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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-19 12:21:04 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-19 12:21:04 -0800 |
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diff --git a/75410-h/75410-h.htm b/75410-h/75410-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77dd1c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/75410-h/75410-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8543 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Fatal Three Vol. I | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } + +.tdl {text-align: left; padding-left: 1em; line-height: 1.5em;} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-left: 1em;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #A9A9A9; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.fs70 {font-size: 70%} +.fs80 {font-size: 80%} +.fs90 {font-size: 90%} +.fs150 {font-size: 150%} + +.no-indent {text-indent: 0em;} +.bold {font-weight: bold;} +.wsp {word-spacing: 0.3em;} + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} +.poetry .indent1 {text-indent: -2.5em;} +.poetry .indent3 {text-indent: -1.5em;} + +h2 {font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; word-spacing: .3em;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75410 ***</div> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 85%"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover"> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>THE FATAL THREE</h1> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent bold fs150 wsp">A Novel</p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs90">BY THE AUTHOR OF</p> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp">“LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “VIXEN,”<br> +“ISHMAEL,” “MOHAWKS,”<br> +<span class="fs70">ETC.</span></p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp">IN THREE VOLUMES<br> +<span class="fs80">VOL. I.</span></p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp"><span class="fs80">LONDON</span><br> +SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.<br> +<span class="fs70">STATIONERS’ HALL COURT</span></p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="center no-indent wsp fs70">[<em>All rights reserved</em>] +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent fs70"> +LONDON:<br> +ROBSON AND SONS LIMITED, PRINTERS PANCRAS ROAD N.W.<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOL_I">CONTENTS OF VOL. I.</h2> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 10%"> +<img src="images/decoration.jpg" alt="Decoration"> +</div> + +<p class="center no-indent bold">Book the First.</p> + +<p class="center no-indent">CLOTHO; OR SPINNING THE THREAD.</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr fs70">CHAP.</td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +<td class="tdr fs70">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">I.</span></td> +<td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">We have been so Happy</span>”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">II.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fay</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">III.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Superior Person</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IV.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">All She could Remember</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">V.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Without the Wolf</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VI.</span></td> +<td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">Ah! Pity! the Lily is Withered</span>”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Drifting Apart</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">VIII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">Such Things Were</span>”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">IX.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Face in the Church</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">X.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">There is always the Skeleton</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XI.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Beginning of Doubt</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">She cannot be Unworthy</span>”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XIII.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Shall She be less than Another?</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"><span class="allsmcap">XIV.</span></td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lifting the Curtain</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center no-indent"> +BOOK THE FIRST.</p> + +<hr class="r5"> + +<p class="center no-indent"> +CLOTHO; OR SPINNING THE THREAD.<br> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br> +<span class="fs70">“WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY.”</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">“I’m</span> afraid she will be a terrible bore,” said the +lady, with a slight pettishness in the tone of a voice +that was naturally sweet.</p> + +<p>“How can she bore us, love? She is only a +child, and you can do what you like with her,” said +the gentleman.</p> + +<p>“My dear John, you have just admitted that she +is between thirteen and fourteen—a great deal more +than a child—a great overgrown girl, who will want +to be taken about in the carriage, and to come down +to the drawing-room, and who will be always in the +way. Had she been a child of Mildred’s age, and a +playfellow for Mildred, I should not have objected +half so much.”</p> + +<p>“I’m very sorry you object; but I have no doubt +she will be a playfellow for Mildred all the same,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> +and that she will not mind spending a good deal of +her life in the schoolroom.”</p> + +<p>“Evidently, John, you don’t know what girls of +fourteen are. I do.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally, Maud, since it is not so many years +since you yourself were that age.”</p> + +<p>The lady smiled, touched ever so slightly by +the suggestion of youth, which was gratifying to the +mother of a seven-year-old daughter.</p> + +<p>The scene was a large old-fashioned drawing-room, +in an old-fashioned street in the very best +quarter of the town, bounded on the west by Park +Lane and on the east by Grosvenor Square. The +lady was sitting at her own particular table, in her +favourite window, in the summer gloaming; the +gentleman was standing with his back to the velvet-draped +mantelpiece. The room was full of flowers +and prettinesses of every kind, and offered unmistakable +evidence of artistic taste and large means in +its possessors.</p> + +<p>The lady was young and fair, a tall slip of a +woman, who afforded a Court milliner the very best +possible scaffolding for expensive gowns. The gentleman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> +was middle-aged and stout, with strongly-marked +features and a resolute, straightforward +expression. The lady was the daughter of an Irish +peer; the gentleman was a commoner, whose fortune +had been made in a great wholesale firm, which +had still its mammoth warehouses near St. Paul’s +Churchyard, and its manufactory at Lyons, but with +which John Fausset had no longer any connection. +He had taken his capital out of the business, and +had cleansed himself from the stain of commercial +dealings before he married the Honourable Maud +Donfrey, third daughter of Lord Castle-Connell.</p> + +<p>Miss Donfrey had given herself very willingly to +the commoner, albeit he was her senior by more than +twenty years, and, in her own deprecating description +of him, was quite out of her set. She liked him not +a little for his own sake, and for the power his strong +will exercised over her own weaker nature; but she +liked him still better for the sake of wealth which +seemed unlimited.</p> + +<p>She was nineteen at the time of her marriage, +and she had been married nine years. Those years +had brought the Honourable Mrs. Fausset only one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +child, the seven-year-old daughter playing about the +room in the twilight; and maternity had offered very +little hindrance to the lady’s pleasures as a woman +of fashion. She had been indulged to the uttermost +by a fond and admiring husband; and now for the +first time in his life John Fausset had occasion to ask +his wife a favour, which was not granted too readily. +It must be owned that the favour was not a small +one, involving nothing less than the adoption of an +orphan girl in whose fate Mr. Fausset was interested.</p> + +<p>“It is very dreadful,” sighed Mrs. Fausset, as if +she were speaking of an earthquake. “We have +been so happy alone together—you and I and +Mildred.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dearest, when we have been alone, which, +you will admit, has not been very often.”</p> + +<p>“O, but visitors do not count. They come and +go. They don’t belong to us. This dreadful girl +will be one of us; or she will expect to be. I feel +as if the golden circle of home-life were going to be +broken.”</p> + +<p>“Not broken, Maud, only expanded.”</p> + +<p>“O, but you can’t expand it by letting in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> +stranger. Had the mother no people of her own; no +surroundings whatever; nobody but you who could +be appealed to for this wretched girl?” inquired +Mrs. Fausset, fanning herself wearily, as she lolled +back in her low chair.</p> + +<p>She wore a loose cream-coloured gown, of softest +silk and Indian embroidery, and there were diamond +stars trembling amongst her feathery golden hair. +The flowing garment in which she had dined alone +with her husband was to be changed presently for +white satin and old Mechlin lace, in which she was +to appear at three evening parties; but in the meantime, +having for once in a way dined at home, she +considered her mode of life intensely domestic.</p> + +<p>The seven-year-old daughter was roaming about +with her doll, sometimes in one drawing-room, sometimes +in another. There were three, opening into +each other, the innermost room half conservatory, +shadowy with palms and tropical ferns. Mildred +was enjoying herself in the quiet way of children +accustomed to play alone, looking at the pretty things +upon the various tables, peering in at the old china +figures in the cabinets—the ridiculous Chelsea<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> +shepherd and shepherdess; the Chelsea lady in hawking +costume, with a falcon upon her wrist; the +absurd lambs, and more absurd foliage; and the +Bow and Battersea ladies and gentlemen, with their +blunt features and coarse complexions. Mildred was +quite happy, prowling about and looking at things +in silent wonder; turning over the leaves of illustrated +books, and lifting the lids of gold and enamelled +boxes; trying to find out the uses and meanings of +things. Sometimes she came back to the front +drawing-room, and seated herself on a stool at her +mother’s feet, solemnly listening to the conversation, +following it much more earnestly, and comprehending +it much better, than either her father or mother +would have supposed possible.</p> + +<p>To stop up after nine o’clock was an unwonted +joy for Mildred, who went to bed ordinarily at seven. +The privilege had been granted in honour of the +rare occasion—a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> dinner in the height of +the London season.</p> + +<p>“Is there no one else who could take her?” +repeated Mrs. Fausset impatiently, finding her husband +slow to answer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> + +<p>“There is really no one else upon whom the +poor child has any claim.”</p> + +<p>“Cannot she remain at school? You could pay +for her schooling, of course. I should not mind +that.”</p> + +<p>This was generous in a lady who had brought +her husband a nominal five thousand pounds, and +who spent his money as freely as if it had been +water.</p> + +<p>“She cannot remain at school. She is a kind +of girl who cannot get on at school. She needs +home influences.”</p> + +<p>“You mean that she is a horrid rebellious girl +who has been expelled from a school, and whom I +am to take because nobody else will have her.”</p> + +<p>“You are unjust and ungenerous, Maud. The +girl has not been expelled. She is a girl of peculiar +temper, and very strong feelings, and she is unhappy +amidst the icy formalities of an unexceptionable +school. Perhaps had she been sent to some +struggling schoolmistress in a small way of business +she might have been happier. At any rate, she is +not happy, and as her people were friends of mine in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> +the past I should like to make her girlhood happy, +and to see her well married, if I can.”</p> + +<p>“But are there not plenty of other people in the +world who would do all you want if you paid them. +I’m sure I should not grudge the money.”</p> + +<p>“It is not a question of money. The girl has +money of her own. She is an heiress.”</p> + +<p>“Then she is a ward in Chancery, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“No, she is my ward. I am her sole trustee.”</p> + +<p>“And you really want to have her here in our +own house, and at The Hook, too, I suppose. Always +with us wherever we go.”</p> + +<p>“That is what I want—until she marries. She +will be twenty in five years, and in all probability +she will marry before she is twenty. It is not +a life-long sacrifice that I am asking from you, +Maud; and, remember, it is the first favour I have +ever asked you.”</p> + +<p>“Let the little girl come, mother,” pleaded +Mildred, clambering on to her mother’s knee.</p> + +<p>She had been sitting with her head bent over +her doll, and her hair falling forward over her face +like golden rain, for the last ten minutes. Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> +Fausset had no suspicion that the child had been +listening, and this sudden appeal was startling to +the last degree.</p> + +<p>“Wisdom has spoken from my darling’s rosy +lips,” said Fausset, coming over to the window and +stooping to kiss his child.</p> + +<p>“My dear John, you must know that your wish +is a law to me,” replied his wife, submitting all at +once to the inevitable. “If you are really bent +upon having your ward here she must come.”</p> + +<p>“I am really bent upon it.”</p> + +<p>“Then let her come as soon as you like.”</p> + +<p>“I will bring her to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“And I shall have some one to play with,” said +Mildred, in her baby voice; “I shall give her my +second best doll.”</p> + +<p>“Not your best, Mildred?” asked the father, +smiling at her.</p> + +<p>Mildred reflected for a few moments.</p> + +<p>“I’ll wait and see what she is like,” she said, +“and if she is very nice I will give her quite my +best doll. The one you brought me from Paris, +father. The one that walks and talks.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p> + +<p>Maud Fausset sighed, and looked at the little +watch dangling on her chatelaine.</p> + +<p>“A quarter to ten! How awfully late for Mildred +to be up! And it is time I dressed. I hope +you are coming with me, John. Ring the bell, +please. Come, Mildred.”</p> + +<p>The child kissed her father with a hearty, clinging +kiss which meant a world of love, and then she +picked up her doll—not the walking-talking machine +from Paris, but a friendly, old-fashioned wax and +bran personage—and trotted out of the room, hanging +on to her mother’s gown.</p> + +<p>“How sweet she is!” muttered the father, looking +after her fondly; “and what a happy home it +has been! I hope the coming of that other one +won’t make any difference.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br> +<span class="fs70">FAY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Fausset’s</span> three parties, the last of which was +a very smart ball, kept her away from home until +the summer sun was rising above Grosvenor Square, +and the cocks were crowing in the mews behind +Upper Parchment Street. Having been so late in +the morning, Mrs. Fausset ignored breakfast, and +only made her appearance in time for lunch, when +her husband came in from his ride. He had escorted +her to the first of her parties, and had left her on +the way to the second, to go and finish his evening +in the House, which he found much more interesting +than society.</p> + +<p>They met at luncheon, and talked of their previous +night’s experiences, and of indifferent matters. +Not a word about the expected presence which was +so soon to disturb their domestic calm. Mr. Fausset +affected cheerfulness, yet was evidently out of spirits.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> +He looked round the picturesque old oak dining-room +wistfully; he strolled into the inner room, +with its dwarf bookcases, pictures, and bronzes, its +cosy corner behind a sixfold Indian screen, a century-old +screen, bought at Christie’s out of a famous +collection. He surveyed this temple of domestic +peace, and wondered within himself whether it +would be quite as peaceful when a new presence was +among them.</p> + +<p>“Surely a girl of fourteen can make no difference,” +he argued, “even if she has a peculiar temper. +If she is inclined to be troublesome, she shall be +made to keep herself to herself. Maud shall not be +rendered unhappy by her.”</p> + +<p>He went out soon after lunch, and came home +again at afternoon tea-time in a hansom, with a girl in +a black frock. A four-wheeler followed, with a large +trunk and two smaller boxes. The splendid creatures +in knee-breeches and powder who opened the door +had been ordered to deny their mistress to everybody, +so Mrs. Fausset was taking tea alone in her +morning-room.</p> + +<p>The morning-room occupied the whole front of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> +the second floor, a beautiful room with three windows, +the centre a large bow jutting out over empty +space. This bow-window had been added when Mr. +Fausset married, on a suggestion from his <em>fiancée</em>. +It spoiled the external appearance of the house, but +it made the room delightful. For furniture and +decoration there was everything pretty, novel, eccentric, +and expensive that Maud Fausset had ever been +able to think of. She had only stopped her caprices +and her purchases when the room would not hold +another thing of beauty. There was a confusion of +form and colour, but the general effect was charming; +and Mrs. Fausset, in a loose white muslin +gown, suited the room, just as the room suited Mrs. +Fausset.</p> + +<p>She was sitting in the bow-window, in a semicircle +of flowers and amidst the noises of the West +End world, waiting for her husband and the new-comer, +nervous and apprehensive. The scarlet +Japanese tea-table stood untouched, the water bubbling +in the quaint little bronze tea-kettle, swinging +between a pair of rampant dragons.</p> + +<p>She started as the door opened, but kept her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> +seat. She did not want to spoil the new-comer by +an undue appearance of interest.</p> + +<p>John Fausset came into the room, leading a pale +girl dressed in black. She was tall for her age, and +very thin, and her small face had a pinched look, +which made the great black eyes look larger. She +was a peculiar-looking girl, with an olive tint in her +complexion which hinted at a lineage not altogether +English. She was badly dressed in the best materials, +and had a look of never having been much +cared for since she was born.</p> + +<p>“This is Fay,” said Mr. Fausset, trying to be +cheerful.</p> + +<p>His wife held out her hand, which the girl took +coldly, but not shyly. She had an air of being perfectly +self-possessed.</p> + +<p>“Her name is Fay, is it? What a pretty name! +By the bye, you did not tell me her surname.”</p> + +<p>“Did I not? Her name is Fausset. She is a +distant relation of my family.”</p> + +<p>“I did not understand that last night,” said +Mrs. Fausset, with a puzzled air. “You only talked +of a friend.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span></p> + +<p>“Was that so? I should have said a family +connection. Yes, Fay and I are namesakes, and +kindred.”</p> + +<p>He patted the girl’s shoulder caressingly, and +made her sit down by the little red table in front of +the tea-cups, and cakes, and buns. The buns reminded +him of his daughter.</p> + +<p>“Where is Mildred?”</p> + +<p>“She is at her music-lesson; but she will be +here in a minute or two, no doubt,” answered his +wife.</p> + +<p>“Poor little mite, to have to begin lessons so +soon; the chubby little fingers stuck down upon the +cold hard keys. The piano is so uninviting at seven +years old; such a world of labour for such a small +effect. If she could turn a barrel-organ, with a +monkey on the top, I’m sure she would like music +ever so much better; and after a year or two of +grinding it would dawn upon her that there was +something wanting in that kind of music, and then +she would attack the piano of her own accord, and +its difficulties would not seem so hopelessly uninteresting. +Are you fond of lessons, Fay?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + +<p>“I hate them,” answered the girl, with vindictive +emphasis.</p> + +<p>“And I suppose you hate books too?” said Mrs. +Fausset, rather scornfully.</p> + +<p>“No, I love books.”</p> + +<p>She looked about the spacious room, curiously, +with admiring eyes. People who came from very +pretty rooms of their own were lost in admiration +at Mrs. Fausset’s morning-room, with its heterogeneous +styles of art—here Louis Seize, there +Japanese; Italian on one side, Indian on the other. +What a dazzling effect, then, it must needs have +upon this girl, who had spent the last five years of +her life amidst the barren surroundings of a suburban +school!</p> + +<p>“What a pretty room!” she exclaimed at last.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think my wife was made to live in +pretty rooms?” asked Fausset, touching Maud’s +delicate hand as it moved among the tea-things.</p> + +<p>“She is very pretty herself,” said Fay, bluntly.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and all things about her should be pretty. +This thing, for instance,” as Mildred came bounding +into the room, and clambered on her father’s knee.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> +“This is my daughter, Fay, and your playfellow, if +you know how to play.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I don’t, for they always snubbed us +for anything like play,” answered the stranger, “but +Mildred shall teach me, if she will.”</p> + +<p>She had learnt the child’s name from Mr. Fausset +during the drive from Streatham Common to Upper +Parchment Street.</p> + +<p>Mildred stretched out her little hand to the girl +in black with somewhat of a patronising air. She +had lived all her little life among bright colours +and beautiful objects, in a kind of butterfly world; +and she concluded that this pale girl in sombre +raiment must needs be poor and unhappy. She +looked her prettiest, smiling down at the stranger +from her father’s shoulder, where she hung fondly. +She looked like a cherub in a picture by Rubens, +red-lipped, with eyes of azure, and flaxen hair just +touched with gold, and a complexion of dazzling lily +and carnation-colour suffused with light.</p> + +<p>“I mean to give you my very best doll,” she +said.</p> + +<p>“You darling, how I shall adore you!” cried the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> +strange girl impulsively, rising from her seat at the +tea-table, and clasping Mildred in her arms.</p> + +<p>“That is as it should be,” said Fausset, patting +Fay’s shoulder affectionately. “Let there be a bond +of love between you two.”</p> + +<p>“And will you play with me, and learn your +lessons with me, and sleep in my room?” asked +Mildred coaxingly.</p> + +<p>“No, darling. Fay will have a room of her own,” +said Mrs. Fausset, replying to the last inquiry. +“It is much nicer for girls to have rooms to themselves.”</p> + +<p>“No, it isn’t,” answered Mildred, with a touch +of petulance that was pretty in so lovely a child. “I +want Fay to sleep with me. I want her to tell me +stories every night.”</p> + +<p>“You have mother to tell you stories, Mildred,” +said Mrs. Fausset, already inclined to be +jealous.</p> + +<p>“Not very often. Mother goes to parties almost +every night.”</p> + +<p>“Not at The Hook, love.”</p> + +<p>“O, but at The Hook there’s always company.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> +Why can’t I have Fay to tell me stories +every night?” urged the child persistently.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why they should not be together, +Maud,” said Mr. Fausset, always prone to indulge +Mildred’s lightest whim.</p> + +<p>“It is better that Fay should have a room of her +own, for a great many reasons,” replied his wife, +with a look of displeasure.</p> + +<p>“Very well, Maud, so be it,” he answered, evidently +desiring to conciliate her. “And which +room is Fay to have?”</p> + +<p>“I have given her Bell’s room.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Fausset’s countenance fell.</p> + +<p>“Bell’s room—a servant’s room!”—he repeated +blankly.</p> + +<p>“It is very inconvenient for Bell, of course,” +said Mrs. Fausset. “She will have to put up +with an extra bed in the housemaid’s room; and +as she has always been used to a room of her +own, she made herself rather disagreeable about +the change.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Fausset was silent, and seemed thoughtful. +Mildred had pulled Fay away from the table and led<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> +her to a distant window, where a pair of Virginian +love-birds were twittering in their gilded cage, half +hidden amidst the bank of feathery white spirea and +yellow marguerites which filled the recess.</p> + +<p>“I should like to see the room,” said Fausset +presently, when his wife had put down her teacup.</p> + +<p>“My dear John, why should you trouble yourself +about such a detail?”</p> + +<p>“I want to do my duty to the girl—if I can.”</p> + +<p>“I think you might trust such a small matter to +<em>me</em>, or even to my housekeeper,” Maud Fausset +answered with an offended air. “However, you are +quite at liberty to make a personal inspection. Bell +is very particular, and any room she occupied is sure +to be nice. But you can judge for yourself. The +room is on the same floor as Mildred’s.”</p> + +<p>This last remark implied that to occupy any +apartment on that floor must be a privilege.</p> + +<p>“But not with the same aspect.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it? No, I suppose not. The windows +look the other way,” said Mrs. Fausset innocently.</p> + +<p>She was not an over-educated person. She +adored Keats, Shelley, and Browning, and talked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> +about them learnedly in a way; but she hardly +knew the points of the compass.</p> + +<p>She sauntered out of the room, a picture of +languid elegance in her flowing muslin gown. +There were flowers on the landing, and a scarlet +Japanese screen to fence off the stairs that went +downward, and a blue-and-gold Algerian curtain to +hide the upward flight. This second floor was Mrs. +Fausset’s particular domain. Her bedroom and +bathroom and dressing-room were all on this floor. +Mr. Fausset lived there also, but seemed to be there +on sufferance.</p> + +<p>She pulled aside the Algerian curtain, and they +went up to the third story. The two front rooms +were Mildred’s bedroom and schoolroom. The +bedroom-door was open, revealing an airy room with +two windows brightened by outside flower-boxes, +full of gaudy red geraniums and snow-white marguerites, +a gay-looking room, with a pale blue +paper and a blue-and-cream-colour carpet. A little +brass bed, with lace curtains, for Mildred—an iron +bed, without curtains, for Mildred’s maid.</p> + +<p>The house was like many old London houses,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> +more spacious than it looked outside. There were +four or five small rooms at the back occupied by +servants, and it was one of those rooms—a very small +room looking into a mews—which Mr. Fausset went +to inspect.</p> + +<p>It was not a delightful room. There was an +outside wall at right-angles with the one window +which shut off the glory of the westering sun. +There was a forest of chimney-pots by way of prospect. +There was not even a flower-box to redeem +the dinginess of the outlook. The furniture was +neat, and the room was spotlessly clean; but as +much might be said of a cell in Portland Prison. +A narrow iron bedstead, a couple of cane chairs, a +common mahogany chest of drawers in the window, +and on the chest of drawers a white toilet-cover and +a small mahogany looking-glass; a deal washstand +and a zinc bath. These are not luxurious surroundings; +and Mr. Fausset’s countenance did not express +approval.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure it is quite as nice a room as she +would have at any boarding-school,” said his wife, +answering that disapproving look.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span></p> + +<p>“Perhaps; but I want her to feel as if she were +not at school, but at home.”</p> + +<p>“She can have a prettier room at The Hook, I +daresay, though we are short of bedrooms even there—if +she is to go to The Hook with us.”</p> + +<p>“Why, of course she is to go with us. She is +to live with us till she marries.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset sighed, and looked profoundly +melancholy.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think we shall get her married very +easily,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” asked her husband quickly, looking +at her anxiously as he spoke.</p> + +<p>“She is so remarkably plain.”</p> + +<p>“Did she strike you so? I think her rather +pretty, or at least interesting. She has magnificent +eyes.”</p> + +<p>“So has an owl in an ivy-bush,” exclaimed +Mrs. Fausset petulantly. “Those great black eyes +in that small pale face are positively repulsive. +However, I don’t want to depreciate her. She is +of your kith and kin, and you are interested in her;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> +so we must do the best we can. I only hope Mildred +will get on with her.”</p> + +<p>This conversation took place upon the stairs. +Mr. Fausset was at the morning-room door by this +time. He opened it, and saw his daughter in the +sunlit window among the flowers, with her arm +round Fay’s neck.</p> + +<p>“They have begun very well,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Children are so capricious,” answered his wife.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br> +<span class="fs70">A SUPERIOR PERSON.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mildred</span> and her father’s ward got on remarkably +well—perhaps a little too well to please Mrs. +Fausset, who had been jealous of the new-comer, +and resentful of her intrusion from the outset. +Mildred did not show herself capricious in her +treatment of her playfellow. The child had never +had a young companion before, and to her the +advent of Fay meant the beginning of a brighter +life. Until Fay came there had been no one but +mother; and mother spent the greater part of her +life in visiting and receiving visits. Only the briefest +intervals between a ceaseless round of gaieties could +be afforded to Mildred. Her mother doated on her, +or thought she did; but she had allowed herself to +be caught in the cogs of the great society wheel, +and she was obliged to go round with the wheel. +So far as brightly-furnished rooms and an expensive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> +morning governess, ever so much too clever for the +pupil’s requirements, and costly toys and pretty +frocks and carriage-drives, could go, Mildred was a +child in an earthly paradise; but there are some +children who yearn for something more than luxurious +surroundings and fine clothes, and Mildred +Fausset was one of those. She wanted a great +deal of love—she wanted love always; not in brief +snatches, as her mother gave it—hurried caresses +given in the midst of dressing for a ball, hasty +kisses before stepping into her carriage to be whisked +off to a garden-party, or in all the pomp and splendour +of ostrich feathers, diamonds, and court-train +before the solemn function of a Drawing-room. Such +passing glimpses of love were not enough for Mildred. +She wanted warm affections interwoven with +the fabric of her life; she wanted loving companionship +from morning till night; and this she had +from Fay. From the first moment of their clasping +hands the two girls had loved each other. Each +sorely in need of love, they had come together +naturally, and with all the force of free undisciplined +nature, meeting and mingling like two rivers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> + +<p>John Fausset saw their affection, and was delighted. +That loving union between the girl and +the child seemed to solve all difficulties. Fay was +no longer a stranger. She was a part of the family, +merged in the golden circle of domestic love. Mrs. +Fausset looked on with jaundiced eye.</p> + +<p>“If one could only believe it were genuine!” she +sighed.</p> + +<p>“Genuine! which of them do you suppose is +pretending? Not Mildred, surely?”</p> + +<p>“Mildred! No, indeed. <em>She</em> is truth itself.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you suspect Fay of falsehood?”</p> + +<p>“My dear John, I fear—I only say I fear—that +your <em>protégée</em> is sly. She has a quiet self-contained +air that I don’t like in one so young.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t wonder she is self-contained. You do +so little to draw her out.”</p> + +<p>“Her attachment to Mildred has an exaggerated +air—as if she wanted to curry favour with us by +pretending to be fond of our child,” said Mrs. +Fausset, ignoring her husband’s remark.</p> + +<p>“Why should she curry favour? She is not +here as a dependent—though she is made to wear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> +the look of one sometimes more than I like. I have +told you that her future is provided for; and as for +pretending to be fond of Mildred, she is the last girl +to pretend affection. She would have been better +liked at school if she had been capable of pretending. +There is a wild, undisciplined nature under that self-contained +air you talk about.”</p> + +<p>“There is a very bad temper, if that is what you +mean. Bell has complained to me more than once +on that subject.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you have not set Bell in authority over +her,” exclaimed Mr. Fausset hastily.</p> + +<p>“There must be some one to maintain order +when Miss Colville is away.”</p> + +<p>“That some one should be you or I, not Bell.”</p> + +<p>“Bell is a conscientious person, and she would +make no improper use of authority.”</p> + +<p>“She is a very disagreeable person. That is all +I know about her,” retorted Mr. Fausset, as he left +the room.</p> + +<p>He was dissatisfied with Fay’s position in the +house, yet hardly knew how to complain or what +alteration to suggest. There were no positive wrongs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> +to resent. Fay shared Mildred’s studies and amusements; +they had their meals together, and took +their airings together.</p> + +<p>When Mildred went down to the morning-room +or the drawing-room Fay generally went with her—generally, +not always. There were times when Bell +looked in at the schoolroom-door and beckoned +Mildred. “Mamma wants you alone,” she would +whisper on the threshold; and Mildred ran off to be +petted and paraded before some privileged visitor.</p> + +<p>There were differences which Fay felt keenly, +and inwardly resented. She was allowed to sit aloof +when the drawing-room was full of fine ladies, upon +Mrs. Fausset’s afternoon; while Mildred was brought +into notice and talked about, her little graces exhibited +and expatiated upon, or her childish tastes +conciliated. Fay would sit looking at one of the art-books +piled upon a side-table, or turning over photographs +and prints in a portfolio. She never talked +unless spoken to, or did anything to put herself forward.</p> + +<p>Sometimes an officious visitor would notice her.</p> + +<p>“What a clever-looking girl! Who is she?”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> +asked a prosperous dowager, whose own daughters +were all planted out in life, happy wives and mothers, +and who could afford to interest herself in stray +members of the human race.</p> + +<p>“She is a ward of my husband’s, Miss Fausset.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed! A cousin, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Hardly so near as that. A distant connection.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset’s tone expressed a wish not to be +bored by praise of the clever-looking girl. People +soon perceived that Miss Fausset was to be taken +no more notice of than a piece of furniture. She +was there for some reason known to Mr. and Mrs. +Fausset, but she was not there because she was +wanted—except by Mildred. Everybody could see +that Mildred wanted her. Mildred would run to her +as she sat apart, and clamber on her knee, and hang +upon her, and whisper and giggle with her, and +warm the statue into life. Mildred would carry her +tea and cakes, and make a loving fuss about her in +spite of all the world.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Bell was a power in the house in Upper Parchment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> +Street. She was that kind of old servant who +is as bad as a mother-in-law, or even worse; for +your mother-in-law is a lady by breeding and education, +and is in somewise governed by reason, while +your trustworthy old servant is apt to be a creature +of impulse, influenced only by feeling. Bell was a +woman of strong feelings, devotedly attached to Mrs. +Fausset.</p> + +<p>Twenty-seven years ago, when Maud Donfrey +was an infant, Martha Bell was the young wife of the +head-gardener at Castle-Connell. The gardener and +his wife lived at one of the lodges near the bank of +the Shannon, and were altogether superior people +for their class. Martha had been a lace-maker at +Limerick, and was fairly educated. Patrick Bell +was less refined, and had no ideas beyond his garden; +but he was honest, sober, and thoroughly respectable. +He seldom read the newspapers, and had never heard +of Home Rule or the three F.s.</p> + +<p>Their first child died within three weeks of its +birth, and a wet-nurse being wanted at the great +house for Lady Castle-Connell’s seventh baby, Mrs. +Bell was chosen as altogether the best person for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> +that confidential office. She went to live at the great +white house in the beautiful gardens near the river. +It was only a temporary separation, she told Patrick; +and Patrick took courage at the thought that his wife +would return to him as soon as Lady Castle-Connell’s +daughter was weaned, while in the meantime he was +to enjoy the privilege of seeing her every Sunday +afternoon; but somehow it happened that Martha +Bell never went back to the commonly-furnished +little rooms in the lodge, or to the coarse-handed +husband.</p> + +<p>Martha Bell was a woman of strong feelings. +She grieved passionately for her dead baby, and she +took the stranger’s child reluctantly to her aching +breast. But babies have a way of getting themselves +loved, and one baby will creep into the place +of another unawares. Before Mrs. Bell had been at +the great house three months she idolised her nursling. +By the time she had been there a year she +felt that life would be unbearable without her foster-child. +Fortunately for her, she seemed as necessary +to the child as the child was to her. Maud was +delicate, fragile, lovely, and evanescent of aspect.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> +Lady Castle-Connell had lost two out of her brood, +partly, she feared, from carelessness in the nursery. +Bell was devoted to her charge, and Bell was entreated +to remain for a year or two at least.</p> + +<p>Bell consented to remain for a year; she became +accustomed to the comforts and refinements of a +nobleman’s house; she hated the lodge, and she +cared very little for her husband. It was a relief to +her when Patrick Bell sickened of his desolate home, +and took it into his head to emigrate to Canada, +where he had brothers and sisters settled already. +He and his wife parted in the friendliest spirit, with +some ideas of reunion years hence, when the Honourable +Maud should have outgrown the need of a +nurse; but the husband died in Canada before the +wife had made up her mind to join him there. +Mrs. Bell lived at the great white house until Maud +Donfrey left Castle-Connell as the bride of John +Fausset. She went before her mistress to the house +in Upper Parchment Street, and was there when +the husband and wife arrived after their Continental +honeymoon. From that hour she remained in possession +at The Hook, Surrey, or at Upper Parchment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> +Street, or at any temporary abode by sea or lake. +Bell was always a power in Mrs. Fausset’s life, ruling +over the other servants, dictating and fault-finding +in a quiet, respectful way, discovering the weak side +of everybody’s character, and getting to the bottom +of everybody’s history. The servants hated her, and +bowed down before her. Mrs. Fausset was fond of +her as a part of her own childhood, remembering +that great love which had watched through all her +infantine illnesses and delighted in all her childish +joys. Yet, even despite these fond associations, +there were times when Maud Fausset thought that +it would be a good thing if dear old Bell would +accept a liberal pension and go and live in some +rose and honeysuckle cottage among the summery +meadows by the Thames. Mrs. Fausset had only +seen that riverside region in summer, and she had +hardly realised the stern fact of winter in that +district. She never thought of rheumatism in +connection with one of those low white-walled cottages, +half-hidden under overhanging thatched +gables, and curtained with woodbine and passionflower, +rose and myrtle. Dear old Bell was forty-eight,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> +straight as a ramrod, very thin, with sharp +features, and eager gray eyes under bushy iron-gray +brows. She had thick iron-gray hair, and she never +wore a cap; that was one of her privileges, and a +mark of demarcation between her and the other servants—that +and her afternoon gown of black silk or +satin.</p> + +<p>She had no specific duties in the house, but had +something to say about everything. Mrs. Fausset’s +French maid and Mildred’s German maid were at +one in their detestation of Bell; but both were eminently +civil to that authority.</p> + +<p>From the hour of Fay’s advent in Upper Parchment +Street, Bell had set her face against her. In +the first place, she had not been taken into Mr. and +Mrs. Fausset’s confidence about the girl. She had +not been consulted or appealed to in any way; and, +in the second place, she had been told that her bedroom +would be wanted for the new-comer, and that +she must henceforward share a room with one of the +housemaids, an indignity which this superior person +keenly felt.</p> + +<p>Nor did Fay do anything to conciliate this domestic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> +power. Fay disliked Bell as heartily as Bell disliked +Fay. She refused all offers of service from the confidential +servant at the outset, and when Bell wanted +to help in unpacking her boxes—perhaps with some +idea of peering into those details of a girl’s possessions +which in themselves constitute a history—Fay +declined her help curtly, and shut the door in +her face.