Monica, Volume 1 (of 3)

“I will, indeed, my Monica,” he answered; “but, believe me, for the present you are better here. You will grow strong faster away from Trevlyn than near it.”

She smiled a little, very sweetly.

“I will try to think so, too, Randolph, for I am very sure that you are wiser than I; and I have learned how good you are to me – always.”

That evening passed very quietly, yet very happily.

Was this the beginning of better things to come?

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

MISCHIEF-MAKERS

“Now that you have been a fortnight in town, and have begun to feel settled in your new life,” wrote Lady Diana, “I think it is time you should be made aware of a few facts relative to your engagement and marriage, which you are not likely to hear from the lips of your too indulgent husband, but with which, nevertheless, you ought to be made conversant, in my opinion, in order that you may the better appreciate the generous sacrifices made on behalf of you and your family, and return him the measure of gratitude he deserves for the benefits he has bestowed.”

Monica was alone when she received this letter, breakfasting in her little boudoir at a late hour, for although almost recovered now, she had not yet resumed her old habit of early rising.

She had risen this morning feeling more light at heart than usual. She had chatted with unusual freedom to her husband, had kissed him before he went out to keep an appointment with his lawyer, and had promised to ride with him at twelve o’clock, if he would come back for her. She had only once been out since her arrival in town, and that was in the carriage. She was quite excited at the prospect of being in the saddle again. She had almost told herself that she should yet be happy in her married life – and now came this cruel, cruel letter to dash to the ground all her faint dawning hopes.

Lady Diana had felt very well-disposed, even if a little spiteful, as she had penned this unlucky letter; but she certainly was not nice in her choice of words or of epithets. Not being sensitive herself, she had little comprehension of the susceptibilities of others, and the impression its perusal conveyed to the mind of Monica was that Randolph had married her simply out of generosity to herself and regard for her father: that the proposal was none of his own making, and that his unvarying kindness arose from his knowledge of her very difficult temper, and a wish to secure for himself by bribes and caresses a peaceful home and an amiable wife. In conclusion it was added that Monica, in return for all that had been done for her, must do her utmost to please and gratify him. Of course he would wish to show his beautiful wife in the world of fashion to which he belonged. He would wish her to join in the life of social gaiety to which he was about to introduce her, and any hanging back on her part would be most unbecoming and ungrateful. It behoved her to keep in mind all these facts, to remember the sacrifices he had made for her, and to act accordingly. He had not chosen a wife from his own world, as it was presumable he would have preferred to do. He had consented to the family match proposed to him, and she must do her utmost to make up to him for the sacrifice he had made.

A few weeks back such a letter, though it might have hurt Monica’s pride, would not have cut her to the quick, as it did now. In the first place, she would then have simply disbelieved it, whereas recent circumstances had given her a very much greater respect for the opinions of those who knew the world so much better than she did, and who had forecasted so accurately events that had afterwards fulfilled themselves almost as a matter of course. She had begun to distrust her own convictions, to believe more in those of others, who had had experience of life, and could estimate its chances better than she could. She believed her aunt when she told her these things, and the poisoned shaft struck home to her heart. A few days ago she could have borne it better. Her pride would have been hurt, but the sting would have been less keen. She did not know why the doubt of her husband’s love hurt her so cruelly; but hurt her it did, and for a moment she felt stricken to the earth. She had said to herself many times that she did not want such a wealth of love, when she had none on her side to bestow; but yet, when she had learned that it was not hers after all, but was only the counterfeit coin of a hollow world – the bribe by which her submission and gratitude were to be obtained – the knowledge was unspeakably bitter. She felt she would rather have died than have been forced to doubt.

As she dressed for her ride, pride came to the assistance of her crushed spirit. Wilberforce, the faithful servant who had tended and loved Randolph from his infancy, and was ready to love his wife for his sake and her own, was aware of a subtle change in her young mistress that she did not understand, and which she could not well have described. Monica had been very quiet and gentle since her arrival, and very silent too. She was quiet enough to-day; but the gentleness had been replaced by a certain inexplicable hauteur. The pale face wore a glow of warm colour; the dark eyes that had been languid and heavy were wide open and full of fire. Monica looked superbly handsome in the brilliant radiance of her beauty, and yet the faithful attendant was not certain that she liked the change in her.

