already he saw himself in imagination +with a wild retinue of Arabs and negroes trampling through the jungle, +pressing over the sands, passing from one savage court to another. He +had read all the books upon the subject eagerly, but here was a man who +was a living book, who had seen and heard and done, and was about to do +again, all these wonders. Edward’s mind, newly aroused within him, +expanded and grew. He seemed to feel himself grow strong and daring and +patient as he listened. Yes, that was the life--not a sham life at +college, making good friends, as his father said, or laboring vainly +after scholarship, as his mother wished. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE VILLA (_continued_). + + +Meanwhile the day had passed for Vera like a strange sweet dream, too +rapid, too full of feeling to be understood. The novelty and the +strangeness and the complication of emotions so suddenly introduced into +her young life, which had been carefully trained to know no emotions at +all, involved her in a secret bewilderment, so that she did not seem to +know what she was saying, or on what she was treading, whether enchanted +ground, or air, or clouds. When she was about to follow the rest +indoors, Fane, who was with her, begged so hard that she would stay, +that Vera, not unwilling, though a little doubtful as to whether she +ought, softly sat down again on the rustic seat under the lime trees, +which were so sweet in the dimness of the night. Fane said nothing for a +few minutes; he let the silence and charm of the night steal into the +girl’s soul. + +“I wanted to drive on for ever this morning,” at last he said softly; +“what a mistake it was! But now, if this night would only last for ever! +I don’t know what more one could wish for. Do you remember ‘The Last +Ride?’” + +“What is ‘The Last Ride?’” said Vera, wondering if it was very very +ignorant of her not to know. + +“It is a poem of Mr. Browning’s.” + +“I don’t think I like poetry,” said Vera, shyly. “It seems dreadful to +say so, but one ought to be honest. It is so stiff and so formal, not +like anything natural.” + +“What have you read? I think I could show you some you would like.” + +“I have read some of Pope, and Miss Campbell is very fond of Young’s +‘Night Thoughts’ and Kirke White--and a little Cowper. I like Cowper +best, but----” + +“Ah!” he said. “Shall I tell you about the ‘Last Ride?’ It is very +different from Pope. It is a poor lover whom his lady has refused. He +loves her, but she does not love him; yet, though she does not love him, +she is sweet and gracious, and will not refuse the last thing he asks of +her,--one last ride with him. And so they set out; and as they go along +he keeps comforting himself all the way, knowing every step is nearer +the end--‘Perhaps the world may end to-night.’” + +“And what happens?” asked Vera, eagerly. + +“Nothing happens; the ride may be going on still, for all one knows.” + +Vera was silent. She was too young to understand how this ending of the +world might have helped the hapless lover. She sat quite still, in shy +wonder, feeling sad for him; wishing that the lady had relented, which +would have been better than the world ending; her thoughts entirely +carried away even from the present enchantment. Then her companion spoke +again; his voice was very soft and naturally melodious, and there was a +certain pleading in the tone: + +“I wonder,” he said, “if I am to be sent away to-night.” + +“To be sent away?” + +“Miss Meadows brought me. She is not going till to-morrow. She is as +good as gold, but she is apt to forget details.” + +“Oh, shall I run in and ask?” cried Vera. “How disagreeable for you to +be kept here. I will run and tell her.” + +“No, indeed, you shall not run anywhere to serve me. It is I who will +run--wherever you please--to do anything you please. But don’t be +satirical or hard upon me. The dreadful thing will be to be sent away. I +prefer to keep out of the way till it is too late.” + +Again Vera did not quite understand, and was silent, thinking it best +not to commit herself. But she began to be a little uneasy about sitting +here quite alone while everybody else had gone in. It was strangely +pleasant--so warm, yet so cool, so fresh and dewy, the house so near +with all its lights, yet the stillness so perfect. Would it be right, +though, if not so pleasant, to go back to the house? + +“Can you see, beyond the garden, the lights scattered about in the +houses,” he said, “and up in the sky the stars? I don’t know which I +like best.” + +“Oh, Mr. Fane, the stars!” + +“Do you think so?--but see, every one of these little lights, twinkling +away far down at the foot of the hill, means something. There are people +there talking, living--with a story of one kind or another--and love. +Is it not pleasant,” he said, as she made no answer, “to sit here and +watch it all--all the other people going on with their living, and we +looking on?” + +“But we are living, too,” said Vera, startled. + +“Beginning to live----” + +He did not say any more. And how still it was--every little rustle in +the leaves audible, though there was so much life and sound close at +hand! Vera began to feel a little frightened. All these strangenesses +seemed coming to a climax. She gave a little start when some watchful +bird made a stir among the branches and got up. “I think mamma may want +me. I think we should go in,” she said. + +More than half the people were gone, however, when they went in, and the +last train was gone, and there was nothing for it but to offer Mr. Fane, +whom Elinor Meadows confessed she had forgotten, a bed. Vera, coming in +shy and dazzled by the lights, did not quite listen to all that was +said; but to know that he was going to stay was pleasant. He sat down by +her again, while her mother was occupied with the last of the departing +groups. Somehow she seemed to know him better than any one--better even +than her mother, to whom she was so much a stranger; and here indoors, +with so many people about, it was easier to talk. She confessed to him +with a little blush that she had never been here before. + +“Is it not strange?” she said, “it is home, as much as the Square, and +yet I don’t know it. People are not often like that. I suppose you used +to live with your mother when you were young, as young as I am--most +people do.” + +“Most people do, but I did not, for my mother was dead. I was very +lonely--my brother a great deal older than myself, and no one else +belonging to me.” + +“Ah! my brother is only two years older than I. But then if one never +sees them it comes to just the same thing. I was very lonely, too. Never +anybody to play with,” said Vera, tears coming into her eyes out of pity +for the forlorn little self whom she had conjured up. “Nobody to talk +to--except Miss Campbell. I remember,” she went on, changing +involuntarily into a soft laugh; “I got the poor servants into sad +trouble because I told papa they had a party and I danced. Oh! how nice +that party was! I was only eight. It couldn’t have done me much harm, +could it?” + +“Evidently it has not done you any harm,” said Fane. “Nothing could do +you any harm. I ran wild as I liked, and no one was shocked.” + +“Ah!” cried Vera again, with a sigh, “you boys are so much better off +than girls. Nobody says you ought to be still, never to talk, never to +be remarked. It is hard always to be obliged to remember that one is a +girl. Miss Campbell always says, ‘You forget yourself,’ when that is +just what I would like to do. Forget all about me! Why should one always +be obliged to think about one’s self?” + +“When there are so many other people that would be too glad to do it for +you!” said Fane--a speech which, like many others, was lost upon Vera. +But the fountain of her confidences was opened, and she went on almost +without a pause. + +“It is now so many years since Miss Campbell came, and I have been +obliged to be so good. I don’t think I was good before. And when I go +back again I shall have to begin once more, and try not to forget +myself, and to speak low, and to keep in the background, and not ‘to be +remarked.’ Why should any one remark me?” cried Vera. “It is very hard +upon us poor girls, you must allow, Mr. Fane.” + +“And when do you go back?” + +“To-morrow!” she said, with a long-drawn breath, a sigh so pathetic, +that it was all he could do, notwithstanding his profound sympathy, not +to laugh. + +“I wonder if I might call,” he said. “I should like to bring you some +books. I should like to try to amuse--Miss Campbell a little. Do you +think I might come?” + +“Miss Campbell!” said Vera, somewhat disappointed; then she recollected +that it would still be better than nothing to be amused even at second +hand. “Papa never said nobody was to call. People do call, not very +amusing people, and if it is Miss Campbell you want to see----” + +“Yes, of course it is Miss Campbell,” he said, laughing. + +Upon which Vera understood, and laughed and blushed, and between the +two this seemed the very best of jokes. They kept laughing at it at +intervals as they went on talking. + +“I am the victim of a romantic but hopeless passion,” said Fane. “If +Miss Campbell will not smile upon me, what will become of me?” and it +seemed to Vera that the humor was exquisite. All at once Miss Campbell +and the Square seemed to be suffused with the same rosy light which made +the villa such a world of enchantment. Elinor Meadows looked back at +them, somewhat uneasily, wondering if it was quite right, if Oswald was +quite to be trusted, if he knew where he was leading that innocent +child. She became frightened at her own handiwork. Mrs. Tremenheere, on +the other side, heard the laugh, and looked gratefully at the young +stranger who called forth so merry a laugh from Vera. Thus tolerated and +protected, the two young creatures felt secure in their corner, and +talked and smiled, and poured out their hearts to each other, they could +not tell why, and were more happy than they could say. + +Next day was quieter, but still more sweet. They went out, the whole +little party, and strayed about the lanes, and visited the school where +Edward, still very absent, showed them everything, and saw the boys +playing cricket as on that wonderful day which had made a new beginning +to Vera’s life. + +It was late in the evening when they returned to town, their party +increased by the addition of one of Mrs. Tremenheere’s neighbors. It was +not at all the same as the drive down. That had been merry, brilliant, a +little company of three all united in one. This was different. You +cannot lean across a carriage to talk in the dimness of the night, +though two who are seated next each other may say much. The lady who sat +by Miss Meadows had a great deal of conversation, and occupied her so, +that at the end of the journey she half apologized to Vera. + +“I have never been able to say a word to you,” said Elinor. “That +tiresome woman! You must forgive me, my dear.” + +Vera forgave her very freely. She leant back upon the soft cushions, +quite indifferent to the fact that she had her back to the horses. She +could not see him very well in the dusk, but she could see how he +looked at her, which is different. Why should he look so, as nobody else +ever looked? It was strange, but it was pleasant; and he spoke so low, +not to disturb the others, that she had to lean her head towards him to +hear. And once by accident (he begged her pardon for it) their fingers +just touched; and she heard him say to himself softly, + +“Perhaps the world may end to-night.” + +Vera would not have acknowledged for the world that she had heard it, +but she began to understand now what these words which had seemed so +strangely unsatisfactory and unintelligible meant. Alas! When they came +to Hyde Park Square, and the steps were let down, and the door opened, +and old Jervis appeared on the threshold waiting for her, had not the +world indeed suddenly come to an end? When the door shut upon that fairy +chariot, and she was left standing in the half-lighted, dull, drab, +too-familiar hall, the very heart seemed to die out of Vera’s bosom. She +shivered all over, feeling cold, and would have liked to cry. + +“Is anything wrong, Miss?” said Jervis, sympathetically. + +“Oh, no, no, nothing!” cried Vera, with a sob in her throat; and stole +softly up-stairs, a forlorn little white ghost. Alas! the world had +ended--but not in the poet’s way. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +EDWARD. + + +Edward went back to his school-work next day, with the excitement of the +last night buzzing through his head. He was a schoolboy according to +English custom, and yet he was a man. He went back to his construing, +over which at the best he always hesitated, and his composition, in +which he gained much less applause, though he worked at it twice as +laboriously as the little fellow next to him, who carried off all the +honors; and as he worked he said to himself, fatalest of all questions +for learner or worker, “What is the good of it?” When a man could be +carrying civilization to a continent--when he could be opening paths for +knowledge, for education, for trade, for human advancement, when he +could be changing savages into Christians, teaching them those things +which make all the difference between man and brute,--in short, when he +could be doing what Mr. Bass had done, what he was going once more to +do, shooting huge game, encountering lions, exterminating serpents in +the jungle, besides all other more elevated occupations; the thought of +this sent a thrill through the lad’s veins. Oxford! What should he do at +Oxford? Stumble through one examination after another, each less +successful than the first, take a pass degree, disappoint his mother’s +hopes, and, for the very best he could do, make friends according to his +father’s directions. Make friends! not for the sake of friendship and +mutual help and brotherhood, which was a thing Eddy’s honest soul +comprehended thoroughly, but to help him on in life. That was all he +could do. Was it worth going to Oxford on the strength of that? + +The visit of his sister and the others partially freed his mind from +this haunting vision, but it came on stronger than ever next day when +they were gone; and in the evening he went to see his mother, whom he +found somewhat despondent after the excitement of the two days past. She +was sitting by herself in the evening, looking wearily over her +beautiful view. It was very delightful so long as there was some one +there to point it out to, to see the sudden lights and shadows; but when +one is all alone, a fine landscape is more trial than pleasure. Close +the curtains, light the lamp, turn indoors to your books and to your +pictures, lonely one. Do not look abroad upon that quiet serene nature +which was made for the happy. The wistful lights, the gathering dimness, +the falling dew, the home-going of all things--birds to the nest, +laborers to the cottage--are a sight too exquisite for you. + +Edward found his mother looking out on that evening scene, and commanded +her peremptorily, in those terms which mothers are so easily moved to +obey, to get her hat and come out with him. “I believe you have been +crying all by yourself,” he said indignantly. + +“I shan’t cry