</p> + +<p>Bell had sounded her mistress, but had obtained +the scantiest information from that source. A distant +connection of Mr. Fausset’s—his ward, an heiress. +Not one detail beyond this could Bell extract from +her mistress, who had never kept a secret from her. +Evidently Mrs. Fausset knew no more.</p> + +<p>“I must say, ma’am, that for an heiress the +child has been sadly neglected,” said Bell. “Her +under-linen was all at sixes and sevens till <em>I</em> took it +in hand; and she came to this house with her left +boot worn down at heel. Her drawers are stuffed +with clothes, but many of them are out of repair; +and she is such a wilful young lady that she will +hardly let <em>me</em> touch her things.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p> + +<p>Bell had a habit of emphasising personal pronouns +that referred to herself.</p> + +<p>“You must do whatever you think proper about +her clothes, whether she likes it or not,” answered +Mrs. Fausset, standing before her glass, and giving +final touches to the feathery golden hair which her +maid had arranged a few minutes before. “If she +wants new things, you can buy them for her from +any of my tradespeople. Mr. Fausset says she is +to be looked after in every way. You had better +not go to Bond Street for her under-linen. Oxford +Street will do; and you need not go to Stephanie for +her hats. She is such a very plain girl that it +would be absurd—cruel even—to dress her like +Mildred.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed, it would, ma’am,” assented Bell; +and then she pursued musingly: “If it was a good +school she was at, all I can say is that the wardrobe-woman +was a very queer person to send any pupil +away with her linen in such a neglected state. And +as for her education, Miss Colville says she is +shockingly backward. Miss Mildred knows more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> +geography and more grammar than that great overgrown +girl of fourteen.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset sighed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Bell, she has evidently been neglected; +but her education matters very little. It is her disposition +I am anxious about.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, ma’am, and so am <em>I</em>,” sighed Bell.</p> + +<p>When Bell had withdrawn, Maud Fausset sat in +front of her dressing-table in a reverie. She forgot +to put on her bonnet or to ring for her maid, +though she had been told the carriage was waiting, +and although she was due at a musical recital in +ten minutes. She sat there lost in thought, while +the horses jingled their bits impatiently in the street +below.</p> + +<p>“Yes, there is a mystery,” she said to herself; +“everybody sees it, even Bell.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br> +<span class="fs70">ALL SHE COULD REMEMBER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">The</span> London season was waning, and fewer carriages +rolled westward to the Park gates in the low sunlight +of late afternoon, and fewer riders trotted +eastward towards Grosvenor Square in the brighter +sunshine before luncheon. Town was gay still; +but the flood-tide of pleasure was over. The river of +London life was on the ebb, and people were beginning +to talk about grouse-moors in Scotland and +sulphur-springs in Germany.</p> + +<p>Fay had lived in Upper Parchment Street nearly +two months. It seemed to her impatient spirit as if +she had lived there half a lifetime. The life would +have been hateful to her without Mildred’s love. +That made amends for a good deal, but it could not +make amends for everything; not for Bell’s quiet +insolence, for instance.</p> + +<p>Bell had replenished the alien’s wardrobe.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> +Everything she had bought was of excellent quality, +and expensive after its kind; but had a prize been +offered for bad taste, Bell would have taken it by +her selections of raiment on this occasion. Not +once did she allow Fay to have a voice in the +matter.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Fausset deputed <em>me</em> to choose the things, +miss,” she said, “and I hope <em>I</em> know my duty.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I <em>am</em> very ugly,” said Fay resignedly, +as she contemplated her small features in the +glass, overshadowed by a mushroom hat of coarse +brown straw, with a big brown bow, “but in this +hat I look positively hideous.”</p> + +<p>The hat was an excellent hat: that good coarse +Dunstable, which costs money and wears for ever, +the ribbon of the best quality; but Hebe herself +would have looked plain under a hat shaped like a +bell-glass.</p> + +<p>Fay’s remark was recorded to Mrs. Fausset as +the indication of a discontented spirit.</p> + +<p>Not being able to learn anything about Fay’s +history from her mistress, Bell had tried to obtain a +little light from the girl herself, but without avail.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> +Questioned about her school, Fay had replied that +she hated her school, and didn’t want to talk of it. +Questioned about her mother, she answered that her +mother’s name was too sacred to be spoken about to +a stranger; and on a subtle attempt to obtain information +about her father, the girl flushed crimson, +started up angrily from her chair, and told the +highly respectable Bell that she was not in the habit +of chattering to servants, or being questioned by +them.</p> + +<p>After this it was war to the knife on Martha +Bell’s part.</p> + +<p>Miss Colville, the expensive morning governess, +was in somewise above prejudice, and was a person +of liberal mind, allowing for the fact that she had +lived all her life in other people’s houses, looking on +at lives of fashionable frivolity in which she had no +share, and had been obliged to study Debrett’s +annual volume as if it were her Bible, lest she +should commit herself in every other speech, so +intricate are the ramifications and intermarriages of +the Upper Ten Thousand. Miss Colville was not +unkind to Fay Fausset, and was conscientious in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> +her instructions; but even she resented the mystery +of the girl’s existence, and felt that her presence +blemished the respectability of the household. By +and by, when she should be seeking new employment, +and should have occasion to refer to Mrs. +Fausset, and to talk of her pupils in Upper Parchment +Street, there would be a difficulty in accounting +for Fay. A ward of Mr. Fausset’s, a distant connection: +the whole thing sounded improbable. An +heiress who had come to the house with torn +embroidery upon her under-linen. A mystery—yes, +no doubt a mystery. And in Miss Colville’s ultra-particular +phase of life no manner of mystery was +considered respectable; except always those open +secrets in the very highest circles which society +agrees to ignore.</p> + +<p>In spite of these drawbacks, Miss Colville was +fairly kind to her new charge. Fay was backward +in grammar and geography; she was a dullard about +science; but she could chatter French, she knew a +little Italian, and in music she was highly gifted. +In this she resembled Mildred, who adored music, +and had taken her first lessons on the piano as a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> +water-fowl takes to a pond, joyously, as to her native +element. Fay was not advanced in the <em>technique</em> of +the art, but she played and sang charmingly, for the +most part by ear; and she used to play and sing to +Mildred in the summer twilight, till Bell came like +a prison-warder and insisted upon Mildred’s going +to bed.</p> + +<p>“I nursed your mamma, miss,” she would say, +“and <em>I</em> never allowed her to spoil her complexion +with late hours as Miss Fay is leading you on +to do.”</p> + +<p>At seven Mildred cared neither for health nor +complexion in the abstract, and she loved Fay’s +music and Fay’s stories. Fay would tell her a fairy +tale, with musical accompaniments, improvised to +suit the story. This was Beauty’s father groping +through the dark wood. Then came the swaying of +branches, the rustling of summer leaves, the long, +long sigh of the night wind, the hoot of the owl, +and the roll of distant thunder. Here came Fatima’s +brothers to the rescue, with a triumphant march, +and the trampling of fiery steeds, careering up and +down the piano in presto arpeggios, bursting open<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> +the gates of Bluebeard’s Castle with a fortissimo +volley of chords.</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> never heard any one make such a noise on a +piano,” said Bell, bristling with indignation.</p> + +<p>At eight o’clock Fay’s day and evening were +done. Mildred vanished like the setting of the sun. +She would like to have had Fay to sit beside her bed +and tell her stories, and talk to her, till she dropped +to sleep; but this happiness was sternly interdicted +by Bell.</p> + +<p>“She would keep you awake half the night, Miss +Mildred, over-exciting you with her stories; and +what would your pa and the doctors say to <em>me</em>?” +exclaimed Bell.</p> + +<p>The door of the bright, pretty bedchamber closed +upon Mildred, and Fay went back to the schoolroom +heavy of heart, to enjoy the privilege of sitting up +by herself till half-past nine, a privilege conceded to +superior years. In that dismal hour and a half the +girl had leisure to contemplate the solitude of her +friendless life. Take Mildred from her, and she +had no one—nothing. Mr. Fausset had meant to +be kind to her, perhaps. He had talked very kindly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> +to her in the long drive from Streatham. He had +promised her a home and the love of kindred; +but evil influences had come in his way, and he had +given her—Bell. Perhaps she was of a jealous, +exacting disposition; for, fondly as she loved Mildred, +she could not help comparing Mildred’s lot +with her own: Mildred’s bright, airy room and +flower-decked windows, looking over the tree-tops +in the Park, with her dingy cell opening upon a +forest of chimneys, and tainted with odours of stables +and kitchen; Mildred’s butterfly frocks of lace and +muslin, with the substantial ugliness of her own +attire; Mildred’s manifold possessions—trinkets, +toys, books, games, pictures, and flowers—with her +empty dressing-table and unadorned walls.</p> + +<p>“At your age white frocks would be ridiculous,” +said Bell; yet Fay saw other girls of her age flaunting +in white muslin all that summer through.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the footman forgot to bring her lamp, +and she would sit in the schoolroom window, looking +down into the street, and watching the carriages +roll by in endless procession, with their lamps +flaming in the pale gray night, carrying their freight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> +to balls and parties, hurrying from pleasure to pleasure +on swift-revolving wheels. A melancholy hour +this for the longing heart of youth, even when the +schoolgirl’s future participation in all these pleasures +is a certainty, or contingent only upon life; but what +was it for this girl, who had all girlhood’s yearnings +for pleasure and excitement, and who knew not if +that sparkling draught would ever touch her lips, +who felt herself an alien in this fine house, a stranger +at this fashionable end of the town? It was no new +thing for her to sit alone in the twilight, a prey to +melancholy thoughts. Ever since she could remember, +her life had been solitary and loveless. The +home ties and tender associations which sweeten +other lives were unknown to her. She had never +known what love meant till she felt Mildred’s warm +arms clinging round her neck, and Mildred’s soft +cheek pressed against hers. Her life had been a +shifting scene peopled with strangers. Dim and +misty memories of childhood’s earliest dawn conjured +up a cottage-garden on a windy hill; the sea +stretching far away in the distance, bright and blue, +but unattainable; a patch of grass on one side, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> +patch of potatoes on the other; a bed of wallflowers +and stocks and yellow marigolds in front of the +parlour window; a family of hens and an arrogant +cock strutting in the foreground; and, standing out +sharply against the sky and the sea, a tall column +surmounted by a statue.</p> + +<p>How she had longed to get nearer that vast +expanse of water, to find out what the sea was like! +From some points in the view it seemed so near, +almost as if she could touch it with her outstretched +hands; from other points it looked so far away. +She used to stand on a bank behind the cottage and +watch the white-sailed boats going out to sea, and +the steamers with their trailing smoke melting and +vanishing on the horizon.</p> + +<p>“Where do they go?” she asked in her baby +French. “Where do they go?”</p> + +<p>Those were the first words she remembered +speaking, and nobody seemed ever to have answered +that eager question.</p> + +<p>No one had cared for her in those days. She +was very sure of that, looking back upon that monotonous +childhood: a long series of empty hours in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> +a cottage garden, and with no companions except +the fowls, and no voice except that of the cow in the +meadow hard by: a cow which sent forth meaningless +bellows occasionally, and which she feared as if it +had been a lion.</p> + +<p>There was a woman in a white cap whom she +called Nounou, and who seemed too busy to care +about anybody; a woman who did all the housework, +and dug the potato-garden, and looked after the +fowls, and milked the cow and made butter, and rode +to market on a donkey once or twice a week: a woman +who was always in a hurry. There was a man who +came home from work at sundown, and there were +two boys in blouses and sabots, the youngest of +whom was too old to play with the nurse-child. +Long summer days in the chalky garden, long hours +of listless monotony in front of the wide bright sea, +had left a sense of oppression upon Fay’s mind. +She did not know even the name of the town she +had seen far below the long ridge of chalky hill—a +town of tall white houses and domes and spires, +which had seemed a vast metropolis to the eyes of +infancy. She had but to shut her eyes in her evening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> +solitude, and she could conjure up the picture of +roofs and spires, and hill and sea, and the tall +column in its railed enclosure; yet she knew no more +of town or hill than that they were on the other +side of the Channel.</p> + +<p>She remembered lying in a narrow little bed, that +rocked desperately on a windy day, and looking out +at the white sea-foam dashing against a curious oval +window, like a giant’s eye; and then she remembered +her first wondering experience of railway travelling; +a train flashing past green fields and hop-gardens +and houses; and then darkness and the jolting of a +cab; and after that being carried half-asleep into a +strange house, and waking to find herself in a strange +room, all very clean and neat, with a white-curtained +bed and white muslin window-curtains, and on looking +out of the window, behold, there was a patch of +common all abloom with yellow gorse.</p> + +<p>She remembered dimly that she had travelled in +the charge of a little gray-haired man, who disappeared +after the journey. She found herself +now in the care of an elderly lady, very prim and +strict, but not absolutely unkind; who wore a silk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> +gown, and a gold watch at her waistband, and who +talked in an unknown tongue. Everything here +was prettier than in Nounou’s house, and there was +a better garden, a garden where there were more +flowers and no potatoes and there was the common +in the front of the garden, all hillocks and hollows, +where she was allowed to amuse herself in charge +of a ruddy-faced girl in a lavender cotton frock.</p> + +<p>The old lady taught her the unknown tongue, +which she discovered in time to be English, and a +good deal besides—reading and writing, for instance, +and the rudiments of music, a little arithmetic, +grammar, and geography. She took kindly to music +and reading, and she liked to dabble with ink; but +the other lessons were abhorrent, and she gave the +orderly old lady a good deal of trouble. There +was no love between them, only endurance on +either side; and the long days on the common were +almost as desolate as the days on the chalky hill +above the sea.</p> + +<p>At last there came a change. The dressmaker +sent home three new frocks, all uncompromisingly +ugly; the little old gray-haired man reappeared,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> +looking exactly as he had looked on board the steamer, +and a fly carried Fay and this guardian to the railway-station +on the common, and thence the train took +them to a great dark city, which the man told Fay +was London; and then they went in a cab through +streets that seemed endless, till at last the streets +melted into a wide high-road, with trees on either +side, and the cab drove into a garden of shining +laurels and rhododendrons, and pulled up before a +classic portico. Fay had no memory of any house +so grand as this, although it was only the conventional +suburban villa of sixty or seventy years ago.</p> + +<p>Just at first the change seemed delightful. That +circular carriage-sweep, those shining rhododendrons +with great rose-coloured trusses of bloom, the drooping +gold of the laburnums, and the masses of perfumed +lilac, were beautiful in her eyes. Not so +beautiful the long, bare schoolroom and the willow-pattern +cups and saucers. Not so beautiful that +all-pervading atmosphere of restraint which made +school odious to Fay from the outset.</p> + +<p>She stayed there for years—an eternity it seemed +to her, looking back upon its hopeless monotony.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> +Pleasure, variety, excitement, she had none. Life +was an everlasting treadmill—up and down, down +and up, over and over again. The same dull +round of lessons; a dismal uniformity of food; +Sunday penance in the shape of two long services +in a badly ventilated church, and one long catechism +in a dreary schoolroom. No gaol can be much duller +than a well-regulated middle-class girls’ school. Fay +could complain of no ill-treatment. She was well +fed, comfortably housed, warmly clad; but her life +was a burden to her.</p> + +<p>She had a bad temper; was irritable, impatient, +quick to take offence, and prone to fits of sullenness. +This was the opinion of the authorities; and her +faults increased as she grew older. She was not +absolutely rebellious towards the governesses; but +there was always something amiss. She was idle +and listless at her studies, took no interest in anything +but her music-lessons, and was altogether an +unsatisfactory pupil. She had no lasting friendships +among her schoolfellows. She was capricious in her +likings, and was prone to fancy herself slighted or +ill-treated on the smallest provocation. The general<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> +verdict condemned her as the most disagreeable girl +in the school. With the meaner souls among her +schoolfellows it was considered an affront that she +should have no antecedents worth talking about, +no relatives, no home, and no hampers or presents. +Even the servants neglected her as a young person +without surroundings, upon whom kindness would be +thrown away. The wardrobe-woman left her clothes +unmended, feeling that it mattered very little in what +order they were kept, since the girl never went home +for the holidays, and there was no mother or aunt to +investigate her trunks. She was condemned on +every hand as a discreditable mystery; and when, +one unlucky afternoon, a sultry afternoon at the +beginning of a hot summer, she lost her temper in +the middle of a class-lesson, burst into a torrent of +angry speech, half defiance, half reproach, bounced +up from her seat, and rushed out of the schoolroom, +there were few to pity, and none to sympathise.</p> + +<p>The proprietress of the school was elderly and +lymphatic. Miss Fausset had been stigmatised as +a troublesome pupil for a long time. There were +continual complaints about Miss Fausset’s conduct,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> +worrying complaints, which spoilt Miss Constable’s +dinner and interfered with her digestion. Really, +the only course open to that prosperous, over-fed +personage was to get rid of Miss Fausset. There +was an amiable family of three sisters—highly +connected young persons, whose father was in the +wine trade—waiting for vacancies in that old-established +seminary.</p> + +<p>“We will make a <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">tabula rasa</i> of a troublesome +past,” said Miss Constable, who loved fine words. +“Miss Fausset must go.”</p> + +<p>Thus it was that John Fausset had been suddenly +called upon to find a new home for his ward; +and thus it was that Fay had been brought to Upper +Parchment Street.</p> + +<p>No doubt Upper Parchment Street was better +than school; but if it had not been for Mildred the +atmosphere on the edge of Hyde Park would have +been no more congenial than the atmosphere at +Streatham. Fay felt herself an intruder in that +splendid house, where, amidst that multitude of +pretty things, she could not put her finger upon one +gracious object that belonged to her—nothing that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> +was her “very own,” as Mildred called it; for she +had refused Mildred’s doll and all other proffered +gifts, too proud to profit by a child’s lavish generosity. +Mrs. Fausset made her no gifts, never talked +to her, rarely looked at her.</p> + +<p>Fay knew that Mrs. Fausset disliked her. She +had divined as much from the first, and she knew +only too well that dislike had grown with experience. +She was allowed to go down to afternoon tea with +Mildred; but had she been deaf and dumb her society +could not have been less cultivated by the mistress +of the house. Mrs. Fausset’s feelings were patent to +the whole household, and were common talk in the +servants’ hall. “No wonder,” said the women; the +men said “What a shame!” but footmen and housemaids +were at one in their treatment of Fay, which +was neglectful, and occasionally insolent. It would +hardly have been possible for them to behave well to +the intruder and keep in favour with Bell, who was +absolute—a superior power to butler or housekeeper, +a person with no stated office, and the supreme right +to interfere with everybody.</p> + +<p>Bell sighed and shook her head whenever Miss<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> +Fay was mentioned. She bridled with pent-up +indignation, as if the girl’s existence were an injury +to her, Martha Bell. “If <em>I</em> hadn’t nursed Mrs. +Fausset when she was the loveliest infant that ever +drew breath, <em>I</em> shouldn’t feel it so much,” said Bell; +and then tears would spring to her eyes and chokings +would convulse her throat, and the housekeeper would +shake her head and sympathise mysteriously.</p> + +<p>At the end of July the establishment migrated +from Parchment Street to The Hook, Mr. Fausset’s +riverside villa between Chertsey and Windsor. The +Hook was an expanse of meadow-land bordered with +willows, round which the river made a loop; and on +this enchanted bit of ground—a spot loved by the +river-god—Mr. Fausset had built for himself the +most delightful embodiment of that much-abused +word villa; a long, low, white house, with spacious +rooms, broad corridors, a double flight of marble +stairs, meeting on a landing lit by an Italian cupola—a +villa surrounded with a classic colonnade, and +looking out upon peerless gardens sloping to the +willow-shadowed stream.</p> + +<p>To Fay The Hook seemed like a vision of Paradise.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> +It was almost happiness even to her impatient +spirit to sit in a corner of those lovely grounds, +screened from the outer world by a dense wall of +Portugal laurels and arbutus, with the blue water +and the low, flat meadows of the further shore for +her only prospect.</p> + +<p>Miss Colville was left behind in London. For +Fay and Mildred life was a perpetual holiday. Mrs. +Fausset was almost as much in society at The Hook +as she had been in London. Visitors came and +visitors went. She was never alone. There were +parties at Henley and Marlow, and Wargrave and +Goring. Two pairs of horses were kept hard at +work carrying Mr. and Mrs. Fausset about that +lovely riverside landscape to garden-parties and +dinners, picnics and regattas. John Fausset went +because his wife liked him to go, and because he +liked to see her happy and admired. The two girls +were left, for the most part, to their own devices, +under the supervision of Bell. They lived in the +gardens, with an occasional excursion into the unknown +world along the river. There was a trustworthy +under-gardener, who was a good oarsman,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> +and in his charge Mildred was allowed to go on the +water in a big wherry, which looked substantial +enough to have carried a select boarding-school.</p> + +<p>This life by the Thames was the nearest approach +to absolute happiness which Fay had ever +known; but for her there was to be no such thing +as unbroken bliss. In the midst of the sultry +August weather Mildred fell ill—a mild attack of +scarlet fever, which sounded less alarming to Mrs. +Fausset’s ear, because the doctor spoke of it as scarlatina. +It was a very mild case, the local practitioner +told Mrs. Fausset; there was no occasion +to send for a London physician; there was no occasion +for alarm. Mildred must keep her bed for a +fortnight, and must be isolated from the rest of the +house. Her own maid might nurse her if she had +had the complaint.</p> + +<p>“How could she have caught the fever?” Mrs. +Fausset asked, with an injured air; and there was a +grand investigation, but no scarlet fever to be heard +of nearer than Maidenhead.</p> + +<p>“People are so artful in hiding these things,” +said Mrs. Fausset; and ten minutes afterwards she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> +begged the doctor not to mention Mildred’s malady +to any of her neighbours.</p> + +<p>“We have such a host of engagements, and +crowds of visitors coming from London,” she said. +“People are so ridiculously nervous. Of course I +shall be extremely careful.”</p> + +<p>The doctor gave elaborate instructions about +isolation. Such measures being taken, Mrs. Fausset +might receive all fashionable London with safety.</p> + +<p>“And it is really such a mild case that you need +not put yourself about in any way,” concluded the +doctor.</p> + +<p>“Dear, sweet pet, we must do all we can to +amuse her,” sighed the fond mother.</p> + +<p>Mild as the case might be, the patient had to +suffer thirst and headache, a dry and swollen throat, +and restless nights. Her most eager desire was for +Fay’s company, and as it was ascertained that Fay +had suffered from scarlet fever some years before in +a somewhat severe form, it was considered she +might safely assist in the sick-room.</p> + +<p>She was there almost all day, and very often in +the night. She read to Mildred, and sang to her,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> +and played with her, and indulged every changing +fancy and caprice of sickness. Her love was inexhaustible, +indefatigable, for ever on the watch. If +Mildred woke from a feverish dream in the deep of +night, with a little agitated sob or cry, she found a +figure in a white dressing-gown bending over her, +and loving arms encircling her before she had time +to feel frightened. Fay slept in a little dressing-room +opening out of Mildred’s large, airy bedroom, +so as to be near her darling. It was a mere closet, +with a truckle-bed brought down from the servants’ +attic; but it was good enough for Fay, whose only +thought was of the child who loved her as none +other had ever loved within her memory.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset was prettily anxious about her +child. She would come to Mildred’s room in her +dressing-gown before her leisurely morning toilet, to +hear the last report. She would sit by the bed for +five minutes showering kisses on the pale cheeks, +and then she would go away to her long summer-day +of frivolous pleasures and society talk. Ripples +of laughter and snatches of speech came floating in +at the open windows; and at Mildred’s behest Fay<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> +would stand at a window and report the proceedings +of that happy world outside.</p> + +<p>“They are going out in the boat. They are +going to have tea on the lawn. Your mamma is +walking up and down with Sir Horace Clavering. +Miss Grenville and her sister are playing croquet;” +and so on, and so on, all day.</p> + +<p>Mildred tossed about on her pretty white bed +impatiently.</p> + +<p>“It is very horrid being shut up here on these +fine days,” she said; “or it would be horrid without +you, Fay. Mamma does not come to see me much.”</p> + +<p>Mamma came three or four times a day; but her +visits were of the briefest. She would come into +the room beaming with smiles, looking like living +sunlight in her exquisite white gown, with its delicate +ribbons and cloudy lace—a fleecy white cloud +just touched with rose-colour, as if she were an +embodiment of the summer dawn. Sometimes she +brought Mildred a peach, or a bunch of hothouse +grapes, or an orchid, or a new picture-book; but +beautiful as these offerings were, the child did not +always value them. She would push the plate of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span> +grapes or the peach aside impatiently when her +mother was gone, or she would entreat Fay to eat +the dainty.</p> + +<p>“Mamma thinks I am greedy,” she said; “but +I ain’t, am I, Fay?”</p> + +<p>Those three weeks in the sick-room, those wakeful +nights and long, slow summer days, strengthened +the bond of love between the two girls. By the time +Mildred was convalescent they seemed to have loved +each other for years. Mildred could hardly remember +what her life was like before she had Fay for a +companion. Mrs. Fausset saw this growing affection +not without jealousy; but it was very convenient +that there should be some one in the house whose +companionship kept Mildred happy, and she even +went so far as to admit that Fay was “useful.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot be with the dear child half so much as +I should like to be,” she said; “visitors are so +exacting.”</p> + +<p>Fay had slept very little during Mildred’s illness, +and now that the child was nearly well the elder girl +began to flag somewhat, and was tired early in the +evening, and glad to go to bed at the same hour as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> +the patient, who, under Bell’s supervision, was made +to retire before eight. She was now well enough to +sit up all day, and to drive out in a pony-carriage in +the sunny hours after early dinner. Fay went with +her, of course. Pony and landscape would have been +wanting in charm without Fay’s company. Both +girls had gone to bed one sultry evening in the faint +gray twilight. Fay was sleeping profoundly; but +Mildred, after dozing a little, was lying half-awake, +with closed eyelids, in the flower-scented room. +The day had been exceptionally warm. The windows +were all open, and a door between Mildred’s +bedroom and sitting-room had been left ajar.</p> + +<p>Bell was in the sitting-room at her favourite task +of clearing up the scattered toys and books, and reducing +all things to mathematical precision. Meta, +Mildred’s German maid, was sitting at needlework +near the window by the light of a shaded lamp. +The light shone in the twilight through the partly-open +door, and gave Mildred a sense of company. +They began to talk presently, and Mildred listened, +idly at first, and soothed by the sound of their +voices, but afterwards with keen curiosity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p> + +<p>“I know I shouldn’t like to be treated so,” said +Meta.</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> don’t see that she has anything to complain +of,” answered Bell. “She has a good home, and +everything provided for her. What more can she +want?”</p> + +<p>“I should want a good deal more if I was a +heiress.”</p> + +<p>“<em>An</em> heiress,” corrected Bell, who prided herself +on having cultivated her mind, and was somewhat +pedantic of speech. “That’s all nonsense, Meta. +She’s no more an heiress than I am. Mr. Fausset +told my poor young mistress that just to throw dust +in her eyes. Heiress, indeed! An heiress without +a relative in the world that she can speak of—an +heiress that has dropped from the moon. Don’t +tell <em>me</em>.”</p> + +<p>Nobody was telling Mrs. Bell anything; but she +had a resentful air, as if combating the arguments +of an invisible adversary.</p> + +<p>There was a silence during which Mildred nearly +fell asleep; and then the voices began again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> + +<p>“It’s impossible for sisters to be fonder of each +other than those two are,” said Meta.</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing strange in that, considering +they <em>are</em> sisters,” answered Bell angrily.</p> + +<p>“O, but you’ve no right to say that, Mrs. Bell; +it’s going too far.”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t I a right to use my eyes and ears? +Can’t I see the family look in those two faces, +though Miss Mildred is pretty and Miss Fay is +plain? Can’t I hear the same tones in the two +voices, and haven’t I seen his way of bringing that +girl into the house, and his guilty look before my +poor injured mistress? Of course they’re sisters. +Who could ever doubt it? <em>She</em> doesn’t, I know, +poor dear.”</p> + +<p>She, in this connection, meant Mrs. Fausset.</p> + +<p>There was only one point in this speech which +the innocent child seized upon. She and Fay were +said to be sisters. O, how she had longed for a +sister in the last year or so of her life, since she had +found out the meaning of solitude among fairest +surroundings! How all the brightest things she +possessed had palled upon her for want of sisterly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> +companionship! How she had longed for a baby-sister +even, and had envied the children in households +where a new baby was an annual institution! She +had wondered why her mother did not treat herself +to a new baby occasionally, as so many of her +mother’s friends did. And now Fay had been given +to her, ever so much better than a baby, which +would have taken such a long time to grow up. +Mildred had never calculated how long, but she concluded +that it would be some months before the most +forward baby would be of a companionable age. Fay +had been given to her—a ready-made companion, +versed in fairy tales, able to conjure up an enchanted +world out of the schoolroom piano, skilful with pencil +and colour-box, able to draw the faces and figures +and palaces and woodlands of that fairy world, able +to amuse and entertain her in a hundred ways. And +Fay was her sister after all. She dropped asleep in +a flutter of pleasurable excitement. She would ask +her mother all about it to-morrow; and in the +meantime she would say nothing to Fay. It was +fun to have a secret from Fay.</p> + +<p>A batch of visitors left next day after lunch.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> +Mr. and Mrs. Fausset were to be alone for forty-eight +hours, a rare oasis of domesticity in the society +desert. Mildred had been promised that the first +day there was no company she was to have tea with +mamma in the tent on the lawn. She claimed the +fulfilment of that promise to-day.</p> + +<p>It was a lovely day after the sultry, thundery +night. Mrs. Fausset reclined in her basket-chair in +the shelter of the tent. Fay and Mildred sat side +by side on a low bamboo bench on the grass: the +little girl, fairy-like, in her white muslin and flowing +flaxen hair, the big girl in olive-coloured alpaca, +with dark hair clustering in short curls about the +small intelligent head. There could hardly have +been a stronger contrast than that between the two +girls; and yet Bell was right. There was a family +look, an undefinable resemblance of contour and +expression which would have struck a very attentive +observer—something in the line of the delicate eyebrow, +something in the angle of the forehead.</p> + +<p>“Mamma,” said Mildred suddenly, clambering +into her mother’s lap, “why mayn’t I call Fay +sister?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset started, and flushed crimson.</p> + +<p>“What nonsense, child! Why, because it would +be most ridiculous.”</p> + +<p>“But she <em>is</em> my sister,” urged Mildred, looking +full into her mother’s eyes, with tremendous resolution +in her own. “I love her like a sister, and she +is my sister. Bell says so.”</p> + +<p>“Bell is an impertinent person,” cried Mrs. +Fausset angrily. “When did she say so?”</p> + +<p>“Last night, when she thought I was asleep. +Mayn’t I call Fay sister?” persisted Mildred coaxingly.</p> + +<p>“On no account. I never heard anything so +shameful. To think that Bell should gossip! An +old servant like Bell—my own old nurse. It is too +cruel!” cried Mrs. Fausset, forgetting herself in her +anger.</p> + +<p>Fay stood tall and straight in the sunshine outside +the tent, wondering at the storm. She had an +instinctive apprehension that Mrs. Fausset’s anger +was humiliating to her. She knew not why, but she +felt a sense of despair darker than any other evil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> +moment in her life; and yet her evil moments had +been many.</p> + +<p>“You need not be afraid that I shall ask Mildred +to call me sister,” she said. “I love her dearly, +but I hate everybody else in this house.”</p> + +<p>“You are a wicked, ungrateful girl,” exclaimed +Mrs. Fausset, “and I am very sorry I ever saw your +face.”</p> + +<p>Fay drew herself up, looked at the speaker indignantly +for a moment or so, and then walked quietly +away towards the house.</p> + +<p>She passed the footman with the tea-tray as she +crossed the lawn, and a little further on she passed +John Fausset, who looked at her wonderingly.</p> + +<p>Mildred burst out crying.</p> + +<p>“How unkind you are, mamma!” she sobbed. +“If I mayn’t call her my sister I shall always love +her like a sister—always, always, always.”</p> + +<p>“What is the matter with my Mildred?” asked +Mr. Fausset, arriving at this moment.</p> + +<p>“Nothing. She has only been silly,” his wife +answered pettishly.</p> + +<p>“And Fay—has she been silly, too?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> + +<p>“Fay, your <em>protégée</em>, has been most impertinent +to me. But I suppose that does not count.”</p> + +<p>“It does count, for a good deal, if she has been +intentionally impertinent,” answered Fausset gravely.</p> + +<p>He looked back after Fay’s vanishing figure with +a troubled expression. He had so sighed for peace. +He had hoped that the motherless girl might be +taken into his home and cared for and made happy, +without evil feeling upon any one’s part; and now +he could see by his wife’s countenance that the hope +of union and peace was at an end.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you mean about intention,” +said his wife; “I only know that the girl you are so +fond of has just said she hates everybody in this +house except Mildred. That sound rather like intentional +impertinence, I think.”</p> + +<p>“Go and play, darling,” said Fausset to his child; +“or run after Fay, and bring her back to tea.”</p> + +<p>“You show a vast amount of consideration for +your wife,” said Mrs. Fausset.</p> + +<p>“My dear Maud, I want you to show a little +more consideration for that girl, who has been so +devoted to Mildred all through her illness, and who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> +has one very strong claim upon a mother’s heart—she +is motherless.”</p> + +<p>“I should think more of that claim, perhaps, if +I knew who her mother was, and what she was to +you,” said Maud Fausset.</p> + +<p>“She was once near and dear to me. That is +all I can tell you, Maud; and it ought to be +enough.”</p> + +<p>“It is more than enough,” his wife answered, +trembling from head to foot, as she rose from her +low chair, and walked away from the tent.</p> + +<p>John Fausset looked after her irresolutely, went a +few steps as if he meant to follow her, and then +turned back to the tent, just as Mildred reappeared +with Fay from another direction.</p> + +<p>“We three will have tea together,” he exclaimed, +with demonstrative cheerfulness. “Mamma is not +very well, Mildred; she has gone back to the house. +You shall pour out my tea.”</p> + +<p>He seated himself in his wife’s chair, and Mildred +sat on his knee, and put her arms round his neck, +and adored him with all her power of adoration. +Her household divinity had ever been the father.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> +Perhaps her baby mind had found out the weakness +of one parent and the strength of the other.</p> + +<p>“Fay shall pour out the tea,” she said, with a +sense of self-sacrifice. “It will be a treat for Fay.”</p> + +<p>So Fay poured out the tea, and they all three sat +in the tent, and were happy and merry—or seemingly +so, perhaps, as concerned John Fausset—for +one whole sunshiny hour, and for the first time Fay +felt that she was not an outsider. Yet there lurked +in her mind the memory of Mrs. Fausset’s anger, +and that memory was bitter.</p> + +<p>“What am I, that almost everybody should be +rude to me?” she asked herself, as she sat alone +that night after Mildred had gone to bed.</p> + +<p>From the open windows below came the languid +sweetness of a nocturne by Chopin. Mrs. Fausset +was playing her husband to sleep after dinner. Sure +token of reconciliation between husband and wife.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The doctor came next morning. He appeared +upon alternate days now, and looked at Mildred in a +casual manner, after exhausting the local gossip +with Mrs. Fausset. This morning he and Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> +Fausset were particularly confidential before the +patient was sent for.</p> + +<p>“Admirable!” he exclaimed, when he had looked +at her tongue and felt her pulse; “we are as nearly +well as we can be. All we want now is a little sea-air +to set us up for the winter. The great point, +my dear madam”—to Mrs. Fausset—“is to avoid +all risk of <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sequelæ</i>. A fortnight at Brighton or Eastbourne +will restore our little friend to perfect +health.”</p> + +<p>There were no difficulties in the way of such +people as the Faussets, no question of ways and +means. Bell was sent for, and despatched to Eastbourne +by an afternoon train. She was to take +lodgings in a perfect position, and of impeccable +repute as to sanitation. Mildred was to follow next +day, under convoy of Meta and the under-butler, a +responsible person of thirty-five.</p> + +<p>“Fay must go, too,” exclaimed Mildred; whereupon +followed a tragic scene.</p> + +<p>Fay was not to go to Eastbourne. No reasons +were assigned for the decision. Mildred was to ride +a donkey; she was to have a pony-carriage at her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> +disposition; but she was to be without Fay for a +whole fortnight. In a fortnight she would be able +to come home again.</p> + +<p>“How many days are there in a fortnight?” she +asked piteously.</p> + +<p>“Fourteen.”</p> + +<p>“O Fay, fourteen days away from you!” she +exclaimed, clinging with fond arms round Fay’s +neck, and pulling down the dark head on a level +with her own bright hair.