Randolph detected it the moment he entered the room, and found his wife equipped for the proposed ride.

“Why, Monica,” he said, smiling, “you have got quite a colour. It looks natural to see you dressed for the saddle.”

“Yes,” she answered, coolly: “we must turn over a new leaf now, must we not? You will be dying of ennui cooped up at home so long. Let us go out and enjoy ourselves. We must learn to do in Rome as Rome does.”

Randolph felt one keen pang of disappointment that the first return to health and strength should have brought a return of the former coldness and aloofness; but he had gained ground before, and why not now? Could he expect to win his way without a single repulse? So he took courage, and tried to ignore the change he saw in his wife.

He led her down the staircase to the hall door where the horses were waiting, and he saw the sudden flash of joyful recognition that crossed her face.

“Guy!” she exclaimed, “my own little Guy!”

Yes, there could be no mistake about it; it was her own little delicate thorough-bred, standing with ill-repressed excitement at the door, his glossy neck arched in a sort of proud impatience, his supple limbs trembling with eagerness, as he stepped daintily to and fro upon the pavement. He turned his shapely head at the sound of Monica’s voice, pricked his ears, and uttered a low whinney of joyful recognition.

“It was good of you to think of it, Randolph,” she said, a softer light in her eyes as she turned them towards her husband. “It is like a little bit of home having him.”

“I thought you would like him better than a stranger, though I have his counterpart in the stable waiting for you to try. He has been regularly exercised in Piccadilly every morning, and I coaxed him to let me ride him once myself in the Park, though he did not much like it. I don’t think he will be very troublesome now, and I know you are not afraid of his restive moods; though this is very different from Trevlyn.”

Monica’s eyes grew wistful, and her husband saw it. He guessed whither her thoughts had fled, and he let her dream on undisturbed. He exchanged bows with many acquaintances as they passed onwards and entered the Row, and many admiring glances were levelled at his beautiful young wife, whose unusual loveliness and perfect horsemanship alike attracted attention; but he attempted no introductions; and Monica, dreamy and absorbed, noticed nothing, till the sight of Conrad in the Row awoke her to consciousness of her surroundings.

Conrad in London! How long had he been there? Did he bring news from Trevlyn? She looked almost wistfully at Randolph as she returned the young baronet’s bow, but his face wore its rather stern expression, and she dared not attempt to speak with her former friend.

Conrad, however, saw the look, and smiled to himself.

“My day will come yet,” he said.

“Shall we push on, Monica?” asked Randolph. “Guy is aching to stretch his limbs.”

Monica was only too willing, and they had soon reached the farther end of the Row, which was much less full than the other had been.

A pretty, dark, vivacious looking girl, accompanied by a fair-haired young man, rather like her, were approaching with glances of recognition.

“Randolph, I am angry with you – yes, very angry. You have been a whole fortnight in town – I heard so yesterday – and we have never seen you once, and you have never let me have the pleasure of an introduction to your wife. I call it very much too bad!”

“Well, it is never too late to mend,” answered Randolph, smiling. “Monica, may I present to you Lady Beatrice Wentworth, whom I have had the honour of knowing intimately since the days of our early acquaintance, when she wore pinafores and pigtails. Lord Haddon, I think I need not introduce again. You have met before.”

The little flush deepened in Monica’s face. She had fancied the face of the brother was not totally unfamiliar to her; but she did not remember until this moment where or when she could possibly have seen him.

“Oh, Haddon has been raving about Lady Monica ever since the auspicious day when he saw her,” cried Beatrice, gaily. “I hope your father is quite recovered now?” she added, with a touch of quick sympathy, “since you were able to leave him so soon.”

“I think he is much better, thank you,” answered Monica, quietly; “but he was still very ill when I left him.”

“And, Randolph, you have not explained away your guilt yet. Why have you been all this time without letting us see you or your wife? I call it shameful!”