now, Eddy--when my boy is here,” she said with a smile. + +What a blow that gave him, though she did not know it! But then he +recollected that to be absent at Oxford was as bad as to be absent in +Africa, and this gave him courage to begin. + +“I have something very particular to say to you mother. Come out, +please. I can always talk to you better out of doors.” + +“What is the matter, Eddy? Are the small boys unruly? Have you got into +trouble about your composition----” + +“No, no. Come, mother; I have a great deal to say to you. I have not +said anything to you for a long time about myself.” + +“You never do say very much about yourself, dear.” + +“Yes, I do; quite as much as other fellows--and I think a deal. Mother, +what is the good of sending me to the University? I was talking to +Somerville about it to-day.” + +“And what does the great Somerville, who knows everything, say?” asked +Mrs. Tremenheere with a smile. + +“You don’t do him justice, mamma. If I talk too much about him, that is +my fault, not his. He wants me to go, of course. He says there are other +things besides scholarship, but he allows that it is not much use so +far as scholarship goes. Don’t be disappointed, mother. You know I +always said so.” + +“And do you think I am going to take Somerville’s word for it, Eddy? +Your tutor says you will do very well.” + +“So I should hope,” said Edward, with a flush on his face; “I should not +be a rowdy or make a beast of myself; that’s what he means, I suppose; +it would be a joke, if I couldn’t do well in that sense. And I might get +into the ‘Varsity Eleven like enough, which isn’t bad--but for anything +else---- If you were to be satisfied with that I shouldn’t mind, but +even at Lord’s--why you know you did not care a bit about it, mamma.” + +“I beg your pardon, my dear,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, humbly, “I care for +everything you take an interest in; but I don’t deny I would rather have +seen my son come out first in an examination than be the Captain of the +Eleven.” + +“Yes, that is your way of thinking,” said the boy, “I know; you don’t +care much for what I can do, and I cannot do what you really care for. +But if scholarship is out of the question, you don’t care for the +‘Varsity Eleven, do you, or for the ‘making friends’ dodge? I can’t bear +that ‘making friends.’” + +“My dear boy, you make friends everywhere.” + +“Ah, that’s different; friends at school that one makes because one +likes them--but friends to help you on in the world! Don’t send me to +Oxford, mamma; of course I shall go if you wish it--if you insist upon +it.” + +“Eddy, I wish you would tell me honestly what you are thinking of; there +is something behind all this,” said Mrs. Tremenheere; but still she +smiled, and was not afraid. + +“I will tell you what I am thinking of,” he said, rather tremulously; +“reading and that sort of thing will never be much in my way; it may be +a pity, but it can’t be helped. But, mamma, there are more things in the +world than reading. I am a strong fellow; I could do heaps of things; I +might be of real use all the same.” + +“I hope so, Eddy, but how, my dear? Out with it! You don’t require to go +and work for your living. Tell me what you want to do.” + +“Mamma,” he said, his breath coming short, “I fear you will not like +it; I hope you will not be angry. It came to me all at once when Mr. +Bass was speaking; I could not help telling him that of all things in +the world I should like to join his expedition----” + +“You are raving, Eddy,” said his mother suddenly; and then she laughed: +“you foolish boy, you gave me a fright for a moment. You might as well +talk of going to the moon.” + +“I was afraid you would take it so; but I am not raving, I am quite +entirely in earnest; it is the sort of thing I could do. You can’t call +a man like that useless can you, mother? He is not one of the fine +gentlemen, good for nothing, whom you dislike so; he knows what he can +do, and is doing it. That is what I have set my heart on. I want to go +with him to Africa.” + +She looked at him, stunned with the shock; stopped short in the middle +of the road as if he had shot her, and looked at him. + +“Eddy! you are out of your senses,” she said. + +The boy made no answer; he expected this, and more than this, knowing +well that if it was done at all it could not be done without trouble. +He did not say anything, but let the first force of the shock wear +itself out. + +“Oh!” she cried, “was it for this I brought him to my house? Eddy! you +cannot be thinking what you are saying. You shall read all the books +about this wretched Africa. It is mere nonsense, what he says about the +new world, the Continent of the future. You should read what other +travellers say. The most debased, miserable country--the people absolute +savages. What am I saying? I am taking it too seriously. I know you will +hear reason. This is just a boy’s foolish fancy--the first wild idea +that has come into your head.” + +“I don’t think so, mother.” + +“But I know it. I know what ideas come into such a young brain as yours, +my dear boy. No more about it to-night, Eddy. I ought to have foreseen +that he would have an effect upon you, for he is eloquent after a sort. +The days are getting quite short already, and before we know, summer +will be over. We have not settled where we are going for the holidays,” +she added, suddenly changing the subject with simple artifice. “Shall +we go to Switzerland? This year I should not object if you climbed to +your heart’s content. You are old enough and strong enough to risk it +now.” + +This would have made Edward’s eyes sparkle a week before, but it had +little effect upon him now. + +“If you like, mother,” he said, indifferently. “But I begin to think I +have had enough play in my life.” + +“Your life--it is such a long one--eighteen!” + +“Long enough for amusement,” said Eddy, solemnly. “Now I want work.” + +Mrs. Tremenheere parted with her boy that evening with some dismay in +her heart. + +“I suppose it is just a fancy like any other,” she said to herself; but +it was an appalling fancy for an only son, a boy of so much importance +in her life. She went back to the pretty house which had looked so +cheerful and delightful to Vera, and felt it very dreary. Mrs. +Tremenheere closed the shutters with her own hands to-night in a kind of +suppressed passion, as if the country was her enemy. She could not +endure its quiet and tranquillity. When the lamp was brought in the poor +woman went and sat by it for company, and gazed into the light as if +that could counsel her. A panic took possession of her soul. “Only a +fancy, like another,” she repeated aloud, trying to take off the edge of +her own thoughts. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE DAY AFTER. + + +Next day! It was a lovely summer day, but very hot and stifling in Hyde +Park Square. Miss Campbell did not permit her pupil so much as that +wistful gaze from the window across the brown park and dusty trees, +which is the favorite consolation of such prisoners. She allowed no +indulgence on account of an unsettled mind, but rather the reverse. And +what a day it was! nothing but sunshine, heat, blazing pavements +outside, airless rooms, all hot and heavy with the warm carpets and +curtains of English use and wont. Vera read Rollin’s Ancient History all +the afternoon, not even trying, as she often did, to interest herself in +Xerxes, but thinking all the time of yesterday, and of all that +happened. “Perhaps the world may end to-night.” What did he mean? Would +he have liked it to go on, and on, that progress through the darkness, +without seeing anything, without saying much, but now and then +half-a-dozen words quite low, under cover of the lively chatter of the +two people opposite? Was it possible that _he_ would have liked that? As +for Vera, she did not ask herself if she liked it. It had changed the +world to her; it had given her a new world of her own into which she +could retire safely, almost glad of the Rollin, and think it all over +again,--the few words that meant so much, the consciousness of nearness +and companionship, the dreamy sweep of movement through the soft night. + +“Are you sleepy, my dear?” said Miss Campbell, somewhat sharply rousing +her. + +“N--no,” said Vera. + +“I thought you must be sleepy, you mumble your words so, and shut your +eyes. I suppose you were kept up very late at the villa,” the old +governess said. She disliked the villa with an intensity of dislike such +as mingled jealousy and fear alone could produce. She was afraid that +any day Mrs. Tremenheere might come back and turn her out of a +comfortable home; and she was jealous of the mother’s influence with +Vera, of whom in her way this hard-featured, hard-principled woman was +fond, though she could not express her fondness in any ingratiating way. +“Go on, my dear, and rouse yourself up,” she said--and Vera went on; but +when she shut her eyes she could see that scene, and feel it, as vividly +as if it were still existing, and still within the possibilities that it +might go on for ever; and then her voice would drop, and there would be +a pause in the reading of which she was scarcely conscious; for dreaming +even of that description in a hot July afternoon is akin to sleep. + +“This will never do, Vera,” said Miss Campbell; “I suppose your mother +did not have a ball last night? Go and put on your hat; we may have our +walk now, and perhaps that will rouse you up.” + +They went out for their walk when the afternoon was beginning to cool a +little, and went to Kensington Gardens, which was the usual scene of +their daily promenade. A demure little girl in a white frock, not even +made quite “long” as yet, with a very precise, elderly lady by her, +straight as a piece of iron, and as unbending--this sort of thing is to +be seen in Kensington Gardens every day. They walked down the broad +walk and up again, going quickly, but not too quickly, not to attract +attention, Miss Campbell keeping a steady look-out around her, on her +guard against any possible danger, Vera very silent, scarcely raising +her eyes. + +“Miss Campbell!” suddenly said a voice beside her, which made Vera’s +heart beat. She gave such a sudden start of surprise, and grew so red +with wonder and joy that Miss Campbell vaguely perceived with a corner +of her eye that something was the matter. “This is a most unlooked-for +pleasure. I have been waiting here wondering if I should see anybody I +knew now that all the world is pouring out of town. You are still in +London? Ah!” said Oswald, coldly turning round and bowing, “I beg your +pardon, Miss Tremenheere.” + +Vera, who was not used to such transparent deceits, was wounded to her +innocent heart. “So he does not care about seeing _me_! I am only an +accident. He saw nobody but Miss Campbell!” the foolish little girl said +to herself. And she did not trust herself to look at him lest he should +see the hot tear which this mortification had forced into her eyes, and +consequently never received the glance he sent to make up for his meagre +salutation. Fane had as little doubt that she understood him perfectly, +and was laughing secretly at his enthusiasm for Miss Campbell, as he had +of his own existence. + +“You have the advantage of me,” said Miss Campbell. “I beg your pardon. +One meets so many people in society----” + +“Oswald Fane,” he said. “I had the pleasure of dining the other day in +Hyde Park Square----” + +Miss Campbell gave him a keen glance. “I recollect,” she said. “A +friend, I think, of Mrs. Tremenheere’s?” + +What was he to say? Offend Vera by disclaiming any particular friendship +with her mother, or ruin his hopes of Miss Campbell’s help by claiming +this? “I have known Mr. and Mrs. Tremenheere about the same time,” he +said, “and I have had the pleasure of visiting both. But I think I have +known some relations of yours in Scotland longer than either--the +Campbells of Stormaway? I am sure I have heard them talk of you.” + +“Really!” said Miss Campbell, gratified, “that was very kind. I know +the family you speak of--a very good family, but I cannot claim them as +near relations. There is some far cousinship, no doubt. It is gratifying +to my feelings that they should know--I mean remember me; and have you +seen them lately Mr.--Mr. Vane?” + +“Fane. I met them in Scotland last year; indeed, I was at their house +for a few days. What a pleasant place to visit is a Highland country +house! Of course you remember your cousin’s delightful place?” + +“Yes--yes--that is, I have been there very seldom, Mr. Fane; very +seldom, not since a child, I may say; and no doubt there are additions +and alterations----” + +“They said it was a long time since they had seen you, and I promised to +let them know if I happened to meet you anywhere. A fortunate chance, +was it not? The daughters have grown up charming girls, and as for +Hector and Colin----” + +“Yes--yes,” said Miss Campbell. She was for the moment quite bamboozled; +was he trying to deceive her, or was it really true that the Highland +magnates, whose names alone she was acquainted with, had found out and +recognised her as their kinswoman? After the first flush of +gratification she became uncertain, and did not know what to think. He +had turned, and was walking along with them. But he walked by Miss +Campbell’s side, taking no notice of Vera, who for her part went along +with downcast eyes, offended and never looking at him. + +“By the way,” he said, “Miss Meadows, who is out of town for a few days, +gave me some books for Miss Tremenheere. May I bring them? I am going +away myself shortly. One day this week may I bring them, and discharge +my conscience of my commission before I go?” + +“Oh, pray do not take the trouble. I will send a servant,” said Miss +Campbell, who had seen a sudden lifting of Vera’s eyes. “This is our +way, I think. Do not take the trouble. I must bid you good morning, Mr. +Fane.” + +And he took his leave of them quite calmly, though he was going away. +Vera was so startled, so wounded, so suddenly thrown down out of all +those sweet vague dreams in which she had been indulging, that she could +not raise her eyes. Tears come so easily at sixteen. If he had really +gone and she had seen no more of him, Vera, after that first sharp shock +of mortification and disappointment, which made her poor little lip +quiver and her eyes fill, would no doubt have forgotten all about Oswald +Fane. But in the meantime the blow of his supposed indifference and the +sudden cruel end put all at once to the romance which was just +beginning, crushed her for the moment, depressed as she was by other +influences. She walked home by Miss Campbell’s side with a piteous +little face, not saying a word. Only once a little cry of impatience +burst from her. “I do not believe that gentleman knew much about my +cousins of Stormaway,” Miss Campbell said. “I think it was very strange +that he should have accosted me as he did, currying favor. If he is a +friend of Miss Meadows I must request her not to send her messages by +him. I am sure she has plenty of servants. I must tell her I do not +approve of calls from gentlemen.” + +“Oh, you need not give yourself the trouble,” said Vera; “he is not +coming. He said it was to clear his conscience of his commission. He +never wanted to come.” + +“So much the better,” said Miss Campbell dryly, and she talked about the +Aquarium in the Zoological Gardens, which was a safe subject. Vera no +longer trod on air; her dreams were gone and ended, her beautiful new +world broken like a bubble. She went into her own room and cried, tears +innocent and bitter, such as one sheds at sixteen, when every grief +seems eternal. It was all over, then. Not only should she never see him +more, but she had lost that sweet refuge into which she could retire as +she had done this morning when the day was dull, when Miss Campbell was +hard upon her. + +Next morning, however, she had to go back to her lessons as usual. When +these came to a pause before luncheon, she wandered into the +drawing-room, intending to breathe forth some of her melancholy upon the +grand piano. Some one rose as she went in. The girl grew red all over +with a flush which was partly anger, and partly shame, and partly +delight. + +“Oh!” she said impetuously, not knowing what she said, “I thought you +were gone.” + +“Did you really think so?” said Fane. “No, impossible. I came this +morning that she might not have time to warn the servants not to admit +me.” + +“But, Mr. Fane, of whom are you speaking? You seemed to know Miss +Campbell so well--to like her--and her relations.” + +Fane laughed. Vera could not have explained what her feelings were at +that moment. Her heart bounded, and yet she did not like it. Why should +he deceive even Miss Campbell? She looked at him doubtfully--and yet how +happy she was! + +“You think I should not tell a fib? Quite true. But then how was I to +see you? That was the first thing I had to think of; and there was no +harm done. It was a very innocent fib. I could not give up tamely all +hope of seeing you again.” + +Vera’s cheeks glowed and her heart beat. She did not say anything to +check him--to demur to this statement. Was it not natural that he should +want to see her? Had not she wanted too, though she would not say it, to +see him? + +“But you _are_ going away?” she said softly, with a very little subdued +sigh. + +“Not I--not so long as there is any chance.