</p> + +<p>Fay was pale, but tearless, and said not a word. +She let Mildred kiss her, and kissed back again, but +in a dead silence. She went into the hall with the +child, and to the carriage-door, and they kissed each +other on the doorstep, and they kissed at the carriage-window; +and then the horses trotted away +along the gravel drive, and Fay had a last glimpse +of the fair head thrust out of the window, and the +lilies and roses of a child’s face framed in pale gold +hair.</p> + +<p>It was a little more than a fortnight before Bell +and her charge went back to The Hook. Mildred +had sorely missed her playfellow, but had consoled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> +herself with a spade and pail on the beach, and a +donkey of venerable aspect, whose chief distinction +was his white linen panoply, on the long dusty +roads.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset was not at home to receive her +daughter. She had a superior duty at Chertsey, +where people of some social importance were giving +a lawn-party. The house seemed empty and silent, +and all its brightness and graceful furniture, and +flowers in the hall and on the staircase, could not +atone for that want of human life.</p> + +<p>“Where is Fay?” cried Mildred, taking alarm.</p> + +<p>Nobody answered a question which was addressed +to everybody.</p> + +<p>“Fay, Fay, where are you?” cried the child, +and then rushed up-stairs to the schoolroom, light +as a lapwing, distracted with that sudden fear. +“Fay, Fay!” The treble cry rang through the +house.</p> + +<p>No one in the schoolroom, nor in Mildred’s bedroom, +nor in the little room where Fay had slept, +nor in the drawing-rooms, whither Mildred came +running, after that futile quest up-stairs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p> + +<p>Bell met her in the hall, with a letter in her +hand.</p> + +<p>“Your mamma wished to break it to you herself, +miss,” said Bell. “Miss Fay has gone.”</p> + +<p>“Gone, where?”</p> + +<p>“To Brussels.”</p> + +<p>“Where is Brussels?”</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> believe, miss, that it is the capital of Belgium.”</p> + +<p>Mildred tore open the letter, which Bell read +aloud over the child’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I hope you won’t be grieved at losing your +playfellow, my dearest pet. Fay is dreadfully backward +in her education, and has no manners. She +has gone to a finishing-school at Brussels, and you +may not see her again for some years.”</p> + +<p>And so the years go by, and this story passes on +to a time when the child Mildred is a child no more, +but the happy mother of a fair young daughter, and +the wife of an idolised husband.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br> +<span class="fs70">WITHOUT THE WOLF.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">“Father,”</span> said Lola, “there are ever so many +people in the village ill with fever. Isn’t it sad?”</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Greswold, of Enderby Manor, had +been submitting to a fortnight’s dissipation in London, +and this was their first Sunday at home after +that interval. They had returned late on the previous +night, and house and gardens had all the +sweetness and freshness of a scene to which one is +restored after absence. They had spent the summer +morning in the little village church with their +daughter; and now they were enjoying the leisure +interval between church and luncheon.</p> + +<p>George Greswold sat in a lounging-chair under a +cedar within twenty yards of the dining-room windows, +and Lola was hanging about him as he read +the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Athenæum</i>, caressing him with little touches of +light hands upon his hair or his coat-collar, adoring +him with all her might after the agony of severance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> + +<p>She was his only child, and the love between +them was passing the love of the father and daughter +of every-day life. It was an almost romantic attachment.</p> + +<p>Like most only daughters, Lola was precocious, +far in advance of her years in thoughtfulness and +emotion, though perhaps a little behind the average +girl of twelve in the severities of feminine education. +She had been her mother’s chief companion ever +since she could speak, the confidante of all that +mother’s thoughts and fancies, which were as innocent +as those of childhood itself. She had read +much more than most girls of her age, and had +been made familiar with poets whose names are only +known to the schoolgirl in a history of literature. +She knew a good deal about the best books in European +literature; but, most of all, she knew the hearts +and minds of her father and mother, their loves and +likings, their joys and sorrows. She had never been +shut out from their confidence; she had never been +told to go and play when they wanted to talk to +each other. She had sat with them, and walked +and ridden and driven with them ever since she was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> +old enough to dispense with her nurse’s arms. She +had lived her young life with them, and had been a +part of their lives.</p> + +<p>George Greswold looked up from his <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Athenæum</i> +in quick alarm.</p> + +<p>“Fever!” he exclaimed, “fever at Enderby!”</p> + +<p>“Strange, isn’t it, father? Everybody is wondering +about it. Enderby has always been such a +healthy village, and you have taken such pains to +make it so.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, love, I have done my best. I am a landlord +for pleasure, and not for gain, as you and mother +know.”</p> + +<p>“And what seems strangest and worst of all,” +continued Lola, “is that this dreadful fever has +broken out among the people you and mother and I +are fondest of—our old friends and pensioners—and +the children we know most about. It seems +so hard that those you and mother have helped the +most should be the first to be ill.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, love, that must seem very hard to my +tender-hearted darling.”</p> + +<p>Her father looked up at her fondly as she stood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> +behind his chair, her white arm leaning upon his +shoulder. The summer was in its zenith. It was +strawberry-time, rose-time, haymaking-time—the +season of nightingales and meadow-sweet and tall +Mary lilies, and all those lovely things that cluster +in the core of summer’s great warm heart. Lola +was all in white—a loose muslin frock, straight from +shoulder to instep. Her thick gold hair fell straight +as her frock below her ungirdled waist, and, in her +white and gold, she had the look of an angel in an +early Italian picture. Her eyes were as blue as that +cloudless sky of midsummer which took a deeper +azure behind the black-green branches of the cedar.</p> + +<p>“My pet, I take it this fever is some slight +summer malady. Cottagers are such ravens. They +always make the worst of an illness.”</p> + +<p>“O, but they really have been very bad. Mary +Martin has had the fever, but she is getting better. +And there’s Johnny Giles; you know what a strong +boy <em>he</em> is. He’s very bad, poor little chap—so +delirious; and I do feel so sorry for his poor +mother. And young Mrs. Peter has it, and two of +her children.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> + +<p>“It must be contagious,” cried Greswold, seizing +his daughter’s round white arm with an agitated +movement. “You have not been to see any of them, +have you, Lola?” he asked, looking at her with +unspeakable anxiety.</p> + +<p>“No; Bell wouldn’t let me go to see any of +them; but of course I have taken them things every +day—wine and beef-tea and jelly, and everything +we could think of; and they have had as much milk +as they liked.”</p> + +<p>“You should not have gone yourself with the +things, darling. You should have sent them.”</p> + +<p>“That would seem so unkind, as if one hardly +cared; and Puck with nothing to do all the time +but to drag me about. It was no trouble to go +myself. I did not even go inside the cottages. Bell +said I mustn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Bell was right. Well, I suppose there is no +harm done if you didn’t go into any of the cottages; +and it was very sweet of you to take the +things yourself; like Red Riding Hood, only without +the wolf. There goes the gong. I hope you are +hungry.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p> + +<p>“Not very. The weather is too warm for eating +anything but strawberries.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her anxiously again, ready to take +alarm at a word.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is too warm in this south-western +country,” he said nervously. “We’ll go to Scotland +next week.”</p> + +<p>“So soon?”</p> + +<p>“Why not a little sooner than usual, for once in +a way?”</p> + +<p>“I shall be sorry to go away while the people +are ill,” she said gravely.</p> + +<p>George Greswold forgot that the gong had +sounded. He sat, leaning forward, in a despondent +attitude. The very mention of sickness in the land +had unhinged him. This child was so dear to him, +his only one. He had done all that forethought, +sense, and science could do to make the village +which lay at his doors the perfection of health and +purity. Famous sanitarians had been entertained +at the Manor, and had held counsel with Mr. +Greswold upon the progress of sanitation, and its +latest developments. They had wondered with him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> +over the blind ignorance of our forefathers. They +had instructed him how to drain his house, and how +to ventilate and purify his cottages. They had +assured him that, so far as lay within the limits of +human intelligence, perfection had been achieved in +Enderby village and Enderby Manor House.</p> + +<p>And now his idolised daughter hung over his +chair and told him that there was fever raging in +the land, his land; the land which he loved as if +it were a living thing, and on which he had lavished +care and money ever since he had owned it. Other +men might consider their ancestral estates as something +to be lived upon; George Greswold thought of +his forefathers’ house and lands as something to be +lived for. His cottages were model cottages, and +he was known far and wide as a model landlord.</p> + +<p>“George, are you quite forgetting luncheon?” +asked a voice from one of the open windows, and he +looked up to see a beautiful face looking out at him, +framed in hair of Lola’s colour.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mildred, come here for a moment?” +he said, and his wife went to him, smiling still, but +with a shade of uneasiness in her face.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p> + +<p>“Go in, pet. We’ll follow you directly,” he +said to his daughter; and then he rose slowly, with +an air of being almost broken down by a great +trouble, and put his hand through his wife’s arm, +and led her along the velvet turf beyond the cedar.</p> + +<p>“Mildred, have you heard of this fever?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; Louisa told me this morning when she +was doing my hair. It seems to be rather bad; +but there cannot be any danger, surely, after all +you have done to make the cottages perfect in every +way?”</p> + +<p>“One cannot tell. There may be a germ of evil +brought from somewhere else. I am sorry Lola has +been among the people.”</p> + +<p>“O, but she has not been inside any of the +cottages. Bell took care to prevent that.”</p> + +<p>“Bell was wise, but she might have done better +still. She should have telegraphed to us. Lola +must not go about any more. You will see to that, +won’t you, dearest? Before the end of the week I +will take you both to Scotland.”</p> + +<p>“Do you really suppose there can be danger?” +she asked, growing very pale.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> + +<p>“No, no, I don’t apprehend danger. Only it +is better to be over-cautious than over-bold. We +cannot be too careful of our treasure.”</p> + +<p>“No, no, indeed,” answered the mother, with a +piteous look.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” called Lola from the window, “are +you ever coming? Pomfret will be late for church.”</p> + +<p>Pomfret was the butler, whose convenience had +to be studied upon Sundays. The servants dined +while the family were at luncheon, and almost all +the establishment went to afternoon service, leaving +a footman and an under-housemaid in sole possession +of the grave old manor-house, where the silence had +a solemnity as in some monastic chapel. Lola was +anxious that luncheon should begin, and Pomfret be +dismissed to eat his dinner.</p> + +<p>This child of twelve had more than a woman’s +forethought. She spent her life in thinking about +other people; but of all those whom she loved, and +for whom she cared, her father was first and chief. +For him her love was akin to worship.</p> + +<p>She watched his face anxiously now, as she took +her seat at his right hand, and was silent until<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> +Pomfret had served the soup and retired, leaving all +the rest of the luncheon on the table, and the wine +on a dumb-waiter by his master’s side.</p> + +<p>There was always a cold lunch on Sundays, and +the evening meal was also cold, a compromise +between dinner and supper, served at nine o’clock, +by which time the servants had gratified their +various tastes for church or chapel, and had enjoyed +an evening walk. There was no parsonage in +England where the day of rest was held in more +reverence than it was at Enderby Manor.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greswold was no bigot, his religion in no +wise savoured of the over-good school; but he was a +man of deep religious convictions; and he had been +brought up to honour Sunday as a day set apart.</p> + +<p>The Sunday parties and Sunday amusements of +fashionable London were an abomination to him, +though he was far too liberal-minded to wish to +shut museums and picture-galleries against the +people.</p> + +<p>“Father,” said Lola, when they were alone, +“I’m afraid you had your bad dream last night.”</p> + +<p>Greswold looked at her curiously.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p> + +<p>“No, love, my dreams were colourless, and have +left not even a remembrance.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you look sorrowful, just as you always +look after your bad dream.”</p> + +<p>“Your father is anxious about the cottagers +who are ill, dearest,” said Mrs. Greswold. “That +is all.”</p> + +<p>“But you must not be unhappy about them, +father dear. You don’t think that any of them will +die, do you?” asked Lola, drawing very near him, +and looking up at him with awe-stricken eyes.</p> + +<p>“Indeed, my love, I hope not. They shall not +die, if care can save them. I will walk round the +village with Porter this afternoon, and find out all +about the trouble. If there is anything that he +cannot understand, we’ll have Dr. Hutchinson over +from Southampton, or a physician from London if +necessary. My people shall not be neglected.”</p> + +<p>“May I go with you this afternoon, father?”</p> + +<p>“No, dearest, neither you nor mother must +leave the grounds till we go away. I will have +no needless risks run by my dear ones.”</p> + +<p>Neither mother nor daughter disputed his will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> +upon this point. He was the sole arbiter of their +lives. It seemed almost as if they lived only to +please him. Both would have liked to go with him; +both thought him over-cautious; yet neither attempted +to argue the point. Happy household in +which there are no arguments upon domestic +trifles, no bickerings about the infinitesimals of +life!</p> + +<p>Enderby Manor was one of those ideal homes +which adorn the face of England and sustain its +reputation as the native soil of domestic virtues, +the country in which good wives and good mothers +are indigenous.</p> + +<p>There are many such ideal homes in the land as +to outward aspect, seen from the high-road, across +park or pasture, shrubbery or flower-garden; but +only a few of these sustain the idea upon intimate +knowledge of the interior.</p> + +<p>Here, within as well as without, the atmosphere +was peace. Those velvet lawns and brilliant flower-beds +were not more perfect than the love between +husband and wife, child and parents. No cloud had +ever shadowed that serene heaven of domestic peace.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> +George Greswold had married at thirty a girl of +eighteen who adored him; and those two had lived +for each other and for their only child ever since. +All outside the narrow circle of family love counted +only as the margin or the framework of life. All +the deepest and sweetest elements of life were within +the veil. Mildred Greswold could not conceive a +fashionable woman’s existence—a life given up to +frivolous occupations and futile excitements—a life +of empty pleasure faintly flavoured with art, literature, +science, philanthropy, and politics, and fancying +itself eminently useful and eminently progressive. +She had seen such an existence in her childhood, +and had wondered that any reasoning creature could +so live. She had turned her back upon the modish +world when she married George Greswold, and had +surrendered most of the delights of society to lead +quiet days in her husband’s ancestral home, loving +that old house for his sake, as he loved it for the +sake of the dead.</p> + +<p>They were not in outer darkness, however, as to +the movement of the world. They spent a fortnight +at Limmers occasionally, when the fancy moved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> +them. They saw all the pictures worth seeing, +heard a good deal of the best music, mixed just +enough in society to distinguish gold from tinsel, +and to make a happy choice of friends.</p> + +<p>They occasionally treated themselves to a week +in Paris, and their autumn holidays were mostly +spent in a shooting-box twenty miles beyond Inverness. +They came back to the Manor in time for +the pheasant-shooting, and the New Year generally +began with a house-party which lasted with variations +until the hunting was all over, and the young +leaves were green in the neighbouring forest. No +lives could have been happier, or fuller of interest; +but the interest all centred in home. Farmers and +cottagers on the estate were cared for as a part of +home; and the estate itself was loved almost as +a living thing by husband and wife, and the fair +child who had been born to them in the old-fashioned +house.</p> + +<p>The grave red-brick manor-house had been built +when William III. was King; and there were some +Dutch innovations in the Old English architecture, +notably a turret or pavilion at the end of each wing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> +and a long bowling-green on the western side of the +garden. The walls had that deep glowing red +which is only seen in old brickwork, and the black +glazed tiles upon the hopper roof glittered in the +sunlight with the prismatic hues of antique Rhodian +glass. The chief characteristic of the interior was +the oak-panelling, which clothed the rooms and +corridors as in a garment of sober brown, and would +have been suggestive of gloom but for the pictures +and porcelain which brightened every wall, and the +rich colouring of brocaded curtains and tapestry +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">portières</i>. The chief charm of the house was the +aspect of home life, the books and musical instruments, +the art treasures, and flowers, and domestic +trifles to be seen everywhere; the air which every +room and every nook and corner had of being lived +in by home-loving and home-keeping people.</p> + +<p>The pavilion at the end of the south-west wing +was Lola’s special domain, that and the room communicating +with it. That pretty sitting-room, with +dwarf book-shelves, water-colour pictures, and +Wedgwood china, was never called a schoolroom. +It was Lola’s study.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p> + +<p>“There shall be no suggestion of school in our +home,” said George Greswold.</p> + +<p>It was he who chose his daughter’s masters, +and it was often he who attended during the lesson, +listening intently to the progress of the work, and +as keenly interested in the pupil’s progress as the +pupil herself. Latin he himself taught her, and +she already knew by heart those noblest of Horace’s +odes which are fittest for young lips. Their philosophy +saddened her a little.</p> + +<p>“Is life always changing?” she asked her father; +“must one never venture to be quite happy?”</p> + +<p>The Latin poet’s pervading idea of mutability, +inevitable death, and inevitable change impressed +her with a flavour of sadness, child as she was.</p> + +<p>“My dearest, had Horace been a Christian, as +you are, and had he lived for others, as you do, he +would not have been afraid to call himself happy,” +answered George Greswold. “He was a Pagan, +and he put on the armour of philosophy for want of +the armour of faith.”</p> + +<p>These lessons in the classics, taking a dead +language not as a dry study of grammar and dictionary,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> +but as the gate to new worlds of poetry +and philosophy, had been Lola’s delight. She was +in no wise unpleasantly precocious; but she was far +in advance of the conventional schoolroom child, +trained into characterless uniformity by a superior +governess. Lola had never been under governess +rule. Her life at the Manor had been as free as +that of the butterflies. There was only Bell to +lecture her—white-haired Mrs. Bell, thin and spare, +straight as an arrow, at seventy-four years of age, +the embodiment of servants’-hall gentility, in her +black silk afternoon gown and neat cambric cap—Bell, +who looked after Lola’s health, and Lola’s +rooms, and was for ever tidying the drawers and +tables, and lecturing upon the degeneracy of girlhood. +It was her boast to have nursed Lola’s +grandmother, as well as Lola’s mother, which +seemed going back to the remoteness of the dark +ages.</p> + +<p>Enderby Manor was three miles from Romsey, +and within riding or driving distance of the New +Forest and of Salisbury Cathedral. It lay in the +heart of a pastoral district watered by the Test, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> +was altogether one of the most enjoyable estates in +that part of the country.</p> + +<p>Before luncheon was finished a messenger was on +his way to the village to summon Mr. Porter, more +commonly Dr. Porter, the parish and everybody’s +doctor, an elderly man of burly figure, close-cropped +gray hair, and yeoman-like bearing—a man born on +the soil, whose father and grandfather and great-grandfather +had cured or killed the inhabitants of +Enderby parish from time immemorial. Judging +from the tombstones in the pretty old churchyard, +they must have cured more than they killed; for +those crumbling moss-grown stones bore the record +of patriarchal lives, and the union near Enderby was +a museum of incipient centenarians.</p> + +<p>Mr. Porter came into the grave old library at the +Manor looking more serious than his wont, perhaps +in sympathy with George Greswold’s anxious face, +turned towards the door as the footman opened it.</p> + +<p>“Well, Porter, what does it all mean, this +fever?” asked Greswold abruptly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Porter had a manner of discussing a case +which was all his own. He always appealed to his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> +patient with a professional air, as if consulting another +medical authority, and a higher one than +himself. It was flattering, perhaps, but not always +satisfactory.</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, there’s the high temperature—104 +in some cases—and there’s the inflamed +throat, and there’s headache. What do <em>you</em> say?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk nonsense, Porter; you must know +whether it is an infectious fever or not. If you +don’t know, we’ll send to Southampton for Hutchinson.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, you can have him if you like. I +judge more by temperature than anything—the +thermometer is a safer guide than the pulse, as you +know. I took their temperatures this morning +before I went to church: only one case in which +there was improvement—all the others decidedly +worse; very strongly developed cases of malignant +fever—typhus or typhoid—which, as you know, +by Jenner’s differentiation of the two forms—”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, man, don’t talk to me as if +I were a doctor, and had your ghoulish relish of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> +disease! If you have the slightest doubt as to +treatment, send for Hutchinson.”</p> + +<p>He took a sheaf of telegraph-forms from the +stand in front of him, and began to write his message +while he was talking. He had made up his +mind that Dr. Hutchinson must come to see these +humble sufferers, and to investigate the cause of +evil. He had taken such pains to create a healthy +settlement, had spared no expense; and for fifteen +years, from the hour of his succession until now, all +had gone well with him. And now there was fever +in the land, fever in the air breathed by those two +beloved ones, daughter and wife.</p> + +<p>“I have been so happy; my life has been cloudless, +save for one dark memory,” he said to himself, +covering his face with his hands as he leaned with +his elbows on the table, while Mr. Porter expatiated +upon the cases in the village, and on fever in general.</p> + +<p>“I have tested the water in all the wells—perfectly +pure. There can be nothing amiss with the +milk, for all my patients are on Mrs. Greswold’s +list, and are getting their milk from your own +dairy. The drainage is perfection—yet here we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> +have an outbreak of fever, which looks remarkably +like typhoid?”</p> + +<p>“Why not say at once that it is typhoid?”</p> + +<p>“The symptoms all point that way.”</p> + +<p>“You say there can be nothing amiss with the +milk. You have not analysed it, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Why should I? Out of your own dairy, where +everything is managed in the very best way—the +perfection of cleanliness in every detail.”</p> + +<p>“You ought to have analysed the milk, all the +same,” said Greswold thoughtfully. “The strength +of a chain is its weakest link. There may be some +weak link here, though we cannot put our fingers +upon it—yet. Are there many cases?”</p> + +<p>“Let me see. There’s Johnny Giles, and Mrs. +Peter and her children, and Janet Dawson, and +there’s Andrew Rogers, and there’s Mary Rainbow,” +began Mr. Porter, counting on his fingers as he +went on, until the list of sufferers came to eleven. +“Mostly youngsters,” he said in conclusion.</p> + +<p>“They ought to have been isolated,” said Greswold. +“I will get out plans for an infirmary to-morrow. +There is the willow-field, on the other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> +side of the village, a ridge of high ground sloping +down towards the parish drain, with a southern +exposure, a capital site for a hospital. It is dreadful +to think of fever-poison spreading from half-a-dozen +different cottages. Which was the first case?”</p> + +<p>“Little Rainbow.”</p> + +<p>“That fair-haired child whom I used to see +from my dressing-room window every morning as +she went away from the dairy, tottering under a +pitcher of milk? Poor little Polly! She was a +favourite with us all. Is she very ill?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think hers is about the best case,” +answered the doctor unctuously; “the others are a +little vague; but there’s no doubt about <em>her</em>, all the +symptoms strongly marked—a very clear case.”</p> + +<p>“Is there any danger of a fatal termination?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there is.”</p> + +<p>“Poor little Polly—poor pretty little girl! I +used to know it was seven o’clock when I saw that +bright little flaxen head flit by the yew hedge yonder. +Polly was as good a timekeeper as any clock +in the village. And you think she may die? You +have not told Lola, I hope?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> + +<p>“No, I have not let out anything about danger. +Lola is only too anxious already.”</p> + +<p>“I will put the infirmary in hand to-morrow; +and I will take my wife and daughter to Scotland on +Tuesday.”</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, it will be a very good thing to +get them away. These fever cases are so mysterious. +There’s no knowing what shape infection may +take. I have the strongest belief in your system of +drainage—”</p> + +<p>“Nothing is perfect,” said Greswold impatiently. +“The science of sanitation is still in its infancy. I +sometimes think we have not advanced very far from +the knowledge of our ancestors, whose homes were +desolated by the Black Death. However, don’t let +us talk, Porter. Let us act, if we can. Come and +look at the dairy.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t apprehend evil there?”</p> + +<p>“There are three sources of typhoid poison—drainage, +water, milk. You say the drains and the +water are good, and that the milk comes from my +own dairy. If you are right as to the first and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> +second, the third must be wrong, no matter whose +dairy it may come from.”</p> + +<p>He took up his hat, and went out of the house +with the doctor. Gardens and shrubberies stretched +before them in all their luxuriance of summer verdure, +gardens and shrubberies which had been the +delight and pride of many generations of Greswolds, +but loved more dearly by none than by George +Greswold and his wife. In Mildred’s mind the old +family house was a part of her husband’s individuality, +an attribute rather than a mere possession. +Every tree and every shrub was sacred. These, his +mother’s own hands had cropped and tended; those, +grandfathers and great-grandfathers and <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">arrière</i> +great-grandfathers had planted in epochs that distance +has made romantic.</p> + +<p>On the right of the hall-door a broad gravel path +led in a serpentine sweep towards the stables, a +long, low building spread over a considerable area, +and hidden by shrubberies. The dairy was a little +further off, approached by a winding walk through +thickets of laurel and arbutus. It had been originally +a barn, and was used as a receptacle for all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> +manner of out-of-door lumber when Mildred came to +the Manor. She had converted the old stone building +into a model dairy, with outside gallery and +staircase of solid woodwork, and with a Swiss roof. +Other buildings had been added. There were low +cowhouses, and tall pigeon-houses, and a picturesque +variety of gables and elevations which was +delightful to the eye, seen on a summer afternoon +such as this June Sunday, amidst the perfume of +clove carnations and old English roses, and the +cooing of doves.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold’s Channel Island cows were her +delight—creatures with cream-coloured coats, black +noses, and wistful brown eyes. Scarcely a day +passed on which she did not waste an hour or so in +the cowhouses or in the meadows caressing these +favourites. Each cow had her name painted in +blue and white above her stall, and the chief, or +duchess of the herd, was very severe in the maintenance +of cowhouse precedence, and knew how +to resent the insolence of a new-comer who should +presume to cross the threshold in advance of her.</p> + +<p>The dairy itself had a solemn and shadowy air,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> +like a shrine, and was as pretty as the dairy at Frogmore. +The walls were lined with Minton tiles, the +shallow milk-pans were of Doulton pottery, and +quaintly-shaped pitchers of bright colours were +ranged on china brackets along the walls. The +windows were latticed, and a pane of ruby, rose, or +amethyst appeared here and there among the old +bottle-green glass, and cast a patch of coloured light +upon the cool marble slab below.</p> + +<p>The chief dairy-woman lived at an old-fashioned +cottage on the premises, with her husband, the cowkeeper; +and their garden, which lay at the back of +the cowhouses and dairy, was the ideal old English +garden, in which flowers and fruit strive for the +mastery. In a corner of this garden, close to the +outer offices of the cottage, among rows of peas, and +summer cabbages, and great overgrown lavender-bushes +and moss-roses, stood the old well, with its +crumbling brick border and ancient spindle, a well +that had been dug when the old manor-house was +new.</p> + +<p>There were other water arrangements for Mrs. +Greswold’s dairy, a new artesian well, on a hill a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> +quarter of a mile from the kitchen-garden, a well +that went deep down into the chalk, and was famous +for the purity of its water. All the drinking-water +of the house was supplied from this well, and the +water was laid on in iron pipes to dairy and cowhouses. +All the vessels used for milk or cream +were washed in this water; at least, such were Mr. +Greswold’s strict orders—orders supposed to be carried +out under the supervision of his bailiff and +housekeeper.</p> + +<p>Mr. Porter looked at a reeking heap of stable +manure that sprawled within twenty feet of the old +well with suspicion in his eye, and from the manure-heap +he looked at the back premises of the old cob-walled +cottage.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there may have been soakage from +that manure-heap into the well,” he said; “and if +your dairy vessels are washed in that water—”</p> + +<p>“But they never are,” interrupted Mr. Greswold; +“that water is used only for the garden—eh, +Mrs. Wadman?”</p> + +<p>The dairy-woman was standing on the threshold +of her neat little kitchen, curtseying to her master,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +resplendent in her Sunday gown of bright blue +merino, and her Sunday brooch, containing her +husband’s photograph, coloured out of knowledge.</p> + +<p>“No, of course not, sir; leastways, never except +when there was something wrong with the pipes +from the artesian.”</p> + +<p>“Something wrong; when was that? I never +heard of anything wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, my husband didn’t want to be +troublesome, and Mr. Thomas he gave the order for +the men from Romsey, that was on the Saturday +after working-hours, and they was to come as it +might be on the Monday morning, and they never +come near; and Mr. Thomas he wrote and wrote, +and my husband he says it ain’t no use writing, and +he takes the pony and rides over to Romsey in his +overtime, and he complains about the men not +coming, and they tells him there’s a big job on +at Broadlands and not a plumber to be had for +love or money; but the pipes is all right <em>now</em>, +sir.”</p> + +<p>“Now? Since when have they been in working +order?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> + +<p>“Since yesterday, sir. Mr. Thomas was determined +he’d have everything right before you came +back.”</p> + +<p>“And how long have you been using that water,” +pointing to the well, with its moss-grown brickwork +and flaunting margin of yellow stonecrop, “for dairy +purposes?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see, sir, we was obliged to use water +of some kind; and there ain’t purer or better water +than that for twenty mile round. I always use it +for my kettle every time I make tea for me or my +master, and never found no harm from it in the last +fifteen years.”</p> + +<p>“How long have you used it for the dairy?” +repeated George Greswold angrily; “can’t you give +a straight answer, woman?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wadman could not: had never achieved a +direct reply to a plain question within the memory +of man.</p> + +<p>“The men was to have come on the Monday +morning, first thing,” she said, “and they didn’t +come till the Tuesday week after that, and then they +was that slow——”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> + +<p>George Greswold walked up and down the garden +path, raging.</p> + +<p>“She won’t answer!” he cried. “Was it a week—a +fortnight—three weeks ago that you began to +use that water for your dairy?” he asked sternly; +and gradually he and the doctor induced her to +acknowledge that the garden well had been in use +for the dairy nearly three weeks before yesterday.</p> + +<p>“Then that is enough to account for everything,” +said Dr. Porter. “First there is filtration of manure +through a gravelly soil—inevitable—and next +there is something worse. She had her sister here +from Salisbury—six weeks ago—down with typhoid +fever three days after she came—brought it from +Salisbury.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes—I remember. You told me there +was no danger of infection.”</p> + +<p>“There need have been none. I made her use +all precautions possible in an old-fashioned cottage; +but however careful she might be, there would be +always the risk of a well—close at hand like that +one—getting tainted. I asked her if she ever used<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> +that water for anything but the garden, and she +said no, the artesian well supplied every want. And +now she talks about her kettle, and tells us coolly +that she has been using that polluted water for the +last three weeks—and poisoning a whole village.”</p> + +<p>“Me poisoning the village! O Dr. Porter, how +can you say such a cruel thing? Me, that wouldn’t +hurt a fly if I knew it!”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps not, Mrs. Wadman; but I’m afraid +you’ve hurt a good many of your neighbours without +knowing it.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold stood in the pathway silent and +deadly pale. He had been so happy for the last +thirteen years—a sky without a cloud—and now in a +moment the clouds were closing round him, and +again all might be darkness, as it had been once +before in his life. Calamity for which he felt himself +unaccountable had come upon him before—swift +as an arrow from the bow—and now again he +stood helpless, smitten by the hand of Fate.</p> + +<p>He thought of the little village child, with her +guileless face, looking up at his window as she +tripped by with her pitcher. His dole of milk had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> +been fatal to the simple souls who had looked up to +him as a Providence. He had taken such pains that +all should be sweet and wholesome in his people’s +cottages; he had spent money like water, and had +lectured them and taught them; and lo! from his +own luxurious home the evil had gone forth. Careless +servants, hushing up a difficulty, loth to approach +him with plain facts lest they should be +considered troublesome, had wrought this evil, had +spread disease and death in the land.</p> + +<p>And his own and only child, the delight of his +life, the apple of his eye—that tainted milk had +been served at her table! Amidst all that grace +of porcelain and flowers the poison had lurked, as +at the cottagers’ board. What if she, too, should +suffer?</p> + +<p>He meant to take her away in a day or two—now—now +when the cause of evil was at work no +longer. The thought that it might be too late, that +the germ of poison might lurk in the heart of that +fair flower, filled him with despair.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wadman had run into her cottage, shedding +indignant tears at Dr. Porter’s cruelty. She came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> +out again, with a triumphant air, carrying a tumbler +of water.</p> + +<p>“Just look at it, sir,” she said; “look how +bright and clear it is. There never was better +water.”</p> + +<p>“My good woman, in this case brightness and +clearness mean corruption,” said the doctor. “If +you’ll give me a pint of that water in a bottle I’ll +take it home with me, and test it before I sleep to-night.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br> +<span class="fs70">“AH! PITY! THE LILY IS WITHERED.”</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">George Greswold</span> left the dairy-garden like a man +stricken to death. He felt as if the hand of Fate +were on him. It was not his fault that this evil had +come upon him, that these poor people whom he had +tried to help suffered by his bounty, and were perhaps +to die for it. He had done all that human +foresight could do; but the blind folly of his servants +had stultified his efforts. Nothing in a London +slum could have been worse than this evil which had +come about in a gentleman’s ornamental dairy, upon +premises where money had been lavished to secure +the perfection of scientific sanitation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Porter murmured some hopeful remark as +they went back to the house.</p> + +<p>“Don’t talk about it, Porter,” Greswold answered +impatiently; “nothing could be worse—nothing. +Do all you can for these poor people—your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> +uttermost, mind, your uttermost. Spare neither +time nor money. Save them, if you can.”</p> + +<p>“You may be assured I shall do my best. +There are only three or four very bad cases.”</p> + +<p>“Three or four! My God, how horrible! Three +or four people murdered by the idiocy of my servants.”</p> + +<p>“Joe Stanning—not much chance for him, I’m +afraid—and Polly Rainbow.”</p> + +<p>“Polly—poor pretty little Polly! O Porter, you +<em>must</em> save her! You must perform a miracle, man. +That is what genius means in a doctor. The man +of genius does something that all other doctors have +pronounced impossible. You will have Hutchinson +over to-morrow. He may be able to help you.”</p> + +<p>“If she live till to-morrow. I’m afraid it’s a +question of a few hours.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>“And my daughter has been drinking the same +tainted milk. Will she be stricken, do you think?” +he asked, with an awful calmness.</p> + +<p>“God forbid! Lola has such a fine constitution<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +and the antecedent circumstances are different. I’ll +go and have a look at my patients, and come back +to you late in the evening with the last news.”</p> + +<p>They parted by a little gate at the corner of a +thick yew hedge, which admitted Mr. Greswold into +his wife’s flower-garden: a very old garden, which had +been the care and delight of many generations; a +large square garden, with broad flower-beds on each +side, a stone sundial in the centre of a grass-plot, +and a buttressed wall at the end, a massive old wall +of vermilion brickwork, honeycombed by the decay +of centuries, against which a double rank of hollyhocks +made a particoloured screen, while flaunting +dragon’s-mouth and yellow stonecrop made a flame +of colour on the top.</p> + +<p>There was an old stone summer-house in each +angle of that end wall, temples open to the sun and +air, and raised upon three marble steps, stained +with moss and lichen.</p> + +<p>Charming as these antique retreats were to muse +or read in, Mildred Greswold preferred taking tea on +the lawn, in the shadow of the two old cedars. She +was sitting in a low garden-chair, with a Japanese<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> +tea-table at her side, and a volume of Robertson’s +sermons on her lap.</p> + +<p>It was a rule of life at Enderby Manor that only +books of pious tendency should be read on Sundays. +The Sunday library was varied and well chosen. +Nobody ever found the books dull or the day too +long. The dedication of that one day in seven to +godliness and good works had never been an oppression +to Mildred Greswold.