“My wife has been very unwell herself ever since we came up,” answered Randolph. “She has not been fit to see anybody.”

“You should have made an exception in my favour,” persisted Beatrice, bringing her horse alongside of Monica’s, and walking on with her. “You see, I have known Randolph so long, he seems almost like a brother. I feel defrauded when he does not behave himself as such. We must be great friends, Lady Monica, for his sake. He has told us all about you and your delightful Cornish home. I suppose you know all about us, too, and what near neighbours we are – near for London, at least.”

But Monica had never heard the name of the girl beside her. She knew nothing of her husband’s friends, never having taken the least interest in subjects foreign to all her past associations. She hinted something of the kind in a gently indifferent way, that was sincere, without being in the least discourteous. She was wondering why it was that her husband, who could value his own friends and appreciate their good-will, was so strenuously set against receiving the only acquaintance she possessed in this vast city.

Nevertheless, when, upon a forenoon two days later, at an hour she knew her husband was away, Conrad presented himself in her boudoir, following the man who had brought his card without waiting to be invited, Monica was conscious of a feeling of distinct displeasure and distrust. She knew very little of the ways of the world, but she felt that he had no right to be there, forcing himself upon her in her private room, when her husband would hardly speak to him or receive him, and that he merited instant dismissal.

But then came a revulsion of feeling. Was he not her childhood’s friend? Had she not promised not to turn her back upon him, and help to drive him to despair by her coldness? Had he not come with news of Trevlyn and of home? And in that last eager thought all else was lost, and she met him gladly, almost eagerly.

He told her all she longed to know. He came primed with the latest news from Trevlyn. His manner was quiet and gentle. He was very cautious not to alarm or disturb her.

“I shall not be able to see much of you in the future, Monica,” he said, “but you will let me call myself still your friend?”

She bent her head in a sort of assent.

“And will you let me take a friend’s privilege, and ask one question. Are you happy in your new life?”

Monica’s face took a strange expression.

“It is very gay, very lively. I shall like it better as I get more used to it.”

“I see,” he answered, very gently, “I understand. And when are you going home again?”

“I am at home now,” she answered, steadily.

He looked searchingly at her.

“I thought Trevlyn was to be always home. Has he thrown off the mask so soon?”

“I think,” said Monica, with a little gleam in her eye, “that you forget you are speaking of my husband.”

Conrad’s eyes gleamed too; but she did not see it.

“Forgive me, Monica; I did forget. It is all so strange and sudden. Then he makes you happy? Tell me that! Let me have the assurance that at least he makes his captive happy.”

She started a little; but Conrad’s face expressed nothing but the quietest, sincerest good-will and sympathy.

“He is very, very good to me,” she said, quietly. “He studies me as I have never been studied before. All my wishes are forestalled: he thinks of everything, he does everything. I cannot tell you how good he is. I have never known anything like it before. Did you ever see anyone more surrounded by beauty and luxury than I am?”

He looked at her steadily. She knew that she had evaded his question – a question he had no right to put, as she could not but feel – and that he knew she had done so.

“Ah!” he murmured, “the gilded cage, the gilded cage; but only a cage, after all. Monica, forgive me for expressing a doubt; but I know the man so well, and my whole soul revolts at seeing you dragged as it were at his chariot wheels for all the world to look at and admire. To take you from your wild free home, and bribe you into submission – I hate to think of it!”

Monica’s cheek had flushed suddenly; but before she could frame a rejoinder the door opened to admit Randolph. He carried in his hand some hot-house flowers, which he had brought for his wife. He stopped short when he saw who was Monica’s guest, and her cheek flamed anew, for she knew he would not understand how she came to receive him in her private room, and she felt that by a want of firmness and savoir faire she had allowed herself to be placed in a false position.

Conrad’s exit was effected with more despatch than dignity, yet he contrived in his farewell words to insinuate that he had passed a very happy morning with his hostess, instead of a brief ten minutes.

Randolph did not speak a word, but stood leaning against the chimney-piece with a stern look on his handsome face. Monica was angry with herself and with Conrad, yet she felt half indignant at the way her husband ignored her guest.