--Here is the book I spoke +to you about, and another. Take them, please, before the dragon comes; I +fear, I fear, she will be here directly. Ah, Miss Tremenheere, you +cannot think how I have thought about those two days at the villa, and +lived them over and over! Shall not you go there again, or to Miss +Meadows? She knows me. She would not shut me out; and now that I have +seen you it does not seem possible to live just as one lived before. +Life is different. It is so much sweeter--better; since that day at +Lord’s, that first wonderful day. I had never seen you till then.” + +Vera stood silent, with the books in her hands, her eyes cast down, her +cheeks glowing, her heart beating high, yet soft--not wildly in her +ears, as it had done a little while before, but with a satisfied and +quiet beating. How true it all was! Life was different, quite different, +and yet it did not seem right for him to say so. But to listen to him? +Civility demanded that she should listen to any one who talked to her, +especially when he was a visitor, and she at home. + +“You are very--kind, Mr. Fane,” she said at last, faltering. That was +not at all what she meant, but what could she say? + +“Kind! It is you who are kind, listening to me. Elinor Meadows would +stand my friend if you were with her, and how good Mrs. Tremenheere was! +But what must I do with this dragon? If I tell lies to her to please +her, you will disapprove of me, and that I cannot bear; but still less +can I bear not to see you. What can I do?” + +“Mr. Fane: oh! please, don’t speak so--and you said you were going +away.” + +“I am going away when you go,” he said, “for I shall find out where you +go, and follow you--don’t be angry, I can’t help it,--if it is only to +see the light in your window. You wouldn’t like me to fall back, and be +just the poor creature I was before I knew you? Yes, of course, you are +angry with me for telling lies, Vera--you who are truth itself; but the +more I see you the truer I shall be. Don’t give me up, because I can’t +give you up. You are too sweet and too good to break my heart.” + +All this no doubt would have seemed over-bold and over-sudden to a girl +of twenty; but how could Vera discriminate, she upon whom the same +spell had fallen? Did not she, too, feel how different life was, how +transformed from the pale gray routine, the stagnant repression of the +days before? The strangeness and excitement of it made her breathless. + +“Oh! don’t talk so, please don’t talk so,” she cried. + +“It is the only way I can talk,” said Fane. “The moment I saw you I knew +what had happened to me. ‘That is she,’ I said to myself, ‘that is +she--there is none in all the world like her.’ And--ah!--Good morning, +Miss Campbell. I made bold to call to discharge my commission. Miss +Tremenheere has got the books----” + +“Good morning,” said Miss Campbell. “What books? I never permit Miss +Tremenheere to read anything that I have not first looked at myself.” + +“I have no doubt it is a very wise rule,” he said carelessly. “The books +belong to Miss Meadows--it is she who sent me with them, and, of course, +she is answerable.--I shall say I put them into your own hands, Miss +Tremenheere. Any commands for Scotland, Miss Campbell? May I take +tidings of you to your cousins? It would be a great pleasure to +them--and I may say, to me.” + +Miss Campbell looked at him seriously. + +“Mr. Fane,” she said, “I don’t pretend to know what you mean by talking +of my cousins, who, after all, are but distant relations upon whom I +have no claim.” + +“What I mean is to please you, of course,” said Fane with a laugh. “What +else? If they were my people I should like friends to talk of them to +me.” + +“If that was all! but I do not forget my position; and--when a gentleman +sets himself to flatter a lady in my position----” said the governess. + +“Flatter! Do you think it flattering to remind you of your relations? It +might be so to them,” said Fane with a bow and a smile. “Never mind, I +shall hold my tongue another time if you don’t like the Stormaway +people. In the meantime I must really say goodbye. Goodbye, Miss +Tremenheere. I will tell Miss Meadows I saw you. And Miss Campbell, you +will surely shake hands with me, and wish me luck among the grouse.” + +“Now, if one could only tell what that young man meant!” said Miss +Campbell, when he was gone. “He seems well-bred and agreeable, but he +may have a motive of his own. Vera, it is the hour for Rollin. Get your +book, my dear.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +ROMANCE. + + +After this there followed a very exciting interval to Vera. Fane came +again with another mission (nominally) from Miss Meadows, and was +tolerably received. Emboldening by this, he came a third time and a +fourth, addressing most of his conversation to Miss Campbell, and +describing, in elaborate detail, the long series of accidents which +delayed him from the grouse. The Tremenheeres themselves generally left +town in the beginning of August, but this year were later than usual. +Miss Campbell found it agreeable on the whole to receive so unusual a +visitor, and to hear so much about the Campbells of Stormaway, whom she +really began at last to believe in as her cousins. He had always some +trait to relate of one or other of them, when the conversation flagged, +or she began to look suspicious. Vera did not know whether she was +happy or not during these visits. He gave her now and then a look, now +and then a whispered word, in the intervals of his talk with Miss +Campbell, and left her in no doubt as to his motives for cultivating +with such extreme assiduity that lady’s friendship; but after all, at +sixteen, it is but an indifferent pleasure to see your proper slave +devoting himself to another person, even if it be for your sake. Vera +sat silent, and now and then felt somewhat sad. But her whole life +became absorbed in these visits. She thought of them all day long. She +expected him till he came, mused upon him after he was gone. Except +Rollin and the lessons it was all that Vera had. Her mother wrote to her +less frequently than usual, and more briefly. Mrs. Tremenheere, for her +part, was involved in great anxiety and trouble. “I am rather unhappy +about an idea Eddy has got into his head,” she wrote, as an excuse for +her short letters, “but I trust it will not come to anything.” Vera +scarcely asked herself what this could be. She was lost in her own +excitement. + +One afternoon Mr. Tremenheere came in a little earlier than usual, and +met Fane, who was leaving after a prolonged call. They stood talking +together for a few minutes at the door, and Mr. Tremenheere was heard to +laugh, which took a burden off the minds of both the ladies in the +drawing-room; for it suddenly occurred to Miss Campbell that before she +knew Mr. Fane, and was aware how well he was acquainted with the +Campbells of Stormaway, she, too, had been a little suspicious of him, +and thought him an undesirable visitor. However, nothing could be more +friendly than Mr. Tremenheere’s tone. When he came in, however, he did +not look quite so genial. He gave a half-angry glance at the governess, +and a doubtful one at Vera. + +“Since when has young Fane become a visitor in the house?” he asked, and +there was something uncomfortable in his voice. + +“Since when? I think Mr. Fane dined here first on the evening of the +match.” + +“I beg you pardon, that was not what I was asking. Since when has he +been in the habit of calling here? He is not an acquaintance of mine. +Elinor Meadows, who always has a _cortège_ of young fellows about her, +brought him; she takes him everywhere. How often have you seen him, +Vera? I don’t want him here.” + +“How often?” Vera’s foolish face began to flush as usual, though she +would, she thought, have given everything she had in the world to +prevent it. This made her father very angry, who liked a prompt and +plain reply. + +“Yes. How often? What are you frightened about? I shan’t eat you; give +me a straightforward answer. How often have you seen him here?” + +“I--I met him--at mamma’s,” said Vera, under her breath. + +“Ah! at your mother’s? So she has taken him up, too.” + +“I ought to say it is my fault, not Vera’s,” said Miss Campbell. “He +knows some cousins of mine in Argyleshire, the Campbells of Stormaway. +He has come to talk to me about them. Vera has seen very little of him,” +the governess added, with a little complacency, for indeed it had +pleased her to feel that the visitor’s conversation had been so much +addressed to herself. + +“Oh! that is it, is it?” he said, rather carelessly, “then perhaps you +will not mind giving him a hint that I don’t care for his visits. There +is not much in him; and his relationship to Lord Fanebury scarcely worth +counting. Perhaps you might hint to him, that if he calls again you are +not likely to be at home.” + +“Surely, if you wish it,” said Miss Campbell, though she was not +pleased. As for Vera, a great blackness of darkness came over her. She +had not always liked it when he came; but to lose him, to have no longer +that piquant centre to her days, that something to dream of, to think +of--what could she do? Vera felt that it was intolerable. At dinner she +was too unhappy to preserve her usual composure. She was irritable in +her suffering; so irritable as to move her father to the idea that she +must be ill, and must go to the seaside, for which he issued his orders +on the spot. She had never, since the days of her childhood, been so +courageous before. + +“I don’t want change of air,” she said. “It is all very well, papa, for +you. You go to your friends. You do what pleases you. You enjoy +yourself; but as for me I am sent off to a dreadful seaside, where I +know nobody, where we live in horrible lodgings, and practice, and +read, and walk, and do exactly as we do at home.” + +“Vera!” cried Miss Campbell, “I am shocked, I am astonished; you forget +yourself.” + +“I just wish I could,” cried Vera. “I am so sick, so sick of myself! Let +me go to Aunt Elinor, or to the villa; or let me stay at home.” + +Mr. Tremenheere watched her with some astonishment. “I did not give your +mother credit for so much discrimination,” he said. “She warned me you +had a temper. The seaside is far the best for you. When you are a few +years older, you can visit your friends, too, and enjoy yourself.” + +Vera said nothing. She sat still, with flushed cheeks, excited and +miserable, not trusting herself to look at any one. It seemed to her +that she must strike a blow for her own deliverance, or die. For the +first time in her life she waited after Miss Campbell had left the room, +and going up to her father, put her hand timidly on his arm. “Papa,” she +said, imploringly, “when you go away don’t leave me alone with Miss +Campbell. Let me go to--to the villa; or to Aunt Elinor----” + +“Why will you give Miss Meadows that absurd name? She is not your aunt.” + +“I beg you pardon, papa, I will not do it again. I should be so much +happier if I were not alone. The--villa? Mamma will not mind having me, +and Eddy and I could be together, if only for a little while. I should +be so good--so good and obedient----” + +“And why should you not go to the seaside with Miss Campbell this year, +as well as every other year? Go away! go away! and don’t let me hear any +more of this.” + +Vera went away, as he told her, without another word, without a look. +She passed Miss Campbell, who was waiting and wondering on the +staircase, and hurried to her room. She could not cry this time, her +eyes were too hot and dry. Oh, why was she so different from other +girls! Why had she not a mother to care for her, some one who would see +what was happening, who would judge for her if she was wrong, who would +not have left her to make Oswald Fane the centre of the world! He was +the centre of the world, she felt it now!--the pivot upon which all that +was worth having in life turned. If he was sent away, forbidden the +house, what was to become of her? Either she would kill herself, or God +would be kind and do it for her--one way or other, she must die. + +Her heart beat so wildly that it made her sick and faint. But all at +once, as she sat down, it gave one big jump, and then was still. Why was +this? Before her lay a letter carefully placed upon her little +prayer-book, where she could not miss seeing it. Vera knew at once what +it was. Not from her mother, Eddy, any ordinary correspondent; from +_him_. She did not know his handwriting. Why should it be from him? +Perhaps it was some childish invitation, somebody’s letter whom she did +not care for. Saying this over to herself with trembling lips, and +knowing it was not true, she opened the note, and with another big jump +of her heart read as follows:-- + + “I met your father to-day as I left the house. He was not rude to + me, but I read my doom in his eye. I am not to be allowed to come + any more. I shall come--I shall leave no chance untried; I will try + to see him, and plead my cause with him; but I know how it will + end, unless you, you alone, you who are my better life, will stand + by me. Is it too much? Ah, I know it is too much. I have no right + to disturb your young life, to bring painful questions into it; but + I am in despair: and you, you too--sweet Vera, you, for whom I + would give my life, you are not happy either. But for this I would + go away; I would trust to time and Providence to bring me back to + your feet, where alone I can be happy. But to know that you are + lonely and in trouble, too--that is what I cannot bear. Vera, + darling, forgive me, write me one word, only one word, and do not + let them separate us. Have pity upon me! Since the first day I saw + you, that white day, I have had no thought but you. + + O. F.” + +Vera read this with feelings I cannot describe. There had never been a +word of love-making between them, so to speak; nothing but those vague +suggestions which make the early paths of love so exquisite; but after +this letter there could be no further disguise. She read it over and +over again with a mixture of heartrending pain and delight, one as +delicious and as heartrending as the other. Stand by him? what else +could she do?