</p> + +<p>She remembered her mother’s Sundays—days of +hasty church, and slow elaborate dressing for afternoon +or evening gaieties; days of church parade and +much praise of other people’s gowns and depreciation +of other people’s conduct; days of gadding about +and running from place to place; Sunday luncheons, +Sunday musical parties, Sunday expeditions up the +river, Sunday in the studios, Sunday at Richmond +or Greenwich. Mrs. Greswold remembered the fussy +emptiness of that fashionable Sunday, and preferred +sermons and tranquil solitude in the manor +gardens.</p> + +<p>Solitude meant a trinity of domestic love. Husband, +wife, and daughter spent their Sundays<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> +together. Those were blessed days for the wife and +daughter, since there were no business engagements, +no quarter-sessions, or interviews with the bailiff, or +letter-writing, to rob them of the society they both +loved best in the world. George Greswold devoted +his Sundays entirely to his Creator and his home.</p> + +<p>“Where is Lola?” he asked, surprised to find +his wife alone at this hour.</p> + +<p>“She has a slight headache, and I persuaded her +to lie down for an hour or so.”</p> + +<p>The father’s face blanched. A word was enough +in his overwrought condition.</p> + +<p>“Porter must see her,” he said; “and I have +just let him leave me. I’ll send some one after +him.”</p> + +<p>“My dear George, it is nothing; only one of her +usual headaches.”</p> + +<p>“You are sure she was not feverish?”</p> + +<p>“I think not. It never occurred to me. She +has often complained of headache since she began +to grow so fast.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she has shot up like a tall white lily—my +lily!” murmured the father tenderly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span></p> + +<p>He sank into a chair, feeling helpless, hopeless +almost, under that overpowering sense of fatality—of +undeserved evil.</p> + +<p>“Dear George, you look so ill this afternoon,” +said his wife, with tender anxiety, laying her hand +on his shoulder, and looking earnestly at him, as he +sat there in a downcast attitude, his arms hanging +loosely, his eyes bent upon the ground. “I’m afraid +the heat has overcome you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it has been very hot. Do me a favour, +Mildred. Go into the house, and send somebody +to find Porter. He was going the round of the +cottages where there are sick people. He can easily +be found. I want him to see Lola, at once.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll send after him, George; but, indeed, I +don’t see any need for a doctor. Lola is so strong; +her headaches pass like summer clouds. O George, +you don’t think that <em>she</em> is going to have fever, like +the cottagers!” cried Mildred, full of a sudden +terror.</p> + +<p>“No, no; of course not. Why should she have +the fever? But Porter might as well see her at +once—at once. I hate delay in such cases.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p> + +<p>His wife hurried away without a word. He had +imbued her with all his own fears.</p> + +<p>He sat in the garden, just as she had left him, +motionless, benumbed with sorrow. There might, +indeed, be no ground for this chilling fear; others +might die, and his beloved might still go unscathed. +But she had been subjected to the same poison, and +at any moment the same symptoms might show +themselves. For the next week or ten days he must +be haunted by a hideous spectre. He would make +haste to get his dearest one away to the strong +fresh mountain air, to the salt breath of the German +Ocean; but if the poison had already tainted that +young life, mountain and sea could not save her +from the fever. She must pass through the furnace, +as those others were passing.</p> + +<p>“Poor little Polly Rainbow! The only child of a +widow; the only one; like mine,” he said to himself.</p> + +<p>He sat in the garden till dusk, brooding, praying +dumbly, unutterably sad. The image of the widow +of Nain was in his mind while he sat there. The +humble funeral train, the mourning mother, and +that divine face shining out of the little group of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> +peasant faces, radiant with intellect and faith—among +them, but not of them—and the uplifted +hand beckoning the dead man from the bier.</p> + +<p>“The age of miracles is past,” he thought: +“there is no Saviour in the land to help <em>me</em>! In +my day of darkness Heaven made no sign. I was +left to suffer as the worms suffer under the ploughshare, +and to wriggle back to life as best I could, +like them.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was growing towards the summer darkness +when he rose and went into the house, where he +questioned the butler, whom he met in the hall. +Mr. Porter had been brought back, and had seen +Miss Greswold. He had found her slightly feverish, +and had ordered her to go to bed. Mrs. Greswold was +sitting with her. Did Dr. Porter seem anxious? +No, not at all anxious; but he was going to send +Miss Laura some medicine before bedtime.</p> + +<p>It was after nine now, but Greswold could not +stay in the house. He wanted to know how it fared +with his sick tenantry—most of all with the little +flaxen-haired girl he had so often noticed of late.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> + +<p>He went out into the road that led to the village, +a scattered colony, a cottage here and there, or a +cluster of cottages and gardens on a bit of rising +ground above the road. There was a common a +little way from the Manor, a picturesque, irregular +expanse of hollows and hillocks, skirted by a few +cottages, and with a fir plantation shielding it from +the north. Mrs. Rainbow’s cottage stood between +the common and the fir-wood, an old half-timbered +cottage, very low, with a bedroom in the roof, and +a curious dormer-window, with a thatched arch projecting +above the lattice, like an overhanging eyebrow. +The little garden was aflame with scarlet +bean-blossom, roses, and geraniums, and the perfume +of sweet-peas filled the air.</p> + +<p>Greswold heard the doctor talking in the upper +chamber as he stood by the gate. The deep, grave +tones were audible in the evening stillness, and +there was another sound that chilled the Squire’s +heart: the sound of a woman’s suppressed weeping.</p> + +<p>He waited at the gate. He had not the nerve to +go into the cottage and face that sorrowing widow. +It seemed to him as if the child’s peril were his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> +fault. It was not enough that he had taken all +reasonable precautions. He ought to have foreseen +the idiocy of his servants. He ought to have been +more on the alert to prevent evil.</p> + +<p>The great round moon came slowly up out of a +cluster of Scotch firs. How black the branches +looked against that red light! Slowly, slowly gliding +upward in a slanting line, the moon stole at the +back of those black branches, and climbed into the +open sky.</p> + +<p>How often Lola had watched such a moonrise at +his side, and with what keen eyes she had noted the +beauty of the spectacle! It was not that he had +trained her to observe and to feel the loveliness of +nature. With her that feeling had been an instinct, +born with her, going before the wisdom of maturity, +the cultivated taste of travelled experience.</p> + +<p>To-night she was lying in her darkened room, +the poor head heavy and painful on the pillow. She +would not see the moon rising slowly yonder in +that cloudless sky.</p> + +<p>“No matter; she will see it to-morrow, I hope,” +he said to himself, trying to be cheerful. “I am a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> +morbid fool to torment myself; she has been subject +to headaches of late. Mildred is right.”</p> + +<p>And then he remembered that death and sorrow +were near—close to him as he stood there watching +the moon. He remembered poor little Polly Rainbow, +and desponded again.</p> + +<p>A woman’s agonised cry broke the soft summer +stillness, and pierced George Greswold’s heart.</p> + +<p>“The child is dead!” he thought.</p> + +<p>Yes, poor little Polly was gone. The widow +came out to the gate presently, sobbing piteously, +and clasped Mr. Greswold’s hand and cried over it, +broken down by her despair, leaning against the +gate-post, as if her limbs had lost the power to bear +her up.</p> + +<p>“O, sir, she was my all!” she sobbed; “she +was my all!”</p> + +<p>She could say no more than this, but kept repeating +it again and again. “She was all I had in +the world; the only thing I cared for.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold touched her shoulder with protecting +gentleness. There was not a peasant in the +village for whom he had not infinite tenderness—pitying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> +their infirmities, forgiving their errors, inexhaustible +in benevolence towards them all. He had +set himself to make his dependents happy as the +first duty of his position. And yet he had done +them evil unwittingly. He had cost this poor +widow her dearest treasure—her one ewe lamb.</p> + +<p>“Bear up, if you can, my good soul,” he said; +“I know that it is hard.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, sir, you’d know it better if it was your +young lady that was stricken down!” exclaimed the +widow bitterly; and the Squire walked away from the +cottage-gate without another word.</p> + +<p>Yes, he would know it better then. His heart +was heavy enough now. What would it be like if +<em>she</em> were smitten?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>She was much the same next day: languid, with +an aching head and some fever. She was not very +feverish. On the whole, the doctor was hopeful, or +he pretended to be so. He could give no positive +opinion yet, nor could Dr. Hutchinson. They were +both agreed upon that point; and they were agreed +that the polluted water in the garden well had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> +the cause of the village epidemic. Analysis had +shown that it was charged with poisonous gas.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greswold hastened his preparations for the +journey to Scotland with a feverish eagerness. He +wrote to engage a sleeping-carriage on the Great +Northern. They were to travel on Thursday, +leaving home before noon, dining in town, and +starting for the North in the evening. If Lola’s +illness were indeed the slight indisposition which +everybody hoped it was, she might be quite able to +travel on Thursday, and the change of air and the +movement would do her good.</p> + +<p>“She is always so well in Scotland,” said her +father.</p> + +<p>No, there did not seem much amiss with her. +She was very sweet, and even cheerful, when her +father went into her room to sit beside her bed for +a quarter of an hour or so. The doctors had ordered +that she should be kept very quiet, and a hospital +nurse had been fetched from Salisbury to sit up at +night with her. There was no necessity for such +care, but it was well to do even a little too much +where so cherished a life was at stake. People had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> +but to look at the father’s face to know how precious +that frail existence was to him. Nor was it less +dear to the mother; but she seemed less apprehensive, +less bowed down by gloomy forebodings.</p> + +<p>Yes, Lola was quite cheerful for those few +minutes in which her father sat by her side. The +strength of her love overcame her weakness. She +forgot the pain in her head, the weariness of her +limbs, while he was there. She questioned him +about the villagers.</p> + +<p>“How is little Polly going on?” she asked.</p> + +<p>He dared not tell the truth. It would have +hurt him too much to speak to her of death.</p> + +<p>“She is going on very well; all is well, love,” +he said, deceiving her for the first time in his +life.</p> + +<p>This was on Tuesday, and the preparations for +Scotland were still in progress. Mr. Greswold’s +talk with his daughter was all of their romantic +Highland home, of the picnics and rambles, the +fishing excursions and sketching parties they would +have there. The nurse sat in a corner and listened +to them with a grave countenance, and would not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> +allow Mr. Greswold more than ten minutes with his +daughter.</p> + +<p>He counted the hours till they should be on the +road for the North. There would be the rest of +Tuesday and all Wednesday. She would be up and +dressed on Wednesday, no doubt; and on Thursday +morning the good old gray carriage-horses would +take them all off to Romsey Station—such a pretty +drive on a summer morning, by fields and copses, +with changeful glimpses of the silvery Test.</p> + +<p>Dr. Hutchinson came on Tuesday evening, and +found his patient not quite so well. There was a +long conference between the two doctors, and then +the nurse was called in to receive her instructions; +and then Mr. Greswold was told that the journey to +Scotland must be put off for a fortnight at the very +least.</p> + +<p>He received the sentence as if it had been his +death-warrant. He asked no questions. He dared +not. A second nurse was to be sent over from +Southampton next morning. The two doctors had +the cool, determined air of men who are preparing +for a battle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p> + +<p>Lola was light-headed next morning; but with +intervals of calmness and consciousness. She +heard the church bell tolling, and asked what it +meant.</p> + +<p>“It’s for Polly Rainbow’s funeral,” answered the +maid who was tidying the room.</p> + +<p>“O, no,” cried Lola, “that can’t be! Father +said she was better.”</p> + +<p>And then her mind began to wander, and she +talked of Polly Rainbow as if the child had been in +the room: talked of the little girl’s lessons at the +parish school, and of a prize that she was to get.</p> + +<p>After that all was darkness, all was despair—a +seemingly inevitable progress from bad to worse. +Science, care, love, prayers—all were futile; and the +bell that had tolled for the widow’s only child tolled +ten days afterwards for Lola.</p> + +<p>It seemed to George Greswold as those slow +strokes beat upon his brain, heavily, heavily, like +minute guns, that all the hopes and cares and joys +and expectations life had held for him were over. +His wife was on her knees in the darkened house +from which the funeral train was slowly moving,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> +and he had loved her passionately; and yet it +seemed to him as if the open car yonder, with its +coffin hidden under snow-white blossoms, was carrying +away all that had ever been precious to him +upon this earth.</p> + +<p>“She was the morning, with its promise of +day,” he said to himself. “She was the spring-time, +with its promise of summer. While I had +her I lived in the future; henceforward I can only +live in the present. I dare not look back upon +the past!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br> +<span class="fs70">DRIFTING APART.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">George Greswold</span> and his wife spent the rest of +that fatal year in a villa on the Lake of Thun, an +Italian villa, with a campanello tower, and a long +white colonnade, and stone balconies overhanging +lawn and gardens, where the flowers grew in a +riotous profusion. The villa was midway between +two of the boat-stations, and there was no other +house near, and this loneliness was its chief charm +for those two heart-broken mourners. They yearned +for no sympathy, they cared for no companionship—hardly +even for that of each other, close as the bond +of love had been till now. Each seemed to desire +above all things to be alone with that great grief—to +hug that dear, sad memory in silence and solitude. +Only to see them from a distance, from the +boat yonder, as it glided swiftly past that flowery +lawn, an observer would have guessed at sorrow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> +and bereavement from the mere attitude of either +mourner—the man sitting with his head bent +forward, brooding on the ground, the unread newspaper +lying across his knee; the woman on the +other side of the lawn, beyond speaking distance, +half reclining in a low basket-chair, with her hands +clasped above her head, gazing at the distant line of +snow mountains in listless vacancy. The huge tan-coloured +St. Bernard, snapping with his great +cavern-like jaws at infinitesimal flies, was the only +object that gave life to the picture.</p> + +<p>The boats went by in sunshine and cloud, the +boats went by under torrential rain, which seemed to +fuse lake and mountains, villas and gardens, into +one watery chaos; the boats went by, and the days +passed like the boats, and made no difference in the +lives of those two mourners. Nothing could ever +make any difference to either of them for evermore, +it seemed to Mildred. It was as if some spring had +broken in the machinery of life. Even love seemed +dead.</p> + +<p>“And yet he was once so fond of me, and I +of him,” thought the wife, watching her husband’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> +face, with its curious look of absence—the look of a +window with the blind down.</p> + +<p>There were times when that look of utter abstraction +almost frightened Mildred Greswold. It +was an expression she had seen occasionally during +her daughter’s lifetime, and which had always made +her anxious. It was the look about which Lola +used to say when they all met at the breakfast-table,</p> + +<p>“Papa has had his bad dream again.”</p> + +<p>That bad dream was no invention of Lola’s, but +a stern reality in George Greswold’s life. He would +start up from his pillow in an agony, muttering +broken sentences in that voice of the sleeper which +seems always different from his natural voice—as if +he belonged to another world. Cold beads of sweat +would start out upon his forehead, and the wife +would put her arms round him and soothe him as a +mother soothes her frightened child, until the muttering +ceased and he sank upon his pillow exhausted, +to lapse into quiet sleep, or else awoke and recovered +calmness in awakening.</p> + +<p>The dream—whatever it was—always left its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> +mark upon him next day. It was a kind of nightmare, +he told his wife, when she gently questioned +him, not urging her questions lest there should be +pain in the mere recollection of that horrid vision. +He could give no graphic description of that dream. +It was all confusion—a blurred and troubled picture; +but that confusion was in itself agony.</p> + +<p>Rarely were his mutterings intelligible; rarely +did his wife catch half-a-dozen consecutive words +from those broken sentences; but once she heard +him say,</p> + +<p>“The cage—the cage again—iron bars—like a +wild beast!”</p> + +<p>And now that absent and cloudy look which she +had seen in her husband’s face after the bad dream +was there often. She spoke to him sometimes, and +he did not hear. She repeated the same question +twice or thrice, in her soft low voice, standing close +beside him, and he did not answer. There were +times when it was difficult to arouse him from that +deep abstraction; and at such times the utter blankness +and solitude of her own life weighed upon her +like a dead weight, an almost unbearable burden.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p> + +<p>“What is to become of us both in all the long +years before us?” she thought despairingly. “Are +we to be always far apart—living in the same +house, spending all our days together, and yet +divided?”</p> + +<p>She had married before she was eighteen, and at +one-and-thirty was still in the bloom of womanhood, +younger than most women of that age; for her life +had been subject to none of those vicissitudes and +fevers which age women of the world. She had +never kept a secret from her husband, never trembled +at opening a milliner’s account, or blushed at +the delivery of a surreptitious letter. The struggles +for preëminence, the social race in which some +women waste their energies and strain their nerves, +were unknown to her. She had lived at Enderby +Manor as the flowers lived, rejoicing in the air and +the sunshine, drinking out of a cup of life in which +there mingled no drop of poison. Thus it was that +not one line upon the transparent skin marked the +passage of a decade. The violet eyes had the limpid +purity, and the emotional lips had the tender carnation, +of girlhood. Mildred Greswold was as beautiful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> +at thirty-one as Mildred Fausset had been at +seventeen. And yet it seemed to her that life was +over, and that her husband had ceased to care for +her.</p> + +<p>Many and many an hour in that lovely solitude +beside the lake she sat with hands loosely clasped +in her lap or above her head, with her books lying +forgotten at her feet—all the newest books that +librarians could send to tempt the jaded appetite of +the reader—and her eyes gazing vacantly over the +blue of the lake or towards the snow-peaks on the +horizon. Often in these silent musings she recalled +the past, and looked at the days that were gone as +at a picture.</p> + +<p>She remembered just such an autumn as this, +a peerless autumn spent with her father at The Hook—spent +for the most part on the river and in the +garden, the sunny days and moonlit nights being +far too lovely for any one to waste indoors. Her +seventeenth birthday was not long past. It was +just ten years since she had come home to that +house to find Fay had vanished from it, and to shed +bitter tears for the loss of her companion. Never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> +since that time had she seen Fay’s face. Her +questions had been met coldly or angrily by her +mother; and even her father had answered her +with unsatisfactory brevity.</p> + +<p>All she could learn was that Fay had been sent +to complete her education at a finishing-school at +Brussels.</p> + +<p>“At school! O, poor Fay! I hope she is +happy.”</p> + +<p>“She ought to be,” Mrs. Fausset answered +peevishly. “The school is horridly expensive. I +saw one of the bills the other day. Simply <em>enormous</em>. +The girls are taken to the opera, and have all sorts +of absurd indulgences.”</p> + +<p>“Still, it is only school, mother, not home,” +said Mildred compassionately.</p> + +<p>This was two years after Fay had vanished. No +letter had ever come from her to Mildred, though +Mildred was able to write now, in her own sprawling +childish fashion, and would have been delighted +to answer any such letter. She had herself indited +various epistles to her friend, but had not succeeded +in getting them posted. They had drifted to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +waste-paper basket, mute evidences of wasted affection.</p> + +<p>As each holiday time came round the child +asked if Fay were coming home, always to receive +the same saddening negative.</p> + +<p>One day, when she had been more urgent than +usual, Mrs. Fausset lost temper and answered +sharply,</p> + +<p>“No, she is not coming. She is never coming. +I don’t like her, and I don’t intend ever to have her +in any house of mine, so you may as well leave off +plaguing me about her.”</p> + +<p>“But, mother, why don’t you like her?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind why. I don’t like her. That is +enough for you to know.”</p> + +<p>“But, mother, if she is father’s daughter and my +sister, you ought to like her,” pleaded Mildred, very +much in earnest.</p> + +<p>“How dare you say that! You must never say +it again—you are a naughty, cruel child to say such +things!” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset, beginning to cry,</p> + +<p>“Why naughty? why cruel? O, mother!” and +Mildred cried too.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p> + +<p>She clasped her arms round her mother’s neck +and sobbed aloud.</p> + +<p>“Dear mother, indeed I’m not naughty,” she +protested, “but Bell said Fay was papa’s daughter. +‘Of course she’s his daughter,’ Bell said; and if +she’s father’s daughter, she’s my sister, and it’s +wicked not to love one’s sister. The psalm I was +learning yesterday says so, mother. ‘Behold how +good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together +in unity!’ And it means sisters just the +same, Miss Colville said, when I asked her; and I +do love Fay. I can’t help loving her.”</p> + +<p>“You must never speak her name again to me,” +said Mrs. Fausset resolutely. “I shall leave off +loving you if you pester me about that odious +girl!”</p> + +<p>“Then wasn’t it true what Bell said?”</p> + +<p>“Of course not.”</p> + +<p>“Mother, would it be wrong for papa to have a +daughter?” asked Mildred, perplexed by this mysterious +resentment for which she could understand no +cause,</p> + +<p>“Wrong! It would be <em>infamous</em>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p> + +<p>“Would God be angry?” asked the child, with +an awe-stricken look. “Would it be wicked?”</p> + +<p>“It would be the worst possible insult to <em>me</em>,” +said Lord Castle-Connell’s daughter, ignoring the +minor question.</p> + +<p>After this Mildred refrained from all further +speech about the absent girl to her mother; but +as the years went by she questioned her father +from time to time as to Fay’s whereabouts.</p> + +<p>“She is very well off, my dear. You need not +make yourself unhappy about her. She is with a +very nice family, and has pleasant surroundings.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I never see her again, father?”</p> + +<p>“Never’s a long day, Mildred. I’ll take you to +see her by and by when there is an opportunity. +You see, it happens unfortunately that your mother +does not like her, so it is better she should not +come here. It would not be pleasant for her—or +for me.”</p> + +<p>He said this gravely, with a somewhat dejected +look, and Mildred felt somehow that even to him it +would be better to talk no more of her lost companion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p> + +<p>As the years went by Mrs. Fausset changed from +a woman of fashion to a nervous valetudinarian. It +was not that she loved pleasure less, but her beauty +and her health had both begun to dwindle and fade +at an age when other women are in their prime. +She fretted at the loss of her beauty—watched every +wrinkle, counted every gray hair, lamented over +every change in the delicate colouring which had +been her chief charm.</p> + +<p>“How pretty you are growing, Mildred!” she exclaimed +once, with a discontented air, when Mildred +was a tall slip of fourteen. “You are just what I +was at your age. And you will grow prettier every +day until you are thirty, and then I daresay you will +begin to fade as I have done, and feel an old woman +as I do.”</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that her own charms dwindled +as her daughter grew. As the bud unfolded, the +flower faded. She felt almost as if Mildred had +robbed her of her beauty. She would not give up +the pleasures and excitement of society. She consulted +half-a-dozen fashionable physicians, and would +not obey one of them. They all prescribed the same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> +repulsive treatment—rest, early hours, country air, +with gentle exercise; no parties, no excitement, no +strong tea.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fausset disobeyed them all, and from only +fancying herself ill grew to be really ill; and from +chronic lassitude developed organic disease of the +heart.</p> + +<p>She lingered nearly two years, a confirmed invalid, +suffering a good deal, and giving other people +a great deal of trouble. She died soon after Mildred’s +sixteenth birthday, and on her death-bed she confided +freely in her daughter, who had attended upon her +devotedly all through her illness, neglecting everything +else in the world for her mother’s sake.</p> + +<p>“You are old enough to understand things that +must once have seemed very mysterious to you, +Mildred,” said Mrs. Fausset, lying half-hidden in +the shadow of guipure bed-curtains, with her daughter’s +hand clasped in hers, perhaps forgetting how +young that daughter was in her own yearning for +sympathy. “You couldn’t make out why I disliked +that horrid girl so much, could you?”</p> + +<p>“No, indeed, mother.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p> + +<p>“I hated her because she was your father’s +daughter, Mildred—his natural daughter; the child +of some woman who was not his wife. You are old +enough now to know what that means. You were +reading <em>The Heart of Midlothian</em> to me last week. +You know, Mildred?”</p> + +<p>Yes, Mildred knew. She hung her head at +the memory of that sad story, and at the thought +that her father might have sinned like George +Staunton.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mildred, she was the child of some woman +he loved before he married me. He must have been +desperately in love with the woman, or he would +never have brought her daughter into my house. +It was the greatest insult he could offer to me.”</p> + +<p>“Was it, mother?”</p> + +<p>“Was it? Why, of course it was. How stupid +you are, child!” exclaimed the invalid peevishly, and +the feverish hand grew hotter as she talked.</p> + +<p>Mildred blushed crimson at the thought of this +story of shame. Poor Fay! poor, unhappy Fay! +And yet her strong common sense told her that there +were two sides to the question.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> + +<p>“It was not Fay’s fault, mother,” she said +gently. “No one could blame Fay, or be angry +with <em>her</em>. And if the—wicked woman was dead, +and father had repented, and was sorry, was it +very wrong for him to bring my sister home to us?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t call her your sister!” exclaimed Mrs. +Fausset, with a feeble scream of angry alarm; “she +is not your sister—she is no relation—she is nothing +to you. It was an insult to bring her across my +threshold. You must be very stupid, or you must +care very little for <em>me</em>, if you can’t understand that. +His conduct proved that he had cared for that low, +common woman—Fay’s mother—more than ever he +cared for me; perhaps he thought her prettier than +me,” said the invalid in hysterical parenthesis, “and +I have never known a happy hour since.”</p> + +<p>“O, mamma dear, not in all the years when +you used to wear such lovely gowns, and go to so +many parties?” protested the voice of common sense.</p> + +<p>“I only craved for excitement because I was +miserable at heart. I don’t think you can half understand +a wife’s feelings, Mildred, or you wouldn’t +say such foolish things. I wanted you to know this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> +before my death. I want you to remember it always, +and if you meet that odious girl avoid her as you +would a pestilence. If your father should attempt +to bring her here, or to Parchment Street, after I am +gone——”</p> + +<p>“He will not, mother. He will respect your +wishes too much—he will be too sorry,” exclaimed +Mildred, bending down to kiss the hot, dry hand, +and moistening it with her tears.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The year of mourning that began soon after this +conversation was a very quiet interval for father and +daughter. They travelled a little, spent six months +in Leipsic, where Mildred studied the piano under +the most approved masters, a couple of months in +Paris, where her father showed her all the lions in +a tranquil, leisurely way that was very pleasant; +and then they went down to The Hook, and lived +there in happy idleness on the river and in the +gardens all through a long and lovely summer.</p> + +<p>Both were saddened at the sight of an empty +chair—one sacred corner in all the prettiest rooms—where +Maud Fausset had been wont to sit, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> +graceful languid figure, robed in white, or some pale +delicate hue even more beautiful than white in contrast +with the background of palms and flowers, +Japanese screen or Indian curtain. How pretty she +had looked sitting there, with books and scent-bottles, +and dainty satin-lined basket full of some +light frivolous work, which progressed by stages of +half-a-dozen stitches a day! Her fans, her Tennyson, +her palms, and perfumes—all had savoured of +her own fragile bright-coloured loveliness. She was +gone; and father and daughter were alone together—deeply +attached to each other, yet with a secret +between them, a secret which made a darkening +shadow across the lives of both.</p> + +<p>Whenever John Fausset wore a look of troubled +thought Mildred fancied he was brooding upon the +past, thinking of that erring woman who had borne +him a child, the child he had tried to fuse into his +own family, and to whom her own childish heart had +yearned as to a sister.</p> + +<p>“It must have been instinct that made me love +her,” she said to herself; and then she would wonder +idly what the fair sinner who had been Fay’s mother<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> +was like, and whether her father had really cared +more for that frail woman than for his lawful wife.</p> + +<p>“Poor pretty mamma! he seemed to doat upon +her,” thought Mildred. “I cannot imagine his +ever having loved any one so well. I cannot imagine +his ever having cared for any other woman in this +world.”</p> + +<p>The formless image of that unknown woman +haunted the girl’s imagination. She appeared sometimes +with one aspect, sometimes another—darkly +beautiful, of Oriental type, like Scott’s Rebecca, or +fair and lowly-born like Effie Deans—poor fragile +Effie, fated to fall at the first temptation. Poetry +and fiction were full of suggestions about that +unknown influence in her father’s life; but every +thought of the past ended in a sigh of pity for that +fair wife whose domestic happiness had been clouded +over by that half-discovered mystery.</p> + +<p>Never a word did she breathe to her father upon +this forbidden subject; never a word to Bell, who +was still at the head of affairs in both Mr. Fausset’s +houses, and who looked like a grim and stony repository +of family secrets.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br> +<span class="fs70">“SUCH THINGS WERE.”</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mildred</span> had been motherless for a year when that +new love began to grow which was to be stronger and +closer than the love of mother or father, and which +was to take possession of her life hereafter and transplant +her to a new soil.</p> + +<p>How well she remembered that summer afternoon +on which she and George Greswold met for +the first time!—she a girl of seventeen, fresh, simple-minded, +untainted by that life of fashion and frivolity +which she had seen only from the outside, looking +on as a child at the follies of men and women—he +her senior by thirteen years, and serious beyond his +age. Her father and his father had been companions +at the University, as undergraduates, with full purses +and a mutual delight in fox-hunting and tandem-driving; +and it was this old Oxford friendship which +was the cause of George Greswold’s appearance at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> +The Hook on that particular summer afternoon. Mr. +Fausset had met him on a house-boat at Henley +Regatta, had been moved by the memory of the past +on discovering that Greswold was the son of George +Ransome of Magdalen, and had brought his friend’s +son home to introduce to his daughter. It was not +altogether without ulterior thought, perhaps, that he +introduced George Greswold into his home. He +had a theory that the young men of this latter day +were for the most part a weak-kneed and degenerate +race; and it had seemed to him that this tall, +broad-shouldered young man with the marked features, +dark eyes, and powerful brow was of a stronger +type than the average bachelor.</p> + +<p>“A pity that he is rather too old for Mildred,” +he said to himself, supposing that his daughter +would hardly feel interested in a man who was more +than five-and-twenty.</p> + +<p>Mildred could recall his face as she saw it for +the first time, to-day in her desolation, sitting idly +beside the lake, while the rhythmical beat of the +paddle-wheels died away in the distance. That +grave dark face impressed her at once with a sense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +of power. She did not think the stranger handsome, +or fascinating, or aristocratic, or elegant; but +she thought of him a great deal, and she was silent +and shy in his presence, let him come as often as he +might.</p> + +<p>He was in mourning for his mother, to whom he +had been deeply attached, and who had died within +the last three months, leaving him Enderby Manor +and a large fortune. His home life had not been +happy. There had been an antagonism between him +and his father from his boyhood upwards, and he +had shaken the dust of the paternal house off his +feet, and had left England to wander aimlessly, +living on a small income allowed him by his mother, +and making a little money by literature. He was a +second son, a person of no importance, except to +the mother, who doated upon him.</p> + +<p>Happily for this younger son his mother was a +woman of fortune, and on her death George Ransome +inherited Enderby Manor, the old house in +which generations of Greswolds had come and gone +since Dutch William was King of England. There +had been a much older house pulled down to make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> +room for that red brick mansion, and the Greswolds +had been lords of the soil since the Wars of the +Roses—red-rose to the heart’s core, and loyal to an +unfortunate king, whether Plantagenet, Tudor, or +Stuart.</p> + +<p>By the conditions of his mother’s will, George +Ransome assumed her family name and arms, and +became George Ransome Greswold in all legal +documents henceforward; but he signed himself +George Greswold, and was known to his friends by +that name. He had not loved his father nor his +father’s race.</p> + +<p>He came to The Hook often in that glorious +summer weather. At the first he was grave and +silent, and seemed oppressed by sad memories; but +this seemed natural in one who had so lately lost +a beloved parent. Gradually the ice melted, and his +manner brightened. He came without being bidden. +He contrived to make himself, as it were, a member +of the family, whose appearance surprised nobody. +He bought a steam-launch, which was always at Mr. +Fausset’s disposal, and Miss Fausset went everywhere +with her father. She recalled those sunlit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> +days now, with every impression of the moment; +the ever-growing sense of happiness; the silent +delight in knowing herself beloved; the deepening +reverence for the man who loved her; the limitless +faith in his power of heart and brain; the confiding +love which felt a protection in the very sound of his +voice. Yes, those had been happy days—the rosy +dawning of a great joy that was to last until the +grave, Mildred Fausset had thought; and now, after +thirteen years of wedded love, they had drifted apart. +Sorrow, which should have drawn them nearer together, +had served only to divide them.</p> + +<p>“O, my lamb, if you could know in your heavenly +home how much your loss has cost us!” +thought the mother, with the image of that beloved +child before her eyes.</p> + +<p>There had been a gloomy reserve in George +Greswold’s grief which had held his wife at a distance, +and had wounded her sorrowful heart. He +was selfish in his sorrow, forgetting that her loss +was as great as his. He had bowed his head before +inexorable Fate, had sat down in dust and ashes, and +brooded over his bereavement, solitary, despairing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> +If he did not curse God in his anguish, it was +because early teaching still prevailed, and the habits +of thought he had learned in childhood were not +lightly to be flung off. Upon one side of his +character he was a Pagan, seeing in this affliction +the hand of Nemesis, the blind Avenger.</p> + +<p>They left Switzerland in the late autumn, and +wintered in Vienna, where Mr. Greswold gave himself +up to study, and where neither he nor his wife +took any part in the gaieties of the capital. Here +they lived until the spring, and then, even in the +depths of his gloom, a yearning came upon George +Greswold to see the home of his race, the manor +which he had loved as if it were a living thing.</p> + +<p>“Mildred, do you think you could bear to be in +the old home again?” he asked his wife suddenly, +one morning at breakfast.</p> + +<p>“I could bear anything better than the life we +lead here,” she answered, her eyes filling with tears.</p> + +<p>“We will go back, then—yes, even if it is only +to look upon our daughter’s grave.”</p> + +<p>They went back to England and to Enderby +Manor within a week after that conversation. They<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> +arrived at Romsey Station one bright May afternoon, +and found the gray horses waiting to carry them to +the old house. How sad and strange it seemed to +be coming home without Lola! She had always +been their companion in such journeys, and her +eager face and glad young voice, on the alert to +recognise the first familiar points of the landscape, +hill-top, or tree, or cottage that indicated home, +had given an air of gaiety to every-day life.</p> + +<p>The old horses took them back to the Manor, +but not the old coachman. A great change in the +household had come about after Lola’s funeral. +George Greswold had been merciless to those servants +whose carelessness had brought about that +great calamity, which made seven new graves in the +churchyard before all was done. He dismissed his +bailiff, Mrs. Wadman and her husband, an under-dairymaid +and a cowman, and his housekeeper, all +of whom he considered accountable for the use of +that foul water from the old well—accountable, inasmuch +as they had given him no notice of the evil, +and had exercised no care or common sense in their +management of the dairy. These he dismissed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> +sternly, and that party feeling which rules among +servants took this severity amiss, and several other +members of the household gave warning.</p> + +<p>“Let it be a clean sweep, then,” said Mr. Greswold +to Bell, who announced the falling-away of his +old servants. “Let there be none of the old faces +here when we come back next year—except yours. +There will be plenty of time for you to get new +people.”</p> + +<p>“A clean sweep” suited Bell’s temper admirably. +To engage new servants who should owe their +places to her, and bow themselves down before her, +was a delight to the old Irishwoman.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that all things had a strange aspect +when Mildred Greswold reëntered her old home. +Even the rooms had a different air. The new +servants had arranged the furniture upon new lines, +not knowing that old order which had been a part +of daily life.</p> + +<p>“Let us go and look at <em>her</em> rooms first,” said +Mildred softly; and husband and wife went silently +to the rooms in the south wing—the octagon-room +with its dwarf bookcases and bright bindings, its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> +proof-engravings after Landseer—pictures chosen +by Lola herself. Here nothing was changed. +Bell’s own hands had kept all things in order. +No unfamiliar touch had disturbed the relics of +the dead.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold stayed in that once happy scene +for nearly an hour. It was hard to realise that she +and her daughter were never to be together again, +they who had been almost inseparable—who had +sat side by side by yonder window or yonder hearth +in all the changes of the seasons. There was the +piano at which they had played and sung together. +The music-stand still contained the prettily-bound +volumes—sonatinas by Hummel and Clementi—easy +duets by Mozart, national melodies, Volks Lieder. +In music the child had been in advance of +her years. With the mother music was a passion, +and she had imbued her daughter with her own +tastes in all things. The child’s nature had been +a carrying on and completing of the mother’s +character, a development of all the mother’s gifts.