“Monica,” said Randolph, speaking first, “I am sorry to have to say it; but I cannot receive Sir Conrad Fitzgerald as a guest beneath my roof.”

“You had better give your orders, then, accordingly.”

He stepped forward and took her hand.

“Surely, Monica, you cannot have any real liking for this man?”

“I do not know what you call real liking. We have been friends from childhood; and I do not easily change. He was always welcomed to my father’s house.”

“Your father did not know his history.”

“Perhaps not; but I do. At least I know this much: that he has sinned and has repented. Is not repentance enough?”

“Has he repented?”

“Yes, indeed he has.”

Randolph’s face expressed a fine incredulity and scorn. There was no relenting in its lines. Monica was not going to sue longer.

“Am I also to be debarred from seeing Cecilia, his sister, who is married, and not living so very far away? Am I to give her up, too – my old playmate?”

“I have nothing against Mrs. Bellamy, except that she is his sister. I suppose you need not be very intimate?”

Monica’s overwrought feelings vented themselves in a burst of indignation.

“I see what you want to do – to separate me from all my friends – to break all old ties – to make me forget all but your world, your life. I am to like your friends, to receive them, and be intimate with them; but I am to turn my back with scorn on all whom I have known and loved. You are very hard, Randolph, very hard. It is not that I care for Conrad – I know he has done wrong, though I do believe in his repentance. I liked him once, and Cecilia too; I should like to know them still. They are not much to me, but they belong to the old life – which you do not – which nothing does here. Can you not see how hard it is, and how unjust, to try and cut me off from everything?”

He looked at her with a great pity in his eyes, and then gently put the flowers into her hand.

“I brought them for you to wear to-night, Monica. Will you have them? Believe me, my child, I would do much to spare you pain, yet in some things I must be the judge. Some day, perhaps, I shall be able to make my meaning plain; meantime I must ask my wife to trust me.” He stooped and kissed her pale brow, and went away without another word.

Monica stood still and silent, the fragrant, spotless blossoms, his gift, clasped close in her hands.

“Randolph, Randolph!” she murmured, “if you only loved me I could bear anything; but they all see it – only I am blind – it is the golden cage with its captive, and they know the ways of their world so well, so well! He bribes me with gifts, with kind words, but it is only the peaceful home and the handsome wife that he wants – not me myself, not my heart, my love. Well, he shall have what he craves. I will not disappoint him. I will do his bidding in all things. He has got his prize – let that content him – but for the wifely love, the wifely trust I have striven so to offer – he does not care for them – let them go, like these.” She pressed the flowers for a moment to her lips, and then flung them from the open casement.

Randolph, lost in silent thought, standing at a window below, saw the white blossoms as they fell to the earth, and knew what they were and whence they had come.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.

THE LITTLE RIFT

A little misunderstanding easily arises between two people not yet in perfect accord – so very soon arises, and is so difficult to lay to rest.

Randolph saw plainly now, that Monica’s late gentleness had been caused simply by exhaustion and ill-health. She had submitted to his caressing care merely because she had been too weak to resist, but the first indication of restored health had been the effort to repel him. He was grieved and saddened by this conviction, but he accepted his fate with quiet patience. He would draw back a little, stand aside, as it were, and let her feel her way in the new life; and win her confidence, if he could, by slow and imperceptible degrees. He did not despair of winning her yet. He had had more than one of those rapturous moments when he had felt that she was almost his. He would not give up, but he would be more self-restrained and reserved. He would not attempt too much at once.

Monica was keenly conscious of the change in her husband’s manner, though she could not understand why it was that it cut her so deeply. She was conscious of the great blank in her life, and though her face was always calm and quiet, her manner gently cold and tinged with sadness, yet she tried in all things to study her husband’s wishes, and to follow out any hints he might let fall as to his tastes and feelings.