--for he was her life if she was his; but write to him! How +could she do that? How she trembled, how sore her heart was, how happy! +Out of the despair and blank hopelessness with which she had left the +dining-room, what a change to this sea of emotion, so sweet, so +terrible, so alarming, yet consolatory! Neither father nor mother had +any sympathy for Vera, any feeling for her feelings; but he felt for +her, with her, everything she felt--yet but for her would be as much +alone as she was; they were two against the world. But write to him! The +thought trembled all through her, made her hand shake, and her heart +beat. Could she do it? How could she do it? When she heard a sound at +her door she thrust the letter away, not into her bosom, which would +have been romantic, but into her pocket, which was natural; and, +conscious in every look and breath and movement turned round to see who +it was; fortunately it was only Mary, the daughter of her old nurse, who +had lately been promoted to be Vera’s maid. Mary was over twenty, an +experienced young person, who had “kept company” for many years with a +tall Guardsman to whom she was faithful through many flirtations on both +sides. She knew what it was to have had parents and a troublesome cook +to interfere with the course of her true love; but even cook was not so +bad as Miss Campbell. And to have Miss Vera’s little heart broken and +her young man driven to despair was not a thing which could be allowed +to be, if sympathetic Mary could prevent it. She came into the room, +smiling with a consciousness equal to Vera’s own, but with more +comfortable sensations. + +Mary was cautious, however, in her advances. She said nothing until she +was well into her pretty work of brushing Vera’s long beautiful hair, +standing behind her, unseen and unseeing, a position which gave both +maid and mistress ease. When this period had arrived, Mary said softly, +“Miss Vera, I hope you had your letter?” + +“Yes, Mary,” said Vera with a start, and seized a book on the table +under pretence of reading. But Mary was not so dull as not to see the +warm color that came flushing over the girl’s neck, or the tremulous +instinct of self-defence which made her seize upon the book which she +did not read. Mary had the matter in her own hands. She resumed---- + +“How long your hair do grow, to be sure, Miss Vera. Mother was always +proud of your hair; and now here’s somebody come as thinks more of it +than coined gold. You’ll write him just a little word, won’t you, Miss +Vera, dear, to keep up his heart, poor gentleman? just a little +word----” + +“Mary, you ought not to speak to me so. What have you to do with +gentlemen, or me either? How did you get it? Was it you that put it +there? Oh Mary, you shouldn’t have done it--you must never, never do it +again.” + +“Miss Vera, you don’t know nothing about it,” said Mary. “Me--I’ve kept +company with my young man since I was just your age, and nobody shan’t +come between him and me. We’ve got to wait, but I don’t mind waiting, +and I’ve told mother so, when she’s been at me about it. But look you +here, Miss Vera, your papa is the only one you’ve got to look to, and if +you hold out he’ll give in. They always does. I never see a young +gentleman more deep in love, and to give him up would be a burning +shame.” + +“Oh, Mary, how can you, how dare you talk so?” said poor Vera, with her +face burning. “What would become of us both if papa or Miss Campbell +knew?” + +“They couldn’t do much harm to me, Miss,” said Mary. “A servant as knows +her work is always sure of a good place. Don’t you be afraid for me. And +they can’t harm you neither, not if you holds out. Whoever holds out +wins; them as gives in is the only one as is beaten. Miss Vera, you’ve +got a spirit of your own, for all they think they have broken it. If I +were you, I’d write him a word just to keep up his heart, poor +gentleman; and I’d up and tell my papa that he might be a bluebeard or a +raging Turk, as much as he likes--it wouldn’t make no effect upon me.” + +“Oh, Mary, Mary, hush! You don’t know what you are saying!” + +“Don’t I just? It’s you as don’t understand, Miss, not me. I know all +about it, and a deal more than you do, and this I’ll say, that no father +nor tyrant would ever make me false to my young man. I wouldn’t do it, +not for the world; and Miss Vera, I can’t believe as you’re a traitor in +your heart.” + +This was such a totally new view of the question that it took away +Vera’s breath. A traitor! She had never once thought of treachery in the +question. How long Mary’s arguments went on I need not say. She came +back, stealing into Vera’s room in the dark after Miss Campbell had been +there and declared the girl to be feverish, and had given her some white +homœopathic globules, to calm her down again. “It is the hot weather,” +Miss Campbell said to herself, never suspecting Mary. And the maid stole +back in the dark, and the little mistress cried and let her talk, happy +yet ashamed of the company and the confidences, and the familiarity and +sympathy. Mary pleaded so well that Vera was persuaded to write half a +dozen words, in great trouble and agitation, to the effect that Mr. Fane +must not be unhappy, that he must not think of her; but that she should +always think of him, and pray for him, and hoped he would be very happy +all the same. Was it wrong? was it very wrong? Should not a girl answer +a letter from a gentleman as well as from another girl? Vera knew, +alas, that this was not at all the question. But she read over Fane’s +letter again, and put it under her pillow when she went to sleep. He was +the only one who felt for her. They two stood against the world! + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +AN ANXIOUS MOTHER. + + +Mrs. Tremenheere had spent a very uneasy month no less than her +daughter, but in a way which had no gildings of romance and happiness +like Vera’s trouble. The holidays had come, but had brought no pleasant +wanderings, no genial ease to her. She had not gone to Switzerland, as +she had proposed. Edward, disturbed and excited as he was, had declared +himself quite indifferent to Switzerland. “If there is to be nothing but +play in my life, I may as well play here as anywhere else,” he had said, +with a gloomy ill-temper quite unusual to him; and he spent the sunny +weeks of August in trudging about from one cricket match to another, an +occupation which his mother sighed over, without enjoying that kind of +honor and glory which consists in the report of “scores” in the +“_Field_.” These, it is to be supposed, gave some consolation to him, +but they did not cheer her, especially as they were diversified by long +and painful debates with her son on the subject which he had never put +aside or relinquished for a moment. Edward had changed his nature +altogether. From a docile amiable lad, ready to accept her guidance and +to be kind to everybody around him, without standing upon his own will, +he had changed into a dogged monomaniac, a being of one idea, thinking +of nothing but the project which had taken possession of his generally +dull imagination, and set it all aflame. When a slow and tranquil mind +gets roused into fanaticism the result is much more serious than with an +inflammable nature; the fire takes deeper hold, and burns with a more +concentrated and obstinate force. Edward could think of nothing but this +idea of his. He too began a correspondence essentially as clandestine as +Vera’s, though his letters came openly by the post. The boy was free +from surveillance, and therefore had no temptation towards +communications absolutely secret; but Edward wrote letters to his new +friend, the traveller, which he would not for worlds have shown to his +mother, and which were full of plans and engagements which she neither +knew nor sanctioned. The expedition was to set out in October, and the +mind of Mr. Buckram Bass was not disturbed by the fact that his young +convert, his eager disciple, was forming plans and pledging himself to +acts of which his friends disapproved. Men look leniently upon such +kinds of family treachery. Poor Mrs. Tremenheere felt that the world +would be against her when she set herself in opposition to an enterprise +which would leave her desolate, and throw away as she thought her son’s +better life. “Did she expect to keep him always at her apron strings?” +she already heard people say, and Edward himself, all the more that he +was not very bright, took up with fervor that common notion. “You know, +mamma,” he said, “if I were a girl it would be quite different; but I +can’t stay by you always, can I? You would not like to see me stick fast +at home, a poor creature like Tom Crabbe, always thinking of the danger +of wet feet!” + +“You know I do not wish for anything of the sort,” said Mrs. +Tremenheere. + +“No, you are not foolish like that; but is it not something of the same +kind in a more sensible way? You don’t mind my cricket, and that sort +of thing. You would let me go up Mont Blanc--all for my amusement. You +wouldn’t have me laughed at for your anxieties. I know, mother dear, you +are a great deal too wise and good for that. But when I want to throw +myself into real work, into something that will be of use in the world, +then you turn round upon me--you who have always been so good, and +refuse, because it is so far away, because it is such hard work----” + +“Eddy,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, “it is always a bad thing to attribute +low motives to other people--even people much less near to you than I +am. Can you not conceive it possible that I have some better reason than +even regret to lose you and anxiety about the hardships involved? I +don’t say all the same that these would not be reason enough----” + +“What reason?” said Edward. “I don’t know what other objection there +could be.” + +“To me it would seem like throwing away all your chances,” said his +mother. “I don’t mean only of success in the world; that is important +enough, Eddy, though you shake your head. If any misfortune was to +happen, if our investments were to go wrong, for instance, like so many +people’s, you might have the strongest of inducements to think of +success in the world. Money never comes amiss, as everybody will tell +you--nor friends.” + +“You, too, mamma!” cried Eddy, “is self-interest then the only +rule?--make friends to help one on in life, as my father said.” + +“Your father knows more of the world than either you or me--yes, to help +you on, and to be helped on in turn--all true assistance is mutual; but +I did not think of that,” said Mrs. Tremenheere. “What I was thinking +was this--that you will throw yourself out of all the reasonable chances +of life if you go on with this mad notion, and separate yourself from +all your friends, and give up everything--prospects, occupations, +suitable companions--all for what? for what, Eddy?” + +The lad’s face flushed. “For the good of mankind,” he cried. “Oh yes, I +know what you will say, mother! you will say that is too vague, too +general, and means nothing. I can’t help that, I can’t bring it down to +details. Africa is swarming with millions of poor creatures who know +nothing; it is to bring civilization to them, and education and trade, +to raise them above the possibility of slavery; why are they slaves +except because they are too ignorant and debased to know better? Think, +mother--is not that of greater use than anything a fellow like me could +do at home? I am not clever, you know I am not clever--but that will not +matter in Africa; so long as one is strong and honest and honorable.” + +“Oh, Eddy, Eddy!” cried his mother in despair, “what am I to say to you +to dispel this illusion, my generous, good boy!” + +“I will tell you what you can do, mother dear,” he said, coming up to +her, putting his arms round her, “let me go! My heart is set on it; why +should you not let me go, mamma? you never refused me anything before. I +know very well I have often disappointed you; you would have liked me to +be clever, to take a high place in school, to gain prizes and +things--but you have never blamed me when I failed, never! You have +given in to me in many a thing you did not care for, because you saw I +cared for it. Oh, don’t think I haven’t seen it! I knew it well enough. +You have never reproached me, nor refused me anything. Mother, don’t +turn round for the first time in my life, and refuse me now; don’t fail +me now, the first time when it has been really important, when I have +wanted it most!” + +“You ought to see the difference,” said poor Mrs. Tremenheere; “I have +been ready to give in to you even when I did not approve, when it was of +no great importance; but now, when it is of the last importance, when +all your more serious interests are involved, how can I go against my +own judgment for the mere sake of pleasing your fancy, Eddy? You ought +not to ask me, and I--I ought not to listen.” + +“I cannot see that,” he cried. “I don’t see why you should depart from +the way you have always treated me. As for me, don’t suppose this is a +mere fancy,” he added, growing red; “it is a fancy I will never depart +from; you may oblige me to put it off, but I will give it up never.” + +Some one fortunately came in then, and stopped the further discussion; +but such conversations took place daily between the mother and son, and +the reader may judge how painful they were, and confusing to the mind +of Mrs. Tremenheere, who had gone all these years on the principle that +to yield all legitimate gratification to her son was the best mode of +education, and to place in him unlimited confidence. It had answered +very well up to this moment. Edward, who knew that he would not be +opposed in any innocent and natural wish, had been less, not more, +exacting, than many others more strictly governed; but now, what was she +to do now? to preserve the tradition of her theory without its spirit, +to yield to him for his own destruction, as she had yielded to him for +his innocent pleasures. To refuse and cross him--how hard it was! but to +consent to what she thought his ruin, that was harder still. + +It was while Mrs. Tremenheere was involved in this painful