</p> + +<p>She was gone, and the mother’s life seemed +desolate and empty—the future a blank. Never in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> +her life had she so much needed her husband’s love—active, +considerate, sympathetic—and yet never +had he seemed so far apart from her. It was not +that he was unkind or neglectful, it was only that +his heart made no movement towards hers; he +was not in sympathy with her. He had wrapped +himself in his grief as in a mantle; he stood aloof +from her, and seemed never to have understood that +her sorrow was as great as his own.</p> + +<p>He left her on the threshold of Lola’s room. It +might be that he could not endure the sight of +those things which she had looked at weeping, in an +ecstasy of grief. To her that agony of touch and +memory, the aspect of things that belonged to the +past, seemed to bring her lost child nearer to her—it +was as if she stretched her hands across the gulf +and touched those vanished hands.</p> + +<p>“Poor piano!” she sighed; “poor piano, that +she loved.”</p> + +<p>She touched the keys softly, playing the opening +bars of <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">La ci darem la mano</i>. It was the first +melody they had played together, mother and child—arranged +easily as a duet. Later they had sung<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> +it together, the girl’s voice clear as a bird’s, and +seeming to need training no more than a bird’s +voice. These things had been, and were all +over.</p> + +<p>“What shall I do with my life?” cried the +mother despairingly; “what shall I do with all the +days to come—now she is gone?”</p> + +<p>She left those rooms at last, locking the doors +behind her, and went out into the garden. The +grand old cedars cast their broad shadows on the +lawn. The rustic chairs and tables were there, as +in the days gone by, when that velvet turf under +the cedars had been Mrs. Greswold’s summer +parlour. Would she sit there ever again? she +wondered: could she endure to sit there without +Lola?</p> + +<p>There was a private way from the Manor gardens +into the churchyard, a short cut to church by which +mother and daughter had gone twice on every +Sunday ever since Lola was old enough to know +what Sunday meant. She went by this path in the +evening stillness to visit Lola’s grave.</p> + +<p>She gathered a few rosebuds as she went.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> + +<p>“Flowers for my blighted flower,” she murmured +softly.</p> + +<p>All was still and solemn in the old churchyard +shadowed by sombre yews—a churchyard of irregular +levels and moss-grown monuments enclosed by rusty +iron railings, and humbler headstones of crumbling +stone covered over with an orange-coloured lichen +which was like vegetable rust.</p> + +<p>The names on these were for the most part +illegible, the lettering of a fashion that has passed +away; but here and there a brand-new stone perked +itself up among these old memorials with an assertive +statement about the dead.</p> + +<p>Lola’s grave was marked by a large white marble +cross, carved in <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">alto relievo</i> on the level slab. The +inscription was of the simplest:</p> + +<p>“Laura, the only child of George and Mildred +Greswold, aged twelve.”</p> + +<p>There were no words of promise or of consolation +upon the stone.</p> + +<p>On one side of the grave there was a large +mountain-ash, whose white blossoms and delicate +leaves made a kind of temple above the marble<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> +slab; on the other, an ancient yew cast its denser +shade. Mildred knelt down in the shadow, and let +her head droop over the cold stone. There was a +skylark singing in the blue vault high above the +old Norman tower—a carol of joy and glad young +life, as it seemed to Mildred, sitting in the dust. +What a mockery that joyousness of spring-time and +Nature seemed!</p> + +<p>She knew not how long she had knelt there in +silent grief when the branches rustled suddenly, as +if a strong arm had parted them, and a man flung +himself down heavily upon a turf-covered mound—a +neglected, nameless grave—beside Lola’s monument. +She did not stir from her kneeling attitude, +or lift her head to look at the new-comer, knowing +that the mourner was her husband. She had heard +his footsteps approaching, heavy and slow in the +stillness of the place.</p> + +<p>The trunk of the tree hid her from that other +mourner as she knelt there. He thought himself +alone; and, in the abandonment of that fancied +solitude, he groaned aloud, as Job may have groaned, +sitting among ashes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> + +<p>“Judgment!” he cried, “judgment!” and then, +after an interval of silence, he cried again, “judgment!”</p> + +<p>That one word, so repeated, seemed to freeze all +the blood in her veins. What did it mean, that +exceeding bitter cry,</p> + +<p>“Judgment!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE FACE IN THE CHURCH.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Two</span> months had gone since that first visit to Lola’s +grave, when the husband and wife had knelt so near +each other, and yet so far apart in the infinite +mystery of human consciousness; he with his secret +thoughts and secret woes, which she had never +fathomed. He, unaware of her neighbourhood; +she, chilled by a vague suspicion and sense of +estrangement which had been growing upon her +ever since her daughter’s death.</p> + +<p>It was summer again, the ripe full-blown summer +of mid-July. The awful anniversary of their bereavement +had passed in silence and prayer. All +things at Enderby looked as they had looked in the +years that were gone, except the faces of the servants, +which were for the most part strange. That change +of the household made a great change in life to +people so conservative as George Greswold and his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> +wife; and the old home seemed so much the less +like home because of that change. The Squire of +Enderby felt that his popularity was lessened in the +village for which he had done so much. His severe +dealing with the offenders had pleased nobody, not +even the sufferers from the epidemic, whose losses +he had avenged. He had shown himself implacable; +and there were many who said he had been unjust.</p> + +<p>“It was hard upon Wadman and his wife to be +turned off after twenty years’ faithful service,” said +one of the villagers. “The Squire may go a long +way before he’ll get as good a bailiff as Thomas,” +said another.</p> + +<p>For the first time since he had inherited the +estate George Greswold felt himself surrounded by +an atmosphere of discontent, and even dislike. His +tenants seemed afraid of him, and were reticent and +moody when he talked to them, which he did much +seldomer than of old, making a great effort in order +to appear interested in their affairs.</p> + +<p>Mildred’s life during those summer weeks, while +the roses were opening and all the flowers succeeding +each other in a procession of loveliness, had drifted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> +along like a slow dull stream that crawls through a +desolate swamp. There was neither beauty nor +colour in her existence; there was a sense of vacuity, +an aching void. Nothing to hope for, nothing to +look back upon.</p> + +<p>She did not abandon herself slavishly to her +sorrow. She tried to resume the life of duty which +had once been so full of sweetness, so rich in its +rewards for every service. She went about among +the cottagers as of old; she visited the shabby gentilities +on the fringe of the market town, the +annuitants and struggling families, the poor widows +and elderly spinsters, who had quite as much need +of help as the cottagers, and whom it had always +been her delight to encourage and sustain with +friendliness and sympathy, as well as with delicate +benefactions, gifts that never humiliated the recipient. +She took up the thread of her work in the parish +schools; she resumed her old interest in the church +services and decorations, in the inevitable charity +bazaar or organ-fund concert. She played her part +in the parish so well that people began to say,</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold is getting over her loss.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> + +<p>In him the shock had left a deeper mark. His +whole aspect was changed. He looked ten years +older than before the coming of sorrow; and +though people loved her better, they pitied him +more.</p> + +<p>“She has more occupations and pursuits to interest +her,” said Mr. Rollinson, the curate. “She +is devoted to music, and that employs her mind.”</p> + +<p>Yes, music was her passion; but in these days +of mourning even music was allied to pain. Every +melody she played, every song she sang, recalled the +child whose appreciation of that divine art had been +far beyond her years. They had sung and played +together. Often singing alone in the summer dusk, +in that corner of the long drawing-room, where +Lola’s babyish chair still stood, she had started, +fancying she heard that other voice mingling with +her own—the sweet clear tones which had sounded +seraphic even upon earth.</p> + +<p>O, was she with the angels now; or was it all a +fable, that fond vision of a fairer world and an +angelic choir, singing before the great white throne? +To have lost such a child was almost to believe in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> +the world of seraphim and cherubim, of angels and +purified spirits. Where else could she be?</p> + +<p>Husband and wife lived together, side by side, in +a sad communion that seemed to lack the spirit of +unity. The outward semblance of confiding affection +was there, but there was something wanting. He +was very good to her—as kind, as attentive, and considerate +as in their first year of marriage; and yet +there was something wanting.</p> + +<p>She remembered what he had been when he +came as a stranger to The Hook; and it seemed to +her as if the glass of Time had been turned backwards +for fourteen years, and that he was again just +as he had been in those early days, when she had +watched him, curiously interested in his character as +in a mystery. He was too grave for a man of his +years—and with a shade of gloom upon him that +hinted at a more than common grief. He had been +subject to lapses of abstraction, as if his mind had +slipped back to some unhappy past. It was only +when he had fallen in love and was wholly devoted +to her that the shadow passed away, and he began +to feel the joyousness of life and the fervour of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> +ardent hopes. Then the old character dropped off +him like the serpent’s slough, and he became as +young as the youngest—boyish even in his frank +felicity.</p> + +<p>This memory of her first impressions about him +was so strong with her that she could not help +speaking of it one evening after dinner when she +had been playing one of Beethoven’s grandest +adagios to him, and they were sitting in silence, +she by the piano, he far away by an open window on +a level with the shadowy lawn, where the great cedars +rose black against the pale gray sky.</p> + +<p>“George, do you remember my playing that +adagio to you for the first time?”</p> + +<p>“I remember you better than Beethoven. I +could scarcely think of the music in those days +for thinking so much of you.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but the first time you heard me play that +adagio was before you had begun to care for me—before +you had cast your slough.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Before you had come out of your cloud of sad +memories. When first you came to us you lived<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> +only in the past. I doubt if you were more than +half-conscious of our existence.”</p> + +<p>She could only distinguish his profile faintly defined +against the evening gray as he sat beside the +window. Had she seen the expression of his face, +its look of infinite pain, she would hardly have pursued +the subject.</p> + +<p>“I had but lately lost my mother,” he said +gravely.</p> + +<p>“Ah, but that was a grief which you did not +hide from us. You did not shrink from our sympathy +there. There was some other trouble, something +that belonged to a remoter past, over which +you brooded in secret. Yes, George, I know you +had some secrets then—that divided us—and—and—” +falteringly, with tears in her voice—“I +think those old secrets are keeping us asunder now, +when our grief should draw us nearer together.”</p> + +<p>She had left her place by the piano, and had +gone to him as she spoke, and now she was on her +knees beside him, clinging to him tearfully.</p> + +<p>“George, trust me, love me,” she pleaded.</p> + +<p>“My beloved, do I not love you?” he protested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> +passionately, clasping her in his arms, kissing away +her tears, soothing her as if she had been a child. +“My dearest and best, from the first hour I +awakened to a new life in your love my truth has +never wavered, my heart has never known change.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you are changed—since our darling +went—terribly changed.”</p> + +<p>“Do you wonder that I grieve for her?”</p> + +<p>“No, but you grieve apart—you hold yourself +aloof from me.”</p> + +<p>“If I do it is because I do not want you to share +my burden, Mildred. Your sorrow may be cured, +perhaps—mine never can be. Time may be merciful +to you—for me time can do nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Dearest, what hope can there be for me that +you do not share?—the Christian’s hope of meeting +our loved one hereafter. I have no other hope.”</p> + +<p>“I hardly know if I have that hope,” he answered +slowly, with deepest despondency.</p> + +<p>“And yet you are a Christian.”</p> + +<p>“If to endeavour to follow Christ, the Teacher +and Friend of humanity, is to be a Christian—yes.”</p> + +<p>“And you believe in the world to come?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> + +<p>“I try so to believe, Mildred. I try. Faith in +the Kingdom of Heaven does not come easily to a +man whose life has been ruled by the inexorable +Fates. Not a word, darling; let us not talk of +these things. We know no more than Socrates +knew in his dungeon; no more than Roger Bacon +knew in his old age—unheard, buried, forgotten. +Never doubt my love, dearest. That is changeless. +You and Lola were the sunshine of my life. You +shall be my sunshine henceforward. I have been +selfish in brooding over my sorrow; but it is the +habit of my mind to grieve in silence. Forgive me, +dear wife; forgive me.”</p> + +<p>He clasped her in his arms, and again she felt +assured of her husband’s affection; but she knew all +the same that there was some sorrow in his past +life which he had kept hidden from her, which he +meant her never to know.</p> + +<p>Many a time in their happy married life she had +tried to lead him to talk of his boyhood and youth. +About his days at Eton and Oxford he was frank +enough, but he was curiously reticent about his +home life and about those years which he had spent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> +travelling over the Continent after he had left his +father’s house for good.</p> + +<p>“I was not happy at home, Mildred,” he told +her one day. “My father and I did not get on +together, as the phrase goes. He was very fond of +my elder brother. They had the same way of thinking +about most things. Randolph’s marriage pleased +my father, and he looked to Randolph to strengthen +the position of our family, which had been considerably +reduced by his own extravagance. He would +have liked my mother’s estate to have gone to the +elder son; but she had full disposing power, and +she made me her heir. This set my father against +me, and there came a time when, dearly as I loved +my mother, I found that I could no longer live at +home. I went out into the world, a lonely man; +and I only came back to the old home after my +father’s death.”</p> + +<p>This was the fullest account of his family history +that George Greswold had given his wife. From +his reserve in speaking of his father she divined that +the balance of wrong had been upon the side of the +parent rather than of the son. Had a man of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> +husband’s temper been the sinner he would have +frankly confessed his errors. Of his mother he +spoke with undeviating love; and he seemed to +have been on friendly terms with his brother.</p> + +<p>On the morning after that tearful talk in the +twilight Mr. Greswold startled his wife from a pensive +reverie as they sat at breakfast in the garden. +They always breakfasted out of doors on fine summer +mornings. They had made no change in old customs +since their return, as some mourners might +have done, hoping to blunt the keen edge of memory +by an alteration in the details of life. Both knew +too well how futile any such alteration of their surroundings +would be. They remembered Lola no +more vividly at Enderby than they had remembered +her in Switzerland.</p> + +<p>“My dearest, I have been thinking of you incessantly +since last night, and of the loneliness of +your life,” George Greswold began seriously, as he +sat in a low basket-chair, sipping his coffee, with his +favourite setter Kassandra at his feet; an Irish dog +that had been famous for feather in days gone by, +but who had insinuated herself into the family affections,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> +and had got herself accepted as a household +companion to the ruin of her sporting qualities. +Kassandra went no more with the guns. Her place +was the drawing-room or the lawn.</p> + +<p>“I can never be lonely, George, while I have +you. There is no other company I can ever care +about henceforward.”</p> + +<p>“Let me always be the first, dear; but you +should have female companionship of some kind. +Our house is empty and voiceless. There should +be some young voice—some young footstep—”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that I ought to hire a girl to run +up and down stairs, and laugh in the corridors, as +Lola used? O, George, how can you!” exclaimed +Mildred, beginning to cry.</p> + +<p>“No, no, dear. I had no such thought in my +mind. I was thinking of Randolph’s daughter. +You seemed to like her when she and her sister +were here two years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she was a nice, bright girl then, and my +darling was pleased with her. How merry they +were together, playing battledore and shuttlecock +over there by the yew hedge! Don’t ask me ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> +to see that girl again, George. It would make my +heart ache.”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry to hear you say that, Mildred. I +was going to ask you to have her here on a good long +visit. Now that Rosalind is married, Pamela has +no home of her own. Rosalind and her husband +like having her occasionally—for a month or six +weeks at a time; but Sir Henry Mountford’s house +is not Pamela’s home. She would soon begin to +feel herself an incubus. The Mountfords are very +fond of society, and just a little worldly. They +would soon be tired of a girl whose presence was no +direct advantage. I have been thinking that with +us Pamela would never be in the way. You need +not see too much of her in this big house. There +would be plenty of room for her to carry on her own +pursuits and amusements without boring you; and +when you wanted her she would be at hand, a bright +companionable girl, who would grow fonder of you +every day.”</p> + +<p>“I could not endure her fondness. I could not +endure any girl’s companionship. Her presence +would only remind me of my loss.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p> + +<p>“Dearest, I thought we were both agreed that, +as nothing can make us forget our darling, it cannot +matter to us how often we are reminded of +her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, by silent, unreasoning things like Kassandra,” +touching the dog’s tawny head with a caressing +hand; “or the garden—the trees and flowers she +loved—her books—her piano. Those things may +remind us of our darling without hurting us. But +to hear a girl’s voice calling me—as she used to call +me from the garden on summer mornings—to hear +a girl’s laughter——”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it would be painful, love, at first. I can +understand that, Mildred. But if you can benefit +an orphan girl by having her here, I know your kind +heart will not refuse. Let her come for a few +weeks, and if her presence pains you she shall stay +no longer. She shall not be invited again. I would +not ask you to receive a stranger, but my brother’s +daughter is near me in blood.”</p> + +<p>“Let her come, George,” said Mildred impulsively; +“I am very selfish—thinking only of my +own feelings. Let her come. How strangely this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> +talk of ours reminds me of something that happened +when I was a child!”</p> + +<p>“What was that, Mildred?”</p> + +<p>“You have heard me speak of Fay, my playfellow?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I remember the evening my father asked +mamma to let her come to us. It seemed just now +as if you were using his very words; and yet all +things were different.”</p> + +<p>Mildred had told him very little about that childish +sorrow of hers. She had shrunk from any +allusion to the girl whose existence bore witness +against her father. She, too, fond and frank as she +was, had kept her own counsel, had borne the +burden of a secret.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have heard you speak of the girl you +called Fay, and of whom you must have been very +fond, for the tears came into your eyes when you +mentioned her. Did she live with you long?”</p> + +<p>“O, no, a very short time! She was sent to +school—to a finishing-school at Brussels.”</p> + +<p>“Brussels!” he repeated, with a look of surprise.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> + +<p>“Yes. Do you know anything about Brussels +schools?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing personally. I have heard of girls +educated there. And what became of your playfellow +after the Brussels school?”</p> + +<p>“I never heard.”</p> + +<p>“And you never tried to find out?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I asked my mother; but there was a prejudice +in her mind against poor Fay. I would +rather not talk about her, George.”</p> + +<p>Her vivid blush, her evident confusion, perplexed +her husband. There was some kind of mystery, it +seemed—some family trouble in the background, or +Mildred, who was all candour, would have spoken +more freely.</p> + +<p>“Then may I really invite Pamela?” he asked, +after a brief silence, during which he had responded +to the endearments of Kassandra, too well fed to +have any design upon the dainties on the breakfast-table, +and only asking to be loved.</p> + +<p>“I will write to her myself, George. Where is +she?”</p> + +<p>“Not very far off. She is at Cowes with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> +Mountfords, on board Sir Henry’s yacht the Gadfly. +You had better send your letter to the post-office, +marked Gadfly.”</p> + +<p>The invitation was despatched by the first post; +Miss Greswold was asked to come to the Manor as +soon as she liked, and to stay till the autumn.</p> + +<p>The next day was Sunday, and Mr. and Mrs. +Greswold went to church together by the path that +led them within a few paces of Lola’s grave.</p> + +<p>For the first time since her daughter’s death +Mildred had put on a light gown. Till to-day she +had worn only black. This morning she came into +the vivid sunlight in a pale gray gown of soft lustreless +silk, and a neat little gray straw bonnet, which +set off the fairness of her skin and the sheen of her +golden hair. The simple fashion of her gown became +her tall, slim figure, which had lost none of +the grace of girlhood. She was the prettiest and +most distinguished-looking woman in Enderby +Church, although there were more county families +represented there upon that particular Sunday than +are often to be seen in a village church.</p> + +<p>The Manor House pew was on one side of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> +chancel, and commanded a full view of the nave. +The first lesson was long, and while it was being +read Mildred’s eyes wandered idly along the faces in +the nave, recognising countenances that had been +familiar to her ever since her marriage, until that +wandering gaze stopped suddenly, arrested by a face +that was strange.</p> + +<p>She saw this strange face between other faces—as +it were in a cleft in the block of people. She +saw it at the end of a vista, with the sunlight from +the chancel window full upon it—a face that impressed +her as no face of a stranger had ever done +before.</p> + +<p>It looked like the face of Judas, she thought; +and then in the next moment was ashamed of her +fancy.</p> + +<p>“It is only the colouring, and the effect of the +light upon it,” she told herself. “I am not so +weak as to cherish the vulgar prejudice against that +coloured hair.”</p> + +<p>“That coloured hair” was of the colour which a +man’s enemies call red and his friends auburn or +chestnut. It was of that ruddy brown which Titian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> +has immortalised in more than one Venus, and +without which Potiphar’s wife would be a nonentity.</p> + +<p>The stranger wore a small pointed beard of this +famous colouring. His eyes were of a reddish +brown, large, and luminous, his eyebrows strongly +arched; his nose was a small aquiline; his brow +was wide and lofty, slightly bald in front. His +mouth was the only obviously objectionable feature. +The lips were finely moulded, from a Greek sculptor’s +standpoint, and would have done for a Greek +Bacchus, but the expression was at once crafty and +sensual. The auburn moustache served to accentuate +rather than to conceal that repellant expression. +Mildred looked at him presently as he stood up for +the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Te Deum</i>.</p> + +<p>He was tall, for she saw his head well above intervening +heads. He looked about five-and-thirty. +He had the air of being a gentleman.</p> + +<p>“Whoever he is, I hope I shall never see him +again,” thought Mildred.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.<br> +<span class="fs70">THERE IS ALWAYS THE SKELETON.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">When</span> Mr. and Mrs. Greswold left the church, the +stranger was taking his place in the Hillersdon +wagonette, a capacious vehicle, drawn by a pair of +upstanding black-brown horses, set off by servants +in smart liveries of dark brown and gold.</p> + +<p>Mildred gave a sigh of relief. If the stranger +was a visitor at Riverdale it was not likely that he +would stay long in the neighbourhood, or be seen +again for years to come. The guests at Riverdale +were generally birds of passage; and the same +faces seldom appeared there twice. Mr. and Mrs. +Hillersdon of Riverdale were famous for their +extensive circle, and famous for bringing new people +into the county. Some of their neighbours said it +was Mr. Hillersdon who brought the people there, +and that Mrs. Hillersdon had nothing to do with +the visiting list; others declared that husband and +wife were equally fickle and equally frivolous.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> + +<p>Riverdale was one of the finest houses within ten +miles of Romsey, and it was variously described by +the local gentry. It was called a delightful house, +or it was called a curious house, according to the +temper of the speaker. Its worst enemy could not +deny that it was a splendid house—spacious, +architectural, luxurious, with all the appendages of +wealth and dignity—nor could its worst enemy +deny its merit as one of the most hospitable houses +in the county.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this splendour and lavish hospitality, +the local magnates did not go to Riverdale, +and the Hillersdons were not received in some +of the best houses. Tom Hillersdon was a large +landowner, a millionaire, and a man of good family; +but Tom Hillersdon was considered to have stranded +himself in middle life by a marriage which in the +outer world was spoken of vaguely as “unfortunate,” +but which the straitlaced among his neighbours +considered fatal. No man who had so married +could hold up his head among his friends any more; +no man who had so married could hope to have his +wife received in decent people’s houses. In spite of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> +which opinion prevailing among Tom Hillersdon’s +oldest friends Mrs. Hillersdon contrived to gather a +good many people round her, and some of them +the most distinguished in the land. She had +Cabinet Ministers, men of letters, and famous +painters among her guests. She had plenty of +women friends—of a sort: attractive women, intellectual +and enlightened women; sober matrons, +bread-and-butter girls; women who doated on Mrs. +Hillersdon, and, strange to say, had never heard her +history.</p> + +<p>And yet Hillersdon’s wife had a history scarcely +less famous than that of Cleopatra or Nell Gwynne. +Louise Hillersdon was once Louise Lorraine, the +young adventuress whose Irish gray eyes had set +all London talking when the Great Exhibition of +’62 was still a monstrous iron skeleton, and when +South Kensington was in its infancy. Louise +Lorraine’s extravagance, and Louise Lorraine’s +devotees, from German princes and English +dukes downwards, had been town-talk. Her box +at the opera had been the cynosure of every +eye; and Paris ran mad when she drove in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> +the Bois, or exhibited her diamonds in the Rue +Lepelletier; or supped in the small hours at the +Café de Paris, with the topmost strawberries in the +basket. Numerous and conflicting were the versions +of her early history—the more sensational chronicles +describing her as the Aphrodite of the gutter. +Some people declared that she could neither read +nor write, and could not stir without her amanuensis +at her elbow; others affirmed that she spoke four +languages, and read a Greek play or a chapter of +Thucidydes every night, with her feet on the +fender, while her maid brushed her hair. The +sober truth lay midway between these extremes. +She was the daughter of a doctor in a line regiment; +she was eminently beautiful, very ignorant, and very +clever. She wrote an uneducated hand, never read +anything better than a sentimental novel, sang +prettily, and could accompany her songs on the +guitar with a good deal of dash and fire. To this +may be added that she was an adept in the art of +dress, had as much tact and finesse as a leader of +the old French noblesse, and more audacity than a +Parisian cocotte in the golden age of Cocotterie.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> +Such she was when Tom Hillersdon, Wiltshire +squire, and millionaire, swooped like an eagle upon +this fair dove, and bore her off to his eerie. There +was howling and gnashing of teeth among those +many admirers who were all thinking seriously +about making the lovely Louise a <em>bonâ fide</em> offer; +and it was felt in a certain set that Tom Hillersdon +had done a valiant and victorious deed; but +his country friends were of one accord in the +idea that Hillersdon had wrecked himself for ever.</p> + +<p>The Squire’s wife came to Riverdale, and established +herself there with as easy an air as if +she had been a duchess. She gave herself no +trouble about the county families. London was +near enough for the fair Louise, and she filled her +house—or Tom Hillersdon filled it—with relays of +visitors from the great city. Scarcely had she been +settled there a week when the local gentry were +startled at seeing her sail into church with one of +the most famous English statesmen in her train. +Upon the Sunday after she was attended by a great +painter and a well-known savant; and besides these +she had a pew full of smaller fry—a lady novelist, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> +fashionable actor, a celebrated Queen’s Counsel, and +a county member.</p> + +<p>“Where does she get those men?” asked Lady +Marjorie Danefeld, the Conservative member’s wife; +“surely they can’t <em>all</em> be—reminiscences.”</p> + +<p>It had been supposed while the newly-wedded +couple were on their honeymoon that the lady’s +arrival at Riverdale would inaugurate a reign of +profanity—that Sunday would be given over to +Bohemian society, café-chantant songs, champagne, +and cigarette-smoking. Great was the surprise of +the locality, therefore, when Mrs. Hillersdon appeared +in the Squire’s pew on Sunday morning, +neatly dressed, demure, nay, with an aspect of more +than usual sanctity; greater still the astonishment +when she reappeared in the afternoon, and listened +meekly to the catechising of the school-children and +to the baptism of a refractory baby; greater even +yet when it was found that these pious practices +were continued, that she never missed a Saint’s-Day +service, that she had morning prayers for family and +household, and that she held meetings of an evangelical +character in her drawing-room—meetings at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> +which curates from outlying parishes gathered like a +flock of crows, and at which the excellence of the +tea and coffee, pound-cake and muffins, speedily +became known to the outside world.</p> + +<p>Happily for Tom Hillersdon these pious tendencies +did not interfere with his amusements or the +pleasantness of his domestic life. Riverdale was +enlivened by a perennial supply of lively or interesting +people. Notoriety of some kind was a passport +to the Hillersdons’ favour. It was an indication +that a man was beginning to make his mark when he +was asked to Riverdale. When he had made his +mark he might think twice about going. Riverdale +was the paradise of budding celebrities.</p> + +<p>So to-day, seeing the stranger get into the Hillersdon +wagonette, Mrs. Greswold opined that he +was a man who had made some kind of reputation. +He could not be an actor with that beard. He was +a painter, perhaps. She thought he looked like a +painter.</p> + +<p>The wagonette was full of well-dressed women +and well-bred men, all with an essentially metropolitan—or +cosmopolitan—air. The eighteen-carat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> +stamp of “county” was obviously deficient. Mrs. +Hillersdon had her own carriage—a barouche—which +she shared with an elderly lady, who looked +as correct as if she had been a bishop’s wife. She +was on bowing terms with Mrs. Greswold. They +had met at hunt-balls and charity bazaars, and at +various other functions from which the wife of a +local landowner can hardly be excluded—even when +she has a history.</p> + +<p>Mildred thought no more of the auburn-haired +stranger after the wagonette had disappeared in a +cloud of summer-dust. She strolled slowly home +with her husband by a walk which they had been in +the habit of taking on fine Sundays after morning +service, but which they had never trodden together +since Lola’s death. It was a round which skirted +the common, and took them past a good many of +the cottages, and their tenants had been wont to +loiter at their gates on fine Sundays, in the hope of +getting a passing word with the Squire and his wife. +There had been something patriarchal, or clannish, +in the feeling between landlord and tenant, labourer +and master, which can only prevail in a parish where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> +the chief landowner spends the greater part of his +life at home.</p> + +<p>To-day every one was just as respectful as of old; +curtsies were as low and tones as reverential; but +George Greswold and his wife felt there was a difference, +all the same. A gulf had been cleft between +them and their people by last summer’s calamity. +It was not the kindred of the dead in whom this +coolness was distinguishable. The bereaved seemed +drawn nearer to their Squire by an affliction which +had touched him too. But in Enderby parish there +was a bond of kindred which seemed to interlink the +whole population. There were not above three +family names in the village, and everybody was +everybody else’s cousin, when not a nearer relative. +Thus, in dismissing his bailiff and dairy people, Mr. +Greswold had given umbrage to almost all his cottagers. +He was no longer regarded as a kind +master. A man who could dismiss a servant after +twenty years’ faithful service was, in the estimation +of Enderby parish, a ruthless tyrant—a master whose +yoke galled every shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Him seemed to be so fond of we all,” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> +Luke Thomas, the village wheelwright, brother of +that John Thomas who had been Mr. Greswold’s +bailiff, and who was now dreeing his weird in +Canada; “and yet offend he, and him can turn and +sack yer as if yer was a thief—sweep yer off his +premises like a handful o’ rubbish. Faithful service +don’t count with he.”</p> + +<p>George Greswold felt the change from friendly +gladness to cold civility. He could see the altered +expression in all those familiar faces. The only +sign of affection was from Mrs. Rainbow, standing at +her cottage gate in decent black, with sunken cheeks +worn pale by many tears. She burst out crying at +sight of Mildred Greswold, and clasped her hand in +a fervour of sympathy.</p> + +<p>“O, to think of your sweet young lady, ma’am! +that you should lose her, as I lost my Polly!” she +sobbed; and the two women wept together—sisters +in affliction.</p> + +<p>“You don’t think we are to blame, do you, Mrs. +Rainbow?” Mildred said gently.</p> + +<p>“No, no, indeed, ma’am. We all know it was +God’s will. We must kiss the rod.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> + +<p>“What fatalists these people are!” said Greswold, +as he and his wife walked homeward by the +sweet-smelling common, where the heather showed +purple here and there, and where the harebells were +beginning to dance upon the wind. “Yes, it is +God’s will; but the name of that God is Nemesis.”</p> + +<p>Husband and wife were almost silent during +luncheon. Both were depressed by that want of +friendliness in those who had been to them as familiar +friends. To have forfeited confidence and affection +was hard when they had done so much to merit +both. Mildred could but remember how she and +her golden-haired daughter had gone about amongst +those people, caring for all their needs, spiritual and +temporal, never approaching them from the standpoint +of superiority, but treating them verily as +friends. She recalled long autumn afternoons in the +village reading-room, when she and Lola had presided +over a bevy of matrons and elderly spinsters, +she reading aloud to them while they worked, Lola +threading needles to save elderly eyes, sewing on +buttons, indefatigable in giving help of all kinds to +those village sempstresses. She had fancied that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> +those mothers’ meetings, the story-books, and the +talk had brought them all into a bond of affectionate +sympathy; and yet one act of stern justice seemed +to have cancelled all obligations.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greswold lighted a cigar after lunch, and +went for a ramble in those extensive copses which +were one of the charms of Enderby Manor, miles +and miles of woodland walks, dark and cool in the +hottest day of summer—lonely footpaths where the +master of Enderby could think his own thoughts +without risk of coming face to face with any one in +that leafy solitude. The Enderby copses were +cherished rather for pleasure than for profit, and +were allowed to grow a good deal higher and a good +deal wilder and thicker than the young wood upon +neighbouring estates.</p> + +<p>Mildred went to the drawing-room and to her +piano, after her husband her chief companion and +confidante now that Lola was gone. Music was her +passion—the only art that moved her deeply, and to +sit alone wandering from number to number of +Beethoven and Mozart, Bach or Mendelssohn, was +the very luxury of loneliness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p> + +<p>Adhering in all things to the rule that Sunday +was not as other days, she had her library of sacred +music apart from other volumes, and it was sacred +music only which she played on Sundays. Her +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">répertoire</i> was large, and she roamed at will among +the classic masters of the last two hundred years, +but for sacred music Bach and Mozart were her +favourites.</p> + +<p>She was playing a Gloria by the latter composer +when she heard a carriage drive past the windows, +and looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of a +profile that startled her with a sudden sense of +strangeness and familiarity. The carriage was a +light T-cart, driven by a groom in the Hillersdon +livery.</p> + +<p>A visitor from Riverdale was a novelty, for, +although George Greswold and Tom Hillersdon were +friendly in the hunting-field, Riverdale and the +Manor were not on visiting terms. The visit was +for her husband, Mildred concluded, and she went +on playing.</p> + +<p>The door was opened by the new footman, who +announced “Mr. Castellani.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold rose from the piano to find +herself face to face with the man whose countenance, +seen in the distance, in the light of the east window, +had reminded her of Judas. Seen as she saw him +now, in the softer light of the afternoon, standing +before her with a deprecating air in her own +drawing-room, the stranger looked altogether +different, and she thought he had a pleasing expression.</p> + +<p>He was tall and slim, well dressed in a subdued +metropolitan style; and he had an air of +distinction and elegance which would have marked +him anywhere as a creature apart from the common +herd. It was not an English manner. There +was a supple grace in his movements which suggested +a Southern origin. There was a pleading +look in the full brown eyes which suggested an +emotional temperament.</p> + +<p>“An Italian, no doubt,” thought Mildred, taking +this Southern gracefulness in conjunction with the +Southern name.</p> + +<p>She wondered on what pretence this stranger +had called, and what could be his motive for coming.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold, I have to apologise humbly for +presenting myself without having first sent you my +credentials and waited for your permission to call,” +he said, in very perfect English, with only the slightest +Milanese accent; and then he handed Mrs. Greswold +an unsealed letter, which he had taken from +his breast-pocket.</p> + +<p>She glanced at it hastily, not a little embarrassed +by the situation. The letter was from an intimate +friend, an amateur <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">littérateur</i>, who wrote graceful +sonnets and gave pleasant parties:</p> +<br> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“I need not excuse myself, my dear friend, for +making Mr. Castellani known to you in the flesh, as +I have no doubt he is already familiar to you in the +spirit. He is the anonymous author of <em>Nepenthe</em>, the +book that <em>almost every one</em> has been reading and +<em>quite every one</em> has been talking about this season. +Only the few can <em>understand</em> it; but you are of +those few, and I feel assured your <em>deepest</em> feelings +have been stirred by that <em>most exceptional</em> work. +How delicious it must be with you among green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> +lanes and English meadows! We are just rushing off +to a land of extinct volcanoes for my poor husband’s +annual cure. <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">A vous de cœur</i>,</p> +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Diana Tomkison</span>.”