She made no effort to see anything of Cecilia Bellamy, her former child-friend, and even when that vivacious little woman sought her out, and tried to strike up a great friendship, she did not respond with any ardour. Mrs. Bellamy, indeed, was not at all a woman that Monica would be inclined to cultivate at this crisis of her life; they had almost nothing in common, but the past was a sort of link that could not entirely be broken. Cecilia appeared to love to talk of Trevlyn; she was always eager to hear the latest news from thence, to recall the by-gone days of childhood, and bring back the light and colour to Monica’s face by reminiscences of the past.

But the young wife tried to be loyal to her husband’s wishes, and was laughed at by her friend for her “old fashioned” ways. Once, when in course of conversation, Conrad’s name was mentioned between them, Monica asked, in her straightforward way, what it was that he had done to draw upon him censure and distrust.

“Why, do you not even know that much? Poor boy! I will tell you all about it. He was very young, and you know we are miserably poor. He got into bad company, and that led him into frightful embarrassments. He got so miserable and desperate at last that I believe his mind was almost unhinged for a time, and in the end,” lowering her voice to a whisper, “he forged a cheque in the name of a rich friend. Of course it was a mad thing to do. He paid his debts, but the fraud was discovered within a few weeks, and you know what might have happened. Colonel Hamilton, however, who had been a kind friend to Conrad before, forgave him, and took no steps against him; and the poor boy was so shocked and humiliated that he quite turned over a new leaf, and has been perfectly steady ever since. He was working hard to pay off the debt, but Colonel Hamilton died before he could do so. Randolph Trevlyn, your husband, my dear, was intimate with the Colonel, and knew all about this. He had always disliked Conrad – I suspect they were rivals once in the affections of some lady, and that he did not get the best of the rivalry – and I always believe it was through him that the story leaked out. At any rate, people did hear something, and poor Conrad got dreadfully cold-shouldered. He had always been wild and reckless, and people are so fond of hitting a man when he is down. But I call it very unkind and unjust, and I did think that an old friend like you would be above it. It hurts Conrad dreadfully to find you so cold to him. I should have thought you would have liked to help him to recover the ground he had lost.”

“That can hardly be my office now,” said Monica, gravely.

“But at least you need not be unkind. I do assure you the poor boy has gone through quite enough, as it is.”

“You have told me the whole truth about his past, Cecilia?” asked Monica, after a brief silence. “There is nothing worse you are keeping back?”

Mrs. Bellamy clasped her hands together with a little gesture of astonished dismay.

“Is not forgery bad enough for you, Monica? What has your husband been telling you? Did you think he had committed a murder?”

Monica left Mrs. Bellamy’s presence somewhat relieved in mind. She was glad to know the secret of Conrad’s past, the cause of her husband’s disdain and distrust of the man. It was natural, she thought, that Randolph, as a friend of Colonel Hamilton’s, should feel deep indignation at the ingratitude and treachery of the fraud, and yet she felt a sort of relief that it was nothing blacker and baser. She had begun to have an undefined feeling, since she had entered somewhat into the tumultuous life of the great world, that there were depths of folly and sin and crime beneath its smooth, polished surface, of whose very existence she had never dreamed before.

When she returned home that day, and said from whose house she had just come, she fancied a shade gathered on her husband’s brow. “Do you not go there rather often, Monica?”

“We were friends as children,” she said. “Am I to give up everything that seems connected with the past – with my home?”

“I lay no embargo upon you, Monica,” he said; “or at least only one: I cannot permit Sir Conrad Fitzgerald to visit my wife, nor enter my house. If his sister is your friend, and you wish to continue the friendship, I say nothing against it. You shall be the judge whether or not you visit at a house your husband cannot enter, and run the risk of meeting a man whose hand he can never touch. You shall do exactly as you wish in the matter. I leave you entire liberty.”

A flush rose slowly in Monica’s face.

“I want to do what is right to every one,” she said. “You put things very hardly, Randolph. You only see one side, and even that you view very harshly. I have heard Conrad’s story; it is very painful and shameful; but he has repented – he has indeed, and done all he could to make amends. I have been taught that repentance makes atonement, even in God’s sight. I cannot sit in judgment then, and condemn him utterly.”