controversy, +not knowing what was to be the end of it, that she received suddenly a +letter from Elinor Meadows, telling her about the love of Oswald Fane +for Vera. The letter was long and full of details, recounting the +efforts which the young man had made to see Mr. Tremenheere, and gain +his consent; and how, failing in this, he had appealed to her to +intercede for him with Vera’s father, and how this, too, had failed; +proceedings which had been taking place in the meanwhile. I scarcely +know by what rule it is that a youthful love-story bulks so much more +largely in the eyes of an unmarried woman, who may be supposed to have +had no such experiences of her own, than in those of a married woman, +who must of necessity, one would imagine, have herself passed through +some such passages; but so it is generally, and Mrs. Tremenheere was no +exception to the rule. Her own trouble seemed to her much more serious +than any folly about love, which no doubt Elinor had put into the +children’s heads. But though she was impatient she wrote to Vera, +telling her she was too young, much too young, to think of any such +thing, and that her first duty was to please her father, and give up +anything that he thought improper for her. When, however, Mrs. +Tremenheere had written this letter, it occurred to her, with a kind of +whimsical vexation, that it was exactly the kind of letter which her +husband would probably write to Eddy when he knew of the controversy in +which they were engaged, and this idea made her think again, +pre-occupied as she was, of her poor little woman-child, left to Miss +Campbell’s sole society, in all the tremors and distresses of that +fanciful moment, when Love and all involved in it had been first +suggested to her mind. Poor Vera! Would her father be gentle, as he +ought? Would not she now feel deeply and doubly what it was to be +without a mother? Mrs. Tremenheere’s mind, withdrawn from Vera by the +immediate vexations which were more near to her, awoke to this all at +once with that sudden, painful sense how much she was herself to blame +for depriving Vera of a mother, which gives double force to every pang. +After a day or two, during which, amid all her own troubles, this +painful question kept returning perpetually to her mind, she decided at +last to write to her husband. She must not interfere, but yet perhaps he +would be glad to have his wife’s assistance at such a moment, as she +would be glad to have his. Accordingly, in the beginning of September, +when all her own anxieties were growing greater, day by day, she took +the final resolution, and wrote to him as follows, wording her letter as +carefully as if she had been writing to the Queen:---- + + “DEAR CHARLES,--I don’t know whether you begin to find out, as I + do, how very much more difficult it is to manage children when they + are grown up, and begin to have fancies and opinions of their own, + than when they are small and can be commanded without explanation. + I am sorry to say I have made this discovery in a disagreeable way, + Eddy, all at once, without rhyme or reason, has fallen in love with + a life of adventure, and gives me no peace, trying to wring from me + a consent to let him go off to Africa with Mr. Buckram Bass’s + expedition. Perhaps a few words from you would help to make him + more reasonable, if you would take the trouble to write to him. He + is so good a boy in every other respect that it is very painful for + me to be obliged to cross him; and yet I am sure you will agree + with me that on this point it would be weakness and almost + wickedness to yield to his wishes. + + “Elinor Meadows has written me some rigmarole about Vera and a + lover. A lover at her age! I hope it is only one of Elinor’s many + delusions in respect to this favorite subject, and that our dear + little girl’s mind has not yet been disturbed by any such ideas I + know this is the time you appropriate to relaxation, and it has + occurred to me that if Vera has known of this proposal, and has + been at all upset by it, you may dislike leaving her in the sole + companionship of Miss Campbell, who, though I don’t doubt a most + admirable person, does not look very sympathetic. If this should be + the case would you trust her to me? I should, I need not say, take + the greatest care of her, and preserve her from every suggestion of + premature love-making; her company would be very good for Eddy, who + is in an extremely unsettled state of mind, and it would be very + sweet and delightful for me. I hope, too, you might find it a + relief to your anxiety to dispose of Vera comfortably with me while + you are absent. Pray give me your advice on the other subject. With + love to Vera, + + “I am, ever affectionately yours, + “ADA TREMENHEERE.” + +Mr. Tremenheere received this letter just as he was arranging his plans +to send his daughter to the seaside. It was an unfortunate moment. More +difficult to manage! No, he would not acknowledge anything of the kind. +For a girl at least it was always the best way to command without +explanation. He thought but little of what his wife said about Eddy, +which no doubt was so much dust thrown in his eyes to blind him to the +real meaning of the proposed interference--as if he was to be taken in +so easily! He answered this letter by return of post. He was angry with +Elinor Meadows for her interference, and angry that his wife should know +anything about it. They should all find that he was quite able to manage +Vera and Vera’s lover without any help from them. The answer he returned +was as follows. It was not by any means so carefully written as the +epistle to which it was a reply:-- + + “MY DEAR ADA,--I am very sorry that you find any difficulty with + Eddy after all the indulgence you have shown him. Of course I shall + be quite ready to write and point out his duty to him if you think + there is really any necessity for such a step; but I should hope he + has not been spoiled to such an extent that he has not sense to see + what a fatal piece of absurdity this would be. It is really too + ridiculous and too entirely out of the question, I feel sure, to + warrant any serious alarm. + + “As for Vera, I am very much obliged to you for volunteering to + take her off my hands, but up to the present moment I have seen + nothing in her to make such a transference necessary. I have no + doubt the system upon which she has been trained will continue to + answer perfectly, as it has done hitherto, and neither Vera nor I + have found anything wanting in Miss Campbell as a companion, though + I am aware you don’t like her. That perhaps was to be expected. + Vera is quite well, and goes to Worthing with her admirable friend + and governess the day after to-morrow. Thanking you all the same + for your kind offer, and with love to Eddy, who I trust by this + time has come to his senses, I am, my dear Ada, + + “Affectionately yours, + “C. TREMENHEERE.” + +This letter was very irritating to Mrs. Tremenheere. Her services were +not only rejected, but rejected with something like contumely, and the +suggestion that it was to be expected she should dislike Miss Campbell +made her furious. Why should she dislike Miss Campbell? It was all she +could do to refrain from falling upon Elinor Meadows, who had come to +her the night before it arrived, while she was still entertaining the +hope of being permitted to have her child with her. “She is not coming, +she is going to Worthing with Miss Campbell,” she said; and +magnanimously swallowed the other words which were fain to come. + +“Ah!” cried Miss Meadows, with a start of interest. She was on Oswald’s +side, and delighted to feel that she should be able at once to give him +news as to where his little lady had been taken; for to be sure she was +ignorant of Mary, and all that went on through Mary’s means. + +And thus poor Vera’s affairs drew to a climax. Oswald Fane, I need not +say, followed Miss Campbell and her charge to Worthing, where twice +over, by Mary’s help, he saw Vera in the early morning before Miss +Campbell was out of bed, when the girl went out for a walk--as it was so +natural she should do--with her maid. But on the last of these two +interviews Fane had lost all idea of prudence or patience. It was not +only that he was hotly in love, and kept from all legitimate intercourse +with the object of his impetuous young affection; but Mary, with whom he +was now in constant communication, and whose head was turned by the +delight and excitement of the whole transaction, drew such a touching +picture to him of Vera’s solitude and semi-imprisonment, that Fane’s +blood boiled, and it seemed the first of duties to deliver her. + +“She ain’t found out as Miss Vera is up early of a morning, not yet,” +said Mary, “which it is my young lady’s only breath of freedom; but +you’ll see she will afore long, for there’s spies all about. Mercifully +she’s fond of her bed in the morning, is Miss Campbell; but as soon as +she finds it out, don’t you think for to see Miss Vera any more--not to +say as it’s as much as my place is worth now.” + +“Never mind about your place,” said the lover. “You shall have your +place all right, don’t you fear.” + +“Well, sir,” said Mary, curtseying, “I’ve done my best for you; but if +you’ll take my advice you won’t let that poor dear linger on here, a +prisoner, and nothing better. Daren’t take up her own letters she +daren’t, her letters from her poor mamma, nor lift her head from her +book, nor go a step without the old one after her. But for me, I know +she’d die,” Mary added emphatically. And indeed it was true that among +them they had brought poor Vera into a state of excitement in which the +child’s mind could find no rest. Her temper and her spirit rose against +the tyranny exercised over her. Miss Campbell, and only Miss Campbell, +all day; her intercourse with the external world, except through Miss +Campbell, stopped short; no one near to give the poor child any +counsel--and Mary’s insidious whispering in her ears, and the daily love +letters, with all their wonderful flattery and worship. What wonder that +poor Vera by and by found herself ready for anything? A panic seized her +indeed when Fane unfolded his plan, and showed her exactly how +everything was to be done, and how they were to be married in a church +in London, where already, without consulting her, he had put up the +banns. Married! the words froze Vera’s blood in her veins, and then sent +it tingling and burning all over her in fright and wonder and shame. +Married! + +“Well, Miss, it’s a thing that happens to most folks,” said Mary, “and +all the young ladies as I’ve ever known is pleased to be asked young. +I’ve known a many as has been married at sixteen. It’s early, but still +when a lady has set her heart on a gentleman as ain’t allowed to come +and see her nor keep her company, what is to be expected? It ain’t your +blame, Miss, but them that drove you to it----” + +Vera, in her confused and frightened ponderings, felt that there was +some truth in this. They were driving her to it. Shut up here, never +free to do anything, seeing nobody except by stealth--and lo, if she +liked to-morrow she might be free to go where she pleased, to see whom +she pleased, to be perpetually by his side who had made the world such a +different place to her. To be sure the idea of being married was very +appalling; but she only trembled and shrank back at the word; she no +longer made any serious opposition now. + +The arrangements were all concluded while Mr. Tremenheere was in +Scotland, among a circle of friends, very much satisfied with himself; +and while Mrs. Tremenheere, worried and unhappy, was arguing with +Edward, forgetting for the moment all about Vera; and while Miss +Campbell was listening to Rollin with that routine attention which the +unfortunate educators of humanity somehow attain by long practice. Not +without excitement, not without a passing doubt, did Fane arrange all +the details. It was a risk, for he was not rich, and what might happen +to them was very uncertain. But it was only by moments that this cold +shadow came over him--to deliver Vera and make her life ever after a +dream of happiness, to be happy himself, beyond words in having her, +these were the motives that were uppermost in his mind, and he waited +with impatience, for the decisive moment. The last step was precipitated +by the discovery on Miss Campbell’s part of one of the morning walks +which the girl had taken, and which a slip on Vera’s part had betrayed +to her. + +“Do you mean to say you go out in the morning before I am up?” said Miss +Campbell. Mary, who was present, made signs of every possible kind to +her mistress, and even stole behind her, suggesting a fib. + +“Yes,” said Vera, whose moral failure had not gone so far. She trembled, +but she told the truth. “I have been out twice in the morning when it +was very fine--but Mary was with me,” she added, falteringly. + +Miss Campbell sent a suspicious glance at Mary, but could do no more, as +there was no evidence against her. “I think perhaps, on the whole, Vera, +it will be better for you to have your bed brought into my room,” she +said. This roused all Vera’s spirit. + +“Into your room, Miss Campbell? Why?” she said, with a quivering lip. “I +have always had a room of my own.” + +“Yes, but then there were no reasons against it. I wish you to be in my +room now. Don’t say anything. I know what I am doing, and I am +responsible to your papa. Mary, give the orders to-morrow. It is too +late, I suppose to-night?” + +“Yes, Miss Campbell, they’ve all gone to bed, or going,” said Mary. +“I’ll see to it first thing to-morrow.” + +Vera went to her little room, stunned by this last blow. No more privacy +to think, no more possibility of getting her letters, and feeding her +heart upon them, of talking about him to her attendant. Mary followed +her up-stairs, a little frightened in her turn, feeling that the crisis +had come, which was too exciting to be comfortable. As long as things +could go on without coming to a crisis it was better fun. But even Mary +felt a certain trembling now. + +“What am I to do? I will not bear it. I cannot bear it,” said Vera. “It +has all come to an end now.” + +“Oh! Miss Vera,” said the maid, dead frightened. It was Vera now, after +being tempted and led on so long, who took the lead. She settled +everything in a few quiet words. “Stay here and sleep on the sofa,” she +said--which was a wise precaution; for otherwise, Mary, struck with a +sudden panic, was capable in pure fright of betraying everything to Miss +Campbell, already excited and full of alarm. + +That morning, when it was scarcely daylight, Vera, with her maid after +her, stole out of the house, while still Miss Campbell and everybody +else in the big lodging-house was fast asleep. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE BOY’S APPEAL. + + +“Mother, now you must come to a decision. You cannot keep me longer in +suspense. Mr. Bass writes to me that there is only one vacant place in +the expedition, and that he cannot leave it longer unfilled up. It must +be Yes or No.” + +“I have said No, Eddy, a hundred times.” + +“But without due consideration,” he cried eagerly. “Think mother! How +often have you said that it was easier for every one when a fellow had a +bent one way or another, when he knew what he wanted to be. I never did +till now; one thing was the same to me as another; I was ready to do +whatever you said, and then you regretted that I had no bent! But now +that I have a wish, a strong desire, you deny me, you will not give me a +plain answer. The responsibility will be on you,” cried Edward, with +excitement, “if you baulk me. I feel I can do this, and I don’t know +what else I can do, and I don’t care for anything else in life.” + +He was hot and flushed with eagerness. She was pale, and her face drawn +with anxiety and distress. The boy assailed with all the eagerness of +his young strength and self-will, the mother, torn by conflicting +emotions, resisted. All was unity in his mind, all contention and +complication in hers. She would have done anything in the world to +please him. She would have made any sacrifice to secure him his +wish--except the sacrifice he demanded, the sacrifice of his own +prospects, and comfort, and use in life. Even, feeling this deeply, and +feeling that it was her duty to resist him, the effort of doing so wrung +her heart. + +“I know I have the responsibility,” she said gravely. “You are too young +to judge for yourself, and if you were older you are excited, Eddy, and +your mind is warped. I cannot consent to it. If I must speak decisively +let me do it at once. I cannot give you up to this vagabondism, this +mere wild course of adventure. All that man says is but words--fine +words, brave words, but nothing, nothing more, Eddy. I know what I am +speaking of. I cannot consent.” + +“Then, mother--” he sprang up furiously to his feet, his whole aspect +changed. He looked as if about to pour upon her some violent outburst of +rage or reproach. Then he stopped suddenly. “If it is to be so,” he said +with a sombre countenance, “if you refuse me this only thing I have ever +cared for, then all is over with me. I don’t care what becomes of me. Do +what you like, it doesn’t matter any more.” + +“This is folly--it is madness, Edward!” + +“You may call it what you please,” said the lad, with a sullen shrug of +the shoulders. “One word or another, what does it matter? It is all one. +Mamma, I know you mean well, you think it is for the best; but you have +crushed all the life out of me, and I don’t care now what I do.” + +“You will feel differently, Eddy, when you have considered--when you +have thought of it more.” + +“Considered! Thought! As if I had done anything else for weeks,” he +said, with something like scorn; and there ensued a heavy pause, a pause +which neither broke--until at last after awhile he rose dully, and went +away, thrusting his hands down to the depths of his pockets. Poor Mrs. +Tremenheere was left victorious, but miserable. She had broken her +boy’s heart--for his good. She knew it was for his good, but still, as +he said, she had crushed him, she who would rather have been crushed +herself a hundred times. She had all the feebleness of a mother, though +she thought herself a strong-minded woman; the moment she had refused +him absolutely she began to think, would it have been possible to let +him go? Perhaps--if he had been allowed to try it, to go a certain +distance, to make the discovery for himself what it really +was--_perhaps_ that might have cured him; whereas, now it would be his +dream and ideal all his life. I can scarcely tell how she managed to +live through the afternoon without conceding to Eddy’s downcast looks +what her better judgment had refused to his entreaties, but she did hold +out for the next day, and the next again. She saw him wandering about +listlessly, not caring to go out, not caring for his cricket, not even +waking up when the _Field_ came with all its news. When a boy like +Edward Tremenheere can resist the _Field_, he must be bad indeed. Poor +Eddy looked entirely broken down. He thrust his shoulders up to his ears +and his hands down into his pockets. He left off whistling, he left off +smiling, and if indeed his mother had broken his heart, as he said, he +paid her back in her own coin, and broke hers. Never had there been a +more melancholy house than the villa for these two days. At last Mrs. +Tremenheere could bear it no longer. + +“Edward,” she said, the third morning, throwing aside the diminutive, +half consciously in the solemnity of the circumstances, “this is more +than I can bear. You look as if you had lost all your friends, all you +care for----” + +“So I have,” he said sullenly; and then with a look that wrung her heart +he added, “Have patience a little, mother. I have lost a great deal more +than you think--the first thing I ever really cared for. I daresay I +shall be better after a while, but I can’t look cheerful all at once. +Leave me alone till I come to myself--if I ever do.” + +“You break my heart,” she said, “Oh, Eddy, if I could give in to you I +would--but how can I, feeling as I do? And you would be the first to +blame me when you are older, and see things in their true light.” + +“I shall never do that,” said Edward doggedly. “The true light is what I +have been seeing so long. Now I have fallen back into no light at all, +and that is what I must put up with for the rest of my life.” + +Then there was another interval of gloom and silence--another day with +still the same heavy languor upon him. Mrs. Tremenheere was altogether +overwhelmed. In the afternoon she went up-stairs, and put on her bonnet, +tying the strings resolutely before the glass, and looking almost +fiercely at her own pale face. + +“I am going to town,” she said, meeting Edward on her way to the door. +“I cannot bear the responsibility you have thrown on me. I am going to +consult your father. If he thinks anything can be done to satisfy you I +will put aside my own feelings. I will not put myself in your way.” + +A sudden light of joy flushed over Edward’s face. + +“How good you are, mother, how good you are to me!” he cried; but then +he paused and shook his head. There was not much faith to be put in his +father. Still, a glimmering of hope sprang up in him the moment he found +that the question was not entirely concluded. He walked to the railway +station with her, his face already lightened, his head more erect, his +shoulders in their usual place. He was more tender to her than ever he +had been, compunctious, sorry for having troubled her, now that he saw a +revival of possibility that he might yet have his own way. + +It was a desperate resolution which Mrs. Tremenheere had taken; all her +pride, both as wife and woman, would have to be sacrificed. She would be +obliged as good as to confess, she who in her heart thought her +experiment so much more successful than her husband’s, that she had +failed, that the mother was not enough, that she required his aid to +influence and guide her boy. Only a few weeks before her husband had +rejected her proffered aid with scorn; and now she had to go humbly to +seek his, to lay her problem before him. She walked to the little +station with a sense of humiliation and downfall in her mind which her +very anxiety could scarcely keep in balance. Never, after thus giving +in, could she hold up her head as of old before either father or son. If +she had done wrong she felt that she was punished. She could scarcely +respond to Edward’s rising cheerfulness as she went along that dreary +bit of way. What an end it was to all her pride, to all her theories! A +train had just arrived from town as she approached the platform of the +country station to wait for her train going up to town. The people +streaming out kept her back till she began to fear she would be too +late. Going on in advance, anxiously, leaving Edward behind her, she +almost ran against a gentleman who was coming with equal haste and +eagerness in the other direction, but whom in her pre-occupation she did +not notice except to get out of his way. Then she stopped short +suddenly, stopped by the cry he gave at seeing her--“Ada!” She raised +her head quickly, thunderstruck. It was Mr. Tremenheere. + +“You are coming to me?” he said, holding out his hand, and stranger +still, drawing hers within his arm, and leading her with him as if they +had been the most confidential of friends. His manner was anxious and +excited. “You were coming to me, Ada. I can see it in your face.--She is +here!” + +“She?” said Mrs. Tremenheere, excited too. “I don’t understand you. +Yes, I was coming to you, Charles.” + +“God bless you, my dear!” he cried earnestly, “if she is safe with you +all is well.” + +“Of whom are you speaking?” she said. “There is nobody with me but +Eddy;” then with a cry, “Vera! Something has happened to my child!” + +Mr. Tremenheere was quite tremulous and shaken, his eyes bloodshot, his +countenance haggard, like an old man. + +“Hush!” he said, “don’t let us publish it to everybody. She is not here, +then? God help us! I thought she must certainly have gone to you.” + +She grasped his arm with both hands: + +“Charles,” she said, “tell me what has happened? Tell me everything. It +is right I should know.” + +“Yes, yes! it is right you should know. I came to you at once; it was +the first thought in my mind. We are both to blame, both to blame, if +anything beyond remedy has happened to her. Ada, she went away two days +ago, where we cannot tell. I have come down from Scotland, travelling +all night in answer to that woman’s telegram. Then I came on to you. I +thought, God help me! she was sure to be here; and when I saw you---- +But pride must be at an end and everything else. I have failed with +Vera. I have driven her to despair; and where are we to find her, and +how?” + +“I was coming to you with the same confession in my mouth,” said Mrs. +Tremenheere, with tears in her eyes. “I have failed as well. I was +coming to ask your help.” + +“Has he gone away, too?” + +“No; but something else,” she said. “Oh! forgive me, Charles, that is +not so urgent. Tell me about Vera, and we must plan what is best to be +done without delay.” + +She forgot Edward and everything else. She turned down a quiet byway, +holding her husband’s arm, clinging to it. He told her his story, and +she listened, their two heads close together, their minds in absolute +union, in one interest, in one feeling. He told her how it had been +found out that Fane had followed Vera to Worthing, and how it was proved +at last that Mary, her maid, the daughter of her old nurse, was in +Fane’s pay, and working for him with all her might. He confessed that +Miss Campbell had been hard upon the girl, keeping her in a kind of +imprisonment. + +“Carrying out my orders,” said the penitent father, “to the letter, +without thinking of the spirit; for, of course, that was never what I +intended. What I intended was by means of society and occupation to wean +her from any foolish fancy that might have crept into her mind; and, +indeed, I did not even know that she cared for the young fellow. I only +knew that he supposed himself to be fond of her.” + +“She is such a child. It was not to be expected that you could think of +any strong sentiment on her part,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, soothingly, +“but tell me more--Was he with her? Was any one with her? and how, if +she was so watched, did she get away?” + +“She went away in the morning, before any one was up, by the early train +to town. Mary was with her; no one else, so far as we can find out. It +appears,” said Mr. Tremenheere, with a look of shame, “that Miss +Campbell, hearing of some early walks she had taken, had threatened to +take her into her own room henceforward, to sleep there.” + +“Vera would not put up with that. You never knew how impetuous she was; +but if Mary was with her, and Mary only---- Charles, had you reason to +think badly of this Mr. Fane?” + +“Badly? No,” he said, with some impatience. “No. He is a mere nobody, +that is all. Younger brother of a commonplace squire in one of the +Midland counties--_quite_ distantly related to Lord Fanebury, with next +to nothing, and no prospects that I know of; a sort of half-artist, as +has been the fashion lately with idle young men--a man who could give +her nothing, neither money nor position, nor----” + +“But that meant no harm--could not mean any harm? Oh! Charles, they are +both so young! and if you say she was harshly treated, my poor darling! +He had a good face----” + +“Ada, you are always ridiculous,” he cried, giving her arm in sheer +impatience a hasty pressure with his. “What has the goodness of his face +to do with it? He was well-looking enough--the question is, What is to +be done? How are we to find her? I have set a detective on his track, of +course. Why do you cry out? Such things are done every day, and the +world need not be any the wiser. But tell me, if you have any +suggestion to make.” + +“I am thinking,” she said. “But, in the first place you must come home +and rest, and take some food; you are worn out. Eddy and I, who are +fresh and untired, must work now.” + +“Ah!” he said, drawing a long breath. “Yes, I am very tired; but I did +not expect you would think of me when Vera was in danger.” + +“Oh! hush! hush!” she said, “are we not all one family, though we have +been fools and divided ourselves? We shall find Vera. She is a good +child, though she is hasty and young. She will not do anything there is +shame in. God bless her!” cried the mother, with tears in her eyes, +“wherever she is! She may be foolish and unhappy, but she will not go +wrong. Charles, come home and take some rest, or you will be ill. Leave +it for the moment to Eddy and me.” + +It would be useless to say what Mr. Tremenheere’s feelings were when he +found himself in his wife’s house, which she called “home”--the villa he +had heard so often spoken of, but had never seen. His anxiety and +fatigue blunted the sharpness of his personal feelings. He took the food +that was served to him without even feeling it strange that she should +fill his glass with wine, and sit by him while he ate; and went to lie +down after his long vigil while she went to London with Edward, now +fully roused up, and for the moment delivered from all thought of +Africa. Mr. Tremenheere was no longer a young man, and he was very +tired; and somehow putting the whole troublesome business into other +hands seemed to relieve him, and gave him a degree of immediate ease +which a few hours ago would scarcely have seemed possible. No doubt her +mother would find her. A woman would know what another woman was likely +to do in such an emergency; and she was fresh, as she said, and untired, +whereas his head was aching with weariness. He had not slept for two +nights, and scarcely had taken any food. After his wife and his son had +left him, he wandered over the house in a curious languor of fatigue +which blunted even his anxieties. The pretty house, all still and +vacant, the broad rich landscape beneath, the sunny air and warmth and +sweetness worked upon him like a spell. How strange it was that he +should be here reposing himself, putting his burden upon other +shoulders! Yes, “we are all one family, though we have been fools and +divided ourselves.” How true that was! Mr. Tremenheere thought he had +said it himself, and in the strength of that virtuous and reasonable +sentiment went and lay down and slept. This new comer, who went to bed +in broad daylight, and who was thus left alone in possession of the +house, was a great wonder and excitement to the servants at the villa. +He was “Missis’s husband,” but he was not “Master.” “Something was up,” +everybody felt, from Jane, who was Mrs. Tremenheere’s feminine butler, +to Sam, the boy in the garden. Had he come and taken possession, and +ousted her altogether? The popular mind has great ideas as to what a +husband can do. They thought Mrs. Tremenheere’s independence must have +come to an end, and that the stranger had turned her out. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE GIRL’S ESCAPE. + + +“Miss Vera, oh, where will you wait till I run and let him know? Stop a +moment, oh Miss Vera, please. Let me run and let him know! However is he +to come, Miss, if you won’t let me tell him! Oh Miss Vera, please!” + +“Come along, come along! the train is going,” said Vera. She had taken +the lead at last. She did not know what she was going to do, and had no +thought of separating herself from her lover, whose suggestion had put +this flight into her mind, and whose presence seemed a necessary part of +it. But for the moment she was desperate, and to her excited mind it +seemed that Fane must know of it by instinct. She kept hold of her maid, +holding her fast. She had never gone anywhere by herself, nor been left +alone in any public place. Mary was taller than she,--older,--used to +moving about the world. Vera held her with a clutch on her arm,--holding +her by moral force rather than physical. “I shall die if you leave me,” +she said. “Come,--come; the chief thing is to get away.” + +“But, Miss Vera, Mr. Fane!” + +Vera made no answer, but clutched her closer, drawing her into a +carriage. It was a train chiefly used by workmen and people given to +very early hours. Vera thought nothing of the tickets, but Mary did; +whose code of respectability was dreadfully wounded by this unauthorized +intrusion into a public conveyance. And they had no luggage, +either,--nothing except a small black bag, into which the maid had +thrust her young mistress’s little trinkets,--many of them the useless +and valueless ornaments of a child. + +It was the quaintest half-comic version of the flight of the traditional +princess, with her devoted attendant and her jewels. The beads and the +little lockets in Mary’s bag were as unlike the casket of diamonds which +the heroine of old romance was bound to take with her, as little +sixteen-year-old Vera was unlike that impassioned and poetical +personage. When they were fairly off, and beyond the reach of any +immediate stoppage, in the carriage by themselves, it was Mary’s brain +that worked the most anxiously. As for Vera, she dropped back in her +corner with a sensation of rest and relief for the moment. She had +escaped. Nobody more alarming than a railway guard could climb the step +and look in at the window--no Miss Campbell could come and dictate to +her with suspicion in her eyes,--no lover, too urgent, too impassioned, +could frighten her youth with terrific suggestions of marriage. +Marriage! The idea frightened her almost as much as Miss Campbell did. +But for the moment both of these terrors were at a distance. No one +could say “Vera, it is time for Rollin;” or “Vera, in three days we +shall be married.” She was safe; and for two hours she leaned back and +rested, for it was a slow train. + +Mary, however, had her hands full. An elopement which did not end in a +marriage was a horror to think of; and the fact that Vera’s flight was +premature, that the marriage could not be for two days yet, and that +Fane knew nothing of their sudden start,--this was a complication of +difficulties which it required all her skill to meet. When she had +extricated herself from the first of her troubles by paying the fare to +the guard,--and indeed it almost emptied both their purses to do +this,--she set herself to the consideration of her after-proceedings. +And in her thoughts there arose a very neat little plan. She had at +first intended taking her little mistress to the house of her mother, +who lived near Hampstead, and who, as I have already said, had been +Vera’s nurse. This had been settled when she had arranged the flight +with Fane for the eve of the intended marriage day. But as two days must +elapse, and there would, no doubt, be immediate pursuit, Mary evolved a +more astute arrangement out of her busy brain. She resolved to take +Vera,--not to her own mother, whom the pursuers would immediately think +of--but to the sister of her young man,--the gallant Guardsman with whom +Mary “kept company”--of whom nobody at Hyde Park Square knew anything. +When she had settled this to her perfect satisfaction, Mary had leisure +to rest, and indeed to dose,--a refreshment which, what with anxiety and +what with early rising, she required much. She woke up only as the train +arrived in London, and get her young mistress instantly into a cab. + +“I’ve settled all where we’re going, Miss Vera; leave it all to me,” +said Mary. Upon which Vera put back her veil, and faced her conductor +with the appalling statement, “I am going to Hyde Park Square.” + +“Oh, goodness gracious me! she has gone out of her senses!” cried the +maid. “Oh, Miss Vera! stop a moment! think a moment! For all we know +there is a telegraph after us, describing us like two thieves! Yes, +Miss, William street, Stanhope street, Pentonville,--that is the +address----” + +“I am going,” said Vera, drawing herself up, “home to Hyde Park Square. +Be quiet, if you please,--I shall do what I think right, not what you +tell me,” and with that she put her head out of the window--“as if she +had been a hundred,” Mary said afterwards--and gave the address to the +coachman. Here was a business! Mary wept, and scolded, and remonstrated; +she tried every argument she could think of; she poured out reproaches +and adjurations. But Vera sat in the corner with her mouth shut tight, +her face pale, her small hands clasped together. She made no answer, +but she did not yield one iota, whatever her attendant might say. + +“What is to become of Mr. Fane?” said Mary; “he can’t come to you there, +Miss, after he’s been forbid the house. Jervis ’d do a deal for me, or +for you either, Miss Vera; but to do that is as much as his place is +worth; and what’s to become of the poor young gentleman as thinks you +the light of his eyes? And what’s to become of me, Miss Vera?” she +continued with an outburst of tears. “I’m ruined for ever and ever if +that’s what you’re agoing to do. Your papa will turn me off without a +character; and I can’t blame him either, for all as I’ve been doing it’s +been for you. I’ve been a-thinking of your happiness, and master will +say as it’s ’is orders I ought to ’a been thinking of. And oh, goodness +gracious! what am I to do?” + +“Do not be frightened, Mary,” said Vera, like a little princess. “I +shall write to papa--he is not at home, and there will be time to +explain everything, and to show him that it was Miss Campbell who did it +all. I have done wrong too,” said Vera, faltering; “but I will tell him +everything, and I hope he will forgive us all. We must try and do right +now.” + +“That is all very well, Miss, after you’re married,--they always does, +after they’re married, go down on their knees, and say as they’re sorry. +But how are you ever to be married, Miss Vera, going like this, as bold +as brass, and quite open, to the Square?” + +“I don’t want to be married, Mary,” said Vera, growing very red, and +speaking very low. + +Upon which Mary uttered a scream of disgust and horror. “Oh, how could +you go deceiving him--how could you take him in like this!--to break his +heart, poor young gentleman!” she said. “If he goes to the bad after, +you mark my words, Miss Vera, it’ll be all along of you!” + +This blanched Vera’s cheeks once more, though it did not change her +resolution. She did not wish to break Fane’s heart,--very, very far from +that. What she would have liked would have been to see him every +evening,--to get those letters,--to be always the one woman in the +world,--his princess,--his better life. None of these privileges was she +willing to part with; and perhaps after a long time it might be +possible to reconcile herself to the appalling idea of being married, +only not at present;--but indeed the very last thing in the world that +would have occurred to her was to break his heart. + +She had her way, however; and went in spite of all opposition, to Hyde +Park Square, where her appearance startled very much the small +household, consisting of Jervis and a charwoman, who were left in +charge. Mary, however, making the best of a bad business, explained very +glibly that she had come with her young mistress on a variety of +businesses; deputed by Miss Campbell to take her place,--to go to the +dentist’s, to go to the dressmaker’s, and various other missions beside; +and Jervis was willing to be deceived, while the charwoman was strong in +the happy conviction that it was none of her business. Fane, whom the +clever young woman contrived to summon by telegram just as Miss Campbell +summoned Mr. Tremenheere, arrived that afternoon, and had an interview +with Vera in the deserted shades of Kensington Gardens. He was in a +great fright to find that she had gone home; but afterwards was brought +to approve by the plea brought forth by Mary--that it was the last +place in which they were likely to look for the fugitives. + +When she got home after this interview, during which, in terror of her +lover’s remonstrances, the poor child had dissembled, and said nothing +about her newly-formed resolution, Vera wrote to her father a long +account of how it all was,--how she could not bear Miss Campbell any +longer; how Oswald Fane wished her to marry him, but she would rather +wait if papa would only come at once and stand by her. To this, however, +she added an energetic postscript, announcing her intention not to give +up Oswald Fane. And then she wrote to that personage himself, begging +him to pardon her,--calling him for the first time her “dear Oswald,” +assuring him that she should always love him,--always think of him; and +perhaps, some time after, when she was older--if he still wished it--But +how could she--how could she be married now?--Mary carried this last +letter to him and comforted him in his terror, declaring that all girls +felt just like that at the last moment, but that there was nothing +really to be apprehended. + +“It can’t be said but what she’s dreadful young, if you come to think +of it,” said Mary--“six years younger than me.” + +“But girls are often married at sixteen,” said Fane,--he had not his +wits sufficiently about him to pay Mary a compliment, as she expected. +He too felt it to be very serious. Poor little tender darling! Was his +love cruel to her? Ought he to have waited without being bidden? Ought +he to have taken advantage of her helplessness and loneliness? This +thought made Oswald’s pillow very uneasy that night. He was a better man +than he himself knew. Though it was hard, it seemed to him almost as if +he could sacrifice himself for Vera’s good. But then, who would take +care of her as he would? To give her back into the hands of her father +and Miss Campbell would be barbarous. He could not do so,--certainly, he +said to himself, that could not be for Vera’s good. + +Thus Tuesday passed; Mr. Tremenheere, posting through London on the +Wednesday morning, had not time to go to his deserted house, nor did he +think it necessary; and again the long day crept on while he went to the +villa, and her mother resumed the search in London, hurrying from one +place to another,--to the house of Miss Meadows, to Fane’s +lodgings--who was denied to her, although he watched her with great +trepidation from an upper window--and to the house of the nurse at +Hampstead. Vera passed the day in the gloomy house at Hyde Park Square, +scarcely venturing to look out,--wondering what was going to happen to +her,--if her father would arrive in time, or if she should have to be +married, or what was to be done. Jervis, too, had many thoughts in his +mind. There was “something up,” he felt sure, as the servants did at the +villa; and Jervis, an old family servant, began to consider whether he +ought not to take some active part in it. He would have made up his +mind, probably, and written to somebody--he could not tell whom--after +all the mischief was done. + +Mrs. Tremenheere and her son drove about the town all the afternoon. +Miss Meadows was gone, and Vera had not been heard of there. Asking +after Fane at his club, they were told he was in Scotland--and at his +lodgings--that he was not at home. Then they went to the detective who +had traced him, and had seen him in close conversation with two young +women in Kensington Gardens, but being directed to look after the +gentleman, had paid little attention to the women, and had let them +steal away, he could not tell where. “That must have been Vera and her +maid,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, and immediately drove to Hampstead, where, +after some trouble, she found Mary’s mother, who declared she knew +nothing; but did it with so guilty an air that the pursuers went back to +get another detective, and sent him to keep up a vain watch on the old +woman’s house. In reality, she was as innocent and ignorant as either of +them; but she had received an intimation from her daughter that it was +possible Vera might come to her house, and therefore looked guilty when +the question was put to her. By the time this was done, it was growing +late, and the more unsuccessful Mrs. Tremenheere was, the more anxious +she grew. “Another night! and my child somewhere about, with no one to +take care of her!” she said, wringing her hands. “I cannot leave London +to-night, Eddy; she must be here!” + +“But my father,--how anxious he will be! You cannot do anything during +the night.” + +“I can be on the spot,” she said, with an unconscious emphasis, poor +soul. “Go down to him, my dear boy, and comfort him, and tell him I will +stay. You can come back with him to-morrow, for she is evidently in +London. No, better not do anything till I telegraph; he looked +dreadfully worn and shaken. He is not so young as he used to be. Be kind +to him, Eddy, and let him know I don’t blame him,--at least not at this +moment. I daresay he never thought what harm he might do.” + +“I shall say nothing about harm or blame either,” said Edward; “he +looked very miserable. If you don’t telegraph, I shall bring him up to +town by the eleven o’clock train. And, mother, where shall you go?” + +Then Mrs. Tremenheere repeated that strange return to common sense of +which Vera had been the originator. She looked at her son, and said +gently, “I am going to Hyde Park Square.” + +“Mother!” + +“Yes, it is the fittest place,--I never ought to have left it. If your +father pleases, I will go back again for good. We have done harm enough +by our divisions. My pride shall not stand in the way any longer. If +only my poor Vera, my innocent little darling, may be found!” + +Edward went away confounded, home to his father, in the house which was +not his father’s. The boy did not know how he should like it. He felt +half ashamed, and wholly startled and taken