<br> +</p> +</div> +<br> + +<p>“Pray sit down,” said Mildred, as she finished +her gushing friend’s note; “my husband will be in +presently—I hope in time to see you.”</p> + +<p>“Pardon me if, in all humility, I say it is <em>you</em> I +was especially anxious to see, to know, if it were +possible—delightful as it will be also to know Mr. +Greswold. It is with your name that my past +associations are interwoven.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed! How is that?”</p> + +<p>“It is a long story, Mrs. Greswold. To explain +the association I must refer to the remote past. My +grandfather was in the silk trade, like your grandfather.”</p> + +<p>Mildred blushed; the assertion came upon her +like an unpleasant surprise. It was a shock. That +great house of silk merchants from which her father’s +wealth had been derived had hardly ever been mentioned +in her presence. Lord Castle-Connell’s +daughter had never grown out of the idea that all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> +trade is odious, and <em>her</em> daughter had almost forgotten +that her father had ever been in trade.</p> + +<p>“Yes, when the house of Fausset was in its +infancy the house of Felix & Sons, silk manufacturers +and silk merchants, was one of the largest on +the hillside of old Lyons. My great-grandfather +was one of the richest men in Lyons, and he was +able to help the clever young Englishman, your +grandfather, who came into his house as corresponding +clerk, to perfect himself in the French language, +and to find out what the silk trade was like. He +had a small capital, and when he had learnt something +about the trade, he established himself near +St. Paul’s Churchyard as a wholesale trader in a +very small way. He had no looms of his own in +those days; and it was the great house of Felix, +and the credit given him by that house, which +enabled him to hold his own, and to make a fortune. +When your father began life the house of Felix was +on the wane. Your grandfather had established a +manufactory of his own at Lyons. Felix & Sons +had grown old-fashioned. They had forgotten to +march with the times. They had allowed themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> +to go to sleep; and they were on the verge of +bankruptcy when your father came to their rescue +with a loan which enabled them to tide over their +difficulties. They had had a lesson, and they +profited by it. The house of Felix recovered its +ascendency, and the loan was repaid before your +father retired from business.”</p> + +<p>“I am not surprised to hear that my father was +generous. I should have been slow to believe that +he could have been ungrateful,” said Mildred softly.</p> + +<p>“Your name is among my earliest recollections,” +pursued Castellani. “My mother was educated at +a convent at Roehampton, and she was very fond of +England and English people. The first journey I +can distinctly remember was a journey to London, +which occurred when I was ten years old. I remember +my father and mother talking about Mr. +Fausset. She had known him when she was a little +girl. He used to stay in her father’s house when +he came to Lyons on business. She would like to +have seen him and his wife and daughter, for old +times’ sake; but she had been told that his wife was +a lady of rank, and that he had broken off all associations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> +with his trading career. She was too +diffident to intrude herself upon her father’s old +ally. One day our carriage passed yours in the +Park. Yes, I saw you, a golden-haired child—yes, +madam, saw you with these eyes—and the vision has +stayed with me, a sunny remembrance of my own +childhood. I can see that fair child’s face in this +room to-day.”</p> + +<p>“You should have seen my daughter,” faltered +Mildred sadly.</p> + +<p>“You have a daughter?” said the stranger +eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I <em>had</em> a daughter. She is gone. I only put +off my black gown yesterday; but my heart and +mind will wear mourning for her till I go to my +grave.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, madam, how deeply I sympathise with such +a grief!” murmured Castellani.</p> + +<p>He had a voice of peculiar depth and beauty—one +of those rare voices whose every tone is music. +The pathos and compassion in those few commonplace +words moved Mildred to sudden tears. She +commanded herself with an effort.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> + +<p>“I am much interested in your reminiscences,” +she said, after a brief pause. “My father was very +dear to me. My mother came of an old Irish +family, and the Irish, as you know, are apt to be +over-proud of high birth. I had never heard my +father’s commercial life spoken about until to-day. +I only knew him as an idle man, without business +cares of any kind, able to take life pleasantly. He +used to spend two or three months of every year +under this roof. It was a terrible blow to me when +we lost him six years ago, and I think my husband +mourned him almost as deeply as I did. But tell +me about your book. Are you really the author of +<em>Nepenthe</em>, that nameless author who has been so +much discussed?”</p> + +<p>“And who has been identified with so many +distinguished people—Mr. Gladstone—Cardinal +Newman.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Swinburne—Mr. Browning. I have heard +all kinds of speculations. And is it really you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is I. To you I may plead guilty, since, +unfortunately, the authorship of <em>Nepenthe</em> is now <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le +secret de Polichinelle</i>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> + +<p>“It is a—strange book,” said Mildred. “My +husband and I were both interested in it, and +impressed by it. But your book saddened us both. +You seem to believe in nothing.”</p> + +<p>“‘Seems,’ madam! nay, I know not ‘seems;’ +but perhaps I am not so bad as you think me. I +am of Hamlet’s temper—inquiring rather than disbelieving. +To live is to doubt. And I own that I +have seen enough of this life to discover that the +richest gift Fate can give to man is the gift of +forgetfulness.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot think that. I would not forget, even +if I could. It would be treason to forget the beloved +ones we have lost.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Mrs. Greswold, most men have worse memories +than the memory of the dead. The wounds +we want healed are deeper than those made by +Death; his scars we can afford to look upon. There +are wounds that have gone deeper, and that leave an +uglier mark.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Mr. Castellani made no +sign of departure. He evidently intended to wait +for the Squire’s return. Through the open windows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> +of a second drawing-room, divided from the first by +an archway, they could see the servants setting out +the tea-table on the lawn. A Turkey carpet was +spread under the cedar, and there were basket-chairs +of various shapes, cushioned, luxurious, and +two or three small wicker-tables of different colours, +and a milking-stool or two, and all the indications of +out-door life. The one thing missing was that aerial +figure, robed in white, which had been wont to flit +about among the dancing shadows of branch and +blossom—a creature as evanescent as they, it seemed +to that mourning mother who remembered her to-day.</p> + +<p>“Are you staying long at Riverdale?” asked Mildred +presently, by way of conversation.</p> + +<p>“If Mrs. Hillersdon would be good enough to +have me, I would stay another fortnight. The place +is perfect, the surrounding scenery has your true +English charm, and my hostess is simply delightful.”</p> + +<p>“You like her?” asked Mildred, interested.</p> + +<p>No woman can help being curious about a woman +with such a history as Mrs. Hillersdon’s. All the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> +elements of romance and mystery seem, from the +feminine standpoint, to concentre in such a career. +How many hearts has such a woman broken; how +many lives has she ruined; how often has she been +on the brink of madness or suicide?—she, the placid +matron, with her fat carriage-horses, and powdered +footmen, and big prayer-book, and demure behaviour, +and altogether bourgeois surroundings.</p> + +<p>“Like her? Yes; she is such a clever woman.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she is a marvel—the cleverest woman I +know.”</p> + +<p>He laid a stress on the superlative. His praise +might mean anything—might be a hidden sneer. +He might praise as the devil prays—backwards. +Mildred had an uncomfortable feeling that he was +not in earnest.</p> + +<p>“Have you known her long?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Not very long; only this season. I am told +that she is fickle, or that other people are fickle, and +that she seldom knows any one more than a season. +But I do not mean to be fickle; I mean to be a +house-friend at Riverdale all my life if she will let<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> +me. She is a very clever woman, and thoroughly +artistic.”</p> + +<p>Mildred had not quite grasped the modern significance +of this last word.</p> + +<p>“Does Mrs. Hillersdon paint?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“No, she does not paint.”</p> + +<p>“She plays—or sings, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“No. I am told she once sang Spanish ballads +with a guitar accompaniment; but the people who +remember her singing tell me that her arms were +the chief feature in the performance. Her arms are +lovely to this day. No; she neither paints, nor +plays, nor sings; but she is supremely artistic. She +dresses as few women of five-and-forty know how to +dress—dresses so as to make one think five-and-forty +the most perfect age for a woman; and she +has a marvellous appreciation of art, of painting, of +poetry, of acting, of music. She is almost the only +woman to whom I have ever played Beethoven who +has seemed to me thoroughly <em>simpatica</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” exclaimed Mildred, surprised, “you yourself +play, then?”</p> + +<p>“It is hardly a merit in me,” answered Castellani<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> +modestly; “my father was one of the finest +musicians of his time in Italy.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p>“You are naturally surprised. His genius was +poorly appreciated. His name was hardly known +out of Milan and Brussels. Strange to say, those +stolid Flemings appreciated him. His work was +over the heads of the vulgar public. He saw such +men as Verdi and Gounod triumphant, while he +remained obscure.”</p> + +<p>“But surely you admire Verdi and Gounod?”</p> + +<p>“In their places, yes; both are admirable; but +my father’s place should have been in a higher rank +of composers. But let me not plague you about +him. He is dead, and forgotten. He died crown-less. +I heard you playing Mozart’s ‘Gloria’ as +I came in. You like Mozart?”</p> + +<p>“I adore him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know there are still people who like his +music. Chopin did; asked for it on his death-bed,” +said Castellani, with a wry face, as if he were talking +of a vulgar propensity for sauerkraut or a morbid +hankering for asafœtida.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> + +<p>“How I wish you would play something while +we are waiting for my husband!” said Mildred, seeing +her visitor’s gaze wandering to the open piano.</p> + +<p>“If you will go into the garden and take your +tea, I will play with delight while you take it. I +doubt if I could play to you in cold blood. I know +you are critical.”</p> + +<p>“And you think I am not <em>simpatica</em>,” retorted +Mildred, laughing at him. She was quite at her +ease with him already, all thought of that Judas face +in the church being forgotten. His half-deferential, +half-caressing manner; his easy confidences about +himself and his own tastes, had made her more +familiar with his individuality in the space of an +hour than she would have been with the average +Englishman in a month. She did not know whether +she liked or disliked him; but he amused her, and +it was a new sensation for her to feel amused.</p> + +<p>She sauntered softly out to the lawn, and he +began to play.</p> + +<p>Heavens, what a touch! Was it really <em>her</em> piano +which answered with tones so exquisite—which gave +forth such thrilling melody? He played an improvised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> +arrangement of Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” and +she stood entranced till the last dying <i lang="it" xml:lang="it">arpeggio</i> +melted into silence. No one could doubt that he +came of a race gifted in music.</p> + +<p>“Pray don’t leave the piano,” she said softly, +from her place by the open window.</p> + +<p>“I will play till you call me away,” he answered, +as he began Chopin’s Etude in C sharp minor.</p> + +<p>That weird and impassioned composition reached +its close just as George Greswold approached from +a little gate on the other side of the lawn. Mildred +went to meet him, and Castellani left the piano +and came out of the window to be presented to his +host.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more strongly marked than the +contrast between the two men, as they stood facing +each other in the golden light of afternoon. Greswold, +tall, broad-shouldered, rugged-looking, in his +rough brown heather suit and deerstalker cap, +carrying a thick stick, with an iron fork at the end +of it, for the annihilation of chance weeds in his +peregrinations. His fine and massive features had +a worn look, his cheeks were hollow, his dark hair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> +and beard were grizzled here and there, his dark +complexion had lost the hue of youth. He looked +ten years older than his actual age.</p> + +<p>Before him stood the Italian, graceful, gracious +in every line and every movement; his features +delicately chiselled, his eyes dark, full, and bright; +his complexion of that milky pallor which is so often +seen with hair tending towards red; his brown +beard of silkiest texture; his hands delicately modelled +and of ivory whiteness; his dress imbued +with all the grace which a fashionable tailor can +give to the clothes of a man who cultivates the +beautiful, even in the barren field of nineteenth +century costume. It was impossible that so marked +a contrast could escape Mildred’s observation altogether; +yet she perceived it dimly. The picture +came back to her memory afterwards in more vivid +colours.</p> + +<p>She made the necessary introduction, and then +proceeded to pour out the tea, leaving the two men +to talk to each other.</p> + +<p>“Your name has an Italian sound,” Greswold +said presently.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p> + +<p>“It is a Milanese name. My father was a native +of Milan; my mother was French, but she was +educated in England, and all her proclivities were +English. It was at her desire my father sent me to +Rugby, and afterwards to Cambridge. Her fatal +illness called me back to Italy immediately after I +had got my degree, and it was some years before +I again visited England.”</p> + +<p>“Were you in Italy all that time?” asked Greswold, +looking down absently, and with an unwonted +trouble in his face.</p> + +<p>Mildred sat at the tea-table, the visitor waiting +upon her, insisting upon charging himself with her +husband’s cup as well as his own; an attention and +reversal of etiquette of which Mr. Greswold seemed +unconscious. Kassandra had returned with her +master from a long walk, and was lying at his feet +in elderly exhaustion. She saluted the stranger +with a suppressed growl when he approached with +the tea-cups. Kassandra adored her own people, but +was not remarkable for civility to strangers.</p> + +<p>“Yes; I wasted four or five years in the South—in +Florence, in Venice, or along the Riviera, wandering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span> +about like Satan, not having made up my +mind what to do in the world.”</p> + +<p>Greswold was silent, bending down to play with +Kassandra, who wagged her tail with a gentle largo +movement, in grateful contentment.</p> + +<p>“You must have heard my father’s name when +you were at Milan,” said Castellani. “His music +was fashionable <em>there</em>.”</p> + +<p>Mildred looked up with a surprised expression. +She had never heard her husband talk of Milan, and +yet this stranger mentioned his residence there as if +it were an established fact.</p> + +<p>“How did you know I was ever at Milan?” +asked Greswold, looking up sharply.</p> + +<p>“For the simplest of reasons. I had the honour +of meeting you on more than one occasion at large +assemblies, where my insignificant personality would +hardly impress itself upon your memory. And I +met you a year later at Lady Lochinvar’s palace at +Nice, soon after your first marriage.”</p> + +<p>Mildred looked up at her husband. He was pale +as ashes, his lips whitening as she gazed at him. +She felt her own cheeks paling; felt a sudden coldness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> +creeping over her, as if she were going to faint. +She watched her husband dumbly, expecting him to +tell this man that he was mistaken, that he was +confounding him, George Greswold, with some one +else; but Greswold sat silent, and presently, as if +to hide his confusion, bent again over the dog, who +got up suddenly and licked his face in a gush of +affection—as if she knew—as if she knew.</p> + +<p>He had been married before, and he had told +his wife not one word of that first marriage. There +had been no hint of the fact that he was a widower +when he asked John Fausset for his daughter’s +hand.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.<br> +<span class="fs70">THE BEGINNING OF DOUBT.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Enderby</span> Church clock struck six. They heard +every chime, slow and clear in the summer stillness, +as they sat in the broad shadow of the cedar, silent +all three.</p> + +<p>It seemed as if the striking of the clock were the +breaking of a spell.</p> + +<p>“So late?” exclaimed Castellani, in a cheery +voice; “and I promised Mrs. Hillersdon to be back +in time to drive to Romsey for the evening service. +The old Abbey Church of Romsey, she tells me, is +a thing to dream about. There is no eight o’clock +dinner at Riverdale on Sundays. Every one goes to +church somewhere, and we sup at half-past nine, and +after supper there is sometimes extempore prayer—and +sometimes there are charades or dumb crambo. +<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est selon.</i> When the Prince was there they had +dumb crambo. Good-bye. I am almost ashamed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> +to ask if I may ever come again, after having bored +you for such an unconscionable time.”</p> + +<p>He had the easiest air possible, and seemed +totally unconscious of any embarrassment caused by +his allusions to the past; and yet in both faces, as +he looked from one to the other, he must have seen +the strongest indications of trouble.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold murmured something to the effect +that she would be glad to see him at any time, a +speech obviously conventional and unmeaning. Mr. +Greswold rose hastily and accompanied him to the +hall-door, where the cart still waited for him, the +groom fixed as a statue of despondency.</p> + +<p>Mr. Castellani was inclined to be loquacious to +the last. Greswold was brief almost to incivility. +He stood watching the light cart roll away, and then +went slowly back to the garden and to his seat under +the cedar.</p> + +<p>He seated himself without a word, looking earnestly +at his wife, whose drooping head and fixed +attitude told of deepest thought. So they sat for +some minutes in dead silence, Kassandra licking her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> +master’s pendant hand, as he leaned forward with +his elbow on his knee, infinitely sorry for him.</p> + +<p>Mildred was the first to break that silence.</p> + +<p>“George, why did you not tell me,” she began in +a low faltering voice, “that I was not your first +wife? What reason could there be for concealment +between you and me? I so trusted you; I so loved +you. Nothing you could have told would have +changed me.”</p> + +<p>“Dearest, there was one reason, and a powerful +one,” answered George Greswold firmly, meeting +the appealing look of her eyes with a clear and +steady gaze. “My first marriage is a sad remembrance +for me—full of trouble. I did not care to tell +you that miserable story, to call a dreaded ghost out +of the grave of the past. My first marriage was the +one great sorrow of my life, but it was only an +episode in my life. It left me as lonely as it +found me. There are very few who know anything +about it. I am sorry that young man should +have come here to trouble us with his uninvited +reminiscences. For my own part, I cannot remember +having ever seen his face before.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span></p> + +<p>“I am sorry you should have kept such a secret +from me,” said Mildred. “It would have been so +much wiser to have been candid. Do you think I +should not have respected your sad memories? You +had only to say to me ‘Such things were; but let us +not talk of them.’ It would have been more manly; +it would have been kinder to me.”</p> + +<p>“Say that I was a coward, if you like; that I +am still a coward, where those memories are concerned,” +said Greswold.</p> + +<p>The look of agony in his face melted her in a +moment. She threw herself on her knees beside +his chair, she and the dog fawning upon him together.</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, forgive me, dearest,” she pleaded, +“I will never speak to you of this again. Women +are so jealous—of the past most of all.”</p> + +<p>“Is that all?” he said: “God knows you have +little need. Let us say no more, Mildred. The +past is past: neither you nor I can alter it. Memory +is inexorable. God Himself cannot change it.”</p> + +<p>“I will contrive that Mr. Castellani shall not +come here again, George, if you object to see him.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span></p> + +<p>“Pray don’t trouble yourself. I would not have +such a worm suppose that he could be obnoxious +to me.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me what you think of him,” she asked, in +a lighter tone, anxious to bring back the easy mood +of every-day life. “He seems very clever, and he is +rather handsome.”</p> + +<p>“What do I think of the trumpet-ash on the +verandah yonder? A beautiful parasite, which will +hold on anywhere in the sunshine. Mr. Castellani +is of the same family, I take it—studies his own +interests first, and chooses his friends afterwards. +He will do admirably for Riverdale.”</p> + +<p>“He plays divinely. His touch transformed my +piano.”</p> + +<p>“He looks the kind of man who would play the +piano,” said Greswold, with ineffable contempt, looking +down at his own sunburnt hands, hardened by +exposure to all weathers, broadened by handling gun +and punt-pole, and by half-a-dozen other forms of +out-door exercise. “However, I have no objection +to him, if he serve to amuse you and Pamela.”</p> + +<p>He spoke with a kind of weary indifference, as of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> +a man who cared for very little in life; and then he +rose slowly, took up his stick, and strolled off to the +shrubbery.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Pamela appeared on the following afternoon with +boxes, bags, music-books, raquets, and parasols, in a +proportion which gave promise of a long visit. She +had asked as a tremendous favour to be allowed to +bring Box—otherwise Fitz-Box—her fox-terrier, son +of Sir Henry Mountford’s Box, great-grandson of +Brockenhurst Joe, through that distinguished animal’s +daughter Lyndhurst Jessie, and on the paternal +side a lineal descendant of Mr. Murchison’s +Cracknel.</p> + +<p>“I hope you won’t mind very much,” she wrote; +“but it would be death to him if I were to leave +him behind. To begin with, his brother Fitz-Cox, +who has a villanous temper, would inevitably kill +him; and besides that, he would pine to death at not +sleeping in my room at night, which he has done +ever since he was a puppy. If you will let me bring +him, I will answer for his good manners, and that +he shall not be a trouble to any one.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span></p> + +<p>The descendant of Brockenhurst Joe rushed out +into the garden, and made a lightning circuit of lawn +and shrubberies, while his young mistress was kissing +her Aunt Mildred, as she called her uncle’s wife +in the fulness of her affection.</p> + +<p>“It is so very good of you to have me, and I am +so delighted to come!” she said.</p> + +<p>Mildred would have much preferred that she were +anywhere else, yet could not help feeling kindly +to her. She was a frank, bright-looking girl, with +brown eyes, and almost flaxen hair; a piquant contrast, +for the hair was genuine, and carried out in +the eyebrows, which were only just a shade darker. +Her complexion was fair to transparency, and she +had just enough soft rosy bloom to light up the +delicate skin. Her nose was slightly <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">retroussé</i>, her +mouth was a little wider than she herself approved, +and her teeth were perfection. She had a charming +figure of the plump order, but its plumpness was a +distress to her.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think I get horribly stout?” she +asked Mildred, when she was sitting at tea in the +garden presently.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p> + +<p>“You may be a little stouter than you were at +sixteen, perhaps, but not at all too stout.”</p> + +<p>“O, but I am! I know it, I feel it. Don’t +endeavour to spare my feelings, aunt. It is useless. +I know I am fat. Rosalind says I ought to marry; +but I tell her it’s absurd. How can anybody ever +care for me now I am fat? They would only want +my money if they asked me to marry them,” concluded +Pamela, clinging to the plural.</p> + +<p>“My dear Pamela, do you wish me to tell you +that you are charming, and all that you ought to +be?” asked Mildred, laughing.</p> + +<p>“O, no, no! I don’t want you to spare my +feelings. Everybody spares one’s feelings. One +grows up in ignorance of the horrors in one’s appearance, +because people <em>will</em> spare one’s feelings. And +then one sees oneself in a strange glass; or a boy in +the street says something, and one knows the worst. +I think I know the worst about myself. That is +one comfort. How lovely it is here!” said Pamela, +with a sudden change of mood, glancing at Mildred +with a little pathetic look as she remembered the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> +childish figure that must be for ever missing from +that home picture.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad to be with you,” she murmured +softly, nestling up to Mildred’s side, as they sat +together on a rustic bench; “let me be useful to +you, let me be a companion to you, if you can.”</p> + +<p>“You shall be both, dear.”</p> + +<p>“How good to say that! And you won’t mind +Box?”</p> + +<p>“Not the least. If he will be amiable to Kassandra.”</p> + +<p>“He will. He has been brought up among +other dogs. We are a very doggy family at the Hall. +Would you think he was worth a hundred and fifty +guineas?” asked Pamela with ill-concealed pride, as +the scion of illustrious progenitors came up and put +his long lean head in her hand, and conversed with +her in a series of expressive snorts, as it were a +conversational code.</p> + +<p>“I hardly know what constitutes perfection in a +fox-terrier.”</p> + +<p>“No more do I; but I know he is perfect. He +is said to be the image of Cracknel, only better. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> +tremble when I think that my possession of him +hangs by a thread. He might be stolen at any +moment.”</p> + +<p>“You must be careful.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I cannot be too careful. Here comes +Uncle George,” said Pamela, rising and running to +meet Mr. Greswold. “O, Uncle George, <em>how</em> +altered you are!”</p> + +<p>She was always saying the wrong thing, after +the manner of impulsive girls; and she was quickwitted +enough to discover her mistake the instant +after.</p> + +<p>Happily the dogs furnished a ready diversion. +She introduced Box, and expatiated upon his grand +qualities. She admired and made friends with Kassandra, +and then settled down almost as lightly as a +butterfly, in spite of her plumpness, on a Japanese +stool, to take her teacup from Mildred’s hands.</p> + +<p>She was perfectly at her ease by this time, and +told her uncle and aunt all about her sister Rosalind, +and Rosalind’s husband, Sir Henry Mountford, +whom she summed up lightly as a nice old thing, +and no end of fun. It was easy to divine from her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> +discourse that Rainham Hall was not an especially +intellectual atmosphere, not a school of advanced +thought, or of any other kind of thought. Pamela’s +talk was of tennis, yachting, fishing, and shooting, +and of the people who shared in those sports. She +seemed to belong to a world in which nobody ever +sat down except to eat, or stayed indoors except +under stress of weather.</p> + +<p>“I hear you have all manner of clever people in +your neighbourhood,” she said by and by, having +told all she had to tell about Rainham.</p> + +<p>“Have we?” asked Greswold, smiling at her +intensity.</p> + +<p>“Yes, at Riverdale. They do say the author of +<em>Nepenthe</em> is staying there, and that he is not a +Roman Cardinal or an English statesman, but +almost a young man—an Italian by birth—and <em>very</em> +handsome. I would give worlds to see him.”</p> + +<p>“It is not unlikely you may be gratified without +giving anything,” answered her uncle. “Mr. Castellani +was here yesterday afternoon, and threatened +to repeat his visit.”</p> + +<p>“Castellani! Yes, that is the name I heard.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> +What a pretty name! And what is he like? Do +tell me all about him, Aunt Mildred.”</p> + +<p>She turned to the woman as the more likely to +give her a graphic description. The average man +is an undescribing animal.</p> + +<p>Mildred made an effort at self-command before +she spoke. Castellani counted for but little in her +recent trouble. His revelation had been an accident, +and its effect entirely dissociated from him. +Yet the very thought of the man troubled her, and +the dread of seeing him again was like a physical +pain.</p> + +<p>“I do not know what to say about his appearance,” +she answered presently, slowly fanning herself +with a great scarlet Japanese fan, pale and cool +looking in her plain white gown with its black +ribbons. The very picture of domestic peace, one +would suppose, judging by externals only. “I +suppose there are people who would think him +handsome.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you, aunt?”</p> + +<p>“No. I don’t like the colour of his eyes or of +his hair. They are of that reddish-brown which the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> +Venetian painters are so fond of, but which always +gives me an idea of falsehood and treachery. Mr. +Castellani is a very clever man, but he is not a man +whom I could ever trust.”</p> + +<p>“How nice!” cried Pamela, her face radiant +with enthusiasm; “a creature with red-brown hair, +and eyes with a depth of falsehood in them. That +is just the kind of man who might be the author of +<em>Nepenthe</em>. If you had told me he was stout and +rosy-cheeked, with pepper-and-salt whiskers and a +fine, benevolent head, I would never have opened +his book again.”</p> + +<p>“You seem to admire this <em>Nepenthe</em> prodigiously,” +said her uncle, looking at her with a calmly +critical air. “Is it because the book is the fashion, +or from your own unassisted appreciation of it? +I did not think you were a bookish person.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not,” cried Pamela. “I am a mass of +ignorance. I don’t know anything about science. +I don’t know the name of a single butterfly. I don’t +know one toadstool from another. But when I love +a book it is a passion with me. My Keats has +tumbled to pieces; my Shelley is disgracefully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span> +dirty. I have read <em>Nepenthe</em> six times, and I am +waiting for the cheap edition, to keep it under my +pillow. It has made me an Agnostic.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know the dictionary meaning of that +word?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I do; but I know I am an +Agnostic. <em>Nepenthe</em> has unsettled all my old beliefs. +If I had read it four years ago I should have refused +to be confirmed. I am dying to know the author.”</p> + +<p>“You like unbelievers, then?” said Mr. Greswold.</p> + +<p>“I adore men who dare to doubt, who are not +afraid to stand apart from their fellow-men.”</p> + +<p>“On a bad eminence?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, on a bad eminence. What a sweet expression! +I can never understand Goethe’s <cite>Gretchen</cite>.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“How could she have cared for <em>Faust</em>, when she +had the privilege of knowing <em>Mephistopheles</em>?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Pamela Ransome had established herself in her +pretty bedroom and dressing-room, and had supervised +her maid while she unpacked and arranged all +her belongings, before dinner-time. She came down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> +to the drawing-room, at a quarter to eight, as thoroughly +at her ease as if she had lived half her life +at Enderby Manor. She was a kind of visitor who +gives no trouble, and who drops into the right place +instinctively. Mildred Greswold felt cheered by her +presence, in spite of that ever-recurrent pang of +memory which associated all young bright things +with the sweet girl-child who should have grown to +womanhood under that roof, and who was lying a +little way off, under the ripening berries of the +mountain-ash, and in the deep shadow of a century-old +yew.</p> + +<p>They were very quiet in the drawing-room after +dinner; Greswold reading in a nook apart, by the +light of his own particular lamp; his wife bending +over an embroidery-frame in her corner near the piano, +where she had her own special dwarf bookcase and +her work-basket, and the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonheur du jour</i> at which +she sometimes wrote letters, her own little table +scattered with old family miniatures by Angelica +Kaufmann, Cosway, and Ross, and antique watches +in enamelled cases, and boxes of porcelain and gold +and silver, every one of which had its history.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span> +Every woman who lives much at home has some +such corner, where the very atmosphere is full of +home thoughts. She asked her niece to play, and +to go on playing as long as she liked; and Pamela, +pleased with the touch of the Broadwood grand, +rang the changes upon Chopin, Schumann, Raff, and +Brahm, choosing those compositions which least +jarred upon the atmosphere of studious repose.</p> + +<p>Mildred’s needle moved slowly, as she sat in her +low chair, with her hands in the lamp-light and her +face in shadow, moved very slowly, and then stopped +altogether, and the white hands lay idle in her lap, +and the embroidery-frame, with its half-finished +group of azaleas, slid from her knee to the ground. +She was thinking—thinking of that one subject +which had possessed her thoughts since yesterday +afternoon; which had kept her awake through the +brief darkness of the summer night and in the slow +hours betwixt dawn and seven o’clock, when the +entrance of the maid with the early cup of tea marked +the beginning of the daily routine. In all those +hours her thoughts had revolved round that one +theme with an intolerable recurrence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span></p> + +<p>It was of her husband’s first marriage she +thought, and of his motive for silence about that +marriage: that he who, in the whole course of their +wedded lives, had been the very spirit of single-minded +candour, should yet have suppressed this +all-important event in his past history, was a fact +in itself so startling and mysterious that it might +well be the focus of a wife’s troubled thoughts. He +could not so have acted without some all-sufficient +reason; and what manner of reason could that have +been which had influenced him to conduct so entirely +at variance with his own character?</p> + +<p>What was there in the history of that marriage +which had sealed his lips, which made it horrible to +him to speak about it, even when fair dealing with +the girl who was to be his wife should have constrained +frankness?</p> + +<p>Had he been cursed with a wicked wife; some +beautiful creature, who had caught his heart in her +toils, as a cat catches a bird, and had won him only +to betray and to dishonour him? Had she blighted +his life, branded him with the shame of a forsaken +husband?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span></p> + +<p>And then a hideous dread floated across her mind. +What if that first wife were still living—divorced +from him? Had she, Mildred Fausset, severely trained +in the strictest principles of the Anglican Church—taught +her creed by an ascetic who deemed divorce +unchristian and an abomination, and who had always +refused to marry those who had been divorced—had +she, in whose life and mind religion and duty were +as one feeling and one principle—had she been +trapped into a union with a man whose wife yet +lived, and in the sight of God was yet one with him—a +wife who might crawl penitent to his feet some +day, and claim him as her own again by the right of +tears and prayers and a soul cleansed from sin? +Such a sinner must have some hold, some claim even +to the last, upon the man who once was her husband, +who once swore to cherish her and cleave to her, of +whom it had once been said, “And they two shall +be one flesh.”</p> + +<p>No; again and again, no. She could not believe +George Greswold capable of such deep dishonour as +to have concealed the existence of a divorced wife.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span> +No; the reason for that mysterious silence must be +another reason than this.</p> + +<p>She had sinned against him, it might be, and +had died in her sin, under circumstances too sad to +be told without infinite pain; and he, who had +never in her experience shown himself wanting in +moral courage, had in this one crisis of his life acted +as the coward acts. He had kept silence where +conscience should have constrained him to speak.</p> + +<p>And then the wife’s vivid fancy conjured up the +image of that other wife. Her jealous fears depicted +that wife of past years as a being to be loved and +remembered until death—beautiful, fascinating, +gifted with all the qualities that charm mankind. +“He can never care for me as he once cared for +her,” Mildred told herself. “She was his first +love.”</p> + +<p>His first—the first revelation of what love means +to the passionate heart of youth. What a world +there is in that! Mildred remembered how a new +life began for her with the awakening of her love for +George Greswold. What a strange sweet enchantment, +what an intoxicating gladness which glorified<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> +the whole face of nature! The river, and the reedy +islets, and the pollard willows, and the autumn sunsets—things +so simple and familiar—had all taken +new colours in that magical dawn of her first love.</p> + +<p>She—that unknown woman—had been George +Greswold’s first love. Mildred envied her that brief +life, whose sole distinction was to have been loved +by him.</p> + +<p>“Why do I imagine a mystery about her?” she +argued, after long brooding. “The only secret was +that he loved her as he could never love me, and he +feared to tell me as much lest I should refuse the +remnant of a heart. It was out of kindness to me +that he kept silence. It would have pained me too +much to know how <em>she</em> had been loved.”</p> + +<p>She knew that her husband was a man of exceeding +sensitiveness; she knew him capable of almost +woman-like delicacy. Was it altogether unnatural +that such a man should have held back the history +of his first marriage—with its passionate love, its +heart-broken ending—from the enthusiastic girl who +had given him all her heart, and to whom he could +give so little in return?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span></p> + +<p>“He may have seen how I loved him, and may +have married me half out of pity,” she said to herself +finally, with unspeakable bitterness.</p> + +<p>Yet if this were so, could they have been so happy +together, so completely united—save in that one +secret of the past, that one dark regret which had +revealed itself from time to time in an agonising +dream? He had walked that dark labyrinth of sleep +alone with his sorrow: there she could not follow +him.</p> + +<p>She remembered the awful sound of those broken +sentences—spoken to shadows in a land of shadow. +She remembered how acutely she had felt his remoteness +as he sat up in bed, pale as death, his +eyes open and fixed, his lips muttering. He and +the dead were face to face in the halls of the past. +<em>She</em> had no part in his life, or in his memory.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.<br> +<span class="fs70">“SHE CANNOT BE UNWORTHY.”</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">Mr. Castellani</span> did not wait long before he availed +himself of Mrs. Greswold’s permission to repeat his +visit. He appeared on Friday afternoon, at the +orthodox hour of half-past three, when Mildred and +her niece were sitting in the drawing-room, exhausted +by a long morning at Salisbury, where they had +explored the cathedral, and lunched in the Close +with a clever friend of George Greswold’s, who had +made his mark on modern literature.</p> + +<p>“I adore Salisbury Close,” said Pamela, as she +looked through the old-fashioned window to the old-fashioned +garden; “it reminds me of Honoria.”</p> + +<p>She did not deem it necessary to explain what +Honoria she meant, presuming a universal acquaintance +with Coventry Patmore’s gentle heroine.</p> + +<p>The morning had been sultry, the homeward +drive long, and both ladies were resting in comfortable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> +silence, each with a book, when Castellani was +announced.</p> + +<p>Mildred received him rather coldly, trying her +uttermost to seem thoroughly at ease. She introduced +him to her niece, Miss Ransome.</p> + +<p>“The daughter of the late Mr. Randolph Ransome +and the sister of Lady Mountford?” Castellani inquired +presently, when Pamela had run out on the +lawn to speak to Box.</p> + +<p>“Yes. You seem to know everybody’s belongings.”</p> + +<p>“Why not? It is the duty of every man of the +world, more especially of a foreigner. I know Mr. +Ransome’s place in the Sussex Weald—a very fine +property—and I know that the two ladies are coheiresses, +but that the Sussex estate is to descend to +the eldest son of the elder daughter, or failing male +issue there, to the son of the younger. Lady Mountford +has a baby-son, I believe.”</p> + +<p>“Your information is altogether correct.”</p> + +<p>“Why should it be otherwise? Mr. Hillersdon +and his wife discussed the family history to-day at +luncheon, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">apropos</i> to Miss Ransome’s appearance in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span> +Romsey Church at the Saint’s Day service yesterday.”</p> + +<p>His frankness apologised for his impertinence, +and he was a foreigner, which seems always to +excuse a great deal.</p> + +<p>Pamela came back again, after rescuing Box from +a rough-and-tumble game with Kassandra. She +looked rosy and breathless, and very pretty, in her +pale-blue gown and girlish sash flying in the wind, +and flaxen hair fluffed into a feathery pile on the top +of her head, and honest brown eyes. She resumed +her seat in the deep old window behind the end of +the piano, and made believe to go on with some +work, which she took in a tangled heap from a very +untidy basket. Already Pamela had set the sign of +her presence upon the drawing-rooms at Enderby, a +trail of heterogeneous litter which was a part of her +individuality. Screened by the piano, she was able +to observe Castellani, as he stood leaning over the +large central ottoman, with his knee on the cushioned +seat, talking to Mrs. Greswold.</p> + +<p>He was the author of <em>Nepenthe</em>. It was in that +character he interested her. She looked at him with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> +the thought of his book full in her mind. It was +one of those half-mad, wholly artificial compositions +which delight girls and young men, and which are +just clever enough, and have just enough originality +to get talked about and written about by the cultured +few. It was a love-story, ending tragically; +a story of ruined lives and broken hearts, told in the +autobiographical form, with a studied avoidance of +all conventional ornament, which gave an air of +reality where all was inherently false. Pamela +thought it must be Castellani’s own story. She +fancied she could see the traces of those heartbreaking +experiences, those crushing disappointments +in his countenance, in his bearing even, and +in the tones of his voice, which gave an impression +of mental fatigue, as of a man worn out by a fatal +passion.</p> + +<p>The story of <em>Nepenthe</em> was as old as the hills—or +at least as old as the Boulevard des Capucines +and the Palais Royal. It was the story of a virtuous +young man’s love for an unvirtuous woman—the +story of Demetrius and Lamia—the story of a +man’s demoralisation under the influence of incarnate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span> +falsehood, of the gradual lapse from good to +evil, the gradual extinction of every belief and every +scruple, the final destruction of a soul.</p> + +<p>The wicked siren was taken, her victim was +left; but left to expiate that miserable infatuation +by an after-life of misery; left without a joy in the +present or a hope in the future.</p> + +<p>“He looks like it,” thought Pamela, remembering +that final chapter.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greswold was putting a few slow stitches +into the azalea-leaves on her embroidery-frame, and +listening to Mr. Castellani with an air of polite indifference.</p> + +<p>“Do you know that Riverdale is quite the most +delightful house I have ever stayed in?” he said; +“and I have stayed in a great many. And do you +know that Mrs. Hillersdon is heart-broken at your +never having called upon her?”</p> + +<p>“I am sorry so small a matter should touch +Mrs. Hillersdon’s heart.”</p> + +<p>“She feels it intensely. She told me so yesterday. +Perfect candour is one of the charms of her +character. She is as emotional and as transparent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> +as a child. Why have you not called on +her?”</p> + +<p>“You forget that Riverdale is seven miles from +this house.”</p> + +<p>“Does not your charity extend so far? Are +people who live seven miles off beyond the pale? I +think you must visit a little further afield than seven +miles. There must be some other reason.”</p> + +<p>“There is another reason, which I had rather +not talk about.”</p> + +<p>“I understand. You consider Mrs. Hillersdon +a person not to be visited. Long ago, when you +were a child in the nursery, Mrs. Hillersdon was +an undisciplined, inexperienced girl, and the world +used her hardly. Is that old history never to be +forgotten? Men, who know it all, have agreed to +forget it: why should women, who only know a +fragment, so obstinately remember?”</p> + +<p>“I know nothing, and remember nothing, about +Mrs. Hillersdon. My friends are, for the most part, +those of my husband’s choice, and I pay no visits +without his approval. He does not wish me to visit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> +at Riverdale. You have forced me to give you a +plain answer, Mr. Castellani.”</p> + +<p>“Why not? Plain truth is always best. I am +sorry Mr. Greswold has interdicted my charming +friend. You can have no idea how excellent a +woman she is, or how admirable a wife. Tom +Hillersdon might have searched the county from +border to border and not have found as good a +woman—looked at as the woman best calculated to +make him happy. And what delightful people she +has brought about him! One of the most interesting +men I ever met arrived yesterday, and is to +preach the hospital sermon at Romsey next Sunday. +He is an old friend of yours.”</p> + +<p>“A clergyman, and an old friend of mine, at +Riverdale!”</p> + +<p>“A man of ascetic life and exceptional culture. +I never heard any man talk of Dante better than he +talked to me last night in a moonlight stroll on the +terrace, while the other men were in the smokingroom.”</p> + +<p>“Surely you do not mean Mr. Cancellor, the +Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s, Parchment Street?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span></p> + +<p>“That is the man—Clement Cancellor, Vicar of +St. Elizabeth’s. He looks like a mediæval monk +just stepped out of one of Bellini’s altar-pieces.”</p> + +<p>“He is the noblest, most unselfish of men,” +said Mildred warmly; “he has given his life to +doing good among rich and poor. It is so long since +I have seen him. We have asked him to Enderby +very often, but he has always been too busy to come. +And to think that he should be in this neighbourhood +and I know nothing about it; and to think that +he should go to Riverdale rather than come here!”</p> + +<p>“He had hardly any option. It was Mrs. +Hillersdon who asked him to preach on Hospital +Sunday. She extorted a promise from him three +months ago in London. The Vicar of Romsey was +enchanted. ‘You are the cleverest woman I know,’ +he said. ‘No one else could have got me such a +great gun.’”</p> + +<p>“A great gun—Mr. Cancellor a great gun! I +can only think of him as I knew him when I was +twelve years old: a tall, thin young man, in a very +shabby coat—he was curate at St. Elizabeth’s then—very +gaunt and hollow-cheeked, but with such a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> +sweet smile. He used to come twice a week to teach +me the history of the Bible and the Church. He +made me love both.”</p> + +<p>“He is gaunt and hollow-cheeked still, tall and +bony and sallow, and he still wears a shabby coat. +You will not find much difference in him, I fancy—only +so many more years of hard work and self-sacrifice, +ascetic living and nightly study. A man +to know Dante as he does must have given years of +his life to that one poet—and I am told that in +literature Cancellor is an all-round man. His monograph +on Pascal is said to be the best of a brilliant +series of such studies.”</p> + +<p>“I hope he will come to see his old pupil before +he leaves the neighbourhood.”</p> + +<p>“He means to do so. He was talking of it +yesterday evening—asking Mrs. Hillersdon if she +was intimate with you—so awkward for poor Mrs. +Hillersdon.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be very glad to see him again.”</p> + +<p>“May I drive him over to tea to-morrow afternoon?”</p> + +<p>“He will be welcome here at any time.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p> + +<p>“Or with any one? If Mrs. Hillersdon were to +bring him, would you still refuse to receive her?”</p> + +<p>“I have never refused to receive her. We have +met and talked to each other on public occasions. +If Mr. Cancellor likes her she cannot be unworthy.”</p> + +<p>“May she come with him to-morrow?” persisted +Castellani.</p> + +<p>“If she likes,” faltered Mildred, wondering that +any woman could so force an entrance to another +woman’s house.</p> + +<p>She did not know that it was by such forced +entrances Mrs. Hillersdon had made her way in +society until some of the best houses in London had +been opened to her.</p> + +<p>“If you are not in a hurry to leave us, I know +my niece would much like to hear you play,” she +said, feeling that the talk about Riverdale had been +dull work for Pamela.</p> + +<p>Miss Ransome murmured assent.</p> + +<p>“If you will play something of Beethoven’s,” she +entreated.</p> + +<p>“Do you object to Mozart?” he asked, forgetting +his depreciation of the valet-musician’s son a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> +few days before, “I feel more in the humour for +that prince of dramatists. I will give you the supper +in <em>Don Giovanni</em>. You shall see Leporello +trembling. You shall hear the tramp of ghostly +feet.”</p> + +<p>And then, improvising upon a familiar theme, he +gave his own version of that wonderful scene, and +that music so played conjured up a picture as vivid +as ever opera-house furnished to an enthralled +audience.</p> + +<p>Pamela listened in silent rapture. What a God-gifted +creature this was, who had so deeply moved +her by his pen, who moved her even more intensely +by that magical touch upon the piano!</p> + +<p>When he had played those last crashing chords +which consigned the profligate to his doom, he +waited for a minute or so, and then, softly, as if +almost unawares, in mere absent-minded idleness, +his hands wandered into the staccato accompaniment +of the serenade, and, with the finest tenor Mildred +had heard since she heard Sim Reeves, he sang +those delicate and dainty phrases with which the +seducer woos his last divinity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span></p> + +<p>He rose from the piano at the close of that lovely +air, smiling at his hearers.</p> + +<p>“I had no idea that you were a singer as well as +a pianist,” said Mildred.</p> + +<p>“You forget that music is my native tongue. +My father taught me to play before he taught me to +read, and I knew harmony before I knew my alphabet. +I was brought up in the house of a man who +lived only for music—to whom all stringed instruments +were as his mother tongue. It was by a +caprice that he made me play the piano—which he +rarely touched himself.”</p> + +<p>“He must have been a great genius,” said +Pamela, with girlish fervour.</p> + +<p>“Alas! no, he just missed greatness, and he +just missed genius. He was a highly-gifted man—various—capricious—volatile—and +he married a +woman with just enough money to ruin him. Had +he been obliged to earn his bread, he might have +been great. Who can say? Hunger is the slave-driver, +with his whip of steel, who peoples the Valhalla +of nations. If Homer had not been a beggar—as +well as blind—we might have had no story<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span> +of Troy. Good-bye, Mrs. Greswold. Good-bye,” +shaking hands with Pamela. “I <em>may</em> bring my +hostess to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>“I—I—suppose so,” Mildred answered feebly, +wondering what her husband would think of such +an invasion.</p> + +<p>Yet, if Clement Cancellor, who to Mildred’s mind +had always seemed the ideal Christian priest, if he +could tolerate and consort with her, could she, Mildred +Greswold, persist in the Pharisee’s part, and +hold herself aloof from this neighbour, to whose +good works and kindly disposition many voices had +testified in her hearing?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.<br> +<span class="fs70">SHALL SHE BE LESS THAN ANOTHER?</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">It</span> was in all good faith that Clement Cancellor had +gone to Riverdale. He had not gone there for the +fleshpots of Egypt. He was a man of severely +ascetic habits, who ate and drank as temperately as +a disciple of that old faith of the East which is gaining +a curious influence upon our new life of the +West. For him the gratification of the senses, soft +raiment, artistic furniture, thoroughbred horses and +luxurious carriages, palm-houses and orchid-houses, +offered no temptation. He stayed in Mrs. Hillersdon’s +house because he was her friend, her friend +upon the broadest and soundest basis on which +friendship could be built. He knew all that was to +be known about her. He knew her frailties of the +past, her virtues in the present, her exalted hope in +the future. From her own lips he had heard the +story of Louise Lorraine’s life. She had extenuated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> +nothing. She had not withheld from him either +the foulness of her sins or their number—nay, it +may be that she had in somewise exaggerated the +blackness of those devils whom he, Clement Cancellor, +had cast out from her, enhancing by just so +much the magnitude of the miracle he had wrought. +She had held back nothing; but over every revelation +she had contrived to spread that gloss which a +clever woman knows how to give to the tale of her +own wrong-doing. In every incident of that evil +career she had contrived to show herself more sinned +against than sinning; the fragile victim of overmastering +wickedness in others; the martyr of +man’s treachery and man’s passion; the sport of +fate and circumstance. Had Mr. Cancellor known +the world he lived in half as well as he knew the +world beyond he would hardly have believed so +readily in the lady who had been Louise Lorraine: +but he was too single-minded to doubt a repentant +sinner whose conversion from the ways of evil had +been made manifest by so many good works, and +such unflagging zeal in the exercises of the Anglican +Church.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p> + +<p>Parchment Street, Grosvenor Square, is one of +the fashionable streets of London, and St. Elizabeth’s, +Parchment Street, had gradually developed, +in Clement Cancellor’s incumbency, into one of the +most popular tabernacles at the West End. He +whose life-desire had been to carry the lamp of the +faith into dark places, to be the friend and teacher of +the friendless and the untaught, found himself almost +in spite of himself a fashionable preacher, and the +delight of the cultured, the wealthy, and the aristocratic. +In his parish of St. Elizabeth’s there was +plenty of work for him to do—plenty of that work +which he had chosen as the mission that had been +given to him to fulfil. Behind those patrician streets +where only the best-appointed carriages drew up, +where only the best-dressed footmen ever pulled the +bells or rattled long peals on high-art knockers, +there were some of the worst slums in London, and +it was in those slums that half Mr. Cancellor’s life +was spent. In narrow alleys between Oxford and +Wigmore Streets, and in the intricate purlieus of +Marylebone Lane, the Anglican priest had ample +scope for his labour, a vineyard waiting for the husbandman.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> +And in the labyrinth hidden in the +heart of West End London Mr. Cancellor’s chief +coadjutor for the last twenty years had been Louise +Hillersdon. Thoroughness was the supreme quality +of Mrs. Hillersdon’s mind. Nothing stopped her. +It was this temper which had given her distinction +in the days when princes were her cupbearers and +diamonds her daily tribute. There had been other +women as beautiful, other women as fascinating; +but there was not one who with beauty and fascination +combined the audacity and resolution of Louise +Lorraine. When Louise Lorraine took possession +of a man’s wits and a man’s fortune that man was +doomed. He was as completely gone as the lemon +in the iron squeezer. A twist of the machine, and +there is nothing left but broken rind and crushed +pulp. A season of infatuation, and there was +nothing left of Mrs. Lorraine’s admirer but shattered +health and an overdrawn banking account. Estates, +houses, friends, position, good name, all dropped +away from the man whom Louise Lorraine brayed +in her mortar. She spoke of him next season with +half contemptuous pity. “Did I know Sir Theodore<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> +Barrymore? Yes; he used to come to my parties +sometimes. A nice fellow enough, but such a terrible +fool.”</p> + +<p>When Louise Lorraine married Tom Hillersdon, +and took it into her head to break away altogether +from her past career, and to pose before the world +as a beautiful Magdalen, she was clever enough to +know that, to achieve any place in society, she must +have a very powerful influence to help her. She +was clever enough to discover that the one influence +which a woman in her position could count upon was +the influence of the Church. She was beautiful +enough and refined enough to win friends among +the clergy by the charm of her personality. She +was rich enough to secure such friends, and bind +them to herself by the splendour of her gifts, by her +substantial aid in those good works which are to the +priest as the very breath of his life. One man she +could win by an organ; another lived only to complete +a steeple; the third had been yearning for a +decade for that golden hour when the cracked tintinabulation +which now summoned his flock should +be exchanged for a fine peal of bells. Such men as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span> +these were only too easily won, and the drawing-rooms +of Mr. Hillersdon’s house in Park Lane were +rarely without the grace of some clerical figure in +long frock-coat and Roman collar.</p> + +<p>Clement Cancellor was of a sterner stuff, and +not to be bought by bell or reredos, rood-screen or +pulpit. Him Louise Hillersdon won by larger measures: +to him she offered all that was spiritual in +her nature: and this woman of strange memories +was not without spiritual aspirations and real +striving after godliness. Clement Cancellor was no +pious simpleton, to be won by sentimental cant and +crocodile tears. He knew truth from falsehood, had +never in his life been duped by the jingle of false +coin. He knew that Mrs. Hillersdon’s repentance +had the true ring, albeit she was in some things still +of the earth earthy. She had worked for him and +with him in that wilderness of London as not one +other woman in his congregation had ever worked. +To the lost of her own sex she had been as a redeeming +angel. Wretched women had blessed her with +their expiring breath, had died full of hopes that +might never have been awakened had not Louise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> +Lorraine sat beside their beds. Few other women +had ever so influenced the erring of her sex. She +who had waded deep in the slough of sin knew how +to talk to sinners.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cancellor never forgot her as he had seen +her by the bed of death and in the haunts of iniquity. +She could never be to him as the herd of women. +To the mind of the preacher she had a higher value +than one in twenty of those women of his flock whose +unstained lives had never needed the cleansing of +self-sacrifice and difficult works.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s +had never shrunk from acknowledging Mrs. Hillersdon +as his personal friend, had never feared to sit +at her board, or to be seen with her in public; and +in the work of Louise Lorraine’s rehabilitation +Clement Cancellor had been a tower of strength. +And now this latest mark of friendship, this visit to +her country home, and this appearance in the noble +old Abbey Church at her solicitation, filled her cup +of pride. These starched county people who had +shunned her hospitalities were to see that one +of the most distinguished preachers in the High<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> +Church party had given her his friendship and his +esteem.</p> + +<p>It had been something for her to have the Prince +at Riverdale: it was still more to her to have Clement +Cancellor.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Pamela was in a flutter of excitement all Saturday +morning, in the expectation of Castellani’s reappearance +in the afternoon. She had heard Mr. +Cancellor preach, and was delighted at the idea of +seeing him in the pleasant intimacy of afternoon +tea. Had there been no such person as Castellani, +her spirits would have been on tip-toe at the idea +of conversing with the fashionable preacher—of +telling him in a reverent under-tone of all those +deep emotions his eloquence had inspired in her. +But the author of <em>Nepenthe</em> possessed just that +combination of qualities which commands the admiration +of such a girl as Pamela. That exquisite +touch on the piano, that perfect tenor voice, that +exotic elegance of dress and figure, all had made +their mark upon the sensitive plate of a girl’s ardent +fancy. “If I had pictured to myself the man who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> +wrote <em>Nepenthe</em>, I should have imagined just such +a face, just such a style,” thought Pamela, quite +forgetting that when first she had read the book +she had made a very vivid picture of the author +altogether the opposite of César Castellani—a dark +man, lean as a whipping-post, grave as philosophy +itself, with sombre black eyes, and ebon hair, and +a complexion of antique marble. And now she was +ready to accept the Italian, sleek, supple, essentially +modern in every grace and attribute, in place of that +sage of antique mould.</p> + +<p>She went dancing about with the dogs all the +morning, inciting the grave Kassandra to unwonted +exertions, running in and out of the drawing-room, +making an atmosphere of gaiety in the grave old +house. Mildred’s heart ached as she watched that +flying figure in the white gown, youth, health, joyousness, +personified.</p> + +<p>“O, if my darling were but here, life might be +full of happiness again,” she thought. “I should +cease to weary myself with wondering about that +hidden past.”</p> + +<p>Do what she would her thoughts still dwelt upon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> +the image of that wife who had possessed George +Greswold’s heart before her. She knew that he must +have loved that other woman whom he had sworn +before God’s altar to cherish. He was not the kind +of man to marry for any motive but a disinterested +love. That he had loved passionately, and that he +had been wronged deeply, was Mildred’s reading of +the mystery. There had been a look of agony in +his countenance when he spoke of the past that told +of a sorrow too deep for words.</p> + +<p>“He has never loved me as he once loved her,” +thought Mildred, who out of the wealth of her own +love had developed the capacity for that self-torture +called jealousy.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that her husband had taken +pains to avoid the old opportunities of confidential +talk since that revelation of last Sunday. He had +been more than usually engaged by the business +details of his estate; and she fancied that he made +the most of all those duties which he used once to perform +with the utmost despatch, grudging every hour +that was spent away from the home circle. He now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span> +complained of the new steward’s ignorance, which +threw so much extra work upon himself.</p> + +<p>“After jogging on for years in the same groove +with a man who knew every rood of my land, and +the idiosyncrasies of every tenant, I find it hard work +teaching a new man,” he told his wife.</p> + +<p>This sounded reasonable enough, yet she could +but think that since Sunday he had studiously +avoided being alone with her. If he asked her to +drive or walk with him, he secured Pamela’s company +before the excursion was planned.</p> + +<p>“We must show you the country,” he said to +his niece.</p> + +<p>Mildred told him of the threatened incursion from +Riverdale as they sat at luncheon with Pamela.</p> + +<p>“I hope you don’t mind my receiving Mrs. +Hillersdon,” she said.</p> + +<p>“No, my dear Mildred, I think it would take a +much worse woman than Mrs. Hillersdon to do you +any harm, or Pamela either. Whatever her early +history may have been, she has made Tom Hillersdon +an excellent wife, and she has been a very good friend +to the poor. I should not have cared for you to cultivate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> +Mrs. Hillersdon, or the society she brings +round her, at Riverdale—”</p> + +<p>“Sir Henry says they have people from the music-halls,” +interjected Pamela, in an awe-stricken voice.</p> + +<p>“But if Mrs. Hillersdon likes to come here with +her clerical star—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t call him a star, George. He is highly +gifted, and people have chosen to make him the +fashion, but he is the most single-hearted and simple-minded +man I ever met. No popularity could spoil +him. I feel that if he holds out the hand of friendship +to Mrs. Hillersdon, she must be a good woman.”</p> + +<p>“Let her come, Mildred, only don’t let her coming +open the door to intimacy. I would not have +my wife the friend of any woman with a history.”</p> + +<p>“And yet there are histories in most lives, George, +and there is sometimes a mystery.”</p> + +<p>She could not refrain from this little touch of +bitterness, yet she was sorry the instant she had +spoken, deeply penitent, when she saw the look of +pain in the thoughtful face opposite her. Why +should she wilfully wound him, purposely, needlessly, +she who so fondly loved him, whose keenest pain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> +was to think that he had loved any woman upon earth +before he loved her?</p> + +<p>“Will you be at home to help me to receive my +old friend, George?” she said, as they rose from the +table.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will be at home to welcome Cancellor, +and to protect you from his <em>protégée’s</em> influence, if +I can.”</p> + +<p>They were all three in the drawing-room when +the Riverdale party arrived. Mildred and Mrs. +Hillersdon met in somewise as old acquaintances, +having been thrown together on numerous occasions, +at hunt balls, charity bazaars, and other public +assemblies. Pamela was the only stranger.</p> + +<p>Although the scandalous romance of Louise Lorraine’s +career was called ancient history, she was +still a beautiful woman. The delicate features, the +pure tones of the alabaster skin, and the large Irish +gray eyes, had been kindly dealt with by time. On +the verge of fifty, Mrs. Hillersdon might have owned +only to forty, had she cared so far to palter with +truth. Her charm was, however, now more in a +fascinating personality than in the remains of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> +once dazzling loveliness. There was mind in the +keen, bright face, with its sharply-cut lines, and +those traces of intellectual wear which give a new +grace, instead of the old one of youthful softness and +faultless colouring. The bloom was gone from the +peach, the brilliancy of youth had faded from those +speaking eyes, but there was all the old sweetness +of expression which had made Louise Lorraine’s +smile irresistible as the song of the lurlei in the days +that were gone. Her dress was perfect, as it had +always been from the day when she threw away her +last cotton stocking, darned by her own fair hands, +and took to dressing like a leader of the great world, +and with perhaps even less concern for cost. She +dressed in perfect harmony with her age and position. +Her gown was of softest black silk, draped with +some semi-diaphanous fabric and clouded with Chantilly +lace. Her bonnet was of the same lace and +gauze, and her tapering hand and slender wrist were +fitted to perfection in a long black glove which met +a cloud of lace just below the elbow.</p> + +<p>At a period when almost every woman who wore +black glittered with beads and bugles from head to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span> +foot, Mrs. Hillersdon’s costume was unembellished +by a single ornament. The Parisian milliner had +known how to obey her orders to the letter when she +stipulated—<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">surtout point de jais</i>—and the effect was +at once distinguished and refined.</p> + +<p>Clement Cancellor greeted his old pupil with +warm friendliness, and meekly accepted her reproaches +for all those invitations which he had refused in the +past ten years.</p> + +<p>“You told me so often that it was impossible +for you to come to Enderby, and yet you can go to +my neighbour,” she said.</p> + +<p>“My dear Mildred, I went to Riverdale because +I was wanted at Romsey.”</p> + +<p>“And do you think you were not wanted at Romsey +before to-day?—do you think we should not have +been proud to have you preach in our church here? +People would have flocked from far and wide to hear +you—yes, even to Enderby Church—and you might +have aided some good work, as you are going to do +to-morrow. How clever of Mrs. Hillersdon to know +how to tempt you down here!”</p> + +<p>“You may be sure it is not the first time I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span> +tried, Mrs. Greswold,” said that lady, with her fascinating +smile. “Your influence would have gone +further than mine, I daresay, had you taken half as +much trouble as I have done.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Rollinson, the curate of Enderby, was announced +at this moment. The Vicar was a rich +man with another parish in his cure, and his own +comfortable vicarage and his brother’s family mansion +being adjacent to the other church, Enderby +saw him but seldom, whereby Mr. Rollinson was a +person of much more weight in the parish than the +average clerical subaltern. Mildred liked him for +his plain-sailing Christianity and unfailing kindness +to the poor, and she had asked him to tea this +afternoon, knowing that he would like to meet Clement +Cancellor.</p> + +<p>Castellani looked curiously unlike those three +other men, with their grave countenances and unstudied +dress; George Greswold roughly clad in +shooting jacket and knickerbockers; the two priests +in well-worn black. The Italian made a spot of +brightness in that sombre assembly, the sunlight +touching his hair and moustache with glints of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> +gold, his brown velvet coat and light gray trousers +suggestive of the studio rather than of rustic lanes, +a gardenia in his button-hole, a valuable old intaglio +fastening his white silk scarf, and withal a half-insolent +look of amusement at those two priests and +the sombre-visaged master of the house. He slipped +with serpentine grace to the further side of the +piano, where he contrived his first <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</i> with +Pamela, comfortably sheltered by the great Henri +Deux vase of gloxinias on the instrument.</p> + +<p>Pamela was shy at first, and would hardly speak; +then taking courage, told him how she had wondered +and wept over <em>Nepenthe</em>, and thereupon they began +to talk as if they were two kindred souls that had +been kept too long apart by adverse fate, and thrilled +with the new delight of union.</p> + +<p>Round the tea-table the conversation was of a +graver cast. After a general discussion of the +threatening clouds upon the political and ecclesiastical +horizon, the talk had drifted to a question which +at this time was uppermost in the minds of men. +The Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill had been thrown +out by the Upper House during the last session, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> +everybody had been talking of that debate in which +three princes of the blood royal had been attentive +auditors. They had recorded their vote on the side +of liberty of conscience, but in vain. Time-honoured +prejudices had prevailed against modern enlightenment.</p> + +<p>Clement Cancellor was a man who would have +suffered martyrdom for his faith; he was generous, +he was merciful, gentle, self-sacrificing, pure in +spirit; but he was not liberal-minded. The old +shackles hung heavily upon him. He could not +love Wycliffe; and he could not forgive Cranmer. +He was an ecclesiastic after the antique pattern. To +him the marriage of a priest was a base paltering +with the lusts of the flesh; and to him a layman’s +marriage with a dead wife’s sister was unholy and +abominable. He had been moved to indignation by +the words that had been spoken and the pamphlets +that had been written of late upon this question; +and now, carried away by George Greswold’s denunciation +of that prejudiced majority by which the +Bill had been rejected, Mr. Cancellor gave his indignation +full vent, and forgot that he was speaking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span> +in a lady’s drawing-room, and before feminine +hearers.</p> + +<p>He spoke of such marriages as unholy and immoral, +he spoke of such households as accursed. +Mildred listened to him, and watched him wonderingly, +scared at this unfamiliar aspect of his character. +To her he had ever been the gentlest of teachers; +she saw him now pallid with wrath—she heard +him breathing words of fire.</p> + +<p>George Greswold took up the glove, not because +he had ever felt any particular interest in this question, +but because he hated narrow-minded opinions +and clerical prejudices.</p> + +<p>“Why should the sister of his wife be different +to a man from all other women?” he asked. “You +may call her different—you may set her apart—you +may say she must be to him as his own sister—her +beauty must not touch him, the attractions that +fascinate other men must have no influence over +him. You may lay this down as a law—civil—canonical—what +you will—but the common law of +nature will override your clerical code, will burst +your shackles of prejudice and tradition. Shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> +Rachel be withheld from him who was true and +loyal to Leah? She has dwelt in his house as his +friend, the favourite and playmate of his children. +He has respected her as he would have respected +any other of his wife’s girl-friends; but he has seen +that she was fair; and if God takes the wife, and +he, remembering the sweetness of that old friendship, +and his children’s love, turns to her as the one +woman who can give him back his lost happiness—is +he to be told that this one woman can never be +his, because she was the sister of his first chosen? +She has come out of the same stock whose loyalty +he has proved, she would bring to his hearth all the +old sweet associations—”</p> + +<p>“And she would <em>not</em> bring him a second mother-in-law. +What a stupendous superiority she would +have <em>there</em>!” interjected the jovial Rollinson, who +had been wallowing in hot-buttered cakes and strong +tea, until his usually roseate visage had become startlingly +rubicund.</p> + +<p>He was in all things the opposite of the Vicar of +St. Elizabeth’s. He wrote poetry, made puns, +played billiards, dined out at all the houses in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> +neighbourhood that were worth dining at, and was +only waiting to marry until Tom Hillersdon should +be able to give him a living.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cancellor reproved the ribald jester with a +scathing look before he took up the argument against +his host.</p> + +<p>“If this Bill were to pass, no virtuous woman +could live in the house of a married sister,” he said.</p> + +<p>“That is as much as to say that no honest +woman can live in the house of any married man,” +retorted Greswold hotly. “Do you think if a man +is weak enough to fall in love with another woman +under his wife’s roof he is less likely to sin because +your canonical law stares him in the face, telling +him, ‘Thou canst never wed her’? The married +man who is inconstant to his wife is not influenced +by the chances of the future. He is either a bold, +bad man, whose only thought is to win the woman +whom he loves at any cost of honour or conscience; +or he is a weak fool, who drifts hopelessly to destruction, +and in whom the resolution of to-day yields to +the temptation of to-morrow. Neither the bold sinner +nor the weak one is influenced by the consideration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span> +whether he can or cannot marry the woman he loves +under the unlikely circumstance of his wife’s untimely +death. The man who does so calculate is the one +man in so many thousands of men who will poison +his wife to clear the way for his new fancy. I don’t +think we ought to legislate for poisoners. In plain +words, if a married man is weak enough or wicked +enough to be seduced by the charms of any woman +who dwells beneath his roof, he will not be the less +likely to fall because the law of the land has made +that woman anathema maranatha, or because he has +been warned from the pulpit that she is to be to him +as his own flesh and blood, no dearer and no less +dear than the sister beside whom he grew from +infancy to manhood, and whom he has loved all his +life, hardly knowing whether she is as beautiful as +Hebe or as hideous as Tisyphone.”</p> + +<p>“You are a disciple of the New Learning, Mr. +Greswold,” Cancellor said bitterly; “the learning +which breaks down all barriers and annihilates the +Creator of all things—the learning which has degraded +God from infinite power to infinitesimal +insignificance, and which explains the genius of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> +Plato and Shakespeare, Luther and Newton, as +the ultimate outcome of an unconscious primeval +mist.”</p> + +<p>“I am no Darwinian,” replied Greswold coldly, +“but I would rather belong to his school of speculative +inquiry than to the Calvinism which slew +Servetus, or the Romanism which lit the death-pile +of the Oxford martyrs.”</p> + +<p>Mildred was not more anxious than Mrs. Hillersdon +to end a discussion which threatened angry +feeling. They looked at each other in an agony, +and then with a sudden inspiration Mildred exclaimed,</p> + +<p>“If we could only persuade Mr. Castellani to +play to us! We are growing so terribly serious;” +and then she went to Clement Cancellor, who was +standing by the open window, and took her place +beside him, while Mrs. Hillersdon talked with Pamela +and Castellani at the piano. “You know what a +privilege it is to <em>me</em> always to hear you talk,” she +murmured in her sweet, subdued voice. “You know +how I have followed your teaching in all things. +And be assured my husband is no materialist. We<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> +both cling to the old faith, the old hopes, the old +promises. You must not misjudge him because of +a single difference of opinion.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, my dear Mildred,” replied Cancellor, +touched by her submission. “I did wrong to +be angry. I know that to many good Christians +this question of marriage with a sister-in-law is a +stumbling-block. I have taken the subject too +deeply to heart perhaps—I, to whom marriage altogether +seems outside the Christian priest’s horizon. +Perhaps I may exaggerate the peril of a wider +liberty; but I, who look upon Henry VIII. as the +arch-enemy of the one vital Church—of which he +might have been the wise and enlightened reformer—I, +who trace to his unhallowed union with his +brother’s widow all the after evils of his career—must +needs lift up my voice against a threatened +danger.”</p> + +<p>Castellani began Mendelssohn’s “Wedding +March” with a triumphant burst that sounded like +mockery. Do what the preacher might to assimilate +earth to heaven, here there would still be marrying +and giving in marriage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span></p> + +<p>After the march Mildred went over to the piano +and asked Castellani to sing.</p> + +<p>He smiled assent, and played the brief symphony +to a ballad of Heine’s, set by Jensen. The exquisite +tenor voice, the perfect taste of the singer, held his +audience spellbound. They listened in silence, and +entreated him to sing again, and then again, till he +had sung four of these jewel-like ballads, and they +felt that it was impertinence to ask for more.</p> + +<p>Mildred had stolen round to her own sheltered +corner, half hidden by a group of tall palms. She +sat with her hands clasped in her lap, her head bent. +She could not see the singer. She only heard the +low pathetic voice, slightly veiled. It touched her +like no other voice that she had ever heard since, in +her girlhood, she burst into a passion of sobs at first +hearing Sims Reeves, when that divine voice touched +some hyper-sensitive chord in her own organisation +and moved her almost to hysteria. And now, in this +voice of the man who of all other men she instinctively +disliked, the same tones touched the same +chord, and loosened the floodgates of her tears. +She sat with streaming eyes, grateful for the sheltering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span> +foliage which screened her from observation.</p> + +<p>She dried her eyes and recovered herself with +difficulty when the singer rose from the piano and +Mrs. Hillersdon began to take leave. Mr. Rollinson +button-holed Castellani on the instant.</p> + +<p>“You sing as if you had just come from the +seraphic choir,” he said. “You must sing for us on +the seventh.”</p> + +<p>“Who are ‘us’?” asked Castellani.</p> + +<p>“Our concert in aid of the fund for putting a +Burne-Jones window over the altar.”</p> + +<p>“A concert in Enderby village? Is it to be +given at the lock-up or in the pound?”</p> + +<p>“It is to be given in this room. Mrs. Greswold +has been good enough to allow us the use of her +drawing-room and her piano. Miss Ransome promises +to preside at the buffet for tea and coffee.”</p> + +<p>“It will be glorious fun,” exclaimed Pamela; +“I shall feel like a barmaid. I have always envied +barmaids.”</p> + +<p>“Daudet says there is one effulgent spot in +every man’s life—one supreme moment when he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span> +stands on the mountain-top of fortune and of bliss, +and from which all the rest of his existence is a +gradual descent. I wonder whether that afternoon +will be your effulgent spot, Miss Ransome?” said +Mrs. Hillersdon laughingly.</p> + +<p>“It will—it must. To superintend two great +urns of tea and coffee—<em>almost</em> as nice as those +delicious beer-engines one sees at Salisbury Station—to +charge people a shilling for a small cup of tea, +and sixpence for a penny sponge-cake. What splendid +fun!”</p> + +<p>“Will you help us, Mr. Castleton?” asked the +curate, who was not good at names.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Greswold has only to command me. I +am in all things her slave.”</p> + +<p>“Then she will command you—she does command +you,” cried the curate.</p> + +<p>“If you will be so very kind—” began Mildred.</p> + +<p>“I am only too proud to obey you,” answered +Castellani, with more earnestness than the occasion +required, drawing a little nearer to Mildred as he +spoke; “only too glad of an excuse to return to this +house.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span></p> + +<p>Mildred looked at him with a half-frightened +expression, and then glanced at Pamela. Did he +mean mischief of some kind? Was this the beginning +of an insidious pursuit of that frank girl, whose +fortune was quite enough to tempt the casual adventurer?</p> + +<p>“Of all men I have ever seen he is the last to +whom I would entrust a girl’s fate,” thought Mildred, +determined to be very much on her guard against +the blandishments of César Castellani.