aback,--something as a boy +might feel whose mother had told him she was about to marry again. + +And Mrs. Tremenheere, with a heavy heart, drove to Hyde Park Square. It +was the fittest place for her to go,--the fittest place to take her lost +child to, should she find her. She smiled sadly at Jervis’s astonished +face when he saw her. + +“Yes, Jervis, you may be surprised; it is trouble that has brought me, +but I hope not trouble that will last. Mr. Tremenheere knows that I have +come, and I dare say you can manage to give me a bed. What is that I +hear up-stairs? Jervis! Has the man gone crazy! Are you having visitors +in the house while the family is away?” + +She stood in the hall, looking up the big dingy London staircase, +wondering at the sound of voices,--crying and exclamations, and a kind +of struggle. Then a light young step came rushing down the stairs,--a +little white figure, like a ghost, with floods of hair about its +shoulders, flashed round the windings,--appeared,--disappeared,--threw +itself with a shriek of joy into Mrs. Tremenheere’s arms. + +“Vera!” she said, with a great cry. Where, but at home, and by her +mother, should the child have been found? + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +CONCLUSION--THE FATHER’S SHARE. + + +“You have heard nothing, I suppose?” said Mr. Tremenheere, huskily. He +grasped his son’s arm with a hand that trembled as they met in the +middle of the road. + +“Nothing, sir, but my mother has stayed behind to be on the spot. She +seems to be full of hope,” said Eddy; and then he entered into the +details of all they had done. “I should have stayed too, but mamma likes +to do things herself;” said the lad. “I dare say she is quite right, for +she does them best; and she sent me down to make your mind easy.” + +“Uneasy, you mean,” said his father with a forced smile; “till she is +found, there is no peace of mind for me.” + +“At least you know that she is on the spot,” said Edward, unconsciously +copying his mother’s emphasis; and then they walked down the dark road +together,--scarcely seeing each other, still less knowing each other. +Mr. Tremenheere kept hold of his son’s arm. + +“I did not think I had any nerves left,” he said; “I never could have +supposed twenty hours’ journey and two days’ anxiety would have taken so +much out of me. I got Miss Campbell’s telegram at ten o’clock on Monday, +and since then--but I have had a sleep this afternoon,--I must not count +this afternoon. Your mother has a great deal of energy, Ned; she is a +very clever woman. What a pity we did not get on! It would have been +better for us all,--better for Vera, poor child, and even for +you,--though nothing has happened to you,--if we had all been, as we +ought to have been, in our own home.” + +Edward’s heart trembled at this address. His mother might have been got +to yield about Africa; but this father, this man of the world,--would he +yield? The young fellow had a moment of sharp conflict with himself; and +then he resolved to make a plunge into it, and know his fate. + +“My mother was just going to consult you about me, when you came, sir. +There is a thing I have set my heart upon which she does not approve +of. My mother is very kind. Though she does not approve of it she could +not bear to see me cast down; and as a last chance for me she said she +would consult you. I wonder if you will be on my side! Oh, sir!” said +Edward throwing all the expression which the darkness denied to his +countenance into his voice, “you can’t think of what importance it is to +me. I told you before I should never be a great scholar. I am an +out-of-door fellow,--good at walking, and that sort of thing, not at +book-work. I never knew what I could do with myself that would be any +good till I heard of this!” + +“Well, what is it? Let me hear,” said his father, “I am very much afraid +it must be something nonsensical, as you are so much in earnest about +it; and my advice is of little good just now,--my mind is all taken up +about the other affair. Nevertheless, let me hear what you have got to +say.” + +There was a pause. It was strange how much more difficult Edward felt it +to state his case to his father than to his mother. Immediately, all +that might appear absurd in his fanaticism,--his own ignorance of the +subject, and his very faith in the traveller,--appeared to him as Mr. +Tremenheere might see them. He had been angry when his mother took this +view of the case; but the moment he saw it with his father’s eyes, +everything seemed to change. The meaning stole out of his own wishes, +the force out of his reasons. He faltered and hesitated, in spite of +himself. + +“Well, sir,” he said, with a dogged determination to have it out, “Mr. +Bass was down here one day talking about his African Mission. Nobody +ever had such an effect upon me. I made up my mind at once that to go +with him was the thing I could do best; and I had a letter from him the +other day, saying there was one place still open for me. A woman, though +the best mother in the world, sees these things in a different light,” +said poor Eddy, encouraged by his father’s silence. “She thinks of the +distance, and the hardships; and my last chance is that perhaps you +might see it as I see it.” Here Eddy came to a breathless pause, and +waited for his answer, with a beating heart. + +Had Mr. Tremenheere been in better spirits he would have laughed; but, +fortunately for Eddy, he was not in good spirits. He was worn out and +depressed, and amiable as perhaps he had never been before in his life. +“My dear Ned,” he said gently, in the darkness, rousing all the lad’s +hopes by the softness of his tone, “whether I might have agreed or +disagreed with your mother, scarcely matters in this instance. I am +afraid it will be a disappointment to you if you have so set your heart +upon it; but the fact is, there is to be no expedition to Africa under +the charge of Mr. Buckram Bass. That very clever man is supposed by some +people to be too clever. The Geographical Society will not give him a +groat, neither will Government; and his expedition has melted into thin +air. No one will go with him to Africa for many a day.” + +“But I heard from him on Monday, about the vacancy,” cried Edward with a +gasp. + +“Then he must have had some plan in his head for equipment, by which he +could make something,” said Mr. Tremenheere. “I cannot be mistaken, you +know, in my position; and so you may make it up with your mother, and +relieve her mind as soon as you choose.” Then moved by an amiable +impulse,--for the boy pleased him--he added, “I am very sorry for your +disappointment, Ned.” + +“Oh, it does not matter,” cried the lad, with a great gulp of +self-control. Dark waters of bitterness surged up into Edward’s eyes, +but fortunately the darkness concealed them. And acting on an English +boy’s savage code of honor, he made a brave effort at once to talk of +other things, and covered the stab he had got. No word should any one +hear more on the subject from his lips with his will. The pain stung him +like that Spartan fox; but, like the boy whom it devoured, he would +rather die than complain. + +And here Mr. Tremenheere was of more use to his son than the boy’s +mother would have been. She would have felt the sting for Edward as +sharply as he felt it for himself. She would have lavished a thousand +sympathetic tendernesses upon him to make up for his suffering. His +father did nothing of the sort. For one thing he did not truly realize +how great the blow was; but he was sorry for the disappointment--said so +once, and was done with it; and talked about other things, forcing Eddy +to answer him, and helping him to keep down the pain. But, poor fellow, +he had a bad night of it when it was too late to sit up any longer. It +obliterated Vera from his mind, and all his anxiety about her. Vera was +but a stranger to him after all; and this was so close a misery, and so +near! + +The father and son made but a miserable breakfast next morning. “I must +get off to town, I cannot delay longer,” said Mr. Tremenheere. “When you +consider where that unhappy child may be--what may be happening to +her,--perhaps at that fellow’s mercy, confound him! No, no, I can’t +stay,--don’t ask me. Your mother must have no news, or she would have +telegraphed before now.” + +“I am quite ready, sir,” said Edward. They were both of them pale and +miserable; and Mr. Tremenheere, forgetting already Edward’s own share of +trouble, was touched by this supposed sympathy. “You don’t know much of +your sister,” he said. “I will not forget, my boy, how you’ve thrown +yourself into it. Please God, when we find her we’ll be a more united +family. Ned, she and you will have to help me with your mother. She is a +proud woman, but for my part I am not proud; and I don’t mind making a +sacrifice if only--God help us!--we could find the child.” + +“We shall find her!” cried Edward, this time with a rush of real +sympathy which came to his eyes, and made them shine; and though Mr. +Tremenheere knew that Edward’s confidence was without foundation, it +cheered him as the foolishest consolation sometimes does. He grasped his +son’s hand with a tremulous yet strenuous grasp. + +“Come along,” he said; “I know it is too early for the train, but +somehow it is easier to endure one’s self when one is in motion. It +feels like doing something. Your mother has the best of it staying in +town. What a pretty place she has made of this! What a fool I was--good +heavens! what an ass! when she asked it, not to let her have the child +here!” + +“Don’t think of that now, sir,” said Eddy, with feeling. “Come out into +the garden in the meantime,--the air will do you good.” He was very +sorry for his father. He led him through the little space which had been +planted so cleverly, and showed him the points of view, upon which they +both looked with pre-occupied eyes. It wanted half an hour yet to the +time for the train, and the station was not ten minutes’ walk. Then Mr. +Tremenheere remembered a note he had to write, and they went back into +the house that he might do it. He sat down at his wife’s writing-table, +and used the paper with her monogram. How strange that the recollection +should dart on him then of another time when he had done this,--when he +had taken a pretty sheet with “Ada” emblazoned on it, to write to his +sister of the engagement between Ada Langdale and himself! Curious +moment for such a reminiscence; but the man was weakened with much +unusual feeling, and he stopped to recollect it. “I think it must be a +good sign,” he said half to himself; “once I took her paper before----” + +He was interrupted by a touch on his shoulder, and jumped up, nearly +upsetting the paraphernalia of the writing-table. “Charles,” said his +wife, taking him by both hands, “I went to our house last night, where +you took me when we were married; and there, at home, where she ought to +be, and where I ought to have been all the time taking care of her--I +found the child!” + +“God bless you, Ada!” he cried, with a sudden great sob, forced from +him by the surprise and the joy. And then he made a blind clutch at her, +his eyes being full, and got her into his arms. “You have found +her,--and I have found you!” + +And it was thus that these foolish people ended their matrimonial +quarrel. They had had ten years of it, which was certainly enough, and +it had not answered. But the reader must not imagine that all the +consequences dispersed into thin air when the principals took each +other’s hands, as Mr. Bass’s African Expedition had done. Edward’s heart +mended after a while, though it was very sore; but it would not have +mended so easily had Government and the Geographical Society encouraged +instead of making an end of the expedition of Mr. Buckram Bass. And +Providence, though it interfered on one side in this way, did not +interfere on the other to make an end of Oswald Fane. He stood in solid +flesh and blood in the path of the united family, refusing to let all be +as it ought to have been. Poor Oswald! it was wholesome punishment for +him to find his bird flown on the very day when he intended to fly with +her,--carrying her beyond pursuit or power of any one to touch her. But +a thing which has been carried so far can rarely stop there. As soon as +she was parted from him, and the terrible spectre of marriage removed +out of her way, Vera began to pine for her lover; and her lover began to +besiege the heart, soft with penitence and reconciliation, of Mrs. +Tremenheere. Between the two they worked so effectually that Mr. +Tremenheere, no longer absolute sovereign in Hyde Park Square, but +reduced to the safer limits of a constitutional monarchy and a joint +throne, had to give in at last; and much less alarmed by the word than +she had been a year before, Vera Tremenheere, at seventeen, with all the +pomp befitting a lawful ceremonial, permitted by all the authorities, +married Oswald Fane. I wish it was permitted me to kill the +uninteresting elder brother and his little son, and make the young pair +master and mistress of the paternal halls at Weathernook; but, partly by +her father’s influence, partly by that of Lord Fanebury, who came to the +marriage and good-humoredly declared the bridegroom to be his very +cousin, Oswald got a valuable appointment, and the young pair went to +Italy after all; and coming home, settled down very comfortably, and +were much happier than the improper and reprehensible beginning of +their story deserved; which is a bad moral, but to change it is beyond +my power. + +Edward Tremenheere went into his father’s office, and became private +secretary to his father’s chief--an admirable appointment. In the +meantime, however, he was left free for a great deal of travel, and took +to climbing mountains, by special grace of Providence, and became a +member of the Alpine Club, atoning to himself in his holidays for the +responsibility and regularity of his everyday life. Miss Campbell, I am +glad to say, had saved enough money to retire upon an annuity, and +tortures young girls no more; but she still thinks Mr. Tremenheere’s +family monsters of ingratitude for not requiting her exertions in saving +their child. Mary was dismissed, as she deserved; but I fear +surreptitious means were used whereby she was enabled to marry her +Guardsman. Everybody had done wrong all round, and which was the one +that was to throw a stone? The only person who had a right to do so was +Elinor Meadows, who made a speech to the re-united family on the evening +of the day on which Oswald was first received among them, and Vera’s +happiness sanctioned by her parents. Miss Meadows pushed back the +vigorous rings of gray hair from her broad forehead and held out her +oratorical right hand. “You two old fools,” she said, “and you two young +ones, I don’t know which of you have made yourselves the most +ridiculous. I protest against this absurd happiness, which you have no +right to. All of you, in your turn, have come to me in the depths of +despair, and employed me to intercede for you. I never did the least +good by my attempts. How dare you, without either rhyme or reason, and +every law of justice against it, be so happy now?” + + +THE END. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78381 *** |