</p> + +<p>She took the very worst means to ward off danger. +She made the direful mistake of warning the girl +against the possible pursuer that very evening when +they were sitting alone after dinner.</p> + +<p>“He is a man I could never trust,” she said.</p> + +<p>“No more could I,” replied Pamela; “but O, +how exquisitely he sings!” and excited at the mere +memory of that singing, she ran to the piano and +began to pick out the melody of Heine’s “Ich weiss +nicht was soll es bedeuten,” and sang the words +softly in her girlish voice; and then slipped away +from the piano with a nervous little laugh.</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, Aunt Mildred, I am <i lang="de" xml:lang="de">traurig</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span> +myself at the very thought of that exquisite song,” +she said. “What a gift it is to sing like that! How +I wish <em>I</em> were César Castellani!”</p> + +<p>“What, when we have both agreed that he is not +a good man?”</p> + +<p>“Who cares about being <em>good</em>?” exclaimed +Pamela, beside herself; “three-fourths of the people +of this world are good. But to be able to write a +book that can unsettle every one’s religion; to be able +to make everybody miserable when one sings! Those +are gifts that place a man on a level with the Greek +gods. If I were Mr. Castellani I should feel like +Mercury or Apollo.”</p> + +<p>“Pamela, you frighten me when you rave like +that. Remember that, for all we know to the contrary, +this man may be a mere adventurer, and in +every way dangerous.”</p> + +<p>“Why should we think him an adventurer? He +told me all about himself. He told me that his +grandfather was under obligations to your grandfather. +He told me about his father, the composer, +who wrote operas which are known all over Italy, and +who died young, like Mozart and Mendelssohn.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> +Genius is hereditary with him; he was suckled upon +art. I have no doubt he is bad, irretrievably bad,” +said Pamela, with unction; “but don’t try to persuade +me that he is a vulgar adventurer who would try to +borrow five-pound notes, or a fortune-hunter who +would try to marry one for one’s money,” concluded +the girl, falling back upon her favourite form of +speech.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.<br> +<span class="fs70">LIFTING THE CURTAIN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent"><span class="smcap">The</span> charity concert afforded César Castellani just +the necessary excuse for going to Enderby Manor +House as often as he liked, and for staying there +as long as he liked. He was now on a familiar +footing. He drove or rode over from Riverdale +nearly every day during the three weeks that intervened +between Mr. Cancellor’s sermon and the afternoon +concert. He made himself the curate’s right +hand in all the details of the entertainment. He +chose the music, he wrote the programme, he sent it +to his favourite printer to be printed in antique +type upon ribbed paper with ragged edges: a perfect +gem in the way of a programme. He scoured the +country round in quest of amateur talent, and was +much more successful than the curate had been in +the same quest.</p> + +<p>“I’m astounded at your persuading Lady Millborough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span> +to show in the daylight,” said Rollinson, +laughing. “You have the tongue of the serpent to overcome +her objection to the glare of the afternoon sun.”</p> + +<p>“<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Estote prudentes sicuti serpentes</i>,” said Castellani. +“There’s a fine old ecclesiastic’s motto for you. I +know Lady Millborough rather dreads the effect of +sunlight upon her <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">nacre Bernhardt</i>. She told me +that she was never equal to singing in the afternoon: +the glare of the sun always gave her a headache. +But I assured her in the first place that there +should be no glare—that as an artist I abhorred a +crude, white light—and that it should be my business +to see that our concert-room was lighted upon +purely æsthetic principles. We would have the dim +religious light which painters and poets love. In +the second place I assured her that she had as fine a +contralto as Madame Alboni, on whose knees I had +often sat as a child, and who gave me the emerald pin +I was wearing.”</p> + +<p>“My hat, what a man you are!” exclaimed Rollinson. +“But do you mean to say we are to give +our concert in the dark?”</p> + +<p>“We will not have the afternoon sun blinding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span> +half our audience. We will have the auditorium in +a cool twilight, and we will have lamp-light on our +platform—just that mellow and flattering light in +which elderly women look young and young women +angelic.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll leave everything to you,” cried the curate. +“I think we ought to leave him free scope; ought +we not, Mrs. Greswold?”</p> + +<p>Mildred assented. Pamela was enthusiastic. +This concert was to be one of the events of her life. +Castellani had discovered that she possessed a charming +mezzo-soprano. She was to sing a duet with +him. O, what rapture! A duet of his own composition, +all about roses and love and death.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“’Twere sweet to die as the roses die,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">If I had but lived for thee;</div> + <div class="verse indent1">A life as long as the nightingale’s song</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Were enough for my heart and me.”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>The words and the voices were interwoven in a +melodious web; tenor and soprano entwined together—following +and ever following like the phrases in an +anthem.</p> + +<p>The preparation of this one duet alone obliged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span> +Mr. Castellani to be nearly every day at Enderby. A +musician has inexhaustible patience in teaching his +own music. Castellani hammered at every bar and +every note with Pamela. He did not hesitate at +unpleasant truth. She had received the most expensive +instruction from a well-known singing-master, +and, according to Castellani, everything she had been +taught was wrong. “If you had been left alone to +sing as the birds sing you would be ever so much +better off,” he said; “the man has murdered a very +fine organ. If I had had the teaching of you, you +would have sung as well as Trebelli by this time.”</p> + +<p>Pamela thrilled at the thought. O, to sing like +some great singer—to be able to soar skyward on the +wings of music—to sing as <em>he</em> sang! She had +known him a fortnight by this time, and was deeply +in love with him. In moments of confidence by the +piano he called her Pamela, treating her almost as if +she were a child, yet with a touch of gallantry always—an +air that said, “You are beautiful, dear child, +and you know it; but I have lived my life.” Before +Mrs. Greswold he was more formal, and called her +Miss Ransome.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span></p> + +<p>All barriers were down now between Riverdale +and the Manor. Mrs. Hillersdon was going to make +an extra large house-party on purpose to patronise +the concert. It was to be on the 7th of September: +the partridge-shooting would be in full swing, and +the shooters assembled. Mrs. Greswold had been +to tea at Riverdale. There seemed to be no help +for it, and George Greswold was apparently indifferent.</p> + +<p>“My dearest, your purity of mind will be in no +danger from Mrs. Hillersdon. Even were she still +Louise Lorraine, she could not harm you—and you +know I am not given to consider the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qu’on dire t’on</i> +in such a case. Let her come here by all means, so +long as she is not obnoxious to you.”</p> + +<p>“She is far from that. I think she has the +most delightful manners of any woman I ever met.”</p> + +<p>“So, no doubt, had Circe, yet she changed men +into swine.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Cancellor would not believe in her if she +were not a good woman.”</p> + +<p>“I should set a higher value on Cancellor’s +opinion if he were more of a man of the world, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span> +less of a bigot. See what nonsense he talked about +the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense! O, George, if you knew how it +distressed me to hear you take the other side—the +unchristian side!”</p> + +<p>“I can find no word of Christ’s against such +marriages, and the Church of old was always ready +with a dispensation for any such union, if it was +made worth the Church’s while to be indulgent. It +was the earnest desire of the Roman Catholic world +that Philip should marry Elizabeth. You are Cancellor’s +pupil, Mildred, and I cannot wonder if he has +made you something of a bigot.”</p> + +<p>“He is the noblest and most unselfish of men.”</p> + +<p>“I admit his unselfishness—the purity of his +intentions—the tenderness of his heart; but I deny +his nobility. Ecclesiastic narrow-mindedness spoils +a character that might have been perfect had it been +less hampered by tradition. Cancellor is a couple of +centuries behind the time. His Church is the +Church of Laud.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you admired and loved him, George,” +said Mildred regretfully.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span></p> + +<p>“I admire his good qualities, I love him for his +thoroughness; but our creeds are wide apart. I +cannot even pretend to think as he thinks.”</p> + +<p>This confession increased Mildred’s sadness. +She would have had her husband think as she +thought, believe as she believed, in all spiritual +things. The beloved child they had lost was waiting +for them in heaven; and she would fain that +they should both tread the same path to that better +world where there would be no more tears, no more +death—where day and night would be alike in the +light of the great Throne. She shuddered at the +thought of any difference of creed on her husband’s +part, shuddered at that beginning of divergence which +might end in infidelity. She had been educated by +Clement Cancellor, and she thought as he thought. +It seemed to her that she was surrounded by an +atmosphere of doubt. In the books she read +among the more cultivated people whom she met, she +found the same tendency to speculative infidelity, pessimism, +Darwinism, sociology, Pantheism, anything but +Christian belief. The nearest approach to religious +feeling seemed to be found in the theosophists, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span> +their last fashionable Oriental improvements upon +the teaching of Christ.</p> + +<p>Clement Cancellor had trained her in the belief +that there was one Church, one creed, one sovereign +rule of life, outside which rigid boundary-line lay +the dominion of Satan. And now, seeing her husband’s +antagonism to her pastor upon this minor +point of the marriage law, she began to ask herself +whether those two might not stand as widely apart +upon graver questions—whether George Greswold +might not be one of those half-hearted Christians who +attend their parish church and keep Sunday sacred because +it is well to set a good example to their neighbours +and dependants, while their own faith is little +more than a memory of youthful beliefs, the fading +reflection of a sun that has sunk below the horizon.</p> + +<p>She had discovered her husband capable of a +suppression of truth that was almost as bad as falsehood; +and now having begun to doubt his conscientiousness, +it was not unnatural that she should +begin to doubt his religious feeling.</p> + +<p>“Had he been as deeply religious as I thought +him, he would not have so deceived me,” she told<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span> +herself, still brooding upon that mystery of his first +marriage.</p> + +<p>Castellani’s presence in the house was a continual +irritation to her. It tortured her to think +that he knew more of her husband’s past life than +was known to her. She longed to question him, +yet refrained, feeling that there would be unspeakable +meanness, treachery even, in obtaining any +information about her husband’s past life except +from his own lips. He had chosen to keep silence, +he who could so easily have explained all things; +and it was her duty to submit.</p> + +<p>She tried to be interested in the concert, which +involved a good deal of work for herself, as she was +to play all the accompaniments, the piano part in a +concertante duet by De Bériot with an amateur violin +player, and a Hungarian march by a modern classic +by way of overture. There were rehearsals nearly +every day, with much talk and tea-drinking. Enderby +Manor seemed given over to bustle and gaiety—that +grave old house, which to her mind ought to +have been silent as a sepulchre, now that Lola’s voice +could sound there never more, except in dreams.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p> + +<p>“People must think I am forgetting her,” she +said to herself with a sigh, when half-a-dozen carriages +had driven away from the door, after two hours +of bustle and confusion, much discussion as to the +choice of songs and the arrangement of the programme, +which everybody wanted different.</p> + +<p>“I cannot possibly sing ‘The Three Fishers’ +after Captain Scobell’s ‘Wanderer,’” protested Lady +Millborough. “It would never do to have two +dismal songs in succession.”</p> + +<p>Yet when it was proposed that her ladyship’s +song should succeed Mr. Rollinson’s admirable rendering +of George Grossmith’s “He was such a +Careless Man,” she distinctly refused to sing immediately +after a comic song.</p> + +<p>“I am not going to take the taste of Mr. Rollinson’s +vulgarity out of people’s mouths,” she told +Mildred, in an audible aside.</p> + +<p>To these God-gifted vocalists the accompanist +was as an inferior being, a person with a mere +mechanical gift of playing anything set before her +with taste and style. They treated her as if she +had been a machine.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span></p> + +<p>“If you wouldn’t mind going over our duet just +once more, I think we should feel more comfortable +in it,” said one of the two Miss Tadcasters, who were +to take the roof off, metaphorically, in the Norma +duet.</p> + +<p>Mildred toiled with unwavering good-nature, and +suppressed her shudders at many a false note, and +cast oil on the waters when the singers were inclined +to quarrel. She was glad of the drudgery +that kept her fingers and her mind occupied; she +was glad of any distraction that changed the current +of her thoughts.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was the day before the concert. César Castellani +had established himself as <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">l’ami de la maison</i>, +a person who had the right to come in and out as +he liked, whose coming and going made no difference +to the master of the house. Had George +Greswold’s mind been less abstracted from the +business of every-day life he might have seen danger +to Pamela Ransome’s peace of mind in the frequent +presence of the Italian, and he might have considered +it his duty, as the young lady’s kinsman, to have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> +restricted Mr. Castellani’s privileges. But the blow +which had crushed George Greswold’s heart a little +more than a year ago had left him in somewise a +broken man. He had lost all interest in the common +joys and occupations of every-day life. His +days were spent for the most part in long walks or +rides in the loneliest places he could find, his only +evening amusement was found in books, and those +books of a kind which engrossed his attention and +took him out of himself. His wife’s companionship +was always precious to him; but their intercourse +had lost all its old gaiety and much of the old familiarity. +There was an indefinable something which +held them asunder even when they were sitting in +the same room, or pacing side by side, just as of old, +upon the lawn in front of the drawing-room, or +idling in their summer parlour in the shade of the +cedars.</p> + +<p>Again and again in the last three weeks some +question about the past had trembled upon Mildred’s +lips as she sat at work by the piano where Castellani +played in dreamy idleness, wandering from one +master to another, or extemporising after his own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span> +capricious fancies. Again and again she had struggled +against the temptation and had conquered. +No, she would not stoop to a meanness. She would +not be disloyal to her husband by so much as one +idle question.</p> + +<p>To-day Castellani was in high spirits, proud of +to-morrow’s anticipated success, in which his own +exertions would count for much. He sat at the +piano in a leisure hour after tea. All the performers +had gone, after the final adjustment of +every detail. Mildred sat idle with her head resting +against the cushion of a high-backed armchair, exhausted +by the afternoon’s labours. Pamela stood +by the piano watching and listening delightedly as +Castellani improvised.</p> + +<p>“I will give you my musical transcript of St. +Partridge Day,” he said, smiling down at the notes +as he played a lively melody with little rippling runs +in the treble and crisp staccato chords in the bass. +“This is morning, and all the shooters are on tip-toe +with delight—a misty morning,” gliding into a +dreamy legato movement as he spoke. “You can +scarcely see the hills yonder, and the sun is not yet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span> +up. See there he leaps above that bank of purple +cloud, and all is brightness,” changing to crashing +chords in the bass and brilliant arpeggios in the +treble. “Hark! there is chanticleer. How shrill +he peals in the morning air! The dogs are leaving +the kennel—and now the gates are open, dogs and +men are in the road. You can hear the steady +tramp of the clumsy shooting-boots—your dreadful +English boots—and the merry music of the dogs. +Pointers, setters, spaniels, smooth beasts and curly +beasts, shaking the dew from the hedgerows as they +scramble along the banks, flying over the ditches—creatures +of lightning swiftness; yes, even those fat +heavy spaniels which seem made to sprawl and snap +at flies in the sunshine or snore beside the fire.”</p> + +<p>He talked in brief snatches, playing all the time—playing +with the easy brilliancy, the unerring +grace of one to whom music is a native tongue—as +natural a mode of thought-expression as speech +itself. His father had trained him to improvise, +weaving reminiscences of all his favourite composers +into those dreamy reveries. They had sat side by +side, father and son, each following the bent of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> +own fancy, yet quick to adapt it to the other, now +leading, now following. They had played together +as Moscheles and Mendelssohn used to play, delighting +in each other’s caprices.</p> + +<p>“I hope I don’t bore you very much,” said Castellani, +looking up at Mildred as she sat silent, the +fair face and pale gold hair defined against the olive +brocade of the chair cushion.</p> + +<p>He looked up at her in wondering admiration, as +at a beautiful picture. How lovely she was, with a +loveliness that grew upon him, and took possession +of his fancy and his senses with a strengthening +hold day by day. It was a melancholy loveliness, +the beauty of a woman whose life had come to a dead +stop, in whose breast hope and love were dead—or +dormant.</p> + +<p>“Not dead,” he told himself, “only sleeping. +Whose shall be the spell to awaken the sleepers. +Who shall be the Orpheus to bring this sweet +Eurydice from the realms of Death?”</p> + +<p>Such thoughts were in his mind as he sat looking +at her, waiting for her answer, playing all the +while, telling her how fair she was in the tenderest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span> +variations of an old German air whose every note +breathed passionate love.</p> + +<p>“How sweet!” murmured Pamela; “what an +exquisite melody!” taking some of the sweetness to +herself. “How could such sweetness weary any one +with the ghost of an ear? You are not bored by it, +are you, aunt?”</p> + +<p>“Bored? no, it is delightful,” answered Mildred, +rousing herself from a reverie. “My thoughts +went back to my childhood while you were playing. +I never knew but one other person who had that +gift of improvisation, and she used to play to me +when I was a child. She was almost a child herself, +and of course she was very inferior to you as a +pianist; but she would sit and play to me for an +hour in the twilight, inventing new melodies, or +playing recollections of old melodies, describing in +music. The old fairy tales are for ever associated +with music in my mind, because of those memories. +I believe she was highly gifted in music.”</p> + +<p>“Music of a high order is not an uncommon +gift among women of sensitive temperament,” said +Castellani musingly. “I take it to be only another<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> +name for sympathy. Want of musical feeling is +want of sympathy. Shakespeare knew that when he +declared the non-musical man to be by nature a +villain. I could no more imagine <em>you</em> without the +gift of music than I could imagine the stars without +the quality of light. Mr. Greswold’s first wife was +a good musician, as no doubt you know.”</p> + +<p>“You heard her play—and sing?” faltered Mildred, +avoiding a direct reply.</p> + +<p>The sudden mention of her dead rival’s name +had quickened the beating of her heart. She had +longed to question him and had refrained; and +now, without any act of hers, he had spoken, and +she was going to hear something about that woman +whose existence was a mystery to her, whose Christian +name she had never heard.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I heard her several times at parties at +Nice. She was much admired for her musical +talents. She was not a grand singer, but she had +been well taught, and she had exquisite taste, and +knew exactly the kind of music that suited her best. +She was one of the attractions at the Palais Montano, +where one heard only the best music.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span></p> + +<p>“I think you said the other day that you did +not meet her often,” said Mildred. “My husband +could hardly have forgotten you had you met +frequently.”</p> + +<p>“I can scarcely say that we met frequently, and +our meetings were such as Mr. Greswold would not +be very likely to remember. I am not a remarkable +man now, and I was a very insignificant person fifteen +years ago. I was only asked to people’s houses +because I could sing a little, and because my father +had a reputation in the South as a composer. I was +never introduced to your husband, but I was presented +to his wife—as a precocious youth with some +pretensions to a tenor voice—and I found her very +charming—after her own particular style.”</p> + +<p>“Was she a beautiful woman?” asked Mildred. +“I—I—have never talked about her to my husband, +she died so young, and—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, I understand,” interrupted Castellani, +as she hesitated. “Of course you would not speak +of her. There are things that cannot be spoken +about. There is always a skeleton in every life—not +more in Mr. Greswold’s past than in that of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span> +other people, perhaps, could we know all histories. +I was wrong to speak of her. Her name escaped me +unawares.”</p> + +<p>“Pray don’t apologise,” said Mildred, indignant +at something in his tone, which hinted at wrong-doing +on her husband’s part. “There can be no +reason why you should keep silence—to me; though +any mention of an old sorrow might wound him. I +know my husband too well not to know that he must +have behaved honourably in every relation of life—before +I married him as well as afterwards. I only +asked a very simple question: was my predecessor +as beautiful as she was gifted?”</p> + +<p>“No. She was charming, piquant, elegant, spirituelle, +but she was not handsome. I think she was +conscious of that want of beauty, and that it made +her sensitive, and even bitter. I have heard her +say hard things of women who were handsomer than +herself. She had a scathing tongue and a capricious +temper, and she was not a favourite with her own +sex, though she was very much admired by clever +men. I know that as a lad I thought her one of +the brightest women I had ever met.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p> + +<p>“It was sad that she should die so young,” said +Mildred.</p> + +<p>She would not for worlds that this man should +know the extent of her ignorance about the woman +who had borne her husband’s name. She spoke +vaguely, hoping that he would take it for granted +she knew all.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” assented Castellani with a sigh, “her +death was infinitely sad.”</p> + +<p>He spoke as of an event of more than common +sadness—a calamity that had been in somewise +more tragical than untimely death must needs +be.</p> + +<p>Mildred kept silence, though her heart ached +with shapeless forebodings, and though it would +have been an unspeakable relief to know the worst +rather than to feel the oppression of this mystery.</p> + +<p>Castellani rose to take leave. He was paler +than he had been before the conversation began, and +he had a troubled air. Pamela looked at him with +sympathetic distress. “I am afraid you are dreadfully +tired,” she said, as they shook hands.</p> + +<p>“I am never tired in this house,” he answered;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span> +and Pamela appropriated the compliment by her +vivid blush.</p> + +<p>Mildred shook hands with him mechanically and +in silence. She was hardly conscious of his leaving +the room. She rose and went out into the garden, +while Pamela sat down to the piano and began singing +her part in the everlasting duet. She never +sang anything else nowadays. It was a perpetual +carol of admiration for the author of <em>Nepenthe</em>.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“’Twere sweet to die as the roses die,</div> + <div class="verse indent3">If I had but lived for thee;</div> + <div class="verse indent1">’Twere sweet to fade as the twilight fades</div> + <div class="verse indent3">Over the western sea,”</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p class="no-indent">she warbled, while Mildred paced slowly to and fro +in front of the cedars, brooding over every word Castellani +had spoken about her husband’s first wife.</p> + +<p>“Her death was infinitely sad.”</p> + +<p>Why infinitely? The significance of the word +troubled her. It conjured up all manner of possibilities. +Why infinitely sad? All death is sad. +The death of the young especially so. But to say +even of a young wife’s death that it was infinitely sad +would seem to lift it out of the region of humanity’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span> +common doom. That qualifying word hinted at a +tragical fate rather than a young life cut short by +any ordinary malady. There had been something in +Castellani’s manner which accentuated the meaning +of his words. That troubled look, that deep sigh, +that hurried departure, all hinted at a painful story +which he knew and did not wish to reveal.</p> + +<p>He had in a manner apologised for speaking of +George Greswold’s first wife. There must have +been a reason for that. He was not a man to say +meaningless things out of <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gaucherie</i>; not a man to +blunder and equivocate from either shyness or stupidity. +He had implied that Mr. Greswold was not +likely to talk about his first marriage—that he would +naturally avoid any allusion to his first wife.</p> + +<p>Why naturally? Why should he not speak of +that past life? Men are not ordinarily reticent +upon such subjects. And that a man should suppress +the fact of a first marriage altogether would +suggest memories so dark as to impel an honourable +man to stoop to a tacit lie rather than face the horror +of revelation.</p> + +<p>She walked up and down that fair stretch of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> +velvet turf upon which her feet had trodden so +lightly in the happy years that were gone—gone +never to be recalled, as it seemed to her, carrying +with them all that she had ever known of domestic +peace, of wedded bliss. Never again could they two +be as they had been. The mystery of the past had +risen up between them—like some hooded phantom, +a vaguely threatening figure, a hidden face—to hold +them apart for evermore.</p> + +<p>“If he had only trusted me,” she thought despairingly, +“there is hardly any sin that I would not +have forgiven for love of him. Why could he not +believe in my love well enough to know that I should +judge him leniently—if there had been wrong-doing +on his side—if—if—”</p> + +<p>She had puzzled over that hidden past, trying to +penetrate the darkness, imagining the things that +might have happened—infidelity on the wife’s part—infidelity +on the husband’s side—another and +fatal attachment taking the place of loyal love. Sin +of some kind there must have been, she thought; +for such dark memories could scarcely be sinless. +But was husband or wife the sinner?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span></p> + +<p>“Her death was infinitely sad.”</p> + +<p>That sentence stood out against the dark background +of mystery as if written in fire. That one +fact was absolute. George Greswold’s first wife had +died under circumstances of peculiar sadness; so +painful that Castellani’s countenance grew pale and +troubled at the very thought of her death.</p> + +<p>“I cannot endure it,” Mildred thought at last, in +an agony of doubt. “I will not suffer this torture +for another day. I will appeal to him. I will question +him. If he values my love and my esteem he +will answer faithfully. It must be painful for him, +painful for me; but it will be far better for us both +in the long-run. Anything will be better than +these torturing fears. I am his wife, and I have a +right to know the truth.”</p> + +<p>The dressing-gong summoned her back to the +house. Her husband was in the drawing-room +half-an-hour afterwards, when she went down to +dinner. He was still in his jacket and knickerbockers, +just as he had come in from a long ramble.</p> + +<p>“Will you forgive me if I dine with you in these +clothes, Mildred, and you, Pamela?” to the damsel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span> +in white muslin, whom he had just surprised at the +piano still warbling her honeyed strain about death +and the roses; “I came in five minutes ago—dead +beat. I have been in the forest, and had a tramp +with the deerhounds over Bramble Hill.”</p> + +<p>“You walk too far, George. You are looking +dreadfully tired.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you needn’t apologise for your dress +on my account,” said Pamela. “Henry is a perfect +disgrace half his time. He hates evening-clothes, +and I sometimes fear he hates soap-and-water. He +can reconcile his conscience to any amount of dirt +so long as he has his cold tub in the morning. He +thinks that one sacrifice to decency justifies anything. +I have had to sit next him at dinner when +he came straight from rats,” concluded Pamela, with +a shudder. “But Rosalind is so foolishly indulgent. +She would spoil twenty husbands.”</p> + +<p>“And you, I suppose, would be a martinet to +one?” said Greswold, smiling at the girl’s animated +face.</p> + +<p>“It would depend. If I were married to an +artist I could forgive any neglect of the proprieties.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span> +One does not expect a man of that kind to be +the slave of conventionalities; but a commonplace +person like Sir Henry Mountford has nothing to +recommend him but his tailor.”</p> + +<p>They went to dinner, and Pamela’s prattle +relieved the gloom which had fallen upon husband +and wife. George Greswold saw that there were signs +of a new trouble in his wife’s face. He sat for nearly +an hour alone with the untouched decanters before +him, and with Kassandra’s head upon his knee. The +dog always knew when his thoughts were darkest, and +would not be repulsed at such times. She was not +obtrusive: she only wanted to bear him company.</p> + +<p>It was nearly ten o’clock when he left the dining-room. +He looked in at the drawing-room door, and +saw his wife and his niece sitting at work, silent +both.</p> + +<p>“I am going to the library to write some letters, +Mildred,” he said: “don’t sit up for me.”</p> + +<p>She rose quickly and went over to him.</p> + +<p>“Let me have half-an-hour’s talk with you first, +George,” she said, in an earnest voice: “I want so +much to speak to you.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span></p> + +<p>“My dearest, I am always at your service,” he +answered quietly; and they went across the hall +together, to that fine old room which was essentially +the domain of the master of the house.</p> + +<p>It was a large room with three long narrow +windows—unaltered from the days of Queen Anne—looking +out to the carriage-drive in the front of the +house, and the walls were lined with books, in severely +architectural bookcases. There was a lofty marble +chimneypiece, richly decorated, and in front of the +fireplace there was an old-fashioned knee-hole desk, +at which Mr. Greswold was wont to sit. There +was a double reading-lamp ready-lighted for him +upon this desk, and there was no other light in the +room. By this dim light the sombre colouring +of oak bookcases and maroon velvet window-curtains +deepened to black. The spacious room had almost +a funereal aspect, like that awful banqueting-hall +to which Domitian invited his parasites and straightway +frightened them to death.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mildred, what is the matter?” asked +Greswold, when his wife had seated herself beside +him in front of the massive oak desk at which all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> +the business of his estate had been transacted since +he came to Enderby. “There is nothing amiss, +love, I hope, to make you so earnest?”</p> + +<p>“There is something very much amiss, George,” +she answered. “Forgive me if I pain you by what +I have to say—by the questions I am going to ask. +I cannot help giving you pain, truly and dearly +as I love you. I cannot go on suffering as I have +suffered since that wretched Sunday afternoon +when I discovered how you had deceived me—you +whom I so trusted, so honoured as the most upright +among men.”</p> + +<p>“It is a little hard that you should say I +deceived you, Mildred. I suppressed one fact which +had no bearing upon my relations with you.”</p> + +<p>“You must have signed your name to a falsehood +in the register, if you described yourself as a +bachelor.”</p> + +<p>“I did not so describe myself. I confided the +fact of my first marriage to your father on the eve +of our wedding. I told him why I had been silent—told +him that my past life had been steeped in +bitterness. He was generous enough to accept<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span> +my confidence and to ask no questions. My bride +was too shy and too agitated to observe what I +wrote in the register, or else she might have noted +the word ‘widower’ after my name.”</p> + +<p>“Thank God you did not sign your name to +a lie,” said Mildred, with a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry my wife of fourteen years should +think me capable of falsehood on the document +that sealed my fate with hers.”</p> + +<p>“O, George, I know how true you are—how +true and upright you have been in every word +and act of your life since we two have been one. +It is not in my nature to misjudge you. I cannot +think you capable of wrong-doing to any one under +strongest temptation. I cannot believe that Fate +could set such a snare for you as could entrap you +into one dishonourable act; but I am tortured by +the thought of a past life of which I know nothing. +Why did you hide your marriage from me when +we were lovers? Why are you silent and secret +now, when I am your wife, the other half of yourself, +ready to sympathise with you, to share the burden +of dark memories? Trust me, George. Trust me,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span> +dear love, and let us be again as we have been, +united in every thought.”</p> + +<p>“You do not know what you are asking me, +Mildred,” said George Greswold, in his deep, grave +voice, looking at her with haggard reproachful +eyes. “You cannot measure the torture you are +inflicting by this aimless curiosity.”</p> + +<p>“You cannot measure the agony of doubt which +I have suffered since I knew that you loved another +woman before you loved me—loved her so well +that you cannot bear even to speak of that past life +which you lived with her—regret her so intensely +that now, after fourteen years of wedded life with me, +the mere memory of that lost love can plunge +you into gloom and despair,” said Mildred passionately.</p> + +<p>That smothered fire of jealousy which had been +smouldering in her breast for weeks broke out all +at once in impetuous speech. She no longer cared +what she said. Her only thought was that the +dead love had been dearer than the living, that she +had been cozened by a lover whose heart had never +been wholly hers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span></p> + +<p>“You are very cruel, Mildred,” her husband +answered quietly. “You are probing an old wound, +and a deep one, to the quick. You wrong yourself +more than you wrong me by causeless jealousy +and unworthy doubts. Yes, I did conceal the fact +of my first marriage—not because I had loved my +wife too well, but because I had not loved her well +enough. I was silent about a period of my life +which was one of intense misery—which it was my +duty to myself to forget, if it were possible to forget—which +it was perilous to remember. My only +chance of happiness—or peace of mind—lay in +oblivion of that bitter time. It was only when I +loved you that I began to believe forgetfulness was +possible. I courted oblivion by every means in my +power. I told myself that the man who had so +suffered was a man who had ceased to exist. George +Ransome was dead. George Greswold stood on the +threshold of a new life, with infinite capacities for +happiness. I told myself that I might be a beloved +and honoured husband—which I had never been—a +useful member of society—which I had not been +hitherto. Until that hour all things had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span> +against me. With you for my wife all things would +be in my favour. For thirteen happy years this +promise of our marriage morning was fully realised; +then came our child’s death; and now comes your +estrangement.”</p> + +<p>“I am not estranged, George. It is only my +dread of the beginning of estrangement which tortures +me. Since that man spoke of your first wife, +I have brooded perpetually upon that hidden past. +It is weak, I know, to have done so. I ought to +trust unquestioningly: but I cannot, I cannot. I +love you too well to love without jealousy.”</p> + +<p>“Well, let the veil be lifted then, since it must +be so. Ask what questions you please, and I will +answer them—as best I can.”</p> + +<p>“You are very good,” she faltered, drawing a +little nearer to him, leaning her head against his +shoulder as she talked to him, and laying her hand +on his as it lay before him on the desk, tightly +clenched. “Tell me, dear, were you happy with +your first wife?”</p> + +<p>“I was not.”</p> + +<p>“Not even in the beginning?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span></p> + +<p>“Hardly in the beginning. It was an ill-advised +union, the result of impulse.”</p> + +<p>“But she loved you very dearly, perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“She loved me—dearly—after her manner of +loving.”</p> + +<p>“And you did not love her?”</p> + +<p>“It is a cruel thing you force me to say, Mildred. +No, I did not love her.”</p> + +<p>“Had you been married long when she died?”</p> + +<p>She felt a quivering movement in the clenched +hand on which her own lay caressingly, and she +heard him draw a long and deep breath.</p> + +<p>“About a year.”</p> + +<p>“Her death was a sad one, I know. Did she go +out of her mind before she died?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Did she leave you—or do you any great wrong?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“Were you false to her, George—O, forgive +me, forgive me—but there must have been something +more sad than common sadness, and it might +be that some new and fatal love—”</p> + +<p>“There was no such thing,” he answered sternly.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span> +“I was true to my duties as a husband. It was not +a long trial—only a year. Even a profligate might +keep faith for so short a span.”</p> + +<p>“I see you will not confide in me. I will ask +no more questions, George. That kind of catechism +will not make us more in sympathy with each other. +I will ask you nothing more—except—just one +question—a woman’s question. Was your first +wife beautiful in your eyes.”</p> + +<p>“She was not beautiful; but she was intellectual, +and she had an interesting countenance—a face that +attracted me at first sight. It was even more attractive +to me than the faces of handsomer women. But +if you want to know what your fancied rival was like +you need not languish in ignorance,” with some touch +of scorn. “I have her photograph in this desk. I +have kept it for my days of humiliation, to remind +me of what I have been and what I may be again. +Would you like to see it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, George, if it will not pain you too much +to show it to me.”</p> + +<p>“Do not talk of pain. You have stirred the +waters of Marah so deeply that one more bitter drop<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span> +cannot signify.” He unlocked his desk as he spoke, +lifted the lid, which was sustained by a movable +upright, and groped among the accumulation of +papers and parchments inside.</p> + +<p>The object for which he was seeking was at the +back of the desk, under all the papers. He found +it by touch: a morocco case containing a cabinet +photograph. Mildred stood up beside him, with one +hand on his shoulder as he searched.</p> + +<p>He handed her the case without a word. She +opened it in silence and looked at the portrait within. +A small, delicately-featured face, with large dark +eyes—eyes almost too large for the face—a slender +throat, thin sloping shoulders—eyes that looked out +of the picture with a strange intensity—a curious +alertness in the countenance, as of a woman made +up of nerves and emotions, a nature wanting the +element of repose.</p> + +<p>Mildred stared at the picture three or four +seconds, and then with a choking sound like a +strangled sob fell unconscious at her husband’s feet.</p> +<br> + +<p class="center no-indent fs80">END OF VOL. I.</p> +<br> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter transnote"> +<h2 class="nobreak bold fs150" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> + +<ul> +<li>pg 8 Changed: absurb lambs, and more absurd foliage<br> +<span style="padding-left: 2em">to: absurd lambs, and more absurd foliage</span></li> + +<li>pg 9 Changed: amidst the icy formalties<br> +<span style="padding-left: 2em">to: amidst the icy formalities</span></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75410 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75410-h/images/cover.jpg b/75410-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a178999 --- /dev/null +++ b/75410-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75410-h/images/decoration.jpg b/75410-h/images/decoration.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d33f484 --- /dev/null +++ b/75410-h/images/decoration.jpg |
